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The Biggest Mistake People Make When Using Sticky Notes

May 22, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Sticky notes are a very effective way to boost your productivity. Although sticky notes have been proven to work, there is one mistake that too many people make. This mistake prevents people from accessing the true potential of sticky notes.

Are you ready for it?

The biggest mistake people make when using sticky notes is letting the sticky notes accumulate. A sticky note is designed to remind you about a goal so you can get that goal accomplished. If you have 1 sticky note on your desk with three goals, you are reminding yourself to accomplish three goals. However, if you have 10 sticky notes on your desk with three goals each, then you are reminding yourself to accomplish 30 goals.

If you only had to pick one or the other, would you rather have three homework assignments due the next day or 30 homework assignments due the next day? When sticky notes accumulate, you are given more work to do. The only problem is that the workload becomes overwhelming. Sticky notes get thrown into the garbage, goals get crossed out, and the end result is no productivity.

If you want to use sticky notes to boost your productivity, then I applaud you. It does work. However, when you use sticky notes, you need to make sure there is never an accumulation. A desk cluttered with sticky notes results in less productivity and drains your attention away from the work that you are doing.

4 Good Ways To Use Sticky Notes

May 21, 2014 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

sticky note pile

One of the big reasons my productivity has gone up is because I use sticky notes. Every day, I use sticky notes for a variety of methods, and at the end of every month, I put all of my sticky notes into a designated envelope for that month. The number of sticky notes in these envelopes have dramatically increased over the months that I started–just like my productivity. In order to increase your productivity, you need to know the proper ways to use sticky notes. These are the Big 4.

Write down your daily goals. Since sticky notes are designed to be made and thrown out quickly, only write down your daily goals on your sticky notes. Writing down your daily goals will allow you to stay on task.
Make sure you can easily see your sticky notes. I put all of my sticky notes right next to my computer. That way, when I glance away from my computer screen, I look at the sticky note and see all of my goals. If you want your sticky notes to grab your attention, only use yellow sticky notes and only write with a black marker. The human brain registers yellow faster than any other color, and black on yellow is just as noticeable.
Write down a plan to accomplish a certain goal. If you have a big goal for the day, write down how you are going to accomplish that goal. When are you going to take breaks? When you are working at your goal, what steps of action will you take to accomplish those goals? These are the things that you can write on your sticky notes.
Write down things that you want to remember. Ideas come and go. As the idea remains as a memory for a longer period of time, it becomes easier to forget about that idea. Having sticky notes with you solves the problem. If you think of a brilliant idea for a blog post, but you have to go somewhere for a few hours, write the idea on a sticky note and leave it by your computer. That way, you will remember the brilliant idea when you go back to writing on your computer.

Those are the 4 ways that you can effectively use sticky notes. By effectively using sticky notes, you will increase your productivity and get more work done in a shorter amount of time. If you use sticky notes every day, your goals that once appeared impossible will be in reach.

5 Things To Look For In Your Bitly Stats

May 21, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

bitly stats

Bitly is the best place to get your links’ statistics and store those links in a database for free. However, many people only use Bitly to get a shortened URL, and most people do not know all of the statistics that Bitly offers. While it is important to get a shorter URL and track your links, it is also very important to know what Bitly’s statistics mean for you.

I have used Bitly to track my blog’s growth for several years now. I use Bitly’s statistics to identify which links get the most clicks and which links do not generate as many clicks. By using this strategy, I identify which blog posts should still be tweeted and which blog posts should be replaced by another tweet. In order to change your strategy by using Bitly’s statistics, these are the 5 things you need to look for.

Daily clicks for all of your links. How many clicks do you get every day. Bitly shows you how many clicks you got for up to 30 days. You can see when your clicks rose and fell. By figuring out when your clicks dramatically change, you need to identify what you did that day to get the change. If not sending out any tweets for the day resulted in a 50% decrease in clicks, then you need to send out more tweets. If sending out twice as many tweets resulted in a 50% increase in clicks, then you need to schedule more tweets.
Daily clicks for your individual links. These statistics allow you to discover what kind of content your followers and visitors like. If one of your blog posts gets clicked on 10 times more than the others and got promoted just as much as your other links, then you need to continue tweeting about that blog post. If one of your blog posts gets no clicks while your other ones average 20 clicks each, the blog post that got 0 clicks needs to be taken out of your social media strategy.
See what time of day your links get the most clicks. Did you know that you could see how many times your links got clicked in the most recent 24 hours? Whether you want to see how many clicks your link got at 6 am or 3 pm, Bitly allows you to see both. Seeing what times your links get clicked the most on can help you figure out when most people click on those links.
The referrers. Out of all of the clicks I get from Bitly links, 87% of those clicks are from Twitter. By identifying the referrers, you can identify your biggest source of traffic as well as other sources that you need to improve on.
The countries that people live in. Using this statistic will allow you to identify which country contains your largest audience. In addition, you can share links that favor the countries that you get the most visits from. If most of your visitors are from the U.S., tweet once or twice a day about American facts, culture, tradition, or anything else. If most of your visitors are from India, share some things related to India. Those links will probably get clicked on more than some of your other links.

Those are the five things to look for in your Bitly statistics. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional statistics that you look for in Bitly? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Why Only Tweeting About Your Blog Is Okay

May 20, 2014 by Marc Guberti 7 Comments

There are many articles that recommend you only tweet about your blog 20% of the time. These articles emphasize the need to share other people’s content instead of your own. However, I only tweet about my blog posts. Other than 4 motivational quotes, the other 68 of my daily tweets are my blog posts.

At first, I was not ready to implement this tactic. I remembered what all of those articles said about sharing other people’s content 80% of your time and only sharing your content 20% of the time. However, I decided to give it a try.

The results were incredible. My blog’s traffic immediately doubled (I had a big following when I started this experiment), and it has continued to grow ever since. Many people favorite and retweet my blog posts while others have conversations with me that started when I shared a blog post. The experiment was successful, I have continued to implement it since, but this experiment taught me a valuable Twitter lesson.

When you promote How-To articles, articles with tips, or anything similar, your followers do not care who wrote the article. It does not matter whether your friend wrote the article or that article appeared in The New York Times. Your followers only care about the content. Followers only care about the writer after reading the content. If you get a follower to read at least five of your blog posts, chances are that follower will subscribe to your blog and eventually buy your products.

Tweeting about your blog often (or always) is not a mistake. As long as your blog posts contain quality content, your followers will not be unhappy if all of your tweets are links to old and new blog posts with the titles of those blog posts.

Reanalyzing The Day After The Super Bowl 48: Was The $1.5 Million Giveaway Worth It?

May 19, 2014 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

The first commercial after Super Bowl 48 cost $1.5 million less, and that was the amount of money Esurance gave away. The giveaway took over Twitter for the next two days. Fake Esurance accounts were created to get more retweets and followers, hundreds of thousands of tweets were sent out containing the hashtag, and there was even a $5 giveaway at some point that trended on Twitter as well.

Esurance gained over 200,000 followers in one day, and at its peak, Esurance had over 250,000 followers. Esurance’s growth was remarkable. At certain points, the account gained more than 50 followers every second. Esurance took over Twitter for two days, but two days only.

While Esurances tweets got retweeted thousands of times, people were in it for the money. The people who followed Esurance those last two days only followed Esurance for the giveaway. Once the giveaway was taken out of the equation, there was no longer a good reason to follow Esurance. As a result, the thousands of people who followed Esurance for the giveaway unfollowed Esurance when the giveaway ended. After the giveaway, Esurance was just another insurance account, and people did not want to read those tweets.

Esurance’s statistics from January 1st and on look like a roller coaster. Their growth in January was very slow. Their growth gradually picked up until the day after the Super Bowl when their growth skyrockted. Just like roller coasters, Esurance experienced a noticeable downward trend. Within 4 days, Esurance lost 40,000 followers. Esurance has not had a net gain in followers since that giveaway ended. Esurance has been consistently losing hundreds of followers every day. Here are some of the statistics that give you a good summary of what happened (for the people who view this blog post 6 months later and can no longer see the TwitterCounter statistics for Esurance during the Super Bowl).

In addition, Esurance’s tweets get no more engagement than they got before the Super Bowl ad. Even with over 100,000 followers, Esurance’s tweets barely get retweeted or favorited. All of the engagement for Esurance’s tweets died away along with the giveaway. Esurance was successful in its quest to gaining hundreds of thousands of real followers, but it was not successful in the quest of giving those real followers a reason to stick around after the giveaway concluded.

Esurance’s fame lived and died with the giveaway. Right when the giveaway ended, Esurance lost its fame. If you want to host your own giveaway, you need to give people a reason to stick around. Esurance could have offered 3% discounts to all customers who tweeted with #EsuranceSave30, a 3% discount for following the Esurance Twitter account, and a 3% discount for engaging with one of Esurance’s tweets (with an appropriate response, not something just for the sake of getting the discount) for an entire year. In total, that would only be a 9% discounts for the customers every year, but that would have allowed Esurance to keep its followers and enage with those followers as well.

The big problem with Esurance’s strategy is that they had no strategy after the giveaway. If Esurance had a decent strategy after the giveaway, they might still have over 200,000 followers. It had great potential, but Esurance did not execute it properly. There’s always next year.

15 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter

May 19, 2014 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

Getting more retweets is an essential way to build your presence on Twitter. Although many people find it difficult to get numerous retweets every day, others are easily able to get well over 100 retweets for all of their tweets. Getting retweets does not have to be hard. In fact, you can get more retweets tomorrow by implementing these 15 tactics.

Retweet other people’s tweets. When people see that you retweet other people’s tweets, some people will decide to retweet your tweets too. Some people believe that retweeting your tweet will incline you to retweet one of their tweets. Other people will be grateful that you took the time to share someone else’s quality tweet and then retweet your tweet. Some of your retweets may even get retweeted by your followers.
Tweet motivational quotes. No matter what your niche is, motivational quotes always get retweeted. Motivational quotes fill your followers with a powerful message, and some of your followers will want to share that message with the people who are following them. As a result, your tweet gets retweeted.
Tweet with 1-2 hashtags. Tweets with hashtags are retweeted more often than tweets without hashtags. However, a tweet with too many hashtags is hard to read, and as a result, does not get as many retweets. The ideal number of hashtags to include in your tweets to see the best effect is 1-2 hashtags. Anything over that will not get as many retweets.
Tweet articles that your targeted followers would want to retweet. Many bloggers make the mistake of tweeting their blog posts primarily to get more traffic. In order to get more traffic to your blog, the titles of your blog posts need to be appealing to your targeted followers. I do not tweet my blog posts from the first month because they are not as good as the ones that I am writing now. As you publish more blog posts, you will have more options. Only tweet your blog posts that you know your targeted followers would visit and retweet.
Tweet other people’s articles. These articles still need to be quality content that appeals to your targeted followers. Although you should be tweeting about your own blog at least 80% of the time (as long as your blog posts are really good), some of your tweets should be about other people’s articles.
Include r/t at the end of some of your tweets. The word some is very important. Using r/t at the end of some of your tweets will give you the desired effect of getting more retweets. However, if you include r/t at the end of all of your tweets, it will lose its effectiveness. R/T works like an exclamation point. If I used one exclamation point in this blog post, it would be very effective. If I replaced every period at the end of any sentence in this blog post with an exclamation point, that exclamation point would lose its effect.
Get retweeted by people with big followings. If someone with 10,000 followers retweets your tweet, chances are some of those 10,000 followers will retweet the retweet. As more people with big followings retweet your tweets, you will get more retweets from those people’s followers.
Become a superstar who everyone wants to retweet. Ellen DeGeneres is someone who gets all of her tweets retweeted thousands of times. She also has the world record for most retweeted tweet (3.4 million retweets and 2 million favorites). Although you may not be able to get 3.4 million retweets, or thousands of retweets per tweet for that matter, what if you could get a guaranteed 10 retweets per tweet? What if you could get 50 guaranteed retweets per tweet? Becoming the superstar in your niche will make people pay more attention to your tweets and retweet them.
Tweet more often. In order for your tweets to get retweeted, your tweets need to be seen more often. By tweeting consistently throughout the day, you will increase the amount of retweets you get every day.
Include pictures in your tweets. The only reason Ellen DeGeneres’ tweet was retweeted 3.4 million times was because that tweet had a picture. The same tweet without the picture would not have gotten nearly as many retweets as the tweet with the photo. In my experience, including a picture in my tweet has more than quadrupled the average amount of retweets I get per tweet.
Tweet between 71 to 100 characters. That is the sweet spot for tweets that get retweeted. Making your tweet too short will not give your followers a good reason to retweet it. If your tweet is above 100 characters, then it will take too long for your followers to read the tweet, and they will skip over that tweet. It may sound shocking that people do not have enough time to read a 100-140 character tweet, but since the Twitter feed moves so fast, and there are countless other tweets to read, your tweet needs to be short and to the point.
Time your tweets accordingly. Did you know that 48% of U.S. users go by the Eastern Time Zone? If you want to get more people to retweet your tweets, schedule your tweets to get published at the times when people in the Eastern Time Zone are using Twitter. Even better, schedule 1 tweet every 20-60 minutes throughout the day so anyone from any time zone can read your tweets.
Include a link in your tweet. Whether the links in retweeted tweets lead to articles or YouTube videos, most retweets contain links. Some people do not retweet a tweet based on the 100 characters. Instead, these people retweet the tweet based on where the link takes them.
Tweet about Twitter. The people on Twitter want to get more followers and talk with their friends. If you tweet about Twitter, users who want to learn more about being successful on Twitter (almost everyone) will retweet your tweet. Then, as more people see your tweet, it becomes contagious and spreads across the social network.
Live tweet during events. Ellen’s most retweeted tweet was sent during the Oscars. Oreo’s famous tweet about dunking in the dark during the Super Bowl black out got more than 10,000 retweets. Esurance sent out a tweet after the Super Bowl with their $1.5 million giveaway.

By getting more retweets, your content will be able to spread on Twitter faster. As your content spreads faster, you will gain followers at a faster rate. What are your thoughts about the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and tips below.