Social Media Useless? Social Networking Priceless?

[Bloggeries]

So I've been heavily using social networking sites lately with fantastic success. I've also been exposed again to all the people who love social media sites. Stumble Upon, Mixx, Sphinn, Digg etc...

My question is to you and your business is social media worth the time? Have you ever made a sale, made a new connection etc... from social media?

[Nadzmc]

Well, in the terms of personal connections, yes, I've made quite a many connections from social media. On general terms, I'd attribute more than 60% of my blog's success to social media.

But I guess the benefits that can be harnessed through social media differs from niche to niche that bloggers are involved in.

[Bloggeries]

Originally Posted by Nadzmc

Well, in the terms of personal connections, yes, I've made quite a many connections from social media. On general terms, I'd attribute more than 60% of my blog's success to social media.

But I guess the benefits that can be harnessed through social media differs from niche to niche that bloggers are involved in.

Absolutely what niche are you in? I mean I've sent tones of stumble traffic here and never gotten 1 single signup and it was under "blogs". Also I find on other sites you see people in referrals but that's it.

[rjleaman]

I'm not convinced that the niche is more than 50% of the equation in social media / social networking... It's very much like going to a party where there's a big mix of people you've never met before: first, you do have to actually end up talking somehow (no connection if you're never in the same room!) and the "small talk" comes more easily if you can identify some common interests right on the introduction... But if a person is interesting enough, and what they have to say is interesting enough, they can usually earn my attention - even if we're in completely different lines of work.

[QuirkyJessi]

It's not good for me. Sure, it can bring me a large boost of traffic if I put some time into them, but that only pads my stats. I haven't made any personal connections or long term traffic increases out of using social media.

[sukosaki]

The social media traffic is there for me, mostly SU, but there really isn't any value to the traffic. I have been able to monetize is shortly, but not long term, which is understandable.

The SU traffic, as well as Digg, would be good if you had a ONE page site and what they were coming to see was incredible and not found anywhere else. That's my take.

Good for exposure, bad for any long term anything.

[Bloggeries]

This is one of many great bloggeries written by forum member thegypsy.

Social Media Cash Grab - Search and Internet Marketing rants, news and views - the Fire Horse Trail

What are your thoughts? I threw mine at the bottom in the comments. Also my first post as reading this is what made me think and start this thread.

[Nadzmc]

Absolutely what niche are you in? I mean I've sent tones of stumble traffic here and never gotten 1 single signup and it was under "blogs". Also I find on other sites you see people in referrals but that's it.

Well, FYI, I'm in the "blogging tips" niche

And the thing is stumble traffic doesn't quite convert well if you want to get a signup for a forum or so. The harsh truth is that those users are eager to hit the stumble button again rather than signing up for a forum.

It just hit me now that a killer way to promote this forum would actually lie in ordering reviews from bloggers who have a strong subscriber-base. Virtually I believe any word of mouth marketing effort will work well for you Rob..

[Bloggeries]

Originally Posted by Nadzmc

It just hit me now that a killer way to promote this forum would actually lie in ordering reviews from bloggers who have a strong subscriber-base. Virtually I believe any word of mouth marketing effort will work well for you Rob..

Could you possibly elaborate on how I should go about that? I have an idea but would love to hear your vision of it. Thanks for thinking of us.

[Nadzmc]

No problem.

The thing is you would be having to have some capital first. You can contact a few bloggers for reviewing opportunities and ask them to do the promotion work for you.

IMHO, if you advertise on a site for one month spending $25, a 125x125 can do so much for convincing a blogger. But a review has more power, as in, you can ask a blogger to review the forum and CONVINCE his/her subscriber-base to join the forum.

Or, you can have a mass review campaign for all the members of the forum - something like a contest - where they review bloggeries for something back in return, or a chance to win something great.

Just my opinion though.