What are the good things and bad things about asking for social media votes?
Asking for social media votes - it’s one way of getting a recognition for your post. For example, if you get a digg for your post on Digg.com, you get pushed a bit up the traffic ladder. Most bloggers who get a lot of votes on social media sites get a lot of traffic to their sites. Many of the things in Internet marketing works like Aladdin’s Genie - ask and you shall have it.
When people, including you and me, see something they like, they would like to tell a friend, “Hey, you gotta see this thing!” If that person who likes it is someone who gets a lot into the social media sites, he or she can get you a lot of traffic if they vote for it.
How do you ask for social media votes? Different ways of doing it:
1) Using buttons on your blogs
Most websites and blogs use social media widgets which help visitors share it with social media sites. The type of button you put on your site would depend on your target market and your target social media site. If you are tailoring your content to a specific community and would like to share it with them, you can put buttons of social media sites where they frequent. Whereas a Digg button on your site can get you traffic, a targeted niche social media site can get you “quality” traffic. (Digg is one of the best, yes, but in case you don’t find a category to fit yourself in in there, you should look for sites tailored for you.)
2) Using toolbars
This is something you may not have a control on. Social Media sites like del.icio.us and Digg.com provide their own toolbars to help people vote for a site right from their browser window. Most people find it easy to do it (unless they are loaded with too many toolbars of course).
There is one thing you can do actually. Tell people to use the toolbar option if there is one, and provide them a link to download it from. Most people would just want to have an easy way of doing something they want to do. If they like your content, give them the easy way to vote for you, and there is a good chance they will do it the next time.
3) Directly from the social media site
People frequent social media sites to look for the latest in their favourite topics. That’s why it is called a social media site :). When they see a good post or a topic, they vote for it right from there.
In addition to the above, another way is to request a vote from other like-minded folks. It could be your friends, fellow bloggers, etc. People would surely love to share things with others if they like it, and have an easy way to do it. Some people like to email it to a friend, or to just click on the social media button and share it with the community. Either ways, it’s good traffic to you.
Your traffic will be good if you target the right people and make it easy for them to share - ’nuff said!
So much for the good things, so what are the bad things that should be taken care of?
1) Spamming people
Let me guess - you hate it! Thank you, I know that there is no points for guessing it right, but as a matter of fact, it is true that everyone including you and me hate spam. While spam might be defined as “unsolicited communication” to “non-interested parties”, sometimes too much of solicited communication to people is also a bad thing. Likewise, if you send many requests to people asking for votes, they would tend to ignore you after awhile, and you might end up in their spam box later.
No one can really say how much is too much though. Keep it to a lesser number, just enough to generate interest. If they like your content, they’ll come to your site and share things themselves anyways.
2) Asking for unworthy votes
If your content is not worthy of a vote, there is no point in asking for a vote for it. If you don’t feel good about it, another person won’t feel good either. So before you ask for a vote, make sure it is good content that you think people might like to share with others.
3) Vote for others
Social media is about sharing stuff between friends. If you don’t promote good content for others as well, how do you expect to make friends?
You are very likely to be asked for votes to others content as well, so if you find something good from others, read through them and vote for it if you feel it is worthy of promoting.
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