Marc's Blog

7 Advanced Pinterest Tips

August 7, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

There are millions of people on Pinterest, one of the fastest growing websites on the entire web. Pinterest’s growth has led to some people growing powerful presences and audiences of over 1 million people. These same people do not have nearly as many followers on the other social networks. Some of the people with over 1 million Pinterest followers have less than 1,000 Twitter followers. Does Pinterest randomly pick names in a hat and promote those people? Not quite. These people are using Pinterest differently in a way that gets Pinterest’s attention. Then, Pinterest promotes that person’s board to a large audience. Most of these people implement seven common methods which I am dubbing the 7 Advanced Pinterest Tips.

Have multiple boards with over 100 pins. The more pins you have, the more content your followers are able to browse through. It is important to remember that some people are addicted to Pinterest. What was meant to be a 10 minute visit turns into being trapped on the site for three hours. If you have a board with over 100 pins, chances are some of your followers will go through that entire board.
Focus most of your time on one board. The board that you focus most of your time on should eventually make its way to having thousands of pins. The Pinterest Power users have many boards with over 100 pins, but the boards they focus most of their time on have over 1,000 pins. Some of these boards even have over 10,000 pins.
Pin every day. Pinning every day will allow you to be consistent. Whether you are sending out 5 pins every day or 100 pins every day, you are consistently pinning every day. When you are able to pin every day for months at a time, more people will notice, share your content, and allow you to grow.
Create group boards and be a part of them. Many of the people with over 1 million followers on Pinterest either have their own group boards or are a part of someone else’s group board. Group boards with over 100 contributors ensure that those boards are getting updated whether you are logged into Pinterest or not.
Pin about a wide variety of topics. Pin about great vacation getaways, sports legends, and other things as well. The more variety you have, the more followers you are going to get because you satisfy the desires of multiple audiences.
Focus on one niche. You can create boards on a wide variety of topics, but it is important that 80% of your pins are all based on one niche. That way, your Pinterest followers know exactly what kind of content you provide on Pinterest and which niche you fall in.
Have a story behind all of your pins. If you have a story behind all of your pins, your audience will be eager for you to come out with other pins so they learn about another story behind another pin. If the stories behind your pins are powerful, then more people will spread your content across Pinterest.

These are the seven advanced Pinterest tips that the pros use. Implementing these tips may allow you to become the next person with over 1 million Pinterest followers. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

3 Ways To Take Advantage Of Pinterest’s New Messaging Feature

August 7, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Pinterest rolled out a new feature that allows users to send messages in the same way Twitter users can send out direct messages and Facebook users can send private messages. Vine also has this feature for their videos, and other social networks have the feature as well. Not only did Pinterest finally join the bandwagon, but their new messaging feature is something that you absolutely must take advantage of. Here are three ways to take advantage of Pinterest’s new messaging feature.

Develop stronger connections with your followers. Many of the people I know well on Twitter had lengthy conversations consisting of numerous direct messages. Pinterest new messaging feature will allow similar connections to take place. However, there is a significant difference. With Twitter DMs, you have a 140 character limit, but with a Pinterest message, you are able to send out a message that is up to 500 characters long. That’s more than three times the length of a Twitter DM.
Promote your pins. The Pinterest messaging feature allows you to send pins to your followers. This is a great way to promote your pins and possibly get more repins in the process. The great thing about pins in a Pinterest message is that people can like, repin, and send a pin right from the message. That means people do not have to click an additional link to access the pin, and it is easier for people to share the pins you send them.
Gather testimonials. On Twitter, when people say that they bought one of my books, I continue to have a conversation with the person and will sometimes ask someone if they would like to leave a review for the book on Amazon. This has been very successful for me because I get to interact with customers who enjoy my products already, and asking them to leave a quick review. Pinterest now allows people to do the same thing as previously done on Twitter, but now you have 360 extra characters to play with.

Another notable thing you should know about Pinterest’s new messaging feature is that it is very easy to organize the people you talk with. When you ignite a conversation with someone, an icon with that person’s profile picture appears on the bottom left of the screen. Multiple icons can appear on the bottom left corner of your screen which makes it easy for you to talk to multiple people at the same time. This feature allows you to prioritize who you talk to on Pinterest and remember who you need to talk to on Pinterest. You can easily remove any person from the left corner of your screen with the click of a button.

Pinterest’s new messaging feature is definitely a huge improvement. It finally allows users to interact with each other on a more 1-to-1 based level. What are your thoughts on Pinterest’s new messaging feature? How do you see yourself using it in the future? Please share your thoughts below, and also be sure to send me a message on Pinterest @MarcGuberti.

4 Common Misconceptions About Social Media

August 6, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media has been proven to be a powerhouse for many people’s business strategies. Social media is the primary way to grow your blog’s traffic, connect with customers, and interact with others. However, not everyone is getting the desired amount of traffic from their social networks. While some people get hundreds of daily visitors from their social networks, others struggle to get five daily visitors from their social networks. What’s the difference? Chances are the people who are not getting as many traffic and customer connections on social media are going by these four misconceptions.

Do everything you can to be like a celebrity. When people think of a celebrity, they think of someone with over 1 million followers who is only following 100 people. However, there are only two reasons these celebrities have reached that point. Either the entire world knew about the celebrity before Twitter or these people bought fake followers. In fact, most celebrities with millions of real followers also bought millions of fake followers to make themselves look bigger than they really are. Chances are you won’t get this status. It is a status rewarded to a select few with a lot of popularity. I wanted to get the celebrity status but quickly found myself stuck at 1,667 followers. After deciding to follow other people, my follower number, blog traffic, and sales soared. It’s okay to follow other people even if that means following thousands of other people. Some of the people you follow may become your next customers.
Send out a random number of posts at random times every day. By sending out a random number of posts at random times every day, the responses you get from those posts will also be random. You may send out a post at 7 pm, but your followers may be logged in at 6 pm. That means you lost people by sending the post at the wrong time. I always schedule tweets with HootSuite so I am able to tweet once every 20 minutes. Some social media platforms work differently, but on Twitter, I am able to send out one tweet every 20 minutes without annoying people. If you are not ready to send out one post every 20 minutes, what you need to do is schedule your posts when most of your followers are on the social network. Facebook Insights allows you to see when most of your fans are on Facebook, and Tweriod allows you to see when most of your followers are on Twitter.
Not posting about yourself enough. There are numerous articles on the web that suggest only tweeting about your blog 20% of the time. However, that is not nearly enough times to get more visibility. If your blog posts are valuable, then your followers will not care about whether you only tweet about or only share links on Facebook that go to your blog posts. If your blog posts are valuable, and your followers are the targeted people who would enjoy reading those blog posts, you can share them more often. I share my blog posts on Twitter about 90% of the time.
Automating all of your posts. Some of the people who schedule their social media posts do that just so they don’t have to log into the social network. However, automating all of your posts prevents you from interacting with your followers. Asking a question at the moment is an easy way to get more feedback. One of the answers may teach you something new. In addition to asking questions, you can thank people for sharing your blog posts or buying your products. There are plenty of ways to interact with your social media followers, but regardless of how you interact, interaction is essential towards your success on social media.

Were you deceived by the misconceptions? Please share your thoughts below.

Why Bloggers Give Out Oodles Of Information For Free

August 6, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Free Content

At this point, I have written over 300,000 words for this blog. I know there will be a certain point when this blog reaches 1 million words. Many people wonder why I have given away this much information for free, and better yet, why I actually plan on continuing. Other bloggers have also given away oodles of free information, and people continue to wonder why these bloggers give so much content away from free.

The goal of free valuable content is to build a connection with the person. The more valuable content you provide for free, the better your paid products must be. Customers have a belief that a paid product is better than a free product. When bloggers provide oodles of free content, visitors believe that the paid products contain more valuable content than what they are already getting. This does raise the bar quite high for bloggers, but it also results in more sales.

Bloggers want their visitors to subscribe and receive blog posts through email. Then, this leads to a sale. If you want to boost your sales and get more subscribers, you need to provide more free content and make sure that free content is also valuable. That’s how giving away oodles of free information yourself can grow your business.

Blogging Monetizing Do’s And Don’ts

August 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Blog Monetization

There are many ways to make money with a blog. Just like in any other scenario, not all options are created equal. Some methods of making more revenue with a blog are very effective while other methods are not what they appear to be.

Advertising is a big don’t. Many people see advertising as a way to generate extra revenue for a blog, but advertisements distract a visitor from reading your blog content. In addition, if someone is visiting your blog for the first time and clicks an ad, that person may not come back. You lost a potential returning visitor (who could have been a customer) for two extra pennies in your pocket.

That being said, I still see a potential for making money on a blog with advertising. However, I only see advertising useful for the big guys like John Chow and Jeff Bullas. Being one of the big guys means being as low on the Top 100,000 list as possible. If your Alexa Rank is not under 100,000, then you are not ready for ads. If your Alexa Rank is under 100,000, then it is at that point when people know about you and you are popular in your niche. You can slip in some ads on your blog at that point because you are going to make much more than two cents, and those people are going to return anyway.

No matter where you are with a blog, having your own products is a big must. Having multiple products with these three different price structures as well as some free products that provide value will allow you to make more revenue with your blog. This pricing system is used by John Chow who now makes seven figures (yes, the big million) every year from his blog.

It is important to note that creating your own products and being an affiliate are two different things. Being an affiliate marketing means promoting someone else’s product and getting a cut. However, when you get the sale as an affiliate marketer, people don’t come back to you. Let’s say you are an Amazon Associate, and a customer buys something with your referral link. You get a cut, but people are not going to come back to your blog just to buy from your referral link. Instead, they go directly to Amazon. They don’t care about your affiliate link. They only care about Amazon.

So, is affiliate marketing dead? I don’t think so. You can do a mix of affiliate marketing and promoting your own products (although you want to promote your products more often). In addition, you can tell your visitors to buy something with their affiliate link and then you will throw in one of your products for free. This means it is still possible for you to get a returning customer.

Another thing that works well is consultation sessions, if you have the time to do them. When deciding whether you are the right person to consult with, people will look at how valuable your content is and what you charge for a consultation session. The less you charge, the more sales you are going to get, but at the same time, you are going to have to talk to more people for more hours. That may get in the way of your work. The best option is to charge a high (but not overwhelming) price that encourages some people to buy the consultation session.

Two great ways to make money with a blog are creating your own products and having a consultation session. Affiliate marketing can be used sparingly, and affiliate marketing works as a good substitute for the people who do not have their own product…yet. Advertising should not even be attempted until your blog’s Alexa rank goes under 100,000. That means you are getting a huge number of returning visitors even if you slipped in an ad or two on your blog. At the same time, you don’t want to display too many ads no matter how popular your blog is because that popularity can spiral downwards with too many ads.

How To Get More Blog Traffic From Squidoo

August 5, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Squidoo is a big hub and a great source to get more blog traffic. On Squidoo, you are able to write pages (they call those pages lenses) that you can use to write content on almost anything. Squidoo gives you the ability to promote your blog using their sidebar feature and the ability to promote products on Amazon and eBay.

If you create enough pages on Squidoo, and some (or all) of those pages become popular, your blog traffic can dramatically increase. Let’s say you have 100 pages on Squidoo, and they all bring in 1 visitor to your blog every day. That’s an extra 700 visitors every week, 3000 visitors every month, and 36500 visitors every year. Those numbers really add up, and you only get to take advantage of that by creating pages on Squidoo.

Creating a page on Squidoo is very easy. All you need to do is create a page, work on it for 15-30 minutes, and then you’re done. Promoting your page is all you need to do at that point. Promote it on your blog and social networks. You may be wondering why you don’t promote your blog right from the get-go, but circular viralocity says otherwise. You want to promote something that leads to your blog or social networks, and have those blogs and social networks promote each other.

Promoting a Squidoo page has the potential to share valuable insight with others. If people take the step to click a link on your blog, they will most likely read through your blog’s content and follow you on your social networks.

Not only is Squidoo a great way to bring in more blog traffic, but it is also a great way to earn extra revenue. Some people on Squidoo are making thousands of dollars every month from ads and product commissions. You also have the option to donate a percentage of your earnings to charity. Whether you feel like donating 7% or 77% of your earnings to charity, you can donate any percentage of your earnings to charity.

Do you want to bring in more blog traffic. Squidoo may be the answer you have been looking for. What are you waiting for? Join us!