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Marc Guberti

25 One-Sentence Tips For Tweeters

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If you are like most people, you are getting swamped with extra work to do, but you want to learn more about growing an audience. Don’t you wish there was a blog post out there that offered quick to read Twitter tips that do not take a lot of time to read but are very effective at the same time? If so, then this is the blog post that you’ve been waiting for.

  1. Ask your followers questions to boost engagement.
  2. Tweet infographics because they are like eye-candy.
  3. Follow targeted people.
  4. See how the experts in your niche are using Twitter.
  5. Look at Twitter case studies like Esurance’s mess up.
  6. Tweet consistently.
  7. Tweet frequently.
  8. Retweet other people’s tweets.
  9. Engage with your followers.
  10. Interact with people who are not following you yet.
  11. Include r/t at the end of some of your tweets.
  12. Tweet motivational quotes.
  13. Never settle.
  14. Only favorite three tweets every day.
  15. Use Twitter to build connections with others.
  16. Get in on the trends.
  17. Use HootSuite to schedule tweets.
  18. Use Tweriod to see when your followers are on Twitter.
  19. Tweet YouTube videos.
  20. Tweet my blog posts 😉
  21. Use TwitterCounter to see how many followers you gain every day to see what’s working.
  22. Use the pinned tweet feature to highlight your most important tweets.
  23. Retweet targeted people who retweet you.
  24. Only retweet something that you believe in.
  25. Only follow people who are active.

Implementing these 25 Twitter tips (especially #20) will allow you to grow your presence, boost your engagement, and have a larger audience. Which tip was your favorite?

 

5 Reasons Why SEO Is Completely Overrated

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SEO has been praised by many people as a way to get hundreds of daily visitors. In fact, some blogs get thousands of daily visitors from SEO, but there are certain details about SEO that many of the experts leave out. I now get hundreds of daily visitors from SEO alone, but that only happened when I did not focus most of my attention on SEO. I know; very ironic.

I have come to a conclusion. While it is good to do some SEO, it is completely overrated. Some people think of SEO as an easy to access gold mine, but it is anything but that. The only way you land in that gold mine is by driving a clown car and falling into it. Maybe I’m just adding another flavor to Mark Zuckerberg’s comment about Twitter, but that is really what happens with SEO. Ultimately, it’s overrated, and here’s why.

  1. SEO takes a boat load of time to build up. It took me almost two years before I got hundreds of daily visitors from the search engines. Some people take even longer.
  2. My SEO traffic only went up when my social media traffic went up. I’m not going to question that it also takes a long time to build up social media traffic. It took me 993 days to reach my first 100,000 Twitter followers. However, by building your social media presence, you will be hitting two birds with one stone. In addition, once you build your social media audience the first time, it becomes easier over time. Although it took me 993 days to get 100,000 Twitter followers, I can now reach the same milestone in less than 200 days. When I reach 200,000 Twitter followers, I expect to get the same feat accomplished in under 150 days.
  3. Learning SEO takes up too much time. Most people browse through dozens of SEO articles to learn how to boost their SEO. All you need to do is read this article about SEO, and you will have all of the basic knowledge about SEO that you need.
  4. By focusing on SEO, you are competing with millions of other articles. There are millions of articles on the web that are about the same topic as your blog post. By only focusing on SEO, you are competing with the millions of other articles on the search engines. Building a powerful social media presence allows you to escape relying on being on top of this competition. In addition, a powerful social media presence will allow you to eventually end up on the first page of search engines.
  5. Many people strive for SEO more than social media traffic. Many people are implementing tactics to enhance their blogs’ SEO without giving social media a glance. Many of these people have fewer than 1,000 followers on their social networks, but when it comes to bounce rate, catchy headlines, and tags, these people know what they are doing. The result is no blog traffic because SEO needs a big push, social media traffic, in order to bring in more traffic for your blog.

Those are the five reasons why SEO is completely overrated. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips and advice? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

UPDATE: Looking back at this article, I realize SEO traffic is important, but still overrated. Boosting your social media audience and getting more social shares boosts SEO, so I believe focusing on social media is the better strategy. I’ve read more blog posts from QuickSprout so I know SEO is important, but regardless of what stream you use to boost traffic, valuable content is critical towards any blog’s success.

Think You’re Cut Out For Blogging? Take This Quiz

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Blogging Quiz

One of my favorite toys to play with as a kid was the 20Q toy. I enjoyed how I could respond to 20 questions, and somehow the 20Q toy would always know what I was thinking about. I decided to mix the 20Q toy with my love of blogging to come up with a 20 question quiz to determine whether you are cut out for blogging–and being successful at it–or not.

  1. Can you write blog posts every day for many years to come? The right answer is yes.
  2. Do you believe your traffic will dramatically increase overnight? The right answer is no.
  3. How long will it take for your blog to become popular? The right answer is at least one year.
  4. Are you writing about what you enjoy? The right answer is yes.
  5. Is a blog merely a place to promote a product? The right answer is no.
  6. Is a blog a place to show ads? The right answer is no (more on this here)
  7. Will you trade in your passion for money? The right answer is no.
  8. Will you treat blogging as a hobby? The right answer is not forever. It will become more than that.
  9. Would you blog even if you knew you wouldn’t make any money from it? The right answer is yes. It takes some bloggers a few years before seeing a huge profit.
  10. Would you write a blog post late into the night if you had to? The right answer is yes. If you enjoy blogging enough, writing late into the night won’t be a problem.
  11. Do you read books? The right answer is yes.
  12. Are you only blogging for the money? The right answer is no.
  13. Do you want to avoid making mistakes? The right answer is no. We all make mistakes anyway. As hard as it is to believe, I make mistakes too (okay, my ego got the best of me there).
  14. Do you envision your blog becoming successful? The right answer is yes.
  15. Do you want to be an author? The right answer is yes. If you want to be an author, then you would also make for a really good blogger.
  16. Are you blogging just to get more traffic? The right answer is no.
  17. Is blog traffic more important than having fun writing the content? The right answer is no.
  18. Are you happy with where you are? As long as you keep on growing and never settle, it’s great to be happy with where you are. If you settle, there’s a problem.
  19. Do you set goals for yourself? The right answer is yes.
  20. Would you write for a guest blog? The right answer is yes. This shows you enjoy writing content and getting traffic to the point where you would write for someone else. This will make you a better blogger and writer when you write for your own blog and publish your own books.

If you had the right answers for most of these questions, then you are ready. If you got more than five answers wrong, you need to change your thinking about what it means to have a blog and write blog posts.

How did you do on the quiz?

 

5 Quick Blogging Tips That Will Take You Less Than A Minute To Read

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Quick Blogging Tips

When you master blogging, you will be able to spread your message and communicate with others in a way never done before. My blog’s success has allowed me to interact with thousands of people and meet well-known entrepreneurs of our era. Having a successful blog automatically boosts your credibility. I understand that you are a productive person and are experienced with getting swamped with work on some days. That’s why I made this blog post especially short. Here are five quick blogging tips that will take you less than a minute to read.

  1. Focus on getting social media traffic. Social media is a better way to get more blog traffic than SEO. In fact, your SEO will improve as you get more social media traffic.
  2. We are trained to notice mistakes first. That’s why you always need to proofread your blog posts. Uh oh, did I spell proofread wrong? I bet I didn’t have to tell you that. Proofreading your blog posts will avoid something like that from happening by accident.
  3. Schedule blog posts in advance. There are some things in life that we can’t account for until they happen. Scheduling numerous blog posts in advance will guarantee that you remain consistent.
  4. Write one blog post every day. Writing one blog post every day will allow you to become a better writer. As your writing improves (and there is always room for improvement), you will be able to write better books at a faster rate.
  5. Stick with it. Blogging at times can get annoying. There’s writer’s block, low traffic stats, and other things that discourage us from writing another blog post. Here’s a picture I share a lot to help you stick with blogging, but it is still powerful.

How long did it take you to read the tips?

 

7 Advanced Pinterest Tips

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There are millions of people on Pinterest, one of the fastest growing websites on the entire web. Pinterest’s growth has led to some people growing powerful presences and audiences of over 1 million people. These same people do not have nearly as many followers on the other social networks. Some of the people with over 1 million Pinterest followers have less than 1,000 Twitter followers. Does Pinterest randomly pick names in a hat and promote those people? Not quite. These people are using Pinterest differently in a way that gets Pinterest’s attention. Then, Pinterest promotes that person’s board to a large audience. Most of these people implement seven common methods which I am dubbing the 7 Advanced Pinterest Tips.

  1. Have multiple boards with over 100 pins. The more pins you have, the more content your followers are able to browse through. It is important to remember that some people are addicted to Pinterest. What was meant to be a 10 minute visit turns into being trapped on the site for three hours. If you have a board with over 100 pins, chances are some of your followers will go through that entire board.
  2. Focus most of your time on one board. The board that you focus most of your time on should eventually make its way to having thousands of pins. The Pinterest Power users have many boards with over 100 pins, but the boards they focus most of their time on have over 1,000 pins. Some of these boards even have over 10,000 pins.
  3. Pin every day. Pinning every day will allow you to be consistent. Whether you are sending out 5 pins every day or 100 pins every day, you are consistently pinning every day. When you are able to pin every day for months at a time, more people will notice, share your content, and allow you to grow.
  4. Create group boards and be a part of them. Many of the people with over 1 million followers on Pinterest either have their own group boards or are a part of someone else’s group board. Group boards with over 100 contributors ensure that those boards are getting updated whether you are logged into Pinterest or not.
  5. Pin about a wide variety of topics. Pin about great vacation getaways, sports legends, and other things as well. The more variety you have, the more followers you are going to get because you satisfy the desires of multiple audiences.
  6. Focus on one niche. You can create boards on a wide variety of topics, but it is important that 80% of your pins are all based on one niche. That way, your Pinterest followers know exactly what kind of content you provide on Pinterest and which niche you fall in.
  7. Have a story behind all of your pins. If you have a story behind all of your pins, your audience will be eager for you to come out with other pins so they learn about another story behind another pin. If the stories behind your pins are powerful, then more people will spread your content across Pinterest.

These are the seven advanced Pinterest tips that the pros use. Implementing these tips may allow you to become the next person with over 1 million Pinterest followers. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

3 Ways To Take Advantage Of Pinterest’s New Messaging Feature

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Pinterest rolled out a new feature that allows users to send messages in the same way Twitter users can send out direct messages and Facebook users can send private messages. Vine also has this feature for their videos, and other social networks have the feature as well. Not only did Pinterest finally join the bandwagon, but their new messaging feature is something that you absolutely must take advantage of. Here are three ways to take advantage of Pinterest’s new messaging feature.

  1. Develop stronger connections with your followers. Many of the people I know well on Twitter had lengthy conversations consisting of numerous direct messages. Pinterest new messaging feature will allow similar connections to take place. However, there is a significant difference. With Twitter DMs, you have a 140 character limit, but with a Pinterest message, you are able to send out a message that is up to 500 characters long. That’s more than three times the length of a Twitter DM.
  2. Promote your pins. The Pinterest messaging feature allows you to send pins to your followers. This is a great way to promote your pins and possibly get more repins in the process. The great thing about pins in a Pinterest message is that people can like, repin, and send a pin right from the message. That means people do not have to click an additional link to access the pin, and it is easier for people to share the pins you send them.
  3. Gather testimonials. On Twitter, when people say that they bought one of my books, I continue to have a conversation with the person and will sometimes ask someone if they would like to leave a review for the book on Amazon. This has been very successful for me because I get to interact with customers who enjoy my products already, and asking them to leave a quick review. Pinterest now allows people to do the same thing as previously done on Twitter, but now you have 360 extra characters to play with.

Another notable thing you should know about Pinterest’s new messaging feature is that it is very easy to organize the people you talk with. When you ignite a conversation with someone, an icon with that person’s profile picture appears on the bottom left of the screen. Multiple icons can appear on the bottom left corner of your screen which makes it easy for you to talk to multiple people at the same time. This feature allows you to prioritize who you talk to on Pinterest and remember who you need to talk to on Pinterest. You can easily remove any person from the left corner of your screen with the click of a button.

Pinterest’s new messaging feature is definitely a huge improvement. It finally allows users to interact with each other on a more 1-to-1 based level. What are your thoughts on Pinterest’s new messaging feature? How do you see yourself using it in the future? Please share your thoughts below, and also be sure to send me a message on Pinterest @MarcGuberti.