The key to every site’s success nowadays is through good marketing and promotion. Even if you have really good and substantive content on your site, when you don’t get to promote it properly, then you still would be left behind and not earn as much as most successful websites do. And in the internet community, the best way for you to achieve a great inflow of website traffic and increased revenue generation is by taking advantage of social media, since this is where the people are.

Here are 15 effective ways to promote your site using social media:

1. Sign up with social networks. Have you heard of social network sites such as Friendster, Facebook, MySpace and Multiply? If you, then it’s about time that you sign up with these sites so you can start promoting your own website. Your main goal here is to garner more and more active users under your friends’ list so that they can get update with what’s going on in your site which they must check out.
    
2. Social bookmarks. When people like the pages that they read on a book, they bookmark the said page so they can get back to it later on. The same goes with web pages. Through social bookmarking, some of the interesting pages on your site are featured which viewers can read while browsing on relevant topics. At most cases they will bookmark your site so they can return to it and go on with their reading. Among the popular social bookmarking sites today are Stumbleupon.com and Del.icio.us.
    
3. Be in the news.Who says you can’t make headlines over the web? Of course you can, and by making news you actually attract more people to check out your site. Thus, subscribe and contribute to social news networks such as Reddit, Digg and Technorati. Take advantage of the fact that people are always looking for something new, thus, be in the news.
    
4. Upload videos promoting your site.If you have the right skills to come up with a promotional video about your site, then make one and post in on video sites such as YouTube. Viewers can check out what’s in store on your site by watching a 30-second to 1 minute video presenting the highlights about your site, just like a TV commercial.
    
5. Create your own video channel!While you upload videos on video streaming sites, it is also equally effective to come up with your own video channel. This option proves helpful especially when you have a lot of videos to share, thus viewers would find it much easier to check out the latest videos about your site without taking much time for searching.
    
6. Share photos.On the other hand, if you don’t have videos to share yet, you may opt to sign up in accounts that offer photo sharing. Sites such as Flickr and Photobucket provide you with this service, and by then you can upload photos and images relevant to your site. Just like video channels, photo albums help in promoting your site in the niche that you belong to.
    
7. Online events. Through online events, you can gather your followers in one place and let them enjoy an alloted time in sharing each other’s thoughts and comments. Online events come in the form of webinars, Skypecasts, and live chat.
    
8. Local events.Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about the lives of your site’s local disciples, thenwhy not organize a meetup so they too can get to know each other in person? This way they can participate in improving your site and as well make your site more interactive in terms of social activities. This technique is appealing especially to people who share the same interests and are active under the same niche.
    
9. Audio and music streaming.If your site is inclined with audio and music, then it is also helpful that you put up your own music streaming account, since most online users are music lovers as well. Through audio and music streaming, you and your viewers can share and exchange music files, make reviews and recommend new and relevant items to add on your list.
    
10. Microblogs. To increase the popularity of your site, you can set up microblogs that assist in maintaining a steady information system about your site. Through your microblogs, you can exchange links with other blogs and sites relevant to your niche, and thus market your site to other companies and end users. In microblogs you can add reviews, posts and stories relevant to the site itself. Microblogs include Twitter and Jaiku.
     
11. Blogging! Since you have already made use of microblogs, why not setup real blogs as well? You can make a magazine-type of blog, where you can feature random musings about your site and and other stories related to the niche. You have more freedom in promoting your site since it’s your voice that’s heard. You can also link your blog to other blogs under the same niche.
     
12. Forums. If you want a place where you and your visitors can raise issues about your niche topic, you can put up threads in community forums over the web. You can first join as a member so you can introduce yourself to the community, and later take be part in adding threads as well.
     
13. Viral marketing. While we all are concerned about the techniques, you should also put some effort on the content. You can do viral marketing by focusing on the right keywords and tags so your site appears in substantial rankings after a search result. With effective viral marketing, your site speeds up its popularity.
     
14. Aggregate information. Gather filtered news feeds related to your niche so that viewers can see that you’re site is well maintained and always updated. You can do this by simple subscribing to RSS feeds, as well as delivering top web videos and podcasts right direct to your subscribers’ profiles.
     
15. Go live! Finally, you can greatly improve your site’s performance in terms of traffic and revenue generation by going live to your subscribers. You can do this by featuring live news or audio streaming, auction streaming such as Auction Thumbs, or by embedding live chat rooms on your site.

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