A lot of bloggers use social media to promote their site because of the huge potential that it brings. Despite the fact that some marketers and website owners are able to get floods of traffic with social media, the vast majority of people using social media are not getting the results they are looking for. If this is the case for you, by changing your approach you may be able to move into that group that is able to get big results with social media.

Of course, social media will always benefit a small percentage of marketers and users the most, as the nature of social media is to provide exposure only to the best or most popular content. However, your chances of success can be greatly improved if you understand the community of users that you are marketing to and if you create the right content.

If you are not getting results with social media, check this list to see of any of these issues apply to you.

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When it comes to social media marketing you’ll hear some people say that it is best opportunity out there for bloggers and website owners, and others will tell you that it’s a complete waste of time. In my opinion, and from my experience, social media brings a lot of potential for getting exposure to just about any website, but it should only be part of the equation.

Other types of traffic like search engine visitors, direct visitors, and those who come via links from other sites are more significant in the long-term, but getting to that point can take considerable effort and time. In fact, most bloggers who set out to build a profitable blog wind up getting discouraged and quit before they ever see those long-term benefits.

On the other hand, social media allows anyone to get some exposure for their blog almost immediately. Of course there is work involved and you will need the right content, but social media marketing provides opportunities for bloggers to make an impact right now.

This immediate impact is what most bloggers who use social media are after, but the real strength of social media marketing is that it can help you to be more successful with those other important long-term sources of traffic. Popular posts with social media tend to attract links from various blogs and websites, and those links lead to click-through traffic and better search engine rankings in the future.

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I’ve been talking to some new bloggers recently and I’ve been asked questions about how they should work on growing their blog, increasing subscribers, and getting more visitors. Most bloggers know about the potential impact of social media and some even spend considerable amounts of time on sites like Digg with hopes of getting a rush of traffic to their blog.

In my opinion, many new bloggers miss out on some great opportunities by not being more active at niche social media sites. These will not have nearly as many users as the major social media sites, so they will never send a comparable amount of traffic, but there are many reasons why they are every bit as valuable for the new blogger.

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The most frequently visited page on this site is the categorized list of social networking sites. That page hadn’t been updated in a while and I had a lot of sites suggested for inclusion sitting in my inbox, so I’m happy to say that 33 more sites have been added to the list.

There is a great deal of variety in the sites that are featured (hopefully the categorization helps to make it more useful). Some are social media sites with user submitted links and voting to see which links get promoted to the front page (Digg-style), and others are intended to allow people with common interests to connect in various ways.

Here is a listing of the sites that were just added. Be sure to visit the list of social media and social networking sites for more.

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This is the final part of a four-part series on improving results with social media. If you haven’t seen the first three articles, or if you want a refresher, please see:

• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three

Throughout the first three weeks of this series we’ve taken a look at the process of setting your goals with social media, getting involved at some targeted sites, building a network of social media users, brainstorming ideas, and publishing your first content to target a social media audience. At this point hopefully you’ve had some success with social media, although it does take some time, so try to stay patient if things haven’t gone exactly as planned. Now our focus turns to refining the process and focusing on the big picture.

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This is the third part of a four-part series on improving results with social media. If you haven’t seen the first two articles, or if you want a refresher, please see:

• Week One
• Week Two

Last week we looked at the process of developing a blog post for the purpose of targeting specific social media audiences. This week we’ll look at a few steps that will help to determine how successful we were and to build on that.

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Last week I started a four-week series of posts that is intended to help readers who are new to social media (or those who are just looking for better results) to have an organized and focused approach that will lead to some success. If you missed the first post in the series, you may want to read that one, as the contents of this post will pick up where that one ended.

In effort to make this series as practical and usable as possible, the activities for each week will be broken down into specific steps that should be taken. This week we’ll focus on taking action and moving towards that first successful social media post. So let’s start week two’s activities.

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As more and more bloggers and website owners turn to social media as one of their major promotional methods, the need to understand Social Media Marketing becomes even more important. I put this post together in effort to help those who are new to social media, or those who simply want to get better results. If you have suggestions for questions that should be included, please leave a comment.

What is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?

SMM involves promoting content in various ways to social media users, in attempt to increase traffic and exposure. SMM can involve developing content that targets social media users, building a network of other users, requesting votes from others, and anything else that involves getting votes and traffic from social media websites.

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Most of the questions that I receive by email from readers and from other bloggers have to do with the basics of getting better results with social media. Most bloggers want to tap in to the potential of social media sites as a source of traffic and new readers, but I get a lot of comments from people who are struggling to put it into action.

While social media marketing and optimization provides an incredible opportunity for website owners who want to make a big impact without spending a lot of money to advertise, using social media with the wrong approach can easily result in a lot of wasted time, and in some cases it can even do more harm than good.

I’ve had a few requests from readers who wanted a step-by-step guide for marketing a site with social media, so I’ve decided to put together a small series of posts that will explain the approach I would recommend to those who are looking for better results.

The focus of the series is to break down the steps that are necessary in order to get a blog or a website noticeable results within a month. There will be four parts to the series and each will look at the steps that should be taken in a particular week.

The activities of each week will be broken down into specific action steps that can be taken regardless of the content or niche of your blog. Additionally, I’m assuming that readers don’t have endless amounts of time, so each week’s activities are very realistic.

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I get a lot of emails and questions from bloggers and website owners who want to know what they can do to improve their results with social media right away. When it comes to building traffic with social media, the results can happen quickly, but they can also take a long time to build up. Yes, you may be able to achieve some success here or there by chance, but to reach the point where you get any kind of consistent results you need to have a plan and an understanding of how social media works.

Fortunately, there are some things that you can do right away that can have a considerable impact on your level of success with social media. In this post we’ll take a look at ten of them. Pick a few that look appealing to you and put them into action if you’re looking for better and quicker results.

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