Today’s featured free tool is Ping.fm.  This is a pinging tool that lets you update all your social services with one update.This includes many types of services like sharing sites, blogs and micro blogging tools too.

Here are some of the popular services you can update with it:

Twitter, LiveJournal, MySpace, FaceBook, Tumblr, Hi5, Yahoo 360, Xanga, Mashable, Flicker, FriendFeed, LinkedIn. The list goes on.

The point of this type of tool is that it saves you from having to visit all those sites individually. The service can be used to update your status, add a link, talk about a project you’re working on and all your followers in those services get an update. You can’t converse with people unless you visit the sites indivdiually and you want to do that at least sometimes so you don’t appear to be a selfish social marketer but this can be a substantial time saver!

How Ping Fm Works

Sign up for all the social media sites you want to individually first and then sign in to Ping.fm. Then you can add your user name and password for each of those web 2.0 sites and begin taking advantage of Ping.fm. It does take a bit of time to set up initially but can be well worth the effort.

(PS: Update: Forgive my blunder. Yesterday I told you I’d write about making more online friends but started today’s post before reading my day planners. Tsk, tsk. Tomorrow Sean is posting so I’ll be sure to post about that topic for Thursday! Cheers, Dana)

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Do you want to have more subscribers on Twitter?  Do you want to maximise your marketing impact in the Twitterverse? Your Twitter people, a.k.a your “Tweeps” are interested in following like minded people and / or very interesting people.  If you try to sign up with the sole purpose of link baiting, you’re not going to get very far with this tool.  In order to maximise the impact of Twitter for internet marketing you have to treat it like a social marketing tool that requires both give and take.

Here are some Twitter tips:

-Don’t push out a link in every Tweet. More than 75% of your Tweets should be interesting rather than product related.

-Do reply to your followers who ask you a question or comment on one of your statuses via the replies button. If you don’t check this and ignore those trying to converse with you, you’ll get ‘un-followed’.

-Tweet unto others as you’d have Tweeted unto you.  That means that if you want people re-tweeting you, do that for them. Social bookmark for them, tell your followers that @user is a great person to follow, etc.   Social media is very much a tool built on quid pro quo.

Happy Tweeting!

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Here at www.seanseo.com we like to tell you about tools we think you’ll find useful.  The AddThis tool is fantastic and a wonderful tool for any blog.  Not only can it help you with traffic and social bookmarking but it’s aesthetically pleasing as well.

Social marketing is important but so is blog design and this tool is clean looking and definitely an asset to any blog because it makes it simple for people to help you spread the word about your posts.

What is AddThis?

AddThis gives you a bit of code to add to your site design that allows each post to have a section at the bottom with a list of social bookmarking sites.  When visitors like your post, they can click one of their favourite social bookmarking tools directly below the post to spread the word.  Tools include: FaceBook, MySpace, Delicious, Digg and others. If you look below each of our posts here you can see that you can ad us to your Technorati Favourites, Stumble us, etc.

How Much Does it Cost?

AddThis  doesn’t cost a thing and it’s easy to install on your site. If people use a specific tool on a regular basis and see the button to manually add that on the bottom of your post, they’ll be much more likely to do so. That little logo will remind them that they can do it with just a few clicks and making it as easy as possible for people to tell the world how useful your post is will increase your exposure and your SEO value.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Ping your blogs, ping your status! Why?  Letting others know you’ve updated or done something specific can bring you new traffic.  A lot of ping services are available. Here’s a list of pinging services but let’s have a look at two: Ping-O-Matic and Ping.Fm.

Ping-O-Matic

Ping-O-Matic gets the detailed URL you want to ‘ping’ and will then tell all the services you ‘check’ that your blog is updated. Why does Ping-O-Matic do what they do for free? They like to play with data. (Shrug.) This is something a lot of people make sure to use when they first start a new blog to get people visiting it sooner which can help speed up the search engine indexing process.

Ping.Fm

Ping.Fm is a new service just out of beta. It pings your status to multiple places esepcially if you’re a prolific microblogger. It works great if you’re doing the micro blogging thing and are tired of stopping by MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk and a bunch of other places to post the link to your new site or blog post, to wax lyrical about the cool new pair of shoes you got for half price or shout to the world about the massive ClickBank check that just arrived in the mail.  Instead of visiting all those places, Ping.Fm tells them all for you after you post the update once.

These services are definitely beneficial because not only can you spread the word on something but you can also save time! Time is money in internet marketing so go ahead and start pinging and you just might make more of it!

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008

Yesterday we talked about online networking clubs. Today we’ll explore ways for you to get involved in these types of exchanges. You can benefit in many ways by networking with social marketing sites and by getting involved in exchanges, you help a fellow marketer and they help you by linking to your sites, commenting on your blogs and using social bookmarking and networking tools to spread the word about your online entrepreneurial efforts.

Join a Social Media Club

There are online clubs and sites devoted to social media where you might have to do an hour worth of activity a month to help others. For your participation, you’ll get to submit URLs of your online homes to the effort and have others participate and give you some link love.

Create Your Own Networking Group

If you don’t see a suitable club, consider starting your own. Check on Yahoo Groups or MSN Groups as well as on online forums to start a club and promote for membership in some of your favourite social media tools. If you want to get involved just for a particular item you want to promote consider posting in a webmaster forum such as Digital Point forums and offer a Stumble or Digg exchange where marketers will scratch one another’s proverbial backs.

Have a most outstanding day.

Dana Prince
Internet Marketing Blog
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008