Why Share Traffic? What’s the point of social media?
Few understand what the fuss over social media is, because they don’t understand how to use these new tools. Every major Facebook, StumbleUpon or Social Media detractor I’ve read about has shown evidence in their writing that they are using the tools ineffectively.
Those of us in the know are reluctant to correct them, and some of us deliberately talk over their heads in code to keep what we see as potential abusers, or competitors over influence, at bay.
I personally admit to teling a colleague he should “expand the reach of his social graph” in order to send him on a wild goose chase, ending with this article, just to make a point.
(Hi Don.)
You can use almost every social media tool to waste time, to be sure. (Except maybe LinkedIn. Which ironically makes me use it less.) But if you have the discipline to deny yourself another Scrabulous game, you can turn your actions at Facebook into traffic, which of course can then be turned into profit.
Or. You can use them to leverage better traffic, networking, and overall business positions for yourself. it ultimately comes down to what you’re willing to do, or assign someone in your company to do.
The point is, I’m publishing this book excerpt as an article series, to address one of the big deterrents to being more open with resources. And that is the perceieved increase in time expenditure to market a site.
So many people complain to me about the time it takes to share effecitvely and across multiple audiences. For them it takes hours.
For me, it went from one solid hour to 30 minutes sprinkled throughout my day. I could easily just task this to someone else, but I enjoy it. And in doing, I can demonstrate how to be more effective to other people.
If you’re more effective at sharing, you can share more. Sharing more can make you influential. And one of the fastest ways to become influential is to share resources openly and constantly. You see the cycle going on here, yeah?
Just in case, let’s play pretend. 
Let’s say your mission is to be more sharing of other people’s links and websites, in order to become influential in traffic sharing.
Why would you want to do this?
Didn’t we talk about this? Still don’t get why?
Because those who hold the influence over traffic determine how it flows. For the first time, everyone can make a direct difference to how the power over traffic influence is shared.
Besides the pure happiness of being open, intelligent traffic influence give you valuable community power that you can leverage to draw traffic to yourself.
(Exactly how I explain in the book, to be released in the next newsletter.)
Of course, you don’t want to spend all your time sharing links online — what good is evolving into a better sharer if it takes you away from your work?
Opponents of social media cite this to be the main reason why they don’t see the point of these tools, not realizing how much they can reduce the time expenditure when properly used.
This weekend I’m publishing 7 steps of a plan to reduce the time you spend sharing sites, and, at the same time, increase your role as a traffic influencer. The first one is already up.
I’ll be expanding on the steps below in upcoming posts and link to them as they’re filled in.
1- Start a Link Gathering Ritual
2- Find Tools that Can Help In All Stages of the Process
3- Share the Smart Way
4- Share at Optimal Times of the Day
5- Do Bookend Voting
6- Boost Your Signal by Having a Soft Site Limit
7- Be Purposeful with Your Time
You’ll recognize the posts as similiar to the names of the steps above. The whole series will be done by Monday morning.
You can reduce your time spent marketing with social media to less than an hour, and you don’t have to do it every day. Maybe you can do it every week instead.
It’s still an hour of time spent, but boo hoo.
If someone in your company isn’t spending an hour a week on marketing, or hiring someone to spend at least that much time, jump before the Titanic crashes.
[...] [series] How to Increase Your Sharing Influence in Half the Time [...]