Marc's Blog

Content Writing and Marketing Services

Why You Need To Make It Easier For People To Share Your Blog Posts

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Not all quality content gets shared on social networks. One of the reasons is that the content is hidden. The blog with the quality content is not popular yet. Another big reason why quality content does not get shared on a blog because sharing that content is a challenge. The person who wants to share the link has to write up their own tweet, copy the link, and paste it into the tweet without running out of characters.

In order to prevent that from happening, you need to make it easier for people to share your content. The best way to do this is have social sharing buttons at the bottom of all of your blog posts. You can see sharing buttons at the bottom of any one of my blog posts.

Another option is to have a sidebar widget on your blog. I do not use the sidebar option for the social sharing of my blog posts because that is not my preference. However, there are some bloggers who get their content shared more often because of it. As long as your social sharing buttons are easy to see, your blog posts will be shared more often.

People are looking to save as much time as possible. I was listening to an Optimize Press video recently, and the person talking told people to be patient because the Optimize Press plugin takes 1-5 minutes to complete the download. That’s what it has come down to. Waiting 1-5 minutes requires a lot of patience in a world that loads super fast. Waiting for the 5 second ads on YouTube is even worse. By making the process of sharing a blog post go by faster, more people will share your content. The less time it takes to do something, the more inclined someone is to perform that task.

 

Esurance Won The Ad Bowl By A Landslide

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esurance_logo

The Sea Hawks were victorious in the Super Bowl. Esurance won the Ad Bowl. There were many advertisements throughout the Super Bowl, and many of them were disappointing. Advertisers simply tried too hard to make people laugh, and that backfired. Before I go on about why Esurance won the Ad Bowl, I couldn’t leave out Budweiser with its commercial, Puppy Love, where the dog and clydesdale do everything they can to stay together. This commercial was a very heart warming commercial that captured the hearts of millions of people.

Despite the Budweiser commercial capturing our hearts, Esurance won the Ad Bowl. The crazy thing about Esurance is that they won the Ad Bowl with the first commercial after the Super Bowl. Having the first commercial after the Super Bowl allowed Esurance to save $1.5 million. They probably did not lose a lot of viewers because many people (probably over 100 million just as the game began), were probably waiting for the celebration and post game. Esurance ultimately won by having a $1.5 million giveaway. There have been $100 giveaways. There have been $1,000 giveaways. There have even been $10,000 giveaways. But when was the last time there was a $1.5 million dollar giveaway? In fact, who wouldn’t want a shot at that $1.5 million?

Last year’s Ad Bowl winner was Oreo with it’s tweet about still being able to dunk in the dark. It got over 15,000 retweets and over 6,000 favorites. Oreo also got 10,000 followers that day which before that they were only gaining a few hundred followers every day. That’s what won the Ad Bowl in Super Bowl 47.

Esurance won the Ad Bowl for Super Bowl 48, but their results are much better than Oreo’s. Looking at the statistics, you would have thought that Kate Perry and everyone else with over a million followers decided to give Esurance a shout out. Without any further delay, here are the statistics.

Last I checked, Esurance’s tweet generated over 20,000 retweets and over 8,000 favorites. Here’s the original tweet because I’m sure those numbers are going to jump up. So far, those results are looking identical to Oreo. Here’s the difference.

The hashtag for the giveaway, #EsuranceSave30, trends on Twitter. The hashtag trended for most of the day, and #EsuranceSave30 eventually appeared above Super Bowl on Twitter’s list of trends.

We couldn’t forget to mention Esurance’s surge in follower. Oreo gained 10,000 followers during Super Bowl 47. Esurance gained a whooping 200,000+ followers the day after the Super Bowl. You can see the skyscraper growth from TwitterCounter’s statistics. This was not the grand total of followers Esurance gained throughout the giveaway. Esurance was still gaining followers! When I decided to take a look at the giveaway, Esurance had over 190,000 followers, and they were gaining over 10 followers every second!

Esurance won the Ad Bowl big time. Oreo’s win taught us that marketing at the moment gives us an edge. Esurance’s win taught us that strategic marketing and a big giveaway are the recipe to going viral during the Super Bowl.

5 Reasons Why You Need To Use Yahoo And Wiki Answers

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answer question

Many entrepreneurs strive to get more visibility and become experts of their respective niches. Getting the visibility will create an audience that pays attention to and respects that entrepreneur. What if there was a way to do both at the same time. Here’s when Yahoo and Wiki Answers come into play. Yahoo and Wiki Answers are two powerful sources of finding people with questions. In case you are not using Yahoo or Wiki Answers, here are 5 reasons why you need to get started:

  1. You can search for questions involving your niche. Instead of waiting for people to come to you with questions, you can see what the questions are. By seeing what the questions are, you will be able to answer them quicker.
  2. You will be able to connect with your target audience. If you do a good job at answering the question, the person who asked the question will decide to visit your blog. This can lead to someone buying your product or subscribing to your blog.
  3. You will be able to establish yourself as an expert of your niche. By answering people’s questions in your niche, people will notice your good answers. As more people notice your good answers, they too will go on your blog, subscribe to your blog, and eventually buy some of your products.
  4. Yahoo and Wiki Answers dominate Google. Answers to some people’s questions usually end up on Page 1 on Google’s search engine. This will allow you to get big increase in traffic for your blog.
  5. Yahoo and Wiki Answers will give your blog quality backlinks. Using Yahoo and Wiki Answers will easily give you access to two quality backlinks. These backlinks help out in your blog’s SEO, and as a result, more people will be able to find your blog by using the search engines.

Answering questions will allow more people to see you as an expert of your niche. Being able to answer questions on popular question sites such as Yahoo and Wiki Answers will give you a boost in Google’s search engines, and plenty of people will be able to see your answers.

 

Big Changes For 2014

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2014

The New Year seems like a blur. The ball dropping in NYC feels as if it happened many months ago. It’s not even 40 days after the New Year. Some of the big goals of my New Year’s resolutions were changed while others got added.

You are really going to want to subscribe to my YouTube channel now because there are going to be a lot of giveaways throughout the year. I am working on Lead The Stampede, and there is a chance that the book gets published before the end of the first quarter. I will be giving away the paperback book on my YouTube channel. I will also be giving away free coupons to my Twitter Domination and Power Blogging training courses.

In addition, my YouTube videos are going to get a big upgrade. Better lighting, longer videos, and a whiteboard behind me are some of the additions for my upcoming YouTube videos. I have some videos already scheduled for a good chunk of the first quarter, but you will see the new videos soon (I have to do the videos first).

In addition, I will be hosting some pin to win giveaways on Pinterest. Liking a pin, repinning a pin, or subscribing to my blog would give someone an extra entry in a giveaway.

Tweet to win will also become something you hear more of in 2014. I’ll have to figure out the rules for that contest, but when the rules for everything get figured out, I’ll let you all know.

2014 is going to be a year of big changes. Giveaways is going to be one of the big changes, and there are going to be plenty of other changes as well. Here are two things that you can do right now in order to be prepared for those changes:

  1. Follow me on my social networks. You will always know about certain giveaways. Some giveaways will not be announced on my blog.
  2. Share your suggestions. I want to make really big changes in 2014. I am open to all suggestions towards giveaways and other things as well.

2014 is going to be BIG, and I can’t wait to see what it turns into.

3 Reasons Why You Need To Give Your Clients Specific Options

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One mistake a lot of people make is not getting specific enough with the choices they give to their clients. The common belief is that the more choices there are for clients, the better. That common belief is no longer true in a world that is dominated by Google. There are some businesses that have few choices, and those are the businesses that are starting to gain more momentum. Here’s why:

  1. The businesses with more specific choices are trading quantity for quality. Having fewer choices means that a business can do a better job with the choices they have versus being mediocre at many things.
  2. Quality clients over quantity clients. More clients is not necessarily better, and this will allow you to narrow down your clients. Narrowing down your clients will allow you to easily find your quality clients.
  3. Google search has changed the way we use internet. Blog posts are all over the web. There is a lot of content on the web, and that content can satisfy the needs of customers. Asking your client what they need help with is no longer effective. A Google search will answer their needs. Telling your clients that you only provide help for A, B, and C will allow you to get more clients. The best way to get more clients is to have your business fit into a subniche that satisfies the needs of enough people. It is better to have a close-knit community of 1,000 than a million scattered clients who won’t hesitate to use the Google search instead of buying one of your products or services.

Google has dominated the web, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. In order to build a successful business, you can’t ask clients what they want. A Google search will get them what they want. You need to give your clients specific options so you get the best clients, be at your best for those clients, and make sure a Google search won’t be the different between a sale and a missed opportunity.

How To Properly Ask For A Book Review On Twitter

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One of the best ways to increase book sales is by having a lot of good reviews. For most authors, the quality is there, but getting the reviews is the problem. Authors turn to social networks such as Twitter to get reviews, but most people do not properly ask for a review. The common mistake authors make is sending a tweet to all of their followers that says something like this, “Please review my book. Here is a link (link to book).”

In order to properly ask for a review, you have to ask one customer at a time. This may not be as quick as sending out a tweet to the masses, but quicker is not always better (in this case, quicker is not better). In order to properly ask for a book review on Twitter, follow these steps:

  1. Identify the people who have bought your book. For some authors, this is the hard part. I use KDP to publish my Kindle books, but their statistics only offer the numbers. Their statistics do not show names of people who have bought your book with a link to their Twitter account. The best way to find the people who have bought your book is by looking at the tweets of people mentioning you. Most of the people who buy my books send out a tweet to me (with my username so I get to see the tweet).
  2. Favorite the tweets of people saying that they bought your book. By favoriting the tweet where someone says they bought your book, you are showing them that you are grateful that they bought your book.
  3. Ask them about your book. After a day, ask the person how far they got in your book and whether they liked it or not. If the person does not like the review, continue the conversation anyway. By continuing the conversation, you have the ability to clear up something that may sound confusing, and the reader will like you for continuing the conversation. If the person likes your book, implement #4.
  4. Ask the person to write a short blurb about your book and submit it on Amazon. People cringe at the thought of writing a review because they take a lot of time to write. A short blurb sounds quick and easy. Sure enough, it is, and by wording your tweet to say “short blurb” instead of “review,” you are more likely to get feedback for your book.

By implementing these 4 steps, you will be able to get more reviews for your book. This process will allow you to build a strong fan base versus going for a hit or miss opportunity by sending a single tweet to all of your followers. Quality customers come one at a time, not in bulk.