How to build a social media empire

Video on networking with twitter One of my favorite Bloggers Guest post Christine Gilbert is a full time traveler, freelance writer and photographer. She blogs about her transition from Fortune 500 Manager to traveling vagabond on Almostfearless.com. Her tips about traveling Europe on a budget can be found at europestring.com. She travels with her husband and two large, slobbery dogs-- and still wonders why it took her so long to make the leap. How to Build Your Social Media Empire (in 13 easy steps) These steps assume a couple of things. First, that you have a blog (or business) that you want to promote. Second, that you haven’t really started using social media to promote your blog or your unsure where to start. Next, that you already know what your brand is, how to be consistent you’re your brand message no matter where you write and you actually have something to say. Finally, there are tons of additional places (like plurk, for instance) that I don’t mention here, because this is intended to get your started (not overwhelm you with the thousands of sites out there). 1. Sign up for an RSS Reader if you don’t already have one. I suggest bloglines or google reader. 2. Add your blog, plus the blogs of anyone that comments on your site (or blogs that you read). This will become your task list. 3. Sign up for a stumble account. Add everyone you know as a friend. Be sure to list your own blog on the profile page. 4. Everyday try to comment on at least 5 blogs per day. You want to change up who you comment on, so use your RSS reader as a “To-do list” 5. Everyday stumble at least 5 posts. You definitely want to pick the best content to stumble, and be sure to write a review. Thumbs up without a review has less bang for the buck. (Note: you can but try not to, it doesn’t look good. ) 6. Check your webstats. Are you getting stumbles? Go to your post that got a stumble and use the stumble toolbar to see who reviewed it. Add these people as friends. If they have a blog, add them to your RSS. 7. Sign up for twitter. Add everyone you know. Be sure to use tweetlater to autofollow and autorespond with a link to your blog or RSS feed. 8. Go to a twitter account of someone with a similar blog topic and start adding their followers. You can usually get away with about 100 a day. After 3 days, drop anyone who doesn’t add you back. Repeat. (Always follow everyone who follows you first). 9. Start experimenting with Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Delicious, and so on. Watch your stats. See what works. There are times when these sites have great rewards, but it takes some finesse. 10. Respond to every new commenter on your site with a personal email. Let them know you have added their blog to your RSS (if applicable) and thank them for commenting (offering assistance or something free (like an ebook) doesn’t hurt either). 11. Sign up for twitterfeed to auto post your last blog post to twitter. Be sure to participate in twitter in a friendly way. Respond to what others write. Offer cool links not on your blog. Give tips. (Don’t just post links to your blog over and over, this is spammy). 12. Once you get a hang of it, create a daily to do list. It should read something like: check webstats, 5 comments, 5 stumbles, 5 tweets, add followers to twitter, catch up on emails, 1 digg/reddit/mixx. After a few months of doing this you should have a healthy following of a few thousand people. Always be gracious and helpful. 13. You have a social media empire, now what? Use it for good. The best self promotion is selfless promotion. Give new bloggers a leg up. Gently promote your stuff. Enjoy the warm glow of being part of a bigger community. Got something to say? dying to tell us what you think? comment below, Wisequeen