Does using images in StumbleUpon (and other social media tools) help you get more traffic to your site?

This is a question I want answers to. My “gut” says yes, of course images are going to help. But testing will be the only way I can really say for sure. You’re feedback will help too.

One test I recently did was with a new website I created for Utah Tourism and Business Reviews. Here’s the SU Review:

I made this post about Spanish Fork Utah massage the day after I opened up the website and then, by habit, reviewed it and included an image. These are the results I got within an hour:

71 visitors and 108 page views. Now to many, this may not be great traffic at all, but to me, it was awesome since it was all within an hours time. If my goal with the site is to get high numbers of traffic, this is a great step in that direction. Plus it helped me build links for that page which led to a quick cache by Google not long after opening day. I was out of the “sand box” quick and it’s only going to get better.

What have your experiences been with adding images to your social media marekting reviews?

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Muhammad Saleem, the Social Media Maven, tells listeners tips on using social media effectively. (Follow Muhammad on Twitter)

Special thanks to Muhammad Saleem for his input and time to tell us all about basic Social Media tips.

5 Basic Social Media Steps anyone can use:

1. Building Relationships
2. Being a part of a community
3. Understanding the dynamics of different communities
4. Sharing the right kind of content
5. Voting and commenting on other peoples content

Social Media Manual: 10 Steps to take to become the Next Social Media Maven

Why Do you love Social Media?

The community aspects: you become a part of the whole process of submitting, voting, commenting, engaging and being a part of the process of opinion on things you’re interested in or passionate about.
3 Tips for Beginning to Intermediate Social Media Marketers

• Understand the community before you start participating: what the age demographic is, what stories are popular, avoid mistakes
• Build relationships with other visitors: talk to people, IM, comment on their stories, bookmark their stuff
• Make sure your main goal is to not just promote yourself: create value for the community by submitting other peoples stuff, vote and comment on other peoples stuff, be part of the community, share content from other people to create value that doesn’t come directly back to you - it’s more than just scratching one another’s back - it’s bigger than that

How does effective SMO influence a website’s presence?

• Traffic, Traffic, Traffic: 10s of Thousands of Unique vistors, thousands of page views on a post
• Building links: hundreds to thousands of links - the more links you have, the higher you get ranked in search, which makes long-term organic traffic from search engines.

“Too many people that are Expecting Value without Creating Value.”

Thanks again for your information Muhammad. Stay tuned for more podcasting at MollerMarketing.com.

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Stay tuned…tomorrow I will be posting an interview with the “Social Media Maven” Muhammad Saleem.  He is one of the Top Diggers, Top Stumblers, and basically Top Social Media Gurus in the industry.  In the interview we talk about what beginners should know about Social Media Marketing for their websites.  Muhammad gives his advice on which social media tools to use,  he talks about strategy, and much more.

Here are some other bits of information from his resume:

present experience:

author, copyblogger.com, may 2007 - present
-copywriting tips for online marketing success (statistics)

author, pronetadvertising.com, january 2007 - present
editor, pronetadvertising.com, march 2007 - present
-social media news and marketing (statistics)

author, newassignment.net, november 2006 - present
-open-source reporting gets tested

netscape navigator, netscape.com, august 2006 - present
-professional social bookmarking

past experience:

author, 901am.com, december 2006 - april 2007
-new media news every morning (statistics)

author, themulife.com, september 2006 - january 2007
-experience social media, minus all the static

author, blogherald.com, november 2006 - december 2006
-the premium source for blogging news and commentary (statistics)

education:

the university of chicago, chicago, il., a.b. in economics, june 9, 2007

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All started out pretty good….but…

Then she tasted that nasty toothpaste…

I’ve been reading a friends blog from time to time about viral marketing.  These two pictures made me think, “If I had a website and I was a Dentist, this would be a perfect viral marketing campaign to get people to come to my site and book mark the funny pictures…I could title the post - “Will your dentist make your kid do this?” or “Toothpaste that makes you twinge“.

I’m sure there are other directions you could head with these pictures but I think Mat’s viral marketing ideas and suggestions are contagious.  Some may ask, “How can this really help my website?”  Links, links, links!  As we talk about social media marketing (saving articles and web pages to your favorites in StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and the like), a big part of viral marketing and SMO is encouraging people to add your pages to their favorites.  By doing this, you are creating links all over the internet that help Google and other search engines find you.  The more they find you on relevant sites, the better chance you have of moving up the charts for keywords you are using on your pages.  We don’t want to SPAM these sites, but creative strategies like this really do help build links and increases traffic.

What ideas are you testing?

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My Stumbleupon friend Kate proposed an interesting question the other day: “How can Social Media sites be improved?”

As an eCommerce Consultant, one of my main focuses is sales conversion. The question I get all the time is “Which SMO tools are the best for SEO and Sales Conversion?” The first answer is this - “Are any of them really for SEO and Sales Conversion?” I would definitely say SMO and SEO go together, but I personally haven’t seen a drastic increase in Sales Convesion because of SMO tools, at least nothing I can track directly back to a SMO reference point.

One issue I do have is the ammount of SMO tools out there to keep track of. I’ve lost count of how many there actually are these days but, as I teach people how to use them in their online marketing strategy, clients ask – Which ones are the best to use?

Stumbleupon has proven to get me the most traffic but does that traffic ever convert? NO! (not that I’ve seen anyway) Digg brings in traffic but there are definitely “insider tips” on getting on the popular pages or even upcoming status. I did get some traffic from del.icio.us for one article a while back, but rarely see much from traffic; however, I still use it - the main reason being links. I’m reading more and more recently about the downfall of Facebook – which I have generated some business from via networking.

The problem is, the SMO list goes on and on: twitter.com, mybloglog.com, sphinn.com, newsvine.com, mashable.com, reddit.com, etc, etc, etc. Whatever happen to the “keep it simple stupid” acronym? The bottom line is SMO is great for link building, which in turn helps you get recognized more by search engines, which then helps you move up the SERPs. The networking can be a great in too as you use these tools consistently.

What are your thoughts about the oversaturation of SMO tools?

Here are some of the things I do like about the SMO tools:

Facebook for Networking
Why Use StumbleUpon
The Power of SMO

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