So why, if there are so many blogs on the internet, do we only hear about a small group of them being very succesful?

Because most bloggers who are interested in being successful or making a ton of money with their blogs, aren’t doing it right.

Reading Between The Lines

Many of those blogger’s who are successful are giving everyone the same answer when asked what is the best topic to blog about.  I even catch myself doing it over and over again, without thinking.

The answer is correct, but it’s not a full explanation of what we really mean.

Like the many religious views that are taken out of context, rather than seeing the big picture, just as many bloggers are taking the “blog about your passion” answer out of context.

Do I think it’s on purpose?  Absolutely not.  It’s a mere ignorance of the real meaning.  And I think those of us who are successful at blogging should start explaining ourselves in better detail when we answer a question of such importance.

Find The Demand

The best thing I can say to you before choosing a blog topic, is to forget about your passion!  I know, you’re probably thinking I’ve gone and lost my mind, but just hear me out.

There are other steps you need to take before choosing what you’re passionate about, and demand is the first.

Is there a demand?

Just like in any business, if what you supply isn’t what the consumers demand, you will not succeed.

Blogging isn’t any different.  So when choosing a topic make sure there is a demand for the information you’re giving.  The topic doesn’t have to have the highest demand.  There are millions of internet users on the web each day and even a demand from a small percentage of them can yield great results.

Is the demand shrinking or growing?

If the demand for a specific topic is on it’s way out, then you probably shouldn’t choose that particular topic either.

The best way to go around this stumbling block is to blog about something that is timeless.  If you are blogging to make money or be successful, then you probably plan on blogging for many years.  If you choose a fad topic that will be gone by next summer, then your long term plan will fail.

If you’re interested in blogging about fads, then create a blog about fads as a big picture.  Don’t focus on one specific fad, but on all fads, as they come and go.

Much like the stock market, if you can predict the next big thing that everyone will be searching for, then you will be a winner.

Overcome Over-Saturation

I often find that new bloggers like to choose a topic that covers something a large majority of bloggers already cover.  They’re thinking is that if “what’s his name” is making money on that topic, then I can too.

That is the wrong way of thinking when you’re choosing a topic, and more often than not the chosen topic was one that was already over-saturated.

Over-saturation of the market for a particular topic actually means there is less demand.  Not physically, as in lower numbers, but mentally, as in “I’m not looking somewhere else when I can find it here”.

Think about where you go when you’re interested in buying a specific book online.  You’re first thought was probably Amazon.  Would it make sense to start an online book store when there is already a huge contender in the market?

When looking for something online that is in the niche of a particularly famous blogger, or a group of bloggers that have already super-saturated the market, most internet users no longer use Google to search for that particular topic.  They know the website address and will type it instead.

If you’re stubborn and you still want to blog about an over-saturated topic, then try to find something not covered within that topic and blog about it.  This is called creating a “sub-niche”.  Many bloggers have become successful in an over-saturated market by focusing on a specific point that no one was covering.

Create A Monetization Strategy

In a nutshell, the problem of monetization simply means, if you cannot monetize your particular topic and your end goals are to make money, then you should probably choose another topic.

So before you begin your blog, choose two or three topics you’re interested in, do your research and find any and all ways to monetize that topic, compare the two or three topics, then decide which ones offer the better payouts and monetization sources.

Choose Your Topic

Now that I’ve utterly confused you about the topic you should choose for your blog, it’s time to take your first steps:

1. Generate a massive list of topics that have a high demand.  I’d try to list at least 100 or more of them.
2. Mark out all topics that are over-saturated, unless you can narrow it down to a specific area that isn’t being covered.
3. Research the various methods of monetization each topic remaining has, and cross out the ones that offer little to no monetization.
4. Of the remaining topics, find two or three you’re really passionate about and write them on piece of paper to stash away somewhere.
5. Choose one of those topics and begin your blog.

The other topics you chose that you were passionate about are your backup topics should you realize later that you may not have been as interested as you thought.

Remember not everyone can be successful blogging, but taking the right approach and using the right steps, anyone can increase their chances for success.

How did you choose your blog topic?

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While that excitement is great, and you hope it lasts the rest of your life, you don’t want to let it cause you to lose control of your blog, especially if you are interested in running it as a business.

Losing control can be one of the most dangerous things you encounter when blogging, and if you’re not careful, you lose control without even realizing it.

Here are 5 tips to help you maintain control of your blog, and keep you on the pathway to becoming successful:

1. Stay Calm

Just because the top bloggers in your niche are kicking out a post 2-3 times a day, it doesn’t mean you have to do the same to become successful. In fact, many very successful bloggers sometimes only post 1 article per week. Yaro Starak, for example, skips many days at a time on occasion.

As long as you’re putting out great content and building your community effectively, it really doesn’t matter how often you post, as long as it’s consistent.

So stay calm.

It doesn’t matter that you’re running behind on getting a post out at exactly 8:00 am.  Your readers will still see the post.  It also doesn’t matter that some of your Twitter followers didn’t see that tweet about your latest blog post. You don’t have to tweet it 5 times to make sure.  In fact, sending that many tweets about the same thing could actually have a negative effect on you and the trust others have in you.

2. Limit Yourself

Don’t think you have to spend 24 hours a day writing content, marketing it, or building your community.  If you’re spending that much time on your blog, your time management skills need to change.

Everything you need to do in a day for building your blog can be done in a short amount of time with the correct time management methods.

Spending too much time on your blog can also burn you out.  Then before you realize it, you’ve stopped blogging altogether, and that doesn’t make for a very effective business model.

3. Get Rid of Distractions

Those distractions you experience when writing an article, like answering emails, responding to someone on Facebook, or retweeting a great Twitter message, effect not only your quality of work, but also delay the time it takes you to get an article published.

The best thing you can do is to focus on one thing at a time, and make sure you’re completely finished with the task at hand before moving onto another.  Make a list in order of importance if you have to.

Making a list also helps keep you on track with what you need to get done.  Whereas working haphazardly with no real direction can cause you to focus on things that have absolutely nothing to do with your blog.

4. Incorporate One Affiliate Program At A Time

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen among other bloggers interested in making money online is signing up for every affiliate network they can find all at one time and trying to implement them.

The best advice I can give you is to pick one affiliate network you want to work with, and really take the time to maximize it’s effectiveness to fit you and your blog.  Then move on to another.

Taking this approach keeps you from being overwhelmed, which is a major factor in many bloggers giving up altogether.

5. You Decide

Now, it’s your turn.  I’d like to hear your experiences that have caused you to either temporarily or permanently lose control.  Leave me a comment, letting me know.

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So it’s no surprise that when I tell others I’m a professional blogger, they ask me, “What’s a blog?”  I think I get asked this at least once or twice a day.  But I find myself stumbling for an answer each and every time.

When you start blogging and interacting with the blogging community, you tend to not really worry about the basics, like what blogging even is, so when you’re asked, it may be a little hard to give a good answer.

What is Blogging?

I often go back to the answer that blogging is basically an online journal, except it’s not anymore, it can be whatever you want it to be.  But this only serves to confuse those who ask me that much more.

Some of them actually stop listening and start looking around, trying to get out of the conversation just as quickly as they got into it.

To put it simply, blogging is nothing more than a website where you write articles and they display in a reverse chronological order.  It’s a new form of news media that is controlled by anyone that has something to say, rather than a college educated journalist.

A Little Help From Common Craft

The next time you find yourself stammering for an answer about what blogging really is, send those asking the question to this post.  Tell them to watch this video by the Common Craft Show, then if they have further questions, feel free to make an attempt at answering them.

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While most of the popular plugins are very worth having on your blog, there are some plugins that aren’t talked about as often, but they help give character to your blog and put focus on the all of the small details.

Here is a list of the 7 WordPress plugins you didn’t know you needed:

1. Exclude Pages From Navigation

This plugin allows you to choose whether each page you create is included in your navigation with the simple click of a checkbox.

Some blog designs allow for only a limited number of page links and if you create more pages than there is a spot for links, you can cause the layout to mess up and look very amateur.

Click here for the Exclude Pages From Navigation plugin.

2. Feed Footer

When we think of monetizing our blogs, we often overlook a big part of the blog.  The RSS Feed.  Focus up until now has always been on how to monetize your blog for those visiting it, but little has ever been done about monetizing your RSS feed, so those that don’t visit your blog can still see your ads.

Feed Footer does just this.  It allows you to include any type of ads you want below each of your posts in your feed.  And it even offers the option to rotate ads, so you aren’t showing the same ones every time.

Click here to get the Feed Footer plugin.

3. iConnect Social Media Bar

The iConnect bar is very important for those of you wanting to offer your readers a way to connect with you on your social media profiles, or any other website or blog you choose.

The iConnect bar is viewable by your readers no matter where they are on your blog.  It is attached at the top of the page and scrolls as the page is scrolled, so it’s alway in view.

Since using this plugin, I’ve had a very large increase in my readers connecting with me on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Click here to get the iConnect Social Media Bar plugin.

4. No Self Pings

By default, WordPress pings any post you link back to from another post in your blog.  This posts a trackback in the comments section from yourself, and can look very unprofessional, as well as get in the way of legitimate comments and trackbacks from your community.

The No Self Pings plugin stops your deeplinking from causing trackbacks to appear on each of your posts comments sections.

Click here to get the No Self Pings plugin.

5. Parallel Load

When your blog loads javascripts, it loads them one at a time.  That is why your blog loads slower the more javascripts your are running.

To keep your blog from running slower, you can load the javascripts at the same time by using the Parallel Load plugin.

It decreases the load time on your blog, and also includes the option to load javascripts last, which means your visitors can read your post while your javascripts are still loading.

Click here to get the Parallel Load plugin.

6. SEO Super Comments

For each user comment this plugin will create a new dynamic page on the blog, holding the actual comment information. This page will not actually exist in WordPress database, but will be created dynamically using the SEO Super Comments plugin.

What you instantly get in this way is a big jump in your blog’s index visibility to search engines. This is possible because blog comments are crawl-able, index-able and most importantly rank-able content. Also meaning you will start to get search engine traffic for the context of the comment.

The old author link in the comments will now lead to the newly generated page. The author’s URL will still be displayed (and you can do-follow it now as it will be only one external link on the page).

The concept relies around optimizing the target page using title and H1 tag using the context of the comment. So basically it will take the excerpt of the comment and use it to create the page title and H1 tag and in the body it will hold the content of the comment as well as the commentators previous comments on your blog, causing internal deep-linking as well.

Since now all comments normally drain page rank even when nofollowed (bad for your site) the whole idea of using them to generate links back to your site instead and get free indexable content along the way, looks just much more appealing.

Click here to get the SEO Super Comments plugin.

7. WP-Optimize

For every blog post you write, you are really creating multiple posts saved into your blog’s database tables. And when your post is loaded into your reader’s browser, your blog has to sort through and pull out the correct version of your blog post.

Everytime your blog post is auto-saved, or you go back and edit the post, you are creating a new revision and placing it into your database tables.

In order to get WordPress to work faster and the page to load faster for your readers, you need to clear all post revision saved in your database and only keep the most current one.

You can do this manually if you know anything about MySQL, but if you don’t, WP-Optimize is a plugin that can make doing it easy on you.

This plugin shows you how many unnessesary post revisions you have in your database as well as those database tables that need to be optimized, and with the click of a couple of checkboxes and one button, will clear it all out for you.

Click here to get the WP-Optimize plugin.

What other plugins do you use that are unique and offer an attention to the small details of a blog?

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1. Potential subscribers may not know what a feed is.

If you’re targeting people who are already tech-savvy, that’s one thing, but otherwise – don’t assume that your potential subscribers will know what a feed is.

Here’s a scenario so you can see why a feed is useful:

When you visit a blog for the first time, if you like it, you might bookmark it. Great if you want to find it in future, but how do you know when it’s been updated? You could visit the blog again. This quickly becomes unrealistic if you bookmark a lot of blogs.

That’s where a feed comes in. I view a feed as a combination of a What’s New page and a bookmark. You can still bookmark the site if you wish, but if you subscribe to the feed, you’ll get a lot more out of it.

2. Not having a full feed defeats the purpose of subscribing.

Did you know that some people unsubscribe from sites because they don’t have a full feed? Would you rather have someone who uses their feed reader to get your latest posts, or would you rather that person didn’t even read?

To be fair, some people may only subscribe to stay aware of new content, and won’t mind going to the site to read the full post… but I’m not one of them. I’ve removed all of the feeds where the author only included a summary instead of the full post.

3. Once a post appears in someone’s feed, that’s it.

If you’re someone who likes to publish a post just to get it online, but then go back and edit it as you find errors, you’re going to be in trouble. Once the post appears in someone’s feed reader, you won’t be able to delete that post. So be careful!

Using FeedBurner gives you a bit more time to play with, as FeedBurner doesn’t update immediately – but it’s better to proof-read and get the post right the first time.

4. Editing the title of a post can duplicate it in your feed.

Let’s say you’ve published a post and it’s already showing in the feed readers of all your subscribers. Now, you decide to edit the post and change the title – maybe you made a mistake, or maybe you think there’s a better title you could use.

The result is that some feed readers (such as Google Reader) look at the title of a post to determine if it’s new. Change the title of a post, and there’s a good chance the post will show up twice. Don’t go thinking this is a good thing, either! It just looks like you messed up your feed, or you’re spamming people. Avoid doing this at ALL costs.

5. Some people want to subscribe by email.

I used to subscribe by email, and it flooded my inbox. I couldn’t do it again. However, some people swear by it. Don’t cut them out – let them subscribe by email. It’s an option that can be enabled if you use FeedBurner.

6. Some people may never be subscribers.

We all work in different ways – or don’t work, as the case may be. I like subscribing to a site using Google Reader. You may prefer to subscribe by email. Others may not be sold on the idea of subscribing – at all.

Don’t get too pushy with getting people to subscribe – and don’t worry if you don’t have a lot of subscribers. There may be many more people reading your site than you realize.

Keep an eye on your comments to see how much discussion your posts generate. If you get a good amount of comments but you don’t have many subscribers – so what? At least you have the comments. Of course, it’s not the same if most of the comments are your own replies. Try not to talk to yourself too much.

7. Nagging for subscribers can be a major turn-off.

Some sites use a popup window to ask for subscribers, and I’ve heard a few of them do well out of it – but isn’t it annoying? Is it worth getting some extra subscribers when you consider how many other people may be turned off by the popup?

Even without popups, some sites go overboard with linking to their feed in EVERY possible location – and then some. As for subscribing just to enter a contest… give me a break. What’s the point in temporarily inflating your subscriber count with people who don’t care about your content and just want to win a prize?

8. Hiding the subscription link is a bad idea.

At the other end of the spectrum we have sites where you have to play “hunt the feed”. You can usually click the orange icon at the end of the address bar, but some sites don’t even have that. How am I supposed to subscribe… if I can’t subscribe?

Thinking about it though, hunt the feed could actually be a fun challenge for your readers. If you don’t mind that most of them won’t be able to subscribe. OK, maybe not.

9. Unexpected topic changes can make people unsubscribe.

If off-topic posts are taking over your blog, you may start losing subscribers. People subscribe for a reason, and if you suddenly change your posts to a topic that’s not related to what they thought they’d be getting – why should they keep reading?

If your blog starts out as one thing but ends up as another, don’t be surprised if you lose some subscribers along the way. It may be easier just to start an additional blog if you want to write about things that don’t fit your current topic.

10. Perks can work, if you do them right.

Special content for subscribers is a great bonus. But beware of requiring people to subscribe by email to get these perks. What happens if someone has already subscribed in a feed reader? Why should they subscribe by email as well?

Do you have tips on RSS Feeds?  I’d love to hear them in the comments!

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And in our excitement to try to be like them, we often do just that. But what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another.

The best way to stand out is to be yourself.

Be original in everything you do.  Don’t add something to your blog’s sidebar because your favorite blogger did it.

All of us have different personalities.  Different likes, dislikes, and hobbies.  So why try to be like someone else?

Our originality is what makes us stand out.  And at the end of the day, there is only YOU.  People will like you for who you really are, not who you pretend to be.

So be yourself, and you’ll be surprised at just how much you will stand out.

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Creating timeless posts is as simple as following a few guidelines when writing.  You don’t have to completely change your writing style.

Here are 5 ways to make your writing timeless:

1. Avoid Items That Will “Date” Articles

Even if your article idea was inspired by a recent event, avoid mentioning any specific dates in the body of the article. Readers may associate specific dates/times with that information and therefore may dismiss that information once the event has passed. Avoid using words like “recently” or even “yesterday”, “today” etc. to keep your topic as relevant as possible.

2. Research For Original Content

Even if you are writing on a topic that has been widely discussed, on the web or otherwise, try and take a fresh approach. Do some research on how the topic has been approached in the past then write it from a different angle. Chances are you will be giving your readers some new and valuable information.

3. Provide Solid Information And High Quality Work

Properly researching your topic and backing up all information in your article is a great way to build your credibility. Make sure to cite all your sources and double check that all links within the article go to the correct pages. Similarly proofread your work to make sure it is as error-free as possible. One little slip-up can make a writer untrustworthy in the eyes of a reader.

Just remember that building a readership is based on a trusting relationship between the reader and the writer. Consistency in the type of information and quality level of the work is what will help writers meet with great success.

4. Add Value To News Or Current Events

If you write blog posts, the chances that you’ll write at least one breaking news or current event article is almost guaranteed.  When you do write something that is relevant only for a specific time period, try adding some value to it rather than only reporting the facts.

Adding you opinion, analysing the information, or even proposing an idea based on the event are great examples of how you can add timeless value to your writing.

5. Remove The Post Date

For many blogs, a big percentage of visitors often come from search engines.  These visitors visit individual posts rather than the homepage of my blog.

So putting a date on my writing could give them the impression that the blog is outdated or decrease the effectiveness of a post’s point and ideas because the reader will not view it as relevant past a specific date.

When a reader stumbles upon a post that may be dated a year or two in the past it could also hurt my credibility as a writer, and could cause me to lose that reader as a potential subscriber.

By removing the date, you can also take some of your best posts (that may be older) and put them back in the spotlight of your readers.

What tips do you have for writing timeless content?

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But with no explanation of how to do it, I realize it may have left some of you wishing they would have done a demo.  So for those of you who may not understand how to use Yahoo Pipes, here’s a step-by-step guide to building your ego feed with Yahoo Pipes.

Creating A Yahoo Pipes Account

To create a Yahoo Pipes account, simply visit http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ and click “Create a Pipe”.  If you’re not logged into yahoo with your yahoo id, then you need to login.  If you do not have a yahoo pipes account, you obviously need to create one then return to Yahoo Pipes and go from there.

Setting Up Your Yahoo Pipes  Canvas

When you click “Create a Pipe” and have logged in with your Yahoo Id, you’ll see a screen like the following and will be utterly confused as to what you’re supposed to do.

From this screen, click on the plus sign beside “Feed Auto-Discovery” in the left hand panel under “Sources”, and drag the box that shows up to another location on your canvas.  Do this 2 more times.

Then click the plus sign beside the “Fetch Feed” button which is just under the “Feed Auto-Discovery” button.  Drage the box to a blank location on your canvas.  Then do this one more time.

Now choose the “Operators” category and click the plus sign beside “Union”.

Now click the plus sign beside “Sort”.

When all of these steps are complete you should have a workspace that looks something like this:

Grabbing Your Many Ego Feeds

There are so many places that you can use to find what people are saying about you and your brand it’s often-times hard to keep track of them all.  So we’re only starting with the most popular places and you can always add more later.

1. Google Blog Search

Simply visit http://blogsearch.google.com/ and type the following in the search box: link:www.yourdomain.com

Then copy the url in your browser’s address bar and paste it into one of your “Feed Auto-Discovery” boxes on your Yahoo Pipes canvas.

2. Yahoo Search

Visit www.yahoo.com and type the following in the search box: link:www.yourdomain.com

Choose “Except from this domain” in the “Show Inlinks” option. And choose “Entire Site” from the “to” dropdown option.

Then copy the url in your browser’s address bar and paste it into one of your “Feed Aut0-Discovery” boxes on your Yahoo Pipes canvas.

3. Bing Search

Visit www. bing.com and type the following in the search box: “www.yourdomain.com” -site:www.yourdomain.com

Then copy the url in your browser’s address bar and paste it into one of your “Feed Aut0-Discovery” boxes on your Yahoo Pipes canvas.

4. Twingly

Visit www.twingly.com and type the following in the search box: link:www.yourdomain.com

Click the “Subscribe to RSS” link on the right side of the results window.

Then copy the url in your browser’s address bar and paste it into one of your “Fetch Feed” boxes on your Yahoo Pipes canvas.

5. Twitter Search

Visit http://search.twitter.com and search for any words that would pertain to you, such as “@yourusername“.

In the results window, click the “Feed for this query” option on the right.

Then copy the url in your browser’s address bar and paste it into one of your “Fetch Feed” boxes on your Yahoo Pipes canvas.

To add more search results from Twitter simply click the plus sign beside “URL” in your “Fetch Feed” box to add another line to paste an additional url.  You can do this an unlimited number of times.

Finalizing Your Yahoo Pipes Creation

In your “Sort” box, type “item.pubDate” and choose “Descending” for the order.  This will sort your results by the publish date and display them newest first.

Then click on the small circles under each “Feed” box and connect a line to the circles on top of the “Union” box.

When all circles are connected, connect the bottom circle of the “Union” box to the top circle of the “Sort” box and finally from the bottom circle of the “Sort” box to the top circle of the “Pipe Output” box.

Your Yahoo Pipes creation is now complete and it’s time to save and get your feed.  Your creation should look something like this:

Grabbing Your Yahoo Pipes RSS Feed

Click the save button in the upper right of the canvas workspace and choose a name for your feed.

When your creation is saved you will see an option that says “Run pipe…” at the top of your browser window.  Click this link and your pipe will run.

Then choose the subscribe option you want on the created page.

That’s all there is to it.  It takes some time and a little effort, but from now on, anything anyone says about you or your brand will be sent to your feed reader.

You can also perform other searches in each search engine for your desired search terms and add them to your “Feed Auto-Discovery” boxes as well.

Have fun and let me know if this was a big help for you in creating your own Ego Feed.

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Social Media is different from mass media like television and radio, and should be treated as such.

Using Social Media The Right Way

Social media is for building relationships.  Meaningful, deeper relationships with a small group of people at a time.  If you try to target more than a handful of people at once, you will spread yourself too thin and the relationship will not be as strong.

If you’ve ever been to a physical networking conference like BlogHer, Affiliate Summit, or IzeaFest, you probably noticed that while you talked to literally hundreds of people, there were only those 4-5 that you really connected with.

Social media acts in the same way.  You can only successfully make great connections with 4-5 people at a time.

Focus on building deeper more meaningful relationships rather than building huge followers that end up being shallow.

The deeper relationships you build will result in readers that love everything you write just because you wrote it.  Those readers will then talk about you to the friends that trust them and recommend your blog all the time.

This is a real word of mouth marketing technique that results in a larger, more dedicated following and a more trustworthy community.

Mass Twitter Follower Tools Are The Wrong Approach

Instead of signing up for the mass twitter following tools like TwitterFollower that increase your followers by hundreds and sometimes thousands, try steering clear.

They are great if all you want to do is build a marketing list of people, but you shouldn’t be using Twitter or other social media sites to simply promote your stuff.  If you do, people will stop following you, most likely block you, and sometimes report you as spam.

A Social Media Challenge

I challenge you to pick 5 people on the social media sites you use and really connect with them.  Start a conversation and continue that conversation for weeks, month, and years.

Build those relationships and after a couple of weeks of building the relationship, pick 5 more people and do the same thing.

You’ll be surprised at the results.

What are your thoughts on building deeper more meaningful relationships?  Do you focus on it, or do you tend to promote yourself to thousands of shallower relationships?

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One of my good friends (Joselin Mane) created a social media kit and he sums up how to use social media correctly with these 5 different phases.

1. Research

Determine where your marketplace tends to gather online.  Use Google Alerts & Google Reader to get a sense of the sites that your marketplace is using.  Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter are currently the most popular Social Media sites, however make sure to do the necessary research not only on your marketplace, but also your competition and your industry.  Lastly, commit to a certain amount of time to social media everyday.  Social media is about relationships and they take time to build.

2. Setup

Every website has its profile requirements and protocols.  So make sure you are familiar with what it takes to complete the entire profile.  Take 5-10 minutes to look at existing profiles so that you get a sense of what creating a complete profile entails and what a good profile looks like.  They generally tend to request your name, location, age, photo, website address, hobbies, books, etc.  Make your profile reflect your brand either personal or professional.  Also make sure that the profile highlights your expertise and has links back to your main website and an easy way to contact you.

3. Listen

This is one of the most essential phases because if skipped or done wrong, it can dramatically hinder your brand and/or reputation.  Since each site has its own method of communication, it’s critical to follow the communication protocol of the social media tool you select.  So take time to learn the proper communication style, the language used, and the tone of the group or site.

4. Contribute

The best way to establish your creditability and reputation within any social media site is to focus first on providing consistent value.  Each site is different, but as a rule of thumb to follow regarding sharing your recommendations is for each link to one of your products/services, you should promote at least 5 products/services created by someone else.

5. Relationship

The essence of Social Media is relationships.  Since people do business with people they know, like, and trust, social media is the ideal and fastest method to expedite the relationship building process.  The key is to leverage the social media site for information about the person.  That’s why it’s important to have a complete profile.  Just as you will be looking at another’s profile, he/she will be looking at your profile.  The next step is to email or chat with them to see if there are areas where you could assist them or develop a mutually beneficial relationship.  And lastly, make sure to attend as many live events as you can because nothing beats meeting in person.

For a better idea of how to manage your time and what kind of time constraints you should put on social media, check out an article I wrote called: 8 Daily Tasks to Increase Blog Traffic

What are you thoughts on these 5 phases?  Do you think there are more?  Let’s here your opinions in the comments.

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