How to increase traffic to your blog

Just search in Google for increase traffic to your blog, Social Networking, Social Media, and any such term and you will be inundated with so many blogs and websites purporting to teach you how to get on the front page of Digg, Twitter so that millions visit your blog, and have StumbleUpon as your personal “make my blog popular” assistant, all of whom will drive tons of traffic to your blog. There is so much emphasis these days on using Social Networking and Social Media to bring home the traffic that we have entire blogs devoted to teaching us how to utilize the power of Social Media and Social Networking filled with “How To” titles for every conceivable option to harness the power of Social Media and Social Networking for our personal benefit.
First and foremost, how true is this? I have dabbled in Social Networking myself and you can read about it here, but it is not easy to build traffic from Social Networking and that too overnight as many blogs out there promise. Secondly, what is the purpose of increased traffic? Are you looking to monetize your blog and if so how much will the increase in traffic from Social Networks really increase your income? If you are looking for increased traffic for people to read your blog and to benefit from it, then increased traffic from Social Networking is great, but if you are looking for monetary benefit from the increased traffic then how much of the increased traffic really converts to increase in income? Just think about it! Does increased traffic always mean increased income? I am sure all of us have had increased hits and yet no increase in subscriptions or CTRs and many other such instances. The target then should be to increase monetization either from increased traffic or even from the existing traffic than just to increase traffic without any benefits in terms of monetization. Of course if you are looking at increased traffic just so that people will read your blog and benefit from it then great, but honestly how many of us are really looking for something like that and would be satisfied with just that?
I came across an interesting article (whose title I have borrowed) at http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/ where Patrick Coffey has written from his personal experiences on the same subject. It will be worth your while if you can visit the blog and read the entire article; it will be an eye opener to many I am sure.