On Today’s show I interviewed Danny Iny (@DannyIny) of FirePole Marketing about his new book Engagement From Scratch. A partial transcript will be up shortly thanks to FoxTranscribe.

Thanks to the following who supported today’s show financially.
Web Design Surgeons
Best Digital Storefront

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

I put together this list of social sharing plugins, dashboards, and tools for my series on generating traffic to your blog. Everyone knows the importance of sharing your content on social networks and bookmarking sites. But how can you organize all of that sharing, and engagement? Utilizing social media tools designed to help you, that’s how!

Here’s a list that took me hours to put together. As far as I know it’s the most complete list anywhere. Please check out episode #22 of the Online Business Hour podcast to learn more about what I think about some of these tools and how to use them.

This list is just that, a list. While I did comment on some tools that I have experience with it’s not meant to be a thorough review. Because of the size of this list I didn’t have time to add images, sorry. (I created the list in one of the most useful free programs I’ve ever used, WorkFlowy.) If  you found this post useful please share it!

• ShareThis http://j.mp/tLWnO2
  • A very popular plugin with lots of options, and nice design.
• AddThis http://j.mp/uds8Tp
  • Lots of options, nice design. One of the more popular plugins.
• rtSocial http://j.mp/uds8Tp
  • Completely unique build makes rtSocial the fastest loading sharing plugin by far. However, it only has provides sharing on Twitter and Facebook.
• SexyBookmarks http://j.mp/tOkcsM
  • A unique design makes Sexy Bookmarks very popular.
• ShareBar http://j.mp/sbB2PS
  • Sharebar adds a dynamic and fully customizable vertical box to the left of a blog post
• Social Share http://j.mp/si4CQH
• Tweet, Like, Google +1 and Share http://j.mp/rBp41X
• Social Share Love http://j.mp/uclodT
• Social Share Elite http://j.mp/t01Ovu
• Trackable Social Share Icons http://j.mp/rEYffz
  • Track the number of share clicks in Google Analytics. (Not the only plugin that provides this feature.)
  • Lot’s of unique button images!
• Social Toolbar & Social Toolbar Prohttp://j.mp/sbvajL
  • I have to confess, this plugin is pretty cool. I may switch to it. It creates a toolbar at the bottom of your page that loads fast, and is very customizable. The toolbar is not part of any ‘network’, nor does is it hosted on any other site. It’s a plugin completely controlled by YOU.
• Socializer!http://j.mp/rXOc89
  • Aims to be fast, and simple. (Over 30 social networks and bookmarking sites.)
• Simple Social Bookmarkshttp://j.mp/vna9Gs
  • Extreme flexibility, but requires some code knowledge if you want to get deep.
• Social Sharing Toolkit http://j.mp/t77SqB
• Simple Social Sharinghttp://j.mp/u1ygR4
  • You guessed it…simple.
• Spread.lyhttp://j.mp/sdnbid
  • Spread.ly monetizes social sharing
• Social Sharing Toolkit http://j.mp/t77SqB
• Twitter@Anywherehttp://j.mp/vijYUz
  • This plugin is a must have as far as I’m concerned. Allows you to plugin cool twitter developer functions into your WordPress site with ease.
• Tweet Old Posthttp://j.mp/rOwOYx
  • Another must have plugin. It randomly tweets your old posts for you.
• Twitter Goodies http://j.mp/spY6SH

• TwitterFeed http://twitterfeed.com/
• Simple Facebook Connect http://j.mp/v11U0a
• Sociable http://www.sociable.es/facebook-connect/
• Add Link to Facebook http://j.mp/uIWX3l
• PagePressApp http://j.mp/s1dzLQ
• Facebook AWD All in one http://j.mp/uYfG4V
• Facebook Page Publish http://j.mp/tKt9Ad
• Send to Twitter http://j.mp/uShctI
• YOURLS: WordPress to Twitter http://j.mp/w2LvPi
• Twitter Goodies http://j.mp/spY6SH
• Wp Post to Twitter http://j.mp/s7Bypb
• WP to Twitter http://j.mp/rRCY5U
• Little wp to twitter http://j.mp/simmqI

• MarketMeSuite*FREE* http://www.marketmesuite.com
  • This is my favorite FREE social media dashboard. I love that it comes with a page already set up with all of my lists! Its search and auto-reply functions are great, and it allows for dead simpl scheduling of twitter posts at multiple times into the future! (Did I mention it’s free?) Look out for version 4 coming early 2012. It’s AMAZING! Here are some screen shots from the (very) private beta.

  

  

  • Hootsuite *FREE & PREMIUM* http://hootsuite.com/
  • I used to be a premium member but since I started using the MarketMeSuite I dumped Hootsuite. (I can do more with MarketMeSuite for free.)
• Seesmic*FREE & PREMIUM* http://www.seesmic.com
  • Limited in functionality, but much faster since the last time I used it. I used to us it (2009-2010′ish). I remember it launched as a video sharing app back in the day. Anyway, it’s gotten better, but still doesn’t hold a candle to MarketMeSuite. One of the reasons why is because it’s scheduling functionality is very limited and it has no auto-reply functionality. Still, it’s simple, fast, and prettier than it used to be.
• Tweetdeck*FREE* http://www.tweetdeck.com
  • Everyone knows about TweetDeck. Limited functionality, and clunky in my opinion.
• Bottlenose*FREE* & *NEW* http://www.bottlenose.com
  • Bottlnose is a really cool social dashboard that’s focused on filtering out the noise, and helping you find the conversations you want to engage in. Limited automation functionality though. Totally worth signing up for and checking out! There are a tone of special filtering options. You can save your specialized filters in your sidebar similar to MarketMeSuite v4.
• Brizzly*FREE* http://brizzly.com/
  • I’ve had a brizzly account for a long time. In fact, I think I have two. Anyway, I never got into Brizzly. It’s very pretty, offers a couple of useful features, but doesn’t provide full “dashboard” functionality and automation settings.
• NetVibes*FREE* http://netvibes.com/
  • I don’t know what to say about NetVibes. I’ve had an account with them for years but couldn’t log in. The pages wouldn’t load when I attempted a facebook login. Anyway, I’m not even sure what they’re doing is a proper social dashboard. You can create a “dashbard” very easily and it automatically aggregates tons of social and search data based on your dashboad’s keyword. It’s fairly messy though since the stream of posts contains lot of duplicates. Worth taking a look at, but I know I won’t be using it.
• Gist *FREE* http://gist.com/
• Xobni *FREE & PREMIUM* http://www.xobni.com/
• Nimble *FREE & PREMIUM* http://www.nimble.com/
• Media Funnel*FREE & PREMIUM* http://mediafunnel.com/
  • I’ve never tried it, and I don’t think I will.
• SproutSocial*PREMIUM w/ Trial* https://members.cj.com/member/publisher/other/getlinkdetail.do?adId=10873402&ispopup=true#null
  • Very popular premium social media marketing dashboard. Worth signing up for the trial if you’re looking for a premium solution.
• ArgyleSocial*PREMIUM* http://argylesocial.com/
  • Popular premium social dashboard.
• Sendible*PREMIUM* http://sendible.com/
  • I’ve never used it. Starts at $ 9.99/month with limited options. Options increase along with the price up to $99.00/month.
• Threadsyhttp://www.threadsy.com/
  • I’ve not been able to sign up for Threadsy yet. Every time I try I get an error pages saying they’re over-capacity.
• SpredFast*PREMIUM* http://spredfast.com/
  • Not too familiar with them. They don’t have a free trial.
• Strongmail*PREMIUM* http://www.strongmail.com/
  • Obviously focused on mail, but also contains a social component.
• Wildfire*PREMIUM*
  • Focused on interactive campaigns (e.g. sweepstakes, contests, give-aways, incentive-based surveys etc). Love by many.
• CoTweet*PREMIUM* http://j.mp/tBEUjk
  • A popular premium dashboard. You have to contact sales to get demo. I hate it when businesses do that. (It sort of looks like Hootsuite)
• Sprinklr*PREMIUM* http://sprinklr.com/
  • Enterprise level social media dashboard. (That’s what they say anyway.)
• Jungle Torch*PREMIUM* http://www.jungletorch.com/
  • Includes SEO tools.
• Trackur*PREMIUM* http://www.trackur.com/
  • Focused on Monitoring.
• Tracx *PREMIUM* http://tra.cx/
• Social Report *PREIMUM* http://www.socialreport.com/
• SMINetwork *PREMIUM* http://sminetwork.com/
• Unilyzer *PREMIUM* http://unilyzer.com/
• Swixhq *PREMIUM* http://swixhq.com/
• Ubervu *PREMIUM* http://www.ubervu.com/
• Social123 *PREMIUM* https://www.social123.com/
• Voziq *PREMIUM*http://www.voziq.com/

• SocialMention http://socialmention.com/
• Addict-o-Matic http://addictomatic.com/
• Trend Spotter http://trendspottr.com/
• NetVibes http://www.netvibes.com/

• BufferApp *FREE* http://www.bufferapp.com
• Buffer automatically sends out your twitter posts at the best times of day. Use the Chrome extension and you’ll find that it’s so easy and effortless you’ll forget to mention in your blog post about twitter automation tools! (Yeah, that’s what I did.) I use buffer every day.
• TweetAdder *PREMIUM* http://www.tweetadder.com
  • Very popular! Can get you lots of followers. Gan also get you banned if you’re not careful.
• Social Oomph*FREE & PREMIUM* http://www.socialoomph.com/
  • A full featured suite of automation goodness.
• Twuffer*FREE* http://twuffer.com/
  • Exists for one reason: to schedule future tweets.
• Future Tweets*FREE* http://futuretweets.com/
  • Self explanatory.
• Twaitterhttp://www.twaitter.com/
  • Scheduler

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

I want to thank David Winchell (@golfwinch) for reviewing the show in iTunes. Check out his podcast over at Stocks and Golf Podcast. He’s also on Google+.

I will be interviewing Danny Iny from Fire Pole Marketing pretty soon so look out for that show!

Here’s a partial transcript of the show:

Thanks to the following people for supporting today’s show financially:

Great Host Network

Prescription Drug Card

Frederick Gomes at the Web Wis Shop

Seth Solomon at Success Pump

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

If you don’t write a great headline don’t expect a lot of traffic. Even good headlines only get about 2 out of every 10 potential readers to click. Sure, there are other factors influential in determining whether someone will click on your headline, but writing good headlines is essential.

Since this is part of our series on generating traffic through social media our focus is somewhat oriented towards sharing headlines on social bookmarking sites, and networking sites. In some cases the headlines you share on these sites may differ slightly from the actual headlines of your blog posts or other content. Since these tips and examples are based on effective copy writing in general they will also be helpful on sales and squeeze pages.

14 Tips for traffic generating headlines

These tips and examples relate not only to headlines, but also to summaries and status updates used when sharing your content on social media sites.

• Your headlines should be attention getting.
• Your headlines should arouse curiosity.
• You headlines should be focused on benefits.
• Your headlines should make an offer, or promise.
• Your headlines should be simple, short, and punchy.
• Your headlines should be focused on your reader. (You, Your, You’re etc.)
• Your headlines should contain superlatives. (e.g., easiest, fastest, etc.)
• Some of your headlines should utilize a hot, or popular, topic.
• Some of your headlines should contain, or answer, a question.
• Some of your headlines should contain a qualifying factor (See “Only For…”)
• Some of your headlines should contain urgency.
• Some of your headlines should anticipate a positive outcome. (See “Congratulations”)
• Some of your headlines should contain commands.
• Some of your headlines should contain calls to action.

52 Powerful Words for Headlines

Of course, knowing that you need to write great headlines doesn’t help. If you’re anything like me you need some inspiration. Well, you’re in luck.

31 Examples of Headlines that get traffic

These examples are based on some of the most popular articles at some of the the most popular websites online.

“The Ultimate Guide…”

Posts that cover everything are always popular. Remember, if you’re creating an ultimate guide make sure you deliver. Impress your first-time readers and they will subscribe and return.

“21 [whatever]…”

“21 ways/reasons/tips/secrets…” – It’s a little ridiculous how well these headlines sell. Any number will work, but some numbers work better than others. Sex up your number with a reference like “The Seven Deadly Sins of Deal Hunting”, or “The Ten Commandments of Online Shopping.”

“The #1…”

“The #1 reason/tip/secret…” If it’s the #1 tip it must be important, right?

“The [Pop-Culture Icon] Guide to…”

I’ve never been a big fan of these headlines because I’m not one for pop-culture, but I’m sure I would find them more attractive if I was a fan. An example of this sort of headline is “The Simpsons Guide to Family Life.” You may consider referencing pop-culture events in your headline.

“How to…”

Because everyone wants to know how to do something. How-to articles are always very popular.

“Is [whatever] Really [typical assumption made about whatever]?”

Examples: “Is the Road to Hell Really Paved with Adverbs?” “Do Rich People Really Create Jobs?”

 ”Who Else…”

This is a great little headline because it not only speaks to a need, but it also makes a connection between you and your reader. However, if you don’t foster that connection in your post you’ll lose it quickly. Make sure you follow this headline up with some personalization.

“The Secret…”

Everyone loves secrets. Make sure your content lives up to the headline. Remember that you’re writing to impress people so that they come back to your blog again and subscribe to your newsletter, feeds, media, etc.

Example: “The Secret to Being A Successful Salesman”, or “The Secret To Great Spaghetti.” If you don’t feel like you have a full blown “secret” you can always use, Little Known Tricks for…. Another effective word is the word “key”. “7 Keys to…”

“The Art of…”

“Less powerful than The Secret, but it still works.”

“How [influential name] [did something successful]“

“You get the idea. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of variations here. Example: “How Justin Bieber Broke Out And How You Can Too.”

“How [method or product] Helped [influential name]“

Remember that you don’t have to use an influential super-start in your industry, you can also use yourself as an example. This builds your credibility, and connection with your readers.

“Do [whatever] Faster”

The promise of speed. Here’s an example that’s used a lot: “How to Make Money Fast: 21 Tips for Making Money Sooner than Later.” A variation on this theme: “Quickly…”

“The Shocking Truth About…”

“Here’s another example of a headline for content that sometimes under delivers. Be sure you have a shocking truth, not a piece of common knowledge. Save the headline for explosive reports.”

“Say Goodbye to [problem]“

“Borrowed from classic ad copy the “Say Goodbye” headline, and its derivatives, speak to a common problem that your customers and clients want to get rid of. “Say Goodbye to Weeds.” Don’t forget variations like: “Get Rid of Foul Odors.”"

“Now you can…”

Another great promise with the added bonus of personalization, and freshness.

Sex

I’m a fan of appropriateness. I’ll just leave it at that. Here’s an example I found a while back, I thought was funny: “Full Frontal Nudity! (and other Tips For Writing Great Headlines)”

“…Only for [qualifying factor]“

This headline can be used in different ways. I already mentioned one example above. Here’s another idea: “Cosmetic Secrets (for Aspiring Make-up Artists)”, or “Cosmetic Secrets (for Advanced Make-up Artists). Adding a qualifying, or disqualifying factor heightens the sense of value.

“Why You…”

This is a great headline! It’s personal and it promises personal answers. This is a great alternative to typical numbered list posts. You can mash it up with a numbered headline as well. “21 Reasons Why You’re Not Catching Fish!”

“…You Can Be Proud Of”

Here’s another personal headline capturing the benefit of pride. Everyone wants to create something they can be proud of. Example: “Design a Business Card You Can Be Proud Of.”

“What [you/everyone] Should Know…”

Another great headline going back to the days of off-line content marketing when marketers would sell booklets titled: “What You Should Know Before Buying A [product, or service].” If you’re blogging as a way to draw traffic to your business website you should strongly consider a series of blog posts using this sort of title.

“Warning:”

The “Warning” headline can be a bit cheesy, so “Warning: Make Sure Your Content Doesn’t Under-deliver!” A compelling use of the Warning is in conjunction with some popular event, product, method, or service. Example: “Warning: Don’t Fall for These 3 Scams”, or “Warning: [computer virus] Is Spreading, Protect Yourself!” You can also use “Attention!:…”

“Congratulations…”

Another classic in ad copy. After the million, or so, pop-ups we’ve all seen congratulating us on winning a vacation I have to ask: is this headline still effective? Of course it is. However, I would suggest using it a bit more honestly, and creatively. Example: “Congratulations On Saving Yourself $1,000 Year With [product/method]!” There’s a big difference between the aforementioned example and “Congratulations You Just Won $1,000!” The difference is credibility.

“21 Simple Steps…” – “The Easy Way…”

Who doesn’t love simple steps? No body, that’s who. Providing simple, step-by-step directions is a great way to boost traffic. There are entire businesses built around simple steps. Make sure you content delivers, because (like you) I’ve read a lot of content under-delivering on this promise.

 ”Click Here To…”

This is a simple call to action. It’s used all over online marketing sales pages, blogs, etc. I wouldn’t use it as a blog post headline, but I would use it when promoting my blog post on social media. Example: Tweet: “Click Here To Learn How [successful name] Became The Best…”, or “Click Here To Learn Why Your Not Getting Leads!” Believe it or not, when ask for people to click here they [sometimes] do. You can also use other calls to action like “Call Now…”

“Sick of [problem]…[promise]?”

Problem, reaction, solution! Simple psychology. Example: “Sick of Being Tired? Check out our New Bed Selection!” Sometimes you don’t even need to promise a solution in the headline – you just need to hint at it. Example: “Tired of Losing Accounts? So Was I!”, or “Sick of Restless Nights? Do Something About It!”

“….Limited Time” – “Get it Now!”

Urgency is a great tact to take if the option is available. If you’re offering a sales price on an item then utilizing urgency in your call to action is required. You may also use urgency in your title if your content is for sale (e.g., you may make some content available for a limited time before it goes into your membership site.) If you’re writing about an urgent event, or situation, you may want to use similar language. “Buy A Winter Coat Before It Snows!” Whatever your reasoning for using urgency, you’ll find it effective.

“Announcing:” – “It’s Here…” – “At Last…”

These sorts of headings evoke a sense of freshness, and anticipation.

“The Truth About…”

Similar to previously mention headlines the Truth About headline evokes a sense of revelation, and credibility. Your promising to set the record straight. Example: “The Truth About Carbohydrates.”

“10 Lies About…”

Sort of a cross between the Warning and the previously mentioned Truth About. This headline is great at building a sense of controversy as well as correcting errors, and setting the record straight. Consider using: “10 Lies You’ve Been Told About…”

“Reasons Why…”

Here’s a popular headline often used with a numbered list, “21 Reasons Why You’re Gaining Weight.”

“Stop…” – “Do…” – “Don’t…”

These are command headlines. Stop, and Don’t, typically refer to a problem your potential traffic is having. Example: “Stop Losing Sales!” Headlines using Do often refer to something your potential traffic would love to accomplish. You can use just about any verb here: Win, Run, Write, etc. Follow them up with superlatives: “Run Faster!” The negative command would be “Stop Running So Slow!”

Remember that when you’re sharing your content on social networks you can write status updates, or summaries along with your posting. You also have the opportunity to change your headline a bit. Sometimes the headline you’ve used for your article, or blog post, is restricted for various reasons. You can use these traffic generating headline examples above to help you reword your headlines for social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon, and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+. You can also test different headlines by sending out tweets at the same time on two days. If you see a big increase after changing the headline in your tweet you may want to consider changing your headline.

When considering a headline it’s a great idea to do some keyword research. I highly suggest using the Scribe SEO tool! It will save you a ton of time and hassle by letting you do keyword research right in WordPress. But it does more than that. It also helps you optimize your content by grading your content based on SEO best practices. It also helps you promote your content and get back-links. Go check it out!

Finally, make sure you follow up your headlines used on social networks, with a great introductory paragraph in your content. You don’t want to send traffic to your website, or blog, just to lose it.

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

On today’s show I discussed 3 things: 1) Why Forrester research is wrong about the future of social networks. 2) A review of Headway Themes Framework. 3) 45 Traffic Generating Headline Tips and Examples. Of course, I also covered some news. And I said that it was Tuesday, December 10th during the opening of the show. In fact, it’s Saturday, December 10th. Oops.

If you would like to support the show and have your business, or website, promoted on every show please check out the benefits of contributing.

Here’s a partial transcript of my discussion of traffic generating headlines.

Thanks to today’s contributors:
Steffanie Lyons http://www.steffanielyons.com/
Seth Solomon http://successpump.com/
Doug Muraski http://blogcertified.com/does-the-auto-profit-machine-work
Mark Copeland http://mac52.chipin.com/furnace-for-a-friend
T Stewart http://empowernetwork.com/join.php?id=kash

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

On today’s show I interviewed Tammy K. Fennell (@tammykfennell), CEO of the social media marketing dashboard MarketMeSuite, about the concepts of social curation and the social inbox. I also covered a little news and continued the Blog Better series by looking at Generating Traffic Through Social Media Engagement.

If you would like to support the show and have your business, or website, promoted on every show please check out the benefits of contributing.

Here’s a partial transcript of the interview:

Adam: The reason I wanted to have you on this show was because I ran across this article that you wrote on social curation, which caught my eye, because I’m a big curation nerd, so I love the whole concept, and I love tools that help you curate. So I saw the article, read it, learned about the MarketMeSuite, which I hadn’t heard about before, and also the social inbox concept, which I do believe I’d heard about before. So, I wanted to have you on to talk about social curation, the social inbox concept, and then the MarketMeSuite, and how it’s going to provide functionality for those things. So, if you could, I’d love to just start by asking you to explain a little bit about social curation-what that is.

Tammy: Sure, so social curation I think it’s becoming incredibly important, because I think social media, social networks are becoming incredibly cluttered. So, when I look at social curation, because of the nature of MarketMeSuite and that it’s a business tool, I look at it from a business perspective. So, my article that you read was all about social media curation, because there’s a lot of places that businesses (small, medium, and even large businesses) can go to connect with their customers, but they have to be able to then manage what it is that they find. So, our emphasis and our turning point right now for MarketMeSuite in its current forms in social inboxes is really emphasizing that need to curate social needs, and I think we may have just cracked it you know, the way to really do it effectively, because there’s been – We’ve all been trying to figure it all out, and I used to run a small business and MarketMeSuite was born out of the fact that I felt there is a necessity for a way to turn essentially followers and fans into actual customers, viable leads.

Adam: Okay, how was lead curation done, how has it been done traditionally in terms of online businesses and social media marketing?

Tammy: Well, I think a lot of it has been awfully manual, and you’d be surprised. It’s amazing how many larger companies even just have a tiny social media department. So, you use the tools that are out there. You’ll even use TweetDeck for the Twitter side. You’ll go right into your Facebook page and engage with people, and I’ve heard of companies exporting things from Facebook or making spreadsheets–

Adam: Yep.

Tammy: –based on—

Adam: Yep.
Tammy: – people that are coming in, and potential customers, and then trying to siphon them off into your email funnel, and all those sorts of things. So, I think it’s been a slightly condeluded approach, because that’s just the way it is, just like when I first started doing MarketMeSuite, one of the emphasis I was doing was on location marketing and niche marketing. Because I was running an antiques and collectables business, so I was trying to find people on Twitter who were tweeting about potentially wanting—

Adam: Sure.

Tammy –to buy certain collections that I happened to have, so again, manual process. I was on search.twitter.com, which at the time wasn’t even owned by Twitter. It was like a third party that –

Adam: Right, yep, yep.

Tammy: – you know, and I was making these lists, then I had these Excel spreadsheets, then I was contacting people, and then I never really knew how replied to me, but it worked! I mean to an extent, it worked, and so I think that’s what people continue to do it even though it’s hard, because it’s cheap, but a fact – So, what we’re aiming to do is make it still cheap and easy to do, but more effective and just more manageable.

Adam: Right, absolutely. So, how does that relate to Social Inbox, and what is a social inbox?

Tammy: Sure, a social inbox — when MarketMeSuite right now is an Adobe era and my co-founder and CTO, Allen Hamlin we were discussing. We said we know we love Adobe era, but the time has come. We need a web version of MarketMeSuite and we hit a crossroads. We said we can rebuild exactly what you see on the Adobe era version, but just make it on the web, and have like two versions of the same thing, or we could see if now is the good time to approach it from a different way, and all of the sudden it dawned on Allen. He says “You know, I love MacMail.” Everyone knows email. Everyone understands it, the new person to social media —

Adam: Yep.

Tammy: – the old social media. They all know email. Email’s, you know that’s the one thing. I don’t know if there’s very many people left in this world without an email address. So, email is a concept that people are comfortable with. So, the Social Inbox arose from the fact that up until now dashboards tend to be very Twitter-centric, ours included. We are Twitter-centric and we have Facebook functionality and LinkedIn, but it’s always been Twitter was the lower hanging fruit. It’s easier to develop for us. So, pretty much people develop for it and then try to fit everything else into the Twitter model. So, the Social Inbox is the idea that if you take the email approach, there’s no network bias. It’s a sandbox square and you can just call in leads, call an engagement, and all do it from one uniform place, where it just makes sense. So, that you could just create a filter like you would a smart mailbox in MacMail or Outlook, or even in Gmail and you can have the most relevant things to you come through first…..

End Transcription

Special thanks to Happy Skinny Me and The Black Bat for supporting today’s show!

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

Generating traffic through social media engagement is an important element of any traffic generation strategy. One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make when marketing their blog on social networks is to just start posting links to their blog, or their sales pages, on twitter ten times a day hoping that someone will click on their link. However, social media doesn’t quite work that way.

If you’re a business blogger hoping to bring people to your sales page, squeeze pages, etc., it’s often a better idea to engage potential leads on twitter by first offering them some valuable content related to your business, or offerings, and their interests. If you’re a blogger who’s blog is your business then you’ll find it much easier since your content is often your sales page too. Regardless of the situation you’re in I think you’ll find this partial list of ideas for generating traffic through social media engagement helpful. This list will focus on intentional engagement on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Use social media for conversations

You should focus on using social media for conversations not for ad spots. You’re joining a conversation not an ad network. Conversations will help you build an audience interested in sharing your content, thereby increasing your overall traffic.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t promote yourself, or your brand, but that you should do it in a way that is conversational and helps others as much as it helps you. In the end, you don’t want to looks selfish. Here are some ways to avoid looking entirely self-serving:

• Mention others in your twitter posts, even when promoting your own brand.
• Thank your followers often and mention them by name.
• Promote your partners.
• Provide added value through free content that your followers will appreciate.
• Keep a list of those ‘closest’ to you and find ways to promote them when it makes sense for your brand.

Post social media updates at effective times

If you’re posting updates in the middle of the night no one is reading them – unless your niche is insomniacs or something (not to make light of that condition). Make sure you post updates – particularly updates that contain links back to your website – at the most effective times of the day. What are the best times? The following infographics will help you determine the best times.

Remember to keep in mind your market niche, and demographics. If a demo you’re trying to reach is using twitter at 1:00am then schedule your tweets for 1:00am. Keep timezones in mind when scheduling tweets as well.

Here are some tools to help you schedule your posts.

• Buffer
  • Buffer makes it easy by automatically scheduling your posts for the most effective times. You can also customize your buffer schedule.
• MarketMeSuite
  • The MarketMeSuite is my favorite free social marketing dashboard based on my sneak peak at version 4 coming in early 2012. You can schedule posts, and a lot more!
• Hootsuite
  • Hootsuite is a very popular social media dashboard. I’ve been using it for a while now and it makes scheduling posts very easy through its browser plugin. http://ow.ly/7Sk0P
• Tweetdeck
• Tweetdeck let’s you schedule posts to your social networks too.

Yes, I know there are others. Feel free to mention them in the comments!

Write great copy

If you’re going to convince people to visit your website you need to pay attention to how you’re writing. Especially when you only have 140 characters with which to convince. Here are just a couple of suggestions. I don’t have time to delve into copy writing here, so this will have to suffice.

Grab your readers attention quickly in your social posts, status updates, etc. You only have one, or two, sentences.

Try asking a question representing the common frustrations of those your’re targeting. “Are you tired of cooking in sticky pans? Check this out!” If you’re responding to someone complaining about their sticky pan, then forgo the question and make it personal. “Yeah, I hate sticky pans too! I use this now, works much better…” (these are obviously short for Twitter’s sake, but you get the idea.) You may also present some sort of problem to which you promise a solution. “Stop spending hours cleaning super sticky pans.” Again, you may want to focus on sharing helpful content, and growing your audience rather than making a sales pitch to every one who uses the words “sticky pans” on twitter, or posts about their sticky pans on Google+. Sales pitches may not go over well depending on the audience. Be sensitive. In stead of linking to a sales page link to your blog article with 5 tips on preserving non-stick pans. The article on your website should have plenty of pathways to your sales pages. Again, this is much easier for bloggers who’s content is their product.

Keep your sentences simple. KYSS. (I just made that up.) Don’t over complicate things with wordy posts. Keep it simple and link back to your blog.

Along those same lines, you’ll want to get rid of non-important elements. Save the in-depth content for your blog posts.

If you’re funny you’ll definitely want to try your hand at writing some humorous copy. People love sharing funny social media posts,  and humor draws people in.

Consider doing some keyword research if you’re not sure which phrases to use. Remember that sometimes words used by industry insiders differ greatly from those used by your average readers, or customers. Do searches for phrases used on social networks to find out how they’re being used. Use Google’s adwords tool to find out what terms related to your market are being searched for.

If you’ve placed ads on Google or Facebook that have proven successful you may want to borrow form that ad copy. You can also borrow form the copy of your competition. Either way you should be sure to test your copy and make changes as needed.

Repeat your tag line

Repeating your tagline is often overlooked. Over time people will begin to associate your brand name with your unique selling proposition, or brand’s story. (Check out my episode with @TeaSilvestre to learn more about creating an addicting brand story .)

Listen and Respond

Find out who is talking about your brand, offerings, or market niche, and respond to them appropriately. Send them useful information related to their post. Again, if you’re selling products, don’t send them to your sales page right away. Send them to some of the useful content on your blog. Your content pages should make it easy for them to find your sales pages.

Run searches on keywords related to your brand, or niche, using any number of tools, including previously mentioned social media dashboards. Another great tool is Social Mention. If you’re looking for a chrome plugin for realtime twitter search and response try TwitterWatch. You may also want to use Google Alerts – I love them.

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

In today’s episode I interviewed The Word Chef, @TeaSilvestre, on creating an addicting brand. And shared a tip on generating traffic from your social media profile pages. I also mentioned some news stories and the release of a new version of the killer Headway Theme Framework,

Check out Tea’s five week seminar on creating an addicting brand coming in February.

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

I grabbed 183 traffic generation tips from pros who’ve been good enough to shared their secrets. The following list represents many of the best of these tips, and I’ve included profiles and links to the aforementioned pros who’ve shared their lists online. Of course, some of their lists contained duplicates, so I took those out along with suggestions I thought were not-so-hot.

The list is not in any particular order. You’ll note that a number of the suggestions are SEO tips and so they will generate traffic indirectly through better rankings in search results.

Over the next couple of months I will organize these tips, and start discussing them on the podcast in much more detail. Until then, enjoy this list and if you have any questions hit my up on twitter @adamsaverian

Here’s the world’s largest list of traffic generation tips

In no particular order

• First, build your blog on a solid CMS: WordPress, Joomla, Blogger
• Host your blog on your own doman
• Build a brand
• Build an email list
• Write a regular newsletter
• Submit your blog to these directories http://j.mp/szcuB1
• Blog as a team. Create or participate in a carnival or blog tribe. Link, share and comment on each others posts. (From Word Carnivals)
• Be among the first to write something insightful about a news worthy topic
• Post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.
• Provide real value in your content
• Make your content controversial (sometimes)
• Give your best content away for free
• Optimize your blog for better search engine rankings
• Use Tags on your posts
• Install a translator plugin
• Use smart internal linking
• Target long-tail keywords with lower competition in search engines
• Write and give away an eBook
• Comment on other blogs

Some of these tips were originally shared by Darren Rowse of Pro Blogger. He’s considered to be one of the worlds leading experts on blogging so I think he knows a thing, or two, about traffic. I’ve been following Darren for years. I don’t remember when I started reading his blog, but it was a long time ago. His traffic generation tips are located here. He’s on twitter at @problogger.

• Add social media sharing buttons to your blog
• Ping search engines and aggregators like Technorati
• Update your website design, and get yourself listed in a design article/blog post.
• Limit advertising, initially, so that you don’t drive people away
• Sign up at BlogEngage.com to connect with other bloggers and get your articles listed
• Buy advertising
• Run a pay-per-click campaign
• Swap ads with another blogger or website
• Create and give away a video course
• Submit your content to stumble upon, digg, dilicous, pinterest, etc.
• Make a round up of all of your archives in a particular category
• Create a better user experience on your blog
• Use h1, h2, h3 tags in your posts
• Jump on the chance to be interviewed in writing, audio, or video
• Interview other bloggers in writing, audio, or video
• Introduce yourself to other bloggers
• Combine all of your RSS feeds using RSSMix.com, or a similar tool, and submit it to an RSS aggregator
• Host webinars with other bloggers
• Release content at about the same time every day/week
• Utilize video and images in your blog posts
• Invite guest bloggers
• Submit your site to CoolSiteOfTheDay.com
• Provide search engines with an up-to-date sitemap
• Make youtube videos
• Contribute to Wikipedia
• Create a hub for your blog at hubpages.com
• Start a podcast

Next up, is Tom Ewer of the Leaving Work Behind blog. He recently published an article at WPMU.org titled 50 Tips To Increase Traffic To Your Blog. He writes about his own online businesses and is really transparent about his tactics. He even provides income reports on his site. Follow him on twitter @tomewer.

• Bold, highlight or italicize some of your keywords
• Write snappy, short, keyword rich titles
• Answer timely relevant questions (keep your finger on the pulse of your niche)
• Use Alt Tags for images
• Turn your blog posts into PDF docs and share them Scribd, Docstore, and similar sites.
• Write list posts
• Find and write about
  unique

  news in your niche (don’t post what everyone else is posting)

• Get into guest blogging
• Use animoto to create a killer animated slideshow and push it everywhere
• Join a forum
• Attend conferences for networking opportunities
• Handout business cards
• Use Odiogo to turn your blog into a podcast automatically
• Put out a press release
• Put your URL on everything
• Make stickers, bumper stickers, etc., post them, and give them away
• Speak at relevant events
• Focusing on building your Community
• Answer questions on YahooAnswers, Quora, etc. (Ad a link to your profile, or mention your site in your answer.)
• Use Feedburner
• Add your URL to your email signature
• Advertise on eBayClassified
• Always link to your blog in your online profiles
• Use friendly URLs

Rand Fish is the CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz one of the most helpful SEO resources in the known universe. SEOmoz provides a community for search engine optimization professionals and do-it-yourselfers along with an acclaimed toolset for SEO and social media monitoring. If you’re looking for an authority in SEO then look no further. Rand is also known for his great weekly SEO sessions known as Whiteboard Friday. Read his post on traffic generation here, and follow him on twitter @randfish.

• Join the comluv.com network
• Design and sell products on CafePress, Zazzle, and any number of other similar companies
• Write an ad for your blog on Craigslist.com
• Comment on related videos on YouTube
• Take advantage of bumps in traffic by pushing out content fast
• Let your analytics data tell you what’s working and duplicate those efforts
• Create Squidoo Lenses
• Create free pages at About.me, LookUpPage.com, and similar sites
• Follow people on twitter
• Create a page on 43things.com about your blog and your goals
• Submit your site to BlogCatalog.com
• Join your local chamber of commerce
• Start a meetup
• Launch a conference
• Use your blog’s name as a username
• Buy an ad in your local news paper
• Host a blog contest
• Engage on facebook pages and mention facebook pages in your own updates
• Create a Google+ brand page
• Submit articles to EzineArticles
• Do keyword research
• Utilize bread crumbs and related articles
• Come up with a great April Fool’s prank for shot at going viral
• Write about other blogs
• Link to other bloggers, if you want them to link to you
• Comment on another (related) blog
• Be yourself, use your own unique voice

Corbett Barr is the fonder of Think Traffic home of Traffic School and a brilliant resource for anyone serious about improving their blog, or website, traffic. Barr has excellent content you’re crazy for not subscribing to. Follow him on twitter @CorbettBarr and @thinktraffic.

Well, I hope you found some useful tips that will help you increase traffic to your blog (or website). I definitely ran across some suggestions that were new to me. Don’t forget that over the next few months I will be looking at these tips in more detail on my podcast. I will discuss how to implement them, and some helpful resources and tools to use. So be sure to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, or anywhere else using the RSS feed

Add a traffic generation tip of your own

Did I miss a tip you think is worth mentioning?

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour

In today’s episode I interviewed Ruth Burr (@ruthburr) about link prospecting via social media. I also discussed demographics and traffic generation strategy along with some news. Ruth Burr is the senior manager of search marketing at GameHouse.com. She loves SEO, PPC, quality content and grilled cheese sandwiches – who doesn’t love grilled cheese sandwiches? On Saturday I will get neck deep in traffic generation tips. Until then, enjoy the show! The transcript will be available tomorrow!

Find more great content at the Online Business Hour