Social Media

5 Ways To Tap Into The Power Of Social Media

February 20, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media presents a powerful way to do the following:

Grow an audience like never before
Spread your message like never before
Procrastinate like never before
Insult people like never before

I think that out of all of the opportunities we have been presented with to take charge, never has there been an opportunity with such beneficial and disastrous consequences wrapped into one. The key way to tap into the power of social media and get the first two results is by knowing what to do, and then implementing that knowledge. There is really no other way to around it. These are the five ways you can tap into the power of social media:

#1: Identify The Best Social Network For You

Not all social networks are created equal. Each social network has a different set of functions and rules for success. On YouTube, you need to create high-value YouTube videos while on Twitter, you need to provide valuable content and follow targeted users who are likely to follow back. For those two social networks, that’s success in a nutshell.

Many people create multiple social media accounts and split their time amongst those accounts. This is one of the most common but also one of the biggest mistakes people make. If you split up your time amongst different social media accounts and try to master them all at the same time, you would have to read countless articles and turn yourself into a workhorse (never mind the fact that at the end of the day, your social media accounts need to promote people to revenue generating websites such as an optimized blog and landing page). The solution is to choose one (yes, just one) social network and master it. Once you master one social network, you can move on to mastering another social network. If you have multiple social media accounts (I’m sure you do), then there is no reason to delete any of them. Just be inactive on them for a while and focus most of your time on one of them.

#2: Do Research

No matter how much you know about one social network, you can still learn more about that social network. To this day, I continue to learn more about Twitter, and my quest for learning more about Twitter won’t stop for a very long time (if it ever stops at all). In order to learn more about a social network, you need to do research on that social network. You need to learn what it takes to be successful on that social network (which alone has dozens of smaller components), how you can use social media to boost your productivity, and more. When I do research, I type in a phrase into Google such as, “How To Get More StumbleUpon Followers” (I am intrigued by StumbleUpon and want to learn more about it), and then I read a bunch of the articles that come up. I took this approach to obtain my knowledge about Twitter, and I continue with that approach to this day.

#3: Implement

The only research that adds up to any value is the research that you implement. Chances are ideas that rival Facebook and Google have already been thought of, but those ideas don’t get implemented, so the research and time put into those ideas do not matter. You may know what you do, but knowing and doing are two different things. Once you have the knowledge, you need to apply it. Find time in your day to experiment with new ideas, tinker with old ones, and track the results. Knowing which methods have the biggest impact on your social media audience will present you with the knowledge you need to move forward.

#4: Interact

One of the few rules that applies to every social network is that interacting with your audience is a great way to build connections and get more blog traffic in the process (assuming that you promote your blog on social media). The word social is in “social media” for a reason.

Not only does interacting with your followers make it possible for you to build more connections, but you can share valuable insights with each other. Some of the insights your followers share may inspire your future blog posts. Other followers may ask questions that you use in your information products. Social media allows you to interact with these followers so you can build connections, provide insights, and answer their questions. It’s a win-win for both of you (you get more ideas and your followers get their questions answered).

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/17Eb6mk”]Interacting with your social media followers is a win-win![/tweetthis]

#5: Keep At It

The best way to grow your social media audience is to keep at it and learn new techniques along the way (don’t forget to implement). It takes a long time for you to grow a large social media audience. It is important to note that when I reached 100,000 Twitter followers in 993 days, I was not consistently gaining 101 followers every day.

On the day I got my 100,000th Twitter, I mathematically gained an average of 101 followers every day, but on most of those days, I was getting anywhere from 0-5 Twitter followers. Then, I went on to gain 10-20 followers every day until I made my way to gaining over 500 Twitter followers every day. You get to reach the colossal milestones by sticking with the social network you choose (but only stick with a social network if you have a passion for it. Don’t choose to grow on a social network that you despise).

In Conclusion

It would be impossible to cover all of the knowledge you need to know in one blog post. These five methods provide the basic surface needed to take your social media achievement to the next level. Always strive to learn more about what you are trying to master as well as what you have already mastered. Knowledge is power.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have another method for tapping into the power of social media? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

20 Ways To Amplify Your Social Media Reach

February 16, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Social media is one of the most powerful tools I have come across to grow a large audience and spread your message. In less than three years, I went from no audience to hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter alone.

Social media is an opportunity that people can no longer afford to take for granted. Social media is not a fad. It has redefined how we share information, interact, and grow our audiences. Amplifying our reach on social media has become more important than ever. In order to amplify your reach on social media, follow these 20 tips:

#1: Grow A Targeted Audience

A targeted audience consists of a group of people who are interested in the niche that you tweet about the most. My targeted audience consists of people who are interested in digital marketing advice. You can grow a targeted audience by finding influential people in your niche and following those people’s followers. When you do this, be sure to follow the people whose ratios indicate they are likely to follow you back.

#2: Follow People

It does not hurt to follow people, temporarily sacrifice your 1-to-1 ratio, or eventually follow hundreds of thousands of people. When you follow someone, you are sending an invitation for that person to connect with you. I know that sounds a lot like LinkedIn, but both Twitter and LinkedIn are social networks which means they have similarities. Following someone else, and then that person following you builds a connection between you and that other person. Imagine having hundreds of thousands of these types of connections. I would rather have 100,000 followers and follow 100,000 people than only have 1,000 followers and only follow one person. You can take this approach on nearly any social network, and I saw great success when applying this process to my Pinterest account.

#3: Post More Often

The entire concept of posting too often being bad is a myth mixed up with what some would call fury posting. Fury posting is when someone sends dozens of posts in about five minutes. Although this type of posting is annoying and ineffective, scheduling numerous posts throughout the day is not as annoying, and it can be very effective. I schedule one tweet every 15 minutes, and although I know that annoys a small handful of people (you can’t please them all), many of my followers like the added value of my tweeting once every 15 minutes.

#4: Post More Pictures

Including a picture in your posts is one of the easiest ways to boost engagement. Posts with pictures have been proven to get more engagement than posts without pictures…on every social network on the web. You can find a picture on Google or create one with Canva to match what you want to talk about. As long as you provide a picture that complements the post’s typed content, that post will be sure to get more engagement.

#5: Post Better, Stunning Pictures

We don’t want blurry pictures. We only want the cream of the crop. Since millions of pictures are posted every day across all of the major social networks, social media has a fair share of good and bad pictures. Therefore, a decent picture will no longer make the cut anymore. You must focus on including stunning pictures in your post. Take the time to look for the best picture available, and if you decide to create your own picture, make sure you take the time to see if any improvements can be made. Don’t just go for the first picture you see in Google’s search engine or the first picture idea you think of when you are on Canva.

#6: Post Valuable Content

Many visitors who visit a social media account for the first time never visit it again. In order to prevent that from being you, it is essential for you to constantly post valuable content on your social networks. The value of your content determines how many people revisit your social media accounts, and how far your content spreads.

When you share content on your social networks, be sure to only share valuable content. If you read an article that you thought was fascinating or valuable, feel free to share it with your followers. Those are the types of articles that encourage followers to stick around, revisit your social media accounts, and share your posts.

#7: Use Multiple Social Networks

Billions of people use social media, but not everyone uses the same social networks. Some people only use Facebook while other people use Twitter and Pinterest, but not Facebook. The combinations vary based on the individual, and few people spend an equal amount of time on all of their social networks.

Being active on multiple social networks will allow you to reach to a larger active audience. Many people who are active on one social network are inactive on other social networks. Being on all of the major social networks will allow you always interact with an active audience.

#8: Focus Most Of Your Time On One Social Network

Although it is important to use multiple social networks, most of your time needs to be focused on one social network. For me, that would be Twitter. It is so important to focus on one social network because of the learning curve. It is difficult to learn how to master 10 social networks at the same time. However, it is easier to learn how to master one social network at a time.

I like to compare social media mastery to mastering the romance languages. The romance languages have the same general structure, just like social networks. If you know how to be successful on Twitter, then you almost have all of the knowledge needed to be successful on Pinterest or a social network similar to Twitter.

As you become more successful on more social networks, it will be easier to become successful on other social networks. Let the sentence sink in, and read it again. It is better to take social media success one step at a time than trying to take 10 steps at once.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/14tgjvd”]It is better to take #SocialMedia success one step at a time than trying to take 10 steps at once.[/tweetthis]

#9: Share Other People’s Content

Did you know that it is statistically proven that people unfollow the ego maniacs? If you are constantly talking about yourself, promoting your own articles, and promoting your own products, then you need to take the time to share what other people have done. Your timeline does not have to be taken over by articles from other people’s blogs, but if you share someone else’s blog post here and there, your followers would greatly appreciate it, especially if the blog posts you share are valuable.

#10: Interact With Your Audience

Interacting with your audience is important towards growing that audience and building quality relationships. Regardless of your audience’s size, there will be people in that audience who will be grateful that you took the time to respond to one of their posts. One conversation has the potential to start a strong relationship.

Getting a conversation started is as easy as thanking someone for sharing one of your posts, saying hi, or jumping into a conversation (without coming out as brash).

#11: Add The Personal Touch

The personal touch is one of the most underrated ways to increase your reach on social media. As more people get impacted by your message and enjoy the value you provide, some of them will want to know what you do when you are not on social media. You don’t have to give every second of every detail of your life, but you can let people know things about you that are important.

If you watch baseball games every night, your followers may occasionally want to know that. If baseball is not your niche, you wouldn’t send daily posts about you watching baseball. For these types of activities, you should only talk about them 1-2 times per month. You can talk more freely about events in your life that you believe are important enough to get the spotlight on your social networks (in other words, don’t tell us what you ate for breakfast. Tired of seeing that breakfast example on so many blogs?).

The personal touch will allow people to know more about who you are. It is okay to branch out of your business to add the personal touch because your followers will feel more connected to you than ever.

#12: Do Research

Most of the knowledge I obtained about digital marketing came from hundreds of hours of research. I would look up popular, valuable, niche-related blogs and read through all of the articles on those blogs. To this day, I continue to read a variety of articles from fellow bloggers in my niche to learn more about expanding my social media reach. I also recommend subscribing to their blogs so you get notified every time they come out with new blog posts. That way, you will be able to stay up to date with the latest trends in your niche.

#13: Read Social Media Books

I wish I could say I read many social media books, but that is not the case quite yet. I have been making progress though. I started reading What The Plus!: Google+ For The Rest Of Us by Guy Kawasaki. I have read various books in the time management field even when I knew (thought I knew) how to effectively manage my time. I was productive, but reading a few bestsellers about productivity dramatically increased my ability to get more done faster. You can never know too much about social media, and as you gain more knowledge about social media and different social networks, you will have a better idea of what you need to do to grow your reach.

#14: Automate Your Content

When I send out one tweet every 15 minutes, you better believe I’m not up at 4 am eastern time sending out those tweets. However, while I am sleeping, other people are having their morning coffee, attending school, enjoying the afternoon, or having an evening dinner. All of those things happen in different places in the world while you sleep.

Therefore, people are reading my tweet at 4 am eastern because it’s a different time of day in Germany, England, Russia, China, Japan, and any other timezone out of the east coast. You don’t need to master geography to be successful on social media, but if you strive to grow an international audience, you need to be aware of the fact that our world is filled with many timezones.

#15: Tweet At The Moment

Automating your content allows you to consistently provide content to your followers over a long period of time without you being on a computer, mobile device, or tablet. In some cases, tweeting at the moment will prove to be an effective tactic towards growing your social reach, especially if you take advantage of current events.

Few businesses were prepared for the blackout in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome during Super Bowl 47. Oreo was prepared, and it was on this day that Oreo sent its famous tweet about still dunking in the dark. This tweet made marketers all over the world pay more attention to tweeting at the moment, and it is a tweet that has been discussed and analyzed in thousands of presentations all over the world. I have analyzed this one tweet in multiple blog posts and videos. It’s amazing what 140 characters can do.

#16: Turn Social Media Conversations Into Email Conversations

Social media conversations only last for a long period of time, and some conversations are forgotten about due to the countless distractions that social media throws at us. If you can turn some of your social media conversations into email conversations, then you will remove all of the distractions and character lengths that prevent a conversation from growing in size. Sure, there are distractions in the inbox, just like any social network. However, we have been hardwired to make sure we look at every email (for some of us, even the spammy emails) in our inbox. If we don’t look at every email in our inbox, then we’ll definitely click the “Mark All As Read” button.

Email conversations are the best conversations to have with your followers because email conversations tend to be the most sincere, and they typically last for a longer period of time than social media conversations.

#17: Promote Your Landing Pages On Social Media

Having a big email list allows you to connect all of the promotion of your social networks in one place. On this email list, you can promote your latest Pinterest boards, YouTube videos, Instagram photos, your Twitter account, and more. Landing pages are critical components towards growing your email list, and what better place to promote your landing page to the audiences you have already built on your social networks?

#18: Have A Good Avatar

The picture you choose for your avatar has a big impact on how many people follow you after taking a look at your account. If you are using a personal account, have a picture of you. That means no egg, cartoon character, or anything else. The best picture to have for your personal account’s avatar is a picture of you. If you manage or own a business account, the ideal avatar for getting more followers would be a picture of the business’ logo.

#19: Improve Your Bio On Your Social Networks

It is always worth checking your bio every once in a while because it could be outdated, or it may not highlight one of your most recent accomplishments. You should improve your bio to highlight your credentials and the hobbies that you do outside of your business.

When you don’t have many characters to play with, use commas to list credentials and hobbies one by one. Sentence fragments and not including a period at the end of the sentence are okay. If you have more characters available, use periods at the end of sentences (if you want to write in complete sentences, the social network you are using must allow you to use at least 300 characters). Make sure all of your bios on your social networks are similar or identical. When people transition from one social network to the next, they’ll recognize you by your avatar and bio description.

#20: Have A Stunning Background/Header Picture

Some social networks call it a background picture while others call it a header picture. Regardless of what it is called on the social network you use, the picture behind your avatar needs to reflect what you do and promote one of your products.

On my Twitter header, I promote my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter and make my message stand out (Age Is Not A Limit To Success). Your background/header picture can’t just be a random picture from Google. It needs to be a picture that lets people know more about you or your business.

In Conclusion

Amplifying your social media reach is not as challenging as it seems, especially if you have the right knowledge in place. One of the most important tips I could ever give it to be patient on social media. There were times when I wanted to give up on Twitter because I was practically frozen at 1,667 followers for 1-3 months. I’m happy I stuck with it. If you stick with social media and learn new techniques (by reading books and conducting your own research) you will grow your social media reach and spread your message farther on the web.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other tips for amplifying social media reach? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

6 Ways To Grow Your Email List With Social Media

January 21, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Did you know that your email list reflects your income? This is a powerful statement that has been backed by marketers throughout the industry. Some of the marketers who back this statement have tens of thousands of subscribers. Others have over 1 million. Their earnings don’t lie. The people with tens of thousands of subscribers are making six figure incomes, and the people with millions of subscribers make millions of dollars in income every year.

Many people who focus their time on growing a large social media audience may feel silly, wondering where all of those hours went. I know the feeling. Before I optimized my blog to get more subscribers, my income level would be the same even when my Twitter audience started to grow at a rapid pace. At some points, I wondered why I didn’t just entirely switch from growing my social media audience to growing an email list.

The truth, I quickly realized, is that they both help each other grow. Trying to grow a social media audience and growing an email list at the same time allows those two areas to grow faster than they would if you focused on one area at a time. You can promote your social networks to your email list, and you can promote your landing pages on your social networks.

This article will discuss six of the methods you can use to grow your email list with the help of social media. Stumbling across these methods allowed me to more effectively utilize my Twitter presence. Twitter is now one of my streams of indirect revenue that continues to build my email list, a direct source of revenue. The same can be true for any social networks, but only if you implement these six methods:

#1: Pin Your Landing Page To The Top Of Your Social Media Feeds

Twitter and Facebook give its users the option to pin one of their posts to the top of their feeds. These posts automatically get seen by everyone who visits your social media account’s page which gives those pinned posts more visibility. You can use these pinned posts to promote your blog’s landing pages that are designed to get more subscribers.

If you don’t have a landing page for your blog yet, then you need to create one. I use Optimize Press for my landing pages.

#2: Promote Your Landing Pages Every Day

Even if your landing page is pinned to the top of your feed, not everyone will check out your feed. Some people who view your tweet or Facebook post may decide to read the post but not click on your name. In these cases, the pinned landing page never gets seen.

That is why it is important to promote your landing page every day. Some social media marketers tweet promote their landing pages 10 times every day. Promoting your landing page every day will give that landing page more attention. The extra attention your landing page gains from constantly getting reposted over a long period of time will lead to more subscribers.

#3: Offer An Irresistible Free Prize On Your Landing Page

Landing pages with irresistible free prizes convert better than landing pages without irresistible free prizes. You want your free prizes to align with your niche and your audience’s interests. On this landing page, I give away my eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. You want to lead people to a landing page that converts well, not a landing page that simply begs for a name and email address.

#4: Create And Promote Multiple Landing Pages

Once you create one landing page, you can create another landing page with its own free prize, and then another one after that. As you increase your library of free prizes, one of those free prizes is bound to get a visitor’s attention. If you write one book about SEO, another book about social media, and another book about growing an email list, then you will have more free offers that can potentially lead to more subscribers.

You can lead repeat subscribers through different autoresponders based on which list they subscribe to. You can use these autoresponders to provide value and eventually promote one of your products that is related to the free prize. This is a great strategy to get more sales. Kim Garst utilizes this strategy very effectively. She has multiple landing pages that she promotes on Twitter every day, and each of those landing pages has its own autoresponder sequence that promotes her own products that are related to her free prizes.

#5: Grow Multiple Social Media Audiences

Once you grow a large audience on a social network, look for the next social network to master. The more social networks you master, and the larger those audiences grow, the more visibility your landing pages will get. More visibility for a landing page never hurt any marketer. You can use some of the revenue you generate from your new subscribers to promote your social networks to the next level. I have been experimenting with buying visibility from Twiends to grow my Twitter audience (this is different from buying fake followers. I would never do that to my reputation), and by the end of 2015, my goal is to utilize Facebook Ads. No matter how large your social media audience is now, it can always grow.

#6: Provide Valuable Content

Consistently providing valuable content over a long period of time is what entices people to enter their name and email address on your landing pages. Numerous people who visit your landing pages will have read some of your blog posts. When your potential subscribes decide whether the free prize is truly worthy of an email address or not, those potential subscribers will think of the value you provide in your blog posts.

Providing valuable content for free is okay. It allows you to build the long-term relationships that lead to returning customers.

In Conclusion

Social media is the best source of indirect revenue on the web. Where you lead people on your social networks determines how much of your revenue your social networks are responsible for. One of the most powerful ways to generate revenue with your social networks is by promoting landing pages so you can grow your email list. Promoting the landing pages you currently have and create others in the future so you can get more subscribers and put your current subscribers into new autoresponder sequences.

What were your thoughts on the methods discussed in this article? Did you have a favorite? Do you have an additional method that you use to grow your email list with social media? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 Reasons Why You Should Not Depend On Social Media For Blog Traffic

December 24, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Social media has been established as a powerful way to get more traffic and build an authority on the web. Many people have used social media to become the leaders of their niches and ultimately dominate their industries. Social media brings over 10,000 people to this blog every month.

Although social media is powerful, it is not something that we should rely on for blog traffic. There are several people who get all of their traffic from social media, or worse, one social network in particular.

The risk with relying on social media, or even worse, a single social network to bring in the bulk of your blog’s traffic is that you are putting all of your eggs in one basket. Although the basket may look nice and stable now, the basket can suddenly break, and then all of your eggs are splattered on the floor. Do you want that to happen to you? Chances are you don’t, and just in case that was not convincing enough, here are the seven reasons why you should depend on social media for blog traffic.

#1: Social networks change

One of the main reasons why I wrote this blog post was because I recently read an article about Twitter experimenting with an algorithm similar to Facebook. These algorithms enforce a pay to play system where growing a presence is no longer enough.

Facebook posts now only get seen by about 3% of your audience which means to have a big impact on Facebook, you need to have a ginormous audience. There was a time when Facebook did not have these algorithms and everyone was happy. With Facebook’s change, many people say a noticeable decline in Facebook engagement and traffic. Would you be happy if you had a Facebook Page with 300 fans, but only nine of those fans could see the posts on their home feed?

Does Twitter follow this exact path and create a pay to play system? Only time will tell, but Twitter talking about an algorithm suggests how little power we have in the decisions that popular social networks make. If Twitter decides to enforce the same policy as Facebook, then too bad. We will complain, but every social network has the final say in what happens.

#2: There are other options available

With the thought of a Twitter algorithm causing dissent amongst many users and a pay to play system being enforced, blogging has become more important than ever. Just because social media is powerful does not mean it is the only option.

With a blog, you still have the power to publish content and share it with the world. Blogging also gives you numerous advantages such as growing an email list and bringing in more sales. These advantages allow you to control the communication that you have with the people who stop by. On the other hand, social media has direct control over all of the interactions you have on it. If a social network decides to suspend your account, all conversations come to an end whether you want them to or not.

#3: All social networks get hacked

Many people look at Burger King’s success on the day it got hacked and aspire to be hacked themselves. Some accounts have even faked being hacked just to gain popularity. However, the latest hacks have not gone as well for the hacked accounts.

An example of this was when Uber Facts lost over 10,000 followers on the day it was hacked. Ouch! The worst part about hackings is that in most cases, they are not under your control. Some information leaks out of social networks. Remember Heartbleed?

Changing your password reduces the chances of your account getting hacked. However, anything on the web to get hacked nowadays, but if your social network gets hacked, and you have no other way of communicating with your audience, that spells trouble. Not only are you barred from your audience, but the hacker may use your account to insult your audience or post inappropriate content–all under your name.

#4: All social networks have bugs

There are some social networks that encounter strange bugs that make them perform differently. There are some Twitter users who get their accounts compromised every single day for no reason whatsoever. When these accounts get compromised, no tweets can be sent out. That means all of those tweets that got scheduled on HootSuite cannot be sent out because of a flaw out of your control.

No one is hacking into the account, and many of these Twitter users have resorted to 30 character passwords which still does not solve the compromise problem. If a bug affects your ability to post content on your social network, then you are losing blog traffic, interactions, and possibly sales.

#5: Not everyone will see your posts

No matter how much hard work you put into growing your social media audience, most of that audience will not see the social media posts that you publish. If every single one of my Twitter followers saw one of my tweets and clicked on the link, I would be getting hundreds of thousands of visitors every day (at that point, move over Huffington Post).

Too bad that is not the case. Unfortunately, no matter which platform you choose, not everyone will see your posts. However, social media happens to be a place where few people click on your posts and engage with you. I get over 10,000 visitors every month from Twitter alone. Assuming there are no repeat visitors (which is not the case), that would mean less than 10% of my followers see at least one of my tweets every month. The typical email list leads to more engagement than the typical social media account.

#6: Social media is addictive

Although social media is a great way to bring in more blog traffic, it is also extremely addictive. Some people spend hours on social media every week, and the amount of time people spend on social media takes time away from the big projects. Social media eats up more time than most people realize. Many people are spending three hours every day on social media while others are on social media for a longer amount of time.

When someone finally logs out after spending three hours on social media, that person may remember the blog post that needed to get published or the video that should have been uploaded to YouTube. If you are unproductively using social media for three hours every day, think about how much time you are spending unproductively on social media within a given week, month, or year. It adds up.

#7: Social media is not a direct way to make money on the web

When people think of making money online, they want to make money as directly as possible. Many people have tried turning social media into a direct revenue stream, but that’s not how social media works.

The function of social media is to build an awareness for your blog, get more traffic, and then have your blog optimized so it is able to bring in revenue. Since social media is addictive, it is entirely possible that the time you invest in social media does not necessarily result in more revenue.

In Conclusion

Just like the millions of other people who use them, I love social media. I am able to interact with my followers, build connections, and get more blog traffic. However, with the popularity of social networks, many people have become dependent on social media traffic for their blogs.

Regardless of how many visitors a social network is bringing in, you need to avoid having all of your eggs in one basket. If that basket gets dropped (whether it’s your fault or not), your blog traffic will suffer.

Utilizing social media while utilizing other avenues of traffic will allow you to become a successful blogger who is not dependent on one thing. Be sure to branch out by getting more traffic with different methods whenever you can.

7 Social Media Excuses You Need To Expel From Your Thinking So You Can Thrive

December 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are many people who have grown large audiences on social media. Some of these people have thousands of people in their audience while others are up there in the millions. However, there are few people who get to see these accounts develop to those stages.

Teen celebrities, fashion stars, and digital marketing experts are three of the many types of people who have dominated social media. They all started out with zero followers, and at one point, the only people who knew about them were family members. You don’t just get born with fame. It takes countless hours of work in order to build that fame and have a large audience.

Despite many people being successful on social media, there are many people who are constantly giving themselves excuses that limit their capabilities. Anyone on the web has the power to become successful and build a powerful presence based on their expertise. This statement is by no means an exaggeration, but if you want to truly be successful on social media, these are the seven excuses that you must expel immediately.

#1: I’m not popular enough

The current popularity any individual has is not final. If no one knows about you, it is still possible to build a large audience. One of the most important things to remember is that everyone started from the ground up.

You may not be what you define as a popular person, but you can become popular. Reading articles like this one show me you have a desire to be successful on social media. Having this desire makes you one step closer to becoming popular on social media.

#2: “Why would a random person want to follow me?”

Some people who create social media accounts tend to think, “Why would a random person want to follow me?” The problem with asking this question is that “random person” is too vague. Vagueness is the main reason why most people get confused about what they need to do on social media.

In order to identify who would want to follow you, you have to replace the word “random” with “targeted.” One small change changes the question to, “Why would a targeted person want to follow me?” That one small change makes a big difference. At this stage, you want to identify who your target audience is. Here’s the quick summary:

Identify what you are going to tweet about most of the time (at least 90% of the time)
Identify which people are interested in that type of content (look at a popular account that tweet content in the same niche. That account’s followers would be interested in your type of content).

Once you identify your target audience, follow some of the people in your target audience whose numbers suggest that they would follow you back. As you gain more followers, your confidence will grow, and then you will eventually be asking yourself, “Why wouldn’t someone want to follow me?” Just don’t be a show off.

#3: Who is really going to like what I say?

More people than you would think.

Your targeted audience is the group of people who would like what you have to say. Since there are over 1 billion people using social media, it is almost guaranteed that there are millions of targeted people on the same social network as you. You just need to make the connection happen so that person knows about you and can see your posts.

Social media gives you the power to put your own voice on the web, and you need to be proud of that voice. If you want help with crafting powerful posts, look at what the leaders of your niche are going. The two best ways to learn on social media are by example and experimentation.

#4: I don’t have the time

This excuse is one of my biggest pet peeves. Not having enough time is another way of saying one of two things:

You have more important things to do.
This is just absolutely never going to happen.

The people with the big audiences have the same amount of time in a day as you. Everyone has 24 hours in one day, and we all spend a good portion of that time sleeping, eating, and drinking water.

What happens after the necessary activities to keep life going are what make or break success. I find it preposterous that many people complain about not having enough time, and yet the average American watches 32 hours of TV every week. You have more time than you realize. Carving out time from unproductive activities will allow you to find the time you need to grow your social media audience and learn more about building a powerful presence on the web.

#5: I’m not getting results fast enough

Starting your journey towards growing a large social media audience is the equivalent of signing a contract that says, “I understand that there is no such thing as overnight success.” It takes multiple years before a large audience develops. It took me multiple years to come up with an effective Twitter strategy that I currently use to gain hundreds of Twitter followers every day.

No matter which social network you choose, it will not take a few days to go from no audience to 1 million followers. If it were that quick and easy, then there would be no point. There would be nothing special about having a large audience. It does take a while before you grow your large audience. However, it feels extremely good once you have the big audience and realize you built it from the ground up.

#6: “There are too many things I have to learn about social media”

No matter what you pursue in life, there will be a necessary learning curve to cross. Social media is no exception. The reason why there is no overnight success is because it takes time to learn how to be successful, and it takes time to implement the same process at a consistent rate until you get the audience that you want.

Many people jump into social media head-on and try to learn everything about every social network. This approach is what results in people saying that there are too many things to learn about social media. Instead of trying to learn everything about every social network, only focus on one social network. Then, when you master one social network, move onto the next social network. It is better to learn about a bunch of social networks in a few years and have big audiences on all of the social networks that you master than it is for you to attempt to learn about every social network right now and not have a big audience on any of them.

#7: It’s too late to jump on the social media bandwagon

Just because social media has been around for a little over a decade does not mean it is too late to jump on the social media bandwagon. Social media makes it possible for anyone to thrive, regardless of when they join.

It is never too late to be successful on social media. There are rising stars on social media that started off with no followers just a few months ago. Now, some of these people have big audiences.

If you can interact with your followers and provide them with value, you can be successful on social media, regardless of when you create an account.

In Conclusion

There are over 1 billion people on social media, and it is possible for anyone to become successful on any social network. We often use excuses to get out of putting in the work or because we think a goal is impossible.

Success on social media is attainable for any individual, and there is no overnight success in any niche. However, once you have that large audience, you will be proud of all of the work that you put in to make that big audience possible. Eliminating the excuses is a great way to start on the path towards social media stardom.

Which of these excuses resonated with you the most? Are there any other excuses that you believe hold others back?

10 Social Media Tips For Entrepreneurs

November 28, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media is one of the most powerful avenues for traffic and connections. The only problem with social media is that it is also a giant maze. Not everyone knows where they need to go, how to get the connections, how to grow an audience, and what they want to be known for.

Each time another person becomes successful or well-known because of social media, entrepreneurs are seeing the importance of social media more and more. The truth is that every entrepreneur only needs two things to become successful on social media:

Guidance
Dedication (the will to implement and make it happen)

Although all of the dedication comes from you, I will provide you with the guidance you need to have a smoother journey on social media. Here are the 10 social media tips that you can utilize to be more successful.

#1: Identify Who Your Target Audience Is And Focus On Them

One of the most important things you need to do before anything else is identify who your target audience is. There are many people who make identifying a target audience much harder than it needs to be. I am going to break it down into two questions:

What do you post about often (what is your niche and expertise)?
Who would find those posts valuable?

Answering these two questions will allow you to find your target audience. The main benefit of identifying your target audience is that you now know which types of people are going to retweet, favorite, and engage with most of your tweets. Having an engaged audience is critical towards success on any social network.

Just because you have 100,000 followers does not mean you are going to be successful. The person with 50,000 targeted followers is doing better than the person with 100,000 non-targeted followers that rarely engage.

#2: Engage With Your Audience

Engagement is a two way street. You want to build an audience that engages with your content, but you also want to engage with your audience. Engaging with your audience allows you to see more than just a number.

Regardless of how many followers you have, it is important to individually know the followers who interact with you. I know a few people who comment on numerous blog posts (if you are one of them, you know who you are). I respond to all of these comments on my blog and respond to all of the people who share my content on my social networks.

Does this take up time? It definitely takes up about 30 minutes every day, but this interaction allows me to know my audience. Knowing your audience allows you to realize what type of content they like. In addition, some of the people I interact with have subscribed to this blog and bought some of my products.

Interaction allows you to get a friendship going, and friendship in itself is a two way street. That’s why, “I owe you” is a common phrase. If one of your friends does something good for you, chances are you will do something good for that friend in return. Being friendly to your audience and engaging with them may entice them to do something in return such as subscribe to your blog or tell their friends about you.

#3: Post As Consistently And Frequently As Possible

Many people think that posting often is a bad thing because it will annoy followers. I decided to give it a try and found the complete opposite. Posting more consistently and frequently has allowed me to engage with my followers more than ever before, and it has also resulted in my blog getting a big spike in traffic that never seemed to go away.

For the tweeting in particular, I send out one new tweet every 15 minutes. Some people may think I would be annoying my followers at this frequency, but that is not the case. The truth about social networks is that many people are simply using social networks to check their activity for a short period of time.

The average Twitter is never on the social network for more than 20 minutes at a time. That means most of the people who go on Twitter only see one of my tweets unless they log in again or scroll through my timeline. It is okay to post often, and it is also recommended.

#4: Use A Universal Avatar On All Of Your Social Networks

If you think of a business, you think of their logo. When you think of Apple, you see the white apple that someone took a bite out of. When you think of Twitter, you see the blue bird. Similarly to how people think of the logo associated with the business, the people in your niche who think of you will think of your avatar.

Using a universal avatar for all of your social networks will make it easier for people to remember who you are. The easier it is for someone to remember you, the more often that person will visit your blog and see what you are posting on your social networks.

#5: Do not be afraid to promote yourself often

There are many social media users who go by the fear that promoting yourself too often will make their followers become unfollowers. This is a concept that many experts use to tell marketers to avoid over-promoting their products on social media. If you are using social media for that reason, it’s not going to work out well.

However, it is okay to promote yourself. In fact, it is okay to promote yourself often, but only if you promote yourself the right way. The right way to promote yourself is by promoting your blog posts on your social networks. It is entirely okay to tell people about the same blog post twice as long as the two social media posts are spaced out for a long period of time.

On Twitter, I go by a 4-7 day cycle depending on how my spreadsheets are organized, and I send out over 100 tweets every day. Someone would have to scroll down for a very long time to find any social media posts that repeat themselves.

As long as your blog posts are valuable to your followers, they will not mind that you promote them often. On the contrary, some of your followers will be eager to read the other blog posts that you share on your social networks.

#6: Focus On One Social Network

There are many social networks to choose from, and that’s the problem. Many people create accounts on numerous social networks and have small audiences on all of them. It is better to have a large audience on one social network than it is to have a bunch of small audiences on a bunch of social networks.

When I started my social media journey, I decided to focus most of my time and energy on Twitter. It paid off nicely, and Twitter now brings in a bulk of this blog’s traffic.

However, it is important to have multiple social networks with big presences. The best way to approach this is by taking another social network seriously after you master one social network. After I mastered Twitter, I went over to Pinterest. Now that I have over 15,000 Pinterest followers, I am now finding time to focus on YouTube.

The main takeaway: you need to eventually be on multiple social networks, but in order to have large audiences on all of them, take it one step at a time.

#7: Identify Where You Want To Be Month By Month

Many people do better on social media by giving themselves goals. The reason why goals are very effective is because they create a sense of direction. You need to have some kind of an idea of where you are heading.

What are some of the things you aspire to do on social media? Maybe you aspire to get 100,000 engaged followers, or you aspire to get more blog traffic.

The aspiration is a starting point towards social media success. After you give yourself the aspiration, you need to identify the steps you are going to take to get there. It is important to take give yourself steps that are neither too easy nor too difficult to achieve.

Gaining 100 followers every week is a great start. It’s not far out there, but it’s not incredibly easy either. If you are at that point already, raise the bar to 150 followers every week and keep on raising the bar as you accomplish the goal. Then, once you identify the aspiration and give yourself the steps you will need to get there, all you have to do at that point is implement.

#8: Be on social media every day

Just like everything else, social media requires practice. The more you show up and do the right things, the more likely you are to have the big audience. “Do the right things” is in bold because most people are already on social media every day. However, not all of that time is being used effectively.

Some people who use social media are using it to procrastinate. There are many videos and social media accounts to choose from. In essence, social media can either be your best friend or your worst enemy.

When I say be on social media every day, I mean you are utilizing it as an entrepreneur who interacts with the audience, not someone who procrastinates. Definitely use social media, but use it wisely.

#9: Do not let social media consume too much of your time

Social media is a great tool to grow your business and get more traffic. However, you need to have a good business and valuable content so all of the work you put in on social media was worth it. Just because you have 100,000 followers does not mean you are going to make a full-time income.

Having that many followers does significantly help out in the process, but you need more than a big audience. You still need to find a good chunk of time in your day to create products and work on big projects for your business. That way, when you grow your social media audience, you can lead them to places that can bring in more revenue.

You should constantly be trying to perform the same activities on social media is a shorter amount of time. If you can do something in 15 minutes instead of 30 minutes, then make that change. I use HootSuite Pro and am able to schedule hundreds of tweets per day in just five minutes instead of a few hours every day if I had to manually schedule tweets.

#10: Be patient

This last tip is a tip that commonly appears in numerous articles, and it appears in this one as well. Being patient is the most important tip on the entire list. Sure I went into more detail in the other tips about growing an audience and boosting numbers, but none of those changes happen overnight.

It took me 993 days to reach 100,000 Twitter followers, and most of that big change happened in the last year of that span. For more than half of that time, I was lost and had no idea what to do. I was struggling to grow my audience and was stuck at 1,667 followers for many months. Then, methods started to work, I modified them along the way, and now I have a large, engaged Twitter audience.

There is no such thing as an overnight success. All of the leaders in your niche got to where they are after years of work. By not giving in and learning new techniques along the way, you may become a big player on social media.

In Conclusion

Social media is a powerful way to get more traffic and build an engaged audience. There are many entrepreneurs in various niches who have utilized social media and seen their traffic, subscribers, and sales jump up. Patience is the key to success on any social network, and the more time you put into the learning process, the better you will become.

Do you have any social media tips for entrepreneurs? Which of these tips was your favorite?