Tips To Optimise Your Use Of Social Media
Since I discovered social media in 2008, I went on a mission to learn how to use it, what it can do for my business, how to use it to drive traffic, which tools to use to automate it, how to connect with others and so on. As most of you know, social media is a powerful tool for increasing the traffic to your blog, and there are many different social media tips. Here I have selected five of the best tips that have worked for me so far.
1. Befriend power users
Power users are the users that exert the most influence on social media sites. These users regularly submit content that gets popular and they have many people that follow them. Check out the popular content in your niche and see who is submitting them. You’ll often find a select group of people who submit the bulk of the popular content.
Some ways to become friends with these power users are to vote for their stuff, send them interesting links, link to their site if they have one, leave comments on their blogs, interview them. Once you’re developed a relationship with them, you can send them your best material or products and ask them to submit it if they like it.
2. Create more comprehensive content
One of the things I have discovered through my own research is that the typical social media users have a great appetite for learning. For this reason the content that does well in social media is pretty comprehensive and often educational. The content is longer than your average post and it covers a subject with depth.
Therefore, it is worthwhile to creating longer posts filled with much value as you will do better on social media sites as a result. Now each of your blog posts doesn’t have to be 1,500 words, but try to regularly publish longer, in-depth posts that stand out and add value.
3. Add images and video to your best content 
Another thing that works well, is adding multimedia to content. This is another thing I noticed about viral content. Much of this content is highlighted by images and video. It only takes a little bit of time to go to flickr.com and google images to find relevant images that will improve your content.
Video seems to be the next big thing in blogging. More and more people are making web video a part of their routine. Therefore, if you have any video skills, use them! Also, the cost and learning barrier for producing videos has come down with discount equipment, software, and training courses. I’m definitely planning to add video to my sites soon to test how well it works.
4. Try niche social media sites
Instead of just focusing on the big general subject sites like Facebook and Twitter, there is a lot of opportunity in niche social media sites. Here’s a great list of niche type of sites. These sites won’t send as much traffic as the big general subject social sites, but the quality of their traffic is often much higher. You’ll get a higher percentage of repeat visitors, a lower bounce rate, and more time spent on your site because of the more targeted traffic.
5. Use social media widgets at the end of each post
Widgets are a great way to encourage your visitors to submit your content to social media sites. Visitors may like a post but without the prompting of a submission button, they won’t think to submit your content. I use ‘Share This’ at the end of each post to encourage readers to share content.
PS: Please feel free to add your own tips to this list as the whole point of social networking is to share, participate and learn from one another!
PSS: Related Social Media articles.
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