Are Your Social Networking Skills Killing Your Website?

Social networking is hands down the hottest thing on the Web right now. If you want targeted traffic, the social networks: YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are the place to find it. While social networks are popular among users as a place to, well, socialize and make new friends, these Internet hotspots are also ripe with business opportunity.

To make the most of social networking from a professional perspective, you have to take a unique approach. Blindly spamming these networks will not earn you any new traffic, nor will it make you any friends. If you post a message or engage in any interaction that remotely resembles SPAM, you will be largely ignored by your fellow users and could even be banned ban from the network. If you want to market to the people on a social network, you have to make friends first and focus on building relationships.

Try these tips to get the most from your social network marketing efforts:

• Post unique links, information, and insights. People value your opinion, and embrace the opportunity to explore areas of the Web that their friends recommend. You can promote your site occasionally, but provide your followers and friends with interesting tidbits and articles from other websites too.

• Look for conversations where you can answer a question or solve a problem. Do not hesitate to share your expertise when the opportunity arises, but avoid blatant self-promotion. In other words, if you run a scholarship website, you can get a of points by offering tips and guidance to students looking for help. Just make sure that you are actually providing them with valuable information, not just trying to promote your product or services.