How to Create Your Own Social Networking Community
If you have a medium- to large-sized online network, you might have noticed some of your contacts have been developing their own communities in the form of private groups, forums or social networks that are a mixture of free or paid memberships.
The Pros of Creating Your Own Community
So with all of the existing communities out there, what’s the benefit of creating your own?
Driving Traffic to Your Site – Let’s say that you start a forum on your own domain. If you’re successful in creating a popular community, you’ll be driving a lot of traffic to your website. The traffic, in turn, will lead to the next benefit. 
7 Growing Social Bookmarking Sites Worth Exploration
When you think of social bookmarking, big names like Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious likely come to mind first. But are these the only ones you should focus on?
Depending on your niche or industry, you may find that channeling all of your energy into broad social bookmarking networks that cover almost every topic imaginable may not benefit you.
Instead of targeting networks that only have a percentage of users interested in your topic, why not find a network whose members and visitors are 100% interested in your niche?
The following are popular niche social bookmarking networks for bloggers, business professionals, developers and designers.
Using Social Media to Grow Your Local Businesses
In this video I interview Bryan Elliott, founder of Linked OC. The “OC” stands for Orange County and Linked OC is a local organization servicing the local Orange County area.
Bryan shares how he built a 5,000 strong local community organically thanks to social media. You’ll also discover how Bryan uses a mix of live events, social media and geo-location services for hyper-local marketing.
Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.
How to Develop a Social Media Content Strategy
Do you have a social media strategy? Does it involve content? Should it?
The other day I drove past a local convenience store that makes most of its profit from beer, Slush Puppies and beef jerky (not that there’s anything wrong with that). A big sign out front asked passers-by to Like them on Facebook.
“It’s official,” I thought. “Now every business in America has a Facebook page.”
Unfortunately, few businesses actually have a strategy for their Facebook page, or for the rest of their social media activity. They tweet, blog and set up a Facebook business page out of fear of being left behind, rather than as a way to engage their audience.
How to Turn Your WordPress Blog Into a Social Network
Want to create your own social network? Are you familiar with WordPress? From the makers of WordPress comes BuddyPress, a tool that will enable you to make your own social network.
While major social networks offer tremendous reach and millions of users, sometimes that scope can actually be distracting for certain interest groups that have a more narrow focus. BuddyPress is a great solution for groups that want to set up their own social network to concentrate interactions around a shared cause.
BuddyPress allows users the opportunity to create a social network with specific membership and publishing rules. These features make the BuddyPress platform useful for all sorts of organizations and groups.
3 Ways to Achieve Explosive Blog Growth
Social Media Examiner is officially one year old today!
In honor of this special day, I would like to help you grow your blog by sharing some tips we have learned over our last 12 months of explosive growth.
Before I share my tips, I would like to reveal the name of our mascot…
Are You Unknowingly Bribing Your Social Media Fans?
Could “ethical” bribery be setting your business up for failure?
If your company’s social media interactions revolve around advance announcements of sales, special offers and insider-only promo codes – to the point where receiving these things is the primary motivation for your fans and followers – then you’re essentially bribing customers to stay.
In this case, social media merely provides a pleasant, whitewashed cover for the bribery.
Thus, the very activities you’re hoping will improve your relationship with customers might well be actually hurting your reputation with them, making those customers less likely to pay your full price without balking.
This article will reveal four ways to build customer loyalty without bribery.
