Are you spending too much time at social media sites like digg, facebook, stumbleupon, etc. to drive web traffic? Have you seen any substantial results from your efforts? You are not alone. Thousands of people try to promote their websites using social media tools and fail miserably due to the lack of a solid plan.

If you are starting out with the sole intention of promoting your sites using the social media tools, you are on the wrong track. Social media tools are for interacting with people who share the same interests. These sites are not for promoting your interests from day one. However, if you know how to be a part of the collaborative network, you can reap enormous benefits. This article offers a five-step strategy to put you in a solid footing.

Select a few sites and create a network of friends who share your interests. There are hundreds of sites and you don't have time to spend on all of these sites. Start with facebook, digg, and stumbleupon.

Create your profile in each site and upload a picture. People can easily connect with some one if they have a picture of that person in their mind. It is your brand and you don't want to create a brand using a cartoon icon.

Find out people in these sites who are submitting stories and creating groups in your niche. These are the people who share your interests and you want to associate with.

Make a habit of sending at least ten friend requests daily. Send a note with your request explaining your interests and brief comments about their latest submissions. Within six months, you will have a large friend network.

Browse your friends' profiles. Read their submission that interest you and provide humorous or quality comments on their posts. Promote their submissions by voting.

You must establish your credentials first. When your network knows who you are and they see your picture in your comments and submissions regularly, they will trust you and you will be able to develop your brand.

Sites like stumbleupon and digg have features to share links. If you receive shouts in Digg from your friends about a link, check it out and provide your feedbacks on the article. If you think you should digg it, go for it.

Create great contents, helpful web tools, humorous web pages, or off-beat articles. If you write blogs, create contents that will benefit your visitors. These may be in the forms of unknown tips and tricks, tutorials on complex subjects, a compilation of tools to improve productivity, etc. Humors benefit everybody because it is a way to make us feel good.

Don't submit your contents or to the social media sites. Send the URL to a few friends in the network and ask them for their feedback. Don't ask them to submit your contents. Ask them that you want their opinions on improving the article or your site.

After you receive feedback, immediately act upon those feedback and improve your contents based on those feedback. Once it is ready, thank them from their constructive criticism and remind them that it is now ready. If one of them really likes it, they will submit it to the social media site.

You need great contents for lots of visitors from one of these social media sites. But contents will not work. You also need an online social network and you need to actively participate in the network by sharing and providing feedback.

Social media is the only warty to create a traffic tsunami to your site. However, it takes time to build the network. If you want to reap the benefit of the new online channel, start building your network slowly.