One year ago I began my blogging career. I did not do it to become popular as much as I did it to generate some extra income. I am a loan officer for a mortgage company first and foremost. After that, call me what you will, but most call me a dedicated blogger. Some even call me "friend."
When I originally started out on this trek of mine, I did it not knowing anything about social media or the process of using social media websites. All I knew was how to write about what I felt and what I knew. I began by joining a website that a former colleague was a member of. It is referred to as one of the largest Real Estate networks around. It is known as ActiveRain Real Estate Network. When I joined I fumbled my way through the site and soon I learned how to maneuver my way around. I quickly sstarted to amass a following from this website. I was getting to a point where I could master the use of their systems and make my posts look interesting.
Soon, I decided to start a post outside the network and build a following of my own. I learned quickly that not all platforms worked the same and I ran into some road blocks. I regrouped and learned how to operate on both platforms efficiently. But, there still was the problem of getting traffic to come to me. It was not until I joined HubPages that I learned about social media and how to use it to benefit my time and get the much sought after exposure.
What I did not realize was the fact that I already belonged to two of the biggest networks around. One was ActiveRain which I blogged in regularly and the other was LinkedIn that I had joined years ago to help me in recruiting employees for the company that I was working for at the time. Where ActiveRain was closing in on 100,000 members and growing, LinkedIn had me connected to 25 million plus. What I did not realize for years was the fact that I had a social network in my hands and did not use it to my advantage.
After joining HubPages, I also learned about eHow and how to use this to write articles about things that you know. We all have things in our lives that we know about. For most of us, we just do not know how to put it into words. What was good witheHow is it taught me a little more about writing because of the different type of format that it uses. Between eHow and HubPages, I began to explore the pages within looking for more knowledge on how to grow.
One day, I found the knowledge that I longed for; Social Media websites and how I could use them to benefit me. It took me a while to figure all the sites out, but soon I was off into a totally new world. A world where I could come across millions of people and still only scrape the surface. One of the first things I did was load "The Button". It has been the greatest tool that I use today. What this does for me is allow me to connect to all the social media sites that I am a member of and add any post (blog page) that I have to their site. It is a social bookmarking tool if you will. In using this tool, I can spread a post that I write to millions of people in a matter of minutes.
Now, for most people, they use these tools in many different ways, so I am not going to go into the details of each. What I will do is tell you the ones that work for me. As with all things that work, consistency is the main key to it. Inconsistent behavior on these sites can tear apart what you have worked hard to build. Below is the list that I promised you and they can all be found in "The Button."
Digg
Twitter
FaceBook
MySpace
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Technorati
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo Bookmarks
FriendFeed
Mixx
BlinkList
Mister Wong
