Wonderful model and enlightening for me. Now I understand why alot of traffic does not convert and that building trust and relationship and indirectly building brand will have my profit.

May I know how many emails need to be send out? I currently sitting on weekly email and occasionally broadcast thru my aweber. Is that ok to keep in touch with my customer/clients?

Kudos and thank you!

Regards

What social bookmarking does do effectively is kick start your blog post and drive it to the top of Google results if the site passes link juice.

Then you can begin building links to keep it there and you also get the added value of exposure to other Bloggers in Blogsearch and on the social site itself if the demographics fit your topic.

Internet marketing blogs on Sphinn is a good case in point. Digg, who knows what those people do over there and they are so busy banning their top users Mixx is even looking good these days.

To clarify, I don’t think Google has a problem (and will not penalize) people who create value-based content for the reward of creating incoming links.

And perhaps you don’t disagree. But when I read your content I get the sense that you believe Google will penalize someone for using social locations (like squidoo, for example) to create incoming links for another location even if your Squidoo content is valuable… and I actually think Google knows this is the tradeoff for their best content providers.

In my opinion, Google just wants someone to create value based content… and if you do, you get to create incoming links. They basically pay you for your content that way (in a sense).

Just my two cents…. more than what most incoming link are worth.

I came to know you through your first “Plan” book. Then when I because friends with Russell Wright of ThemeZoom he led me to many of your other writings. So, first let me say “thanks” for all your work in this area of social media.

Now to my small contribution to this blog topic: Anyone who has tried to monetize social networks will quickly find that there is a whole new set of rules that aren’t really new but are much more focused and applied than every before. Can it happen? Yes, and it will more and more as together we learn these new online social protocols. Why? Because at the heart of all human transactions, including the act of buying something, lies a social dimension.

These first attempts are meeting with the same learning process (resistance) as those who came online in the nineties tying to use the internet as a sales avenue. In the very early days, back in late 60s, if you remember, the Internet belonged to the egg heads in educational institutions like UCLA and Stanford Research Institute, and to the other networks that grew from them. Talk about resistance to using the Net as a sales processor; just imagine what that was like!

The same protocols that were necessary when the Net was first used as a force able to be monetized will need to be applied and reshaped for today’s world. But we all know what they are. No one likes to be USED. No one likes to get SALES CALLS AT HOME DURING DINNER. No likes to be seen as JUST a source for more sales. Yet, all of us like to buy things we need, want, and therefore we search out the best quality for the best price. That will NEVER CHANGE. The rule book for social network marketing is currently being written, but will it happen? Of course it will. I’m as certain about this as I am about the sun rising tomorrow. Why? Because money and everything you do with it has a code as sure and as predictable as that Sun I just mentioned. We just need to find out how to apply it to the EARLY DAYS of social media expansion. Those who find it first will benefit (probably big time).

I for one believe that these social networks will ultimately help to eliminate the “scoundrels” who use other people in their monetization endeavors. I’m very happy about this. New rules (good rules) will be written as the whole process of sales gets much closer to the social psychology that makes up the fabric of a world wide community.

You see in this process one of the major new rules that will emerge: Sellers will have to be much more honest, much more caring about those they sell to, and much more supportive after the sale. If they do not do this everyone will know. If we do, everyone will know. We are not use to this. We are much more comfortable to “hit and run marketing.” That’s what we have been taught. Well, unlearn all that. That’s the major reason we find the social media networks so mysterious. We are simply not use to being transparent, open and honest. Otherwise we would NOT sell or be part of some of the products and companies we represent. Think about that for a moment. I for one welcome these changes and I’m adjusting my life, products and company image accordingly.

By the way, we at AutomatedAuthoritySites.com have just finished a system that should help with this process. It will allow users to access over 450 social network sites (yes, there are that many, and more) all with a click of a button. Each of these social sites will be categorized by over 18 different categories, all of which will help the user to connect with those sites that best fit his or her social/sales goals. We will let the users of Charles group and ThemeZoom know how to secure this in about two weeks, as the first version will be free to you. You won’t find any info on this at our main site right now, but I will post the blog address soon.

The software will be available at AuthoritySocialBookmarker.com once we launch, so look for it. Oh, and to be “honest” there will be a paid for version that hits you as an up-sale. However, I do believe that the free version will be as good, if not better, than many of the current paid for versions on the market. But, as always, you will make the final decision, not me. (See, already these social rules are changing my behavior…I can’t even send out my “free” software anymore like I use to without feeling the need to alert you to the whole truth about the up-sale….sigh. Oh well, it’s all for the good.)

Thanks again Charles for being such a pioneer. I’d like to help in that process, if I can.

Tom

Thanks so much for these posts. I’m finding your work fascinating and extremely valuable, appreciate it…

I’d like to share my strategies to date mainly using a combination of Facebook and Twitter. Although I’ve found it impossible to answer “how long does it take to build trust” it’s nevertheless a question that I frequently have a go at trying to figure out…

A few indicators I’d offer to how you measure trust and overall effectiveness
of your social networking strategy:

1. Number of comments received
2. The tone and nature of the feedback
3. The number of requests for help/further information
4. Attention from industry leaders in your niche
5. The number of personal messages received
6. The viral factor - how many people are voluntarily sharing your content
7. You’re mentioned by others in their posts, comments

Accepting that “ROI is directly proportional to the time it takes to achieve trust” my approach has been to establish

* A “core group” of friends and invest time building genuine valuable relationships
* post content initially that people want to talk about and present with an informative, thoughful approach and ask my core group to get involved by commenting, sharing with their group, etc
* Monitor patterns based on points 1-7
* Introduce new content that still has a high “sociability factor” but more problem with some basic outline of the solution which encourages people to check out how you can help out more. This is the point I’ll invite people over to my sites.

Ok this has been successful, however my challenge is scalability - any success has been down to the depth of the relationships built with people - this can be time consuming however I believe as you suggest that over time the ROI will benefit from the compounding effect caused by an ever growing network and the increased bonds that occur naturally with the passing of time.

Cheers
Glen Crosier
Brighton, UK

PS. Not sure of the rules for posting links on this blog but I have posted an article on Facebook this week exploring the amount of time we need to spend on personal relationships Vs communication en masse. I also take a peek into Gary Vaynerchuk’s
“personal contact” habits over a 24 hour period…
http://tinyurl.com/643gyg

Charles, I guess the networking is important, but what do you have in place before you start this networking process? Is there a domain up and running before you start? Or do you first do the networking in some way to determine if the project would be feasible?

Thanks

All my best to you and your mission statement
Phillip Skinner

It seems that IM in certain areas has shifted towards a cult mentality focussed on the respective guru with the gurus cross promoting their look how wonderful my guru chum is whereas they are as much as a guru as I am - they re fantastically skilled in the art of ‘wallet opening’, which I am not! I do not include you in this new style of guru club, yet!

You said … “The experience that the user have on the hub will dictate if he will bite the hook. That’s the key - User Experience.”

- That is so true and effectively sums up a point I have been trying to get across to Internet marketers for a long time now.

Thank you for breaking it down like that … very cool perspective.