Marc's Blog

5 Ways To Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

August 11, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Many people visit your LinkedIn profile before they decide whether to connect with you or not. People look at your profile to decide whether they are going to send one of their 3,000 invitations for you to connect with them. That means your profile needs to look nice and spiffy to bring in more connections. So how does that happen? How can your profile attract people and get them to connect with you? Here are five ways to do that:

Make sure your picture on LinkedIn is professional. Although not recommended, you could possibly get away with an unprofessional picture on Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn is completely different. It is a social network in which professional business people connect with each other. Make sure you are wearing a tie and buttoned down collared shirt and having someone else take the picture so your LinkedIn profile shines.
Write a longer bio. Your bio represents who you are. If you have a short bio, visitors may believe that there is not much to know about you. Having a long bio tells your visitors that you have an interesting life and numerous accomplishments.
Have a blog. There are more reasons than ever to have your own blog. Having a blog gives you your own home on the web and boosts your credibility. It seems as if more people and organizations on LinkedIn than ever have their own blogs.
Have your own products. Having your own products is another way to make you look professional. A product tells people that you have enough expertise to create a product out of it. If you don’t have your own products, create them.
Include your location. It is okay for people to know what city you live in. People are shy of sharing their location because of the potential risk. You are still safe by sharing the city you live in. The only way someone could pinpoint your exact location is if they knew your address which is something that should not be put on a LinkedIn profile (unless the address is for a business). Including this in your LinkedIn profile will allow you to connect with people nearby, and you will appear in LinkedIn’s search engine more often.

Those are the five ways to improve your LinkedIn profile. Which methods on the list are your strengths and which ones are the weaknesses? Do you know of any other methods out there to improving a LinkedIn profile? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

I’m On A Mission To Change The World By Empowering One Teen At A Time

August 10, 2014 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

Teenager Entrepreneur

For a very long time, there were many things that I did not take as seriously as I do now. I did not take my Twitter account or blogs seriously until I went into what I call the grow your powerful presence on the web niche. It was at that moment when I started to consider taking blogging and social media very seriously, and then it took off.

For a very long time, I did not take my expertise seriously either. I published my first book later than I would have liked. Then, I published a few other books but never decided to promote them. In addition, I never thought of creating my own training course even when the tools to do such as Udemy and Optimize Press were staring right at me. Now I promote those products often (especially on my blog’s sidebar).

I have over 100,000 Twitter followers, over 100,000 all-time blog views, and aspire to make a six figure income very soon. However, after looking past all of the numbers and being able to see the big picture, I have a new aspiration as well. This aspiration is the most aspiration I have ever pursued, and it may very well be the most important aspiration I pursue in my entire life.

I want to change the world.

Sure, there are plenty of ways to change the world. Steve Jobs changed the world with Apple’s high quality products while Mark Zuckerberg changed the world by making communication easier than ever. There are more examples throughout history of people changing the world, and I want to become a part of that history. In particular, I want to become a part of that history by transforming teenagers into entrepreneurs with their own thriving products, services, and businesses.

The biggest reason why most people are unable to unlock their potential is because they get trapped in the status quo. Many people believe that they cannot pursue their dreams until they get out of college. By that time, these individuals want to live on their own and go for the short-term money by joining the status quo, entrepreneurialism’s Darth Vader. Many of today’s entrepreneurs get out of the status quo in their 30’s or 40’s, but most people stay in the status quo because it is their only option.

What is the solution to this problem? Is the solution to go to a good university or just spend more money on lottery tickets? Absolutely not. No matter how good a university is or how many lottery tickets you buy, that means nothing unless you have the right mindset. Some of the people who graduated Harvard, Stanford, and the other prestigious universities ended up becoming billionaires (there were a lot more millionaires though). However, there were some people who graduated from these schools that currently cannot find jobs, are in debt, or have a combination of the two. The people who did get jobs may be good wage, but they are still stuck in the status quo with no control over their schedule.

I want to stop that from happening. I want to live my life the way I want to live it, and there is no reason why someone or organization should stop me from doing that. I should be able to take a four week vacation, work on my own schedule, and change the world.

That is the main reason why my brother and I founded Teenager Entrepreneur, a business that empowers teens with the knowledge they need to be successful at a young age. In less than a week, our students were able to go from the typical teen to teens who create their own products and frequently add new content to their blogs.

I’m sure it is easy to find an inspirational quote like, “It’s never too late to start,” on the web. The next book I was going to start writing would have been Twitter Domination, but I am bumping that book back for that exact reason. The next book I am going to write is It’s Never Too Early To Start, and the message I am going to convey in this book is that any teenager can become successful.

There’s no release date for It’s Never Too Early To Start yet, but when it comes out, it’s going to create a ruckus and redefine what is possible for teenagers around the world.

5 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Social Media

August 10, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

In the thick waters of competition, many people want to do everything in their power to ignore the competition. Every competitor is rushing so quickly to rise above the other competitors that they forget to look around. Believe it or not, there are many things you can learn from your competition, and there are five things you can learn about them from social media.

How to get more followers. Your top competitors are getting more followers every day than the average people. Chances are these competitors know a trade secret that few people know about. You can dig for articles about them on the internet to find out their secret method, and it works. As you become better at picking up on social media strategies, you will not need to search through as many articles. I know exactly how people get 1 million likes on Facebook, but it involves a lot of advertising.
How to get more engagement. We have all learned at some point in our lives that some social media posts are better than others. Some of your competitors are getting more engagement than others. The competitors who are getting the most engagement are the ones you need to look at carefully. How are they putting it off? Is a giveaway the answer, a powerful article, motivational quote, or something else?
What kind of content to post. All you need to do for this part is browse through your competitors’ timelines. When you browse through these timelines, pay special attention to the posts that get the most engagement. Do they have anything in common? If so, then that’s something you need to replicate.
Which social networks to use. Some of your top competitors will have their strongest presences on the same social network. Pinterest is a great place for jewelry stores and tech gadget sellers. You can grow a presence on any social network for anything, but some social networks allow you to speed up the growth process based on users’ interests.
How the audience engages. By looking at your top competitors, you will see how a targeted audience engages with them. By knowing how an audience engages, you will be able to provide the type of content that encourages those people to engage with you.

Competitors are constantly striving to push each other down and move up in their stampedes. However, if one person takes some time to analyze the leaders of the stampede, that person will be able to develop the same mindset and implement the same tactics as the leaders. Soon enough, that person will move closer to the front of the stampede, not the ones who constantly try to push each other around.

5 Reasons Why SEO Is Completely Overrated

August 9, 2014 by Marc Guberti 12 Comments

SEO has been praised by many people as a way to get hundreds of daily visitors. In fact, some blogs get thousands of daily visitors from SEO, but there are certain details about SEO that many of the experts leave out. I now get hundreds of daily visitors from SEO alone, but that only happened when I did not focus most of my attention on SEO. I know; very ironic.

I have come to a conclusion. While it is good to do some SEO, it is completely overrated. Some people think of SEO as an easy to access gold mine, but it is anything but that. The only way you land in that gold mine is by driving a clown car and falling into it. Maybe I’m just adding another flavor to Mark Zuckerberg’s comment about Twitter, but that is really what happens with SEO. Ultimately, it’s overrated, and here’s why.

SEO takes a boat load of time to build up. It took me almost two years before I got hundreds of daily visitors from the search engines. Some people take even longer.
My SEO traffic only went up when my social media traffic went up. I’m not going to question that it also takes a long time to build up social media traffic. It took me 993 days to reach my first 100,000 Twitter followers. However, by building your social media presence, you will be hitting two birds with one stone. In addition, once you build your social media audience the first time, it becomes easier over time. Although it took me 993 days to get 100,000 Twitter followers, I can now reach the same milestone in less than 200 days. When I reach 200,000 Twitter followers, I expect to get the same feat accomplished in under 150 days.
Learning SEO takes up too much time. Most people browse through dozens of SEO articles to learn how to boost their SEO. All you need to do is read this article about SEO, and you will have all of the basic knowledge about SEO that you need.
By focusing on SEO, you are competing with millions of other articles. There are millions of articles on the web that are about the same topic as your blog post. By only focusing on SEO, you are competing with the millions of other articles on the search engines. Building a powerful social media presence allows you to escape relying on being on top of this competition. In addition, a powerful social media presence will allow you to eventually end up on the first page of search engines.
Many people strive for SEO more than social media traffic. Many people are implementing tactics to enhance their blogs’ SEO without giving social media a glance. Many of these people have fewer than 1,000 followers on their social networks, but when it comes to bounce rate, catchy headlines, and tags, these people know what they are doing. The result is no blog traffic because SEO needs a big push, social media traffic, in order to bring in more traffic for your blog.

Those are the five reasons why SEO is completely overrated. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips and advice? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

UPDATE: Looking back at this article, I realize SEO traffic is important, but still overrated. Boosting your social media audience and getting more social shares boosts SEO, so I believe focusing on social media is the better strategy. I’ve read more blog posts from QuickSprout so I know SEO is important, but regardless of what stream you use to boost traffic, valuable content is critical towards any blog’s success.

Think You’re Cut Out For Blogging? Take This Quiz

August 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

Blogging Quiz

One of my favorite toys to play with as a kid was the 20Q toy. I enjoyed how I could respond to 20 questions, and somehow the 20Q toy would always know what I was thinking about. I decided to mix the 20Q toy with my love of blogging to come up with a 20 question quiz to determine whether you are cut out for blogging–and being successful at it–or not.

Can you write blog posts every day for many years to come? The right answer is yes.
Do you believe your traffic will dramatically increase overnight? The right answer is no.
How long will it take for your blog to become popular? The right answer is at least one year.
Are you writing about what you enjoy? The right answer is yes.
Is a blog merely a place to promote a product? The right answer is no.
Is a blog a place to show ads? The right answer is no (more on this here)
Will you trade in your passion for money? The right answer is no.
Will you treat blogging as a hobby? The right answer is not forever. It will become more than that.
Would you blog even if you knew you wouldn’t make any money from it? The right answer is yes. It takes some bloggers a few years before seeing a huge profit.
Would you write a blog post late into the night if you had to? The right answer is yes. If you enjoy blogging enough, writing late into the night won’t be a problem.
Do you read books? The right answer is yes.
Are you only blogging for the money? The right answer is no.
Do you want to avoid making mistakes? The right answer is no. We all make mistakes anyway. As hard as it is to believe, I make mistakes too (okay, my ego got the best of me there).
Do you envision your blog becoming successful? The right answer is yes.
Do you want to be an author? The right answer is yes. If you want to be an author, then you would also make for a really good blogger.
Are you blogging just to get more traffic? The right answer is no.
Is blog traffic more important than having fun writing the content? The right answer is no.
Are you happy with where you are? As long as you keep on growing and never settle, it’s great to be happy with where you are. If you settle, there’s a problem.
Do you set goals for yourself? The right answer is yes.
Would you write for a guest blog? The right answer is yes. This shows you enjoy writing content and getting traffic to the point where you would write for someone else. This will make you a better blogger and writer when you write for your own blog and publish your own books.

If you had the right answers for most of these questions, then you are ready. If you got more than five answers wrong, you need to change your thinking about what it means to have a blog and write blog posts.

How did you do on the quiz?