My main goal of this post… How these 2 are connected and why they are beneficial.

I don’t want to assume that everyone knows what a Lifestream is, or what Social Media is.  So, I thought I would do a brief post about what the foundations are of Social Media and what a lifestream is.  By the end of this, I hope you see why it’s beneficial.

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It’s all centered around Social Sites

Click to view LARGE IMAGE

Photo Credit – Brian Solis

So you’ve probably heard of several types of social networking sites such as:

• Digg
• Stumble Upon
• Flickr
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• And 100′s More…

All of these sites are some way or another considered social sites.  Each consist of thousands of members that have the ability to interact with each other in several different ways… from a social standpoint of course.

Let’s look at a few examples…

Facebook – Allows you to interact with people all over the world.  You create a profile of yourself and basically create your personal brand.  You can share all types of info as you wish.  Share photos, personal info, your business info, etc.

Flickr – Allows you to interact with other members of the site but through pictures.  Say you’re a photographer and you post your portfolio work on your Flickr account.  You work is now scattered throughout millions of people on Flickr and is literally in front of thousands of eyeballs.  It’s quite fascinating when you think about.

Digg – How Digg works. Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images — is submitted by the community (that would be you). Once something is submitted, other people see it and “Digg” what they like best. If your submission rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of our visitors to see.  Thus, creating loads of traffic to your website

When focused, this is considered Social Media Optimization

Basically, when you interact with several different types of social networks you are promoting your personal brand or your company. These social sites have thousands of visitors a day and with how granular they are you can have instant qualified traffic.

Here is a detailed explanation of Social Media Optimization from Wikipedia.

Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a “Digg This” button, blogging and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos. Social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, but differs in several ways, primarily the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.

Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines such as Technorati.

Social Media optimization is considered an integral part of an Online Reputation Management (ORM) or Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM) strategy for organizations or individuals who care about their online presence.

Lifestream takes all of your social efforts and combines them

If you take a look at my lifestream, you’ll see that it displays all types of updates from what I have done in any given day.  Based off the social sites that I have accounts setup with, it displays my day in reverse chronological order.  Visitors to your site/lifestream will get a sense of what interests you, what your promoting and start to see your personality.

Here is another example of a good buddy of mine – View Aaron Dommer’s Lifestream

What’s the outcome of it all?

On a personal level

When creating a brand, whether it be personal or a company there needs to be a foundation.  People want to know the origin of where you came from or what you stand for.  As people follow you or connect with you on these social sites, it gives you the opportunity to bring out your or your companies personality.  This allows each visitor to engage with what you’re doing.

They become familiar with your face, see what your interests are and are more intrigued to follow you and what you’re doing.

As far as traffic and SEO efforts

Using Social Media to gain leverage on your website traffic and SEO is a must nowadays.  These social sites again have authority throughout the search engines and again bring in thousands of visitors.  Add the 2 together and you’re creating backlinks to your sites and gaining more exposure to your site.

Lifestream is a reciprical

On the flipside, when you bring a unique visitor your site, you can have the process run the otherway.  People can instantly follow what you’re doing and gather a sense of who you are.

I sure hope this shed some light

Social Media is something that can be very powerful.  You can promote anything and everything.  Use these social sites to give exposure to your companies products/services, your business partners, friends and family.  They’ll praise you for it and it will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside

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If this did help or if you have any other suggestions about the benefits of Social Media leave some feedback!

It’s much appreciated

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P.S. – You can Follow Me on TWITTER.