Over the last couple of months, I have immersed myself in Social Media. I blog a few times a week, I Twitter , today I tried Twitxr (Twitter with photos), I belong to groups, content aggregators, community bookmarking, etc. Here are the top 5 things I have learned from the experience thus far:

  1. Having a blog is key, but not mandatory. While I have a blog on our company website, having one hosted differently  (a separate IP range)  than your company website is important for Search Engine love! Basically, if you create links to your website from your blog and they are on different servers - Google will be happy and allow energy to flow from you blog to your website. Some people even choose where they blog based on overall PageRank (fundamental building block of the Google search algorithm). The point is to start a blog and contribute on a regular basis (2-3 times per week). I use Typepad (as you can probably tell)!
  2. Another building block is a group. I began by participating in a few Google Groups where I was interested in the topic (Semantic Web or Web 3.0). Then, I created my own Google Group- Semantic Marketing. These are places where I can participate as a community member. Beyond your contributions to the content, if you participate - you get noticed by others. This can help you bring energy to your blog or to your collaborative tagging/bookmarking sites.
  3. Create accounts, submit your own content and participate within collaborative Bookmarking websites like Del.icio.us or collaborative tagging sites like Digg , Reddit , BlinkList , Iminta , etc.
  4. Participate on sites like OthersOnline and MyBlogLog to connect other like-minded individuals to your blog and group activity.
  5. Twitter or Twitxr to increase your personal network. It is important that you be able to steer a reasonable sized group's energy to a recent Digg, new post in a Group or Blog. I have also found that including my blog in my Linked-In profile can increase traffic. And, don't forget your email signatue. Think of this as a "Pied Piper" play!

So, those are the 5 things that I think it takes to be successful with social media. Stay tuned, I'm surely going to have to evolve my thinking as a gain more experience out there. If you think I've got it all wrong, please comment!  :)