Social Media

10 Ideas For Your Next Periscope Broadcast

May 22, 2015 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

Twitter buys the Periscope app, and now the app is massively popular. After Meerkat dominated for a while, it only made sense for Twitter to become a part of the action. In case you have not heard about the craze, Periscope is a new social network that allows you to broadcast live videos, and people can interact with you in real-time. It is an innovative social network that allows you to effortlessly share a recording with the world in real-time, with your smartphone. Of course, you can do live streaming on YouTube as well, but Periscope is easier for “spur of the moment” live streaming.

While many articles discuss how to use the app, not as many people talked about different ways you can use the app just yet. Using any social network in its infant stages is important because anyone can thrive on a new social network. Some Pinterest superstars with over 1 million followers have a few hundred followers on most of their other social networks. The reason these superstars have so many followers on Pinterest is because they started early. Periscope is only a few weeks old which means there is more than enough time to get up to speed and grow a large audience, regardless of how many followers you have elsewhere. It’s the new shiny object that everyone is active on right now, and you don’t want to miss out.

However, for the beginner, it is difficult to think of different things to broadcast. Many people may struggle to find the difference between a How-To Periscope broadcast and a How-To YouTube video. They both appear to be the same thing. Periscope is completely different and you’ll feel as if your broadcasts are going viral right in front of you. Here are 10 ideas for your next Periscope:

#1: What Are You Working On?

My first legit Periscope was a broadcast of this blog’s draft form as I explained why Periscope is so huge. Many people have started off with similar Periscopes, and I don’t blame them. It’s one of the easiest Periscopes to start with that doesn’t make you look too awkward. The Periscope was definitely better than my first tweet which features a broken link and has nothing to do with my niche.

When I started the broadcast, I talked normally. Most of it was on the fly, and since I couldn’t edit anything out, I simply spoke my mind without pausing the video and editing out any of the clips (which you can’t do in a broadcast anyway, regardless of whether you’re using Periscope or are on CBS live). Then, all of the viewers and likes trickled in. I was extremely shocked and almost panicked (a good type of panic) because seeing people interact, like, and view your post in real-time can at first be a petrifying experience. It is a great feeling to see someone viewing your Periscope and/or liking it every second (and yes, that happened. I had a lean, mean two followers when this happened), but you have to focus on delivering in your broadcast instead of getting distracted by all of the engagement going around you. It’s still really cool to see the engagement in real-time, and I would never give it up.

#2: Give Them Early Access To Something

If you want an audience to stick around and respect you, treating them in a special, VIP manner is a great way to start. What I do now is I offer early access to my upcoming blog posts exclusively to the people on Periscope. I don’t provide the entire blog post word for word, but instead, I include a summary. At the end of the video, I let people know when the blog post will get published and where they can get access to it.

#3: Product Teaser

Are you currently writing a book, creating a training course, or working on some other super cool product? It is normal for teasers to show up on YouTube or in blog posts, but why not Periscope. Right now, the community in Periscope is very active, and getting people to like and view your broadcast is very easy. Periscope is the new cool social network, and just as word of mouth spreads Periscope, it is entirely possible for your products to spread via Periscope because people want to show their friends and talk about them. People still talk about Oreo’s dunking in the dark tweet. For years to come, what product teaser will people continue talking about to this day?

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1JLyBYl”]Periscope is an underrated platform to promote teasers for your upcoming products.[/tweetthis]

#4: You Or A Friend Playing A Sport

When you and/or your friends are playing a sport, put that on Periscope. Whether we get to see some humor from an okay performance or see pure talent, people will view it on Periscope. The main difference between YouTube and Periscope is the real-time capability. MLB records and shows the broadcasts of live games in the big stadiums. You can record and show the broadcasts of live games at the nearby soccer field.

#5: You Participating In Your Hobbies

One of my hobbies is playing video games. I may occasionally use a live broadcast to show the video games I play as well as the gameplay, and since the broadcast is live, I don’t have to hold onto my phone. I can just set it somewhere and start playing my favorite video game, undisturbed. The only difference is the real-time engagement I would get from the Periscope while performing an activity that I would have done anyway.

Letting people see you perform your hobbies is a great way for people to get a better idea of who you are as a person. People want to know your professional side, but they also want to know you on the personal side. This is true for any social network. On Twitter, I mention my accomplishments and my status as an expert, but I also mention that I am a runner and a dog lover. This allows people to strengthen the connection with me because they know me on a more personal level. Including the personal level makes you more approachable, and I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had on Twitter over the years that had to do with running or dogs.

#6: What You Eat

On Twitter, you can’t get away with telling people that you eat pancakes for breakfast, but on Periscope, you can. Now you can broadcast yourself eating that pancake. When you broadcast yourself eating, an entirely new meaning is added to simply saying, “I ate a pancake for breakfast.” As far as I know, Periscope may eventually not become a place for those types of broadcasts (some people may salivate when they see you eating food), but Periscope is a new social network. You may just go viral for broadcasting yourself eating pancakes every day. People on YouTube have already gone viral for eating food in front of the camera (if you go viral on Periscope because you broadcast yourself eating pancakes in the morning, you know who to give the shout out to).

Choosing this path has another effect. Some people say that social media completely removes our privacy, and to some extent, these people are right. Moreover, what you post on social media becomes a part of your reputation. If you are on a diet, would you rather show your Periscope followers a live broadcast of you eating food from McDonald’s or healthy fruits and vegetables? If you do a broadcast for every food you ever eat from here on, then imagine how much that could potentially impact your health (again, don’t forget the shout out if you go viral for this).

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1JLyBYl”]If you use Periscope to live record what you eat, you may end up eating healthier.[/tweetthis]

#7: Your Journey

Every day, I post a Periscope about where I am with my journey as an entrepreneur. I talk about the struggles I faced and the successes. Talking about your journey allows your audience to connect with you on a more personal and professional level while allowing you to assess where you are day by day. In 2015, I started a journal where I wrote my thoughts in that journal for the day before I went to bed. Now, I plan on sticking with the journal but also using Periscope. Your journey can be anything from completing the P90X program to how you’re doing with your career.

#8: Quiz Your Followers

Every week, quiz your followers on Periscope and ask them questions. These questions can range from anywhere in your niche to random facts in history. Make sure these are questions that people can guess the right answers to. In other words, you can ask who was the 33rd President of the United States. Unless you are a history buff whose targeted audience consists of history buffs, don’t ask your followers who the second emperor of Ancient Egypt was.

#9: Part Two’s

Did one of your Periscope broadcasts do really well? Make a Part Two for that broadcast, and then a Part Three. If people like a movie the first time, they’ll come back for the sequel. However, just because you create Part Two’s, Part Three’s and Part Four’s doesn’t mean your audience will stick around for all of them. In order to get your audience to stick around, you need to make your Part Two’s, Part Three’s, and Part Four’s attractive. Think along the lines of The Dark Knight. Many people saw the first movie, the second movie, and the third movie because all of them had great plots. You don’t have to spend as much money or put in as much time as the people producing the three Dark Knight movies, but you have to provide an experience that would entice people to come back to your Periscope account.

#10: Oops!

While writing this blog post, I got caught up on Periscope and decided to publish some broadcasts. Sure, the oops moments of life can form good Periscope broadcasts, but I just thought of that on the fly.

What do you think would be a good idea for a Periscope? After reading the conclusion, don’t forget to sound off in the comments section below.

In Conclusion

It all started with Periscope as a trending topic on Twitter. I clicked the link and wondered how people could possibly use the social network differently from YouTube. Then, I decided to use it, and I was amazed with the results. My first legit Periscope got dozens of likes and views in a matter of seconds. I gained dozens of followers after that first Periscope, and I didn’t promote the Periscope anywhere. No tweet, no email list, no pin on Pinterest. There was no promotion involved other than me posting a quick broadcast on Periscope.

What are your thoughts on Periscope? Do you see yourself using it? Do you have an idea for a broadcast? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The Five Forgotten Factors Of Social Media Success

April 13, 2015 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

Social media constantly grows. More people join the action every day. More people stick around for a few hours every day to see what tweets get posted on Twitter and what gets posted on their Facebook feeds.

With social media’s ever-growing popularity, some of the key components of success on social media have been forgotten. When people think of success on social media, they think of having a big audience, but success on social media is more than that. Success on social media is the combination of factors that most of us have forgotten. These are five of those forgotten factors of social media success:

#1: Be Social

The entire purpose of social media was to provide people with a way to communicate with one another from anywhere in the world. Social media was not originally created to give businesses an additional edge. When most entrepreneurs use social media, they focus on the business side. They focus on promoting their own content and their own products without bothering to interact with their audiences.

Interacting with your audience will allow you to develop stronger relationships with the members of your audience. Interacting will make people feel respected and make them feel as if they belong in your social media community. You want the people in your audience to feel as if they belong in your audience because this sense of feeling belonged results in strong relationships, returning visitors, word of mouth promotion, and sales.

When you interact to make your followers feel as if they belong, you must do so for the right reason. Don’t interact with someone just in hopes of making a sale. Only interact with your followers if that is what you want to do. There should never be an ulterior motive for social media interaction.

#2: It’s About Providing Value, Not Talking About Yourself

Many social media users make it a point to constantly talk about themselves or their own businesses. Some people tell their followers about their breakfast while other people talk about more meaningful things in your life such as relationship statuses and vacations. Mentioning those types of details once in a blue moon will allow your audiences to know about you, but if these details are common on your social networks, people will unfollow you because your social media posts will bore them.

You may wonder why celebrities who post pictures of themselves eating their breakfast, going on vacation, or getting married get more positive attention than the person who constantly tweets about the sandwich he had for breakfast. The reason celebrities get good exposure when they send out these types of posts is because the celebrities already have a large amount of attention, and most of the content on various celebrities’ feeds is about their professions. Singers primarily post content on their social networks related to their songs and audiences.

They don’t post pictures of their breakfast or vacations as much. That is why when those pictures are posted, they are more appreciated than the pictures from someone who exclusively posts those types of pictures.

Do less talking about yourself and focus on providing more value. You can do this by writing valuable blog posts and promoting them. Many bloggers including myself use social media to promote our own blog posts very often. We do this because we trust in the value our content provides and want to empower our followers with that value. Followers who feel empowered with value will stick around.

Followers who feel empowered with value will stick around.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1wZnBPB”]#SocialMedia Followers who feel empowered with value will stick around.[/tweetthis]

#3: Push Out More Content

Many social media users do their best to publish one new piece of content on at least one social network every day. However, that is not enough to get noticed. Social media is a noisy place with countless posts being sent every second. Billions of social media posts get created and published every day. It is challenging to stand out in the middle of that noise.

Instead of posting one new tweet on Twitter every day, I post 100 new tweets every day. Instead of doing one new YouTube video every month, I do one new YouTube video every week. Always look for ways to increase the frequency that you can push out content. By increasing the frequency in which you push out content, you will be seen by a larger percentage of your audience. As you get seen more, some people in your social media audience may decide to subscribe to your blog and buy your products. When you push out more content, never sacrifice value. It is better to publish one high value YouTube video every month than four poorly done YouTube videos every month.

#4: Social Media Success Does Not Mean Success

Many people want to believe that having a certain number of followers guarantees success and money. However, social media success is different from success based on a revenue making standpoint. Social media is a tool you can use to make more revenue, but social media is not the place where you can promote a product and expect it to pick up a life changing amount of sales.

Social media is a place to get more indirect sales. You simply use social media to promote your blog and landing pages. Then, your blog and landing pages will lead to more subscribers and visitors. Getting more subscribers and visitors will lead to more long-term sales for your products. Social media gets used to amplify the power of those indirect methods of making more revenue.

#5: One At A Time

Many people have a strong desire to master multiple social networks. This desire is critical towards mastering multiple social network and achieving social media domination. It is this same desire that can spell doom for your entire social media strategy.

You read those last two sentences right. Something so important for social media success is also a big downfall that many people face. You need to master one social network at a time just like you would master one new language at a time. Each time you master one social network, it will become easier for you to master other social networks (you will have a larger audience and more knowledge).

You need to learn one social network at a time instead of trying to master them at once. Would you only focus on learning Spanish or try to learn Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, German, Greek, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese at the same time? Do you only focus on Twitter (or your preferred choice), or do you try to focus on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Google Plus, Tumblr, and Flickr at the same time?

In Conclusion

Sometimes, the best information we need is the information that was previously forgotten. People wouldn’t work at nine different 9-to-5 jobs at once, but now people are willing to learn and focus on that many social networks at once before mastering them. Social media success has confused the real meaning of financial success. We already know to push out content, but we need to push out more of it. We must provide value instead of posting about anything we can think of because people like to follow people who provide value. Interaction with your friends in real life is important, but so is interaction with your social media audience.

What were your thoughts on these forgotten tips? Do you have any other tip that you believe gets forgotten too often? Sound off in the comments section below.

7 Warning Signs That Your Social Media Strategy Isn’t Working

March 25, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media has made it easier than ever before for someone to grow an authority around a passion. Millions of the people who have embraced social media use it to promote their businesses, spread the word about their blog posts, and lead people to product pages. These people create social media strategies in the attempt to grow their authorities on the web.

Out of all of the social media strategies that get implemented, only a few of them work. Most social media strategies do a few things wrong. In a social media strategy, if a few things get done incorrectly, the entire strategy could get sabotaged. Let’s say you are gaining 100 Twitter followers every day. If you only send one tweet every day and never promote your content, then you are not getting traffic to your blog which could lead to more revenue and authority on the web.

One of the best ways to do something right is by knowing the warning signs. If you see these warning signs in your social media strategy, then you need to adjust your strategy. If these seven warning signs are within your social media strategy, then you need to adjust that strategy:

#1: You Are Practically Chasing Potential Followers And Likers

This mistake is commonly referred to as begging other people to follow you or like your page and stalking them until the action gets performed. You also get very excited when you get one new follower or one new like. If your social media strategy has this warning sign, it takes too much effort to get a single follower. If you want to build an authority on any social network, it must be easy for you to get followers by the dozens, and eventually, by the hundreds every day.

On Twitter, I would be disappointed if I gained less than 200 followers on any given day. Gaining over 500 Twitter followers in one day would be a really good day for me. Don’t rejoice over gaining a single follower because that indicates slow growth. Instead, rejoice over the big milestones. Rejoice over getting dozens of daily followers, then hundreds of daily followers, and if you absolutely crush it on social media, thousands of daily followers.

#2: You Don’t Have An End Goal

What is the point of growing your social media audience? If you can’t answer this question, then this warning sign applies to your social media strategy. You need to identify the benefit of growing your social media presence. Sure, social proof is good, but you need a better reason to grow your social media audience.

I grow my social media audience so I can get more blog traffic, meet new people, and get more subscribers when I promote my landing pages (if you have a landing page, you should promote yours on social media too). There needs to be a purpose behind your actions other than the fact that social media is the big thing.

#3: You Are Not Interacting With Your Followers

Some of the best social media tips are tips for real life. One of those tips is to have a two-sided conversation with your followers. Think of how annoying it would be to listen to a one-sided conversation in real life. One person does all of the talking, and you just listen. You want to say something to the person talking, but it’s a one-sided conversation (oh well).

When people went over to social media, they forgot to properly carry over this important concept. Most social media posts are one-sided conversations in which people post what is on their minds without thinking about interacting with their followers. If someone posts a relevant response to one of your social media posts, you need to respond to that person. The strongest relationships that develop via social media start with interaction.

The [tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1wATJc9″]The strongest relationships that develop via #socialmedia start with interaction.[/tweetthis]

#4: Your Posts Are Not Getting A Lot Of Engagement

One of the reasons people go after large audiences on social media is to spread the word about what they do. In order to use social media to spread the word about what you do, your followers need to engage with your content. If your followers are not engaging with your content, then your audience size is just a number that doesn’t mean anything. 1 real follower is better than 100,000 fake ones.

If your posts are not getting a lot of engagement, then you are probably not reaching your goals for your social media strategy. You need people to share your content to have an impact on social media.

#5: Your Strategy Is Taking Up Too Much Time

Social media is a way to promote the pages that build relationships and bring more revenue for you. Social media is not a giant cash machine. Although you should focus part of your time on your social media strategy, you also need to focus your time on revenue generating activities. If your strategy takes up hours of your time every day, then you need to shorten it. You can eliminate certain processes and buy upgraded tools with more features (i.e. HootSuite Pro) to save time. Time is money.

#6: You Are Often Using Social Media To Promote Your Products

Red flag! Social media is not the place to promote your products and make the extra buck. Social media is the place to build relationships with like-minded people. You get the revenue from social media when you promote your blog, and the blog visitor either decides to buy a product he sees right away or subscribes to your blog and buys a product down the road. You can occasionally promote your products on social media, but you should only promote a product in a meaningful way. Kim Garst did that well with these tweets about her latest book.

#7: You Aren’t Making Yourself Different

Why would someone follow you instead of the other person in your niche? I don’t know for you exactly, but you must know why you would get people to follow you instead of someone else in your niche. You need to make yourself different from other people and present yourself in a way that encourages more people to follow you. Your bio needs to let people know why you are different in a concise manner. You can be different for the value you produce, having circumstances that most people don’t have, being something that most people are not, having a high level of credibility, or something else that makes you stand out. Standing out will help you build an authority on the web.

Not only is it important to make yourself different so you grow your audience, but if you make yourself different, your followers will remember you. Social media is a very noisy place where it is easy to be forgotten. If the people who view your social media account see you as a unique individual, then these people will remember who you are, visit your blog, and eventually buy your products.

In Conclusion

Chances are you know which warning signs apply to your social media strategy. At this stage of the game, there are only two choices. The first choice is to accept your social media strategy as it is, not address any of the warning signs, and not see dramatic growth. The second (better) choice is to address any of the warning signs that affect your social media strategy and stop them before those warning signs turn into your strategy’s danger. By addressing and fixing the flaws, you will move forward with your social media strategy and authority development.

Which warning signs apply to you? Do you have any additional warning signs that you would like to warn people about? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

StumbleUpon Case Study: How I More Than Tripled My Blog Traffic In One Day

March 13, 2015 by Marc Guberti 5 Comments

Even though this blog is popular, one of my big goals is to get more blog traffic. My logic was that a little more of something beneficial wouldn’t hurt. I read various articles and blogging books. I knew several methods in other people’s articles and books, but one method that was repeatedly talked about was a method I never dared to try: submit your blog to StumbleUpon. Reddit and Digg were also mentioned, but I decided to focus my time on StumbleUpon.

I had created an account a few years ago, was barely active, and then just left it behind. When I logged into my StumbleUpon account for the first time in a few years, I had 125 followers. Not bad for a few years of inactivity!

I decided to promote my latest articles on StumbleUpon, but to no avail. Most of them got a few visitors, and the most amount of visitors I got for one blog post I shared on StumbleUpon was a little under 50 visitors. I knew StumbleUpon could produce big results because I saw the spike in traffic it gave other bloggers, so I wondered, “Why not me?”

I finally struck gold with my blog post 20 Thoughts To Live By. Unlike all of the other blog posts I shared on StumbleUpon, this was a very concise blog post. The other blog posts I shared were in-depth. My in-depth blog posts were not getting as much attention on StumbleUpon because people simply use StumbleUpon to surf the web and interact at the same time.

I put the blog post on StumbleUpon late at night. I got about 150 views from StumbleUpon that night. As I went to bed, I thought of StumbleUpon as a simple experiment that panned out nicely.

When I woke up, it was easy to see that my blog post went viral on StumbleUpon. On the day it went viral on StumbleUpon, that one blog post brought in over 66% of my blog’s traffic. At the time, my blog averaged 800 daily visitors and 1,100 daily views. On that day, my blog got over 2,879 visitors and 3,429 views. My blog’s traffic tripled overnight all because of one StumbleUpon post.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1EXMGlG”]Learn how one blog got over 2,500 extra visitors in one day from #StumbleUpon.[/tweetthis]

A few days after the blog post went viral on StumbleUpon, I decided to assess the experiment to see whether StumbleUpon was worth it or not. One of the most commonly discussed disadvantages is that virtually every StumbleUpon visitor only counted as one pageview. Most of the people who came to my blog from StumbleUpon only viewed that blog post and stumbled to the next page on StumbleUpon. Even though I saw record-breaking traffic, I only got 13 subscribers which is the same daily number of subscribers I already got prior to the blog post.

There was some good news about going viral on StumbleUpon. The first reason is that I now have massive social proof. The social proof of your blog post being shared by thousands of people shows that your blog post is valuable enough to have been shared by thousands of people.

Social media still plays a big role in the search engines, and StumbleUpon is a social network. A few days after the blog post went viral on StumbleUpon, I noticed that blog post getting more traffic than usual. My belief is also that when visitors scroll down to the end and see the blog post has been shared thousands of times, some of them will be more likely to share that blog post. People like to share what is popular.

In Conclusion

My opinion about StumbleUpon is that in the short-term, it just produces a big number with no dramatic change. The only short-term change is the social proof at the bottom of your blog posts if you have the StumbleUpon button enabled. In the long-term, people who visit your blog on StumbleUpon multiple times may decide to return. All of this StumbleUpon traffic results in more attention from the search engines. When people see the blog post is popular on StumbleUpon, they may decide to share it on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, thus increasing your blog post’s search rank (therefore, it increases your blog’s search rank).

What are your thoughts on StumbleUpon? Do you have any advice for going viral on StumbleUpon? Please share your thoughts and advice about StumbleUpon below.

10 Ways To Continue A Conversation With Someone On Social Media

March 11, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media is commonly used as a platform for marketers to promote their content and products. Millions of businesses use social media to communicate with their customers every day. These conversations are typically one-sided. Business accounts send out tweets but don’t bother responding to their customers.

Businesses and individuals need to have more conversations with their audiences. It is conversations that allow the strongest relationships to occur. You don’t get long-lasting friends that matter by having one-sided conversations with them. You need to have a conversation with someone if you want to build a strong relationship with that person.

However, the conversations that create friendships are more than the wave, the greeting, and then the departure. Conversations that build strong relationships need to last for a long period of time. In order to continue a conversation with someone on social media that turns into a strong relationship, follow these 10 tips.

#1: Wish Your Followers A Wonderful Week/Weekend

At the end of many of my conversations, I wish people a wonderful week or weekend depending on the day of the week. I do this for two reasons. The first reason is that I do want these people to enjoy their weeks and weekends. We have the right to enjoy our lives. The second reason is that this ending encourages the conversation to develop. Many of my followers also wish me a wonderful week/weekend depending on the day of the week.

#2: Ask A Question

Questions are great ways to continue a conversation. After one of my followers wishes me a wonderful week/weekend, I ask that followers what he/she has planned for the week/weekend. Many people respond telling me all of the things they have to do for the week/weekend. I follow up with a list of things I have to do as well. Asking this question allows me to learn what my followers do. If I find a pattern, I may create a product around that pattern.

On a simpler scale, you can start a conversation by asking what your followers’ favorite books are. Asking these types of questions to all of your followers will start up multiple conversations.

#3: Have Multiple Conversations With The Same Person

Just because a conversation ends does not mean you and the person you were talking to will never have another conversation together. You can talk to the same person again and again, just like a real-life friendship.

#4: Thank Your Followers For Sharing Your Content

One of the best ways to start a conversation is with an act of gratitude. I constantly thank the people who share my content with their audiences. I have thanked the same people multiple times. Many of the people who I thank either say something like, “You’re welcome,” or “Thank you for putting up the content so I could share it.” If you get one of these two responses, you should continue the conversation with that person.

Most marketers are so focused on sharing and creating content that they forget to thank the people who appreciate them. Some of the people who share your articles will feel so grateful that you thanked them that these people will continue sharing your content. When you do this, it is important to avoid abusing this power (don’t use this to manipulate your followers), and in the end, your followers will only share your content if it is valuable.

#5: Include Pictures In Your Posts

Social media posts with pictures have been proven to get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. If you include pictures in more of your posts, you will start more conversations with your followers. Some of the people who engage with your pictures will be people who have had conversations with you in the past. You can continue interacting with these people to strengthen the relationships and interact with other people for the first time to start new relationships.

#6: Only Talk To The Right People

Not every social media user is created equal. Ideally, you want to talk to the people who are interested in the content you share on your social networks. These are the people who would be more likely to share your content and be grateful for your insights. You want to build an audience of like-minded people so that, when the conversations do take place, you are talking to the right people. In addition, when you hop onto a conversation, make sure the people in that conversation are the right people to talk with (like-minded people who share an interest in your niche).

#7: Respond Quicker

You can’t have much of a conversation with someone else unless you respond. The longest conversations that take place are the ones where people quickly respond to each other. Most of these conversations are real human interaction without any technology involved. On social media, you need technology to communicate with your followers. However, you can make those conversations last longer by responding quicker as if you were in a real conversation.

I make it a policy to get back to my followers within a day. Depending on when the conversation starts and when I log in, I may get back to some people within a few seconds or close to 24 hours. By responding quicker, your followers will be more likely to remember the conversation when they see your response.

#8: Quiz Your Followers

Quizzing your followers is a great way to start more conversations. You can quiz your followers by giving them a clue to identify someone, something, or an event such as, “Who was the 33rd President of the United States?” The answer to that question is Harry S. Truman. Of course, some followers may choose to look that up, but you get more interaction.

The best quiz questions are the ones that require a guess. Think “How many pieces of candy are in the box” type of questions. You can offer a free prize to the first person who guesses the right answer or is the closest to the right answer.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1Kgb4xg”]Quizzing your followers is a great way to educate them and have more conversations with them at the same time.[/tweetthis]

#9: Poll

Polls are another way to start conversations. Facebook has an especially great feature that makes poll creation easier. For any social network though, you can simply list poll choices like this:

What should my next product be about?

A. Pinterest

B. Twitter

C. Facebook

D. Blogging

E. Productivity

In less than a minute, I just created a poll that could be put on any social network, including Twitter with its 140 character limit. This type of poll would allow me to know what products my followers want. Having this knowledge would allow me to make better decisions when I create my future products. You can ask any poll question such as, “Which social network do you like the most…” Not all of them have to be related to your products or expertise.

#10: Thoughtfully Contribute To The Conversation

When you contribute to a conversation, you need to thoughtfully contribute to that conversation. In human interaction, we don’t have as much time to think about what we say. We say what we think of. Sometimes, we say thoughtful things while at other times, we say things that we should have thought about before saying. On social media, you have time to think about what you say. Utilize the extra time to think before you post something on social media. Then, you will have a better reply to a conversation that makes the conversation build.

In Conclusion

Conversations are important on social media because they allow relationships to build. Some of these relationships may turn into sales, subscribers, and people who promote you for a long time. However, most conversations on social media are either one-sided or do not last for a long period of time. Everything you post is the start of a conversation. It is up to you to post the type of content your followers would be encouraged to engage with. Then it is up to you to keep those conversations going so you can build stronger relationships with your followers.

What are your thoughts on having conversations on social media? Do you have any other tips for making a conversation continue for a longer period of time? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

5 Reasons To Give StumbleUpon A Try

February 27, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

StumbleUpon is one of the most underrated social networks on the web for getting blog traffic and growing your presence on the web. You do not need to have thousands of followers on various social networks for your content to be seen by thousands of people.

One of the most common reasons people do not give StumbleUpon a try is because of its reputation for a high bounce rate. Many people who visit your blog through StumbleUpon only visit for a few seconds and then move on to the next webpage. However, some marketers have noticed long-term relationships with visitors that come from StumbleUpon. Other than that reason, here are five reasons why you need to give StumbleUpon a try.

#1: Old Content Can Go Viral Too

You can make the same argument for any social network. The only difference about StumbleUpon is that it is extremely easy for content to go viral there, and old content can go viral too. Some content that was posted on StumbleUpon weeks, months, or even years ago may suddenly become viral. Therefore, if you are posting on StumbleUpon, and the post does not go viral, it is a seed that can grow and become viral later.

On other social networks, the chance of an older post going viral are not as likely. Tweets quickly go out of view on a feed (they get shoved down to the ever-growing bottom of the feed), and within a few weeks, most YouTube videos go from new to old. On StumbleUpon, it does not matter how old the content is. It still has a good chance of going viral.

#2: Posting On StumbleUpon Is Easy

StumbleUpon is by no means a difficult social network to post on. While YouTube requires a good video, all you have to do on StumbleUpon is take the link from any webpage, paste it, put the link under a category, and then write an optional comment. You can send out a few posts on StumbleUpon every day, and as you write more posts, you will have a higher probability of one of your posts going viral.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1wb8HUO”]It’s easy to post something on StumbleUpon, and it’s not difficult for posts to go viral.[/tweetthis]

#3: StumbleUpon Is A Different Type Of Community

StumbleUpon is not the type of community commonly associated with social networks. Unlike Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, StumbleUpon allows you to surf through other people’s websites while socializing in the process. It is a different social network with a different community for you to engage with.

#4: StumbleUpon Is Growing

The same case can be made with other social networks, but StumbleUpon is growing fast. StumbleUpon quickly went from another site on the web to a social network that gets more than one billion stumbles every month. As StumbleUpon continues to grow, going viral will present a greater impact in your traffic. When you go viral on StumbleUpon, you will get a big spike in traffic. Some content on StumbleUpon stays viral, and that spike in traffic may suddenly become the new norm.

If the traffic you get from StumbleUpon slows down, you may gain more traffic from other places because of the exposure you got from StumbleUpon (i.e. search engines, someone who saw your blog post on StumbleUpon mentioned it in a tweet or one of their blog posts). The more StumbleUpon grows, the greater the impact is of going viral, and the impact of going viral is already remarkable.

#5: Your Content Can Go Viral On StumbleUpon Even If Someone Else Share It

It is true that we can’t do everything all by ourselves. We need help from other people. Having a StumbleUpon button at the bottom of all of your blog posts gives your readers a chance to help spread the word on StumbleUpon and possibly make your blog post go viral.

In Conclusion

StumbleUpon may be different from the other social networks, but it is a social network that bloggers and entrepreneurs alike can no longer afford to overlook. StumbleUpon is a great social network for getting more blog traffic, and this social network makes it easier for your older blog posts to go viral. Even a blog post that was written years ago can still go viral on StumbleUpon and get a lot of attention.

Do you use StumbleUpon? Are you going to create a StumbleUpon account? If so, be sure to follow me on StumbleUpon so we can interact with each other.