DISQUS

Yuri · 2 years ago

Submitting stories that the social site audience likes, not what you like. This way you not only build your reputation/friends faster, but find thet site you want to stay on.

P.S. I love Stumblee, too.

digitalnomad · 2 years ago

PS - And it all takes time to do. You have to be consistent and patient.

AndyBeard · 2 years ago

Sometimes instead of leaving a comment, think about leaving a review on stumbleupon. It can even take less time because you can just highlight an excerpt, but it is probably appreciated by the blog author more than something like "Great post" which I generally delete and spam.

I have found Blogrush to be about as targeted currently as The Good Blogs, and it is extremely good for discovery of new blogs and content, and those are the people who will appreciate it most.

I would like to think I have a 50% or higher new subscriber rate for every new blog I first Stumble.

Bengt · 2 years ago

Great post!
A correction, Xing is a networking site just like LinkedIn and not a people search engine. Personally I spend more time on Xing than on LInkedIn.

Jim "Genuine" Turner · 2 years ago

I just go to my friends' sites and networks and steal their friends.

Jim Kukral · 2 years ago

Jim Turner is a thief! Actually, wait, I have done that too.

Jayne · 2 years ago

This is really helpful!

I've been feeling so overwhelmed by the number of places I don't have time to post.

Great timesaving tips.

Susan Delz · 2 years ago

Hi Ben - This post was shared with me by Ann Handley of Marketing Profs in response to my Facebook question "Tell me how you are leveraging Facebook for your business? or is this all just for fun?"

Great thoughts on organizing the social media blitz--will definitely share with my team--and I look forward to your thoughts on the value of Facebook.

WTL · 2 years ago

Reading other blogs and commenting on them is certainly helpful - the hard thing I find is how to keep on top of all the blogs. My newsreader (NewsFire), lets me break my blogs into groups that I can check when I want - some are daily views, others are read weekly (or when I am procrastinating) etc.

If I read a blog post I want to comment on, but don't have time, I flag it within NewsFire for when I do have time.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

@Susan: Well that was nice of Ann. *smile*

Glad you enjoyed the post. I do want to talk more about Facebook and how to extract value out of social networks in general.

@WTL: I agree that tracking a lot of blogs is difficult. I've suggested in the past that every so often you wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. I've also suggested in the past that unless you're actively participating on a blog or getting regular value, you unsubscribe, even if that means you'll miss something. Generally I've found even if I don't read every blog out there in my field of interest, the important news bubbles to the top.

engtech · 2 years ago

My tricks:

Having a single start page:
http://internetducttape.com/2007/09/25/blog-mai...

Posting to delicious and stumbleupon at the same time:
http://internetducttape.com/2007/09/14/deliciou...

Doing weekly round ups from my saved delicious links (saves a day of writing)

Commenting is essential to building relationships to other bloggers though.

Tad Chef · 2 years ago

"Track who stumbles stories on your blog, befriend them". I doubt that it's the best way to deal with SU. Track them but don't befriend them all as SU does not count friends votes as much as those of strangers it seems.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Tad - First, I wouldn't necessarily befriend everyone. Befriend those that have similar tastes. Of course, since they stumbled your story, there's a good chance they have similar tastes.

As for the value of votes from friends or not - I can't say. I'm sure others have evaluated this in depth. What I would say is that there's other value in having SU friends beyond just their specific vote value. For example - you can share stories with them to encourage them to vote, you can communicate more easily via SU's in-house messaging tool to share tips, etc.

As well, I would look at the network effect of having more friends. If I have more friends, and by extension, more people stumble my content regularly, it's also reaching out to their friends and beyond, who watch those stumbles...

I think you have to value friends more than just the value of their voting power.

Mike · 2 years ago

Great post! I'm trying to figure out this social media thing and see where you could drown in all the sites that are out there. I keep hearing that social networks are great time-savers, but so far I'm spending time, not saving it.

Chris Gray · 2 years ago

You forgot to mention outsourcing your social media profile building activities ;)

No really, for me the key (as you mentioned) is focus. I constantly find myself wandering around aimlessly when I go to say, respond to a comment on MyBlogLog. The next thing I know, I am off on some tangent that has totally sidetracked my original task of simply answering a comment. You have some good advice here. I’m definitely going to give your 10 minute guide a shot (might give me some extra time to actually put a blog post together)!

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

@Mike: Social media sites as time savers? Who said that?!?! *chuckle*

That's definitely not the case. They take an investment to get a reward out of them (like pretty much anything.) And it's a slippery slope into spending TOO much time on them with minimal return. I think that's the biggest issue - people don't quite know what to get out of them, or how, short of "lots of friends" so they spend hours and hours accumulating useless friends. How you use your friends (which I know sounds bad, but makes sense) is key...

@Chris: Outsourcing your social media profile...hhhmmm...

Recently I saw a TV program about companies in Eastern Europe and Asia that will play your characters on video games for you (like Heroes) to power level them up, so you don't have to invest the time. Totally genius...not sure it applies to social media profiles though! *laugh*

Susan Delz · 2 years ago

Hi Ben - Been following the comments. You outed the elephant on the facebook / linkedin network, how should one use their friends? Any best practices, etiquette or details your readers should be aware of? Tips and for creating quality friends?

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Good questions, Susan. Not questions that can be answered in a simple Comment Box. I want to present some ideas on why to use social networks in the first place, benefits, their value, etc. and then maybe delve deeper into issues of etiquette, etc.

So stay tuned!

Personal Growth · 2 years ago

Great Post man i really liked it a lot it was very informative. And the points that you mentioned in it were also very good i liked it.

Eddie Baki · 2 years ago

Why just 10 minutes? All these activities sound like leisure. So take your time. Blogging, commenting, RSS feeds, Digg & co, voting on posts, collecting friends in the diverse networks... That is all non-productive work. Bottom line: How much turnover does all of that produce? Would not all that time be better spent seeking paying customers and getting a contract or job, nstead of doing all that "social media" stuff and starve?

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

@Eddie: Actually, I don't consider any of what I've described to be non-productive work. It's almost completely strategic.

Who said "all that social media stuff" doesn't bring in paying customers? In fact, I view it specifically FOR that purpose.

Online Presence :: Make Money · 2 years ago

Ben,

Thanks for link to my post. I appreciate it.

~Anuj

Sia · 2 years ago

The whole time I was reading this, I thought "don't forget to bookmark this !" and "gotta show this to my husband!" "Stop the madness indeed!" I shouted a little too loud (scared the dog). Slowly I found that simply organizing my time with an excel file (google docs) that it helps me track everything. Thank you for the post. Reminds us all that we are on the right track.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Hi Sia - thanks for stopping by and commenting. Hopefully you'll subscribe to Instigator Blog permanently and keep letting me know if I'm hitting the mark (or not!)

Fred Stopsky · 2 years ago

Thank you for the great resources and information. Do you have any suggestions for those who are not as technically inclined as others?

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Fred - Using social networks and social media is easy from a technical standpoint, but it does take some time to get used to. My suggestions would be to try one or two out, do some research (use Google or Google Blogsearch to search for best practices), and see what happens.

More specific advice would be dependent on your niche, goals, etc. I hope that helps!

Kalidasa · 2 years ago

I am starting a blog soon, and I thought just writing it would be a lot of work! There really is a lot more to it as I have been learning. Thanks for making what looked like a chore much easier. And, you gave a couple of links that will be very helpful for me.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

@Kalidasa: There's no shortage of advice out there for bloggers getting started. Read what you can, put together a plan for yourself, and you should do just fine.

Commenter · 2 years ago

The whole social media movement has made me slip a bit. For some reason I really cant get into the whole thing. However the article has cleared up a couple of things for me. Still have a ways to go before I get it.

RJacobsen · 1 year ago

Great post! I've been looking for someone to break down the whole social media thing to me, so that I can better understand many of the rules (unwritten or not) and which social media sites are the most beneficial. I will likely return to this page to read more from some of the others who you've linked to. Thanks!

Ben Yoskovitz · 1 year ago

@RJacobsen: Come back as often as you like! And make sure you jump off this article to all the links provided; there are tons of great resources out there.

Linda · 1 year ago

These are great tips. I also like the "start page" idea, I was going to ask you do you keep a bookmark toolbar or what to open these tabs every day. Start page sounds like a solution.

Do you know of a way to leverage Google Reader's social aspects? I've noticed that you can add friends and discover related feeds. Any tips for this?

orlandoproperty · 1 year ago

Thanks for the suggestions! I've been getting so overwhelmed lately that I've been falling behind on actually posting, while trying to delve into the countless sites that you've mentioned. Time to focus. Regarding the comment you made regarding wiping the RSS Reader slate clean and starting fresh...I love it!

Jon Wuebben - Content Rich · 1 year ago

Stumbled upon this article and really got a lot of use out of it. "Stop the madness" really does describe how overwhelming staying up with social media can sometimes feel. I have been trying to focus on one site at a time, in order to grow it. I think that's good advice. Definitely going to look into the start page and try your other suggestions. Thanks a lot!

Debbie McGrath · 9 months ago

Ben you are a great writer and this is a great article .... Can we post link to it for HR.com users.

Ben Yoskovitz · 9 months ago

Debbie - Absolutely, by all means feel free to republish the article. I'll email you directly.