Primer Social Marketing

Social media platforms are arguably 'the' most powerful platforms to share ideas, increase profile and attract traffic and links. Used effectively, these media channels showcase your ideas, copy and website to potentially vast audiences. Best of all, you don't need conglomerate sized marketing resources to do it!

Even for those whose primary concern isn't herding flocks of visitors to your website; social media platforms are highly usable personal information-hubs. They provide accessible and varied news with the invaluable opinion of other users. You can also participate in discussions with engaged members and share content relevant to your interests.

This article provides a general overview of social media platforms, basic tips on picking the right communities and a few strategies you can use to promote your messages, build reputation and focus attention on your website.

Let’s get started by taking an overview look at the more popular social media sites to build an understanding of how they work:

What's in a Name? Social Media Defined

Social Media platforms are communities allowing users to submit news stories, articles and media (videos/pictures) and share them with other community users or the general public. Some of these articles are given more visibility than others. Visibility is determined by various factors such as ratings systems where other users vote or judge the quality of an item.

Social media websites generally operate via wisdom of the crowd’s principles; groups of individuals with different points of view collectively determine the value or importance of content distributed through the community. Users are given editorial power to influence the visibility of content.

Articles and news from other websites are aggregated in the social media community by the participation of users with equal editorial rights. On the surface the social voting process appears democratic; in reality, just like politics, social media websites are open to manipulation by users from within and external forces who are propagating their own agenda's.

As well as counting registered user votes, some social media websites employ human editors to determine the visibility of content items. Some articles can be removed from the website; others are given 'featured visibility’, if the story has high interest and/or relevance value.

Mapping the Social Media Landscape

Social media websites can be basically divided into wide-focus or narrow-focus communities of interest. Some cater to niche audiences (e.g. professionals or parents) whilst others attempt to appeal to mass audiences, covering just about any and every topic.

Digg is one of the most popular social media websites and probably the most well known. Starting life as a community with a technical focus, Digg has expanded to include politics, humor and a whole range of other news.

Other social media communities which are topically wide-focus include Mixx, Propeller and Reddit, amongst many others. Examples of social news websites with narrow-focus include Sphinn (Internet marketing/SEO) and Showhype (entertainment).

When setting your social media marketing goals, the communities you choose to engage should be determined with your objectives in mind. Your choices of platform are crucial. For example, it's totally unrealistic to anticipate a flood of incoming links and traffic if your content is released through poorly populated communities.

Under the Hood - How Social Media Platforms Work

With the larger social media sites, content submitted by users is filtered by an internal process which determines the popularity of the article. This algorithm usually incorporates a range of factors, above and beyond a simple count of absolute votes. The depth of discussion surrounding a story and the relationship between participants (friends or not) are just a sample of other factors taken into account.

Smaller social media platforms do not always use complex algorithms to filter submissions as some of them run on out-of-the-box platforms (eg. Pligg or Drupal). These solutions often don't provide much customization. In contrast, established social sites like Digg operate highly complex filtration systems, judging a wide range of factors in addition to positive and negative votes.
Filters like this attempt to combat ‘gaming‘ (the manipulation of content visibility by means which contrevene the social platforms TOS. Common methods of gaming include voting for stories using multiple accounts, incentivitised voting (get paid to digg) using 'voting networks'.

So Many Choices - Which Platforms are Right for Me

Not every social media website is worth your time, especially if you’re a time-pressed marketer. As a basic qualifier the community should at least be populated with enough active users to provide the potential to derive value from it, whether for traffic for your site or information/news. Why visit a community that is rarely updated or simply doesn't provide the potential audience.

Targeting the right niche social sites neither difficult or time consuming. A few basic questions to ask when you are researching social media sites to find matches to your needs:

1. Is there plenty of interest (comments) in articles?

2. How many positive votes are needed to reach high visibility positions?

3. Are new articles submitted frequently (this can be judged against other platforms)?

4. Is content on the front-page fresh (recently published)?

5. How active are the top users and how many members are there overall?

6. Is the topical focus relevant to your objectives?


As in any walk of life it always helps to ask a social media enthusiast or marketer for their opinion. An experienced user of social media should have a good feel for what platform will provide most potential for your content.

Always conduct a brief background check on the site by running a query on Technorati or Google blog search. Bloggers love recommend (and criticize!) social media platforms, especially those that give them traffic. You can even find posted traffic statistics, particularly useful when you're looking to promote your website/client.

Using Social Media: Getting Started and Beyond

The best way to understand the dynamics of a social media community functions become a frequent user. Regular participation gives an instinctive understanding of the type of content connects most with the community, making life much easier for the strategy planning marketer

Here are a few guidelines when you begin to use social media:

1. Study the community carefully. Carefully analyse which stories get the most votes and study the response of the community. Experiment wherever possible. For example, I like to experiment with different topics and submit articles at various times to gauge community response.

Take advantage of articles describing the platform and additonal extensions or scripts to enhance your experience as a user of the site.

2. Seek out the influencers. Influencers also called ‘power users’, a term describing the most active and influential users operating on the social media site. Other terms to get to grips with include 'mavens' (thought shepherds) and 'connectors' (those with many friends/fans).

Find these people are and build relationships with them. They have a wealth of experience, you can learn from them and seek their advice when you have questions.

3. Develop a system. Regularly using the social media platform is key to building influence and an intuitive understanding. Set aside some regular time in your daily life to participate in the community. Set some goals such as minimum quotas to be reached. For example, maybe aim to submit at least 3 articles a day or comment on a minimum number of other users submissions

4. Connect with users. Interaction with other users not only makes friends but is also the single most effective way to build reputation within the community. Even if you are purely using the platform for marketing purposes, active interaction allows you to develop positive support for your site and brand.

5. Evangelise the community. Consider evangelizing by getting friends to sign up and try the site. Connecting your website to your social community, by writing about it on your blog or linking buttons encouraging people to use the community, brings other users in to enhance circle of influence.

How to Get Your Content Visible on Social Media Communities

When promoting your website, your goal is to get your content visible to as many people as possible. In the case of social media, the ultimate goal is to be displayed on the frontpage, gaining the greatest amount of visibility for your site/content/brand.

Here are three fundamental strategies enabling you to get your content on the frontpage. You can use them in tandem or you can just choose one strategy and apply it consistently to obtain the results you require.

1. Construct an Influencer Profile

This involves building up a popular social profile with lots of friends, fans and supporters, using the platform regularly. You’ll need to build a good reputation as a user who submits high quality and relevant content. This can be particularly time-consuming but it increases the possibility of getting any article on the frontpage.

An influencer profile (if made public) also allows you to brand yourself as a social media expert - allowing you to provide value to many other users as you can popularise their content as well.


2. Pitch Influencers

If you don’t have a strong social media profile yet or time to invest on the social community, learn how to pitch social media influencers. This involves building relationships with active users and getting them to submit your content

The rule for this is simple: Make your content absolutely relevant to the community AND the user’s personal interests. Respect their brand and only pitch content which improves their standing in the community whilst practicing tact and professionalism at all times.

3. Develop a Voting Network

This is a 'black-hat' method used by countless webmasters and bloggers to manipulate social platforms. Simply engage a group of friends, colleagues or others with similar agendas to register for the social website and collectively 'vote up' each other’s stories.

Some companies have built unethical business models based on paying random users to vote for specific stories. A network can, however, be useful for new and established social media users alike - if used discreetly.

Do voting networks work? Well yes they do but they are not long-term solutions. For example, communities may able to detect mass manipulation of stories and eventually regular users of the site will too! This can result in your domain being banned or your content ‘buried’ or even removed.

A Recommended Strategy for Beginners

I would recommend the sustainable route of building a strong social profile or pitching influencers; rather than using a voting network. If you do gain lots of traffic for your site the least you can do is participate as an active user in return.

I’ve found that an influencer profile can be extremely powerful, and an asset, when it comes to branding yourself, especially if you are in the business of selling services or consultation. Many opportunities arise when people are aware of your prowess in the social community.

When you're determined to build your brand online, the bottom line is establishing an influential reputation through a wide-focus social media site (like Digg) and have others seek you out for your knowledge and skills.