Marc's Blog

Why You Need To Have A Pop-Up On Your Blog [Tips Included]

June 12, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Pop-Up Tips

About a year ago, I stumbled across Steve Scott’s blog. He is a successful self-published author who makes a full-time income from his Kindle books. On one summer day, I remember reading one of his articles explaining that the key to his success was his email list. As someone with 100,000 Twitter followers, 150,000 blog visitors, and no email list whatsoever at the time, this absolutely blew my mind.

I made one of the biggest mistakes any marketer could ever make. I ignored building my email list. With those numbers I mentioned before, I only got 300 subscribers which means 0.2% of my blog visitors were subscribing. Talk about a reawakening. Just as I read articles about getting more Twitter followers, I started to read more articles focused on getting email subscribers. This is when I went over to iContact and created landing pages.

Some of the articles I read discussed how pop-ups lead to a massive increase in subscribers. Initially, I was skeptical. I saw pop-ups as annoyances that block content and encourage people to go somewhere else. However, so many people recommended pop-ups that I decided to give them a try. After looking at multiple options, I ended up using Pop-Up Domination for the pop-up. My thinking was that worst case scenario, I would keep the pop-up on my blog for a few weeks, and if it didn’t get enough conversions, I could always take it down.

Sure enough, the pop-up got subscribers, and it exceeded my expectations. It accounts for more than 20% of all of the subscribers I get on my email list. There was no catastrophic drop in the amount of time people spent on my blog.

However, I didn’t just write this blog post to tell a cool story. I also want to share with you how to optimize your pop-up so it gets more subscribers.

One thing you must do in your pop-up is let people know they get a free prize for entering their name and email address. Some people call it the irresistible free prize, offer, or bribe. Regardless of what you want to call it, you must let people know that they get free value that is not available anywhere else. The exclusivity of the free prize will entice people to enter their name and email address. This free prize must be directly related to your niche. That’s why my pop-up shows my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. This free eBook fits my niche because I am a Twitter expert and have written hundreds of blog posts about Twitter on this blog and guest blogs.

After you introduce the free prize, let people know a little more about the free prize. For my pop-up, I include three benefits associated with the free eBook:

Spread Your Message On Twitter
Grow Your Audience
Get More Blog Traffic From Twitter

Including benefits associated with your free prize will further entice your readers to subscribe to your blog. On the right side of my pop-up is a description, form, and button. It is very important to let people know that this is a free prize. I make it a point to use the word “FREE” twice in all caps. Using all caps make something EASIER TO NOTICE, and making that word easy to notice will increase the percent of conversions your pop-up gets.

Then came the button, and I experimented with that on my landing pages and through my pop-up. I use different text for the buttons as part of the A/B Split Testing I do with Pop-Up Domination, but here are some good ones that I use:

Free Instant Access!
Get Instant Access!
Download Now!
Get Your Copy Now!

The colors you use for the text and the button are also important. Use bright colors so it is easy for your visitors to see the buttons, and either use white text. You want it to be as easy as possible for your readers to see the button because few readers will subscribe if they can’t see the button clearly. I use bright green button with white text for my pop-up and orange buttons with white text for my landing pages. If you are deciding which colors to use for your button, I have compiled a list of good colors with their functions:

Blue: trust building
Green: works well for call-to-actions if it stands out
Orange: inexpensive products (works well when you offer your free prize)

Of course, these are not the only three colors on the color spectrum, but these are the three colors you should choose among for the pop-up button’s color. One reason I decided against a blue button was because the free eBook I offer has a blue cover, there is blue text next to the picture of the eBook, and a blue box surrounds the form on the right. I use the a blue button for the HelloBar message that shows up on the top of my blog.

My recommendation for the description is to make it as clear as possible. Moreover, the description should only be 1-2 sentences. Remember that your readers are just getting an idea of what your free prize is all about. If you write a long description above the form, you won’t get as many conversions. Remember that pop-ups are initially annoyances that block out content. In order for your pop-up to convert, your reader should understand what your pop-up says from start to finish in 2-5 seconds. Anymore than that, and most of your readers will click on the “x” and continue reading your blog post or leave your blog.

In Conclusion

It was a year ago when I realized that I needed to take action. Now, my email list is growing at a healthy rate, and pop-ups are one of the benefactors that brings in a massive number of subscribers. Many people are quick to judge pop-ups as ineffective annoyances, but you can’t judge something until you do it. When I finally decided to put a pop-up on my blog, I was blown away by the results.

If you are looking for an easy way to get more subscribers, then get a pop-up on your blog. Creating a pop-up with Pop-Up Domination takes as little as 10 minutes once you buy the product.

Do you have a pop-up on your blog? If not, do you plan on getting one? Do you have a success story about growing your email list? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

6 Superb Methods To Get More People To Tweet About Your Blog Posts

June 10, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Many bloggers look at Twitter as a way to boost blog traffic. They tweet their blog posts and encourage their visitors to tweet them too. However, most of this results in a small amount of traffic that is not enough to generate and sustain a full-time income.

My blog generates and sustains a strong audience from Twitter. Every month, my blog attracts close to 10,000 visitors from Twitter alone which puts me on pace for over 100,000 visitors from Twitter in 2015. Part of that is a result of my large audience. With over 200,000 Twitter followers at this point, my audience definitely plays a part in how much blog traffic I get from Twitter. However, there is more to getting blog traffic from Twitter than having a large audience. In this article, I will explore six methods you can use to get more people to tweet your blog posts, and as a result, get more blog traffic from Twitter.

#1: Write Better Headlines

When most people tweet articles they find on the web, they tweet the headline. Most of the people who will tweet this blog post will say, “6 Superb Methods To Get More People To Tweet About Your Blog Posts” with the link. Your headlines need to be catchy so they grab other people’s attention, and some of that attention will lead to more tweets. We like tweeting stuff that sounds cool, and if we get value from the article, it’s practically a guarantee that we share the article with our followers.

What does it mean to have a better headline? For starters, you can include a big number. My blog posts 70 Amazing Twitter Tips and 100 Amazing Blogging Tips are both very popular on Twitter, and people have tweeted about those articles over 500 times. The big number of tips indicate high value which makes people want to read the content and eventually share that content with their audiences.

The best way to get ideas for your headlines is to look at examples. Which blog posts are doing exceptionally well on Twitter? These blog posts don’t have to be yours. On the contrary, the blog posts you analyze can be blog posts written by anyone in your niche. See which pull-words they are using and how they encourage visitors to tweet their blog posts.

#2: Twitter Share Button

You can’t really expect people to tweet your blog posts unless you have a Twitter share button somewhere in all of your blog posts. I have a Twitter share button at the bottom of all of my blog posts along with the share buttons for a few other social networks. If you want people to tweet your blog posts, you must make it as easy as possible for your visitors to tweet your content.

That’s why you need a Twitter share button at the bottom of every blog post. There are few people who are willing to go on Twitter, manually copy your headline into a tweet, and then include your blog post’s link in the tweet. Sure, it takes a few seconds, but remember that we have very short attention spans. Clicking a Twitter share button on this blog already gives you a prewritten tweet that you can use or customize. All of the work is done for the visitor. The only thing left to do is click “Tweet.”

#3: Click To Tweet

Click To Tweet is a great tool that makes it easy for people to tweet certain parts of your post. When you write something important, you can include a link that automatically leads to a tweet. Click To Tweet led to hundreds of extra visitors for just one of my articles. It is one of the most underrated ways to get more people tweeting about your blog [Click To Tweet].

This Twitter tool simply makes it easier for people to tweet your content. The easier it is for someone to tweet your content, the more likely a visitor is to tweet your content.

#4: Tweet This WP Plugin

The Tweet This WP Plugin is one of the best plugins I have on this blog. After getting inspired by Kim Garst to download the plugin, I decided to give it a try. Since I used the plugin, more people have tweeted my blog posts. In fact, I currently use it in every blog post that I write. The Tweet This WP Plugin is so successful because it is practically impossible for a visitor to skip over it while reading your blog post. Downloading this plugin only takes one minute. Using the plugin on one of your blog posts will take two minutes at most. The Tweet This WP Plugin can massively increase the amount of tweets your blog posts get.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1CLXKBY”]The Tweet This WP Plugin can massively increase the amount of tweets your #blog posts get.[/tweetthis]

Although the plugin is great to get more people to tweet your content, it should not be overused. The Tweet This WP Plugin works like an exclamation point. It grabs our attention if it is only used once or twice in an article. However, if you use the plugin too many times, it will take your visitors’ attention away from your content. You want people to tweet your content, but you don’t want to come out as the person who says, “Please, please, please tweet my content.”

#5: Tweet Your Own Blog Posts

If you are not willing to tweet your blog posts, then there is no point in expecting others to do the same. Whether you have hundreds of followers or thousands of followers, tweeting your blog posts allows those blog posts to reach an audience of people who may retweet and share your blog posts.

Tweeting my blog posts has allowed me to interact with many people, and many of these people repeatedly share my blog posts. None of this would have happened if I decided to not post tweets about my blog posts.

#6: Grow Your Twitter Audience

This tip may not come to you as a surprise. However, many people stop by saying “Grow your Twitter audience” as if that statement is perfectly understood. There is more behind that statement than the four words you see.

If you want to double your blog traffic from Twitter without tweeting any more than you already do, then you need to double your Twitter audience. This may sound like common sense knowledge, but this knowledge allows you to realize what you have to do in order to achieve a certain goal.

Not only is it important to grow your Twitter audience, but it is also important to grow a targeted, engaged audience. A targeted follower is the best type of follower to have because that person is already interested in the niche you are in prior to following you. Your content will perfectly fit into their interests. These are the people who will account for a majority of the retweets for your blog posts.

In Conclusion

You want as many people as possible to tweet your blog posts. Few visitors start reading a blog post and immediately think of tweeting it. Visitors first get attracted by a headline and want value from the content. Then, you must make it easy for your visitors to tweet your content. Give your visitors multiple opportunities to tweet your blog posts. One opportunity is no longer enough. That’s why I always use the Tweet This WP Plugin in my blog posts, and I occasionally use Click To Tweet too.

Which tip was your favorite? Do you have any additional tip to get more people to tweet blog posts? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

8 Benefits That Come With Starting Your Own Facebook Group Page

June 8, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Are you a part of a Facebook Group Page? With over 1.25 billion users, Facebook is the powerhouse of the social networks, but interacting with a large audience on Facebook isn’t as easy as it sounds. Few brands ever get to interact with 1% of Facebook’s users. When put into perspective, the millions of likes some Facebook pages accrued sounds minuscule compared to the number of active users on the platform.

However, having millions of likes doesn’t guarantee success on Facebook. Although the audience size is important, it’s not the only factor. How you interact with that audience and build a community with the people in your audience is just as important (if not more important) as having the large audience. Out of all of the methods of growing a Facebook audience, creating your own Facebook Group Page is the most underrated way to grow an audience that matters for your brand. If you don’t have a Facebook Group Page already, here are 8 benefits that you should think about when making the decision of whether to create your own Facebook Group Page or not.

#1: Build A Community Of Likeminded People

When you create a Facebook Group Page in your niche, people in your niche will be attracted to that Facebook Group Page. In the beginning, it may be difficult to get many people to know about the group, but as your Facebook Group Page grows in membership, you will start to build a community of people who actively engage with one another. Some people may go back on Facebook just to see the activity in the Group Page.

When all of these people interact with each other in a meaningful way, and you occasionally become a part of conversations, these people will be appreciative of you making this entire experience possible. This will translate to a better reputation for your brand and potentially more product sales.

#2: More Exposure

When you create your own Facebook Group Page, you are in full control over what is allowed and not allowed to end up on the Facebook Group Page. Moreover, you can post anything you desire on this Facebook Group Page, but anything irrelevant will hurt the community and anything inappropriate will taint your reputation as a whole.

You can use your Facebook Group Page as a platform to promote your blog posts, YouTube videos, landing pages, and products. You don’t want to over-promote on this Facebook Group Page because the members in the community will get sick of it. It is important to remember that the community can communicate via other Facebook Group Pages and other methods. If you want members to stick around, but you also want to promote your stuff on occasion, only do self-promotion 1-2 times per month and spend most of the time interacting in the Facebook Group Page in a non-self-promotional manner. You can also pin a self-promotional post to the top of the Facebook Group Page, but only if it is relevant and not over-promotional.

#3: Incentive For People To Buy Your Training Courses

Many of the top leaders have a habit of over-delivering so potential customers are more likely to buy their products. If you create a training course or a product of any kind, you can offer exclusive access to one of your Facebook Group Pages that is only given to people who buy your particular product. You get more product sales, and since the people in this Facebook Group Page are paying customers, they will take the Group Page more seriously (they paid for access), and they may buy your other products in the future.

#4: People Spend A Lot Of Time On Facebook

Out of all of the social networks on the web, Facebook gets most of our time. What is initially a way to see what’s new with our friends turns into an endless journey that consists of hours of reading other people’s posts and watching videos. The great thing about Facebook’s addictiveness is that people will scroll through their home feeds, and they may come across one of the posts from your Group Page.

When someone comes across a post from your Group Page on the home feed, that post doesn’t have to necessarily be a post that you published. If another member posts something to your Group Page, people will see that post (and your Group Page) on their home feeds. Being seen often builds brand recognition and trust. If you see the same Group Page often, and it seems interesting, then you will want a piece of the action. What may initially start out with a few likes for certain posts will turn into comments, and that will eventually lead to new posts on the Group Page.

#5: Friends Will Give Access To Their Friends

If you give your friends permission to give access to the Facebook Group Page to their friends, then the membership of your Facebook Group Page will grow. Not only will membership grow, but many of the new members would be people interested in your niche. How do I know this? It’s based on the way we communicate with one another.

People like to help their friends in part because of the friends’ reactions and the feeling of self-gratitude that goes along for the ride. People like to add relevant topics to conversations and make good recommendations that are relevant to another person’s interests. If your friend writes music, are you going to send that friend an invite to a Group Page about computers? What are the chances of that friend accepting that request? What would it do to the friendship if you send this friend multiple emails inviting them to join various Group Pages about computers (probably little to nothing, but many people assume the worst)?

Instead of sending an email blast to all of your friends about the computer Facebook Group Page you are a part of, you may only send the email to a few of your friends who are interested in that area. Then, you can have meaningful conversations with your friends about computers, and those conversations may turn into posts on the actual group page.

The main point is that when friends give access of your Facebook Group Page to their friends, most of the friends with newly given access will be interested in your Facebook Group Page’s topic.

#6: Get New Blog Post And Product Ideas

When your members interact with one another, you will start to get an idea of common questions your members have and what they appreciate. The content you post to the Facebook Group Page about one area of your expertise may get more likes and comments than the content you post to the Facebook Group Page about a different area of your expertise. Your readers may also post comments about your content that inspires your next blog post idea. Every relevant post and comment that goes on your Facebook Group Page can be the inspiration for your next blog post or product.

#7: Leadership Role

When you create your own Facebook Group Page, you are in essence the leader of that Group Page. You control what gets posted, create the rules, and provide your members with an empowering environment. If you do a good job at your leadership role in your Facebook Group Page, you will gain more respect from your members, and that respect will translate into your brand’s growth.

#8: Loyal Fan Base

The members who post and comment in your Facebook Group Page often form your loyal fan base. Having a loyal fan base is essential to the growth of your brand and spreading your message far and wide. The messenger can only do so much alone, but when the messenger has helpers, that messenger’s message will spread. Having a thriving Facebook Group Page is one way to get the helpers who will spread your message for free.

In Conclusion

If you do not have your own Facebook Group Page, then you are not tapping into the full power of the most popular social network on the web. Facebook Group Pages allow you to build meaningful communities of individuals interested in your niche, and as your reputation grows, these people may buy your products as the relationship builds.

What are your thoughts on starting a Facebook Group Page? Do you have any tips on getting more members on a Facebook Group Page? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

How To Use HootSuite For Social Media Management

June 5, 2015 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

When most people think of HootSuite, they think of a revolutionary platform that allowed people to schedule their tweets before most of the other social media post scheduling services were available. HootSuite set the example for others to follow, and now thousands of social media post scheduling tools are on the web. Most people use HootSuite for just that: scheduling tweets and social media posts for other accounts too.

Within the basic, popular capability of scheduling tweets is an entire dashboard that allows you to find the exact content you are looking for and use social media in an effective manner. It wasn’t until I became a HootSuite Ambassador when I finally considered using this dashboard, but if you are not using the dashboard, then you are not getting the full value out of HootSuite. HootSuite is a valuable tool for your social media strategy, but it is also a valuable tool for your productivity.

The well-known advantage of HootSuite is the ability to send and schedule multiple tweets on the same platform. You can schedule a tweet for your Twitter account and send a Facebook post with the same platform. This HootSuite feature encouraged me to create another Twitter account which I am actively growing. The ability to send one tweet from my main account and some tweets for other Twitter accounts that I am building from the ground up on the same platform is game changing. Without HootSuite, I would have to log into each account, send some tweets while logged into Twitter, log out of each account, and repeat the process until I successfully sent some tweets from all of my accounts.

The time I save by scheduling tweets from one platform is nice, but that’s how most people see HootSuite: a time-saving app for scheduling content. Now, I will discuss the dashboard, how you can use it to find the content you want, and how you can save more time on it.

Tabs

The tabs on HootSuite work like tabs on an internet browser. Chances are you may have some tabs on your browser as you are reading this blog post. Let’s say that one of those tabs is Twitter. Once you are done reading this blog post and want to move onto something else on the web (my feelings aren’t hurt), you may simply click on the tab you already had opened that leads you to Twitter.

HootSuite’s tabs work just like that. You can have Twitter searches and lists for a specific area show up on one tab. You can have your scheduled tweets, sent tweets, and mentions on another tab. One of your tabs can contain stuff relevant to your social media strategy while another tab can contain a bunch of random facts tweets. My recommendation is to only use tabs related to your niche. I have tabs that show me tweets of articles about blogging, Twitter, and social media in general. Each time I click on one of these tabs, I get to see specific information that I was looking for.

Streams

When you add something to a tab—your scheduled tweets, your mentions, a Twitter search for a keyword, your Instagram account, or anything else—those are called streams. Streams fill up your tabs with valuable information that can help inspire your next blog post idea, increase your knowledge in a certain area, or fill you with motivation.

Using The Social Networks Without Actually Being On Them

The huge difference between using HootSuite and using a social network on the actual platform is that there are fewer distractions. On Twitter and Facebook, it is easy to get caught up in the trending topics and your friends’ posts. On HootSuite, those two options don’t exist. HootSuite does not show the trending topics, and the only way to see your friends’ posts on HootSuite is if you include a special tab for all of your friends’ posts (not recommended because that can eat up a big chunk of your time).

You can rest assured that all of these streams will get updated with the newest content. HootSuite gives you the option of a manual refresh (not recommended. You must click the refresh button for the refresh to occur) and the option of automatically refreshing all of your streams every 2-30 minutes. The automatic refresh option allows your tabs and streams update in real-time just like social networks do.

HootSuite Pro Bulk Scheduler

HootSuite Pro opens you up to new features provided on the platform, and one of the top features is the bulk scheduler. The bulk scheduler allows you to upload a CSV file of prewritten tweets (Numbers for Apple users and Microsoft Excel for other computers) under their easy-to-follow format. The bulk scheduler allows me to save an easy 10 hours per week. Manually scheduling 100 tweets would take me two hours, even with copying and pasting from a document of prewritten tweets (I did this when I manually scheduled tweets). Sending the same number of tweets with the Bulk Scheduler only takes six clicks.

The bulk scheduler is great for people who send tweets in a cycle. I am totally okay with admitting that I tweet the same thing more than once. In fact, I have probably tweeted about some of the same tweets over 100 times. How do I have so many followers then? The answer is that I space my tweets by several days, and all of the tweets provide the right value for my targeted audience. It is entirely okay to tweet the same things over and over again and still gain hundreds of daily followers. I’m not the only one who sends out repeat tweets. Some of the top experts follow this same approach.

More Than Five Social Media Accounts

When you get HootSuite Pro, you can now add more than five social media accounts to your HootSuite account. This makes it easier for you to manage all of your social media accounts, and if you plan on creating numerous Twitter accounts, then this feature will be very beneficial for your strategy. All of your social media platforms in one place. That’s the best way to operate your social media strategy on the busy, noisy web.

In Conclusion

HootSuite was voted as the #1 Social Media Tool in 2014 for a reason. Not only does HootSuite make scheduling tweets a breeze, but HootSuite also makes it possible for people to use their social networks in a more productive manner. I love using the tool, and I use it every day for scheduling tweets and staying up to date in my niche.

I may be a HootSuite Ambassador, but I did not come armed with an affiliate link, and this article was not written for any compensation. I viewed HootSuite as a wonderful tool well before I became one of their Ambassadors.

What are your thoughts about HootSuite’s capabilities? Do you have any tips for using HootSuite? Do you use HootSuite teams feature? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

10 Steps To Better Pinning

June 3, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Are you on Pinterest? The question gets asked more often than it did when Pinterest was just starting out, and more people respond to the question with a big YES. As of 2013, Pinterest has over 70 million users and rivals the other social networks. Pins have longer half-lives than other social media posts which means something you pinned a month ago can suddenly go viral as if you pinned it yesterday.

However, pinning the successful pins that go viral is not the most easy thing to do. Many people use Pinterest, but not as many stand out on the platform. Getting your pins to spread, and for you to ultimately become successful on Pinterest, you must know how to effectively pin. Here are 10 steps to better pinning:

#1: Schedule Pins

Scheduling your pins in advance allows you to account for all of the timezones of the world. At midnight where you live, people are waking up, eating breakfast, and checking their Pinterest accounts for new pins in some other part of the world.

Scheduling pins in advance also helps brand awareness. When you schedule pins throughout the day, and people see your pins often, they will remember you. As more people remember you and see you more often, they will look at your profile each time they go on Pinterest. These types of followers are the ones who will share your content, subscribe to your blog, and possibly buy your products.

#2: Pin Consistently

Scheduling a few pins here and there only does so good. In order to get the long-term growth associated with scheduling pins, you must schedule pins at a consistent rate. On ViralWoot, you can schedule 100 pins per month for free. By just scheduling three pins every day, you can schedule pins for free, and you get to maintain your consistency.

Pinning at consistent times throughout the day will let your followers know when to expect something new from you. If someone always pins at 2 pm every day, that person’s followers can expect a new pin at 2 pm. This expectation will lead to more people directly viewing your profile, going through your boards, locating the new pin, and then going through some of your older pins.

#3: Bright, Longer Pictures

On Pinterest, the pictures that spread are the tall, bright colored pictures. When you create a picture on Canva or KeyNote, increase the height of the picture. Increasing the height of a picture makes it more noticeable on someone’s home feed because the picture will take up an entire section. You want a picture to take up a lot of space because pictures that take up a lot of space get attention. If the picture is made to spread, all of the attention the picture gets will lead to numerous repins, and that picture may possibly go viral.

#4: Infographics

Infographics are very successful on the web, and on a social network that requires pictures for each post, infographics dominate. Not only do infographics typically perform very well, but many of them are the bright, long pictures that you would want to pin on Pinterest for more exposure. Infographics allow people to learn new things in the most effective manner possible. Why are infographics so effective? The human mind can register an image 60,000 times faster than plain text.

#5: Have A Variety Of Boards

On Pinterest, you must keep your professionalism, but also let people know about you outside of the business. You never want to only have a group of boards that only focus on one basic niche. I have plenty of social media boards, but I also have boards about 3D printing, Legos, and some of my other interests. Some people think I am a 3D printer now, but I just like to see the progress the new technology has made. I envision myself being a 3D printer someday, but not yet.

Having a variety of boards will allow you to learn more about your hobbies, passions, and anything that you wish to know about. If you want to learn more about an animal, create a board based on that animals and pin one fact about that animal every day. If you want to learn how to get stronger abs, pin at least one informative article on that board every day, and only pin one of those articles after you read it from start to finish. Pinterest isn’t just a marketing tool. You can use it to learn new things that you never know about before.

#6: Add More Pins On Each Board

The best analogy of Pinterest that gets used often is referring to Pinterest as an online magazine. Now let’s think about a successful magazine. It has a bunch of interesting stories on several pages. Someone could spend anywhere from 15-30 minutes reading a good magazine. Do you provide that option on Pinterest? Do all of your boards have enough pins that lead to enough articles where someone can spend 15-30 minutes on your board without getting bored or running out of content to read (pun not intentional. I don’t like the way it sounds, but I needed to convey myself in the most clear manner possible)?

The difference between the two is that on a Pinterest board, you can pin thousands of pins on one board. Some people may spend hours on your boards, and if you get people to spend hours of their time on your boards, you can rest assured these people will come back for more. They will remember you and spread the word.

#7: Implement The Secret Board Strategy

It is natural for us to create boards and quickly lose interest in some of the boards that we create. It happens to the best of us. The final outcome is a dull board with under 10 pins that doesn’t keep a visitor’s attention for long. Sure, one solution is to delete the entire board. If you really wanted to, you could move the pins from that board to some of your other boards.

However, why does that problem have to happen in the first place? You can create all of your new boards as secret boards so no one sees them. If you decide you are no longer interested in something after 10 pins, then you can just delete the secret board (or keep it), and your Pinterest profile won’t look any less enchanting than it already looks. Once your secret board reaches 20 pins, make it public. Now when your followers look at your new board, there are options, and you are not pinning dozens of times in a few minutes (which annoys followers). Your followers stick around, engage with your content, repin your content, and come back for more.

#8: Implement The Group Board Strategy

Getting your pins to reach out to more people is as simple as joining a popular group board. There are several group boards with tens of thousands of followers eagerly looking for contributors. If you get an invite from one of these group boards, take the group board creator up on the offer. Now, regardless of whether you have 100 followers or 1,000 followers, you are now a part of a group board that allows you to reach tens of thousands of people.

While you join other people’s group boards, consider turning most your boards into group boards. When you turn one of your boards into a group board and get contributors, your group board will get pins added to it without your direct involvement. Better yet, each time someone visits one of your contributors’ profiles and clicks the “Follow All” button, your group board gets an extra followers too.

#9: Optimized Descriptions

The description of a pin is almost as important as the picture itself. In your pin’s description, you must include hashtags and keywords so it is easy for people to find you on Pinterest’s search engine. In your optimized description should also be a call-to-action where you encourage your followers to do something (i.e. click on the picture to learn how to become a better blogger).

#10: Pin Valuable Content

This may be the most common sense tip of the bunch, but common sense is not always common practice. A valuable pin is one that provides insights or great entertainment directly in the description, the picture itself, and/or the webpage your followers get to see when they click on the picture. Each time you share something on Pinterest, ask yourself how it empowers or entertains the people in your audience. Don’t pin something just for fun. The pin appears on your profile. Only pin something if you believe it is meaningful.

In Conclusion

Pinterest is a growing social network. It may not be as large as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook quite yet, but Pinterest is getting closer. One thing about the users on Pinterest is that they can spend a massive amount of time on the site. If you create valuable boards and provide your followers with hundreds of pins on some of your boards, those followers will stick around for a long period of time. Many of the repins I get are from repeat repinners. Some people will go through some of my boards with hundreds of pins and pin 25% of my pins. That’s a lot of extra exposure for my account, my brand, my blog, and what I stand for.

So now I ask you whether you have a Pinterest account or not? Do you see potential for Pinterest in your strategy? Is Pinterest already a big part of your strategy? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

When To Take A Break From Blogging

June 1, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Blogging break

At some point this year, I took a month off from writing blog posts. My blog still got updated three times each week, and I responded to blog comments and tweets. Basically, it was an invisible, unnoticed absence that did not require me to sacrifice my consistency.

I pulled it off by scheduling numerous blog posts in advance because of my policy of always having one month’s worth of blog posts scheduled in advance. Having this many blog posts scheduled allows me to focus more of my time on writing the content and less time stressing about the deadline. I had over two months to write this blog post, but I still wrote it well before the deadline. If I wrote this blog post on the day before the deadline, I would have stressed, and the quality of my work would have suffered. When I take a break from writing blog posts, I make sure it is possible without the risk of me losing my audience or publishing subpar content.

Why I Took My 1 Month Break

The break I took from blogging was used to reassess my strategy and see what I could do differently to reach more people and generate more revenue. Part of the strategy was to take Udemy seriously again. After the first two months of creating my Udemy account, I created two training courses that did well. For some odd reason, I stopped creating training courses and didn’t update my old ones, and I lost a lot of ground.

Now, I update my training courses often, and I have plans for several training courses. I have created a course about productivity and several about social media success. I also devised a plan for publishing books in a more effective manner to get more sales and publish them in bulk. I will publish several books by the end of the year, and I have already published a couple of books in 2015.

I did my research in the same manner I started my research a few years ago to discover how I could get more Twitter followers. I read dozens of articles about getting more Udemy sales and even took several courses where successful Udemy instructors discussed how they got more sales.

Basically, my one month break was not one of those breaks where I avoided my computer and stopped working like an entrepreneur. I put in more work during this month than I put in most of the previous months. This one month break helped me catapult forward when I continued writing blog posts and started to take Udemy seriously again.

Was It A Complete Break?

I did not write a blog post for an entire month, but that doesn’t mean I did nothing for my blog. I outlined some of the blog posts that I knew I would write after the month was over. I wrote a list of key points I would write about. That way, I gave myself a foundation for when I wrote blog posts again. Creating an outline for a blog post takes as little as five minutes, but it saves you from a lot of thinking while you are writing the actual blog post.

It takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to write a blog post, so only taking five minutes to create an outline saved me a massive amount of time. I used this extra time to do my research.

Would I Ever Take A Break Just For Fun?

I consider writing blog posts a fun activity, so I wouldn’t take a break just for the fun of it. The only two reasons I would take a break form blogging would be if I need to do extensive research on something or if I am on a vacation. When I am on a two week vacation, I like to embrace the vacation, and my productivity dips for obvious reasons. I can’t do any videos since I don’t bring the massive desktop with me (I don’t know the exact dimensions, but it is bigger than my suitcase, and it is fragile) and my microphone equipment is at home. That’s okay, and I don’t mind. I bring my Mac Book Pro with me to interact with people on social media, but that’s just about it. If I am at my house, then I am always doing something for my business.

You Never Know When You Need The Break

Some events may pop up, and you may not feel like writing blog posts for an extended period of time. It happens, but you have to be ready. Scheduling blog posts for at least one month in advance will allow you to take those unexpected breaks without sacrificing the consistency of your blogging. You may burn out one day and want to take the week off. Those small burn outs occasionally happen. Having blog posts scheduled in advance will allow you to take a break during the small burn outs without you worrying about your blog getting updated.

In Conclusion

There comes a point when writer’s block takes the joy out of blogging and a time when we must shift our attention to other things. We must be prepared at any moment to not write blog posts for an extended period of time. That is why I schedule numerous blog posts in advance. As I mentioned before, I always have over one month’s worth of blog posts scheduled. However, I also have a bunch of blog posts that I already wrote but did not schedule. In some cases, I could have as much as three month’s worth of blog posts scheduled at one time.

Having the blog posts scheduled in advance allows you to take a break without sacrificing the consistency of publishing a certain number of blog posts every week. Many dedicated bloggers may view taking a break from writing blog posts as sacrificing the commitment needed to become a successful blogger. However, if you write blog post outlines and make the transition back to a blogger (which is easy if you write blog posts often), then that won’t be a problem for you.

In some cases, the break you take from blogging can be more beneficial than if you were to continue blogging. When I did research to learn more about Udemy, I learned an entirely new method to generate revenue, and now Udemy is emerging as my top revenue source. I learned valuable lessons from taking the small break that I would not have learned if I was blogging at my rapid pace. Sometimes, especially in our busy world, a break every once in a while can be a good thing. With automation, you can take a break, and your audience still gets the content as if you never left.