Marc Guberti

The 1,000th Blog Post

July 17, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

1000

Writing two blog posts every day definitely allowed me to reach this milestone faster. Writing three blog posts every day would help me reach the 2,000th blog post milestone much faster than I am currently projected to reach it. I publish two blog posts every day (that number is not going up), which means I write 730 blog posts every year. Sometime in 2015, I will have written my 2,000th blog post.

We all have milestones that we want to reach. Some of us may want our Kindle eBooks to make 10 sales every day while others may want to have over 10,000 Pinterest followers. It’s great to have a milestone in place. Milestones give us something to strive for.

What we also need to figure out is how we can reach those milestones faster. I would probably have less than 700 blog posts on this blog if I only published one blog post every day. I would still have under 100,000 Twitter followers if I used the same methods I was using back when I only had 10,000 Twitter followers.

The difference between a milestone that gets accomplished and a milestone that remains a memory is the individual in charge. In order to accomplish your milestones, you need to identify a way that you can get there faster. You may be projected to reach 10,000 Twitter followers in two months. Instead of accepting it, ask yourself how you can trim down the time from two months to one month. I thought I would reach 100,000 Twitter followers in my senior year of high school. Now, I will exceed 400,000 Twitter followers at the same time I thought I would be at 100,000. I may even be able to pass the 500,000 milestone before I graduate.

Even though I have trimmed down the time it took for me to amass my Twitter followers, I want to trim it down even more. If I learn how to gain 1,000 Twitter followers every day very soon, I could end up with over 700,000 Twitter followers by the time I get out of high school.

There is always a way to reach a certain milestone faster. When you reach the milestone once, it gradually becomes easier to read other milestones. The 1 billionth tweet was sent out 3 years, 2 months, and 1 day after Twitter was created. Now, Twitter sends the same number of tweets every week.

Twitter really trimmed down the time for that one. Your milestones will happen if you remain dedicated, but you also need to find out how you can make your particular milestone get accomplished faster. Getting that milestone accomplished will make you want more, and as a result, find more ways to trim down your time once you seek another milestone.

10 Ways To Grow Your Brand On Social Media

July 17, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Your brand is a big piece of your credibility. If the brand does well on social media and builds a large audience, it builds the brand’s and your own credibility. Creating a brand was never as easy as it is now, but growing a large social media audience is not necessarily the easiest thing to do. Just because something is challenging does not mean it is impossible. Growing your brand on social media is a big goal with big long-term benefits. In order to grow you brand on social media, follow these 10 tips.

Boost your engagement. Boosting your engagement shows activity with you and your followers. In addition, some of those followers will share your content and allow it to spread. Here are some tips to boosting your engagement.
Be omnipresent. The more social networks you have, the more audiences you have. I have over 100,000 Twitter followers, but I also have over 10,000 Pinterest followers, over 8,000 Vine followers, and over 350 YouTube subscribers. That’s an extra 20,000 people in my social media audience.
Focus 80% of your time on your three best social networks. Not all of your social media audiences will be equal. My Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Vine audiences are the largest ones I have. I spend most of my time on Twitter and Pinterest. I spend close to the same amount of time on YouTube and Vine. This method forces you to identify your priorities and spend most of your time on those priorities.
Offer giveaways on your social networks. The giveaways will attract people who would have never came. Esurance was able to get 200,000 new followers overnight because of its $1.5 million giveaway. The only mistake (but it’s a big one) that Esurance made was not giving the followers a reason to stick around. After your giveaway is over, some of the people who did not win will unfollow you. In order to prevent that from happening, tell your followers that you will be hosting 1 giveaway either every month or every quarter depending on your preference.
Post valuable content. If your content is valuable, your followers will share that content and help it spread. Posting valuable content will also boost your credibility and attract people to your brand who would have never shown up.
Build a targeted audience. Having a large audience is not enough. Anyone can get a large audience with some money and a fake followers provider. Building a targeted audience will result in you having an audience that already enjoyed your niche before they learned about your brand. These targeted people still enjoy the niche, but now they also enjoy getting your social media posts because they are related to the niche.
Post regularly. In order to get more visibility for your brand, you need to post at a regular basis. With HootSuite, I am able to send out 1 tweet every 20 minutes. On Facebook, I am able to schedule 4 posts every day. Posting regularly will make sure you are not forgotten and that you continue to thrive on social media.
Include pictures in your posts. Tweets with pictures get 10% more engagement than tweets without pictures, and Facebook posts with pictures get twice as many comments as Facebook posts without pictures. Pictures increase engagement and will allow your content to spread faster.
Promote your social networks on your other social networks. Promoting one social network on all of your other social networks will not only boost your traffic, but it will also boost your chances of going viral. Here is how you can make your brand go viral with this method.
Make it easy for your blog visitors to follow you on your social networks. Some people will first learn about you by visiting your blog. When you get these types of people, you should make it a goal to get as many of these people as possible to follow you on your social networks. Include social media buttons on your sidebar that link to your social networks. The best social media follow buttons to include on your blog’s sidebar are the ones that allow people to follow you on those social networks without leaving your blog.

Growing your brand is an important way to reach more customers and get more sales. Social media is one of the best tools available to grow your brand and build a large, targeted audience. What are your thoughts on using social media to grow a brand? Do you have any additional tips to grow a brand on social media? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Five Things You Need To Keep Track Of

July 16, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Keeping track of statistics and data will allow you to identify what happened on the good days as well as what happened on the bad ones. You can track your results month by month and identify which months were your best and which ones were your worst. These statistics allow you to take action based on past results so you are able to optimize your future results. In a world with more statistics and data than ever, few people know which of those statistics and data are the most important. Here are the five statistics and pieces of data that you need to keep track of.

Your earnings. You will be able to identify the growth of your revenue. Some months will be good while others will be bad. There will be rises and drops in your earnings. In order to figure out why and how those changes take place, you need to record your earnings. In addition, you need to record which sources of income made what amount of money. While this allows you to identify and solve problems, it also allows you to look back at what you have accomplished and envision yourself making a stronger income as well.
Follower growth. The growth of your social networks has a big impact on your blog’s traffic, your sales, and your credibility. When you see a big growth in your followers, you need to identify what you did on that day to see the big change. Then, continue doing what you did on that day to see that “big change” become common.
Your blog traffic. With these statistics, you can keep track of views, visitors, clickouts, referrers, and more. You can identify which social networks are bringing in an abundant amount of traffic as well as the social networks that are not creating the same results. You can use these statistics to identify the best strategy for your blog and your social networks.
One competitor. I know what some people are thinking about this one. It is more important to differentiate oneself than it is to focus on the competition. The truth is that no matter how much you differentiate yourself, competitors will do everything in their power to catch up to the new change. Ford’s Model T was innovative, but now there are numerous car companies. Those car companies caught up to Ford just like competitors catch up to each other in their respective niches. By looking at the statistics from one of your competitors, you will be able to identify that competitor’s good days and bad days. If you look deep enough into the statistics and what that person did for the day, patterns–patterns that you can use to your advantage–will emerge.
Returning customers. One of the pieces of data most people forget to record is the returning customers. If your customers returned once, then they tend to return multiple times. By having the names and contact info of your returning customers, you will be able to contact them. Three great ways to contact a returning customer are to tell them about a big discount just for them, thank them for being returning customers, or ask them to leave a testimonial/review and that you would be honored if they did so.

By keeping track of these statistics and pieces of data, you will be able to identify where you need to improve and where your strengths are. This analysis will allow you to identify where you are lacking and where you have everything under control. This knowledge will allow you to take a different, better course of action that you may have never taken if you did not have this knowledge. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional statistic or piece of data that you track? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

10 Steps To Your First 1,000 Twitter Followers

July 15, 2014 by Marc Guberti 49 Comments

If you grow a big audience on Twitter, that audience has the potential to dramatically transform your business and get more people to know about you. Many people see growing an audience on Twitter as a challenging process. Some of the people who went through the challenging process now have thousands of followers while others are almost there. Regardless of whether you just started using Twitter or have hundreds of followers, you need to reach 1,000 Twitter followers as soon as possible. Here are the 10 steps that will allow you to get there:

Follow people who are likely to follow back. When you follow people who are likely to follow back, be sure to follow the people who are interested in what you talk about. Take a look at their bios and some of the people they follow to determine whether these people would be interested in what you tweet about or not. Some of the people you follow will feel obligated to follow you back because they do not want to get unfollowed.
Tweet often. Tweeting often is a great way to get noticed. The more you tweet, the more chances you have of getting a retweet. Retweets will allow your content to spread on Twitter and attract more followers.
Tweet valuable content. Tweet the type of content that people would want to retweet. Motivational quotes, incredible articles, and videos are some of the things that people would want to retweet.
Tweet with pictures. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Tweeting with a picture will add more value to your tweet and boost your engagement. Tweets with pictures get 10% more engagement than tweets without pictures.
Get people on your other social networks to follow you on Twitter. Your Facebook friends, people in your Google Plus circles, and Pinterest followers are some of the audiences who would follow you on Twitter. When you are trying to build an audience on your other social networks, you need to tell the audience you already have about your new account for a social network.
Have conversations with others. Conversations allow you to build connections with your followers. You can also have conversations with people who are interested in what you do and can become a potential follower. It is easy to turn potential followers into followers. They just need to know about you, and having conversations with these people is a great way for them to learn about you. Here are some tips for starting a conversation on Twitter.
Retweet other people’s tweets. If you are not retweeting a tweet once every week, then you are using Twitter wrong (if you’re going through my tweets…then you know what to do). When you retweet someone else’s tweet, that person will be grateful. If you retweet enough of someone’s tweets, that person will show their appreciation by following you. In addition, some people will follow you because they want their tweets to get retweeted as well.
Pin your most popular tweet. Pinning your most popular tweet only allows that tweet to become more popular. When potential followers see your popular tweet, the tweet will automatically grab their attention, and then those people will follow you. A popular tweet indicates someone is popular on Twitter, and people tend to follow the accounts that are popular.
Promote your Twitter account on your blog. Have a giant follow button on your blog that allows people to follow you on Twitter. Better yet, make sure people can follow you on Twitter without leaving your blog. This allows the connection to build.
Get interviewed and interview others. The people who you interview or get interviewed by will tell their audience about you. Some of the people from those audiences will decide to follow you on Twitter. Here are some useful tips to finding people you can interview, getting them to accept the interview, and get people to interview you.

By implementing these steps, you will gain more Twitter followers every day. As you continue to gain more Twitter followers, you will eventually reach 1,000 followers. Surpassing the thousand mark is a big milestone that shows other people that you have the potential to thrive on Twitter. Having 1,000 Twitter followers puts you in the Top 5% of all of Twitter (based on the number of followers you have). That is a big accomplishment, and it is an accomplishment you will be able to realize by putting in the work. What are your thoughts on these steps? Do you have any additional steps you use to get more Twitter followers? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The Five Best Ways To Make Money With A Blog

July 15, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Money From A Blog

There are plenty of ways to make money with a blog, but most of the methods people tell you about are overrated. Putting up ads on a blog is an overrated way to make money. When someone clicks on an ad, you lose a visitor (potential customer, potential subscriber, and potential follower) and get two cents. There are better ways to make money from your blog that encourage your visitors to frequently come back to your blog. Here are the five best ways to make money with a blog:

Sell your books. If you have not written a book yet, you can write and self-publish that book on Amazon for free. Some self-published authors have been able to make six figures with their books.
Create a training course. Providing a training course will allow your visitors to realize that you are a top-notch expert in your niche. Some of those visitors will decide to buy your training course. If you publish your training course with Udemy (the easier and free option), you’ll get 50% of the sale, but if you publish your training course with Optimize Press (a lot harder, involves some coding, and costs money), then you will be make 100% of the commission. Regardless of which one you use to publish your training course, having a training course and promoting it on your blog is better than putting an ad there.
Offer one on one consultation sessions. You can conduct these one on one consultation sessions by using Skype. This means you can have one on one consultations with people in New York, California, Japan, and other parts of the world right from the comfort of your home.
Host a one hour webinar with a small fee. As you become more popular and your credibility grows, you will be able to get numerous people to attend a $20 webinar. Imagine what would happen if 100 people listened to the webinar. You would make $2,000 just from one webinar. Now imagine what would happen if thousands of people showed up. That’s over $20,000 just from one hour of your time. Pretty neat.
Become an Amazon Affiliate. Amazon has millions of products available which means no matter what your blog is about, there’s a relevant product on Amazon that you can promote. When someone buys the product with your link, you get a commission. Even if someone clicks on your link, buys a product, but does not buy the product you were promoting, you still get a commission.

Those are the five best ways to make money with a blog. There is no reason that you need to have advertisements to make money with a blog. Those take up too much time and result in you losing visitors who could have become subscribers, followers, or customers. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional methods you use to make money with a blog? Please share your thoughts and advice below.