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6 Ways To Strengthen Relationships On The Web

October 9, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Relationship building is one of the most underrated parts of success. As an entrepreneur, it is tempting to think everything can be done alone. For a long time, I had the solo entrepreneur mentality. I didn’t even think of working with other people let alone outsourcing.

Twitter taught me the importance of relationship building. As you engage with your followers every day, it doesn’t take long for relationships to build. You see the same people engaging with your content, and then it’s only a matter of time before you talk about baseball teams and track PRs.

Many of these relationships developed into friendships. The podcast interviews were some of the bonuses that emerged. So how do you build a relationship with someone on the web? Try these six methods:

#1: Praise The Influencers In Personalized Emails

As you consume more content on the web, you will eventually find yourself on the same blog multiple times. The bloggers who own those blogs will soon find themselves within your version of the sphere of influence—people who inspire you to take action.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you got to chat with these bloggers? They notice you and engage with you often? That would be cool, and that can happen. Just be someone the influencer sees often. I’ll combine some of my experience with OkDork’s Poster Child formula to give you the full picture.

Share their content on social media every day (and mention their @username)
Send them occasional emails letting them know how their content was helpful
Comment on the influencer’s blog posts
Mention the influencer in some of your blog posts
Email the influencer letting them know about your blog posts mentioning the influencer and kindly ask for a share

Every day, I get emailed from people who fit into two categories. The first category looks like this:

“You’ve never really heard of me, but in case you didn’t know I’ve got the best stuff on the web and you should share it.”

It sounds something like that. Some people will word it nicer than that, but the translation is all the same.

The second category is must smaller, but I pay attention to them. The people in the second category follow most or all of those five main points I highlighted earlier in this blog post.

Daniel Cleveland is one of those people. He’s been engaging with my tweets and sharing my content for a long period of time. He has let me know how my content helped him. Then he sent me an email asking me to share his latest blog post.

And the blog post included me and a link to one of my blog posts (sweet). If you really want an influencer to share your blog post, mentioning that influencer and providing a backlink is the icing on the cake.

You better believe I tweeted that blog post. I even retweeted some of his tweets about that blog post. I’ll even link to it here.

Okay, I totally understand that was five methods wrapped into one. The other ones will be shorter but just as effective.

#2: Respond Quickly

When an influencer responds to you through a comment, social media post, or email, you want to respond as quickly as possible. As soon as you get a response, nothing else is more important for your business right now than replying.

And that’s because of expectations.

The web has created an expectation for super speed. I talking about speed that rivals The Flash. If this blog loads within a second, great. If this blog takes 10 seconds to load, then we’ve got a catastrophe on our hands (well, mostly my hands since most visitors wouldn’t wait that long).

Some of us get frustrated when it takes someone longer than 24 hours to reply to an email. The only difference with an influencer is that unless you were mentioned in the media or a part of the media, most influencers won’t hunt you down for a follow-up.

They get many emails of people trying to build relationships. They get more emails of people saying something along the lines of “My content is the best in the world. Share it.”

Influencers have enough emails to respond to and enough work to do. It’s like college (I am a high school student enrolled into a full-fledged university course so I get to say that). It’s your responsibility to follow-up. Don’t bank on the influencer reminding you to follow-up.

Follow-up quickly and become friends with the influencer, and that’s like acing the final. If you don’t follow-up quick enough and the influencer forgets who you are, you miss out—but it’s not the end.

The quicker you respond, the more appreciative the influencer will be. Not all influencers will respond to you within 24 hours, but they will remember you if you respond quickly and follow-up.

If I see an email that I should respond to, I often flag the email before I respond to it. Flagging an email prevents me from losing it in my inbox. Even if I respond in a week, a response is virtually guaranteed.

#3: Become A Contributor

Some influencers open their blogs to guest contributors (I opt against that for this blog). One of the benefits is that an influencer gets valuable content for free and for no work. Content is literally given to them, put on their blogs, and then SEO kicks in.

This is a great strategy to saving yourself from a lot of work in your blogging strategy. And since influencers have credibility, many of the top bloggers would love to have themselves and their content featured on their blogs.

So if you want to get noticed by these bloggers, become an active contributor. I have read Jeff Bullas’s work for years and enjoy reading it to this day. I thought it would be cool to talk with Jeff Bullas and get some of his insights about blogging.

So I decided to become a contributor.

I submitted my idea and my credentials. Then I waited…and got a response.

Jeff liked the idea and I got to work writing the blog post. It was one of the more challenging blog posts to write because it forced me out of my comfort zone. Jeff gave me several tips such as writing shorter paragraphs/sentences and including tons of pictures that were different to my prior writing style.

The final product was 5 Ways To Flood Your Blog With Traffic Using Pinterest. It took me over four hours to write, but it was well worth it. I got to learn more about blogging, talk with Jeff, and get more traffic to my own blog.

When you contribute on a blog the first time, and you want the influencer to notice you, contribute multiple times. As you contribute more often, the influencer may feel obligated to return the favor in some way (email blast promoting one of your products, social media share, etc).

Any effort from a contributor to return the favor turns out to be awesome in one way or the other.

#4: Grow Your Audience

Growing your audience serves two benefits to relationship building:

More people are in your audience. That means more people to build relationships with (no kidding).
More credibility when approaching influencers. I appreciate everyone who tweets my content, but if I get tweeted by a celebrity with millions of followers, I can’t help but stare at that tweet for a while. You don’t need millions of Twitter followers to create a strong impression. However, the larger your audience is, the more it supports what you do.

Start by growing your audience on social media. Then, let some of the people within that audience trickle to your blog. Then, some of your blog visitors trickle to your email list. Some of the people on your email list become customers. By the way, that’s social media ROI in a nutshell.

#5: Write Concise Emails

Successful self-published author Steve Scott lives by the five sentence rule. If the email is longer than five sentences, he won’t read it. I’m sure he makes some exceptions, but the five sentence rule lets him read and reply to emails quicker.

I wrote a five sentence email to Steve Scott asking him some questions about Kindle publishing. He got back to me with a concise email of his own. It saved us both time (he wrote a short email which means it didn’t take long for me to read it).

Since then, I have been using the five sentence rule for all of the emails I send. I understand that some people get slammed with hundreds of emails every day. If my email was a few paragraphs long, many people wouldn’t read it.

One of my ambitions is to be a frequent contributor for some of the websites I enjoy reading content from. Contributing to Jeff Bullas’s blog allowed me to realize this ambition. However, there are other websites that I enjoy reading.

So I decided to send Arianna Huffington an email.

I briefly told her my story, credentials, and my desire to contribute to the Huffington Post. I got a response. Seeing the response land in my inbox felt almost as good as my first sub five mile. In short, I was overjoyed.

This wasn’t a very long email. I believe that a mistake many people make is over-pitching themselves. Many people mention all of their credentials and awards instead of only mentioning the 1-3 that matter the most.

When you want to build relationships with people in the media, write concise emails. They get hundreds of emails per day, so they’re not interested in reading emails that are paragraphs long.

#6: Become A Part Of An Inner Circle (Or Create Your Own)

The strongest relationships happen within an inner circle. While a sphere of influence consists of all of the people who influence you and your work, an inner circle is more valuable.

An inner circle consists of people who are more successful than you and willing to help you throughout your journey. In other words, an inner circle is a group of awesome mentors guiding you in your journey.

The great thing about mentors is that they have been on a similar journey. They can help you achieve success faster since they know the pitfalls and golden roads. The best part is that they keep you accountable. Co-creating courses with people like Jerry Banfield and Joe Parys is one of the best ways I stay accountable because the course creation is now a team effort.

If you want to build your own inner circle, you have two options:

Pay for consultation sessions with successful experts (they’ll force you to be accountable)
Partner up with successful experts so both of you are held accountable (only partner up with people who you know can raise your standard of excellence)

If I slack off on my side or find myself working past the deadline, then I don’t feel like a team player. The pressure is on to deliver. That’s the power of an inner circle.

In Conclusion

Building relationships is important. Some relationships lead to opportunities while other relationships create accountability. Regardless of what type of relationships you build, they bring additional value to what you do.

Right now, I want to hear from you. What are your thoughts about building relationships with other experts in your niche? Which of these tips resonated with you the most? Do you have any other tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below!

7 Ingredients To Online Success

October 7, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

If you are reading this blog post, you want to know how to make a full-time income by working online. Many people want to earn a full-time income from the web. The thought of working from home is a dream that many hold. Working at home eliminates the commute and makes a life balance easier to maintain.

It is possible to make a full-time income on the web. Many people post their income reports. And some of those income reports reach eight figures. It’s amazing what kind of opportunities the web has created. To get the best of those opportunities, we must utilize them.

So how does one go about building a large audience and making a full-time income? Here are the seven ingredients to success on the web:

#1: Large Audience

Building a large audience that constantly grows makes it possible for you to scale up with your business. Having 100,000 people in your audience creates a larger platform for your products than having 1,000 people in your audience.

However, it does not take long to realize that growing an audience is easier said than done.

I stumbled across this problem in the beginning of my journey. I had no idea how to grow an audience, but I knew social media was the next big thing.

So I gave it a try and decided to focus on Twitter.

My best advice for growing a social media audience is to focus on one social network in the beginning. Once you master a social network, it becomes easier for you to master all of the other social networks on the web. Social media is the best free tool for growing your audience. However, a social media audience is only part of the story.

You also need a large email list. I primarily use social media to engage, provide value, and build my email list. Having a large audience matters for social proof and success.

Now that you know a large social media audience and a massive email list are the two most critical types of audiences, it’s time to explore the other six ingredients to online success.

#2: A Product

If you want to establish yourself as an expert in your niche, then you must have a product. You can write Kindle books, create Udemy courses, or put up any type of product. But you need a product, and that product needs to be exceptional.

Most people with the six figure income reports make their money by creating and promoting their products. While affiliate marketing is a possibility, affiliate marketing is not as powerful as having your own product and promoting it to your audience.

The best part about creating your own product is that it is an asset. You can literally start making money in your sleep once you create your own product. Even if you only make $2 when you wake up, making any type of money in your sleep is an incredible feeling.

Products make that possible, and if you continue growing your audience and creating products, that $2 per night will scale up very quickly.

#3: Provide FREE Value

Many people are okay with providing value in their products. The customer pays money for the product, so it makes sense to give them a great experience. For some reason, the same logic does not apply to free value.

The free value you provide allows a relationship to build between you and the people within your audience. More importantly, the people in your audience begin to trust your value and expertise. That trust eventually leads to sales because of a common belief (this belief actually turns out to be true most of the time)

Paid value is better than the free value

If you over deliver in your free content, then imagine what impression that gives prospect customers. Providing free value also allows you to grow your audience. People who like your content will share it to their audiences. Your content will get more exposure, and as a result, your audience will grow.

#4: Relationship Building

When you grow an audience and take the time to engage with that audience, relationship building is one of the outcomes. Knowing the individuals within your audience allows you to serve them better.

That means you can write better content and create better products based on what your audience wants. Building enough relationships will potentially expose you to more opportunities such as podcast interviews, guest blogging opportunities, and speaking engagements.

Building relationships with the people within your audience is paramount to understanding your audience. But the people in your audience aren’t the only people you need to build relationships with.

You also want to build relationships with successful people within your niche.

Each time I began thriving in a particular area within my niche (i.e. Twitter and blogging), it was because I built relationships with people more successful than I was. I read the influencers’ blog posts, applied their methods, and actively engaged with them.

Right now, I have my eyes set on Udemy. I have created several courses on my own, but I also co-created some of my courses with other Udemy instructors. The Udemy instructors I create my courses with are more successful than me on that platform. And that’s by design.

There is a difference between running with people you see in the trail and running with an Olympian. There is a difference between having a consultation session with any business expert and having a consultation session with Bill Gates. There is a difference between hanging out with the ordinary and hanging out with the extraordinary.

If you associate with people who have a higher status than you, then you will have more motivation to thrive. You are surrounded by successful people cheering you on—whether through their content, through their videos, or via a 1-to-1 conversation—and that will motivate you to reach the next level of your success.

#5: Effectively Communicating Your Message

Clarity is what results in people coming back. If you are a returning visitor, you came back to this blog because you understood and appreciated the message and tidbits within the content. Then you wanted more. That’s why blogs get returning visitors.

Effectively communicating your message results in more people sticking around longer. It is important to practice with your blog posts.

Once it becomes second nature for you to effectively communicate your message, it will become easier for you to explain your products. Prospective customers don’t know what your product is until you explain it to them.

The better you do at explaining your product, the more people will buy it.

The way you effectively communicate your message depends on your niche and the message itself. However, copywriting will help you in this leg of the journey. There aren’t many blog posts on this blog that deal with copywriting, so I’ll end this portion of the blog post with two notes:

When it comes to copywriting, Ray Edwards is the man.
This blog post on CopyBlogger has awesome insights about copywriting.

#6: Seize The Game Changing Opportunities

When you see an opportunity that you believe has the potential to lead to rapid growth, jump on that opportunity. I first heard about Periscope on the day it came out. I saw the potential in the social network and decided to create an account.

I did some scopes and then largely went dormant on the social network. Now I’m back on it. The lesson from this story?

I did some scopes on the first day the social network came out. Three days after Periscope’s launch, I was already past 2,000 followers. I was only following 16 people. I stopped because at the time, I wasn’t fully aware of Periscope’s business potential.

In my defense, Periscope at the time was a social network where people broadcasted their puppies and there was always a “What’s in your refrigerator?” comment during the live stream.

Seizing the game changing opportunities when they are still new allows you to reap more of the rewards sooner. Then, once you master the new opportunity, you can move onto the next big opportunity when it comes up (or work on two big opportunities at the same time. It’s entirely up to you).

#7: Look At The Results To See What Works

Once you are utilizing the first six ingredients to success, you are bound to get results—good or bad. The only way you get better results is by analyzing your current results. Analyzing your current results lets you know where and how you can improve.

If that Facebook ad does well because you included/excluded certain countries, and you can see the difference in your results, then you know how to get better results from that Facebook ad. My blog gets a lot of traffic from Twitter. That’s why I spend so much time on Twitter.

My blog traffic from Facebook started picking up ever since I started advertising and posting more often. As a result, I am continuing those activities.

In Conclusion

Online success consists of many ingredients. Making all of these ingredients a part of your business creates the possibility of making a full-time income from your house. The biggest challenge is actually implementing all of these ingredients and making them a part of your business. However, it is a challenge that is worthwhile.

Right now, I want to hear from you. Which of these ingredients to online success do you think is the most important? Do you believe there are other important ingredients in the recipe? What are your thoughts about online success as a whole? Sound off in the comments section below.

What To Do When You Lose Faith In Your Blog

October 5, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Blogging is along, drawn out marathon. Some people question themselves right when the starting gun goes off. Others question themselves on the last mile. While in a marathon you know the finish line’s location, the location of the finish line for blogging (for this analogy, the finish line represents a blogging empire) is unknown. You won’t know where that finish line is until you step on it.

During the journey to a blogging empire, you will encounter some bumps along the way. You may quickly get over some bumps and question yourself on some of the other bumps. When you lose faith in your blog, you need two things:

Inspiration
Clarity

The inspiration is easy to get. Just read some case studies about blogs that suddenly started growing like crazy. This picture is the most inspirational picture I saw throughout my journey.

The only problem with inspiration is that inspiration alone is only a temporary solution. You feel inspired in the moment, but are you ready for the next bump? To be ready for the next bump, you must build upon your clarity.

For your blogging strategy, building your clarity means devising a step by step plan. What are you going to do today to get more blog traffic? What are you going to do tomorrow? What are you going to do throughout the month?

Every week, I take some time to look at my plan and identify different methods I could utilize to get more blog traffic. I now invest in Facebook advertising because it’s having an impact on my blog’s traffic. Spending an hour going through my tweets and analyzing the results for each of those tweets lets me know what I should continue tweeting and what I should stop tweeting.

How did I reach the conclusion of focusing on Twitter and Facebook? The answer is that Twitter is my blog’s main source of traffic, and Facebook has some on and off days. Putting more time towards Facebook now allows me to see more “on days” than “off days.”

Look at what you are doing for your blog right now. See where you are getting your best and worst results. Focus on amplifying the platforms you use to get your best results, and don’t spend as much time on the platforms that yield poor results.

Combine that with some research to discover more ways to get traffic and sales, and you’ll have a strong plan.

At this point, inspiration and clarity are both working for you. These two ingredients are enough to get you through a few days feeling the blogger’s high. However, there is one more piece to the puzzle. Let me give you a hint:

Any plan that looks good is just theoretically good.

You can’t say a plan is good until it brings in the results. A plan to bring in money isn’t the same as actually bringing in money. Implementing the plan lets you see how good that plan actually is.

I created a plan for profiting from Facebook ads and growing my audience with Page like ads. For an entire week, I was anxious about the plan. Even though I knew the plan was good, I had no idea what would happen. Plans are theoretical, not reality. However, plans let you tackle reality more effectively.

After you create your step by step action plan, act upon it. Don’t wait for next week to get started. Get started now. If you get started now and keep at it every day, it doesn’t take long for a plan to turn into a habit. An effective plan that gets implemented habitually spells out success.

So how do you go about implementing your own plan? The answer is to start small and build your way up. If you consider Facebook ads for your business, it doesn’t take long to understand how confusing it could get. There are more than a dozen different ads you can create and advanced audience targeting tools.

So I decided to only create a Facebook ad for getting more Page Likes. I knew that to make a profit on Facebook, I would need more than that one ad, but I needed to get started. Focusing on that ad for a few days allowed me to learn a lot about Facebook advertising. I quickly got the cost down to $0.01 per like and got over 10,000 likes in my first month. I aspire to surpass 100,000 Facebook likes by the end of the year.

Only after I understood the Facebook Page Like ad did I start utilizing other Facebook ads. You can’t have a blogging plan that takes you from zero visitors to 100,000 visitors in one year. However, you can have a plan for getting 1,000 visitors in your first month. You can create a plan that allows you to scale your growth month by month so you eventually get 100,00 visitors in one year.

In Conclusion

The blogging journey has its triumphs and bumps along the way. It is how you get through the bumps that determines how likely you are to become successful. Starting with accomplishing a small goal gives you the small win. Putting a string of small wins together results in long-term success.

Successful blogging requires inspiration, clarity, and taking action. Until a plan gets implemented, that plan is theoretical. No matter how good a plan seems on paper, the power of that plan is determined by the implementation.

How do you stay strong through challenging times with your blog? Which of these tips was your favorite? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To ACTUALLY Make Money On Social Media

October 2, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

The answer is that there are plenty of ways to make money on social media. You can promote sponsored posts and tweet affiliate links. However, those aren’t long-term methods to make money on social media.

So how do you make a good profit from your social media efforts? The answer is to view social media as an indirect way of generating a massive amount of sales.

This is the three step formula to using social media to indirectly boost your sales:

#1: Promote Your Landing Page To Grow Your Email List

Grow your email list on social media consists of two basic steps:

Build the relationship
Create the call to action

Most people only focus on building the relationship. The reason some people don’t see themselves growing their email lists is because they don’t create the call to action.

Every day, I promote my landing page several times per day. I promote one of my landing pages on Facebook every day. On Twitter, I tweet about my landing page every hour. Each social media post that promotes your landing page is a call to action.

If you don’t have a landing page yet, they are easy to create with Optimize Press. Optimize Press is the best WordPress plugin known to man because it lets you create landing pages, membership sites, and just about everything else.

#2: Use Your Email List To Strengthen The Relationship

Now you have people on your email list. What happens next? Relationship building.

While social media is great for building relationships, nothing beats email. Conversations get longer and more meaningful. People are used to seeing your content often and get to know you better.

As you continue growing and communicating with your email list, you will start to become an authority within your niche.

To make a full-time income as an entrepreneur, you need a massive email list. That way, you have your own audience. As you continue to grow your audience, you will continue gaining momentum. A constantly growing audience allows each of your product launches to be more successful than the last.

Speaking of products…

#3: Promote Products To Your Email List

The popular saying on the web is that “The Money Is In The List.” However, if you don’t promote any products to your subscribers, then you won’t make any money.

While you provide your subscribers with free value, you must send the occasional promotional email. Every 6-12 weeks, let your subscribers know about the product you recently launched. If you don’t create products, you can promote someone else’s product through an affiliate link.

Bonus Tip: Feed The Beast

Each time I accomplish a major goal, I always ask myself, “What’s Next?” I celebrate the goal for a day and then look at new horizons. When you make the revenue from your email list, you should set your eyes on new horizons as well.

One thing you should consider doing with your extra revenue is to invest it into online advertising (newspaper ads are just about dead). Social media advertising makes it possible to turbocharge your landing page’s exposure which results in more people on your email list.

If you know how to make a profit following a certain blueprint, it only makes sense to feed the beast. If you can spend $1 to make $5, why not spend $1,000 to make $5,000?

Once you master the three step formula, I recommend you take a look at social media advertising. Social media advertising is a way for you to scale up your results and success.

In Conclusion

To make a full-time income on social media, you can’t think of it as direct income. You can’t use social media to directly promote affiliate links and sales pages. People aren’t going on social media thinking about buying things.

They go on social media to socialize with friends and catch up with the latest news. Some social media users are on the search for valuable information, but when on social media, they don’t have their wallets out.

But they do have an email address ready to go. If you create a landing page with an irresistible offer, people will enter their email addresses and join your list. Then, you can build the relationship with a series of emails.

While people aren’t looking to buy stuff on social media, they are more open to buying products that show up in the inbox. Chances are at some point, an email you opened inspired you to buy something. You may have recently bought something you saw in your inbox a few weeks ago.

The reason emails lead to sales is because the way we communicate builds a sense of trust. If we authentically show up in someone’s inbox long enough those people will trust us. They will believe in the value our products provide. Then they will buy those products and tell their friends about them.

How do you use social media to generate revenue? Do you have experience with social media advertising? Sound off in the comments section below!

Five Social Networks That People Give Up On Too Quickly

September 30, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Facebook and Twitter dominate most conversations about social media. People are looking for ways to get more Twitter followers, more comments on Facebook posts, and turning all of that into a profit.

It’s great that we focus on these social networks. However, as we tunnel vision our focus on 1-2 social networks, we forget about the other social networks that surround us.

The key to my success on social media was focusing on Twitter. However, that wasn’t enough. Focusing on Twitter and thriving on the platform only gave me a strong base, not a skyscraper. I got the skyscraper by addressing other social networks that are often forgotten about.

The reason certain social networks get neglected from a business standpoint is because we want quick results. How do you spend $1 today so you make $2 tomorrow? How do we add some extra zeroes to those numbers? That’s how entrepreneurs think.

While it’s good to focus on the profit, not all profits come in the short-term. The profits people dream of come in the long-term. Growing your audience on multiple social networks (and outsourcing the work) is a great way to grow in the long-term.

The long-term growth on any social network can lead to better results. However, five social networks often find themselves pushed to the side. Either we ignore them or don’t focus enough time on them. Here’s the complete list:

#1: Pinterest

Pinterest boasts over 70 million users and over 50 billion pins. These users are very active, and some of these users spend hours of their time on the site every day. Pinterest makes it possible to organize your social media posts (pins) into different categories (boards). That makes it easier for your followers to find specific content they are looking for.

Other than effective organization, Pinterest has another factor that separates it from most social networks. 80% of pins are repins. That means it’s easier to go viral. One of the pins I sent to my 500 followers ended up getting over 1,000 repins. The pin reached beyond my audience. Just to give you a comparison of Pinterest’s viral power, only 1% of tweets are retweets.

I eventually grew my audience to 22,000 followers. Then I neglected my Pinterest account. It took too much time. The solution to the problem was outsourcing the work to someone from UpWork. Pinterest is a powerful but also time consuming social network. Consider delegating pins and your account’s growth to someone else.

#2: SlideShare

SlideShare has been praised by many marketers and some of the world’s most successful blogs, including Mashable.

So what’s all of the hype about? SlideShare is a social network that lets you upload KeyNote and PowerPoint presentations. The best part about SlideShare is that you don’t need a large audience for your presentation to go viral. Some viral SlideShare presentations were created by people with a few dozen followers. You don’t even need millions of followers on your other social networks.

Perhaps the most powerful use of SlideShare is growing your email list. My friend Steve Scott wrote a blog post discussing SlideShare’s dramatic impact on his email list.

The reason most people don’t invest their time into SlideShare is because it takes a long time to create a presentation. Let alone creating multiple presentations every week. The best way to utilize SlideShare is by outsourcing the work to someone else. Steve Scott outsources his SlideShare presentations to an assistant. It’s a time efficient way to take advantage of a big opportunity.

#3: Periscope

Periscope is the new social network in town. New social networks create two groups of people—the highly skeptical people and the people in search of the next opportunity. I joined Periscope early and ended up getting over 2,000 followers in my first week.

Mastering any social network takes time, but the reason people shy away from Periscope are a bit different:

It’s new
People are afraid of messing up live (no redoing a broadcast)
Real-time engagement looks scary the first time

For some people, using Periscope challenges them to conquer the fear of live recording. And conquering that fear can be quite profitable. Periscope expert Kim Garst has made thousands of dollars promoting her products on Periscope. One of her Periscope broadcasts resulted in an extra 180 subscribers overnight.

And she got those results with a little over 10,000 Periscope followers. It’s not incredibly difficult or time consuming to reach 10,000 Periscope followers. You can even get significant results with your first 1,000 Periscope followers.

The social network presents new opportunities for business owners. However, since it’s still new, most people make the mistake of pushing it to the side. Don’t be one of those people.

#4: YouTube

Shocked to find one of the largest social networks on this list? YouTube has proven itself as a worthy social network again and again. We hear the stories about the people who make six figure incomes from their videos.

As awesome as those stories are, there is a disappointing reality. Most of the people who use YouTube aren’t taking it seriously. Maybe they upload a decent video every month (or worse, every other month). I know some people succeed by uploading one YouTube video every other month, but those people are the exceptions, not the rule.

For some marketers, YouTube is the sleeping giant. Wake up the giant by being active and growing your channel, and that giant will bring in the results.

#5: Instagram

Instagram is more than a social network for teens. It’s emerging as one of the top players. With just as many users as Twitter, Instagram needs to be taken seriously.

For a long time, it has been challenging for marketers to take Instagram seriously. Anyone like me with an active blog typically spends more time on the desktop than on mobile devices. While Instagram is mobile savvy, you can’t exactly call it desktop savvy.

Then the tools caught up. HootSuite now makes it possible for us to schedule Instagram pictures from our desktops. This makes it possible to do the following:

Schedule pictures you create on your desktop (i.e. pictures created with Canva that are optimized for Instagram’s dimension size)
Outsource the work (assign it to someone on your organization’s HootSuite team)

These two possibilities have changed the Instagram landscape. It’s now possible to schedule Instagram photos in a free and easy manner. Scheduling Instagram photos is now as easy as scheduling tweets.

Instagram is continuing to grow. Don’t miss the boat.

In Conclusion

Billions of people are on the web. Many of these people have social media accounts. With all of the social networks on the web, some fall under the cracks. Businesses forget to utilize certain social networks that can turbocharge their growth.

The best way to utilize a social network is by mastering it and then outsourcing the work. That way, you get to spend your time doing other things for your business.

Which social networks are you underutilizing? Have any tips for us so we don’t underutilize these social networks as much? Sound off in the comments section below!

Five Ways To Get Your Joy Back

September 28, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Entrepreneurship has its ups and downs. On some days, you will feel invincible. On other days, you will struggle. It’s the nature of the game. Just ask any entrepreneur.

Successful entrepreneurs have two things in common. The first thing they all have in common is persistence. It has been a well-known fact that entrepreneurs need to have persistence. You’ve heard stories about Dr. Seuss getting denied by dozens of publishers, Steve Jobs getting kicked out of Apple, and Mark Cuban hunting for any job he could find before he became a full-time entrepreneur.

The other thing successful entrepreneurs have in common doesn’t get as much attention. Some people refer to this second thing as following your passion. To be more specific, it’s joy. Entrepreneurs enjoy what they do.

Successful entrepreneurs enjoy their work so much that they couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Asked whether they want to do their work today or hang out with Taylor Swift, all entrepreneurs choose their work (okay fine, that one was a big stretch. I’m shutting down my computer if I had the option).

At some point, the road to success will challenge our foundation. Our enjoyment will be put to the test. For some entrepreneurs in the thick of the road, work that was enjoyable for several weeks may suddenly appear as dull and boring.

The work doesn’t suddenly look dull and boring. The problem is a lack of joy that once existed. Each time you reclaim your joy, you’ll love your work again. Throughout my journey, I discovered that I perform at my best over a long period of time when my joy does not elude me.

With joy, there’s no reason to feel bad about yourself and focus on the shortcomings. Regardless of whether you feel joyful now or disappointed with where you are, you need a bullet-proof system that ensures joy.

Here’s what I have been able to come up with:

#1: Write Down All Of The Things You Accomplished In The Past Five Years

One of the biggest reasons people lose their joy is because they look into the ideal future too much. We focus more on the next milestone than the recently surpassed milestone.

For a long time, that was me. When I got my first 100,000 Twitter followers, I was ecstatic. When I surpassed 110,000 Twitter followers, I focused on surpassing 200,000 Twitter followers some day.

It’s good to set big goals for yourself. However, we rarely stop and take some time to acknowledge what we have already accomplished. We rarely take the time to stop and smell the roses. Maybe we should listen to the Travelocity gnome more often!

The first time I did this activity, I realized how much I had accomplished in the past five years. Writing all of the accomplishments between my 12th birthday and a few months after my 17th birthday allowed me to realize what I had accomplished.

I stopped and smelled the roses. And it was enjoyable. Every day, I look at this list of accomplishments, and it reminds me to enjoy my work. On this list, I did not write any of my shortcomings. I only focused on my accomplishments.

#2: Listen To A Favorite Song

There are certain songs, that no matter how many times I listen to them, I still enjoy them. And they make me happy. I’ve listened to some of these songs at the end of rough days. After listening to those songs, I always go to bed happy.

You need to create a list of songs that you would play to get you through a rough patch. The problem with rough patches is that when they are unattended, those patches turn into ditches. When you feel your joy slowly slipping away, play some of your favorite songs.

And don’t rely on the radio to play your favorite song. I look for the YouTube videos of my favorite songs and listen to them that way. Listening to your favorite songs will also help you during workouts. Speaking of workouts…

#3: Workout Every Day

Before I talk about working out, I want to clear one major point of concern. You don’t have to work as hard as LeBron James to get your joy back. Both a simple 5-10 minutes of stretching and shooting a basketball for a few hours will boost your joy. If you want to become a basketball player though, opt for the latter.

I make it a point to run for an hour on most days. If I don’t run, I am shooting the basketball around and chasing my rebounds with the occasional hot streak. When I return from a workout, I feel happier and more energized. Numerous scientific studies confirm that working out releases chemicals within our bodies that make us happier.

When we lose the joy of working, the last thing you should do at that moment is continue working. Many people decide to trudge through the work just to get it done. This is the worst way to approach your work. The work that matters is more than a task on your to-do list.

In my experience, the best way to release stress is by working out. When I run, I’ll take my iPhone with me so I can listen to my favorite songs.

#4: Break Loose From The Workload

Working out is a temporary fix to breaking loose from the workload. Breaking loose from the workload requires you taking a vacation from your work (minimum of one week). Entrepreneurs don’t become successful because they work 24/7.

And yet most people believe working 24/7 is an integral part of the process. You’ll hear entrepreneurs joke that they were working 25/8 or that we give up the 40 hour/week job so we can work 80 hours every week.

While it’s true entrepreneurs need to put in a lot of work, too much work can hurt. If you put in too much work, your productivity will diminish over time. If you work too long, you become less productive.

Even the super humans need breaks. Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo!, is one of the most productive people on the planet. When she worked for Google, she worked for close to 130 hours every week. That’s not a typo. It comes to a little over 18 and a half hours per day. She’s a super human.

But even Marissa Mayer believes in occasionally breaking loose from the workload. Every four months, she will take a one week vacation and get away from the workload. You should do the same. Just take a week off. Start outsourcing some of the work so your business can function without you.

You need to break loose every once in a while. You deserve it.

#5: Eat Salmon (Or Any Meal Proven To Increase Happiness)

The food we eat impacts our happiness. For the carnivores reading this blog post, do you feel happier eating a giant piece of steak or a bowl of peas? Unless you are a vegetarian, you’d probably opt for the steak.

According to science, eating some foods make us feel happier than eating other foods. There are several articles that talk about this topic and list different foods that make us happier. After reading a bunch of these articles, I discovered to my delight that one meal found its way on virtually every list.

SALMON!

I am the only person in my family who likes salmon. All of the salmon that enters my house is guaranteed to end up on my plate. Thinking about it now makes me salivate the taste and the (in my opinion) fresh smell.

I know if I said this at an event, some people would stand up, say salmon tastes disgusting, and complain about the smell.

Luckily, salmon isn’t the only food that boosts happiness. Fruits, vegetables, and green tea are some of the other options. Being more conscious of what ends up on your plate will allow you to live a happier, healthier life.

In Conclusion

Entrepreneurship is a challenging road filled with twists and turns. Some twists and turns will lead to dead ends and detours. However, at the end of the road is a massive treasure chest waiting for you. Going on the right path requires constant joy in what you do. When you find yourself going off-track, pause and reflect. Bring the joy back. Then continue on the right path.

Which of these tips did you like the most? Have any additional tips for boosting and preserving joy? Sound off in the comments section now!