Social Media Marketing 2.0: The Death Of Old Gurus
By: Faiz Suberi
The emergence of numerous Web 2.0 platforms has yielded a new era of internet marketing and promotion. Building web traffic using traditional methods of article marketing, link building, list building and hours of keyword research used to be what the internet marketing gurus would always preach to us. However, I can’t help but noticing that the old gurus are…gone?
Perhaps I’m being a little far fetched. Then again, technology is often the one moving forward. Relentless and merciless like a crazy bullet train with more than 10,000 horsepower, it waits for no one. Month after month I see the old internet marketing gurus being phased out. The old affiliate landing pages like the Whiz Kid or Chris Rock are dead. Perhaps a few like Chris McNeeny, Brad Callen, M Latif or Rob Benwell would stay with us for a while, but the rest? My initial deduction is this: they simply didn’t catch up.
Affiliate marketing has become so advanced that you either have to see every conceivable traffic generation strategy as a MUST, or you simply go BUST. I remember when I was struggling to make my first HTML website with all the traditional WYSIWYG interface and scripting, a lot of people were already capitalizing on the best Web 2.0 tool out there: BLOGS.
By the time I got to blogs, people were so busy configuring RSS feed, Twitter’in and Tagging each other. I didn’t realize the traffic potential of these tools until I saw it with my own eyes. They really are powerful! No wonder the architecture of Web 2.0 websites go hand in hand! As blogs would allow users to syndicate RSS feeds for updates, social bookmarking would update profile pages on numerous social networking services.
They don’t stop there, friends and contacts on the list (driven by curiosity) would simply click away just to check things out. With the emergence of Technocrati and Squidoo, ‘expert opinion’ pages can now be set up sharing interesting ‘how to’ articles and videos, driving hoards of traffic to eventually land on your website.
And don’t get me started on Twitter. With the proper Twitterfeed set up as you update your blog or website, people who like your stuff would either retweet it or share it on their social networks. And their friends would check it out, friends to their friends would check it out as well. The effect is simply VIRAL. Pictures, experiences and even simple quotes and jokes would keep visitors coming back for more. The possibilities are endless and waiting to be explored (if not exploited).
What used to take months for a blog to rank well in search engines just to build a steady amount of web traffic is expedited by the process of dynamic linking, updating and of course, social networking. What makes Web 2.0 so powerful is the interaction between bloggers, webmasters and readers alike. It’s not just what I say, it’s also about what you think!
Bloggers and website owners should be more human in this context. As social media marketing is not solely dependent (or warm) towards automated software and blatant selling, it is ’social’. By definition, it is the interaction of humans. Affiliate bloggers should definitely keep these things in mind. Affiliate blogging is not about keywords and syndication anymore, it’s about SHARING. Blatant selling will get you nowhere.
Venture into it if you must (and you must), but do it with a human touch. That’s where you need the time for it. A little social networking goes a long way.
About the Author
A freelance writer involved in affiliate blogging. Currently working full time on his online affiliate marketing career. Keen on researching and sharing various ways of making money from the internet both legitimately and successfully. Recently authored an ebook entitled The Affiliate Blogging Kick-Start Guide, which is being given away from his website.
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