Marc's Blog

10 Reasons Why Twitter Would Suspend Your Account (And Solutions)

May 9, 2014 by Marc Guberti 41 Comments

Twitter suspension rules is not on the top of everyone’s reading list, but it is better to be aware of these rules now than it is for you to learn about them after your account gets suspended. Hopefully, it does not have to come to that. Sending an appeal is a messy process that still prevents you from tweeting to your followers. In fact, people who get suspended and do not get the desired result from the appeal would have to start all over again trying to build a strong following. I learned about some of these rules fairly recently and revamped my strategy so I would not be violating any of the rules. These are the 10 reasons why Twitter would suspend your account. If you are safe, that’s good. However, it is better to know that you are safe than it is for you to be sorry in the long run.

Aggressively following and unfollowing people in a short amount of time. This one is the most obvious. People try to hack the system by following a lot of people and then unfollowing everyone who does not follow back. People who game the system tend to have a perfect 1 to 1 ratio or something very close to perfect (something like a 1 to 1.01) and continue to gain followers at the same rate their following number goes up. Another tip is to avoid passing the 1,000 following limit. If you reach that limit multiple times in a row, Twitter will notice, and that won’t be good. When you unfollow people, you can unfollow some of the people who do not follow you back, but also unfollow some of the inactive users who have not tweeted for a while. Following inactive users will tell Twitter that you are not only unfollowing the people who are not following you back.
Favoriting too many tweets. I did not know about this rule for a long time. Before learning about this rule, I simply favorited tweets of people mentioning me at will. Now, I only favorite 5-10 tweets every day. If I do not favorite a tweet of you sharing one of my blog posts, that’s because I do not want to risk breaking the rule. Regardless of whether I favorite someone’s tweet or not, I am always grateful when people share or read my blog posts. A good way to substitute favoriting tweets is sending those people DMs. Not only does this reduce the risk of your account getting suspended, but DMs are more personalized messages for the people who shared your content or said something good about you.
Spamming people (this one is really important). When people think of spamming, they think of a bot that sends out 500 tweets every day about the same thing. However, spamming also means sending out a lot of tweets (even if that means 24 tweets every day) and not having a lot of conversations with your followers. It is a harsh definition for the people who do not mean to spam, but with the real definition in place, you might be “spamming” your followers. Having conversations with your followers shows Twitter that you are a real person and will make Twitter less likely to suspend your account for this reason.
Following too many people after creating your account. New Twitter users get too excited. They look around for all of their favorite celebrities and follow hundreds of them on the first day. Soon, these new users are following 1,000 people but only have 50 followers. Twitter does not like these kinds of accounts and associates them with spam and fake followers. The fake follower industry is a multimillion dollar business, and Twitter is doing everything it can to suspend users who look fake–whether those users are fake or not.
Tweeting too much. No user can tweet more than 1,000 times every day. If you are caught reaching the limit multiple times, Twitter will eventually suspend your account. My recommendation is to stay under 100 tweets per day. For most people, that will not be anything to worry about since few people have enough time to send out 100 tweets in 1 day. If you feel the need to send out more than 100 updates every day, you should split those updates amongst multiple social networks.
Creating too many spammy looking Twitter accounts. If you are creating too many spammy looking Twitter accounts with the same computer, Twitter will catch you. Remember how Twitter defines spam before deciding whether you are innocent or guilty. This tactic is used to catch and suspend fake followers that are created by the same person. When Twitter catches someone doing this, all of the accounts made by that person get suspended–even the real ones.
Harassing people. Think about what you say before you post it. If a user harass someone, that person will most likely report that user to Twitter for harassment. If enough people report that user for harassment, Twitter will look into the situation and most likely suspend that account.
Tweeting inappropriate content. In some cases, tweeting the inappropriate content may not be your fault. This is why it is very important to avoid getting your account hacked. Someone hacked my account, and all of the links for smart phone users led to porn sites. While my account was hacked, I was afraid that someone would report me for inappropriate content, but luckily, my followers knew there was something wrong with my account. The only way to solve this problem is not to tweet inappropriate content in the first place.
Misusing trends and popular hashtags. Be sure that you know what something means before you tweet it. You would have to be consistently (multiple times every day) misusing trends and popular hashtags in order to get suspended for this reason. Twitter does not want news or events to be misinterpreted which is why they enforce this rule for people who do this on a consistent, daily basis.
Twitter thinks your account has been hacked or compromised. Although it’s not your fault, Twitter may suspend your account if they think it was hacked or compromised. Just look through your list of third-party apps and make sure none of them are bad. In addition, choose a password that would be hard to figure out. If your password is 8 characters long, then it’s too short. The best way to avoid this problem is to make it harder for someone to hack your account.

Those are the 10 reasons why Twitter would suspend an account. If your account is not violating any of these 10 rules, then your account will be safe. If your account slightly violates one of these rules, you should fix that problem so your account is not in risk. What are your thoughts on the list? Have you been suspended for other reasons? Please share your thoughts below.

How To Track Your Progress On Twitter And Pinterest

May 9, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

If you want to grow on social media, you need to figure out how much you are growing. Many people want to improve their results on their social networks, but most people do not know how to find the results they are already getting. People who do not know the results they are currently getting are implementing a strategy with a blindfold on. Imagine trying to increase your blog traffic when you don’t know how many people are visiting your blog in the first place.

Luckily, there are ways to track your progress on social networks. The two social networks that I use the most are Twitter and Pinterest. Over the years, I have stumbled across many Twitter and Pinterest tools. Many of them were really bad, but some of them shined out from the rest. As a person who runs on statistic and data, I need to know how my strategy is already working before I implement a new strategy. In order to see if my new strategy works, I want to see how the old strategy works first. That is why I use two tools (one for Twitter and one for Pinterest) to track my statistics so I know what works and what does not work.

For Twitter, I use TwitterCounter. Although some people have complained about TwitterCounter not updating the statistics for you automatically, I get the best experience out of TwitterCounter because I update my own statistics every day. That way, I get to see different numbers instead of the same, constant number some users get when they do not check their statistics for a while. TwitterCounter does a neat job at tracking your number of followers, number of people you are following, and the number of tweets you send out every day for up to 6 months (free version). Premium services offer more statistics and allow you to see all of your statistics from day one.

For Pinterest, I use Tailwind. Tailwind is similar to TwitterCounter, but it has less features for free users. I go on Tailwind every day which is why I am able to get the best experience as a free user. Tailwind allows free users to see statistics for the number of followers they gained and number of pins sent out from 1 week ago.

Tracking your progress is very important towards identifying whether the strategy you are using is helping or harming your social media presence. Do you use any other statistics sites to track your progress?

Why Guest Blogging Builds Preeminence

May 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

guest blogging

Guest blogging has been established as a way to gain traffic to your blog and put your content in front of a larger audience. With enough guest posts, your blog becomes more popular and you get more subscribers. However, there is another advantage to guest blogging that few people know about. Being a guest blogger builds your preeminence on the web.

For some guest blogs, becoming a contributor involves going through a series of steps such as sending an email to get permission to submit content, submitting your content, and getting that content approved. In a nutshell, not everyone is able to become a guest blogger. There are cuts that take place in order to separate the best from the ordinary. People who do not guest blog only know that there are cuts. These people do not know the percentage accepted or how writers get cut (or make it), but they know that there are cuts.

That means many people see guest bloggers as people who were able to make it past the cuts because of remarkable content. In addition, visitors will see the guest blogger as someone who is good enough to write for other blogs. Guest bloggers on Business2Community, Social Media Today, and others are seen as people whose content is good enough to be featured on popular and prestigious blogs.

If you are guest blogging on some guest blogs, others will realize that you write good content. As a result, guest blogging opportunities will come to you. Once you build preeminence as a guest blogger, you will never have to perform a Google search to find good guest blogs about your niche. Bloggers will come to you and ask if you would like to write for them.

Being a guest blogger tells people that your content is special and worth reading. If you want to relay that message to all of your readers, then you need to start guest blogging. These are some tips to help you get started.

5 Ways To Get More People To Contact You

May 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

The strongest connections are the ones that take place one email at a time. There is no limit to the number of characters someone can use in an email. In addition, people in the conversation can go in-depth since their followers will not see the conversation. Five emails can have the same amount of content as 50 tweets. Followers who get 50 straight tweets about a conversation they are not in would get annoyed very quickly. Annoying your followers with these long conversations may result in some of those people clicking the dreaded unfollow button. Taking the conversation off social media and to the email solves that problem.

In addition, emailing blocks all of the distractions. When on social networks, some people are having 10 short conversations at the same time. Being able to email people will allow you to have one powerful conversation with someone and provide more information than you would be able to in a 140 character tweet. The person who you are having the conversation with will view your blog posts more often. Most of the people who are actively commenting on my blog are also the people who contacted me via email and had a lengthy conversation with me about social media, business, blogging, or my story. Some people may want to contact you about a speaking opportunity or another opportunity as well.

Basically, the more people get to contact you, the more connections you get to build. Allowing people to contact you is one of the most important ways to become successful. Everyone–whether the newbie or the people on Shark Tank, provide their visitors with a way to contact them. In order to get more people to contact you, implement these 5 tactics.

Create accounts for multiple social networks. Although my main social network is Twitter, I use a variety of other social networks as well. I have a strong presence on Pinterest, occasionally use GooglePlus, and I have my own Facebook Page. Most people come to my blog from Twitter, but some people find me on Pinterest. The Little Pickle Press found me on Pinterest, and as a result, I ended up getting featured on their site.
Have a Contact Me Page on your blog. Visitors should be able to contact you without scrolling up or down on your blog. By having a Contact Me Page that appears on the header of your blog, more people will know how to contact you.
Forms are overrated. Before leaving my email address on the Contact Me Page, I had a form. The problem with having a form is that the form can be buggy. Although I was getting 100 daily visitors at the time, no one contacted me on my blog. I later learned that the reason people were not contacting me like before was because the form I used on my blog was buggy. All of the people who tried to contact me at that time got a message saying, “Are you sure you want to do this?” with no way of saying yes or no. Since then, I simply have my email address right there on the Contact Me Page. Leaving your email address on your Contact Me Page cancels the risk of a buggy form.
Give the visitor at most three email addresses to choose from. A common mistake I see is that people create 10 email addresses and lump them all together on one Contact Me Page. Instead of creating a lot of email addresses, give your visitors subjects to choose to relay their message. If you need to have more email addresses on your Contact Me Page, you should have a Media Inquiries email address and one more of your choice as well. My recommendation though is to only have 1 email address available. Less is more.
Turn yourself into someone who people would want to contact. Seth Godin is someone who people would want to contact. Mariano Rivera is someone who people would want to contact as well. In order to get more people to contact you, you need to boost your credibility. The person with a Klout score of 70 gets contacted more often than the person with a Klout score of 50. The person with 100,000 real followers gets contacted more often than the person with 10,000 real followers. The bestselling author gets contacted more often than the author that published his first book a few days ago. By turning yourself into someone who people would want to contact, you will be able to have more conversations that go from social media or your blog to back and forth emails.

In order to grow your presence as an entrepreneur, business, or writer, you need to build strong connections. Whether someone from NBC contacts you or a potential customer, you will be more likely to build a strong connection when you are sending emails back and forth to each other. Those strong connections can lead to business opportunities, but any of those connections can lead to a customer. When people contact you, be sure to respond as quickly as possible no matter who is contacting you.

7 Ways To Get More People To Engage With Your Pins

May 7, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

In order to build strong connections on Pinterest, your followers need to engage with your pins. Being on Pinterest and getting people to follow you is not enough. You need these followers to engage with your pins so that you can have longer conversations with your followers. These are the 7 ways to get more people to engage with your pins.

Include a call to action. A call to action encourages someone to do something (click, like, repin) instead of just reading what is there. Pins that include a call to action have 80% more engagement than pins that do not include a call to action.
Pin about trending topics. When topics trend on Pinterest, millions of people are looking at those topics and engaging with the pins about those topics. Pins related to a trending topic get a 90% increase in click throughs compared to other pins.
Pin more tutorial pins. People are constantly looking for more knowledge. They want to learn more about their niche, learn about a certain craft, or learn a random fact. There are many things that you know about your niche that others do not know. Pinning tutorial pins will portray you as an expert in your niche. In addition, tutorial pins see a 42% higher click through rate than the average pin.
Pin when most people are on Pinterest. While most people on Facebook and Twitter use those social networks in the morning, most people on Pinterest tend to be active during the evening. In addition, many people are addicted to Pinterest, and these people are on Pinterest for several hours every day. According to HubSpot, the ideal times to pin on Pinterest are between 2pm-4pm and 8pm-1am It is important to not overlook that the time is 8 at night. The ideal time to post on most social networks is 8 am, but Pinterest is different. There are many night owls who use Pinterest, and it is important to pin at those times to get the most engagement for your pins.
Like and repin other people’s pins. When you repin other people’s pins, those people will get notified that you liked and/or repinned one of their pins. Some of these people will decide to return the favor and comment on one of your pins as well.
Decide whether you want people to share your pin or have a discussion. You will want some of your pins to get shared across Pinterest while you would prefer that other pins build discussions with you and your followers. Pins with a lot of repins are more likely to be shared across Pinterest while pins with more likes encourage more discussion. The best thing to do is have some pins that encourage sharing and other pins that encourage discussion. In order to find out which pins would lead to what effect, you need to see how your followers have engaged with the pins that you have already sent out. If you do not know how your followers engage with your pins, then you need to send out several pins and see which ones get multiple repins and which ones get multiple likes.
Build a targeted following. A targeted following who is interested in what you provide will definitely like and repin your pins. If you talk about sports, and all of your followers love sports, your pins are going to see more engagement. Building a targeted following will also help you when someone clicks on the pin and gets sent to your blog.

These are the 7 ways to build more engagement for your pins. The average pin has a 1.1% click through rate. By using Tips 1-3 in the same pin, you would boost that click through rate to 5.3%. By using tips 4-7, you would get more people to see your pins with those high click through rates. By getting more people to see your pins with higher click through rates, you would be able to get several likes, repins, and comments for your pins.

7 Ways To Increase Your Conversion Rate

May 7, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Increase Conversion Rate

There are few bloggers who get conversions on a daily basis. While many bloggers dream of getting numerous conversions every day, the truth is that 95% of bloggers do not get traffic conversion. The main reason bloggers do not convert a lot of their visitors is because the blog is not designed properly to entice the visitor. If you want to get more traffic conversions, follow these 7 tips:

Make the buttons bigger and easier to see. A giant button is going to get more visibility than a tiny button. Some people have reported that having a bigger button has doubled their conversion rates.
“Download Now” buttons Work Better Than “Add To Cart” buttons. This is a proven statistic that can increase your sales. “Download Now” encourages the person to buy your product (or enter an email to get it for free) while the “Add To Cart” button is generic and does not encourage the potential buyer as well.
Stop using the phrases that everyone else uses. Add To Cart is one of them. Another one is Click Here. Instead of saying, “click here to get the report,” say “Send me the report.” By starting the phrase with an action verb and using a phrase that is not too common, you will be able to boost your conversion rate.
Give your product a better design. Everyone judges a book by the front cover. Although the bestselling books (usually) are filled with quality content, they also have really cool covers. The Pumpkin Plan is a quality book, but the cover of a pumpkin with the “$” sign on the leaf dwarfing city buildings is a good cover. A better design may be all you need to boost your conversion rate.
Take advantage of color psychology. Colors have a big impact on conversion rate. Changing the color of your button may be all you need to do to boost your sales. I could go in detail about color psychology here, but QuickSprout provided a great infographic that explains how colors affect conversion rates. Before deciding what color to make your conversion buttons, you need to identify who your targeted customers are.
Run tests. The best way to see which results will allow you to boost your conversion rate is by running tests. In order to run a test, you would need to have a control (the design you are currently using) and an experimental design (the one you think will boost your conversion rate). After a month of split testing the two designs, stick with the design that leads to the most conversions.
Start with a quality free product. People are more likely to buy your products if you offer a free product. People are more likely to subscribe to your blog if your blog posts are really good. Then, that visitor knows that what you give them for free as a subscriber is going to be really good. Quality is always important in boosting your conversion rate.

Those are the 7 ways to boost your traffic conversion. Conversion is very important factor towards building a strong following and presence on the web. What do you think about the list? Please share your thoughts and advice below.