Marc's Blog

7 Ways To Stand Out In Today’s Marketplace

September 18, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Today’s marketplace is constantly expanding. Just a decade ago, it was difficult to publish your own book. Nowadays, anyone can self-publish a book in a matter of minutes with KDP.

Technology has virtually wiped out the barrier of entry for most industries. Business owners can now enter the marketplace and grow a large audience without paying a single penny. For less than $150 per year, I grew my Twitter audience to over 250,000 people.

You don’t need advertising dollars to stand out in today’s marketplace. While they help, they are not needed. However, the ease of entering the marketplace has resulted in an outpour of experts.

How exactly do you stand out when thousands—nay, millions—of people are trying to do what you do? Here’s how:

#1: Write Fantastic Content

Blogging is one of the main reasons why the barrier of entry is so low. You can create a free blog on WordPress in a matter of minutes. It’s easy to get started. The challenge is standing out.

The main reason some blogs stand out more than others is because of fantastic content. With that said, I understand that a larger audience gives a blog more leverage. However, to accumulate a large audience of returning visitors, the content must be fantastic.

We all have a favorite blog. We return to that favorite blog because the content is fantastic. When I become a returning visitor, I’m not returning just so a system can tally me as another visitor. I am returning because the blog posts fascinate me.

I always find myself returning to Seth Godin’s blog. Most of his blog posts are thought provoking and quick reads. In “The interim strategy,” Seth Godin brings one major point home: a great organization must start great and never cut corners in the beginning just for quick success.

Stay on his blog long enough, and you’ll find yourself reading dozens of his blog posts trying to catch up with what you missed.

#2: Create Awesome Videos

I understand this sounds similar to writing fantastic content. It sounds as if the only difference is that I’m talking about videos instead of blog posts.

However, videos are huge on the web. The average video gets more engagement than the average blog post. So does that mean give up writing blog posts all together?

NO! It’s understood that videos tend to perform better than blog posts. However, writing blog posts is an essential part of standing out. Here’s why doing both is the best approach:

Blog posts can easily be edited and revised while you type. In a video, you are put on the spot. While you can do a redo, it’s much easier when writing a blog post.
Writing a blog post in my opinion doesn’t require as much energy. Typing is easier than talking and barely stopping. I can type, stop, and think. That luxury is only available for videos by splicing and editing.
Videos get more engagement than blog posts.
Videos and blog posts are two different types of media which gives your audience more options
Writing blog posts about something strengthens your skill in that area. Strengthening your skill makes it easier to do awesome videos. I wrote hundreds of blog posts to strengthen my knowledge before I did my first video.

Creating videos is commonly associated with putting them on YouTube and getting subscribers from there. However, you can also create videos that you put into a training course.

From my experience, creating a training course is quicker than writing a book. With speed on your side, you can create high value products at a higher frequency.

#3: Be “Everywhere” Your Targeted Audience Goes

To be successful in your niche, you must meaningfully put yourself in front of your targeted audience. Whether you put your blog posts, videos, or something else in front of your targeted audience, it must be something that positively grabs your targeted audience’s attention.

To be everywhere your targeted audience goes, you must first know where your targeted audience goes. Are they reading Inc Magazine? Are they on this blog right now? Are they reading celebrity blogs? Are most of them on Twitter?

The places where your audience goes are the places your content and videos must show up. Ask bloggers in your niche if they take guest posts. Submit that application to Inc Magazine again and again until they say yes (preferably get other writing opportunities first. Inc Magazine wants writers with solid experience). Partner up with people in your niche to reach new audiences.

I recently listened to one of Jeff Bullas’ webinars about getting blog traffic. In that webinar, Jeff talked about how he got a speaking opportunity. Jeff asked the event organizer why he got the opportunity, and this was the (paraphrased) response:

“Because I saw you everywhere.”

It turns out Jeff’s content has been featured on many prominent guest blogs. He has also been featured on The Huffington Post, Forbes, and a few others for his social media savvy. When the event organizer said he/she say Jeff everywhere, it wasn’t an exaggeration—to a certain extent.

Jeff didn’t get featured on a celebrity site. He got featured on most of the blogs and top magazines about business and digital marketing. As people see you more often, and they appreciate your content each time, they will remember you.

It’s hard to forget about the blogger you see dozens (or hundreds) of times on the web.

#4: Expert Interviews

Expert interviews—whether you are the interviewer or interviewee—are growing in importance. These interviews positively affect your social proof and the way your audience views your brand and mission. Here’s a quick breakdown:

When you get interviewed by an expert in your niche, that signals two things about you to their listeners:

You had enough expertise and/or a great enough story to land the interview
You probably say something valuable in the interview

Interviewing an expert in your niche signals two things about you to your listeners:

You’re good enough to get that expert on your show
Your podcast (or series of interviews if you don’t run a podcast) must be valuable)

Not only do expert interviews make the host and guest look good, but they also contribute to a larger audience.

The guest usually promotes the interview or podcast episode on the day it gets published. That means more visibility for the host. The host repeats the process a few hundred times and the results multiply. New listeners watch/read the past interviews.

The more of this interviews you are a part of (as the host or the guest), the more interviews you get. Hosts of podcasts see how well you can answer questions, and then they choose you as their next guest. Notable experts ask if they can be guests on your podcast.

It’s this ripple effect that has allowed some podcasters to accumulate six figures every month and attract millions of people to their episodes.

#5: Write A Book That Becomes Successful

Writing a book is challenging the first time. Making a book successful the first time is more challenging. For all successful products, the marketing side is more challenging than the creation side.

Why would a successful book make a big difference? Take a look at the people event organizers choose for public speaking events. Most of the speakers have a successful book. If they don’t have a successful book, then they have a massive amount of social proof. Some speakers have both.

Writing a successful book shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do (unless you are a passionate writer). You need to accumulate a large audience so when it comes time to promoting your book, you can rest assured it will get plenty of sales.

#6: Do Cool Things For Your Audience

Making your audience feel special is the difference between any audience and a cult-style audience. Engage with them on Twitter. Build relationships in the most meaningful way you can think of.

Random acts of kindness and random gifts—no matter how big or small—can go a long way. There is one true fact about every successful blogger, singer, baseball player, and President (in a word, every successful person).

All of the individuals within the audience make the success happen. Recognizing this success will let you realize how important the people in your audience are. Random acts of kindness and random gifts aren’t suggestions. They’re mandates for building a cult-style audience.

#7: Have A Powerful Philosophy and Purpose

Your mission affects the way people see your brand. Let’s say two people offer Twitter courses at the same price, and they are virtually the same. One person’s stated mission is to make money. The other person’s stated mission is to give everyone the ability to become successful on Twitter.

Who do you think gets the sale?

The person with the better mission. Of course, we know why the person who wants to simply make money won’t get the sale. However, we’ve become smart at crafting great mission statements.

The most powerful mission statements have the biggest impact on sales. Take a look at the people in your niche who experience the most success. Then look for their mission statements. Some will state their mission statements right from the start. For others, it takes some digging in the About Me page to find someone’s mission statement.

The mission statement is a starting point, not a final end. The mission statement implants a thought into a visitor’s mind. If that person sees your mission statement driving your journey and content, then the mission statement is valuable.

Creating a mission statement that doesn’t support what you do is the quickest way to disaster.

In Conclusion

Standing out in an ever expanding playing field isn’t easy. There will be great struggles but also great triumphs along the way. Providing value in what you do, getting a large amount of people to respond that value (visiting, subscribing, purchasing, etc.), and having an authentic mission statement is how you dominate your industry.

What tips do you have for standing out in today’s marketplace? Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you believe it’s better to fight against competitors or work with competitors? Sound off in the comments section now!

4 Ways To Turn Social Media From ROI Nightmare To ROI Sensation

September 16, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social Media ROI — The one thing every business on social media wants.

One of my pet peeves is when people say social media doesn’t generate ROI. There is a comic on the web that encapsulates my pet peeve very well. It’s a hit on social media “gurus”—only few people are actually experts.

Just because most people don’t get an ROI from social media doesn’t mean social media can’t generate an ROI. Without social media, I would not have an audience. Take a look at one of most recent days of blog traffic:

Most of my blog’s visitors are coming from Twitter. As these people continue visiting my blog, the relationship between me and those people will continue to grow. Some of these people will decide to subscribe to your blog while others will decide to buy products.

In other words, social media alone can’t give you an ROI. I’m not going to act as if social media is the magical, stand-alone medicine that makes you go from zero to millionaire. I know what it means to be on both sides of the coin.

Now I have over 250,000 social media followers, and I am very happy with my ROI. When I had my first 100,000 Twitter followers, my income stayed the same. I wondered if I could ever make money from my social media strategy. It was a BIG wake up call.

In less than a year, I turned my social media strategy from an ROI nightmare to an ROI sensation. It was helpful to have over 100,000 Twitter followers and a lot of engagement. But the large audience isn’t necessary to turn your social media activity into an ROI sensation.

To start turning your social media activity into an ROI sensation, follow these methods:

#1: Promote Your Landing Page More Often

Your landing page is the most valuable page on your blog for growing your email list. Landing pages are dedicated to getting more subscribers because they only let a visitor perform one action: enter the email address.

I have created several landing pages like this one.

The landing page does not have any tabs or navigation. While you can just click the “x” in a pop-up, there is no “x” button for a landing page. However, just because you create a landing page doesn’t mean you are going to get more subscribers.

You get more subscribers from your landing page by promoting that landing page. I promote my landing page in my guest posts and on social media. All of this promotion leads to dozens of daily subscribers.

So where does the money come in? You use social media to get more people to your landing page. That results in more subscribers. Then, you communicate to your subscribers with an autoresponder and email blasts.

At the end of all of my autoresponders is a promotional email of one of my products or a consultation session. For some services, I charge well over $100 in the autoresponder, and I make sales. I can tell that social media is responsible because most of my customers tell me that they found me on Twitter (or another social network).

#2: Engage With Your Audience

If you are not engaging with your audience on social media, then you are not using social media properly. It’s the equivalent of wanting to be a faster runner but not running. The reason few interactions occur is because most people focus more on the media part than on the social part of social media.

Engaging with your audience lets you know the individuals within your audience. Knowing individuals in your audience better will allow you to know what your entire audience wants. Knowing what your audience wants will help you create better products.

When I say engaging with your audience, I am referring to having actual conversations with several people in your audience. Scheduling tweets and pins isn’t engaging. That’s providing value. Say hi, thank your followers for sharing your content, and ask them questions. That’s how real engagement works.

#3: Reach Out To The Right People On Social Media

Did you know that some people with less than 5,000 Twitter followers get more opportunities than people with over 100,000 Twitter followers? That’s the same for the other social networks. Some people with 5,000 Pinterest followers get more opportunities than the people with 100,000 Pinterest followers.

There are two components that determine how many opportunities from social media

Your audience (size and engagement)
How you use social media (posting and interacting with the right people)

The “right people” consists of the people in your audience and people who can present you with an opportunity. Contact the people who have podcasts, can get you into the big media outlets, or can help you reach out to a new audience.

You can use social media to tap into these types of opportunities and get involved with several joint ventures. Tapping into other people’s audiences with the help of social media is great for you to expand your own audience while providing someone else’s audience with additional value.

Don’t immediately go for the people with hundreds of thousands of social media followers. Practice with people who have smaller audiences and are more likely to notice you.

Ideally, you want to be the big fish in the small pond. That way, you will get noticed. If you have a few thousand social media followers, you may not be the big fish in the small pond for Pat Flynn’s podcast. He’s getting people like Tim Ferris on his podcast. However, you may appear as the big fish in the small pond on a new podcaster’s show.

Guest blogging is a different animal. To some guest bloggers, all that matters is valuable content. To other guest bloggers, highly regarded bloggers are the only ones with entry.

Before you contact someone on social media to ask for an opportunity, do some quick research on the person. You want to see whether this person is likely to give you an opportunity or not.

After you get the opportunity, continue to build upon the relationship. Continuing the relationship may open the door to more opportunities, but it’s more important for character. You don’t want to be someone who takes an opportunity and then disappears from the person who gave you the opportunity.

#4: Leverage Your Credentials Whenever You Can

As you continue growing on social media, you will eventually reach a point where you can use your social media audience as a credential.

If I tell people who don’t know me that I want to become successful on social media, they may look at me funny. I am a 17 year old who can be mistaken as naive. When I mention the size of my social media audience, the conversation takes an entirely new direction.

The way you articulate your social media audience’s impact and your expertise will determine how seriously people take you.

Not only does a large social media audience help at networking events, but it has a significant impact on how people view your online presence. We tend to gravitate towards the people with large social media audiences because of social proof.

Social proof is the reason why we skip the restaurant with the empty parking lot and head over to the restaurant with the crowded parking lot. Since so many people are a part of something, it must be phenomenal.

In the same way, if you have so many social media followers, what you are doing must be phenomenal. Of course, that isn’t always the case. Some people with large social media audiences don’t do phenomenal things. However, if you do phenomenal things, the social media audience will help a first-time visitor understand that and appreciate what you do.

Every time I promote one of my products about social media, I always mention that I have over 250,000 social media followers. It is a valuable credential that lets people know they are learning from someone with a large social media audience.

You don’t get a dollar each time you mention the credential. But you can get someone to buy one of your books or training course if you properly include the social proof. You get that social proof by growing your social media audience and interacting.

In Conclusion

Social media won’t help you make direct money. However, social media is the best platform for generating indirect sales. If you are not leveraging social media now, then it’s time to get started.

Just think of social media as a platform to build the relationship with your audience. The relationship is what results in sales.

How do you use social media to generate ROI? Does your business use or dodge social media? Do you need help with social media? Sound off in the comments section below.

6 Ways To Grow Your Audience Without Paying A Penny

September 14, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Grow Audience On Shoestring Budget — These resources aren’t just for people on shoestring budgets.

We all want to grow our audiences. Before the web, growing an audience was a big concern for startups because of all of the money it would cost. Those startups had to promote their products and services without social media.

The only two possible options were putting in an enormous amount of time to reach some people or spending an enormous amount of money on advertising.

The online web has changed all of that. Now we can grow our audiences without paying a single penny. However, those changes don’t mean anything for you if you are not utilizing them. The only tools and strategies that currently provide you with results are the ones that you use.

There are several ways to grow your audience for free. While each method involves a time commitment on your part, these methods are all great for startups and entrepreneurs with audiences of all sizes.

Even the most successful entrepreneurs continue utilizing these five methods. Even though they are free, the methods are that good. Here they are:

#1: Use Social Media

Social media is the most powerful tool on the web. It allows you to grow your audience in a way like never before.

Why? Since so many people use social media, millions of people are bound to be people who would fit well into your targeted audience.

Not only do so many people use social media, but they use it daily. Millions of people log into their social networks every day.

All you have to do is post valuable content every day. Tweet, pin, schedule on Facebook, and constantly post on your other social media platforms. If you can’t do it, hire someone to schedule your social media posts for you. I’m actually doing that with Pinterest.

The way you use social media for your business depends on what your business is and which social network you use. Each social network presents a different ideal posting frequency.

On Facebook, many experts like myself believe that you shouldn’t send more than four Facebook posts on your page every day. On Twitter, you gotta tweet over 100 times per day (get this automated with HootSuite’s bulk scheduler. Don’t manually schedule that many tweets every day because then it’s not worth it).

To find an ideal posting frequency on a social network, you must constantly experiment with the content you send out. Some of the ways you can experiment are by sending out different content, using different pictures, using different hashtags, and changing your content frequency.

Social media allowed me to get over 60,000 people in my audience free of charge. At that point, I started paying because once you reach 60,000 Twitter followers, you must start paying tools like Tweepi to continue using them (this is because of the way Twitter’s API works).

At that point, I was more than breaking even so a small cost was easily manageable. By paying the same amount of money every year (under $100), I saw my social media audience grow from 60,000 people to over 275,000 people.

All of that for less than $100 per year.

Social media is the best place for getting more people to know about you. It gives you a platform where you can promote stuff. But what are you actually promoting on social media? Your free content!

#2: Start Your Own Blog

While I would recommend that every serious blogger gets his/her own domain and hosting—two very small fees—you can create a free blog using WordPress. Getting your own domain and hosting looks more professional, but all blogs have a special quality about them.

You get to provide free content which allows you to deepen the relationship with you and your audience. As people come to your blog more often—and they appreciate what they see—these people will come to respect you and your content more.

This respect is what results in people following you on social media and sharing your content with others. Some people who visit your blog enough times may decide to buy one of your products.

A blog has two main functions. Strengthen the relationship between you and the people in your audience and grow your email list. Out of all of the resources you can utilize, the email list is by far the most important resource for online success.

Your social networks, blog, and everything else you do should all point back to your email list. Having 100,000 email subscribers is very different and more significant than having 100,000 Twitter followers. However, having the 100,000 Twitter followers does help out with growing an email list.

And having a blog to build the relationship with your audience helps too.

#3: Build An Email List

I mentioned it when I discussed starting your own blog. It would be unfair if I didn’t discuss it in its own section.

The money is in the email list. While having a large social media audience helps you get more subscribers, don’t think that the money is in social media. Social media is a means of indirectly generating revenue by building relationships and getting people to subscribe.

While using WordPress.org opens you up to plugins that help get more subscribers, any blog can get more subscribers with a sidebar opt-in. They don’t convert very well, but it’s a start.

When you build your email list, you must commit to using a paid service like iContact or Aweber. However, many businesses are running on a shoestring budget. They don’t have much money to spend and aren’t sure about paying for an emailing service every month.

If you find yourself on a shoestring budget or are just beginning, use MailChimp. You get to gain up to 2,000 subscribers and send 12,000 emails per month—free of charge. To communicate with more than 2,000 people, it costs $30 per month.

However, once you have 2,000 people on your list, you can easily break even. While you can utilize these tools for free, why not pay for them if you know you can break even and grow your audience at the same time?

If you send out an email blast of a $400/hr consultation session, and one person of your 2,000 pays the $300, then you just made enough money to pay $30/month for more than a year. You can easily make more money from your email list and grow it in a year.

#4: Write Guest Posts

Guest posts present an opportunity to put your content in front of someone else’s audience. Even though some have declared that guest blogging is dead, it is alive and well.

When your content is put in front of someone else’s audience, and that audience is a targeted one, more people will read your content and visit your blog. After I started reposting my past blog posts on Business2Community, this blog got dozens of daily visitors from my reposts alone.

If you have the money to get a landing page, then promote that landing page in your short bio. As you can see for Business2Community, I make it a point to promote my landing page within the short bio. It appears at the bottom of every blog posts.

Business2Community Bio

Writing guest posts also presents an opportunity to strengthen your relationships with other experts in your niche. You get to learn from them because they will share their best practices. They want you to write a superb guest post so their audiences get wowed.

When I wrote a guest post for Jeff Bullas, he gave me several tips that I use to this day. Write short sentences. Include more pictures in your blog posts. I applied those tips to the guest post and now apply those tips to my own blog.

#5: Interview Other Experts

Interviewing other experts lets you build relationships with those experts, boost your credibility, and grow your audience. If you interview a highly regarded expert in your niche, this will be the translation to your audience:

You are good and valuable enough to get this expert to take an interview with you.

There is a difference between interviewing the average person and interviewing Bill Gates. You may not have the power to interview Bill Gates, but you can interview the people who the people in your targeted audience admire.

Some people live by this tip. They interview other experts on podcasts and have become millionaires from their work. Pat Flynn and John Lee Dumas are two examples of people who interview successful experts and make a living out of it.

They make six figures. Every month.

#6: Get Interviewed By Other Experts

The other methods help you gain credibility and an audience. You can leverage your credibility and expertise so other experts start interviewing you. Each time you get an expert to interview you, your credibility grows.

One of the most important lessons for getting interviewed by other experts is to start small. Don’t start by asking the person who has 100,000 email subscribers.

Start by asking the people with smaller audiences. These people are more likely to say yes to you, and you get experience. If I had to redo my first interview and choose where I did that interview, I would never choose a blogger with over 100,000 email subscribers.

Getting interviewed by a blogger with over 100,000 email subscribers ensures that a lot of people will see the interview. Getting this much exposure for your first interview is a curse in disguise because chances are your first interview will show some inexperience.

When I got interviewed the first few times, I was nervous and not sure. I’d rather be nervous and not sure to an audience of 10 people than an audience of 100,000 people.

When I get on the podcast with the person who has over 100,000 email subscribers, I want to sound confident and feel comfortable with the process. After doing interview after interview, I now feel comfortable and confident with the process.

I am ready for the person with 100,000 email subscribers, but it takes time to reach that level of confidence and comfort in the process.

In Conclusion

The web has provided us with many tools to grow our audiences. While some of these tools have pay to play systems set up, other tools are free and very helpful. You can easily grow your audience to consist of tens of thousands of people without paying a penny.

You can also use temporarily free services like MailChimp and then promote products and services to those audiences so you can break even when you must pay for these tools.

You can’t grow a meaningful audience by going free forever, but starting off by not paying a single cent is a great way to start and build momentum.

How do you view growing an audience for free? Which methods do you use to grow your audience without paying a penny? Sound off in the comments section now!

Fighting Through

September 11, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Some business owners are challenged with small budgets, a massive workload, and a small amount of resources. Most business owners don’t face a challenge that some families face every day.

It is a challenge that makes the challenges of business look meaningless. Business owners want to figure out how they can get a good return on investment. On this day, thousands of families were wondering how they would survive without their loved ones. Lives were unfairly cut short.

We like to center our thoughts around our challenges and think they are bigger than the world. Those challenges don’t mean anything compared to the challenges that others face.

The families who lost loved ones had no choice. Persevering was the only option. In time, things got better for many families, but there was always a noticeable void.

It’s hard to fight through. But some things are worth it. Pray for the victims and the people affected by what happened today.

10 Ways To Get More Social Signals

September 9, 2015 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

Social Media Shares — Who doesn’t want more traffic?

Social signals—retweets, likes, repins, and anything similar on social media—let Google know people are engaging with your blog. Social signals have grown in importance for search engine ranking.

If you don’t want to take SEO seriously yet but want to get search engine traffic anyway, becoming successful on social media is the best way to start. A little fact about my traffic: when my Twitter traffic increases, so does my SEO traffic.

Getting social signals helps your blog rank well on search engines, but social signals also help you get more engagement on social media. That translates to more followers, more social signals, and ultimately, more blog traffic.

How exactly do you get more social signals for your social media content? Here are 10 ways:

#1: Be Active On More Social Networks

The more active you are on a social network, the higher the probability of you picking up social signals. The main reason being active helps you pick up more social signals is because your followers will have an easier time remembering who you are.

Think about it this way. Would you remember the person who posted something on social media once every month or the person who posted something on social media every day? The person who posts every day has more chances to appear on your home feed.

Posting daily also gives someone the ability to consistently show up on other people’s home feeds. When people see you enough times—and value your social media posts—they will eventually go to your profile and scroll through your social media posts.

Imagine you had large audiences scrolling through your Facebook posts, tweets, and pins. You can be sure that those same people are liking, retweeting, repinning, and commenting on your social media posts.

#2: Engage With Your Audience

Getting mentioned counts as a social signal. Having conversations with our audiences allows us to build relationships with the people who build our success. Some conversations bring forth opportunities such as speaking events, TV appearances, and attention from big media outlets.

Why then do few people engage with their audiences.

It turns out most people who use social media are lurkers. Only 10% of social media users actually take the time to interact.The other 90% watch the interactions happen.

If you do not take the time to engage with your audience, then you don’t really know who your audience is. Engaging with your audience lets you know their problems. That helps you create better solutions.

I make it a point to engage with my audience every day. I thank people for sharing my content, spark conversations about my interests, and share my expertise. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had about running, dogs, and the Red Sox.

Engaging with your audience helps you get more traffic. Engaging with your audience helps people remember who you are. Want more blog traffic and social media followers? Engage with your audience.

#3: Post Awesome Content

Okay, we’ve all heard this one a lot. We want to post awesome content so people come back for more.

But what is awesome content? Here’s a better question: What do your followers think awesome content is?

My followers and a sports analyst’s followers have two different definitions of awesome content. The sports analyst’s followers define awesome content as fascinating information about a sport or athlete.

I don’t like speaking for everyone in my audience. But based on what I know, digital marketing and audience growth are two things many of my followers define as awesome content. Once you know how your followers define awesome content, keep on posting that type of content.

Every month, I always look through the tweets that I sent. I look at what worked and what did not work. The tweets that got dozens of retweets and the tweets that didn’t lead to a single click. I stop tweeting what doesn’t work and continue tweeting what does work.

The result was a dramatic increase in traffic. The first time I implemented this strategy, my daily Twitter traffic increased by over 70% in just two weeks. Ever since the change, I have maintained that increase.

Remember that just because you think something is awesome does not mean your audience will think it is awesome. Before publishing a social media post, ask yourself whether your audience would appreciate the content in the same way that you do.

#4: Post Often Throughout The Day

I don’t get dozens of clicks from each of my tweets. In most cases, I am lucky if I get more than a dozen clicks per tweet. However, since I send over 100 tweets every day, it is easy to imagine why I get hundreds of daily blog visitors from Twitter.

Posting often throughout the day allows you to get consistent traffic and see a consistent rise in your social signals. If you wanted to get 50 retweets every day, would you feel more confident with sending one tweet per day or sending 50 tweets per day. If you send 50 tweets per day, then each tweet only needs one tweet to achieve your goal.

I am not advising you to send hundreds upon hundreds of social media posts every day just to achieve your goal. And while I do send over 100 tweets per day, I would never send over 100 Facebook posts per day. The way Twitter users engage with the platform makes it possible for me to send over 100 tweets per day without annoying my followers.

You should make it a point to send out at least 10 social media posts every day. That way, you will get more engagement, and it will be easier for people to remember who you are.

#5: Outsource Some Of The Work

Remember the time when a scheduled pin got published on my account? I do. While I don’t remember scheduling that pin, I remember outsourcing it to someone else.

I can easily send 100 tweets every day because of HootSuite’s game changing bulk scheduler which lets me schedule a day’s worth of tweets (over 100) in just six clicks. Pinterest on the other hand isn’t nearly as easy. Some pins that I scheduled on my own took more than five minutes for me to schedule.

Then I outsourced, and now I can schedule one pin for every hour without putting in the work. It is okay to trade money for time even if you know how to do something. I know how to schedule pins, but I choose not to.

Since I have someone scheduling pins to tens of thousands of my Pinterest followers throughout the day, I get more engagement and social signals from Pinterest.

#6: Use Keywords and Hashtags In Your Posts

Utilizing keywords and hashtags within your posts makes it easier for people to find your social media posts within the social media search engines. Most people are so caught up with ranking well on Google that they forget about ranking well on Facebook, Twitter, and the other social networks.

Facebook, Twitter, and every other social network are search engines in the same way that Google is. You search information and then get a bunch of results.

Using the right keywords and hashtags in your posts will lead to more visibility and social signals. To find the right keywords and hashtags in your social media strategy, take a look at what keywords and hashtags similar people in your niche use.

#7: Include Pictures In Your Posts

The human mind understands an image 60,000 times faster than text. It’s no wonder that social media posts with pictures get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. Some people report that their social media posts with pictures get five times as much engagement as social media posts without pictures.

Want to double, triple, or even quadruple the amount of retweets and Facebook likes you get? Taking the extra minute to add a picture in your social media post can make all of the difference.

#8: Cross-Promotion

One reason new businesses have been staying away from Facebook lately is because of Facebook’s algorithm changes. These changes have enforced a pay-to-play atmosphere that favors the big guy at the expense of the little guy.

I created a Facebook Page and largely forgot about it. When I started to use that Facebook Page more often, it had a little over 100 likes. On Facebook, I was the little guy.

Since Facebook wasn’t bringing in any blog traffic yet, I held off on Facebook ads. I wanted to see what I could do to grow an audience on my own without spending money. So I went to my other social networks to promote my Facebook Page.

I included the link to the Facebook Page in YouTube video descriptions and made sure I tweeted about the Facebook Page every day. The result was that the page quickly went from getting no likes per day to getting several likes per day. What I post on the Facebook Page also got more attention, likes, and comments.

There are some days when I get as many as seven Facebook likes every day. It’s not game changing, and at that rate, it will take me a while to reach my first 1,000 Facebook Page likes. However, it’s a start. At one point, I gained no more than 10 Twitter followers per day. Now I always find myself in the 300-500 range for daily Twitter followers.

#9: Host Contests and Giveaways

You can give away almost anything—Amazon Gift cards, consultation sessions, or vacations to Bermuda—and your followers will engage. When you host a giveaway, make it clear that someone only gains entry by giving you certain social signals.

On Twitter, I would ask for retweets, and retweets only. On Facebook, I would ask for likes and shares. On Pinterest, I would ask for repins and likes.

You want to ask for the social signals that would put your content in front of other people’s audiences. A favorite on Twitter does not do that type of justice.

#10: ADVANCED TIP—BE CAUTIOUS

Approach this tip with caution. If used at the right time, it can skyrocket your social media growth. If used at the wrong time, your social media results will fall flat.

Create multiple social media accounts on the same social network.

On Twitter, I have multiple Twitter accounts, not just @MarcGuberti. My accounts have thousands of followers, and I use these accounts to promote my blog posts. One of my accounts is @Tips4Tweeting, and I promote my blog with tweets like these:

Those links lead to some of the blog posts on my blog. These tweets count as social signals for Google, and the tweets themselves also get some engagement.

I interact with my @Tips4Tweeting audience in the same way I interact with the people who follow my main account. While this is a great strategy for some people, it can eat up too much time for other people.

You shouldn’t approach this method until you have at least 10,000 followers on a social network and have discovered a way to use that social network in the most time efficient way possible—either using time efficient tools or by outsourcing.

I am not alone. Some businesses have more than a dozen different accounts on the same social networks, and chances are you’ve heard of some of them.

Mashable
The Huffington Post
Twitter
MLB
NFL

Two things to note is that powerful businesses implement this method and that they all outsource the work. They have ridiculously deep pockets which makes it possible for them. That is why it is important for you to master one social network in a time efficient manner before you approach this advanced tip.

In Conclusion

Social signals are important for search engines. They result in search engines ranking your content higher. The result is more traffic from search engines but also more traffic from your social networks.

How do you get social signals? Do you think SEO is overrated? Which tips will you be implementing first? Have any other tips for us? Sound off in the comments section now!

Three Great Places To Republish Your Blog Posts

September 7, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Republishing Blog Posts

A while ago, Google made a change to their algorithms. Google makes many changes such as the notorious panda updates that put half of the web out of whack. While Google makes panda updates that change the entire landscape, Google occasionally makes necessary changes that address different issues with content creation.

One problem with the web is that copying, pasting, and putting someone else’s blog post on your own blog is too easy. Some people decided to plagiarise content on other people’s blogs. Then, both websites would suffer because Google couldn’t distinguish the difference.

Now, Google can recognize the difference. If a blog post is published on your blog first, Google knows that your blog is the original source of the content. To be sure, give Google two weeks to index the blog post as your content.

What does that mean for us? First off, original content wins more than ever before. Even when people copy and paste your content onto their blogs, you still get the search engine traffic.

It also means you can copy and paste your own blog posts to different places on the web—and not get a search engine penalty. It’s your content. You can put it anywhere you want.

With this in mind, I look at my older blog posts that once got traffic but now get a small amount of visitors. While keeping those blog posts on my blog, I can also breath new life into those blog posts by publishing them elsewhere.

Are you looking for some ideas? Here are some places to publish your older content.

#1: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the best place to publish your older content. Publishing an old blog post on LinkedIn only takes a few minutes, and you can get a good amount of engagement from this strategy.

One of my LinkedIn posts was viewed 19 times. I’ll admit the number isn’t big, but I was just starting out.

That same LinkedIn post—the one that only got 19 views—got seven likes and one comment. Let’s add some zeroes to show the impact of a highly successful LinkedIn post.

190 views —> 70 likes and 10 comments

1900 views —> 700 likes and 100 comments

It doesn’t take long to see the benefits associated with posting your content on LinkedIn. After my third LinkedIn post, I was getting more than a dozen daily visitors from LinkedIn. Not bad for a little over 500 connections—and a completely new part of my strategy.

#2: Tumblr

I won’t lie. Tumblr hasn’t brought in incredible results for me yet. The main reason that’s the case is because I have a little less than 10 Tumblr followers. Tumblr is on the list of social networks for me to optimize, but it’s deep down on the list.

If you have an audience on Tumblr, then Tumblr would be a good place for you to republish your content. More people would see it.

LinkedIn happened to work well for me because I already had over 500 connections. If Tumblr works well for you, then go for it.

#3: Guest Blogs That Let You Republish Content

Most guest blogs only want original, unpublished content. However, there are some guest blogs that make the exception and allow you to copy and paste published content.

One of the first blogs I started writing guest posts for was Business2Community. While the guest posts in the beginning were unique, I decided to use Business2Community as a platform to breath new life into my old content.

The idea sparked in my mind when I wrote a guest post for Jeff Bullas. For anyone interested, the guest post is called 5 Ways To Flood Your Blog Traffic Using Pinterest. A few days after Jeff Bullas published my guest post, I found it under my Business2Community author page.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that people were using Business2Community to breath new life into their old content and also spread their new content.

Thus I began copying and pasting some of my blog posts into Business2Community. I published over a dozen blog posts on Business2Community in just three days. The best part is that I didn’t do any additional work.

When I got the first two guest posts published on Business2Community, I got four extra visitors to my blog. While all bloggers look for more traffic, four extra visitors isn’t exactly life changing. However, new life was breathed into those older posts. Take a look at this one:

Three days later, traffic to my blog from Business2Community tripled to 12 visitors for the day. Again, these numbers aren’t large…yet. The very next day, the amount of visitors I got from Business2Community more than doubled.

That number continues to grow as I put more content on Business2Community. Even if I never reach more than 100 daily visitors to my blog from Business2Community, the impact cannot be questioned.

The first 10 guest posts I put on Business2Community got a combined total of over 2,000 shares. That’s over 2,000 people promoting my content on their social networks. All I did was copy and paste 10 of my blog posts into Business2Community.

Ever since I started guest posting like this on Business2Community, my Twitter engagement has also skyrocketed. More people are sharing the blog posts and mentioning me.

All of that from one guest blog. If I find three guest blogs like Business2Community, these would be the numbers:

Over 6,000 shares for 10 guest posts

Over 100 daily visitors to my blog from those guest blogs

Hundreds of extra mentions on Twitter every day

Those are some big numbers. When I publish enough of my blog posts onto Business2Community—20 more—I’ll get those same numbers.

In Conclusion

Publishing your content elsewhere should form a core part of your content marketing strategy. By publishing your content elsewhere, you get to tap into a new audience while connecting with people in your current audience.

Publishing my blog posts on LinkedIn allows me to build stronger relationships with my LinkedIn connections. Publishing my blog posts on Business2Community allows me to tap into a larger audience.

Your blog is not the only place where your blog posts can go. They can be put on other sites, and that will result in more traffic and credibility for you.

Which guest blogs will you implement this strategy with? Do you see yourself publishing anything to LinkedIn or Tumblr? Sound off in the comments section below!