Publisher efficiency: How to get your traffic and where to loose your time and money. Learn to use all web resources efficiently and preserve your own resources

Nowadays with hundreds of social networks appearing in the web it is easy to get lost, to waste your time and money and eventually even to waste your entire life. There are 2 aspects of social networking:

1. Use of social networks as Internet user
2. Use of social networks as Internet publisher / site owner

Many things in life can be useful for a while at the right time when applied or used properly. And everything useful may turn into detrimental when abused or used excessively. It is your responsibility and liability to make proper wise use of all resources offered to you in modern high tech times. We have a look at both aspects of social network site use here below:

As a Internet reader or Internet user:

You may temporarily enjoy the virtual company of new friends across the planet. You may enjoy to meet new friends, to consider friends people never seen, never met in real life. That certainly has benefits: To show you that we may have "family" across the planet and that our politicians' war and sanctions against other nations may harm our own "friends and family". Some networks are purely professional, to exchange professional opinion, advice and expertise. Such as Linkedin for example. Such professional networks may offer real benefits. Real values shared, real information being shared directly from expert to expert, from manager to manager, from business owner to business owner.

Social network friends however are virtual friends far from you, too far to be there for you when you need a hug, when you need a bed to sleep after having lost your own home in a disaster, earthquake, Taifun, etc.

A much greater danger however is that you loose the ability to directly communicate with real humans face to face, skin to skin. There are large numbers of people spending most of their time, including paid office / work time in chat rooms and social network sites. Far from real life, far from all those needing real hugs, real words, real advice from people next to them, from neighbors and physical family members.

Social networking may be addictive just because by nature we are social beings longing for friends and extended family. For some one to talk to, to love and to spend quality time with. Millions and more have become lonely in real life as a result of loss of human communication skills and closed hearts. Hence to substitute real contacts with humans we often get excessively involved in virtual activities.

In real life, with real friends however we have to prove our words of love, we have to prove our statements of help or support by actions of help and actions of support. We actually may have to spend some real money and invest some real efforts and work rather than just bare empty words. Real life is about actions following all words.

What really counts in life is what we do physically in our physical environment - eyes to yes, with all our heart, body and soul! If we all take care of our direct environment, then we have more work to do and less problems left after all work done. The main work in life is to create peace, to love, to forgive, to reconcile and to become a real family of love again.

Hence for Internet users the true value and benefit of social network certainly is limited! Look at a recent disaster still ongoing: Haiti after the recent earthquake. In social networks you may ask for donations or donate yourself money for Haiti. Reality however requires real people being really there in Haiti to physically assist. Real experts hands on, to help, to teach, to repair, to heal, to fix, ...!

Money alone is no solution to such disasters. Money needs to be converted into real help. That real help requires real people offering real time, real people having real expertise and real life job experiences for months or even years or a full lifetime invested directly in disaster zones such as Haiti. The money donated often is used only to pay experts, to pay helper teams, to buy help in form of supplies, technical equipment, logistics. The same results also could be achieved by a large number of people offering all of the most valuable they have: Part of their life, expertise and own workforce - hands on instead of donating money to have others do the job.

There are many virtual worlds beyond social network sites. Even your "real life" in white collar jobs, in corporate worlds of finance, banking and government administration, most or all office jobs and IT jobs may be nothing more than a virtual world within your own comfort zone far from real life on this planet. Real life always is outside white collar. Real life needs people willing and qualified to put hands on, to really sweat and work until job done. People who have acquired real qualifications needed to fix or construct farms, clean water supply, affordable housing, simple but happy living environment in harmony with nature.

Instead of adopting a child from Haiti and bringing it into a strange remote culture, go to Haiti, spend part of your life IN Haiti caring for an orphan IN his own country. There is plenty to work for anyone having learned real work. Such kind of on site real help is far outside the virtual worlds of our limited thinking. We may encounter new worlds and finally may even realize that we may have more to learn IN such "3rd* world countries than we have to teach them in our own home country!

Virtual worlds like social networking sites allow us to remain in our comfort zone, at home in our apartment or house, within our own walls. This type of virtual communication allows you to say whatever you love to say knowing well that no one ever will expect you to actually do what you say.

As publisher

With hundreds of millions of users active in various social network sites, social networks may become a valid source of traffic to your own site. A recent review of my own site traffic statistics show that I have some 40% of total traffic coming from Search Engines. That means some 60% of my site visitors come from various other sources, such as RSS subscription, direct bookmarks for regular visitors and also social networks.

To get some substantial traffic from social networks requires however to first and regularly invest time in maintaining social network site profiles, social site blogs, bookmarks or even answer questions and participate in discussions. The higher the quality of your contributions the more likely you may receive traffic from social network sites.

That is your critical decision to make. How much time, efforts or even money can you invest without getting lost in a virtual world. That is a critical question you only can make with real visitor numbers in mind. You need daily traffic statistics to see from where your visitors are coming, then make a decision where to promote your own site and how much of your time you can afford to invest without getting lost on a side path of publishing.

Love and Bliss

hans