Social Marketing

What is Social Marketing?

The reason we tie Web 2.0 to Social Marketing is simple: Web 2.0, from a website owner's perspective, is important because of the focus on user submitted and user controlled content that many Web 2.0 services and sites (but not all) allow.

Generally speaking, if people can submit links to content, submit content, make comments and vote good/ bad content up/down thus affecting the amount of traffic that content can generate, it's Web 2.0.

Using Web 2.0 style sites to generate buzz, links, higher search engine rankings, and just a lot more traffic to your site is social marketing.

It's So Web 2 OH!

Voting, commenting, and actions the visitors take that control what shows up in the most prominent places on any given site is Web 2.0.

As a marketer, being aware of the best places to show up and how they work will bring you traffic. More traffic than you ever got without social marketing in many cases.

Being linked to by a lot of authority sites in their own right, your site climbs the rankings in the engines as well. It gets spidered more often and more deeply than if you were, say, focusing your efforts on article syndication alone.

Below are resources that will help you understand and use social marketing to get more website traffic.

Social Marketing Central

This is a free social community that's just started as part of the Friday Traffic Report.

Visit Social Marketing Central

Important Social Marketing Destinations

Massive Web 2.0 Site Directory
This will give you an idea how big social sites and web 2.0 have become. This directory is simply massive. Check out the types of sites that fall into the category "Web 2.0"
Mashable
The epicenter of web 2.0 and social sites. With 5 million + visitors per month, this is where social news happens. Find brand new sites here as they are scooped by Mashable.
Read the Authority Black Book
This guide, written by Jack Humphrey, is the place to start for social marketing strategy. It's a massive resource for social marketing tactics, important places, and blog marketing.
Bending the Web
Another social marketing guide by Jack Humphrey and Howie Schwartz. This guide picks up where Authority Black Book leaves off and puts the information to practical use with case studies.
Social Power Linking
This site is a community of website owners who are learning beginner to advanced social marketing tactics from one of the masters.