Social Marketing on the Internet
The AC Specific Buddy E-mail List
Okay guys and gals, listen up. “Use Your Buddy List!” The two functions of this Buddy List is to automatically send out “new content notifications,” this is a no-brainer, free service to get your content viewed – use it. You can also send “at will,” custom bulk e-mails to members of your AC e-mail list. You do have the option, though a little cumbersome, to mark certain e-mail addresses as “disabled” so not everyone will get a certain bulk e-mail or new content notification.
To build your e-mail list try reviewing your e-mail client’s “saved addresses book.” You may be surprised at how many e-mail addresses you find there. Joining Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, and Social Blogging Web Sites is an opportunity to make new friends that you can add to your buddy list at a future time.
For those concerned with spamming, every “new content notification” includes an Opt-Out link, that once clicked, permanently removes the e-mail address from your buddy list. That’s right, the e-mail address is immediately removed from your buddy list. Once you’ve setup your buddy list you can “go the extra courtesy-safety mile,” and send out an invite bulk e-mail letting your buddies know that you’ve added them to your personal AC e-mail list, and if they don’t want to be on the list, you can personally remove them as soon as possible. I’ve personally tested and now use all of this functionality at AC and it all works great!
To setup your buddy list at AC:
- Login to the AC Web Site.
- Click on the blue “My Account” tab, at the top of the page.
- Scroll to the bottom of page, and click the “Add Buddies” button.
- Fill in the “ADD A NEW BUDDY” form, and click the “ADD BUDDY” button.
- To add additional buddies repeat step.
Pretty simple huh?
Bulk e-mail in seconds:
- Write your message in your word processor ahead of time.
- Login to the AC Web Site.
- Click on the blue “My Account” tab, at the top of the page.
- Scroll to the bottom of page, click the “Add Buddies” button.
- Copy/paste your bulk mail message into the message field.
- Add a subject line.
- Click the “EMAIL ALL ACTIVE BUDDIES” button.
You’ll get a new page that lists all the e-mail addresses you just sent the message to, and you’re all done. That was quick and easy too, wasn’t it?
Free E-mail Lists: For non-AC Marketers there are a number of free e-mail list servers that you can join and offer your news letters and or updates for whatever content you are producing and providing. here’s a list of some popular free e-mail list groups.
http://groups.yahoo.com
http://groups.google.com
http://groups.msn.com
Three Social Web Site types to focus on
The three specific Social Web Site types we should focus on include, Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, and Social Blogging. Each of these Social Web Sites appeals to different personality types, so using all of these Social Web Sites, you have an opportunity to reach a wider range of people and readership. The beauty of Social Web Sites is you are sharing your information within the “local community,” while at the same time, your profile, blog, and link entries are being shared with the Internet at large.
Social Networking: Social Networking Web Sites are designed for people to share a wide variety interests that include hobbies, business, and social activities. Social Networking Web Sites have a whole host of services that include, a user profile, blog, image archiving and sharing, private and public bulletin boards.
The Social Networking Web Site is based around the individual’s user profile. This is your chance to shine. As part of your Social Networking biography, include links to your personal Web Site or content page. For AC CPs, include links to your main content page and your referral link offering people a chance to become published themselves.
Feel free to make individual blog entries at your Social Networking Web Site “talking up” your current piece of content. Always include a direct link to your new piece of content, a separate link to your main content page, and a separate link to your referral link with each blog entry.
Posting personal bulletins to your “friends network” at your Social Networking Web Site is perfectly welcomed. Be more careful posting to public forums. To avoid spam, make sure your post is relevant to the topic you are posting in. Here’s a list of some popular free Social Networking Web Sites:
www.myspace.com
http://360.yahoo.com
www.friendster.com
Social Bookmarking: Social Bookmarking Web Sites are design to build, collect, and share your personal libraries of links. Many Social Bookmarking Web Sites allow you to, rate, tag, and add personal notes to each link you bookmark. Populate your Social Bookmarks primarily with a link to your main content page and referral link, then add individual bookmarks for each piece of new content. Don’t be shy, rate yourself high at your Social Bookmarking Web Sites. There is absolutely no spamming taking place here, because you are building “your own personal Social Bookmarking list.”
A nicest features with Social Bookmarking Web Sites is their book-marklet link or button that can be added to most browsers. The book-marklet feature allows you to quickly and easily save the link for the page you are currently viewing, to your Social Bookmarking library, without losing your place. Here’s a list of some popular free Social Bookmarking Web Sites:
www.furl.net
http://del.icio.us
www.shadows.com
Social Blogging: Social Blogging Web Sites are for writing and keeping personal or public journals. You can write about (almost) anything you like in these Social Blogging journals. Social Blogging journals are a community unto themselves within the Social Blogging Web Site, as well as being an autonomous entity to the Internet.
Feel free to make individual blog entries at your Social Blogging Web Site “talking up” your current content. Always include a direct link to your new content, a separate link to your main content page, and a separate link to your referral link in each blog entry at your Social Blogging Web Sites. Here’s a list of some popular free Social Blogging Web Sites:
www.livejournal.com
www.blogger.com
www.journalspace.com
Once you’ve signed up with a number of these Social Web Sites, it’s easy to write one “piece of copy” you can paste to each bulletin, journal entry, or link comment at each Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, or Social Blogging Web Site respectfully. If you group and organize your local bookmarks for each Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, and Social Blogging Web Sites, the posting process, from start to finish, shouldn’t take more than about 5-10 minutes each time you publish a new piece of content.
Some people will be concerned about posting the same entry to several different Social Web Sites, but the truth of matter is this. While you might know some of the same people at these different Social Web Sites, there’s still thousands more at each Social Web Site that you don’t know, that don’t know you. At the same time, posting these multiple copies of your entry at these various Social Web Sites will help create a little “you density” on the Internet. Once again, this is not spamming since you are primarily maintaining your own personal Social Networking, Social Bookmarking, and Social Blogging profiles and link lists. In the end, it’s up to you the individual, as to how aggressively you’d like to follow these strategies.
