A lot of people are confused about social networking and how to treat their contacts. If you think about it, why would people visit your site just to buy products? Simply sending product information to people through Twitter or mail lists doesn’t make a good marketing plan. I’ve seen it happen and all it did was make me want to remove the person from my friend list.

Take a good hard look at what the name of your friends list is. That’s right, it says friends. So how do you make a friend out of a person you don’t even know at all? You do it by personalizing yourself. Make your brand a friendly brand. Make people get to know you by being open about who you are.

If you thought about who you are will turn people off from your niche then maybe you’re in the wrong one. For example, I’m a very political person and many of the people who think the same as I do love to make money. These two niche blogs go hand-in-hand so I blog about some politics on the blog. My thought is that I will attract others who think the same as I do and the people who don’t, well that’s okay because they might even think what I say is funny. I never flat out call names out to the people I disagree with because I do value their opinions even if it is different. Plus, if I did call them names then they might never come back.

An example? I make a joke on Twitter about dating and voting. A few people came around and said how the joke was funny yet we would never last as a couple because of their political standing. They did end up visiting my site and still subscribe to my tweets.

Let your readers know who you are. Be honest and tell them why you like what you are selling. Don’t be shy about it. It will make them want to come back again.

Are you still copying and pasting URLs to Twitter for social marketing because you can’t find the plugin that you want? If you own your own WordPress blog on your own domain there really is no reason to duplicate the efforts of your blog.

The WordPress plugin Socialite will help you get the traffic from the three major social networking sites by posting your latest blog updates automatically to Twitter, MySpace, and FaceBook. You will no longer need to maintain three individual plugs or do the posting manually.

Not only can you post your latest post, but you have the ability to tell others when your posts are edited. What I did not see that other similar plugs have is the ability to tell readers when you are writing a draft. For my needs that is fine because I scrap a lot of articles that my audience never sees.

What I would like to see form Socialite is the ability to update more than one Twitter, FaceBook and MySpace account. I would love to see this posted to the Twitter account for this blog and to my main blog account at geekmom. I am sure I have readers on geekmom that are not interested in Social Networking and SEO but would still like to update different Twitter accounts from one blog.

You can download Socialite at www.gilfether.com/socialite. It takes a few moments to setup as there are a few options, but ultimately it will run smoothly in the end and give you the ability to update the main social networking sites.

I can’t wait until they add more.

Added Note: One thing about Socialite that I wish I could change is the linking. Since Twitter only allows for 160 characters anything over a certain amount is redirected to another service such as tinyurl. I don’t want to show tinyurl links on my posts because people might think it is a worm or some other type of post and not go there. I’m hoping there is a change or some sort of work around similar to Akra’s Shorter Links modification. I’ll keep you updated if it works.

If you want your website to be noticed on search engines then your content all be related and this includes RSS feeds. If someone types in a search term such as telecommute jobs and your site is about weight loss and the search engine catches this then your site ranking just might be demoted a bit.

Search ranking isn’t necessarily how good your site looks. It isn’t about how many keywords you have that lead to your blog posts or pages. It is about how good our content is. Drop tagging multiple keywords just to get your site noticed could be considered spam.

If you blog, make sure that you have at least 3 to 4 paragraphs of well written content. Don’t drop kick keywords, but use the words that represent your content. If they happen to be popular keywords then great! You want people searching for your content not people searching for other topics. Make your posts at least 300 words or greater. Some people claim that 500 words is enough and some say it is too much. Put it this way: if it covers your topic without a lot of unnecessary blabbing and is content rich in terms that are related then it will work. It might not be overnight, but it will happen.

If you do post RSS feeds on your site do not copy the content. Use them as a source to help people find other sites with information. This means just post the title to the other feeds. Do not copy the content from the feed because you will be docked for copied content and possibly even sued by the actual owner of the content.

Using RSS feeds can be very useful if inserted correctly. Users might come back for them on your site and the titles might even get you better placement in the search engine if they’re related. Just use them wisely and you should be fine.

We’ve all heard about people who get their pages banned or deleted on MySpace, but why does this happen?

There are many different reasons for it, and some of them go unanswered, but one of the most important issue with social networking is the amount of people you’re inviting to be your friend. I’ve seen adds where people promise the world and tell others they can get 1,000,000 friends within a month and then less than a month later the client is complaining because the account is banned. Why is that?
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If you own a MySpace page and you want a lot of friends then I recommend making it easier for people to find the Add Friend button. By default the Add Friend button is on the left side of the page down toward the middle. This is where people will automatically look to add you. If the button is not there then you might be losing customers.

If you do design your page differently than the default and you move the Add Friend then make sure it can be easily found. The most obvious place will be somewhere near the original Add Friend button. The next best place is somewhere at the top. As most menu items are on the left side it would make more sense to place it on the left. I have seen it on the right with some templates, but it still took longer to find.

You also want to make sure that your design is easy to see. I’ve come across backgrounds and contact tables that make it horrible to find any text or buttons at all. If your page is too busy then people will be distracted by all the junk and quickly move away before they find your Add Friend button.

Make your design quick to load. Things that will make your site slow to load are too many images or images that are too large and poorly designed, images that are hosted offsite, a lot of widgets and other items–especially those that load offsite. If people need to wait to load all your items before they can even click on the Add Friend button they’re going to move on elsewhere rather quickly.

Your design should be compatible with all browsers. I can’t stress this enough. Windows and Internet Explorer are thankfully not the only options in the world. People use Mac OS, Linux, and other operating systems as well as FireFox, Safari, Gnome, and many others. Most of the others are based on Mozilla but you will still see some differences. If you do not have a machine that can run different operating systems, or it is a hassle to do so, you can check your page on a site like browsershots.org.

This is a blog/website combination that is made primarily for my current and future customers. A lot of the information will be used for this purpose.

I will also share information with people who wish to learn more about social networking and how to become a social networking butterfly so you can do it on your own if your time allows.

I’m not here to replace the time an owner spends socializing with others online. I am only here to assist the owners with adding friends and doing the mundane things needed so they can focus on socializing with their friends and doing the work they originally intended to do.

Please remember that social networks frown upon automatically adding friends. All my work is done manually. I charge a basic $10.00 for 300 adds per day. An Add is me requesting friendship. This should bring you 100,000 personally requested users in a little under a year. This does not include the users who are interested in your site because you are now friends with their friends–that is an added bonus.

Although I’ve been doing this for awhile, this is the first time I’ve setup a blog and shared my experience with others. Even if you’re looking for someone to help you socialize, the information on this site will help you understand the process and what needs to happen to get your name out there.

Please see the About page to learn more about what I do and how to contact me if you would like help with social networking.