Social media such as news and networking sites can help build your brand or create a buzz about your company, yourself or your products and services. It is about getting involved, starting conversations and being subtle.

Social networking and social news sites do not work well for direct marketing, affiliate programs, public relations or pitching products. Visitors of social media sites are looking for news, entertainment, and helpful information. They want to hang out in a casual, fun place online. Social news users are not in a mood to look at sales pitches, affiliate program, or Internet marketing tactics. Give social media users something interesting and you will have a far easier time reaching them, guaranteed.

Social news for businesses is about starting conversations and building your brand in a subtle way.

Submit items that are of interest without trying to sell someone something. In time, it will do more to extend your brand than running a weekly $50,000.00 front-page advertisement in the New York Times ever will. This ideology is hard for marketing and advertising folks to wrap their minds around. Social media is completely different from any marketing or advertising in which they have been involved. Social media sites may change and new ones will appear. However, it will not change the way social media works. Do not try to buck the system, go with the flow, it is a more enjoyable and enriching ride.

All it takes is a few minutes of surfing through any social media site and look at what is getting the most attention, the most comments and the most links. Most if not all of the product sales pitches, affiliate sales links, and direct marketing are the least popular (low votes or interest), you will not see many comments on the submissions. The advertising and direct marketing submissions just languish at the bottom of the heap.

I am not saying that using social news to further your own means is a bad thing. If you are writing insightful, helpful and informative information to build your brand or a name for yourself then you have a good shot on social media sites. I often read and vote on submissions that are related to the person’s livelihood. However, if it is just a 50-100 word item with affiliate links and advertising wrapped around it, I often times will pass on it. Be subtle and you will win my vote. Writing content just to sell something is not going to work, period. You may get 20 to 100 visits from it, however good solid quality information can get tens of thousands of visitors. The question is which do you prefer? Can you guess which one will indirectly extend and build your brand in a positive way?

The point is that sales and marketing pitches do not get much attention in the online social scene. If you have visited sites like Mixx, ShoutWire, StumbleUpon, Digg, and others you might notice that the items that receive the bulk of attention are interesting news, entertaining videos, entertaining pictures, humor, odd & crazy, and helpful information. What you don’t see getting much or *any* attention are the purely commercial marketing, PR and marketing submissions.

Social news users are not stupid so do not try to trick them. It will only work once and then you have lost a potential customer, visitor or reader for good.

I am not sure where the whole “let’s use social media to market and advertise products” mindset came from. Most likely it was a $4.99 “Internet marketing guru” report that made a claim that social media is where it is at. That marketing guru sold you a ten-pound bag of moldy bat guano, I hate to bust your bubble but it is true.

The secret to Social Media? There is no secret. I receive a lot of email every day asking me why most of the items I submit get so much attention and comments. They often want me to share my “secret” with them. There isn’t one. I write insightful, informative and entertaining content. I submit it to the social media sites where I am involved. I continue the conversation in comments. I do not use social media to sell stuff. That is all I do.

I personally do not use social media for affiliate marketing, direct marketing or to pitch products. Flat out and bottom line, it does not work. Do not be delusional, accept it and get involved. Start conversations. That works. You can be sure that there several marketing guru’s out there that will gladly sell you a report that claims otherwise. All they want is your money and will tell or promise you anything to get it. After all that is their business.

I’ll admit several years ago I tried social media to market products and services. It did not take long for me to realize the futility of it. Bottom line, direct and deliberate marketing and advertising just will not work with social media.

From time to time, I do submit new products that I discover. At the same time, I do not try to sell anything in the process. These types of submissions do not get the same amount of attention that other items I submit do. Trust me on this.

I do not expect you to take my thoughts on social media marketing to heart. If you become successful with social media, you will figure out exactly what I did. After all what does a person that has been around the “net” since the early 1990’s know? What could someone that has seen and probably used every marketing and advertising technique online know about marketing? Think about that for a moment.

Social media requires time and participation, if you aren’t willing to put in time and effort then don’t expect good results. Social media though can be very powerful in terms of getting people to talk about you, your brand and your products. The communication process must be a natural one. Nurture your brand and encourage others to talk about it. That is what social media is all about.

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I would love to read your comments on social media marketing!

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