As we’ve discovered, social media reaches far beyond Twitter, blogging, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Today we’re focusing on two different social networks to help promote and sell our products (e-books, music, and other business ventures) via the organic marketing.
Users search the Internet for news, content, reviews, and recommended sites daily. Reddit allows its millions of registered users to post content (links and self posts) and also vote as to whether or not the links and posts were informative or enjoyable. Members can also join communities via subscriptions to individual reddits according to specific user interests.
For example, a writer wants to promote his new e-book. The first step for the author is to create an account at Reddit.com. The new registered user can then publish a link to the site recommending his work (Reddit limits the amount of posts in a specific time period to eliminate spamming as much as possible – bonus, right?). The link might include an eye-catching title, a review of the e-book, or even a synopsis in the hopes of generating a high volume of traffic.
Anyone can search Reddit’s multiple communities to focus on his specific interest, however only a registered user can vote a link “up” or “down” – like or dislike. The score of the link is determined by the number of upvotes minus the number of downvotes. The more a registered user receives positive feedback by the Reddit community, the higher the user’s karma (number located next to a username).
New members need to remember to move through Reddit and select the communities that best fit his or her personal taste and appeal. In addition to the number of links a user can post in a designated time frame, Reddit also watches and bans accounts for cheating (like participating in voting cliques – a group of users that submit links and offer upvotes in return for upvotes) and for spam (defined by spending more time posting to Reddit than reading and voting on other links, or consistently reposting links that have been downvoted repeatedly).
If a user ever feels a link he wishes to post might fall into the spamming category, the communities have moderators that will answer any questions as it pertains to Reddit’s spam rules.
StumbleUpon is a social network similar to Reddit in that this search engine finds recommended sites for its users (also known as stumblers) according to the user’s specific interests, as long as those interests are managed on the user profile. StumbleUpon relies on thumbs up and thumbs down reviews of sites, kind of the World Wide Web’s “word of mouth” approach, to maximize suggested sites for its members.
A great way for a writer to utilize a StumbleUpon account is to attach it to a blog. For example, Andi the Author blogs over at WordPress and added a “share this” button via StumbleUpon visible at the end of each published post. Ronnie the Reader loved Andi’s post on e-book conversions by Digital Content Center so much, that he decided to share with the 20 million stumblers online today.
After clicking the StumbleUpon button at end of the blog post, Ronnie typed in the subject (e-Book Conversion Ease with DCC) and included a short review of Andi’s post (A great resource for writers looking to convert their manuscript into an e-book format). Once Ronnie submits this blog post via StumbleUpon, all of the users with books or writing as an interest will have the ability to stumble upon that blog post, regardless of whether or not that specific user follows Andi the Author’s blog. And, as long as Ronnie the Reader maintains his user account with StumbleUpon, Andi’s blog post that he gave a thumbs up will remain on his favorite’s page for future reference.