Blogging

How My Blog Got Over 100 Views From Twitter Alone In Less Than An Hour

August 20, 2014 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

For the statistic crunchers out there, that adds up to over 2,400 daily views. At the time, my blog normally got around 32 views every hour which resulted 750 daily views. However, July 21st would be the day that I would call everyone together to help my blog get 1,000 views in one day. This was definitely a nail bitter. It was 11 pm and I had a little over 900 views. At the time, 900 daily views was rare, so I took the opportunity to bring it up to 1,000 views.

I started off by pinning my latest blog posts, but that only got me a few visitors. Most of the visitors I got from Pinterest ended up coming the next day. That helped me have back to back days of over 1,000 views, but for this particular day, Pinterest was not the strong point. When in doubt, I always resort to Twitter where my audience is the biggest.

I started off by increasing my tweeting frequency. From 11 pm to midnight, I sent out one tweet every five minutes. I really wanted this one and was willing to manually schedule tweets to get the job done. Sure enough, I was plugging away with Google’s calculator option, and as the minutes went by, I realized that my goal was less likely to happen. This was not the scenario where I wanted to make the mistake and learn from it. This was a scenario where I put everything on pause, still had work to do after midnight, and wanted to get 1,000 views in one day.

Then at 11:35 pm, I sent out the tweet.

https://twitter.com/MarcGuberti/status/491426440848482305

It got a few favorites, and now the tweets that were getting sent out got more attention. I was able to send out four more tweets with links to my blog posts. Throughout those 25 minutes, I kept everyone updated about my blog’s status.

https://twitter.com/MarcGuberti/status/491428754019717120

After I sent out this tweet, I realized that my goal was going to be realized. I kept on refreshing my blog’s statistics page until the blog passed 1,000 views.

https://twitter.com/MarcGuberti/status/491430155445735425

When my blog got its 1,000th view for the day, I sent out the celebration tweet. It got more attention than any of the other tweets.

https://twitter.com/MarcGuberti/status/491432102101913601

My blog ended up getting 1,030 views that day. That means in 25 minutes, this blog got 77 views. That’s 3 views every minute which adds up to over 4,000 views in one day.

Of course, this rate slowed down after I reached the milestone, but now this same milestone that once seemed impossible happens every day. I can now say that I get over 1,000 daily visitors.

This taught me three valuable lessons. The first lesson reminded me of how important it is to tweet at the moment. The second lesson taught me that the urgency of the matter encouraged myself and my audience to act. The third lesson is that if you build an audience of people who care about what you do, you will be able to go far and spread.

9 Lessons I Learned From Blogging

August 18, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Blogging

Blogging is a way to build an audience, connect with that audience, and get more people to know about you. Although blogging is a powerful tool to grow your presence on the web, blogging will also allow you to learn many life lessons and things about your niche along the way. I have been blogging since 2011, and I started this blog towards the end of 2012. Now with over three years of experience, I have learned many lessons along the way. Here are nine of them.

Look back. I looked back at my entire journey as a blogger right when I finished writing the paragraph above, and when I looked back, it amazed me. Three years ago, I was just another blogger thrown into the mix. I was not the teenager entrepreneur, social media expert, or anything catchy like that. I was writing blog posts at inconsistent, infrequent rates about the Boston Red Sox, and typos were common. Here’s my very first blog I ever created paired with the very first blog post I ever created…ever. Who would have ever thought that three years later, the same blogger would be writing this blog post.
Embrace what you do. I only started to embrace blogging when I created my Yugioh Philosophy Blog. I updated it every day and enjoyed doing the research. Yugioh Philosophy was my first blog that ever brought in hundreds of daily visitors. Since there are not many Yugioh blogs that get updated every day, it’s fair to say that mine was in the Top 10 of the Yugioh Blogs on the web. Now the blog is inactive because I focus more of my time on this one, but I am proud to say that the Yugioh Philosophy Blog still has an Alexa Rank! It currently brings in a little over 100 daily views but is an inactive blog.
Get in even if you are unsure to avoid overthinking something. My first blog was about the Boston Red Sox, and no one (friends, family, you, and me) had any idea that I would end up writing blog posts about social media and blogging. If I over thought what I would create a blog about, then I would have never made it to this step.
The work you put in pans out in the end. Although my Yugioh Philosophy Blog was getting more traffic, it was not necessarily bringing in more revenue. I never sold Yugioh Cards on eBay (a problem that I am in the process of fixing) which means I had to rely on Amazon affiliate links. Just to give you an idea of the revenue I was making, the typical Yugioh Card got sold for $2, and I only made 4% per sale. That means unless a customer bought a lot of Yugioh Cards, I was barely making over $1 each time a customer bought Yugioh Cards. Since then, I have written my own books which now bring in at least $2 per sale, I have created my own training courses, and I have other plans for the future. No matter what the future holds, I know that the work I put in now will pan out in the end.
Learning and doing are two very different things. Some people learn that writing one blog post every day results in more traffic, but when it comes to doing, not everyone wants to put in the work to write one blog post every day. You can know how to get more blog traffic, but if you are not implementing that knowledge, then what is it really worth?
Do what you love. I have successfully escaped 40 hours of work every week to do 80 hours of work every week. I do not mind working the extra 40 hours every week because I am able to make a difference and do what I love. If you liked this one, never join the status quo.
Never stop learning. In order to grow your blog, you need to constantly learn about different techniques to grow your traffic, your email list, and turn your visitors into customers. The more you learn about something, the better you become at it. Another important thing to remember is that all skills are learnable.
Have a good role model. There are two types of role models. The first type is your family. They are the role models that should help you succeed. If your family does not have the right role models in it, then you need to be the role model that inspires change. The second type of role model is the person outside of your family. This is the person that you dream of meeting and inspires you to do your best work. For me, this type of role model would be Seth Godin.
Fight through the adversity. To this day, I continue to receive criticism. Most of the criticism I received at the beginning of my journey has gone away, but no matter how successful an individual becomes, there will always be critics. People have criticized past Presidents, do criticize the President we have now, and will criticize future Presidents. The critics criticize the people who are changing the world because they are envious.

After blogging for three years, these were the big takeaways. What are the lessons you have learned as a blogger, and which lesson on this list did you like the most?

16 Ways To Build A Big Social Media Audience From A 16 Year Old

August 16, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Growing a social media audience and getting the best out of that audience is so easy that a 16 year old can do it (that would be me). In a span of less than 3 years, I have been able to get over 100,000 Twitter followers, over 14,000 Pinterest followers, over 10,000 Vine followers, and I’m working on Instagram and Facebook. My audiences continue to grow as the days go by, but many people wonder how I was able to get to this point. I decided to come up with 16 different methods you can use to build your social media audience (that has nothing to do with my age. That just happened to be the number I pulled out of my head).

Focus most of your time on one social network. If you master one of the social networks and sort of know the other ones, you are going to do very well with the social network that you successfully mastered. I decided to master Twitter because it is a social network of simplicity, and now that I know Twitter Domination by heart, I have been able to continue dominating Twitter while growing my presence on other social networks.
Use the big player social networks. Even if you have no plans on using a Facebook or YouTube account, create them. When you master one of the social networks, you need to learn how to master a second social network. It’s the whole idea of being bilingual is better than only knowing one language while being trilingual is way better than being bilingual. Creating the accounts now and tinkering around with them will allow you to be prepared to master them later.
Post on them all often. It is important to post on all of your social networks at least once every week. That indicates to all of your audiences that you are active, and being active is one of the crucial steps towards allowing your content to spread on those social networks.
Interact with your audience. Interacting with your audience will allow you to build stronger connections with the people in your audience. You want to be well acquainted with as many people in your social media audiences as possible. My recommendation is to look at your notifications three times each day to see if you can interact with any of your followers.
Post motivational quotes. No matter what niche you are in, motivational quotes hands down never fail at increasing engagement. Motivational tweets are more likely to get retweeted and motivational pins are more likely to get repinned.
Post articles on your social networks. Posting articles is a great way to provide informative content that your followers would enjoy.
Post valuable content. Valuable content is the kind of content that your targeted followers would like. You can’t satisfy everyone with your social media strategy (you can’t even do that in life. Shocker!) so it is more important for you to focus on satisfying your targeted audience.
Post pictures. Social media posts with pictures get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. We are a visual generation that needs to see everything in pictures. That’s why movies are more popular than books.
Grow your presence on all of your social networks. On the social network you are trying to master, you need to build a powerful presence. However, you should also be growing a bigger presence on your other social networks. Even if you are only gaining five followers every week on a social network you are not focusing on, that is still growing.
Find patterns. Some rules for one social network will apply to another social network. That means if you become successful at one social network, it becomes easier to be successful at other social networks. Here are some of the universal laws of all social networks that I was able to find.
Be an expert in your niche. People follow the experts, not the people who have no idea what they are talking about. Telling people that you are an expert in your bio is a great start, but you need to prove to people that you are an expert with valuable social media posts and a professional picture.
Be humorous. Whenever you can, mix in some humor with your other social media posts. There are numerous examples of content going viral because it was humorous.
Be creative. If your content is creative, then it will gather attention. Creative content is the type of content that the average person could not think of. There is a difference between valuable content and creative content, but if you mix the two together into one social media post, your content is going to spread faster.
Host a giveaway. Giveaways allow you to easily bring in more followers. Some people will follow you just for the giveaway. The only problem associated with the giveaway is that once the giveaway ends, many people unfollow the host of the giveaway. Esurance is a brilliant example of this. If you want people to continue following you after the giveaway, tell everyone that you will be hosting another giveaway three months later.
Interconnect your social networks together. That does not mean connecting your Twitter and Facebook accounts together so all of your tweets end up on Facebook. Linking those two accounts together is not even a good idea to begin with. I am talking about promoting each of your social networks and their posts on your other social networks. If you have a YouTube video, promote it on Facebook. In your YouTube video’s description, have a link to your Facebook Page. Here’s a more in depth analysis of how this strategy works.
Be patient. Don’t you wish certain things could happen faster? Unfortunately, when it comes to growing a social media audience, fast is not a part of the vocabulary. You are not going to get 100,000 followers in one day. You will most likely reach that milestone years after you create the social media account. However, by sticking with it and learning new techniques along the way, you will be able to dramatically grow your following.

Those are the 16 ways to grow your social media audience. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional methods on growing a social media audience? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Why I Use And Love Blog Post Idea Generators

August 16, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

I recently learned that blog post idea generators actually exist, and I have not been able to get over them. I have been using various blog post idea generators come up with more blog post ideas. The biggest challenge for a blogger is not the writing. Instead, the biggest challenge is coming up with different things to write about. It may be easy in the beginning, but after you publish hundreds (and eventually thousands) of blog posts, thinking of topics that you have not used before becomes increasingly difficult.

Hubspot's Blog Topic Generator

Blog post idea generators solve that problem. There are many blog post idea generators on the web that have allowed me to come up with several ideas for new blog posts. HubSpot’s blog post idea generator proved to be effective, but it won’t take long to see all of the blog post ideas they generate. They use the same words like misconceptions and tips in those ideas, even if it makes no sense.

There are other blog post idea generators as well, but the Google docs search generator proves to be the most valuable way to come up with more blog post ideas. All of these blog post idea generators eliminate the need or you to ponder about an idea. You are automatically given the idea, and all you have to do is write about it (that’s the easy part for a blogger).

I use blog post idea generators so I can spend less time thinking about blog post ideas and more time writing about them. By having all of these ideas in place, I am also able to write more books. I have plans on writing numerous books of various sizes, and being able to write blog posts faster allows me to get to my books faster.

What are your thoughts on blog post idea generators?

3 Bloggers You Need To Subscribe To (Other Than Me)

August 13, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Blog

If you are not subscribed to my blog yet, I really recommend going to the top right and entering your email address. After you are done with that, read the rest of the blog post, and if you are already subscribed, then you are awesome!

There are three bloggers who I admire because of what they do. They provide valuable content that spreads across various social networks. If you are not subscribed to these blogs yet, I highly recommend subscribing. Chances are you have heard of them before.

Seth’s Blog: Seth Godin is the best marketer in the world, and he really knows what he is talking about. He writes one thought provoking blog post every day that makes you think about marketing, social media, business, the status quo, entrepreneurship, or something else. Seth Godin has written 17 NYT bestselling books that have been written in over 30 languages. Seth Godin’s project Squidoo really encouraged me to take the steps that I have taken to reach this point. I look to Seth’s books and blog posts for guidance when I do not know what to do for my business or product creation. You can subscribe to Seth’s Blog by going here.
Jeff Bullas’s Blog: If you guessed that the name of this blogger is Jeff Bullas, then you’re right. This is a great blog for social media and blogging how-to, and new blog posts get published every 2-3 days. Jeff has a team of guest writers who pump out quality content for the blog. The only problem with the blog is that the blog posts are very long, but if you have enough time to read an entire blog post on his blog or skim through it, you will learn a lot about social media and blogging. Jeff Bullas’s Blog was one of the blogs I read through to obtain my social media and blogging knowledge. You can subscribe to Jeff’s blog by going here.
Mike Michalowicz’s Blog: I have never been on a blog that is so comical but information packed at the same time. Mike combines humor with business lessons that you can use to become successful. He is the bestselling author of three books including his newest book, Profit First. He does not send as many emails, but he does publish 1 blog post every day. You can subscribe to Mike’s blog by going here.

After you are done subscribing to those blogs, spread the word about them and tell your friends to subscribe too. Don’t forget to mention mine in the conversation 🙂

5 Secrets About Blogging That Others Don’t Want You To Know

August 12, 2014 by Marc Guberti 12 Comments

Blogging has become a complex art. What started as an online diary has turned into a way for people to build powerful presences on the web. Now over 150,000 blogs get created every day, and there are millions of blogs on the web. Some of these blogs have Alexa ranks under 100,000 while other blogs have no Alexa ranks at all. What’s the difference between the blogs getting thousands of daily visitors and the blogs that struggle to get one thousand visitors every year? The answer is these five secrets about blogging that others don’t want you to know.

The subscriber list is everything. Even if your blog is getting hundreds of daily visitors, you need to grow your subscriber list. Your subscribers are the ones who get emailed each time you come out with a new blog post, share your blog posts, and buy your products. Optimize your blog for subscriptions by offering free prizes and having a pop up show up on your blog.
SEO is overrated. I relied on SEO for over a year and saw small increases. These increases allowed me to go from 170 monthly views to 200 monthly views. When I focused more of my time on social media, I got the exponential traffic that continues to grow to this day.
You need to have your own product. Affiliate marketing is a great way to make extra income, but if you do not have your own product, you are not establishing yourself as an expert in your niche. In order to make revenue from your blog, you must have your own product in place. On a successful blog, the blogger’s products bring in far more revenue than advertisements. Some of these successful bloggers don’t have advertisements at all.
All social networks are important. You want to offer as many sharing options for your blog posts as possible. The only reason I now include pictures in my blog posts is so other people could share my blog posts with Pinterest. Make it as easy as possible for others to share your blog posts on as many powerful social networks as possible.
Big social media audiences look really good. We have a natural tendency to believe that the person with the bigger audience is more credible than the person with the smaller audience. The power bloggers also happen to have big audiences on social networks, and those big audiences allow their content to spread while boosting their credibility.

The beans have been spilled, and the methods to grow your blog are right here. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you know any additional secrets about blogging? Please share your thoughts and advice below.