Let’s admit it. Social web sites are here to stay and they generate tremendous amounts of visitors each day. You as a much smaller website would LOVE to have just a smidge of that traffic coming to you. You’re not asking for millions of visits (although millions would be WUNDERBAR!), you would like a few thousand or maybe even just a few hundred. How can you generate enough interest to get people coming to you? Good question! Let’s analyze a few possible strategies and see where they might lead (hopefully to money!).
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendster, Technorati, and the many other social sites generate tons of traffic. There are some effective strategies that you can begin employing NOW to get them visitors on those sites to your site. This might mean new subscribers and page impressions that you can then turn around and sell to advertisers. Or it might also mean that people purchase your product or service. That can’t be a bad thing!
Let’s take a look specifically at Facebook which happens to be one of the hottest social sites on the internet today. If you have a blog on your site (and you should!) you can take advantage of some free tools to syndicate your blog posts to your profile. Anytime someone sees you profile they will see your blog posts and often times will click through to your site. Depending on the software that runs your blog you will have to use a different tool:
• Wordpress – One of the most used blogging tools is Wordpress and there fortunately is a Facebook application that links directly to your Wordpress site. You’ll need to download the plugin to your own web site to interface directly. It is called Wordbook (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordbook/). Once copied to your plugins folder and activated you’ll click a link that takes you to Facebook. The application on Facebook will give you a code to identify your personal blog which you’ll enter into the plugin. Once this is done your site and Facebook will now communicate! Now whenever anybody sees your profile they’ll also see you “mini-feed”. Notice that the plugin only works with future blog posts and not ones that have already been posted. One limitation is that you can only add one blog. Make sure to add friends and socialize with these friends so they will see your blog posts. Otherwise you’ll sit in obscurity!
• If you use Blogger it is very simple to set up your mini-feed. Just go to the Facebook applications page (http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=13253871830&ref=s) and add the application. Click into settings and provide your blogger login details and voila! You now have added your Blogger blog to your profile!
• TypePad – TypePad has also gotten into the Facebook game with an application of its own! (http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=13253871830&ref=s) This, like the application for blogger, will interface directly with your TypePad account and add feeds to your profile. The nice thing about this tool, called Blog It, is you can post and share your content across multiple platforms with only one click! Whether you blog using TypePad, Vox, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress.com or WordPress.org, or micro-blog using Twitter, Pownce or your Facebook status, now you can update everything via one easy-to-create post on Facebook. Plus, when you post using Blog It, you can ensure all your friends and contacts know about your post regardless of where they follow you on the web.
The key to all of these tools is that unless you put a little work into being sociable they really won’t help you much. You need to do some of the legwork and get to know people. You don’t have to be drinking buddies with the hundreds of people you might add as friends on Facebook, but you should at least join some groups or causes to become known. My own Facebook account has over three hundred friends and I know personally about ten of them. I came to know them through various groups that I joined and causes on Facebook that I support. You will never earn a single cent or generate a single visitor to your site unless you are willing to do some extra work. The upside is, however, that once you start you might actually enjoy it. The more sociable you become the better your results! Let’s get to know each other!

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: Facebook, generate traffic, Social Sites, social web sites, word press