Eric Frey.net

I’ve decided to try a new direction with some of the internet marketing I’m doing, and using some of the social media sites is going to be a big part of some of the new SEO, link building, and traffic building strategies I’m going to be implementing. I have a problem, however. I’m not a very social kind of guy. Really, I thought the internet was one of the last safe refuges for an anti-social recluse. So, how does one start taking advantage of all of this social whatchamacallit? Baby steps, my friend. Baby steps. Here’s the plan:

First of all, today’s Whiteboard Friday at SEOmoz.com couldn’t have come at a better time. Now, there wasn’t really any new information in the video that a person of reasonable intelligence or internet fluency couldn’t figure out for themselves, but it’s still nice to see something broken down nice and simple for a fresh perspecitive every now and then. Gotta love that whiteboard! Anyway, the real good stuff is in the post following the video, and even a couple comments. Again, not ground breaking stuff, but good reminders / refreshers. I won’t belabor any of the points that were made over there, I assume you know how to click a link. What I’m going to do is just outline a basic strategy for social media participation that I’m going to implement over the next month, and I’ll share the results with you then.

I consider myself pretty good at working my way around this internet thing, but I have to admit that the abundance of social media and networking sites out there is overwhelming. So, for starters, I’m going to spend the next 2 weeks focusing on just 5 social media sites. That’s it. No huge bum rush of all of the social media sites. Just 5. After 2 weeks, I’m going to analyze my stats and backlinks, and see which of them were worth my time. I figure I’ll keep the 2 or 3 most productive ones, and replace the 2 or 3 least productive ones with new sites to explore. Here’s how I’m going to choose my first five. I’m going to select from sites that I already have profiles at (no matter how neglected), and try to focus on sites that do not add rel=”nofollow” to the outbound links on profile pages. I also want to choose sites that actually look like they may be fun. This is something I’m going to have to be consistent with if I’m to expect any return, so if I can’t enjoy the site, then consistency is going to be difficult to achieve. So, here are my first 5 for starters.

• Twitter - Been playing around with this lately. It’s the new buzz, and worth checking out.
• LinkedIn - I have a half filled out profile over there after receiving an invite from my Kendo instructor. Time to try to squeeze some juice out of that site.
• YouTube - Um… Because watching videos is fun.
• Simpy - Simply because of the nice walkthrough in the SEOmoz article referenced above.
• StumbleUpon - Played around with this a while back. Again, let’s get some use out of it.

So, those are the 5 I’m going to start with. They each have their own flavor, it seems, and aren’t necessarily just digg clones. Each should provide a unique experience, and a unique community to tap into. On top of that, I’m going to be on the look out for blogs that I may want to comment on regularly. Now, for all you other anti-social people out there, why not start reaping some of the benefits of these social sites yourself. C’mon, if I can do it…

Now to start fleshing out some profile pages. I’ll keep you posted on how this endeavor pans out, but why not add me to your profiles and kick start this thing?