Social Marketing Questions and Chris Lang’s Answers
Social Marketing and Social Bookmarking and how to do it right are many of the questions asked of Chris Lang, what did they ask Chris Lang you say?
I participate in 20 different social marketing networks. That is what I do to learn what social marketing questions people have about social sites. Then I am able to add content to my Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics eBook and what I need to add to my social marketing process. Here is a collection of questions and my answers.
Mike Lang asked….
“I use Social Marker as a tool to submit to array of Social sites which most times includes Digg. My content is at least 90% original and I’ve guess I should consider myself lucky so far as I haven’t been banned…but I could be an accident waiting to happen! I’ve been through a few “Google slapdowns” but wasn’t personally affected….yet!”
Chris Lang replied….
Mike, I believe that Social Marker is one on the worst tools to use on social sites, or any automated social bookmarking submission tool. Let’s look at it from Google’s perspective and let’s agree that Google prefers a natural progression of linking to your blog. Let’s also agree that Google does not find lots of sites linking to yours with exactly the same link text in a very short amount of time natural. Both pretty much taken as fact today, right?
Why would anyone use an automated site, to submit the EXACT same title and description to all the bookmarking sites from the same IP address with a timestamp on the post within minutes of each other?
From the Google Webmaster Guidlines:
“Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service.” (they are talking about Google here, not social bookmarking but I believe it applies)
“Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, ‘Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?’ ”
Need I say more?
I predict that the next Google slapdown is going to be over social bookmarking site abuse. We shall see in October…..
Daniel Pyle asked….
What is the best way to avoid being buried at Digg.com?
Chris Lang replied….
It is kind of hard to tell why you are being buried Daniel without the exact blog post. I looked over your links in your profile and pretty much everything I saw was pretty commercial, as is much of mine.
It is your content that is being buried, SEO, email marketing and anything critical of Digg will get buried. Why, because most Digg users think anything that has to do with promotion in any way is only there to spam Digg. They would rather read about the world’s largest hole than something of substance. Google “Digg mafia” or go back to the end of the Digg thread and you will see many SEO sites have been banned from Digg.
There a 14 other sites that return Google link juice, if you are getting buried on Digg then you should quit using Digg and move on, you are beating your head against a Digg stone wall.
Angie asked….
Golly, if you want an absolute newbie, then that would be me. I virtually have NO IDEA about social bookmarking, so if I can understand your book, then….
ANYONE can… So my question would be: what is social bookmarking?
Chris Lang replied….
Social bookmarking sties are user oriented sites like Digg.com, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. After joining, you can post articles that you find interesting and then other users vote on the value of the item.
What makes this powerful for blogs and their search engine results is there are 15 sites that count the post as a link to your site or blog (same thing). The more votes you get, the more Google sees this as a valid link.
I teach strategies that I developed myself, that help you to build a huge friends list that is more apt to vote on your posted item positively.
Joseph Ratliff asked….
Well, if there is one thing I could ask and get answered about using social bookmarks specifically: When I submit a site/article to del.icio.us for example…how can I best maximize the traffic “mileage” I could get with that link?
Chris Lang replied….
First of all you should be using an email form to capture email addresses for a newsletter list. I would not use any service but AWeber. They get the email to the inbox, not the spam folder.
Put your form at the top right of the page and a timed DHTML popup overlay on the page. Even if the popup does not pull a subscription the form in the top right gives them a second chance before leaving the page. I get about 50 / 50. Better yet a squeeze page is where you want them to land, I get a 50% signup rate on the squeeze page.
Next I would be pitching my RSS feed, I have seen many bloggers put a link at the end of every post to “subscribe to my RSS feed if you liked this” and them the RSS feed link.
That is what your friends list is for. Your friends list should be highly target users that submit like content and blog like content. This returns 2 very valuable things.
They will vote on your content positively, be more apt to read it and opt in to your newsletter list and link to your content from their blogs. In the book I give you the best strategy to build friends list fast and find the most targeted users without even trying. I won’t give that one away here though.
JTF Mulder asked….
How do you manage all your data, friends, contacts, etc? I belong to numerous social networks and services. I have friends and contacts all over the internet, but I don’t always have their email address. I do not know their interests when I am offline.
Chris Lang replied….
I choose who I am going to move from social sites to my personal contact list. Everyone else can be managed through the Social Site interface. I find my contacts based on informed content they produce that is targeted to my niche, (blogging, social marketing, email delivery and SEO). You have seen a few of my personal contacts because I brought them here. PotPieGirl, ttlFantastic and Mert Erkal.
There is so much more you can do with close contacts that you convert from social site friends to off site personal contacts. Ever notice that I advise you not to submit your own content on Digg? Ever notice that I do not even have a Digg account? Ever notice that I can get 100+ Diggs in a day for anything I want to rank well?
Seth Garrison asked….
“If you use social bookmarking sites incorrectly you can seriously damage your Google rankings.” What did you mean when you said this?
Chris Lang replied….
So social bookmarking if done wrong can actually hurt you. Social marketing is about being social, so be social on social bookmarking sites, don’t just submit you own content and expect that this will bring you results. I also predict that the Google slapdown is coming. If you are submitting your own content and then shouting this to your friends list to get them to vote on it, then you are spamming Digg and since Digg votes can easily influence Google rankings you are only doing this for your own benefit in the search engines. That alone violates Google’s Webmaster Guidlines.
Sandy Abrams replied….
I have no idea about any of this. I think social networking is meeting people online and developing a relationship with them with the ultimate goal of furthering our own businesses. Assuming that that is correct, I have no clue as to how to go about it, what to say, who to talk to, and what I need to know about all of it.
Chris Lang replied….
My eBook is about social bookmarking. Your web page is submitted to say Digg.com. The site users vote on it. Get allot of votes, rise very quickly in the search engine rankings for the terms you targeted. Only if you get allot of votes, like 100 Diggs (that is what they call a vote on Digg) do you see major results in the search engines.
I teach you how to build a targeted friends list of 300 to 1000, that will vote on your blog posts well. I can get 100 to 200 Diggs on any post and I don’t even use Digg. I don’t even have an account.
So you think, that if I get 1000s of Digg visits I am going to profit from this? NO. Do you think that because of my Digg strategies the traffic that searches “how to get more diggs” that I am Google top ten under, converts? YES. Does that make sense?
In the book there is 3 different canned emails that you use on these social sites. Each is used for different situations on different sites. A little customization and you are ready to go. This is only going to work for a few years, then it is going to lose it effect.
The people and sites that have built a huge following are going to be set up pretty well. The people that use these tactics 2 years from now are to going to have way less success.
Look at how easily you could get email signups 4 years ago, offer the crappiest free eBook that was as old as dirt and you would still pull a 30% signup rate to an email newsletter. Now, you have to work your butt off to get 10%.
It is going to be the same way with social bookmarking and networking sites. What works like a charm now is going to be what everybody is doing in a year to two years. The winners will be those of us who built a huge following now and continued to move ahead instead of using the same old tired tactics.
bonline247 asked….
I haven’t read your first book so forgive me if you’ve covered some of this. If I have a website and I want to increase its SEO standing by adding a blog and social marketing (blog is domainname.com/blog) how important is keyword optimization for the main site pages?
Also, on the main site home page, I plan on adding video and the amount of actual copy will be minimal. Do you know how this affects ranking? If I have a blog and other pages that are keyword maximized should I be concerned with some main site pages that have very little copy because the focus of the page is on the video?
Thru social marketing should I send people to the main site or the blog first?
This might be in your book but if it’s not I would like to see a step by step plan - i.e. Day 1 - Sign up for accounts at Digg, Twitter, etc. Day 2 - blah, blah, blah (maybe this would be a separate product)
Chris Lang replied….
This is something that you can definitely move up in the search engines using social bookmarking site tactics.
Natural search engine rankings are going to prefer text on the page, 300 to 500 words. Now, if you can get 100+ Diggs for the page you are going to see substantially better rankings. Video seems to rank longer that text blog posts in Google for some reason. It may be the parent site page that ranks well if you are using something like YouTube.
It does not matter where you start, join one social site, build a targeted friends list. Don’t just submit you own content. That is a negative indicator in Google. I have proved that.
Blog posts are the only thing you should be submitting to Digg ect, and the content should be newsworthy. Blogs are about fresh content, that is why Google ranks blogs differently that static web pages.
I use the 8 to one theory, 8 pieces of good content submitted by myself and 1 of my own blog articles. DO NOT just submit your own stuff. It has been proven that a social marketing site profile with nothing but posts from the same domain is seen as a spammer indicator by Google.
PotPieGirl asked….
I have a question about social marketing. I’m taking myself out of the race as a candidate for the free book (already bought it, already read it, already love it).
I understand a lot about social marketing, and I am also very social by nature. That part is not difficult for me. What is MY biggest challenge is the time factor. There is only one of me and there is only so much time in a day. I run a company. I have clients. I have a blog where I give info away for free. I have TONS of email that all deserve my personal and thoughtful response. I read others blogs and try to comment when appropriate. I have kids and cats…and a hubby that gets a bit tired of seeing my head at the computer. And MOST importantly, I love to golf =)
HOW do you decide where to spend your social time? Can you give some good time management tips for social marketers? I tend to target the social sites that I a) enjoy and b) help me keep my ear to the ground on topics I like to blog about.
Chris Lang replied….
Here is a real gem, go to the local university and talk to some marketing professors. Get yourself an intern that will work for free just to learn the IM business. When I was building websites for 3k to 5k a pop, I had 2 to 3 clients going at a time and we knocked out a 2 sites a week,. clients drove me FRAKIN (Battlestar Galactica reference) crazy. I went and got myself an intern. Answered the phone, handled email, sat in on presentations to see how they are handled and took notes on everything.
Rocque asked….
“I target the social sites that bring me visitors and more importantly sales. You have the 12 I started with in the book, I have three new ones. Out of those since I am in Internet marketing I concentrate on 6 that fit me and my market. That is plenty plus I have to make snappy comments around here, that is a burden I am just going to have to bear though.”
“That makes the book sound even more tempting. To have someone tell you where not to waste your time, now that is worth $40.”
Jessica White asked….
I read somewhere that for getting a backlink from Digg, SU, Delicious you need to at least have more then 30 to 50 Diggs then it could yield you a backlink, however, I’ve seen many backlinks through Digg with just 2 , 3 diggs. Would like to get answer about that.
Chris Lang said….
It was probably me that wrote that, not to many people know that. You are confusing backlinks with the social site showing up in the results. A backlink is when Google counts the link from the site, as a vote for the sites popularity. More links, better ranking in Google. However Google only gives credit to links in social bookmarking sites when you get a fair number of votes. More votes, more validity in Google.
It is in the code, social sites can tell Google not to give any credit to their link to your site. That is why the 15 sites that Google does follow in my eBook are valuable and I am not going to give them away no matter how many times people ask me.
Dorothy Scott asked….
My question encompasses both social bookmarking and social media and blogging. RSS? I have read many explanations that give a great general understanding of what RSS is. OK-now what? It is my understanding that all of these social site have rss feeds built into the profile. What does one do with that to help build authority? How are the accessed? For Blogs does the index page’s feed cover the whole blog? What about the feeds for the individual posts? How are the located and what does one do with them? I would like a step-step guide that shows the whole RSS picture and explains how to capitalize on it.
Chris Lang replied….
I added a “blog marketing” hour long video on my new Social Marketing Viddler Group, it is just what you need. Covers RSS right at the beginning and then moves on to the rest of how blogging can benefit you. Concentrate on the online readers, Google and Yahoo take about 60% to 80% share of RSS feeds read.
Eren asked….
Is social marketing more for making friends and gaining exposure than for targeted traffic to our webpages?
Chris Lang replied….
Both, it depends on what you are selling. If you offer services that are one on one, like consulting then I would think networking is your focus. If you offer a direct response product like an eBook, then targeted traffic is your goal.
You have to remember that I do something completely different that either. I use social bookmarking to rise in the search engine results. Nothing more. Here is the only place that I really do networking. By using social bookmarking to move up the Google results, I can target the exact phrase and traffic that converts. That is what my eBook is about, backlinks, something different than most anybody else offers.
Rocque asked….
Hey, tell me how you find time to have offline friends? I abandoned them when I got lost in the desert. I think I might break Moses’s 40 year record for wandering around here in circles though if I am not careful. Who hid the milk and honey anyway and why do I always have to look for it?
Chris Lang replied….
I have decided to abandon all socializing for one year, to get my business on solid ground. I have a few close friends and good time buddies and I do get away from time to time. Also the last thing I need is to get mixed up with a relationship that could crush my creativity and focused, happy online nature. The last relationship I was in went south on me and took two years out of my life. This in not the time to take a chance on this happening again right now. You have no control on who you fall in love with, and it would be just my luck for me to find the wrong person right now. 100% business right now.
Rocque asked….
It seems that what started out as social bookmarking is turning more into social networking. I believe areas that should be addressed are how many social bookmarking sites a person needs to belong to. How you should represent yourself on those sites should be addressed. Which sites are the “find a date” sites and which are the sites for people who just need some help to become better at getting traffic and sales (unless you want to find the person of your dreams on the internet).
What if you are ugly? Should you still add your photo, or use the one from the picture that came with your picture frame that you purchased at Wal Mart?
I think the bottom line is that we all need more visitors, more income, and have less and less time to devote to just one more social site. So show us the tricks! Show us where to go where we do not waste our time. Plus for me personally show me how to get a working account at Sphinn where I do not get banned. (they really do not like me there)
How do you handle all the spam messages?
Should you pay to be a member of any of these sites?
Should you or should you not have a MySpace account?
How do you get friends fast? Do you accept everyone? Do you request from everyone?
Well that is just a few of the things I am covering in my book. No I am not writing one (yet), but who knows what the future holds. Ok…humor…really…I am funny (well I think I am and that is what matters).
Chris Lang replied….
First off I replied to this on my blog since it is too long for this page: Social Marketing for the Antisocial.
Here is the answer to your question. Buy my book, learn and USE everything in it. Then as you use these strategies, you will come up with your own ideas. You are more than smart enough to figure out your own set of techniques that fit other marketers like you.
I am a tech expert, I am not a people person. You need to write the “Social Networking” version of my eBook and if anyone can do it, it is you, Rocque. Right now is the exact time to launch a social site product. There is little competition and no one, as we see here knows allot about it, except, me.
Wait just a minute, you mean to say you are going to leave without getting my Social Marketing Power Course for free?
Click here to discover what social marketing can do for you!




















