Marc's Blog

How To Save Your Valuable Content From Getting Deserted

September 25, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Save Valuable Content From Getting Deserted

As you write more blog posts, your older blog posts will get pushed farther below your blog’s main page until they get kicked off the first page. The typical blog post that gets kicked off the first page gets a significant decrease in viewership. However, there are blog posts that were written several years ago that are still getting thousands of daily visitors leaving most bloggers stumped. The question everyone wants to ask is how this happens and how the results can be replicated.

The most important thing for you to know about these types of blog posts is that they dominate the search engines. If you search a term like “Top 100 Inspirational Quotes,” chances are you will still see the Forbes article written in May 2013. Social media is a great way to get initial traffic, but to get consistent, long-term traffic on a daily basis without having to post a tweet on the same blog post every day, incredible SEO is the way to go.

I have been using social media to save my articles that get old but still provide value. However, my most popular articles are the ones that I don’t have to tweet about every day. They bring in traffic through the search engines. I put in the work at one point, and now these articles bring in passive traffic.

What are your thoughts on making sure your blog does not get deserted by using SEO? What advice do you have for people who are trying to pull it off? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

What Would Happen If Every Social Network Decided To Hide The Number Of Followers We Have?

September 24, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

For a very short period of time, Twitter hid the number of followers every account has. Whether this was a bug or Twitter trying out a new feature, it is interesting to think what would happen if every social network decided to hide the number of followers we have.

This is an intriguing topic that has many good sides and bad sides. The most obvious benefit is that the law of big numbers no longer applies. If social networks decided to hide audience sizes, no one will know if you have 10 followers or 10 million followers. With LinkedIn, people with over 500 connections are shown as having “500+ connections.” As far as we know, that “500+” could mean 501 connections or 2,000 connections.

The fake follower industry has turned into a multi-million dollar underground business that even attracts the most famous Twitter users. If Twitter hides this number, there is no longer a legitimate reason to buy fake followers. Fake followers do not result in more engagement, and no one is going to see the big number. The people in the fake follower industry would be devastated if this change ever took place.

However, removing the number of followers we have creates a problem. Now there will be more experts calling themselves experts. Many people have the natural tendency to go to the experts who have the most followers. Many people go to the expert with 10,000 real followers for advice before they go to the expert with 1,000 real followers. Removing the number eliminates the distinction between the experts with big audiences and the experts with smaller audiences. The people who have built their audiences from the ground up will now have a big piece of that hard work hidden from view. I don’t want the fact that I have over 100,000 Twitter followers to be hidden.

In this type of world, the main way to determine how influential someone is on social media is through engagement. In this type of world, the person who gets 10 retweets is more influential than the person who only gets one retweet. Engagement is a good way to determine influence, but just like follower numbers, engagement is also something that can get rigged. Just by typing “buy retweets” into Google, I saw an option to buy 1,000 retweets for just $8. Removing the follower count invites people to rig the system by buying their way to higher engagement numbers. Although it’s not quality engagement that results in long-term interactions and connections, the law of big numbers comes back into play. If you can’t tell how big people’s audiences are and which retweets are real or fake, the person with 1,000 fake retweets looks more influential than the person with 100 real retweets. You can buy practically any kind of engagement for any social network. If the option does not exist for a particular social network now, it will exist in the very near future.

The final act Twitter and other social networks could take would be to hide all of the numbers, but in my opinion, that would cause too much chaos. Hiding the number of followers we have is chaotic enough, but hiding the size of our audiences will force every marketer, entrepreneur, and expert to ask themselves whether they are really doing a good job or not. This type of self reflection is what allows the fakers to realize they are doing something wrong and the people with targeted audiences to realize that what they are doing is right.

Is it a good move to hide audience sizes? Just as all of the people who bought fake followers deserve this fate, the people who have built their audiences from the ground up do not deserve to have their audience size hidden. Then again, does the size of an audience matter at all, or is it all about engagement, which could also get rigged? There are so many different perspectives and thought patterns that can emerge from this topic of discussion

What is your opinion?

Expectations Will Happen If You Think About Them Long Enough

September 23, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Mindset

Any expectation, good or bad, will happen if you think about it long enough, have a strong belief that it will happen (in order words, you aren’t just saying something will happen for the sake of it happening), and you put in the work. If you have a strong belief in your ability to make a strong income, and you put in the work to make it happen, that expectation will come to pass.

With this power in our hands, many people choose to use it poorly. Many people put their expectations low or expect themselves to be worse off than they are already. Those kinds of negative expectations also come to pass if you think of them for a long period of time.

Live your life with optimistic thoughts and put in the work that will allow you to turn an optimistic thought into a reality. No goal is too big. What will you do? It’s your choice.

5 Awesome Ways To Use Instagram For Business

September 22, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Many people see Instagram is a social network with an emphasize on the social and selfies. However, if you utilize Instagram properly, it can be more than that. It is important to remember that there are over 200 million monthly active users on Instagram and that posts with pictures have been proven to get more engagement than posts without pictures. Many brands take full advantage of Instagram while others wonder how they can do the same. In order to use Instagram for your business, follow these five tips:

Take pictures of coupon codes. Only posting pictures of coupon codes on Instagram will give people another reason to follow your business. Better yet, posting coupon codes weekly or monthly will give people a reason to go back to your account and see what has recently been added.
Post a tip of the day with a relevant picture. If you provide a tip for your followers with a picture that correlates with the tip, you will create the type of posts that your audience will like and share with their friends.
Host a giveaway that encourages interaction. Whole Foods knows how to use Instagram very effectively. One of their pictures was of a girl riding a bike with groceries in the bike’s basket. Whole Foods invited its audience to post a picture of themselves riding a bike with groceries with #BikeToShop in the post. The prize was a $250 gift card.
Let your audience know more about business life. You can use Instagram to show people what goes on behind the scenes. Perhaps if McDonald’s did this, we would realize once and for all what really gets used to make those McNuggets.
Let your audience know more about your personal life. Many people forget to do this, but it is very important to include your personal life. This allows people in your audience to know about you and have a stronger connection with you. If a billionaire decided to post on Instagram a picture of a sports team, you would be able to relate better with that billionaire.

Those are the five ways to use Instagram for business. What were your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips on using Instagram for business? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

6 Powerful Two-Sentence Tips To Grow Your Pinterest Audience

September 21, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

There are over 70 million people on Pinterest, and the number keeps on growing as the days go by. Pinterest continues to grow, and the bigger you are able to make your audience at this stage of the game, the more popular you will be when Pinterest exceeds the big milestones such as 100 million, 200 million, or even 500 million users. Pinterest has been growing at a rapid rate, and it shows no signs of slowing down. That is why now is exactly the right time to grow your audience on Pinterest. That is why I am going to provide you with six ways for you to do that:

Pin every day. The more times you pin, the more chances you have of getting more repins and spreading farther on Pinterest.
Follow other people. Chances are some of these people will follow you back.
Create a variety of boards. This allows you to have multiple target audiences who get attracted to specific content that you pin.
Use Pinterest messaging. Pinterest messaging is a great feature to take advantage of to spread and interact with your followers, and I went more into detail on how to do that in this article.
Repin other people’s pins. Not only does this give you more variety, but some people will decide to follow you back for repinning their pins.
Use ViralWoot. ViralWoot, the Twiends for Pinterest, is a great way to build your Pinterest audience.

Those are the six ways to grow a big audience on Pinterest. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have a seventh tip? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The 3 Ideal Activities To Do On Your Downtime To Recharge

September 20, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

No matter what niche you are in, you will (need to) have downtime. Taking breaks is important because it allows you to think with a clean slate the next time you go back to your work. There are few people who can work for countless hours straight, and those people are the exceptions, not the rule. For most of us (that means you, me, and countless others), we need some downtime. However, there are many people who spend their downtime doing the wrong things. Those wrong things include watching TV, surfing the web, and doing other unproductive activities that eat up more time than we realize and make it harder for us to get back to our work each time. However, there are some positive ways to spend your downtime. Here are the big three:

Spend time with your family. Without a good family, all of the wealth you could possibly accumulate would not be worth it. Family comes first, and I would not be where I am today if this was not a core belief for my own family. Your family consists of the people who you will know for the rest of your life, so treat them well.
Exercise. I cannot emphasize enough how much running has indirectly helped my business. Running taught me that it is possible to thrive after putting in a lot of hard work. Exercising over a long period of time has given many people the discipline needed for success.
Read a book. Not only do you get to learn more, but in some cases, you will be able to read a thrilling story. There are some books that we read that we simply never want to stop reading. Unbroken, Tipping Point, and Purple Cow are three books that you won’t want to put down until you finish reading them.

Those are the three best things to do during your downtime. There are plenty of other things you could do during your downtime, but most of those things involve procrastinating, losing time, and getting stuck doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional things you do during your downtime that you enjoy and find valuable? Please share your thoughts and advice below.