Well the short version answer for that question would be that social media marketing is the use of social communities such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Propeller etc. to submit content to and receive links and traffic to your website in return.

Using these social media sites can bring you in large amounts of traffic but it’s not automatic. You don’t just throw up any old piece of content and expect to get placed on the front page of Digg or get hundreds of favourable comments on Stumbleupon. You must submit GREAT quality content.

Just think about when you are looking through these sites. Do you give just any old site the thumbs up on Stumbleupon? Heck no! Do you “Digg” an article because you feel obligated? Nope again! That’s the beauty of social media sites… we choose what we WANT to see and we reward the sites we LIKE. If we don’t like it… we give it a thumbs down, bury it, report it as spam etc.

So create great quality content!

Also, don’t just submit content all the time… actually use these sites the way they were intended to be used. Check out sites on Stumbleupon and give them a thumbs up or thumbs down. Go read articles on Propeller and vote for them or sink them. If all you do is submit articles all the time and don’t actually social bookmark, digg or comment on other member’s submissions, you will be looked at as a spammer and most likely kicked out.

So what do you gain from all this time you spend in these communities?

One of the most important things is that you will get high quality links coming to your site. Google loves these sites because of all the great content and it is possible that they could index your submissions in a matter of hours. If you have done your keyword research properly, you can get lots of traffic from a high ranking in Google.

You can also get a lot of traffic just from these social media communities alone. They get a huge amount of traffic reading through their content each and every day and if your article looks interesting, they will come to your site.

So if you haven’t already… go join these social media sites… spend some time in each one commenting, voting and making friends… then submit some great quality content and watch the traffic roll in

Last night I discovered how quickly you can get traffic to your site by using a couple of Web 2.0 sites.

I got a Twitter alert by Michael Cheney saying that his live Web cast at MichaelCheney.tv was about to begin at 8:00 EST.

I am on a few of Michael’s lists and didn’t receive any emails announcing this live event, so I was interested to find out what was going on. If you have a list the size that Michael has, it only makes sense to broadcast a message to them if you want to promote a Web cast.

Well, it turns out that there was some issues with his auto responder and his messages weren’t sent.

Did this destroy the whole event?

Not totally.

Sure he didn’t get as many viewers as he would have liked but the people that follow him on Twitter and his regulars who check his sites everyday (I think the man is part machine because he does a live show almost every night) showed up.

And as the old saying goes… “The show must go on”.

Michael gave a lot of great free information as usual and also offered an insane deal for the people who showed up.

Some good news… I got an email this morning saying that he is having a another Web cast tonight at 8:00 pm EST. So if you missed out last night, you have a chance to see what he’s up to tonight.

http://www.michaelcheney.tv

John

P.S. – Here’s a couple of videos for you. The first is a short clip about Michael’s show and the second is a full episode from one of his earlier shows on Ustream.

Anyone who has been in Internet Marketing for a while has probably heard of Ed Dale and The 30 Day Challenge. If you are new to IM and you haven’t heard of The 30 Day Challenge, then go now and check out the site.

There was so much that I learned from last years challenge that has made me a better Marketer, but the most important was the techniques they taught us on how to do thorough market research.

Market research is the most important part if you want to make money online, but most people don’t put much time into it. That’s usually because most people don’t know how to research properly.

Well the 30 Day Challenge solved that for me last year and this year it’s going to be even better.

Ed has been doing a weekly live Internet show at a very cool site called Justin TV and Ed’s channel is at www.justin.tv/eddale which is absolutely amazing. Once you sign up for an account on the site you can watch the live streaming and you can chat with the other viewers or ask Ed any IM questions that you would like answered.

They also have a great feature that once the live show is finished, you can make your own highlight videos. upload them to YouTube and then place them on your blog. I had fun playing with this all day and made some highlights from the last show for you .

Enjoy!

Ed Dale Shows The Power Of Justin.tv For Internet Marketers

Why The 30 Day Challenge Is Amazing!

And just for fun…

The Legend of The Pink Thong