This past week I’ve had social media on the brain.  The more I teach about social media as part of a traffic generation or marketing plan, the more I realize how ineffective it can be in the wrong hands.

There is a famous LinkedIn discussion stating that Social Media for businessis is crap, which has even spawned its own group. The irony that it was posted in LinkedIn and generated 2000 responses doesn’t escape me, however it did make me wonder how many people really get how to use social media, and how to measure the results of what they’ve been doing.

The part of the thread I saw made some great points, and just reinforces my belief that the general thrust of marketing social media marketing is absolutely backwards and confusing the issue. Not to mention that it turns off the people  it was most meant to help.

Then again the money I make from products and services about social media is minuscule in relation to my overall income from teaching traffic generation and building traffic systems, so perhaps I’m the wrong person to ask. I’m just not in the camp that thinks social media is the Second Coming. I think it’s one tool in a huge toolbox.

But I digress.

I bring that up to be very clear that I’m not asking whether social media as a marketing tactic, traffic generation method or way to facilitate networking is a con.

Nor am I asking if the people who call themselves social media experts are con men.  As much as I make fun of people who call themselves social media experts (as opposed to those who are called social media experts by others), much of it is tongue in cheek. If you compare me to Mark Joyner, I’m not a marketing expert.

Of course that’s not a title I claim either, but you see what I’m getting at – many of the self-proclaimed experts may not know as much as I do, but they know more than they need to in order to help a newbie.

So I don’t look at titles, I look at results.

No, I’m talking about the topic of my last social media guide on Social Media Traffic  Strategies, in which I taught that the core mission of using social media was to get other people to do what you wanted – buy, subscribe, visit your site, or in spreading your content, cause others to do the same.

I didn’t stop there either, I went through a how-to process that some people feel is dangerous – it is generally frowned upon to teach people how to get other people to do what you want them to do.

Today, I was led to these thoughts by a post at Cornwall SEO, regarding Social Media Myths.

And while I don’t quite agree that social media isn’t about conversation, I will say that the extent to which it is, is to get people on your side, and engaged in your content, product, site, cause, struggle, whatever.

Why?

Because at some point you want them to do something for you.

And in black and white, stark naked on the page it looks so… Machiavellian.  On its surface it sounds so manipulative and…. cold.

There are two theories to answer this.

Theory one – it is manipulative if we’re being honest, because everything is. At the core of all our marketing actions is a selfishness. Even when we give we’re doing it to receive – even if it’s to receive that good feeling that comes from giving.

That seems like one of those “dark but true” things. But take a look at theory two:  while it’s true that we are committing acts of marketing for our own selfish gain, social media is showing us that it’s deeper than that.

Because with social media we are on the spot to be the initiator if we want results. The return good deeds seldom come as the fruit of the originating tree. So in order to be any good at social media, it can’t be all about what’s in it for me or our actions ring hollow and we end up with no connections.

Otherwise we have our choice of other, less touchy-feely, interactive ways to get similar results.

We can buy links.

We can place ads.

We can use IM or email instead of Twitter and Facebook and still convey information.

We can trade favors privately to get content spread.

And we don’t.

So I don’t think that social media is about the ultimate con job…

BUT I’ll stop short at saying it doesn’t follow some of the same rules…

First, let’s define the term Explosive Results for our usage.

When you visualize something exploding, you think about a burst of energy, often associated with fire for some reason – probably the fault of our favorite action pictures.

I love to see things blow up as long as I know no one really got hurt – not just in movies but in website promotion. And an intelligent social media strategy won’t just get you several thousand links from various social sites. It can bring you premium web visibility, more targeted visitors, and bring you closer to your existing audience.

An standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.

An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community driven communication, helps make the web a better place, and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.

When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you’re on the right track, but at the same time, you’re limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn’t have to be the case.

If you’re a business owner, you know that working harder doesn’t necessarily mean better results – what if you’re working hard on the wrong thing?

Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #1 – Hot Content

The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn’t matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what’s going hot in your targeted topic and find a unique angle to fit your content into what people already like, without stealing their ideas.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #2 – Niched Network Nuances

The more tightly focused your submissions to social media sites are, the more likely they are to go viral, whether they are links you share by other people or your own. Here’s the logic.

People follow other people with similar interests. They’re on sites like Google, Yahoo, StumbleUpon, Delicious and Digg actively looking for new content. Put those two things together and you have a whirlwind of clicks happening. The only question is, will it be your link that gets clicked or passed over?

Having 5000 connections on Twitter or Facebook is useless if you are connected to people who don’t want your broadcasts, and you’re just as useless to them if you don’t want theirs. If my interest is in improving my existing business and you’re trying to get me to sell your network marketing products, it doesn’t matter how many times you ask me. If I’m not interested, your continued broadcasts will be ignored, or worse yet, blocked completely.

It’s about the perfect balance of quality AND quantity.

And if I’m not paying attention to you, I can’t and won’t spread your message. If you are in network marketing, why not go after people who love the network marketing concept but can’t seem to find the right company? That’s a perfect match, and can dramatically cut down your search for the right partners and prospects.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #3 – Simplify Sharing

It amazes me how many people miss this one.

You’ve got great content. You’ve got a massive, niched network.

Why feed them content that’s hard to share? Does that report have to be in PDF format? If so, does it have to be behind an opt-in wall if you’re spreading it among people who have Already opted in? Anyone connected to your business through its Facebook page, or your Twitter stream is also part of your opt-in list. Yes, it would be best if they were on your email newsletter list, but what faster way to get them there than to show them you don’t need to hold them prisoner there?

If your whitepaper is of such high value that you don’t Want it to spread, well, that’s something different. But if you’re sharing it so other people will spread it, make it easy for others to share.

Send your su.pr link so all they have to do is click the Thumbs-Up button.

Put a few sharing links on your page.

Make it easy for them to Retweet.

The easier it is for them to share, the more likely they are to do it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #4 – Consistency

And now we come to the area I fail at the most. It’s one of the things I know I need to do, but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of how to brainstorm, create and distribute quality content consistency, and still give them best possible service and support to my customers and clients. I always err on serving people who have bought from me, figuring that next blog post can wait until tomorrow.

Then at some point, I noticed a decline in return traffic – people weren’t coming back because they’d already heard everything I had to say. The solution? I got help for my content creation process. The ideas are still mine, but I was able to barter help for research, transcribing, and editing. I am also able to get audio and video polished much less expensively than I thought, though I don’t always use this option due to time constraints.

The other thing that helped a lot was getting over my perfectionism complex. Release your content as soon as you can. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve left on the table from my old fear of the typo and grammar police. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I was leaving my audience hanging.

You subscribe to something because you want to get regular updates. If your favorite daily news show started coming on once a week, you’d probably switch channels. If you’re inconsistent without explanation, your audience numbers will drop and your network will fade.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #5 – Think Engagement

Measuring your results by page view alone is a thing of the past. When the web was mostly text and images, it made some sense that how many pages a visitor viewed at your site was a true measure of engagement.

Nowadays this isn’t the case. You want to look instead at how long people are at your site. The exception, of course, is when customers are coming to your site to buy, and the order processing system takes them off your page. But if people aren’t leaving your site because they’re ready to buy or subscribe, you truly must look at why they aren’t paying more attention to your content, and what changes you can make to get them to stay.

This is critically important in understanding which content will go viral naturally. What posts are people staying on your site to comment on? When do they take a few extra seconds to retweet? Are they watching your videos all the way through?

Once you know the content your audience is most connected to, and why, you can make more of it.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #6 – Three-Way Connection and Communication

That’s not a typo. Three-way communication is when the way you conduct yourself online is observed to a third party, who is also indirectly being addressed by your manner or statement. I wish I could credit the proper author of this, but I just don’t remember who it was who first observed that three people are positively affected by an act of kindness – the person giving, the person receiving, and the person observing.

One example of this in action is having a conversation with a peer about their new product on a social media site. Your friend is probably Dying to tell someone about the testimonial they just got, but don’t want to be rude or are too humble to brag. Ask them in front of your audience, and the conversation is exposed to your connections and re-exposed to theirs.

Connection is just as important – if communication is the conveyance of information, connection is doing so in a way that bonds. A several hundred closely bonded contacts will spread your message faster and farther than several thousand distant aquaintances.

Explosive Social Media Tactic #7 – What’s In It for All?

In the 80s, we all thought about what was in it for ourselves. In the 90s we decided to focus on others, hence, what’s in it for them. Today, we’re in the age of the win-win-win situation. Tell them how you benefit and tie it to their benefit.

Want someone to help you spread your stories? Make sure they know how important it is to you, why you came to them for help, and how they’ll be perceived for being the bearer of your good news.

You may look at the list above and feel that it’s intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Focus on doing just one of these things better each day for a few weeks, and before you know it, you’ll be doing them habitually. The results you’ll get will help these new habits stick.

Here’s a link to the su.pr traffic video if you are viewing this post via a syndication channel and can’t see the video above.

The video above is some of  StumbleUpon traffic, specifically the traffic I drove using su.pr. In the example above, the numbers average to about 5000 Stumbles a week, and I’m not a Power Stumbler by any stretch.

That’s not even traffic I got for myself, it’s for other people.

My personal record is 27,000 visitors. I had a product up about it on Tuesday at a sale price for  24 hours, for my newsletter subscribers only.

Everyone who signed up for the 27,000 visitors before I took it off the bonus list for the Social Media Success Package has probably noticed by now that Devon Brown has a new product up at http://27kvisitors.com/ – and if you’re saying to yourself… “hmmm…” you’ve got great instincts.

But no, he didn’t rip me off (bad paranoia! bad! lol)You’d be making a mistake in thinking anything Devon has done or is involved with isn’t above board. Which is why I’m always honored when he works with me or gives my products positive reviews.

Devon got a copy of the update, as he’s one of the ones who got the original package (that’s his testimonial at the top of the Social Media Secrets page that used to have this as a bonus).

And he let me know exactly how insane it was to sell it for less than $97 for more than a day. I agreed and it’s off the server and onto the http://27kvisitors.com/ site. All that’s on the page is a quick 14 minute video explaining how it helped him, and at the end, an order button.

If you pick it up. let me know. I have a special surprise upcoming for people who buy from that site.

27,000 visitors from StumbleUpon in one week is my personal high score for generating social media traffic. 40k is my overall best in one day.

But if you ever look at my SU profile, by all outward appearances, I’m a pretty average user.

I don’t have 1000 subscribers, like Andy Beard, who can rock my server with one stumble.

And my both my Stumbling record and number of reviews certainly pale in comparison to someone like Zaibatsu.

And yet. Whether you’re talking social media or online news site, online reputation management or offline social networks, I seem to have a knack for knowing where all the pressure points are, and where to apply – or relax – force, to get the coverage that I want, and to pass that on to my customers and clients.

You can’t buy social media traffic, with the exception of Stumble Ads and Facebook Ads, which really aren’t the same as what I’d call social media traffic – even under those circumstances, it’s just not the same.

It’s the same way you can’t buy good vibes. Either you can get them, or you can’t. You can’t pay someone to genuinely feel good about your products, services, and customer support. Though I’m sure in this economy, lots of people would fake it really well if you offered them the right price.

As I get closer to retiring, I’ve wondered- and studied, what it is that I’m doing differently , more and more frequently. What  am I dong in half an hour on StumbleUpon that has the same effect as what some others do in 40 hours?

As it began to dawn on me, I started to take notes. This excerpt is from a PDF guide I wrote about what I have logically concluded, and repeatedly tested, to be the Secret to my Success in drawing social media traffic and generating massive traffic in general. [download it | pdf].

For the next 24 hours, I’m not going to ask for your email address or anything else in order for you to read it. After the opening day sale is over, there’s no more free peeks – you’ll have to give somethin to get somethin. wink wink.

Have a Happy Weekend. If you’re in the DC metro area, remember to stop by Faith Gifts and Stationery in Laurel Mall across from the Macy’s to visit me between 11 am and 2 pm. You can corner me and ask me questions about your web site.