Become A Part of “WordPress Spotter” Social Influence Experiment and see what we can accomplish together! I have every intention to ensure that you get to benefit from it as much as I will, if you take the action.

Social Networks are * SMOKING HOT * and not using them to a full extent is one of my own personal failures. Well, no more! I have decided to take a dive “head first” into social networking and marketing and see the influence it provides and How It Benefits the bloggers. Better yet, How We Can Do It In Most Efficient Way!

And here are the first steps for you to Be Part Of WordPress Spotter Social Influence Experiment…

Before we even begin, understand this - it will require you to take action! Simple and yet absolutely must have requirement! Also understand that this process is an EXPERIMENT, meaning that things will change as we progress and learn. New actions might be required from you in order to benefit the most and your results will depend on YOU TAKING ACTIONS! So if you are ready to begin, here we go…

Social Influence

This experiment is not meant to scam any social networks, use any form of “black hat” strategies or engage into any actions not permitted by Social Networks TOS. If I by mistake make an advice that conflicts with the terms of any particular network - I would appreciate the heads-up. I’m not a pro on legalities and I might miss a point in the “lawyer speak”.

Goals of this experiment are simple and yet ambitious:

1. Create Connections between people
2. Use those individual connections to create network
3. Use network influence to put Individual presence upfront (make you the influencer)
4. Generate you traffic using influence created above

As you can see the goals are simple, sequential and each requiring previous step to be completed.

Step 1. Join Social Networks

This step is one of the perhaps most time consuming and yet, MUST be completed. Everything else relies on you getting this one done! It will also take you the most time but once finished - you will not have to worry about it…

Join following Social Networks and Services:

• http://ping.fm/ - use this code with no quotes to join “pingadactyl“ (code is constantly changing, if this one fails to work - contact me via Twitter). This is closed beta and you will need the code. Code will be update once a new available. This service allows you with ONE single submission send your message to a multitude of Social Networks, but it relies that you JOIN all those networks and set them up within your dashboard! Do not skip this step, take the time to setup these networks (at the time of the writing I was unable to join only “brightkite”, “Jaiku” and “Plaxo Pulse”.

• http://friendfeed.com/ - this service allows you to aggregate information from multiple Social Networks and services and FOLLOW your contacts. MUST have as well as it will allow us to timely respond to people we follow, insert our name (make our presence visible) and help us interact as things happen and also put YOUR information from multiple sources in front of other people. Influencing the Influentors! Make sure to add as many services as possible, even if you don’t use them right now. Add your blog, micro-blogs, blogger blogs … ANYTHING available to you - it is YOUR information to be shown, make it count!

• Facebook - MUST have. Everyone is on facebook and it allows you to get in touch with people, who normally wouldn’t even notice you. I know it has a lot of childish stuff but we will beef it up a bit later to make sure your blog benefit from it!

Step 2. Integrate Social Posting Into Your Blog

As a blogger you want to be able to integrate your writings into social interactions. You want your message to be heard - don’t ya? Well I hope you do because what I want to share here is a simple way to create a two way stream - your blog posts aggregated to the social networks and your social interactions brought to your blog!

Please be advised - I provide NO SUPPORT for what I’m about to recommend and have no intentions to. In fact one of the plugins I recommend didn’t even work for me but just in case it might work for you, I still recommend it because of the time savings it provides!

• Tweett You by Benjamin Sterling. I recommend that once you install this plugin use it to Bring Your Tweets back to your blog’s sidebar, he provides a widget for it. Works great to bring your tweets to your blog and because it works on javascript - it works with caching plugins.!

• pingPressFM plugin by Sold Out Activist. This plugin is an actual integration of the API for ping.fm (remember, I promised to help you save time?) and your WordPress blog posting. It failed to work on my blog but concept is brilliant and I recommend you try it at least, for me API activation failed, each time unfortunately! Make sure to follow instructions on author’s page as he provides recommended settings for ping.fm because this plugin will actually perform ALL the actions on your behalf each time you post new article on your blog - SUPER COOL!

• Ping This! And if your WordPress plugin above for ping.fm failed - this will become your life-saver! At the bottom of the page provided there is a Bookmark link you can use with Firefox to automate submission process. I use it and only hope that WordPress plugin in new revision will actually work for me later

• Facebook Applications. There are a few Facebook applications I consider to be a MUST have for every blogger and here they are (you can add them or ignore them, choice is yours): Blog Networks, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Notes, FriedFeed, Blogvote. Each and everyone helps you either integrate blog posts into your facebook profile, get your blog in front of your friends or integrate status posts from multiple social networks. And all of them do one thing - Each time you import a message to your facebook - update Note will present you face on your friends desktop! Let people see you, become known!

Step 3. Follow The Group

Doing all the thing above is fine and dandy and will surely help you get more exposure but… Becoming part of the INTERCONNECTED NETWORK is what will make you an influencer. We are a social creatures and social proof plays a huge role in our decisions, whether we admit it or not. If someone sees a message from a person who has a few hundred followers or more (listeners) or a just a handful (assuming both equally unknown to that person) - WHO DO YOU THINK HE WILL LISTEN TO?

So here is our goal - Create Interconnected Social Network!

In oder to do this the MOST efficient way I have decided to stick with 2 required minimums, anything you connect through outside of them - will be extra and is up to you.

1. Connect via Twitter that is one of the hottest networks
2. Connect via FriendFeed to be able to do the Step 4.

And to simplify the task - do this. Once you have registered with all the networks and services and have all you url’s simply come back to this post and leave comment in this format (everything else will not be approved or will be removed to keep it clean):

Hi guys, my name is Alex Sysoef and here is my message …. keep it short…

Here are my networks, click to Follow:

• Twitter
• FriendsFeed

Thanks.

Following above format will allow us to keep conversation clean and on point. Do not join anyone you don’t feel like following, it is genuine interaction that will help us!

NOTE: Please do remember those are live links to my profiles, so feel free to follow me and I’ll reciprocate!

Step 4. Monitor AND Interact

Once you begin establishing connections you will need a simple format to keep track of the friends actions, communicate, interact. Simply adding a friend will not help you - communicating, exchanging ideas and interests is what will create the bond and network of people interested to help each other.

That is exactly reason WHY I stated in previous step to only follow people, whose online actions and messages hold relevance to you, will interest you! I have promised to reciprocate and I promise to do so but will UNSUBSCRIBE if needed and I encourage you do same. Connections are most powerful when created between like-minded people!

Use FriendFeed network to follow your friends, comment on their messages and finding, help them promote when they make a new post! And you will immediately see results! But those are just the “now” results. I promise as we get to know each other - FUTURE results will hold even more, as long as we remain active.

Step 5. Check For Updates

This step is just as important as all before it! As you commented and left your contact info (for people to follow) and benefit from it, so will others.

Come back at least once a week and see if there are some new people you want to connect with!

Even though networks I have provided above send you email each time someone connects to you (hence the choice of them) and makes it simple to reciprocate, I still encourage you come back to this post once ion a while. Changes might need to be made in order for all to benefit and I’ll be coordinating them from here!

And now …

Lets Connect! … you speak!

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