Social Desire

Written on June 4, 2008 – 1:07 pm | by Shana Albert |

This Featured Guest Post is by James Duthie of Online Marketing Banter

Image by dmax3270

Do onto others as you would do to yourself. It’s a fine philosophy to live by. The laws of karma state that our personal actions & behaviour influence future experiences. In other words, we’re responsible for our own destinies and the ultimate happiness & success we achieve. I can’t think of any other environment in which karma is more relevant than social media…

Free is the new currency of the Internet. Social media is a perfect example. How many people make real money from blogging? Very few. Yet every day millions of bloggers produce content for free distribution. Why? Because they believe in karma. They believe that giving their content away will lead to positive future outcomes, whether they be business or personal.

Social news communities such as Digg and Sphinn are even better examples of karma in action. A selfless attitude is expected within social news communities. Good karma can only be earned by dedicating free time to positive community activities such as:

• Submitting content that the community values
• Creating relationships with other community members
• Contributing to blogs of community members via comments & guest posts
• Reading and voting for your friends’ content
• Adding meaningful insights to conversations within the community
• Asking for nothing in turn for your positive contributions

People who succeed in social media embrace the principles of good karma. They don’t ask for support from the community, but they receive it anyway because of the positive contribution they make.

Newbies in particular need to display the strongest faith in social media karma, because the karmic circle takes time to turn. In my case it has taken months of participation within Sphinn before the good karma returned some personal rewards. But good things come to those who wait…

Social media karma in action

About a month ago I crossed paths with a blogger named Robin Cannon. Robin manages Fog of Eternity, a blog dedicated to web design, social media and online marketing. Like me Robin is fairly new to the game, and is still establishing his blog and audience. I liked Robin’s work and quickly subscribed to his blog. I also began to submit his work to Sphinn and StumbleUpon because his stuff was well written and deserved a broader audience.

According to Robin, it was my social media support that helped give his blog the kick start it needed. A number of my Stumbles helped him generated thousands of visitors a day (who ever knew my Stumbles were so powerful…?). Before long that momentum grew and he was averaging over a thousand visits a week. In fact, in just a couple of weeks he had far surpassed my own traffic levels.

Robin has thanked me a number of times for the social media love I gave him. He didn’t need to. After all, social media submission also shines the limelight on the submitter if it goes hot… But despite that, Robin made me a special offer recently. Noticing that my own blog design was a little uninspired, Robin offered his design skills to help give it a little spark. As someone without an iota of design experience or skill, this offer was like gold to me!

And that, my friends, is the circle of social media karma in action.

Robin never asked me for social media support, but I gave it anyway because his work was great quality. I would never have dreamed of asking Robin to redesign my blog, but he offered anyway out of goodwill.

If you’re not succeeding in social media, perhaps you should take a look at your own behaviour… Are you exuding an aura of good karma…?

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Author Bio:

James Duthie is an Australian digital marketing expert. He writes on all things social media, blogging, SEO & digital marketing at his blog - Online Marketing Banter. Subscribe to hear more of his ramblings here.

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