Blogging and Social Networks

Are you a member of any social network – like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or any other of hundreds (or may be even thousands) networks currently available on the Net?

Then one thing is for sure – you’re blogging! Blogging, which is the short form of a term web logging, is simply a message post in a form of personal diary and it could be done in many formats.

You can blog with micro-blogs, status updates, or full-blown articles. Your blog can contain audio files (podcasting) or video files (vlogging, short for video blogging). Or it could be a combination of all the above mentioned types, and then some.

Blogging format doesn’t really matter. What matters, is the fact that all those formats allow you to post frequent updates and syndicate this information through RSS feeds on numerous blogs and social networks.

Since search engines index very quickly the updates posted on popular blogs and social networks, blogging became not only the form of self-expression, it became a powerful tool for lead generation, building additional income streams into your business, and of course search engine optimization.

In spite of all those formats of blogging that pop up left and right, there are only 2 main types of blogs.

One consists of blogs and social networking pages that are hosted by corresponding blogging platforms and social networks. (Examples: blogs on Blogger or Wordpress.com, Squidoo lenses, Hubpages, YouTube Channels, Twitter pages, Facebook Wall, MySpace Blog, etc).

Another type is represented by blogs and other message-posting applications that you host on your own hosting accounts (whether it’s a dedicated server, VDS or shared hosting, it’s not important in this particular case). What is important, you have control not only over the content that is posted on such blogs. You also decide what to do with the site.

With first type of blogs control is out of your hands. You never know when a social network may decide change its policy or throw an advertisement on your blog or completely shut down your account for whatever reason.

Don’t get me wrong. Social networks are awesome. You can piggy-back on their high PR, you can enjoy a huge influx of traffic, and your pages are instantly perceived as the source of authority.

Just remember to funnel all this traffic to your own blogs. Otherwise you’re building a sand castle –something stunning but very fragile. And that’s not the way you want to grow your business, is it?

You probably want to turn your visitors into customers and transform your blog into virtual real estate. And if you know how to properly build, promote and monetize your blogs, this task is possible. (Just don’t forget to regularly do multiple backups of your blogs for security purposes, preferably utilizing at least a dozen different ISPs.)

To summarize, both types of blogs are necessary in order to build a thriving online business. Social networks could be used as a significant source of traffic, as a tool to build relationship and reinforce your brand. Your own blogs and sites help to solidify this relationship and turn your prospects into customers.

If you want to find out how to effectively use social networks to grow your business, just sign up to my Social Marketing Secrets.

If you want to master a second part of the equation and to learn how to make money blogging, then look at the new blogging method created by Jack Humphrey.

I’ve known Jack for a while, and he is a real deal. He created a system that could be used even by people who never blogged before, or by those who never see a monetary return on their blogging. Just click this link to discover how to make over $9000 a month with just 10 blogs ($30 per blog per day).

Jack even offers a free 7 day trial (well, it’s almost free, it will cost you $1).
When you combine my social marketing and Jack Humphrey’s 10/30 blogging method, you will have a system that is poised to succeed (no guarantees though, read the disclaimers on this site).

Tagged as: Additional Income, Blogger, blogging, blogging for profit, Course Search Engine, Income Streams, jack humphrey, Lead Generation, making money, Message Post, myspace, Personal Diary, Podcasting, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines Index, Self Expression, Social Marketing Secrets, Social Networking, Social Networks, Status Updates, Term Web, Vds, Video Files, web feed syndication