About Brent Csutoras

Brent Csutoras is a seasoned Internet Marketing Consultant who primarily specializes in Social Media, Viral Linkbait and Search Engine Marketing strategies. Known for his work on Weird Asia News, a popular website serving a growing audience of around a million unique visitors a month, Brent has built a reputation as a Social Media expert. You can finding him speaking regularly at some of the largest and well known conferences, such as SMX, Pubcon, SES, and InfoPresse.

He has also been mentioned in Forbes.com, interviewed for Entrepreneur.com, and was recently recognized as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Marketers of 2008. You can follow Brent on Twitter here.

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Question 1: What did you do before becoming a social media expert and how did you get into social media?

Brent Csutoras: Before I really focused on social media marketing, I was an SEO with a healthcare company, managing a handful of sites. I first starting using social media as a way to build links off their profile pages. It wasn’t until one of my articles hit the front page of Digg, that I realized the amount of exposure it gave my content. I immediately started participating in the top social media sites and building my accounts up so that I could get my content popular more often. Of course, it is important to note that I was not only submitting my own content, but actively submitting tons of sources and being an active member in the community as well.

Brent Csutoras: I think that a good social media expert’s skills depend on their goal really. I don’t think there is necessarily a specific set of skills that make a social media expert, because social media is a very broad term and encompasses a lot of skill sets. When it comes to social media aggregation sites like Digg, then I think that in order to be successful, you need to have many of the same skills you need to be socially successful in real life. I often say that ‘social media online, is the same as social media offline’ and I still believe that very much today.

Online social communities are still social communities, where you need to establish a respect and presence before you will earn respect, authority, and the ability to succeed. You have to make friends, carry conversations, participate on a regular basis, and be in tune to what the current conversation points are. The funny thing is, that is exactly what you have to do in any social gathering in real life as well… go figure.

Brent Csutoras: I am not normally a big fan of social media tools, as the majority of the ‘time saving’ tools are actually automation tools. I have tried hundreds and use almost none of them. There are some tools out there that offer information, such as the Digg Alerter and 97^th Floor’s Social Media Firefox plugin, and EasyTweets, but all in all, I just don’t have much use for social media tools.

Brent Csutoras: I think it again comes down to what you want to define social as, but there are always a lot of people who call themselves an expert, and seldom are they ever experts. I think the term expert is something that other people say about you and not something you should have to say about yourself.

Brent Csutoras: If you really want to stand out and receive recognition for being an accomplished (expert is a pretty strong word) social media marketer, then you need to be involved in the conversation. You need to blog, network, attend conferences, get involved with the social community sites, and be a leader. I would also really recommend you read an old article I wrote that still applies today called “I know it is social, but STFU already!” and there is a whiteboard we did here.

Brent Csutoras: It depends on your goal of course, but I would say Digg is still the best site out there for promoting content in social media. Of course, with it being one of the best sites, your content also has to be really good to reach the popular section of their site. StumbleUpon has really exploded and grown so dramatically this year and it is a little easier to promote more niche stuff since it is tag based. Twitter is a great platform for getting the message out as well. Those are the top sites right now for me.

Brent Csutoras: The best tip I can give you is to really go the extra mile when creating content for social media. You need to be creative, interesting, comprehensive, and unique with the way you write your content. Success does not come from writing good content, it comes from writing great content at the right time. You need an angle for your content, yet still keep it general and viral in nature, so being involved in the community and the industry you are writing about will allow you to see the angles that will lead to success.

Use images and line breaks, to separate content and make it easier to digest. Don’t clutter your page with ads or other distractions, and most importantly… don’t try to convert the first wave of social media traffic that comes to your content.

Brent Csutoras: Put all the tricks aside and spend your time making real connections. Those are the people that are going to give you the natural and diverse Diggs you need to be successful.

Brent Csutoras: First, it has a lot to do with the audience group. Reddit is not as main stream so its users are much more internet savvy and not so easily appeased with mediocre content. Like any site out there, you need to spend time on the site and learn what the overall community likes and dislikes. A lot of people use Reddit for social media marketing, but not as a real user, like they do on Digg.

Second, Reddit has some huge moderation problems that are better defined by reading Reddit’s Decline in Democracy,  which I wrote after going back and forth with Reddit’s cofounder Alexis for months attempting to suggest solutions and fix their moderation issues. The problem is that Reddit does not share the concerns and figures anyone with a complaint about the way it works is a spammer, in most cases.

Brent Csutoras: Digg) There is a minor level of moderation at Digg that they should stop using. It is very clear that certain domains become penalized and never have a shot at the front page and sometimes content makes it into the Top 10 in Upcoming for over 12 hours and never goes popular. All in all, I am pretty happy with Digg though.

StumbleUpon) They need to allow you to flush all the pages in queue that were sent to you by your friends. They can add up and keep you from being able to Stumble completely new content.

Reddit) They need to take the power back from the handful of private subReddit admins who take up 50% of the front page of Reddit. They are not bound by any TOS and can moderate how they see fit, which has been proven to be very personal and not related to content submitted at times.

Brent Csutoras: Trying to spam and self promote their content without making an effort to participate in the community. Again, the same rules apply for fitting into a real social community offline. If you go in talking about me me me, no one will want to talk to you. So take the time to learn the community and become friends with its users before you attempt to promote your own content.

Brent Csutoras: If nothing else, register your name immediately to keep someone else from using your name to their benefit. Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media communities where it is ok to self promote, since your followers opt into seeing your messages. I would recommend having a real presence and not completely automating your account, but you have a great opportunity to get feedback, reach new customers, and get your message out through Twitter.

Brent Csutoras: Hah… There goes that expert word. I like what I do and I am passionate about social media, but there are many people way smarter than myself. Take Chris Winfield for instance, who is probably one of the smartest social media marketers I have met. He is constantly teaching me new things and pointing out angles I had never even thought of before. Same with Todd Malicoat who has a ton of affiliate and SEO background that helps change the way he approaches social media. Dave Snyder and Tony Adam are really breaking ground on how to measure success and use the feedback you get from your social campaigns to learn and improve. Greg Finn is my go to guy for social media content and what is going to be viral or not. The list goes on and on, and I am sure to have forgot some people.

I am honored just to be in an industry that is so new, exciting, and beneficial to online marketing in general.

No matter where you go on the net, you will hear the phrase, “Content is king”. Traffic is important of course, but what is keeping them on your page? What is the reason they come back? It isn’t the pretty graphics and cool little advertisements you have going on. What it all comes down to is the connection they feel with the subject, and the writer that is producing it.

Whether you are a website owner trying to provide higher quality content to your readers, or you are a content producer trying to gain new prospects through better quality, you can gain something from here. Long sentence, I know, but I had to incorporate everyone. Just keep in mind that you are here to learn, and you have to put your own spin on things to really become original. Anyone can copy and rewrite, but creating your own brand and personality is where the readership will follow.

So what’s the hold up? Get to the good stuff.

To start, you have to always keep your audience in mind. You need to engage the reader and make your content different from any other person that writes on the same topic. If the average reader is a certain age group, education level, or has a certain level of experience, make sure to target them in your writing. Also, keep all of your writing consistent. Inconsistency will give your readers the impression that your organization skills are nonexistent and will encourage them to stop reading before the end.

You know who your readers are, so now you have to know what they are doing there. What is the point of your content? Seems like a simple question, but often times writers don’t really think about what their writing will do. Are you here to inform? Maybe you are reviewing and selling a product. Whatever the case may be, get into the readers mind set and give them what they want. If they came to you to find out the best casserole recipe, then by God at the end of it they better know which the best is. Inform when appropriate, sell when necessary, and always entertain. No matter how serious the subject material, make sure the reader feels connected to your views, and enjoyed what you had to say.

Now that you have the right mindset, it is time to get into how to write. Try to use bold words when necessary, italicize to emphasize certain parts, and underline accordingly. These action points can increase readers attention, and create a better flow overall. Don’t overdo it! Like anything in life, a little taste can be good, but too much can really put off the average reader.

It’s time to become a real life person.

Hopefully you have a personality at this point in your life. If not, I can sell you one for $24.99, plus shipping and handling. Too steep a price? Alright, I will let you in on a little taste for free. Giving your writing personality is as easy as adding your two cents where appropriate. You don’t always have to have something witty and humorous to say. Just say something that tells the reader, “OK, this is a real person writing this”.

Let’s say you have to write about an acne product. The target audience is in their late teens, early twenties. Desperate for a solution to their problem, they happen upon your website. They already know what the product is supposed to do, how it does it, and what they can expect from purchasing it. Simply stating those facts will have the reader running for true insight. Here is where you have to add a little personal touch.

If you are trying to keep it as professional as possible, avoid a story and state a simple fact that has improved your life. “Other so called acne solutions have always left skin peeling, red glaring examples of their inability to work on my face. With so and so product, no redness or irritation occurred, and I could vibe out to the latest club banger without fear of being seen“. This will create an instant connection to you and the material.

As long as you are capable of coming across with some kind of personal insight, people will instinctively listen to what you have to say. Add some flare, make a joke, and give some personal enlightenment that you recently achieved. Continue to sharpen your writing skills and you will soon have no problem keeping the audience happy.

There is no shortage of tools and resources to help web designers work better and more efficiently. Unfortunately the best of these tools can be difficult to find. Here are some my top picks, divided into the essential categories of web design and development.

Colors and Fonts

Depending on the site, the choice of colors and fonts can portray as much about it as its text. While you may, or may not, already be an expert in color theory or typography, the following tools can still help you make good design choices:

Adobe Kuler – Find, create, and modify color schemes
Font Squirrel – Large free font collection, allows commercial uses
WhatTheFont – Automatically identify fonts
Typetester – Compare fonts, side by side
sIFR – Use non-standard fonts on sites, without breaking compatibility

Graphics and Icons

Graphics, from logos to interface icons, are both an effective way to provide the user with information, and add to a design. The following resources can help with the graphic design process, or are ready-to-use openly licensed graphics:

stock.xchng – Free Stock Photography
Silk Icons – Popular free 16×16 icons
IconBuffet – Swap icons with other users
Vecteezy – Free collection of vectors
Liquidcity – Vector icon collection, designed for websites

Coding and Testing

Now that your design is shaping up, it’s time to begin coding and testing. The following tools can help you code, find bugs, and cross-browser test efficiently:

Spiffy Corners – Purely CSS Rounded Corners
Browsershots – See your page as it appears in dozens of browsers
W3C Quality Assurance Tools – Find coding errors, broken links, etc
Web Developer – A Firefox addon with many essential design tools
Firebug – Another Firefox addon, which aides in debugging
HTML Tidy Online – Automatically clean up your HTML source

AJAX was, and remains, the hottest buzzword in web development. This will continue to hold true for the foreseeable future, and for good reason; sites which use it are pretty slick. Yet the acronym, which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, continues to be misused and misplaced. Have you made one of these all-too-common mistakes?

1) I Need an AJAX Guru to Code an AJAX Website

Any proficient JavaScript coder can use AJAX. The fact of the matter is, every function of an AJAX powered site is standard JavaScript. An AJAX site simply uses XmlHttpRequest() to send and receive server requests. In fact the acronym itself, while catchy, is an all-around misnomer. The techniques commonly thought of as AJAX require neither the returned data to be XML, nor the requests to be asynchronous (although they can be both).

2) AJAX is New

AJAX, the acronym, is new. The term was coined in 2005. The technology behind AJAX is not new. JavaScript has been part of the Internet since the 1990s. A method to request data through JavaScript has been in browsers as early as IE5.

3) AJAX Powered Websites are Fast

Properly implemented, AJAX can make site navigation much faster for the end-user. Having the browser refresh and render a page takes a lot of time. Preventing this, by requesting and updating only portions of the page, is very efficient. However, without a good implementation or proper infrastructure, AJAX can bring your server to a stand still with excess or unnecessary requests.

4) I need to add AJAX to my website to keep up with the times

Is this true? It depends entirely on your site. While sites from Google to Facebook use AJAX successfully, many others simply do not. If you decide that your site could benefit from AJAX, ideally a site with very dynamic content, design your implementation carefully. Keep in mind that your site must degrade properly if JavaScript isn’t available. Make sure key content remains linkable and accessible. Not only could you risk having frustrated users, you could give search bots nothing to see.

5) AJAX Will Replace Flash

While it’s true that Flash was once the buzzword that AJAX now is in web development circles, the idea that AJAX will replace completely flash is unfounded. While entirely flash based designs are becoming increasingly uncommon, flash still serves a purpose for many multimedia and graphical interface elements.

While AJAX has given many great possibilities in web development, consider the technology carefully before implementing it on your own site. Don’t break the likability, accessibility or navigation (back/forward buttons) of a site just to use AJAX. Use it where it is the most efficient way to make something work.

Facebook can be fairly easy to use as a tool to increase your brand awareness.  Almost anyone can do it but it helps if you have some experience in networking.  It may take time for you to see results, but if you are persistent, you can acquire a nice following and you will soon be able to jump start numerous successful groups.

Facebook is very simple and allows you to separate friends by groups.  When you start a new group in three clicks you will be able to invite all of those friends most likely to be interested in what your new group is about.  Below are seven great tips on how to market your company using a Facebook Group.

1) Increase Your Friends

It’s pretty hard to tell people about your company if you have no one to tell.   Add at least 100 people you either know or would like to know.  Try and find people that will be interested in the group(s) you may start on Facebook.  It’s a waste of time to seek people out that don’t have similar interests.  Stay focused on adding friends that will want to interact in conversations that your interested in.  For example if you are trying to increase brand awareness for an organic foods company you will probably seek out people with healthy lifestyles and similar interests.

2) Starting a Group

When you start a group the first rule of thumb is the group needs to look full and alive.  Upload pictures, videos and start topics and discuss.  Get a few of your friends to help add to the discussion and post their own questions and content to keep the group going.

Ask a question here and there in the main body of the group and do not hesitate to link to articles on the bottom. The articles should link to informative websites in the industry or your own.  If you manage to write good content on your blog, this is the ideal place to promote new posts.

3) Quality Content

Now that you have a Facebook group started you need to keep quality content and a strong message.  People often join groups on Facebook but then rarely go back to interact with the group.  They may read what’s going on but the reason why they don’t come back, is the lack of quality content.  If you keep the producing quality content, others will see what is going on and this will bring in new members.

4) Moderate Your Group

Do not bombard the members with senseless newsletters or spam.  Someone we know sends out a monthly newsletter that is nothing more than a recap of his blog.  (lame)  Why would I want the information twice?  Wait for something newsworthy or create “how to” articles that people will enjoy and get value out of.   When you create this quality content you can often slip in some mentions of your brand.

5) Networking with Moderators of Larger Groups

Networking with the owners of the biggest groups in your niche or a similar niche can really add value.  If you can do anything of cross promotional together it can help both groups grow, especially the smaller group.  Doing so often can take time to establish a quality relationship with such moderators but you will often get out what you put in.

6) Quality Conversations

Have quality conversations. When a friend has some post you can get in on, then do not hesitate to shine with knowledge, input, and opinion or a questions. You cannot be shy. You need to let them realize that you are a qualified and knowledgeable person and people will be interested in joining your groups and checking out your site.

7) Be Social & Tell Everyone About Your Group(s)

Tell friends about your group, in fact tell anyone who might be interested.  Some of the best ways are to invite people via Facebook and use Twitter to tell others about your group.  A group will really grow when friends from all angles meet.  I always say, once those you know are connecting there and start bringing in fresh blood, your group or community is going to be on autopilot and you will not be needed unless you decide to come in and add something that you believe is going to shine the limelight on your network.