On the subject of social media marketing you’ll often read that it’s important to be an active part of the social community and to work on building a strong profile for yourself. Sometimes it’s assumed by those who are new to social media that the primary or sole reason for this is to submit or vote for your own content. While this can be one reason for building a profile, it’s far from the only benefit.In this post I’d like to take a look at 9 potential reasons to build your profile. It’s unlikely that all will apply to you, but hopefully when looking over this list you’ll see that a strong profile can be beneficial for a number of reasons.
1. To Promote Your Own Work
As I already mentioned, this is often the first assumption for those who are new to social media, and it’s an obvious reason. Whether you’re going to submit your own content or not, having a strong profile can help to get more attention to your blog, or to your posts on other blogs.
At some social media sites it can be frowned upon to submit your own content, primarily Digg, but at others it’s perfectly acceptable by the audience. Even if you’re not submitting your content at Digg, you may want to send shouts to some of your friends when someone else has submitted your content. Twitter is also commonly used to quickly send out a link to a new post, and this is very effective for those bloggers who have a large following.
2. To Promote Your Freelance or Guest Posts
I do a good bit of freelance blogging and for the most part those who are paying me are going to be measuring the results in terms of how many people see the posts I’ve written and how many links they draw. For this reason, getting a freelance post to become “popular” with social media can keep the blog owners happy and keep more work coming.
While I don’t stumble the content on my own blogs I typically will stumble my own posts on other blogs (if I think it’s worthy), and I see this as a way of increasing the value of my services. If the blog owner is paying for results, I can help to get those results by promoting the post via social media. The same thing can be applied to guest posts on other blogs.
3. To Help Friends
As you build your blog you’ll no doubt develop some relationships with other bloggers. One of the great things about blogging is that others in your niche aren’t necessarily competition. Being able to help your friends to get some extra exposure is a nice benefit to having a strong profile.
4. Just for Fun and Socializing
Social media can be noting more than entertainment if that’s what you want it to be. If this is the case for you, building a strong profile can help to enhance your experience on the site and it can open up opportunities for you to meet more people.
5. To Be Recognized as a Leader
By having a strong social media profile you may be able to improve your recognition by others in your niche, specifically if your strong profile is at a niche social media site. In this case, you may be seen by others as being a leader in your niche because of the influence that you have at the social media site.
6. As a Compliment to Your Blog
One trend that’s becoming more popular, especially with Twitter, is for bloggers to use social media as a supplement to a blog. Many bloggers post a link to their Twitter profile on their blog and they’ll send out tweets when new posts are published. In these cases, the bloggers are using the profile as a way to expand the reach of their blog.
7. For Consulting
Social media consulting is becoming a more common service as more companies and website owners are recognizing the importance and impact of social media. If you hope to offer consulting services, having a strong profile is almost essential. It will give you the credibility that others will expect from a consultant.
8. To Charge for Submissions
Like it or not, some top social media users charge others to have their content submitted (see Invesp’s interview with a top Digg user). In some cases this goes hand-in-hand with consulting. You may be paying for someone’s expertise and guidance, or you may be paying for them to submit the content to help the chances of becoming popular.
9. To Avoid Being Left Behind
Other bloggers are using social media and their profiles as a way to expand the reach and effectiveness of their blogs. Simply put, if you’re not doing this, you are at a disadvantage. If you want to avoid being left behind you should become active at a few choice social media sites.
What Are Your Reasons?
Why do you work on building a social media profile?
