So many bloggers have enjoyed success brought on by their social media marketing efforts. While this is the story for some users, there are many website owners who are still struggling to boost their readership despite the work they put into their social networks. If you’re not seeing the results you hoped for, there may be a few things in your approach that are keeping you from that goal.

Here are seven of the biggest issues that may be causing you to see lackluster results from all of your social media marketing efforts. Once you understand the problem, finding a solution will greatly improve your success!

1. You’re acting like a marketer instead of a user. In social media, it’s important to be an active participant in the online community. People can tell when your only interest is to market your brand. This will make them less likely to take part in your polls, suggestions and posts.

2. You’re only fighting for you. If you are only voting for your own content and submissions, fellow users will take note of that and see you as someone who’s only there for self-promotion. Vote for other people on your social sites. Submit content from other users. Show the community that you’re interest in them is genuine.

3. You’re not creating social content. Some people believe that a great piece of content works in all mediums, but that just isn’t the case. What works great in, say, a magazine article isn’t going to hold the attention of social media users. Look at what other content is winning the favor of each social network’s users. What content is getting the most comments and votes? This will help give you a better idea of where your content needs to go.

4. You’re not being selective with your platforms. A lot of marketers think that, when it comes to social media networking, more is more. But when you try to maintain an active presence in each of those networks, the content that you’re putting out there is going to reflect the lack of attention you gave it. Instead of trying to be everywhere at once, determine which sites your target audience participates on the most. Limit yourself to only 2-3 social media sites on which you can give your undivided attention.

5. You’re readers aren’t active on social networks. Shocking as it may be, there are still a lot of users out there who don’t participate on social networks. For those audience members, try to get them interested in some social media platforms that you favor. You can write a blog post about a social network that focuses on your niche.

6. You’re being too pitchy. Social media users are there to be social. They don’t sign on to read the latest pitch from every brand they like. On social networks, it’s important to focus on passive promotion. You can build links and boost exposure through social media.

7. You’re too focused on the major sites. Some major social networks will undoubtedly send you a lot of traffic since they have more users. But what those sites also have is a lot more users who are competing with you for the popular vote. When you participate on smaller social networks, like any that are niche-based, you may get more content voted up.

What do you focus on when it comes to your social media? Have you made some past mistakes? Are you making some now? Share with us!

Using social media as a tool to promote a site is something that is becoming more and more common, as various people have finally worked out that this method allows the promotion of a site to millions of different people. Generally speaking there are three different social media sites that people use in order to increase the amount of exposure that they get, namely Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But what are the relative merits of each of these different social networking hubs?

Facebook

Facebook is the biggest social media site around and therefore it is incredibly important that you use this site to engage with a huge number of different people. Granted, these people are not going to see your updates unless they are your friends or like your page, but this can be accomplished by encouraging all visitors to your site to click on the “like” button on your page and therefore receive all of the news from your business.

It must be remembered when using Facebook though that it is not a site designed for selling – it is a social site designed to facilitate dialog between people. This means that you should ensure that you mix your different updates up, with some being salesy and others being more of an attempt to start a discussion with the people getting the updates. In fact, engaging with friends and those liking your business can even be a great way to push sales forward, as people will be more inclined to buy from a site that they feel part of.

Twitter

Twitter is, in my option, basically a slimmed down version of Facebook that allows you to connect with people but doesn’t involve the endless amounts of groups, game requests and other trash that you are privy to. This means that Twitter is simple – all you have to do is write your Tweet and then post it, usually along with a link.

Twitter is a great tool for internet marketers as it is, like Facebook, completely targeted, but unlike Facebook there are no distractions to make people miss your updates. It is also easy to follow people in Twitter with the same interests as you by searching through the hashtags, meaning that you can get a completely targeted audience when they follow you back.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the new kid on the block and, as such, people don’t fully understand yet about the different aspects that using LinkedIn can provide to a business. What is known is that it connects different professionals together and as such it is a great platform for making working relationships an expanding your business in different ways. It won’t be a good place to make sales though, as people on this site are not interested in this at all.

So, as can be seen, Twitter and Facebook are great ways to engage with potential customers and therefore up the amounts of profit that your website makes. If you want to forge new business relationships and increase your potential, LinkedIn is without doubt the way to go. My advice though? Sign up to all three and get the best of every world!