Anyone who’s ever tried their hand at blogging knows that a blog is a worthless experience without readers. By now, it’s pretty obvious, you can’t just slap together some content, sit back and wait for people to come. There’s more to be done.

Yes. I’m talking about social networking and bookmarking. But guess what? Just posting articles through SocialPoster.com, and then putting your feet up is not the road to success, either. You must be an active
social poster.

#1 Join Social Network Niche Sites
You’ve written your blog and nobody’s coming. Go out and find social networks. This is the one case, when Google is a waste of time. It’d be much quicker, condensed, focused and productive to go to SocialPoster.com and use it as a checklist for social networking and bookmarking sites.

A word to the wise: Be relevant. If your blog is about business, don’t annoy the young, carefree girls at LipStick.com! They won’t appreciate it and they won’t read it. However, don’t assume that people don’t want to read your content, and don’t feel weird about tooting your own horn. That’s what these social sites are for. You give people the heads-up and if they like your stuff, they’ll rank you. Don’t be afraid of getting your content out there!

#2 Personalize your profile
I cannot stress this enough. The majority of people in social networks are anonymous, in a sense that other users have no clue who they are. They don’t have a picture, they didn’t fill out their bio and, most of the time, they aren’t very active. You can tell how serious a user is, by the effort they put into their profile. Also, some sites, like the BlogHer.com network, uses the words in your profile as tag-words. This means that if someone is doing a people-search (looking for people
with similar interests), they’ll be able to find you.

Your picture is your personal branding in this business strategy. I prefer to use my real face, and I prefer to use it across all the social sites, I use. In a sea of default icons your face will stick out. Some will like it and others won’t, but no one will forget it. (For a deeper look into the importance of a personalized avatar, I highly recommend the article “7 Reasons Why You’ll Click on Everything I Post“.)

#3 Make regular posts
Post as much as you can. Social sites are built on the posts its users make. They will, usually, reward active users with some kind of scoring system. Don’t be afraid to only post your own stuff. I know I don’t have the time to surf the net, find something cool, and post it to all my social networking sites. And frankly, if I found something cool, I’m probably going to write about it on one of my blogs, then I’ll make the effort to post it.

How, then, do you not come off like a marketing fiend? The Answer to that is in step number 4.

#4 Rank other’s posts, regularly
Every time you make a post, take the time to rank 5 other posts. This will balance out your own self-posting, may earn you new friends and gives your more active-user points.

#5 Manufacture friends
If you, regularly, do all first 5 steps, you’ve probably noticed a solid readership, trickling it’s way to your blog. If one of your goals is to make money from your blog, you need more than a trickle. This step and the following two will enhance your traffic substantially.

Friendships in social networking and bookmarking sites are seldom deep. All it takes to be a friend, in social sites, is to click a link. For many people it’s about getting their stories to the front page. For an innocent few, it’s about finding excellent content and like-minded people. If you’re reading this article, you are hardly innocent. What I do suggest is that you think about social networking as a give and take.

What I mean, when I say “manufacturing friends” is that you must click as many “add a friend” links as possible. You must accumulate “friends”, in order to really increase your readership. In most networks, clicking the “add a friend” link has two rewards:

1. The person is given a heads-up of your existence, via a message or e-mail.
2. Most networks have a “what my friends are doing” page, which updates simultaneously. This means, your new friend can follow your posts.

After signing up for a network and posting and ranking articles, for a couple of weeks, I start actively looking for friends:
1. The person is given a heads-up of your existence, via a message or e-mail.
2. Most networks have a “what my friends are doing” page, which updates simultaneously. This means, your new friend can follow your posts.

After signing up for a network and posting and ranking articles, for a couple of weeks, I start actively looking for friends:

1. I’ll search for groups that match my blog’s themes and keywords. For example: for my blog about pinups, I will start a search, using the phrases “pinups”, “pinup girls” and the like. In most cases, I probably won’t find anything, as this is an extremely small niche. I’ll usually widen my search to “pop art” and eventually “art”.
2. I’ll join all the relevant groups I find, as a result of my search.
3. I’ll befriend everyone in the group. The shortest way to do this is by clicking the “add to friends” link, in their profile (or something along those lines).
4. When people contact you (you’ll be surprised at how many people don’t), you must reply in a friendly manner- it’s called “networking”.

You may find this odd or dishonest, and you may feel like a pest. My theory is, however, that if you look for friends, in the niche you’re writing about, at a site where they are looking for content, then you actually did them a favor. Who knows, they might even become your biggest fan. All you did was let them know, you’re alive.

#6 Regularly Expand your social circle
Just like posting and ranking, the number of friends you have can ante up your activity points, in some networks. If you’re asking yourself, what the value of these credit points are, the answer is straight forward: The social site will make you more visible. Think about the top users links, that are usually place on the navigation bar, at the top of each page, or on the front pages of the social sites (like at StumbleUpon, or Netscape’s Propellor)

Now that you’ve accumulated a substantial number of friends, you must constantly expand it. There’s a saying, in business that a business that doesn’t grow- dies. This is true in every aspect of your business, including your marketing efforts, one of which is social networking.

My strategy is, again, the magic number 5. You made your post, you ranked 5 other articles, now, go out and make 5 new friends. This expansion shouldn’t take over 10 minutes per network. Usually I either add the people who wrote the articles I ranked, or my friends’ friends. Keeping it close to my original target market, is a smart and concise way to go about it.

#7 Test and Tweak
Testing is the sign of a good marketer. If you’re not testing results, you are leaving money on the table and wasting a lot of time, utilized better, any other way. Everything you do should be tested, including your social networking.

1. Once again, I‘ll explain how I do it:
Make sure you have a stats tracker installed. Any company that will give you reports is good. Usually one of the stats, in the reports, are referrals- meaning- sites that your readers came from.
2. Make a chart with a list of all the networking sites I’m a part of. Anytime someone comes from one of those sites I make a note of it. I try to keep track of a monthly, or weekly sum (depending of the amount of traffic to that specific blog).
3. By the end of the month I can tell if my efforts are paying off, or not. Sites that bring no traffic, no matter what I do- I chuck. Sites that bring in traffic I make it a goal to make them bring in more traffic.

Social networking sites are an excellent content sharing platform and they have the power to connect you with potential readers and customers. In a world, where traffic determines your conversions, you must acquire as many connections as possible. Don’t wait on the side-lines and hope someone notices you. Go out and manufacture yourself some friends.

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About the Author
Tali Shapiro is a freelance artist and writer, who learned the need for internet marketing, through a lot of bad personal experience. Now, after a few years of self-online-education and self-offline- discipline, she can pass on her wily experiences and worldly teachings
through the wonderful medium of blog. Catch up with Tali’s marketing exploits on The Marketer Review.