Social Media Optimization Can Lead To Monetiziation

I stumbled upon a post about "Social Media Optimization Rules" over at the Open Circle Blog, who drew their inspiration from the Online Marketing Blog. There are some very, very good points about how to build community in the social media realm. I highly recommend reading the post if you want brief pointers on increasing traffic and entrenching yourself in established online communities. With that said, I think we can take it a step further and talk about monetizing social media efforts after they've been optimized.

There is no doubt that the more traffic and reach you have in social media, the more likely it is that you are to be able to monetize your efforts. It isn't as simple as getting increasing traffic though. Optimization is the process of leveraging that community and traffic. There are a number of ways to do this:

• Ad Sense: This is the simplest form of monetization. Google has enabled this program to be embedded in any website. More clicks on that advertisment by your community means more money for you.
• Sponsors: Companies both large and small are always looking for ways to reach their target audiences. There is no doubt that your social media niche will appeal to at least one company if not more. Either they will find you, or you can proposition them to buy banner space on your site, write a sponsored tweet, evaluate a product/service and much more.
  
• Events and Contests: Being the trusted source that you are for your community, you can create and promote an online contest that will benefit your readers and you at the same time. Raffling off a MacBook Pro, t-shirt design contests, organizing an online marathon and many other options allow you to provide engaging content for you readers while potentially making some money for you.
  

Social media should be what you want it to be. If you want to develop a community to share and build relationships, by all means stick with that. If you want to monetize your social media efforts, just don't forget that you are absolutely able to do so in a number of ways.