Traffic Generation Using Networking Social Networks and Social Bookmarking sites are the hottest commodities on the Internet right now.
Ignore them and your traffic volume will suffer.
Social Networking Sites In recent years, the list of social networking sites, and the topics discussed on them has grown long and diverse.
In the early days, there were a few dominant sites like Myspace and Facebook.
Today, huge directories of social networking communities attempt to keep up with the dizzying growth of this new Internet social mechanism.
Sites like Squidoo and Mashable join old-timers such as Slashdot.
What is a Social networking site and how can it benefit your business? The business world is one gigantic network.
Money is earned, trade is accomplished, and deals go down because of WHO you know, and not so much what.
With the global reach of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before site architectures in support of advanced networking arrived on the scene.
An early entry, still quite successful today, is Ryze.
Business owners and professionals gather to exchange ideas, meet others who are in their industry, and establish collaborative relationships and joint ventures.
While there is some overt marketing allowed, the real power is in getting to know more people in your industry or niche.
Social Bookmarking Sites The social bookmarking site model came out of nowhere.
In the early days of the web, the vast majority of resources were discovered by traveling to a links directory, carefully categorized by topic and subtopic.
As the size of the net and number of sites increased, search engine technology developed to provide more relevant and timely information about what was on each site, and how relevant the information was to the search term someone typed in to the engine.
In the past couple of years, a growing number of Internet consumers have abandoned the search engine as their tool of choice, in favor of social bookmarking sites.
These sites collect and rank sites (bookmarks) from their members, in order to provide a guide to other members about the location and worthiness of a site.
Business owners are belatedly discovering traffic-generation potential of a large presence among the social bookmarking communities.
Twitter Twitter is a different kind of animal.
It's single, most powerful characteristic is how fast it is able to move breaking news and information around the net.
Participants have the opportunity, at any minute of any hour of the day, to type in a 160 character dialog box, what they are doing at that moment.
If they are visiting a news site, or reading a freshly-released story, the link may or may not be passed.
News travels almost at the speed of light on Twitter.
There are followers (those interested in what YOU are doing) and followed (those you are following).
It's an extremely unique way to get to know people, and find out what they are involved in.
Yahoo Answers If you are performing serious research, don't bother.
The vast majority of questions on Yahoo answers can be found via a search engine in 2 minutes or less.
The real power of yahoo answers is reputation-building, and branding, thus leading to click-throughs to your sites or links, that are most often logged in the resources box.
There are many ways to benefit from participation in Yahoo answers, both from a traffic standpoint and from networking with other active members.
Become A Forum Operator Establishing your own forum does a number of things for your business that are much more difficult to accomplish outside the forum mechanism.
You build authority, create a community or "web site culture"that becomes associated with your brand.
Forums perform list building, almost on autopilot, because your forum participants tend to link to their own posts, thereby encouraging readers of their posts to visit, sign up and participate.
Forums give you the ability to gain near instantaneous feedback regarding your new ideas and projects.
You build relationships and joint venture partnerships with your forum's most active members.
It's impossible to overstate the immense value that a properly-developed forum can lend to your overall brand and presence on the net.
The Social Marketing environment is fast-moving, and growing at a frantic pace.
Take advantage of it properly and reap the amazing traffic rewards it is capable of bringing your business.