How long do you spend on social marketing?

[Alan Cheng]

I just submitted a post to my blog. Spent about 2 hours on it - spell checking, tagging, keyword research, linking to others, getting pictures for it etc...

Then I buzzed via Web2Submitter, ASBUZZGROUP, other social sites etc...

It took me about 4.5 hours in total.

I have not stated work on my remote blogs yet.

Are the rest of you having similar work hours, or should I be quicker?

[Chris Lang]

Tom is really accessible, be sure to say Chris Lang sent me.

He is sick of me trying to pick his brain.

[Chris Lang]

Alan, also I want to make sure that you know that none of any negative comments I made have anything to do with you or your site. Both appear very professional.

My rather negative comments come from too many people that have never sold anything on the internet but yet want to tell us how it's done, on the other 20 social sites I participate in.

[Chris Lang]

>>> Then I buzzed via Web2Submitter, ASBUZZGROUP, other social sites etc...

I have to respond to this.....,

Also, I hate to do this Jack, but I submit to the social sites I use by hand, I do it selectively and only on the sites that I actively participate on and have big friends lists on. I comment on others posts, rate and comment on as many of my friends posts as possible and INTERACT SOCIALLY.

In my testing it does you no good just to submit, unless a power user with a big friends list picks you up and his high powered friends rate you well. You can submit to every social site on the internet and get ZERO return, it's about interaction, receptive friends lists and your own participation.

I spend a hour at most writing an article and the other three or four positioning myself as a social marketing authority within, get this now, within my friends lists. Your social friends lists are as important as you blog, they are your blog readers, they just read it somewhere else.

[Walt Goshert]

Chris,

Beautiful rant... :o)

Focus on conversions. Opt-ins, inquires generated, downloads, purchased products, up-sells, client development. Traffic numbers can be an evil deceiver. They create false hopes.

Traffic alone doesn't pay a single bill. Traffic that buys your stuff pays the bills.

Be smart about your social networking. Use it to both drive traffic, drive the right traffic, and build the relationship that leads to conversion.

Leverage everything. Your content generation, your traffic, your social networking. As Chris, mentions, always test, tweak, and make improvements. To do this, you gotta have systems in place to know what you're testing and easily incorporate changes.

Hey, Chris, just wait for another big celeb announcement, have your $20 Digg ebook ready to roll, and then let it rip. The whole Digg thread wasn't a total waste. You have plenty from the thread alone to crank out the e-book.

Right now... Robbie Lawler: Volcanic, Anita Ekberg: Spicy... I'd wait for someone juicier.

[Chris Lang]

Also before any of you beat up on your self about any poor conversion metrics consider this: How much of your traffic is completely targeted to your niche?

Wanna know what search engine terms traffic is coming to your site thru even though you have yet to add Google Analytics? Your host has a nice list waiting for you compiled from your log files. You would be surprised what kind of unrelated, out of left field search phrases are bringing in visitors that just hit the back button. Cut yourself some slack.

I get 3000 visitors a month but 30% of them are crap search engine terms and terms that I still rank under from old content, like email delivery. Guess how well that converts?

Let me say this about social bookmarking sites too, and if you quote me on this I will deny it and lie through my teeth. The traffic is worthless, smart marketers only use it to raise their search engine rankings and they use my tactics.

You can quote me on this though: I make bank off of strategic alliances and contacts I make by how I market myself while participating on social sites. You either love Chris Lang or you hate him, there is no in between. But everybody here knows who I am. That is where real internet marketers are profiting from social marketing, they just don't tell you about it.

[Chris Lang]

Actually I could copy and paste the thing together from just the free content I created. I am thinking of making it a free eBook. Any of you graphics guy want to do a cover for an eBook that will go viral marketing nuclear?