My Unique Social Strategy and Why

byEthan Glover

668 followers

Updated 10 years ago

Some of you have had the pleasure of coming across my (maybe) odd and (probably) confusing social networking strategy. I wrote a blog not too long ago that said I will be deleting all of my social network accounts to include Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. I will be keeping Google+ for authorship, but I won't really be active there. The only purpose for G+ now is posting new articles and getting that picture of mine in the search results. I also wrote a blog on alternatives to article directories (which is not the same thing as guest blogging ...silly Matt Cutts). This blog to some extent covers my social strategy. However, let it be known here and now what exactly I do, why I do it, and maybe even how to do it yourself. (In even more detail.)

1. The Strategy - What

Generally I post articles to Reddit and leave a signature (with a link) in comments on similar blogs. I'm certainly a believer in the 80/20 principle. This principle says that 20% of the work you do accounts for 80% of the results. So why not trash the extra stuff and concentrate on that 20%? Make it the 100%, and maybe even use the extra time to expand?

Your site, is unique, it is different, it is built around your tastes and talents. If you have a cooking site with recipes, maybe Pinterest is best for you. If you talk about dog training, Facebook may be the best place to go. If you sell products and have the occasional deal, by all means use Twitter. My site is literally built around conversation, debate, resourcing and theorizing. Reddit is the perfect place for it, and that's seen in the stats which I will get to later.

As for commenting on other blogs, this isn't a huge part of my traffic, mostly because I don't have a lot of time to read blogs outside of WA. I don't even have enough time to read blogs on WA. However, I do try, and it results in very interested readers who always seem to want more. I am lucky enough to have an extraordinary source at Top Libertarian (who also as of right now ranks my site as the 137th most popular on their list). With the RSS to Top Libertarian I get a feed of the most popular blogs within the niche. On these blogs are comment forms that allow me to enter my website (as a hyperlink on my user name) or in a signature underneath my comment. There has been some confusion about where this is allowed, and my simple answer is...like...everywhere. But I'll try to go into more detail by the end of this. The point is, doing this leads to a higher pages per visit rate than any other source.

2. The Strategy - Why

Hopefully you can see that but if not. It says Reddit accounts for 87.27% of my social visits and gets 1.31 pages per visit. (See? 80/20! It never fails.) Further down it says Disqus accounts for 1.09% and 1.85 pages per visit.

Now, on others you may see that YouTube accounts for 3 pages/visits, but trust me, the views on that are too low to matter, I don't make videos, I don't have enough privacy in order to do so. You might also see that Facebook and Twitter are above "Disqus". If you don't know what Disqus is, it's a very popular comment form (I suggest it for your sites unless you have Headway themes in which case it's incompatible). Disqus does not account for all my comments. I get a lot of views from Mises.org, ArtOfManliness.com, and various other sites that allow me to post a link.

Also, the traffic from Facebook and Twitter almost never engages. No comments, no discussion, nothing. These aren't the kind of people I want to concentrate on. My site is not a passive one for those passing by. (This ain't BuzzFeed!) I want people who will stay awhile, read, comment, discuss, argue, ask, teach, etc. This is where Reddit comes in. 99% of the comments/discussion on my site take place on Reddit. This is where I get all of my feedback and alternative opinions. As with any place, there is a lot of immaturity in a lot of comments, but they don't over power the good and well thought out stuff. This is something that is impossible to find on places like YouTube and Twitter (and usually Facebook).

Now, why delete these social networks entirely? Why not just spend minimal time with them? I don't like them. They're not fun. They're full of links and advertisements. I recently removed 1,500 people off my friends list to help me get some perspective (I thought the problem was the noise in general), it didn't help. Facebook especially is pure spam. Nobody has anything original to say, it's all "shared" and quoted. (Somebody, please read "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson!)

So I will be concentrating on Liberty.me (an up and coming paid for social network) for my socialization. I don't need these things to sell my website. I'm doing fine without them. In fact, I know I'm better without them. I have more time, I can concentrate on what matters, I can increase my traffic by not sharing my site so widely! What?? Yeah.

3. The Strategy - How

Some people have told me they don't understand Reddit, they find it to be "restrictive" and "confusing". Ah! No! I understand if it doesn't work for your niche, but don't tell me such a thing. Here's a quick walkthrough, you sell Red Leather Shoes... try this, go to Reddit.com:

The results:

This came up with 6 forums that you can post your links to and start a discussion! Now, I can't imagine "male fashion advice" being a good place, but lets look at "female fashion advice":

60,000 people subscribe to this subreddit. Do you know of anywhere else can you have instant access to that many people? 234 people are online and browsing the area right now. That's an outreach of 234 people instantly with no working for "followers" and 60,000 people over time.

However, there is a caveat. Look at the rules of this sub, under what is not permitted:

"spam, including but not limited to: use of affiliate/referral links or explicit advertisements for blogs, companies, apps, or websites"

Ah, and there's the trick isn't it? This is where most people get banned, or their posts get downvoted into the pits of invisibility. If you learn ANYTHING about Reddit, make it be this. Reddit, is the best measure of your sites "spam level". I promise your posts will not survive the site if you go on asking someone to buy something.

Providing value to the community is a big deal here. While any sub can create it's own rules (and anyone can create a sub), this is very common. People don't like it when they feel they're being sold to. This is your ultimate test, are you creating content and leading people to something they want, or are you pitching a product in the hopes that 1% clicks buy?

This is a hard thing to explain. I can't tell you what the non spam quality of your site is. But what are your intentions when you write? To provide value, and to help people? Or to sell something? If your site got 1,000's of views a day, would people donate to you for your services? Are you more valuable than Amazon? More valuable than Google? Reddit will let you know.

Everything between that line just above and the last picture is the bulk of this blog. It's what is most important, but I've already promised more and so I shall.

I've also seen confusion as to when you can and can't leave comments on other peoples blogs with links back to your site. This is something you have to try for yourself. Only you can develop the intuition as to when. I can tell you some general things about JavaScript utilization and the most popular comment forms (like Disqus) but any of those explanations won't make sense unless you're making the active effort for yourself to leave comments and seeing what happens. If the comment is posted great, if it's posted and doesn't interpret your link (like leaving comments here on WA) well, you've learned something. If your comment is deleted or not allowed, fine, you've learned something. I can't provide the answers for you, that's your job.

All that being said, let's consider some examples. The default Wordpress comment form allows for posting hyperlinks. The very first news article on my news feed is from AntiWar.com, here's an example of what I might put in the comment form (which clearly uses Wordpress because of the way the buttons look and the fact that I'm already signed in through Wordpress):

Note that leaving the actual comment "Great article!" is spammy, say something about the actual story or writing, or give thanks for something specific. Also, note that I clearly separated the backlink to my site with some lines, this is not seen as spammy to most moderators. I leave a real comment and tell people where they can find me and who I am, that's great!

On a story at The Guardian I get a comment form with this message at the top:

Sites that require you to create an account specifically for their site usually end up sending you a lot of e-mails and heavily moderate comments. Most of them don't allow any links to be posted, some of them allow your user name to link to your site. In general, these are wastes of time. Just click "X" and move on. Personal blogs never have stuff like this, and you usually don't have to worry about it, but just in case you come across it, find another site if you can.

In our third article over at Liberty Law Site, we find my most favoritest form for commenting. This is also a Wordpress default, but does not require readers to be signed in in order to comment:

"Your Website", music to my ears. This makes things easy and puts your sites link on your username. People are more likely to click on these because when you use signatures it's easier to ignore as an "advertisement".

This story from Eju.tv, in the comments, we see the great and wonderful Disqus. Easily identifiable by it's very clear layout at the top. (In this case it's in Spanish).

Conclusions

I want you to consider this. What you see above is what I do and what may work for others. It in no way puts down or argues against any other strategies. There are no tips or advice above. This is only information. This is not a technical manual or a how to. It is something to consider. If you have trouble finding where to leave backlinks or if Reddit is too complicated for your tastes, don't use them. Whether or not you take anything here and try it out is up to you. If you have trouble I might give some general advice, but it's ultimately up to you. It's up to you to find what works. Don't take anybody else's word for what works and what doesn't. Explore and learn. The more you know the better you'll do. There's no such thing as one perfect strategy or one perfect social network. There is only you, your content and your audience. Nothing else matters.