The social media marketing niche is full of hype pipers and
hope dopes. Everyday I get a "product launch" email touting
the latest Wordpress plugin, software app or marketing
system, promising BIG traffic or quit-your-day-job ROI.
If you have been around (the internet marketing scene) for
even a few months you'll know just what I am talking about.
I am at the point where I am more interested in the way the
product is being marketed than what the prodcut is.
I have settled in to a few (mostly free) web 2.0 tools that
make my social media marketing work.
So, shut up and tell you what they are already, right? Got
it...
VIDEO SYNDICATION
The big gun in video submission is, of course, Traffic
Geyser. This is a great service and, besides taking hours
to set up and being priced on the high end, works very well
at getting you and your silly videos plastered all over the
web. However, recently I stumbled upon a free video
submission service called TubeMogul that I like quite well,
thank you very much.
TubeMogul allows for automated submission to the 12 big
video sites all at once. The interface is super-simple. It
allows you to add a title, description, tags and category
setting to you video. And you can upload as many videos as
you want for nada (FREE!).
Check it out at TubeMogul.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA SUBMITTING AND BOOKMARKING
Some of the new folks get confused here so let me briefly
explain... Social media marketing calls for lots of
"submitting". One of the mainstays is submitting your post
(your story, your article — whatever you call your
content) to a social media site.
There are really 2 types of sites for post submission.
There's the social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and
technorati which just want you to primarily submit a link
and tag. There's not much voting or browsing of these
"bookmarks" going on after you submit.
Then there's the social news sites like Digg and Propeller.
These sites want your link and tags also but you will also
need to provide a good description of you post and hope
that other vote it up.
So, with that out of the way... On to the freebie.
I have used a few of the paid tools out there to
automatically submit to both the social bookmarking sites
and the social news sites and, in my opinion, the free tool
at SocialMarker.com works better than all of them. You just
input your post data, check the sites you want to submit to
and arrow through the submissions. "That was easy!"
KEYWORD RESEARCH
Yes, I still do keyword research, I think it is important
to keep track of your main keywords and look for variations
as new topics come up. I use the free tool from the giant
keyword service called Keyword Discovery. The free tool
works great for bloggers who are not building 10,000 word
PPC campaigns.
IMAGE EDITING
By far, the service I use the most is picnik.com. I always
have to crop, resize, fix, etc. the images I need to use.
This online editor makes it quick and easy.
VIDEO CAPTURE AND EDITING
Well, this may be a bit advanced for the new folks but just
in case you are ready to stick your toes into the video
pond, here's a couple of free tools you'll need.
First, you will need a good screen capture software. I like
the tools from TechSmith, either Camtasia (V3 is free right
now) or JingProject.
Once you have you fancy screen capture then head over to
Jumpcut.com and start editing. This is an awesome free
online editing software that should cost big bucks.
So, there you have it...
The list is not long but, trust me, these free tools will
get you f-a-a-a-r in your social media marketing endeavors.
You can try lots of other similar free marketing software,
tools and systems; there is an endless number of them
that's for sure.
This is what has worked (and continues to work) for me.
Enjoy!
----------------------------------------------------
Peter Lenkefi publishes social media marketing and blog
promotion tips at http://Web2Center.com . He is also the
co-founder of the Authority Site Center, a membership site
dedicated to serious business bloggers.
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