Guide to Online Social Networks

One of the reasons blogs are such powerful marketing devices is because they are a key component of Web 2.0. Although the term Web 2.0 seems technical, it's just a way to identify the recent shift in the way people interact online. Although there's plenty of disagreement about what Web 2.0 means, for the purpose of this article, I'm going to say that Web 2.0 is, among many other things, a more collaborative approach to online interactions.

Because of this movement, there's been motivation for many entities to spring up under the Web 2.0 subset of "social networking." This broad term simply refers to the variety of options available for people to connect with each other online. Social networking can take many forms when used for blog promotion, but they come under two major headings: social bookmarking and social networking. Examples of both are below. All the sites mentioned below are free, although some have upgrade options.

Social bookmarking sites allow you to save your online bookmarks and share them with others. The advantage to you as a blogger is that you can save your individual blog posts as bookmarks. These can subsequently be found by anyone searching for information on your topic. Good social bookmarking etiquette dictates, however, that you bookmark pages from other people, as well as your own.

Below are descriptions of just a few of the many social bookmarking sites available, so you can get an idea how they work. (Click on the names to go to the site home pages.)

de.licio.us

This is a very popular bookmarking site, so it has a lot of users. To make sure your blog posts can be found in de.licio.us, just go to the link above and click the "post" link at the top. This will bring you to a page where you'll enter the address of your latest blog post into the system. While doing so, you'll want to enter a description and tags that detail the content of your post. Once posted, if anyone within de.licio.us searches for any of the tags you used, your blog post will come up in the search results. If your headline and description are compelling, you'll have a good chance of getting people to click through to your blog.

• Read the guide to getting started on del.icio.us

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a world onto itself, in that it has a different model than other bookmarking sites. "Stumblers" as its users are called, are served up Web site and blog pages, based on the preferences they chose in their profile and how many people have voted for the pages they're viewing. If a Stumbler likes your page and gives it a "thumbs-up," this pushes it to the top of a list to be shown to other Stumblers. The more "thumbs" the page gets, the more people will see it. For this reason, you would only want to post original content with widespread appeal. You also would want to choose the category carefully when you submit a story. As with all other bookmarking sites, you must join to submit articles. And if you want to use StumbleUpon to view sites and blogs, you'll need their toolbar.

• View the StumbleUpon demo

Digg

Digg is another popular site that gives you the ability to submit blog/Web site pages, photos, video or podcasts. The site has a user-based voting system that causes a submission rise to the top. But I've had submissions that never got a vote that still brought traffic to my blog; so don't let the lack of votes stop you from trying again. After you've joined, you can post a submission by clicking the "Submit New" link at the top of the page.

• Take the Digg tour

Although the sites listed above are popular and get a lot of traffic, there also is a lot competition to have your posts be seen. Sometimes one of the smaller networking sites can be more beneficial. There are plenty of other sites that provide social bookmarking services. You can find more of them through SocialMarker, which also has shortcuts for submitting to all the sites on their list. If you plan to use Social Marker as a means to find the sites you like, I would suggest selecting just a few sites to visit for each Social Marker session. Otherwise, you might find using their program too overwhelming.

Whether or not you use SocialMarker to find sites, if you're going to use social bookmarking, I recommend choosing just a few sites and getting to know the way they work. This will allow you to get the most out of the community offered by each.

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The main goal of social networking sites is to make it easy for people to connect. More social networking vehicles come online every day, so it would be difficult to cover them all in detail. Here's just a small sampling of sites that can be useful for blog and general business promotion (followed by a link to many more sites):

MyBlogLog

Yahoo owns MyBlogLog, so a lot of money has been spent on making it work well. It also has a lot of users. To use it effectively, find communities that are allied to your interests, join them and visit the community members' blogs. You can comment on individual blogs and use their messaging system, which links all members of a community.

Linkedin

This is a twist on a traditional social networking site, in that it's focused exclusively on people who want to promote their businesses. The premise of the site is that there are only three degrees of separation between your group of friends and a massive group of contacts. The easy-to-navigate interface allows you to connect with people you know who are in the Linkedin system and then connect with their connections. When expanded out to the connections of that extended group of connections, the number of people with whom you can be in touch is huge. While Linkedin doesn't focus exclusively on blogs, if your blog is on a business-related topic, this would be a good place for you to be found.

• Read more about Linkedin

BloggingZoom

This site is the new kid on the block, but the fact that it was developed by two bloggers specifically to serve the needs of other bloggers has drawn an enthusiastic response. Like Digg, BloggingZoom has a voting system, which pushes popular posts up to the top of the listings. Also, the submissions process is set up specifically to be search-engine friendly, so if you submit according to their guidelines, you'd have another chance to be found by the engines for each post.

• Read more about BloggingZoom (once on the page, scroll down to see the text)

HubPages

HubPages offers a different sort of social networking, in that it gives you the chance to express yourself while connecting with others. You can create your own pages, called "hubs," which can then potentially be seen by the HubPages community and millions of people the search engines bring to the site each month. (In case you arrived here by a search engine and don't know where you are, this is a HubPage.) HubPages is perfect for people who write well and want to use that skill to promote their businesses. You can also use it to connect, join subject-related clubs, and comment on articles and in the forums.

• Read more about HubPages

These are just four of many social networking sites. If you'd like to know about more sites, visit this Wikipedia page, which contains a large list of them.

But don't go off into the social networking world just yet. There are a few terms you should understand first, so your time will be more productive.

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Tags

Tags and keywords are closely related, in that they both are shorthand for identifying the content of a particular blog entry, photo, geographic map or video clip. Unlike keywords, each user chooses tags when one of the aforementioned files is created or saved to a bookmarking site. Users search by tags, which can cut down the time it takes to find information.

Categories

Categories reflect the major subject groups covered on a blog. They're similar to tags, except they're chosen by the person who generated the content, rather than by a user.

Tag cloud

A tag cloud is a method of arranging tags by the amount of information connected to each one. The point of a tag cloud is to show the user at first glance which topics a blog contains and how much information there is on each topic. The more information about a tagged subject, the larger and bolder the tag.

Avatar or icon

An avatar or icon is a graphic that accompanies you as you comment on a blog post or are on a social networking site. In some cases, the icon can be seen even if you just visit a blog. An icon is sometimes accompanied by your username, so it's a good idea to choose a good username (one that brands your business at first glance) when you sign up for networking sites. Here are some examples of icons that work well:

• Avatars

Keywords

Keywords are related to tags in that they identify information for which people are searching. Choosing the proper keywords can mean the difference between having your pages found in the search engines and being in the Internet version of Siberia. For information on using keywords for beginners: read this post about keyword analysis.

Bookmarklet

Most social bookmarking sites offer a bookmarklet, which places a bookmark in your browser. Once it's in your bookmarks, if you want to submit a page to that service, just navigate to the page you want to submit, open your bookmarks and click on the bookmarklet. This will automatically take you to a page that has your page information filled in, making the submission process easier.

Knowing these terms in advance should cut the time it takes to get up to speed with social networking. You'll find it can be a lot of fun to use social networking sites. And in the process of promoting your own blog, you'll probably come across interesting information you never would have found otherwise.

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