Internet Marketing for Multiple Clients

For those of us that work in the consulting world, internet marketing for multiple clients can pose a particular challenge as well as some benefits. With the explosion of social media over the past year or two, it is a given that you will market your clients via websites like twitter and Stumbleupon. Of course, we all still reach for that brass ring; massive hits through search engine queries, but nowadays it has become more and more likely that a good chunk of your blog traffic will come from social media as well. This is where it can get messy, because if you are working for several clients, you have to try and find a way to represent them individually.

One of the reasons I love twitter so much is the fact that you can set up more than one account, which makes internet marketing for each client relatively easy. I say relatively because it can get quit confusing and time consuming to bounce back and forth between each account and keep track of each set of followers you have. The problem comes in when other social media sites you are utilizing such as Stumbleupon, only allow you one account. Now you can try and set up different accounts for each of your clients, but I’ve been hearing that Stumbleupon sees that as a big no, no and will ban you from the site if they notice different acccounts with the same ISP address. And given the fact that I have acheived very good blog traffic through Stumbleupon, I don’t want to do anything that will get me banned. Oh, and you’re also not supposed to stumble your own articles, so that’s where building up a good relationship with your friends on this site comes in because they will submit them for you.

Finally, my biggest issue with internet marketing for multiple clients is the lack of consistancy. This may just be the clients I work with, but I’m finding that they get very excited to start the process and want me to post several articles a week, but after a month or so their interest begins to fade. What many clients don’t understand is that marketing through social media, or any new media for that matter, is not a quarentee of huge sales and that it can take quit a while to build your brand image and reputation on the internet. I know the most active people on twitter are aware of this because it is a big topic of discussion. One of the main things internet marketers focus on is blog traffic, and this doesn’t happen overnite. But, if a client is willing to be patient the rewards can be immeasurable and result in thousands of hits to their blog or website a day.

I’ve been doing the internet marketing thing in one form or another for the past four years, and to be honest, I’ve been seriously considering giving up on the consulting jobs and thinking it may be time to find a permanent home. Of course, in today’s economy that is nearly impossible to find. That being said, I’m interested in what you all think and have to say. Do you consult? If so, how do you handle multiple clients, and which social media sites do you utilize the most. Are you frustrated with consulting? What are you ideas, suggestions and questions? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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How StumbleUpon Drives More Traffic to Your Blog

One of my clients has been urging me to join StumbleUpon. According to him, it has been one of the best tools he’s found for driving traffic to his website-and he recently started a blog that has gotten more traffic as well. With his high recommendation, I decided to check up on what StumbleUpon is and how it works. One of the first things I realized was that it had enormous potential in generating brand exposure through the internet, as well as traffic. So here are some of the things I discovered.

What is Stumble Upon?

Stumble Upon is a social website which allows its users a new way to experience the Internet. The way it works is that members compile a list of favorites, which are articles from websites, blog posts and anything else you can find on the internet. This makes it much easier for other members to find helpful, informative, entertaining or thought-provoking things to read. Unlike Google or other search engines, you don’t have to type in keywords or searches, you simply click on one of the categories on StumbleUpon’s homepage, and you can find all sorts of good stuff. Once you become a member, you can than start to compile your own list of favorites, which you do by voting thumbs up or thumbs down.

How Does StumbleUpon Drive Traffic to my Website or Blog?

Because StumbleUpon has millions of members, you get a lot more exposure. Now this point is important, you don’t want to stumble your own stuff, that’s a big no-no on this website. But you can, however, stumble articles of friends you have on other social networking sites or the ones you start to add on StumbleUpon. When they see that you’ve been adding their stuff, they will want to check out your website or blog and, if your content is good, do the same for you. I say this in every post, but remember this is about networking. You are building relationships that can help you learn and grow, so adding other’s stuff is a good thing. But don’t stumble an article just because you know somebody, you want to make sure it’s quality content. Providing other StumbleUpon member quality articles gives you more credibility.

Now the way you will get more traffic from StumbleUpon is by getting as many members to add your blog posts as one of their favorites. It’s kind of like that old shampoo commercial; I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…get it; the more people who have submitted your website or the articles on it as a favorite, the more people who see your content and click to your site for more.

What Kind of Blog Posts Should I Be Adding to my Favorites?

This is entirely up to you, but I would advice that you stick to your niche or topic. Let’s take my boss who owns a website development company as an example. He stumbles articles on web design, technology, business and web traffic. You see how these all fit together? That isn’t to say you can’t add favorites to your StumbleUpon account that are completely off topic, it’s just that your best bet for driving traffic to your blog is to get other’s in that field to link to you or add them to their favorites. This will get your StumbleUpon page more visits, because they are interested in reading the same stuff you do.

These are just a few of the things I’ve learned about how StumbleUpon drives traffic to your blog. I have only started my research process on this, so I will add more detailed info as I get it. What about you? What piece of advice do you have to share about how sites on the internet like StumbleUpon can help build traffic?