But How Do I USE Social Media?
Like it or not, the Internet is changing, and it is changing fast. This change, however, is in our favor. In favor, that is, of individuals, small businesses, authors, and small presses. Web 2.0 and Social Media are here to stay, and are likely the beginning infrastructure of a fresh, new Internet. So, if you are not using these tools and technologies yet, you may want to ask yourself why.
Do not fret, though, if you are not already in the game. The beauty of this new, live, Web is that it is driven by the people who use it. Unlike today’s Internet, where search engine algorithms ultimately determine a site’s placement, exposure in tomorrow’s Internet will rely more on a site’s popularity among the masses. So, as long as you are incorporating social media optimization alongside your search engine optimization, you can easily catch up—especially if you have a meaningful and sincere message.
The tools available to achieve this type of optimization are numerous and can seem overwhelming, especially if you don’t have even a general understanding of what it is they are supposed to accomplish for you. But once you are armed with this general knowledge, you can choose which tools are the best match for you, your book, or your business.
Wikipedia defines social media as “the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives. Social media sites typically use technologies such as blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs to allow users to interact.”
Additionally, Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as “refer[ring] to a perceived second-generation of web-based communities and hosted services—such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies—which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.”
Social media and Web 2.0 optimization, then, mean optimizing your Web presence in three general ways: Interactivity, Sharing, and Collaboration.
Interactivity
Users of the “live” Web expect the information presented to them to be at least somewhat interactive. That is the premise of social media—that media is offered to readers in an interactive way. Social thus, in a word, means interactive, and interactivity can be accomplished in many ways, whether it is allowing readers to comment on the content, share it easily with others, or subscribe to it so they can have it on hand, or display it on their own site.
Some of the tools and technologies you can implement to make your content more interactive include:
-
RSS Feeds (see Feedburner for more information on RSS feeds)
-
Podcasting and Vidcasting
-
Interactive tools such as Snapshots
Sharing
Sharing in the “live” Web can mean offering your content easily to others through blogging indexes and media communities; sharing your Web experience with others by tagging the sites you find interesting on social bookmarking sites; or by actually developing mini applications like widgets or mash-ups that others can use.
The main thing you want to keep in mind here is that media is media is media and it is all sharable. Anything that can be posted to a Web site, be it an image, a piece of text, an audio clip, or a video clip, will have some type of “media community” to share it with.
Here are some of the things you can do to begin “sharing” in the live Web:
-
Including your Blog, Podcast, or Vidcast in directories like Technorati, Google Blog Search, Podcast.com, or BlogPulse
-
Tagging your favorite blogs and Web sites on social bookmarking sites like Technorati and del.icio.us
-
Using Collage tools or Webcasting like SplashCast Media or blogTV.
-
Creating and distributing Widgets or Mash-ups using services like widgetbox or Yahoo Pipes.
Collaboration
In this new, people-driven Internet, it is not enough to just put your content out there, you also need to be willing to give back. This could mean commenting regularly on other’s content, joining and contributing to a social networking site, contributing to crowd-sourced news sites, or becoming an avatar in a virtual reality. All of these tools can lead to building tremendous social and professional networks.
Specifically, some of these efforts may include:
-
Commenting on others blogs. If you do a lot of commenting, a good way to track them is through co.mments.
-
Creating profiles on social or professional networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, or Facebook.
-
Participating in microblogs like Twitter or Jaiku
-
Posting events in social calendars such as eventful.com, or upcoming.org
-
Becoming an avatar in a virtual world like Second Life or There
-
Participating in Communities or Forums like a Yahoo group, a Google group, or even starting your own using services like Ning.
However you decide to participate in the live Web, keep in mind that it is ultimately about connecting with people. So to be successful in this new Internet arena, it is important to have a genuine and sincere message. A common mistake businesses make is to attempt to apply old methods to these new tools, and it has been disastrous for many of them. Just keep your message real and conversational and you will do just fine out here…
Have fun!
Copyright 2008 by Deltina Hay. All rights reserved.
![[Post to Twitter]](http://www.socialmediapower.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter-big4.png){kind=icon}
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
You said “Unlike today’s Internet, where search engine algorithms ultimately determine a site’s placement, exposure in tomorrow’s Internet will rely more on a site’s popularity among the masses.”
This is a fallacy, because search algorithms already rely largely on a site’s popularity. So nothing has changed in that regard. What has changed is the way users classify sites, using tags (folksonomy). This gives searchers (using Digg and Delicious, for example) results that are driven by a specific community, rather than by an algorithm.
You also wrote, “to be successful in this new Internet arena, it is important to have a genuine and sincere message.” That has always been true, in traditional media as well as the “new Internet arean.” Media producers and consumers didn’t just acquire the ability to smell insincerity when Web 2.0 was born. I’ve been a journalist for 30 years, and success has always depended on earning readers’ trust.
Otherwise, thanks for a thoughtful article.
Thanks for the feedback, Dave.
While the intention of search engines, yes, is to rank a page by popularity - the problem is that the algorithms mostly base pagerank on relevant, external links to a site. This is a problem because links do not imply popularity. So, to get on the top pages of a search, (except when one is in a niche market), usually means the site owner has the resources or is paying a SEO firm several thousand a month to get them thousands of such external links. My point is really the one you make here, where we now have the option of searching for sites that the “people” find popular using social bookmarking or crowd-sourcing sites.
In response to your second comment, I was not necessarily referring to the media. My audience tends to be business owners, publishers, and authors, so the “message” I am referring to here is their personal or professional message. Many businesses tend to try and go out into the social Web with a “marketing” style that has worked for them in other areas - which, as you know, will not likely work well in this arena.
Thanks for the conversation!
Thank you for compiling this fabulous list of resources. I’m bookmarking and will be referring back to this often…. and sending my clients here too.