In the recent years, the big buzz has been much about building a huge social media following and build traffic around it. No matter if Twitter, Facebook or Youtube: if one knew how to create content with a touch of story telling – that was the recipe for growth. No matter whether it comes to promoting your own product, or generating ad revenue.

It’s not a surprise that the main goal for every single social media platform is to keep the users in there, maximize the holding time and the amount of repeat visitors. That’s why also many platforms rank the posts that include an external link lower in their algorithm, and these then get less views.

This contradicts the effort of promoting ones’s site or product in there, and many do see limited options outside of the social media. Whoever wants to build a following will eventually need to find a way how to maintain the contact with his customers also outside of the big social media platforms.

A Blog is a one tool to use, or podcasts. But what tends to work is also the good old email marketing. There the campaigns can still bring a rather unheard results. It definitely pays off to invest time and effort into one’s email marketings setup and strategy.

What shouldn’t be neglected is to be different, a proper marketing approach – not to be the same as competition, to catch attention, to build a brand. The SEO-Guru Rand Fishkin recommends to target a unique set of keywords, instead of going after volume alone.

This would pretty much confirm that it counts to bet on new or different marketing options, and keep using them as long as they bring traffic. One shouldn’t forget about the traditional online marketing features, such as e-mail marketing. Quality may be a better long term strategy than quantity.