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When beginning a new blog, it can be very demoralizing having no readers. You are writing great content, but no body is seeing it. However, the game is changing now. Through the use of social media, you can attract readers to your blog with your first article. Social media sites allowed me to go from zero page views to 190,000 page views in just three months.

Through the use of social media, Newest on the Net has grown from 6,300 unique visitors in September (NOTN’s first month), to 8,200 unique visitors in October, to 31,200 unique visitors in November.

In this series, I want to share how I used social media sites to jumpstart Newest on the Net’s blog traffic. This series will describe how I used social media to go from zero page views in September to over 190,000 page views in just three months.

I want to share with you the power of social media. I want to share with you what social media sites you can use to catapult your blog. This series will focus on the following social media sites:

• StumbleUpon - Add me as your StumbleUpon friend. My profile name is epsilon97.
• Mixx - Add me to you Mixx Friends. My Mixx profile name is fpeters.
• MyBlogLog - Join MyBlogLog Community.
• Bloggingzoom - Add me as your Bloggingzoom friend. My bloggingzoom name is fredpeters.
• Bumpzee - Join my bumpzee community.
• Twitter - Start following me on Twitter. My Twitter name is Fred_Peters.
• Sphinn - Add me as your Sphinn friend. My Sphinn name is fredpeters.
• Pownce - Add me s your Pownce friend.
• Facebook - Add me a Facebook friend.
• Del.icio.us - Add me to you Del.icio.us network. My del.icio.us name is epsilon97.
• Any other social sites that I decide to cover.

This series will (i) give an overview of these social media sites, (ii) describe the most effective ways to generate traffic using these social media sites, and (iii) give you a step-by-step approach to begin your social media jumpstart.

Please leave a comment sharing your social media profiles so that we can add each other as friends.

If you don’t want to miss any of the articles in this series, please subscribe to Newest on the Net.

Some of the best things about Facebook are the Facebook applications. Facebook users have a wide variety of really cool Facebook applications to enhance their Facebook experience.

Here are the top 10 most active Facebook applications:

1. Super Wall - The Super Wall application is an enhancement to Facebook’s original wall feature. Super Wall allows Facebook users to write messages, post photos and post videos on their wall.

2. Funwall - Funwall is very similar to Super Wall, but it allows for tagging photos and embedding YouTube videos.

3. Top Friends - The Top Friends application allows Facebook users to create a widget with up to 32 friends photos. By clicking on a friend’s photo you are taken directly to their profile page.

4. Video - Facebook Video allows you to publish videos to Facebook and send video messages to your friends.

5. SuperPoke - The SuperPoke Facebook application allow users to send enhanced pokes to their friends. Facebook pokes are a way of telling your friends that you are thinking of them.

6. Flixter Movies - Flixter Movies is a cool application that allows you to see what movies your friends’ like and how their taste compares to yours.

7. Are You Interested??? - This application allows you to ask people the question “Are you interested??? Why this is popular I am not sure.

8. iLike - The iLike Facebook application lets you add music and videos to your profile, dedicate songs to your friends, and see what concerts your friends are going to. This is a nice way of finding cool music.

9. X Me - This application allows your friends to do things to you. For example, you can add a button to your profile page to allow your friends to give you a hug.

10. Bumper Sticker - This is a really cool application. With the Bumper Sticker Facebook application you can create a bumper sticker and stick it to a friend’s profile page.

Reading and participating in Internet marketing forums is a great way to learn how to make money online.

As you might have read in my previous article blogging forums, participating in forums is a great way to get started making money online.

Internet marketing forums are the best means to get questions answered and become known within the internet marketing community. I don’t suggest that you participate in all of these forums, but instead pick one or two and become a valuable member.

The real power of forums is to become well known within the forums’ community. You want to establish yourself as a valued member of the community and an authority blogger.  However, with these forums you can also just lurk around and learn a lot about Internet marketing.

Here are my favorite Internet marketing forums:

1. The Warrior Forum:

The Warrior Forum is a very friendly forum for Internet marketing and learning how to make money online. Many of these forums are rough places. Not for the sensitive types. However, I have never experienced this on The Warrior Forum. The people here are very willing to help beginners learn how to make money online.

2. Digital Point Forums:

Digital Point Forums are very active Internet marketing forums. Digital Point is a hub for people making money (or hoping to make money) on the Internet. I encourage you to check out all of the forums at Digital Point. The amount of information on these forums is absolutely amazing.  This might be the most active Internet marketing forum.

3. The V7 Web Development Community:

The V7 Web Development Community focuses on Internet marketing, web design and blogging. V7 is a well established community with lots of traffic.

4. WickedFire Forums:

WickedFire does not have as much traffic as the Internet marketing forums listed above, but I really like the community. But be aware, the community is tough, but fair.

5. Thirty Day Challenge Forums:

This forum is focused on Ed Dale’s Thirty Day Challenge. This is a great Internet marketing program for people who are new to Internet marketing. You can find out more about the Thirty Day Challenge by reading my 30 Day Challenge Action List.

6. IM4Newbies:

This is a great forum for people who are new to Internet marketing. This community is great for people who are absolutely new to this business. Newbies are always welcome.

7. NetBusinessTalk.com:

This forum goes a little beyond Internet marketing and making money online. Netbusinesstalk.com also provides forums for general business discussions.

8. High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum:

The High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum does not focus on Internet marketing, but it does cover a topic very important to Internet marketing, search engine optimization. This is an excellent forum for SEO advice.

9. The New Bloggers Message Board:

As you can tell by the title, this message board focuses on blogging. This is Garry Conn’s forum. While it is brand new, I know that it will be a great forum to make money blogging.  Garry Conn is an Internet marketer that focuses on using blogs to make money online.  In addition to checking out his forum, check out his great blog.

10. Clickbank Success Forum:

These forums are dedicated to achieving success with the affiliate program publisher Clickbank. If you want to make money online with affiliate programs this is a great forum.

If you know of other great Internet marketing forums, please tell us about them in the comments.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the readers of Newest on the Net to submit their favorite articles about StumbleUpon. I would like to thank all of you who have participated. I think that we have created the ultimate list of StumbleUpon articles.

1. Boost Your StumbleUpon Traffic With Outbound Links

2. 5 Essential StumbleUpon Power Points

3. 7 Reasons Why StumbleUpon Traffic is the Best on the Planet

4. Who Else Wants to Learn an Advanced StumbleUpon Secret

5. The Ultimate Guide To Leveraging StumbleUpon

6. Choose Your Audience: The Uncaring Social Media Crowd or Your Loyal Readers?

7. 9 Things Wrong With StumbleUpon

8. StumbleUpon for Computer Dummies

9. A Comprehensive Guide To StumbleUpon

10. Using Social Media Arbitrage to Drive Traffic With StumbleUpon

11. Build Super Links and Traffic With StumbleUpon

12. StumbleUpon Addiction for Business Research

13. A Quick Traffic Driving Tip With StumbleUpon

14. A Definitive StumbleUpon Guide: Driving Traffic to Websites

15. How to Use StumbleUpon Like a Pro

16. StumbleUpon the Best Pages on the Web

17. How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog

18. Building Your Blog With StumbleUpon

19. StumbleUpon Traffic Bounce Rate is Amazing

20. Getting Started With StumbleUpon - Using the Toolbar

21. How Important Is StumbleUpon?

22. Rethinking Links

23. Using StumbleUpon to Increase Blog Traffic

24. 5 Top Resources for Stumblers Outside of StumbleUpon

25. 3 StumbleUpon Traffic Myths Debunked

26. StumbleUpon is a Goldmine For Writers

27. The Magic of StumbleUpon’s Recent Reviews Page

28. StumbleUpon Gamed By Paid-To-Stumble Service

29. StumbleUpon Optimization: Leveraging Photo Stumbles for More Traffic

30. How to Increase StumbleUpon Traffic?

31. Building a Large Audience for Your StumbleUpon Account

32. Don’t Buy Traffic, Use StumbleUpon

33. Lingering Taste of StumbleUpon Traffic

34. Is StumbleUpon Traffic Worth Getting?

35. Revealed: 16 Different Personality Types of StumbleUpon Users

36. StumbleUpon Mathematics for Stumblers

37. 25 Reasons You Get Thumbs Up

38. StumbleUpon Launches Stumble-Thru Site Specific Stumbling

39. Before Submitting Your Story Make Sure That…

40. The Secret To Massive Digg/StumbleUpon Traffic Without Spamming

41. Why StumbleUpon Sends More Traffic Than Digg

42. The Why, How and Who of Marketing on StumbleUpon

43. StumbleUpon vs. Digg - Sharing Traffic

44. My StumbleUpon Friend

45. How Important Is StumbleUpon?

46. Centralizing Your Social World

47. How Do You Become A StumbleUpon Power User?

48. StumbleUpon Quintuplet From The king Of Blogging Gobshites

49. Claim Your StumbleUpon Blog Through Technorati

50. StumbleUpon Is Your Trump

51. Making a Power Account On StumbleUpon

52. 8 Reasons I Prefer StumbleUpon

53. StumbleUpon’s Fantastic Ability to Drive Traffic

54. Increasing Your StumbleUpon Audience

55. Beginner’s Guide To StumbleUpon

56. How To Run A Successful StumbleUpon Advertising Account

57. The Secret Features of StumbleUpon

58. Increase Your StumbleUpon Network

59. Writing For StumbleUpon

60. 5000 Stumbles And Counting

61. How to Get StumbledUpon

62. StumbleUpon Visitors Not Identified By Analytics

63. StumbleUpon: Exposure That Lasts

64. How To Set Up A Domino Effect of Traffic

65. The StumbleUpon Experiment

I would like to thank everyone who helped to contribute to this list. So thank you, BloggingBits, Caroline MiddleBrook, Blah Blah Technology, TappingCreativity, Daily Moolah, Empower Women Now, Blogging Fingers, Success For Your Blog, Fabnet Revenue, Digital-Musings.Com, Serverdome.org, Eiliky, Buzzing With Ange, Easy Tech Talk, Marco Richter, Flat World Blog, Blog Research Online, SEO 2.0, and SU Comments.

I know you want to increase the number of people who subscriber to your blog. In this article I provide 35 guaranteed ways to increase your subscribers. This is the second article of my RSS Subscriber Series. The first article discussed the importance of RSS subscribers. Now let’s get more people to subscribe to your blog.

1. Produce Great Content. I hated having to put this first because this is the advice that everyone gives. But, there is a reason everyone gives this advice. There is no reason for a person to subscribe to your blog, if you don’t provide anything worth reading. You have to give your readers a reason to come back to your blog. If there is no reason to come back, why should they subscribe to your blog.
2. Post everyday. Let’s think about why people subscribe to a blog. It is so that they don’t miss any future posts. Therefore you need to be writing great content and publishing new content at a high enough frequency to make them think that they might miss an article. I think that at least once a day is good schedule to stick to. Make your readers fear missing one of your articles.
3. Don’t post off topic. Stay focused on your blog’s topic. Readers will not want to subscribe to your blog if you jump from one topic to another.
4. Use the large orange RSS button. People look for this orange button. It has become the universally recognized symbol for RSS feeds. I have seen sites that you can get the RSS button in different colors. I stay away from the other colors because the orange button is so easily recognizable now. Bottom line is that you want to make it very easy for your readers to find your RSS button.
5. Put your RSS button above the fold. If you are trying to get your readers to do something on your blog, like sign up to your RSS feed, make sure that it is above the fold. People are more likely to see anything that you put above the fold. A great example of a blog with an RSS button prominently positioned is Andy Beard’s Blog.
6. Offer a full RSS feed. Many people using RSS feed readers will not subscribe to a blog with only a partial RSS feed. I won’t. I have over 300 blogs in my RSS reader. I cannot read all of the articles. Therefore I use it to scan for article that I am interested in. I want to be able to scan the entire post, not just a snippet. Performancing has listed use of a partial RSS feed as one of the 41 reasons a blog fails. Vandelay Website Design has also written a great article discussing full versus partial RSS feeds. dcr Blogs has written Six Reasons Why You Need A Full RSS Feed. If you don’t believe me about using a full RSS feed, check out these articles.
7. Allow your readers to subscribe by email. It is hard for a lot of us bloggers to imagine people not using RSS readers, but believe me only a tiny percent of Internet users use RSS readers. Therefore, you need to promote a way for these people to subscribe to your blog. The best way to do this is to allow people to get your articles emailed to them. Everyone uses email today. There are many services that you can use to create an email form, but I use Feedburner. Feedblitz is another popular service to use for handling email subscriptions. Here is a good article by John Chow about increasing your RSS subscriptions with RSS by email. Entreprenuer’s Journey is a great example of a blog that highlights the subscribe by email feature.
8. Reduce the number of steps needed to subscribe. Using Feedburner to burn your feed is a great way to optimize the efficiency of the subscription process. I highly recommend using Feedburner’s RSS subscription service. In another article of this series I will describe the benefits of using Feedburner. According to a study performed by MarketingExperiments.com, they were able to increase their subscription conversion by reducing their subscription process by only one step. Shoemoney has a good article on how to increase your RSS subscribers using Feedburner.
9. Write an article explaining what RSS is and how to subscribe to your blog. Bloggers tend to be very technologically savvy. Sometimes we forget that our readers might not know what RSS feeds are and how to use them. You should write an article on your blog explaining what RSS is so that your readers will know that subscriptions are available. Darren Rowse has a great What is RSS? page on Problogger.net. DoshDosh also has written a great example for how to tell your readers about RSS subscriptions. Also, please check out Rich Gilcrest’s article describing RSS feeds.
10. Write an article explaining how to use RSS feed readers. A lot of people do not know what an RSS reader is and how it can improve their lives. You should write a post detailing the different RSS Feed reader options. Scobleizer has recently interviewed Eric Engleman, General Manager of Bloglines. Here is a great video explaining Bloglines that you can embed into an article explaining RSS feeds. Definitely give credit to Scoble.
11. At the end of each article ask your readers to subscribe. A reader is more likely to subscribe to your blog after she has read one of your great articles. Therefore, make it really easy for them to subscribe by placing an RSS icon or text based link at the end of your article. Daily Blog Tips has listed this as one of his 40 best tips for setting up a blog.
12. Use the MyBlogLog Widget. One of the best ways to increase the number of people who subscribe to you blog is to ask them to subscribe. Sometimes readers need to be encouraged or coaxed to subscribe. Maybe they aren’t even thinking about subscribing or maybe they are not using an RSS Reader. By asking them to subscribe, you remind them that subscription services are available. These next few tips provide ways for you to track who is visiting your blog, so that you can send them messages requesting them to subscribe. The MyBlogLog widget allows me to track who is visiting my site. When a new MyBlogLog visitor appears in my sidebar, I click their avatar and send them a message. I typically thank them for visiting and ask them to subscribe, including a link to my RSS feed.
13. Use the Bumpzee Widget. The Bumpzee widget works the same as the MyBlogLog widget. Using this widget allows me to track visitors who belong to Bumpzee. I send them a similar message.
14. Use the BlogCatalog Widget. This is another visitor tracking widget. It track people who register with BlogCatalog.
15. Make sure that your blog’s RSS feed auto-discovery is working. You might have noticed on your web browser has a little RSS icon. This icon appears whenever your browser auto-discovers an RSS feed on the site your are surfing. Go to your site and make sure that Internet Explorer and Firefox auto-discover your feed. Some subscribers are used to subscribing this way. You don’t want to miss out on adding a subscriber because your blog’s auto-discovery is not working.
16. Use the “What Would Seth Godin Do” plugin. This plugin allows you to ask your readers to subscribe to your blog. This plugin is great because you can configure it to display a message only to new readers.
17. Email readers who have left comments on your blog. Ask them to subscribe. If a reader is willing to leave a comment, they probably are the type of reader who would subscribe to your blog. Make your messages personal. The point here is to network with these commenters.
18. If a reader emails you, make sure that you email them back. If a reader is emailing you, it is likely that they will take the time to subscribe to your blog. If you do not email them back, why should they invest time in reading your blog. It is important for us to remember that our readers’ time is precious. If they are reading your blog, they are investing their labor in you. Do not let them down.
19. Link to your RSS feed when leaving blog comments. I am not sure that I feel comfortable doing this, because it might tick people off. However, it might be a great way to add subscribers. I will leave it to you as to whether you feel comfortable using this tactic.
20. Offer unique content that your readers can’t get elsewhere. By making your blog unique, you encourage people to subscribe to your blog, because they can’t get from others the information you are providing. If you just reiterate what others are saying, people might as well read the others.
21. Write easy to scan content. Blog readers want to consume a lot of information quickly. By making your writing easy to scan, people will be able to more easily read your content. Additionally, when writing your posts, think about how they will look in a feed reader. People do not have time to read every feed. Therefore by making easily scannable content, people are more likely to read your posts.
22. Write Interesting Headlines. Make sure that your titles stick out. Sometimes the only chance you have to entice a reader to read your blog is through your title. If your title is not interesting, they will move to the next website without reading your article and certainly before subscribing to your RSS feed. When people are reading posts in their feed reader they often scan headlines and read the articles that have interesting titles. However, make sure that the headlines fit the content of the article. Nothing will make you lose a subscriber faster than writing irrelevant headlines. To get a good feel for interesting headlines check out the most popular articles on Digg or Sphinn. The popular articles tend to have great headlines.
23. Offer a free eBook for subscribing. This is a great way to get people to subscribe. Incentivize them with more valuable content.
24. Offer free content using the Feedvertising plugin. The Feedvertising plugin only displays certain text to people subscribing to your RSS feed. If you make it known that only subscribers will be able to access valuable content, people will subscribe to your blog.
25. Guest blog on other bloggers’ blogs. By guest blogging, you are creating attention for yourself on other bloggers’ blogs. This gives you a chance to convert their subscribers into your subscribers. Be careful though. You need to write great content when guest blogging. If you post subpar articles on your guest blogging gigs, you will waste your opportunity for attracting new readers to your blog.
26. Participate in blog carnivals. A great way to get noticed by a lot of bloggers and their readers is to participate in blog carnivals. The more you can get readers’ attention the more you can grow your number of subscribers.
27. Encourage other bloggers to post guest articles on your blog. Not only does this add great content to your blog, the guest blogger will typically write an article on their site asking their readers to check out their guest article on your blog. Hopefully, some of their readers will also become your readers.
28. Start a podcast. Creating podcast episodes is a great way to encourage people to subscribe to your blog. Not many bloggers are using podcasts. So this is a great way to stand out in the crowd.
29. Be active in forums. Build you online presence and brand by actively participating in forums. By helping people within your niche people will come to know you as an expert in your niche. By being an authority in your space, people will want to subscribe to your blog. Here are 10 forums to make you a better blogger.
30. Link to your RSS feed in your email signature or forum signature. This will allow your readers to immediately subscribe to your blog. I would link to both my site and my RSS feed. That way the reader can choose which action to take.
31. Link out to other blog articles. By helping your readers find other great content you can create loyal followers. Your readers will want to subscribe to your blog, because they know that you will lead them to other valuable content.
32. Submit your blog’s RSS feed to RSS directories. By submitting your RSS feed to RSS directories more people can find your feed and your blog. DotSauce has a great list of 55 RSS directories that you can submit your feed to.
33. Use paid advertising to generate a lot of traffic to your blog. If the paid advertising targets people interested in your niche, hopefully some will subscribe to your blog. I recommend using Google Adwords or StumbleUpon paid ads.
34. Your content should include your opinion or commentary about news within your niche. People are more likely to subscribe to your blog if they want to know your thoughts about topics. They can get news from many sources, however, you are the only person who can give them your thoughts.
35. Publicize your subscriber number. Once you hit 100 subscribers, I recommend that you publicize the number of subscribers that you have. People like to follow, not lead. If people see that others are subscribing to your blog, they will be more likely to also subscribe. The term used around the blogosphere is social proof.

Please subscribe to my RSS feed so that you don’t miss the other articles in this RSS Subscriber Series.