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The First Day…

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The first day I launched this blog, it got 0 visitors.

The first day I created my Twitter account, it had 0 followers.

The first day Jeff Bezos decided to start Amazon, he had no customers or forklifts.

The first day Steve Jobs decided to create the Apple, no one was paying attention.

The first day is always the most challenging. We often look at the people before us who have become very successful. We look at the Jeff Bezoses and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world wondering if we will ever get there. If you make it through the first day, your chances of making it through the entire week will go up. When you make it through the entire week, your chances of making it through the entire month go up. Then, you keep on sticking with something for many years, and you eventually become the next success story.

This Is All Too Much For Me

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When I was going into my sophomore year, I decided to take several honors courses including an AP course. While I have been successfully able to maintain my blog for most of the school year, school is becoming more challenging. I have been assigned more homework than ever before as the quarter comes to an end. In addition, I will be studying intensely for finals because I am on the border line of B+ or A for many of my courses. In order to get A’s for my courses, I will have to pay more attention to my schoolwork than my blog, Twitter account, and business ventures.

Sending out blog posts takes up a large portion of my time, and by writing more blog posts, I have found less time to study throughout the day. I will still be able to blog over the summer, but if I end up with B+’s, I will not be able to undo those. For the sake of getting A’s instead of B+’s, I will be giving up blogging and using any of my social networks from now until the start of summer.

Blogging has created an overwhelming schedule which I can no longer deal with. In the end, I am doing research and writing blog posts for a combined total of 3 hours every day. Combined with extracurricular activities and high level courses, writing blog posts has become more of a chore than a hobby. In addition, my grades keep on dropping as I write more blog posts. This change is necessary for the safety of my grades. I am sorry to disappoint the people who have been reading this blog for a while, but I’m throwing up the white flag.

Before I give everyone my final farewell until the start of summer, I would like you to do one thing. Please look at the date on which this blog post was published. If you were afraid that my blog would remain dormant for two months, you have nothing to worry about. Blogging is a passion of mine. I’m here to stay, not give in.

 

5 Lessons I Have Learned As A HARO Journalist

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I have been working long and hard on my book Lead The Stampede which will be coming out in the summer. A big component of many business books is the examples of others. In order to get examples to add to my book, I decided to use HARO. Ever since submitting my query, I was able to learn a lot about HARO. These are the five lessons I learned from submitting that query. Some apply specifically to HARO while others apply to everyone in any business.

  1. Early bird gets the worm. The first person who submits a response to your query goes on the top of a giant list, and the late person who submits a response to your query goes on the bottom of the giant list. Early people get seen first (but don’t worry, I view all of the applications).
  2. It’s okay to ask for help. Instead of searching for people one by one, I decided to use HARO in order to spread the word. In the end, I got close to 20 qualifying responses in a day!
  3. Include a link to your blog. I choose to identify “www.marcguberti.com” as the media outlet. By doing so, people were able to see the entire URL. Traffic to my blog almost doubled that day, and my blog traffic did not see a one hit wonder. The extra traffic stuck around.
  4. Find multiple avenues for free quality traffic. Using HARO helped me get more examples to add to Lead The Stampede. HARO also increased my blog traffic. HARO just became another avenue for me to get free quality traffic.
  5. Be patient. When I sent out my first query on HARO, I did not know what to expect. My first HARO query was sent out in the morning, and I got 1 response within 30 minutes. Then, it slowed down. I ended up with 5 responses in 4 hours. Once the afternoon came along, I ended up getting more responses and was up to 20 before the end of the day. Patience pays off.

Those are the 5 lessons I learned when I sent out my first query on HARO officially making me a HARO journalist. For those of you who have received many HARO emails, you can find my query in the Business & Finance morning section sent out on March 8, 2014.

Have you used HARO before?

 

7 Reasons You Should Create Your Own Blog

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Blogging has become big over the years. Ever since Carolyn’s Diary which was created in 1995, blogging has evolved dramatically. There are billions of blogs on the web, and that number will continue to grow. However, not everyone has a blog. In this blog post, I am going to tell you the 7 reasons why you should create your own blog…right…now.

  1. Blogging is growing. There are billions of blogs on the web and over 150,000 blogs are being created every day. Blogging is not a fad. Blogging is something made to stick.
  2. You can write about (almost) anything. Writing can be a lot of fun if you decide what you write about. With blogging, you get to make all of the decisions about what your content is all about.
  3. Blogs will give your brand a boost. A brand with a blog is more professional than a brand without a blog. Think of the last time you encountered a brand that did not have a blog, website, or social networks. It’s hard to think of the last time that happened.
  4. Some blogs provide a full-time income for bloggers. Some people make a full-time income from their blogs. Some people have even gone from rags to riches because of their blogs.
  5. Blogging is a comfortable lifestyle. Imagine being able to call of the shots. Imagine being able to schedule your own day instead of being forced to work from 9 to 5. Blogging gives you a ticket out of the unchangeable schedule. Blogging will give you the flexibility that you never thought was possible.
  6. You can create a list. That list of people can turn into subscribers, followers, and customers. The bigger your lists are, the better the possibilities are.
  7. Blogging gives you responsibility. Remember when the most important thing to do in elementary school was become responsible? Blogging gives you the power of responsibility. Your success as a blogger is dependent on the amount of work you put in. While many jobs have set wages (with the occasional raise for certain individuals), the amount of money a blogger can make can go up dramatically as the months and years go by.

Those are the 7 reasons why you should create your own blog. What are your thoughts about these reasons? Do you have any additional reasons to create a blog? Share your thoughts below.

How To Get Famous People In Your Niche To Talk To You

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A great way to get more attention on the big web is by getting someone to give you the shoutout…or at least have a conversation with a famous person in your niche. However, having conversations with famous people is not an easy task to complete. While some are impossible to contact, others are more than willing to respond to your tweets. In order to get the famous people in your niche to talk with you on Twitter, follow these steps:

  1. Find out who might talk with you. If you see someone engaging with their followers, that person is very likely to have a conversation with you. Other famous people send out pre-scheduled tweets and never talk with their followers. Contacting those people will not result in a response.
  2. Retweet and favorite some of that person’s tweets. When retweeting and favoriting another person’s tweets, do this on a consistent basis. Retweeting 5 of a famous person’s tweets on one day and forgetting to retweet or favorite any other tweets for the rest of the week will result in that famous person being less likely to see what you did. When I want to get in touch with someone, I am retweeting and favoriting one of that person’s tweets every day. In order to get noticed the most, either tweet old (but still relevant tweets) that were once popular or retweet tweets that few people have engaged on. Only retweeting the new stuff will mix you in with the other people who want the same attention or just love what the person tweets.
  3. Ask a question. If I want to get in touch with a social media expert, I ask a question about social media. Not only does my question get answered, but I get a response from a famous person in my niche.
  4. Respond quickly. Once you have the famous person’s attention, you don’t want to lose it. The quicker you respond, the longer the conversation continues. If the conversation continues long enough, that famous person may decide to engage in your tweets and chat with you regularly.

By following this pattern, you will be able to get famous people in your niche to respond to and engage in your tweets. What do you think of the pattern? Do you have any other suggestions to add? Share your thoughts below.

 

How To Figure Out If You Can Make It Big On Social Media

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For this question, there is a shirt size that fits all. In order to find out if you can make it, you need to identify why you are Googling terms like “How to get more followers.” The people who Google this phrase so they can end up with a big number are the people who won’t make it. These people will quickly be discouraged when they are only gaining 2 followers every day (in the beginning).

There are other people who search the phrase because they want to build a following for the sake of interaction and engagement. These are the people who are more likely to make it big on social media. These are the people who understand that interacting with your followers and having good engagement is better than having a big number.

The big number is something that everyone wants. The big difference between the successful and unsuccessful on social media is that the unsuccessful people focused on the number while the successful people focused on interaction. The successful people are able to interact with their followers and gradually build a targeted, quality following. Other people prefer to buy followers to make the number bigger which is the worst mistake anyone on Twitter can make.

If you want to figure out if you can make the cut, ask yourself how you view your followers. Do you view a follower as a number, or do you view a follower as someone you can engage with in a conversation?