Let’s face it, many us are blogging because we know it’s the ‘right’ thing to do. We’ve heard it’ll drive traffic to our websites, build community and establish ourselves as ‘experts’ in what we’re blogging about. And it’s all true. Then we heard that using ‘social media’ will exponentially increase our readership and expand our reach out there. We’re told to ‘comment thoughtfully’, ‘use outgoing links’, ‘use social networking sites to build community’, etc.

When I started my weekly blog almost two years ago now, I had two reasons: 1. I just like technology. The commitment I made to post weekly keeps me always on the lookout for helpful tools or tips that I think the small businessperson will benefit from. It also keeps me ‘sharp’ (well, that’s debatable), by trying to be current on the new tools. 2. I was told it would drive traffic to my website, and I wanted that to help me in establishing my VA business.

So here’s a definition of Social Media from the Ebook: Let’s Talk Social Media For Small Business by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.

Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value.

John was sponsored by Microsoft Small Business Live in the writing of this book, and is free for the downloading. It’s a great basic book for those of us getting started with blogging for business, and trying to understand how this ’social media’ revolution works.

He begins by contrasting how we might find in our dusty Marketing textbooks the four P’s of Marketing vs. today’s four C’s of Marketing:

When most of us hear all these new terms about social networking and what services we should be signing up for, our heads spin. So he presents this graphic to guide us in our progression down the social media highway beginning with blogging and ending up with the micro, i.e. edgier tools like Twitter.

The book has several case studies where he makes the point that any business can distinguish themselves from their competition with their blogs, interactions with their community and the resulting establishment of trust among that community.

It’s a good read for those of us who see others talking about the above buzz words and wondering, “what does that mean”.

Below are links to some of the various social media sites as well as the sites that help manage our social media. Some are from the book (and a few of my own), along with their definitions you might find helpful:

Social & Business Networking:

LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com

Plurk – http://www.plurk.com

Tools to Manage your Social Networks & Other Sharing Sites

Delicious http://www.delicious.com this is a bookmarking service that allows you to tag any page with a category and then share it publicly

PingFm: http://www.ping.fm This is a tool that will broadcast your blog, doings, etc. across multiple platforms

StumbleUpon - http://stumbleupon.com/
Flickr – http://www.flickr.com
YouTube – http://youtube.com
Slideshare – http://www.slideshare.net
Digg – http://digg.com
Friend Feed – http://friendfeed.com

Twitter and Twitter tools:

Twitter – http://www.twitter.com

Twellow, http://www.twellow.com/, is like a Twitter phone directory that sorts people by industry. This can be a great way to find people in your industry.

Twitterrific: http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/

Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/

Twhirl: http://www.twhirl.org/

Twitterfeed: http://twitterfeed.com/

The book by Jantsch is a great starting place if you’ve just begun experimenting with social media marketing. His Duct Tape Marketing Website could be helpful to you. Another site I subscribe to is the ProBlogger.

I know following these suggestions work because after I set up my Facebook and LinkedIn pages and took advantage of the tools from within these apps to publicize my blog, my readership increased by five to six times. It does take time and effort and the content you publish definitely matters.

If any of you want to share your blogging stories or have tips, please leave a comment!