Social Media sites have become an integral part of online marketing and has made the online marketing process and traffic generation much more easier. Social Media sites includes social networking and social bookmarking sites, which are mainly based on Web 2.0 technologies. To have an excellent social media profile one must be hard working and would be willing to spare time on these sites, growing the network, reading and appreciating others stuffs. In social media sites, you are able to interact with the other users through sharing and participation. I am also a Social Media addict and is a member of various Social MEdia Sites. Here I would like to share a few Social Media sites that I find more important.
1)Digg
Digg is the most popular social bookmarking site where you are able to post interesting articles from the net. If the articles of news that you are posting is of great interest, it would be getting more votes. Once it gets a certain amount of vote (Diggs) in a particular period of time, you post would get into the most popular pages. Once you post gets on to the most popular pages, the site which contains the submitted article or news is bound to get a huge amount of traffic. Since Digg is too sensitive avoid doing spammy stuff and creating multiple accounts from the same domain, as your Digg account, your IP adress and even your website may get banned from Digg.
2) StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is another interesting social media sites, where you are able to submit interesting articles and get traffic based on the interest it generates among the other users. In Stumbleupon your post can get an upvote (Thumbs up) or a down vote (Thumbs Down) based on its quality. In StumbleUpon also you have to maintain a good network which contains users of similar interest as you. You can also Join certain groups, which suites your interest and requirements. StumbleUpon is said to derive quality traffic with lower bounce rate and is very popular among social media enthusiasts.
3)Twitter
Twitter is another famous social media site which is growing at a rapid pace. Twitter is actually a microblogging social media site, where you can share your stuffs with a character length which is limited to 140. Twitter has emerged as a powerful social media tool and is also know for generating high quality traffic. More and more users are registering for Twitter and many companies and Organization has found Twitter as an effective tool for marketing and lead generation.
4)Mixx
Another social bookmarking site, which is based on voting up / voting down, some what similar to Digg. Even though not as popular as Digg, it is soon carving a niche for itself in the social media world. It also has the popular section, where an article / news is displayed after it has attained a certain number of votes and user comments. Mixx has the options of creating and joining groups and communities, which helps in getting votes and traffic. This site also derives quality traffic to the site, but requires constant work and participation to build a reputable profile.
5)Twine
Twine is the latest Social Media site that I have started using and have found it to be extremely good for quality traffic generation. Twine also requires you to build a good network and regular participation to stay afloat in the competition. If you have a good network you would be able to share and bookmark good stuffs among your network. In Twine you have the facility to create and Join groups, which would prove to be a major source of traffic generation.
Twitter is one of the most popular micro blogging and social media site, which is growing at a rapid pace. A lot of individuals and organizations are using Twitter in order to enhance their sales and marketing. It is also effective in brand building. Twitter is a social media site where you can express your views and thoughts in 140 characters. You can also share links along with your thoughts. A lot of tools are available which makes the usage of Twitter more smooth. I have been trying a lot of tools and each day many new tools emerge, which are simply superb. I would like to share some important Twitter tools that I have found useful in managing Twitter accounts.
1. Twitturly
Twitturly is another tool for managing Twitter account and has some similarity with the famous social bookmarking site Digg. Twitturly actually tracks the URLs around Twitter and provides a quick real time view of what people are talking on Twitter. Each time when someone tweets a URL in Twitter, Twitturly takes note of this URL and gives a vote for each Tweet that URL receives by different users. The more votes a URLs get in the last 24 hours, the higher the chances of ranking higher on to the top 100 of Twitturly.
2. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a desktop softare which helps in managing your Twitter profile efficiently. Tweetdeck displays all your Twitter network activities such as the Tweet made by your friends, direct messages and Replies. It also helps in performing advance searches on the overall Twitter networs, your friend’s tweet etc. This tool is one of the best Twitter tool that I have found out. TweetDeck help in customizing your Twitter experience with columns, groups, saved searches and automatic updates helping you to effortlessly stay updated with the people and topics you care about.
3. Twhirl

Twhirl is also another Desktop software for Twitter, which is based on Adobe Air Platform. It connects to your Twitter account and sends notification for new messages and tweets. It also provides you with options such as retweet, reply etc. Twhirl helps in improving your Twitter experience and offers various configuration options to enhance your Twitter management.
4. Splitweet
Splittweet is aimed at offering Tweet services for those who needs to use multiple Twitter account at the same time and send Tweets through them. This is an online tool and free to regsiter. Once registered you can add your multiple Twitter accounts and send Tweets Via them together with one single step.
5. Huitter
Huitter is auseful Twitter tool which helps in the mass unfollowing of those people who are not following you back. It is an online tool and is free to use. Huitter helps in cleaning your Twitter account by removing unwanted users in your list and make your Twitter account more effective.
6. Twellow
Twellow is an online Yellow page for Twitter account, which helps you to categorize and find usrs based on located, profession or subjects of interest. It is free and easy to register and is very helpful when you need to find users belonging to a particular section, group or geographical location.
7. JustTweetit
Justtweetit is an online directory of Twitter profiles, which helps you to find users of having similar interests, and to find and connect with them on Twitter. YOu just have to register and enter your Twitter details so that other users can find you easily. This tool is very much handy when it comes to selecting friend/followers based on religion, country, occupation, language etc.
8. TwtrFrnd
This interesting tool helps to find out the common followers between any two Twitter accounts. This is also helpful when you need to find out the followers of a strong Twitter profile. Just enter the two Twitter usernames into TwtrFrnd. This is also an online tool and you just need to register for free and avail the options to enhance your Twitter profile.
9. RetweetRank
Retweetrank is another online Twitter tool which lets you find the Tweet rank of any twitter user. With the rank, latest retweets of the user are shown and an RSS feed can also be grabbed for the same. Monitoring retweets can provide you with a better understanding of audience to the originator while others can see the most interesting tweets of a user. The top ranked twitter users, who have been most retweeted recently, are listed in the leaderboard. You can know more about this tool at Retweetrank.
10. Twittangle
TwitTangle is a free service that helps reduce the mess of having too many friends on twitter. Twittangle allows you to rate and tag your friends and then filter your timeline to help you easily find the tweets that are most important to you. You can also create custom groups of your followers and filter you timeline by that group. So get ready to use Twittange
Site overlay is another interesting feature of Google Analytics, which enables us to get a view of the overall visitor navigation stats on your site. It gives an idea on how the visitors interact and navigate once they enter your website. The site overlay option is available under the “Content” section of you Google Analytics dashboard. When you click on the the ‘Site Overlay’ link you would be taken to a new page which display the home page of your website. In this page you can see small progress bar over every link in your home page. The progress bar also shows the percentage of the number of clicks over that link. The more clicks a link recieves, the percentage on the progress bar increases and that percentage is reppresented by a blue shade. The more click a link receives, the more percentage on the link and hence a long blue shade would be seen on the progress bar.
This feature is an integral part in going forward with web analytics and optimizing the website for better traffic.
This feature is an integral part in going forward with web analytics and optimizing the website for better traffic. When you move you mouse over the progress bar, you can also know about the number of clicks that links have received. You can also get information on the goal value for the pages in your site. Goal value is the value of the conversions your site has received over time, and for this you must have to set the goals. With this feature you can determine the most popular page on your website and also the least popular link on your website. It helps you to figure out whether your text links are being clicked more than your image links and vice versa.
The one shortcoming of this site overlay feature is the inablity to show indivitual click ratio for 2 or more links which points to the same page on the website. For example if you have 2 links on your home page which points to your ‘Products’ page and they get 4% clicks and 9% clicks respectively, both will show 13%. Google Analytics cannot show the separete click for the links. Google is working on this issue to get it resolved, but till then we have to presist with the current version.
Social Media is the latest thing in Internet world and it has been there for around 3 years. Today a lots of social media and social networking sites are available, which have high potential in Online Marketing. People use social media sites to drive engagement, marketing and customer service. Most of the companies use social media for their marketing purpose and they also claim that they have been successful in achieving sales through these social media sites.
But many surveys and other pundits claim that the social media sites are not that much effective in generating sales. I am not willing to provide the details of the survey, but companies have a long way to go before it can make social media as a major sales generation tool.
Social Media is more of a conversation type and one has to be fully engaged and build his own network in social media, in order to become a successful social media expert. A successful social media campaign requires planning, dedication and the patience to carry out. You have to have a great focus on your social media sites and communities, which also requires some time. You should be a good watcher, ie you should try to analyze and study the campaigns of other successful social media experts. In this way you would be able to gain a lot of information, which helps you in the long run.
Another major factor affecting your social media campaign is your communication. You must be able to communicate with your communities or friends, thereby sharing your information and increasing the chances of generating sales leads. If you are not having enough communication with your friends, followers, communities or groups, you might end as a unsuccessful social media professional.
The other thing that needs special attention is creativity. In every advertising field one has to be creative enough to be successful. Foe example an advertisement with no creativity would not get noticed and would be a big flop. Similarly in social media also you have to be very much creative in presenting your services or information about your company. It is your creativity that drives traffic to your sites and thereby generating sales. Your presentation much generate some sort of curiosity among the users so that they may visit your site deeply.
Commitment is another factor that needs to be there for a successful social media marketing campaign. The competition in social media advertising and marketing is increasing day by day and you needs to be committed and hard working in order to stay afloat with the latest challenges and updates. You need to participate enough in social media sites to increase your reputation and credibility among the social media users.
The above things are some of the basic factors which determines the effectiveness of social media in generating sales. Hope this also works with your social media strategies and techniques..


