Overwhelmed By The Sheer Number of Social Sites Out There

Posted by kohuether in Tuesday, May 13th 2008

Topics: Uncategorized

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I am doing the Thirty Day Challenge from 2007 right now. In order to do this, they advocate going to www.socialposter.com in order to submit a site quickly. That’s fine - but it’s overwhelming. In order to make these social sites really work, it seems like I’d need to spend time nurturing them - logging in, adding friends, submitting and recommending things that have nothing to do with my websites and blogs.

I’m a bit overwhelmed by it all. In fact, I am going through the list of sites that Social Poster has and I think I may have signed up for all of them - and then forgotten. I’ve done nothing with the accounts. The only social site I really pay attention to at the moment is twitter.

While I believe social sites to be a good thing, it seems that if I focus on one or two sites that I am comfortable with and nurture, I will get a lot more out of it than if I posted to twenty different sites but didn’t pay attention to the accounts.

So for now, I am going through and finding all the log in information for my accounts - then I’ll start spending time nurturing my presence on them. I think it can be really powerful if I start from scratch and pay attention to the sites the right way.

10 users responded to this post

Oliver said in May 13th, 2008 at 3:53 am

Kudos from Germany. I have a few hints for you. With those Social Bookmarking sites it seems you have to distinguish between two types, or you will make people upset (learned from experience). There are those sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Propeller where you share a story with a community and other community memebers can “Digg” ie. vote for that story to make it go up in its ranking. The other type is a real bookmarking service where you save a bookmark personally for you. I’d suggest choosing one or two of the social sites and participate in its community to make your use of it look natural (ie. non-marketing like). What you do with personal bookmarking pages is up to you.

Also, Ed mentions to bookmark the way the internet works. This means you shouldn’t bookmark your page many times at once. This would give you a temporary ranking boost for one day and then your site would sickle down the rankings FAST. I experimented with that and its amazing how fast you land on spot #60 or deeper and have all your traffic lost.

I’d recomment choosing one or two Social Bookmarking “story sharing” services and about 20 personal bookmarking services. When you posted a new article, digg or stumble your article right away and use a few bookmarking sites. Then, over the following 2 or 3 days bookmark your site in a growing fashion. For instance:

You posted an article on day 1…
On day 1: Use 4 bookmarks
On day 2: Use 8 bookmarks
On day 3: Use 12-14 bookmarks

If you post a new article on day 2 you start the same process for it over of course and it kind of “stacks” over time.

This growth is much more natural and the day the internet works and you get better results. Imagine it from Google’s point of view… a nice piece of content appears and it gets some link love - okay maybe the site is good, lets give it a good ranking. If the next day the link love stops it might have been a fluke and it sickles off… but if the love continues Google lets it stay there as long the site continues to get backlinks from important sites.

I hope that wasn’t too confusing but if you experiment a bit you will soon understand. Good luck!

kohuether said in May 13th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

Hi Oliver, thanks for taking the time to post this! It is much appreciated. So, you’re basically saying that my instinct is correct - focus on one or two of these sites and work on using it in a natural way. In other words, nurture my account there. Build friends, go through and stumble other sites, etc. When I see a site I like, stumble it. Do the same each time I post a blog or article somewhere but as long as I am doing it to other people as well, my use of it will make sense.

Is that right? lol.

Are you from Germany? I just got back from a trip there, and I lived there for a few years.

Trigeia Twinz said in May 13th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

Their are a ton of them isn’t their? I find it inspiring that you have so many social networking sites and I think to my self how can http://www.Trigeia.com be more of a direct match for what it is you and so many other need from a presence online. We see the industry changing soon, When we say changing we would have to say that the exciting part about this change would be a true presence online. What if you could be apart of a vertical network that truly identified you as a person (as a whole). The change appearing in the development of a situation that allowed you to communicate across networks! no more managing! Soon their will be only one option and that will be involvement. Trigeia is a place where you are defined by your passion.

How many social networks are you apart of and what are they?

Twin2

http://www.trigeia.com

kohuether said in May 14th, 2008 at 2:13 am

Hey Twin2,

I’ve definitely embraced the social networking thing as a way to connect with people online. I think you’re right about the change. Sites like Myspace and Facebook are big - but maybe they’re getting too big? People can easily disappear in them and as a result, not get a lot out of them. Maybe it’s like what happened to internet marketing? It became increasingly difficult for people to carve a place of themselves inside the industry so they started to niche. Now, it seems like there are niche social sites popping up…

I use myspace, linkedin, facebook, twitter, stumbleupon - and I have accounts at all of the places listed on http://www.socialposter.com plus your site and chicks who click. I’m stepping up my online social networking presence.

Twin (1) From Trigeia said in May 14th, 2008 at 3:47 am

well i will pretty much say the same thing as my Twin, but I would also say that i think that as the internet evolves social networking (or web technology) will be a real way to communicate and companies will evolve and those that will control the industry will make their way in. This will change the way people look at this space. Its not all about advertising and getting a user. its about what service you can give the customer that will ultimately become a part of their everyday life in their pursuit of happiness. If you notice right now myspace, facebook etc are loosing alot of users and that is because of Value. Although I think Myspace offers a lot more value then Facebook. As time goes on People in the music industry will use myspace and other demographics will use other vertical site. But the question is Who will allow them to communicate and share content between eachother. Well those are my thoughts. And , Yes Trigeia is working on this technology. Well I look forward to helping you succeed if there is anything you need just give me a shout, Twin Out.

kohuether said in May 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

hey Twin1 - I am a real world example of not being as into Facebook and Myspace as I was. You’re right - it seems to be an issue of Value. I still use Myspace for something but it’s for a music-related project. Good luck with your Trigeia projects.

Zakk Forchilli said in May 16th, 2008 at 2:46 am

Yeah Twitter is what i pay most of my attention to these days. There are just too many services, but somehow we all cope with it!

Twin (1) From Trigeia said in May 16th, 2008 at 5:33 am

i have to say twitter is Awesome. Wish I could find out how I could tie in our Passion network and identifying passion by having my own SMS services , I just dont know how I could afford it. those gateways are expensive. Any ideas?

Oliver said in May 16th, 2008 at 5:51 am

Hey again

Yep I study in Hannover.

Anyway, you’re right. The social sites shouldn’t be exploited because you will be found out. Other sides you can “exploit” (use for personal gain) are delicious, furl, spurl, A1 Webmarks, …

Also the uses are different. The webmark tools are used to get authority backlinks to your side. If many sides on the web point to your side Google will see that and think “Wow so many sites are interested in Katharine’s website, it must be important! Let’s put it on the front page for her keyword”.

The social sites are used to get the attention of other people and send them to your page and have a look, maybe write a review when you’re lucky.

kohuether said in May 16th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

@Zakk twitter is still my main but I’ve started with StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us - Stumbleupon can end up addicting!

@Twin1 - are you guys members at the Warrior Forum? I don’t know how to answer your question about developing an SMS service, but someone over there might be able to. Were you looking to make it web based?

@oliver - I would love it if someone wrote a review. Since this post, I added Del.icio.us to my collection of frequently used social sites. I’ve never been to Hannover - most of my time was concentrated in the Bavaria since we lived near Munich. I heard it’s really nice, though. There’s a chance I may be moving back to Germany within two years.