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Using Social Networking To Build Your List

There are several general social networking sites you can use to network with potential customers, put together a list of “friends,” post your videos, get backlinks, post a blog and more.

Some of the more well-known sites include:

Other general Web 2.0 sites that allow you to do some networking include YouTube, Yahoo! Answers, Squidoo, HubPages and similar social media sites.
The good thing about most of these sites is that even though they attract a wide variety of people, you can seek out niches by searching for keywords and seeking out people who are interested in certain types of activities.

You can also seek out (or create) groups, blogs and forums centered around specific interests like weight loss, extreme sports, music, etc.
But don’t stop with the well-known general social networking sites. There are plenty of niche sites that may not get as much traffic or have as many members, but the members are highly targeted.

Example: Dogster.com and Catster.com cater to dog and cat lovers, respectively. You can also find social networking sites in a wide variety of niches and markets including sites for moms (CafeMom), wine lovers (BottleTalk), fashion (GirlSense), hip-hop music (CrackSpace), travel (TravBuddy)… and almost any niche you can think of.

Note: Before you start using any of these sites to promote your newsletter, be sure to read the site’s terms of service. Some of these sites (such as MySpace) have terms that frown on and in some cases prohibit certain commercial activities.

Even though these sites differ in the small details, the overall idea is the same.

Namely, you join the site and network with others to build a list of “friends” who share your interests. As a marketer, you of course will be working to build a network of “friends” in your particular niche.

The longer you spend on a particular site, the bigger you can grow your friends list – and the more opportunities you’ll have to promote your site.

Many of these social networking sites allow you to post a “bulletin” to your friends, which is basically an internal mass email on the site. And of course many of these sites allow you to keep a blog on the site, which is yet another way for you to keep in touch with your market, promote your newsletter, etc.

As mentioned before, you need to tread carefully and stay within the terms of service when you start promoting yourself.

However, your goal is to move people from your list of friends to your newsletter list.

To do so, you need to give them a compelling reason (and a freebie) to convince them to join.

And, ideally, you should do this at every opportunity – do it on your main page, on your blog entries, and in your bulletins. Since many sites won’t allow you to outright market, you’ll need to treat these sites as you would your participation on a niche forum. That is, you provide good content… and drop a signature link at the end of your bulletins, personal emails, forum posts, blog posts and any other activity you engage in on the social networking site.

Quick Tip: The conventional wisdom (as described in this section) is to network on these sites to drive traffic and subscribers to your site. But here’s a thought…
Why not create your OWN social networking niche site?

You don’t want to go up against MySpace or Facebook. However, you certainly can compete in – and dominate – almost any small niche market. And in doing so, you’ll naturally build a list of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of prospects!

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About the Author:
This article was created by Tim Dodd, Head Trainer at 3dInternetMarketing.com. 3dInternetMarketing are fast building an excellent reputation showing online business owners where they can quickly & easily earn additional profits from their existing client base and how they can literally tap into an unending source of well qualified, eager to buy, new customers. To learn more visit www.3dInternetMarketing.com today.

Duplication Rights: You may copy and use all or part of this article for inclusion within any online or offline media on condition that you include the “About the Author” paragraph in its entirety.

This entry was posted on 20/08/2009 at 10:09 am and is filed under Contact Database, Niche, Lead Generation, Internet Marketing, Growth Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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