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10 Social Media Trends To Pay Attention To

September 9, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Social media is always evolving and with each new social media trend comes new opportunities to learn and grow your business.

One of the few things that will remain constant in social media’s ever changing landscape is our desire to master new trends.

Social media has changed a lot. And with each new trend comes more opportunities to learn and grow your business. For example, when I created my Twitter account in 2011, Pinterest wasn’t as big a player.

Live streaming and SnapChat didn’t even exist.

Just to give you an idea of how much social media has changed, here’s a powerful video from Matt Banner that shows just that.

Social media will continue to change rapidly and, as it does, it’s better to get ahead of the game. These are current trends to watch:

#1: SnapChat’s Rise To Power

SnapChat is HOT right now. In 10 seconds or less, you can put a snap on your story. Within that snap, you can provide advice, entertain, or literally anything else that your audience will enjoy.

The cool part is that it only takes 10 seconds or less to record a snap.

But even cooler than that is the platform’s unique capabilities. Now you can take a picture of someone’s SnapChat ID and automatically follow that person.

SnapChat’s communication capabilities mesh texting, video chats and phone calls into one. And people can choose which form of communication they prefer at any given time.

For example, if you are in a public place and prefer to use the text feature, you can still see the person you’re texting via video. During a phone call, you can text links to websites in real-time without losing the connection or sending an email.

SnapChat is probably the most advanced social network right now and it’s giving all of the other social networks a run for their money. There’s really no other social network like SnapChat.

#2: Interaction On A Whole New Level

Interaction means more than responding to or sharing other people’s posts. That form of interaction will remain a constant, but other forms of interaction, such as those available on SnapChat, are gradually gaining popularity.

Similarly, the interacting capabilities of live streaming apps, for example, are increasingly leading us towards real-time, face-to-face interaction.

Maybe some day there will be a social network that turns us all into Martian Manhunters that can read each others’ minds. Indeed, big players in tech are developing emotional recognition technology. And we’ve also got Oculus on the loose.

#3: Live Streaming’s Continued Dominance

Live streaming is making interaction more fun and immediate. I especially like Blab, which allows the guest and audience to post in the chat section.

This way, people can add links directly within the chat section so everyone can click on it, rather than try to remember it.

Don’t expect live streaming to go away anytime soon. It may be tricky to get the hang of in the beginning, but you’ll get better with practice.

#4: Podcasting As The Underdog

With SnapChat, live streaming apps, and other social networks dominating the news, it’s easy to forget about podcasting.

The podcast is the cool kid who never gets invited to parties. Every year, podcasts are gaining in importance and attracting larger audiences.

Podcasting is simply audio. So people often choose YouTube because YouTube it is more popular and visual. But podcasting allows you to tap into the iTunes Podcasts and Stitcher audiences (among others) that you won’t reach with other forms of content.

Better yet, if you prefer YouTube over podcasting, why not convert your videos into MP3 files. It’s a very easy way to repurpose your content. Speaking of repurposing…

#5: Repurposed Pictures

In the past few years, virtually every social network want to be that place where you share your pictures.

And including an image in your tweet or Facebook post generates higher engagement. And Pinterest and Instagram actually require all of your posts to include an image.

More of these types of social networks will come into existence. As a result, content and images will continue getting repurposed. We’ve already seen this happening with blog posts. Tell me if any of these tips sound familiar:

Republish your blog post on LinkedIn Publisher.
Republish your blog post on Medium.
Try to republish your blog post on a guest blog.
Better yet, get your blog republished on a big media outlet like The Huffington Post.
Turn your blog into a video.
Make your blog into a book.
Turn your blog into a podcast.

Images are increasingly getting repurposed. How many times are images shared from Imgur? How many Instagram photos are being shared on Pinterest? Popular images are shared across multiple networks, often without attribution. And as more images become repurposed, there is a greater need for photo optimization tools.

Image-obsessed users are always chasing after the perfect shot and design elements.

#6: The Immortality Of Blog Posts

The only places you hear about blogs dying are on other people’s blogs. I find that funny.

Blogs will never die because they offer users a unique voice and home on the web, and everyone needs that presence on the crowded internet.

Think blogging is dead? Take a look at how many blog posts have been published today. I’ll wait.

#7: More Blog Posts About The New Social Networks

I feel this one is inevitable. There are enough blog posts about Facebook and Twitter to keep you, your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren satisfied for the rest of your lives.

Surprisingly, there still aren’t as many blog posts about SnapChat and live streaming. I actually wrote a blog post about SnapChat recently. And people want more of that information.

People aren’t asking me for Twitter tutorials because many of those already exist (I have also done a lot of them).

SnapChat and live streaming apps will soon be as saturated in terms of content and products as Facebook and Twitter.

And because there are more content producers today, especially user-generated content creators, saturation will happen much faster on new platforms than it did for Facebook and Twitter.

#8: More Outsourcing

With new social networks coming out every year, it’s easier and easier to fall behind the trends. That’s why I have outsourced 95% of my Twitter work.

I continue to interact with my audience and make sure everything is running smoothly, but other than that, I do little else. I outsource the work needed to keep that platform active and content rich.

Naturally, you cannot outsource your own live streams, videos or personal interaction with your audience. But literally everything else offers the possibility of outsourcing.

And without outsourcing, it’s difficult to focus on new social networks and opportunities beyond social media.

Expect outsourcing of social media activities to grow.

#9: Increased Need For Diversification

Each social network competes for our time as well our attention.

YouTube wants to keep us on the platform for as long as possible because the more videos we view, the more money YouTube makes on video ads.

Facebook wants to keep us on their site for hours so they can make a big profit from their advertising network. Same thing with Twitter and other social networks.

“Most of the others.”

That phrase has evolved into hundreds if not thousands of different social networks competing for our time and attention. When we put them all under the social media umbrella, that’s a lot of time and attention commanded by social media alone.

People’s opinions will change. Some people are migrating away from Facebook. Others are migrating away from Twitter. Others won’t even give SnapChat a chance.

No matter what your audience’s preferences are, you always want to be present in their feed.

Increased diversification also increases the amount of times our content and pictures get seen and repurposed, as well as the need for outsourcing to keep up with it all.

Managing that many social networks on my own (in addition to everything else) is too stressful for me to even consider.

#10: Constant Changes In Response To Social Media Trends

Every time a new social network with revolutionary capabilities rolls out, the big players try to copy that social network before it becomes too big.

Remember Meerkat? That live streaming app was hot until Twitter slammed the door shut.

The feud between Meerkat and Twitter got ugly. Twitter cut off Meerkat’s ability to access its social graphs in the eve of Periscope’s launch.

Then Periscope became the big live streaming app. But soon after, Facebook launched Facebook live. YouTube also offers live streaming capabilities.

A while ago, Vine was the revolutionary social network everyone was talking about. The six second infinite loop got all of the hype imaginable.

Then Instagram came out with its 15 second infinite loop videos.

Facebook is currently working on a SnapChat-like app. Expect other social networks to follow.

I don’t like the trend of the big social media players trying to copy the new and emerging social networks. The only reason Facebook didn’t bother copying Instagram is because Facebook ended up buying Instagram.

But it is what it is. In the end, we get more and better choices, but still, copying a social network like SnapChat makes no sense to me. It makes more sense to keep innovating and offering users something new.

In Conclusion

Social media will continue to evolve. And as we continue on our quests to master social media, we will have to take action based on emerging trends.

Those who tap into those trends and take action early will enjoy the most success from new social networks.

What are your thoughts on social media trends? How do you keep up and decide where to spend your energy? See any social media trends on the horizon? Sound off in the comments section below.

3 Ways To Fit Something Into Your Budget

July 22, 2016 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

budget management

Let me know if this has happened to you:

You discover a tool that can help you grow your business. You do some research and decide it’s an awesome tool that can increase your productivity. You’re all in.

But when you go to purchase the tool and see the price, your jaw drops. It will cost you at least $200/month.

You REALLY want this tool, but you simply don’t have room in your budget. Your only hope is to create a void in your budget so you can afford the $200 expenditure.

But how? Here are three ways to make it happen:

#1: Side Hustle

When your income increases, so does your budget. Once way to increase your budget on your own is to side hustle.

Continue to do what you’re already doing: working at your current job or building your online business. But start side hustling for the extra money to buy that $200 tool.

Side hustling lets you make quick revenue from part-time work. Some side hustlers soon find their hustles can even offer a full-time income.

If you discover your side hustle is earning you more revenue than your current job, by all means, consider switching over. But for our purposes, we only need to make enough cash to buy that $200/mo tool.

Freelance work, affiliate marketing, and consultation sessions are three side hustling ventures you can easily pursue. And here are 99 more ways your can side hustle for extra cash.

UPDATE: Are those 99 side hustle ideas not enough. Here are 25 additional side hustle ideas.

Choose an activity that won’t require too much of your time and lets you turn over a quick revenue. The best part of side hustling is the fact that it’s all done on the side.

Many people think they don’t have enough time to side hustle. But that’s a limiting belief. The reality is that we all have far more time than we realize. The way we utilize our time determines how much we actually get done and how we view our capabilities.

#2: Reduce Your Business Costs

If your budget is maxed but you still want to squeeze in an extra $200/mo, start reducing your business expenses.

The more business tools you invest in, the less often each gets used. Make a list of all of the add-ons you’ve bought for your business and analyze the utility of each. You may have completely forgotten about some of the things you’re spending on each month.

I hire several freelancers to help me out with my business. Even with all of their help (which does add up to a lot), I still find myself busy. So busy, in fact, that I often keep paying my freelancers without stopping to determine whether their projects are still in line with my current goals.

As my goals change, so too does the freelance activity I need to meet them. I had made the mistake of paying for work that was no longer relevant, and it took me some time to figure out what, and who, I should cut.

Money down the drain. Just because a freelancer is doing a great job does not mean he/she is helping you meet your objectives.

Pausing contracts with freelancers whose services no longer align with your current activity cuts recurring fees and lowers your expenses.

To optimize the use of your available resources, set performance parameters that reflect your efficiency goals and offer incentives when those goals are met.

Track the ways you’re spending your money and ask yourself if every dollar in your budget is actually moving your business forward in relation to your current goals. More ways to reduce business costs include:

Renting unused physical space in your office.
Consolidating your bank accounts.
Comparing insurance providers for the most competitive rate and asking your current provider to match it.
Don’t take on unnecessary debt.
Cut marketing costs by doing more in-house.
Increase social media use and reduce traditional marketing.
Use efficient time strategies with free productivity apps and software.
Focus on quality (the best way to please customers and increase your bottom line).
Maximize your current employees’ skills.

#3: Get Better Results With What You Already Have

Let’s assume your blog gets 50 visitors a day and earns about $300 per month. You make the money because out of those 50 monthly visitors, six of them will buy your $50 training course (and you make 100% of the profit).

But if you need room in your budget for extra $200/mo, you’ll need to increase your conversions rates. Your blog in this example gets a total of 1,500 monthly visitors, and with six customers, your conversion rate is 0.4%.

But if you optimize your blog to increase your conversion rate to 2%, your monthly customers will also increase — you now have 30 people paying for your training course.

Suddenly you’re making an additional $1200/mo, more than enough to start investing in that $200/mo tool!

You can also add another $50 course to diversify your products. People who wouldn’t have bought your first training course may find the second course is more in line with their needs.

People often focus so much on growth that they forget to monetize their current offerings.

In Conclusion

Always keep track of how much you are spending. Putting money into your business can lead to numerous results. But it’s easy to get so caught up in day-to-day operations that you don’t even realize you are no longer making a return on certain investments.

When you do make the realization, it can create miscommunications and misunderstandings. Set goals and expectations for each expenditure. And frequently check back to see if they are being met.

Many times you’ll get exactly what you wanted and more. But your expenditures should always reflect your goals. And as your goals change, so will the areas in which you spend.

The lag time between changing a goal and acknowledging how that change affects your spending is one of the main reasons why people continue to make unnecessary expenditures. My own lag time has decreased over the years, but it still exists.

The greater that lag, the more money you lose.

Recurring fees are the most damaging. They may be paid automatically and are easy to forget about, especially when each is fairly low. But those minimal fees add up, and your budget will soon be screaming for mercy.

So if you want to buy that awesome $200/mo tool, make room for it by eliminating unnecessary spending. Even better? Review your spending patterns frequently, even before you want to invest in something new and find yourself scrambling to make room for it in your budget.

How do you maintain your budget? Have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

50 Tactics To Grow Your Email List

June 24, 2016 by Marc Guberti 9 Comments

Email List Growth

The digital landscape is always changing right in front of us. More opportunities for growing an email list get presented as the days go by. Live streaming was recently introduced to us a little over a year ago.

Based on the number of articles and videos about live streaming since its existence, it seems as if live streaming apps like Periscope have been around for decades.

It is getting harder and harder for us to imagine life without this changing digital landscape.

No matter how often the digital landscape changes, the story will remain the same. Your email list is your most valuable asset. It’s where the money and ultimate engagement reside.

To grow an email list, you either increase the conversion rate or you get more traffic that gets directed to an opportunity to join your list. Those are the two underlying principles behind all 50 of these tactics.

#1: Create A Bunch Of Landing Pages

HubSpot came out with an article that helped us learn the importance of creating landing pages in bulk. More landing pages means more free offers that people can choose between…and therefore a bigger email list.

If you have Offer A and Offer B, some people won’t like Offer A, but they’ll love Offer B and vice-versa. Now imagine having 40 offers. Your visitor could be non-responsive to 39 of your offers, but as long as the visitor responds to at least one offer, you got another qualified lead on your email list.

Why 40 landing pages? According to the graph from the HubSpot blog post, it’s very helpful to have that many landing pages to achieve optimal growth for your email list.

lead generation

#2: Put A Site Wide Pop-Up On Your Blog

Pop-ups…you either love them or you hate them. Regardless of how you feel about pop-ups, they absolutely work for your email list.

The more your pop-up offer matches your blog’s content, the more subscribers you will get. If people aren’t interested in the pop-up offer, they can simply x out of the pop-up and continue reading the blog post.

#3: Create Udemy Courses

Udemy is a one of those unexpected places for building an email list since it is more known for course building. You can send email blasts to the students enrolled into your courses. You can segment them based on their progress through your course, when they enrolled, and which courses they are enrolled in.

The key to using Udemy to grow your email list is to promote free coupon codes of your courses into Facebook group pages that are specifically for free Udemy coupons. I got over 20,000 students by leveraging this strategy who I can send emails to.

Sending emails to over 20,000 Udemy students is free, but there are some catches. You can only promote your Udemy courses or learning material that students can access without entering personal info (i.e. an email address).

However, you can send these students to your blog posts and YouTube videos with a CTA at the end. Pop-ups are fine too.

#4: Put Your Udemy Courses On SkillShare

If you put your course on Udemy, you might as well put it on SkillShare. You’ll get access to more students who you can email and you’ll also make more revenue.

If you don’t feel like uploading Udemy videos into SkillShare, then hire a trustworthy freelancer. Putting your Udemy courses on SkillShare allows you to get more out of the same work.

#5: Use HelloBar To Promote Your Landing Page

HelloBar is a plugin that allows you to put a message at the top of your blog. Within this message, you can tell people about your landing page offer. Then you get to add a button which links to your landing page.

Since HelloBar rose to fame for putting that message at the very top of a blog, the plugin has added the capability of putting your message on the bottom left, bottom right, top left, or top right for your blog.

I choose to display another offer on the bottom right of my blog.

hellobar

If you are interested in HelloBar, I highly recommend joining here. If you sign up with that link, we both get a free month of HelloBar Pro.

#6: Leverage Your Blog’s Sidebar

The goal of a blog sidebar is to grab attention while presenting a compelling offer. The sidebar won’t be the highest converting part of your blog, but people will remember your offers.

To get more conversions from your sidebar, fill your sidebar up with awesome pictures that feel like a part of the blog post.

Better yet, have different sidebars for different content categories.

When reading Kim Garst’s blog post about Facebook live streaming, she offers her free eBook 27 Killer Facebook Post Ideas 2.0 on the sidebar.

For her blog post about tweeting during live events, she offers her free eBook on Twitter hashtags on the sidebar.

These two free offers promoted on the sidebar are relevant to the blog post. The free offers almost feel like a part of the blog post itself.

#7: Use UpViral To Create A Landing Page

UpViral is a great tool for creating landing pages in a few minutes. They are basic which can sometimes help out with getting conversions.

The magic happens when someone subscribes. They immediately get sent over to a Thank You Page that incentivizes visitors to share the landing page URL.

For my Thank You Page, I encourage people to get more leads. Each person who brings in five leads gets exclusive videos.

upviral thank you page

With this set-up, people now have an incentive to drive more leads to my landing page. The final result is that the people who get access to the three exclusive videos add five people to my email list.

UpViral can identify fraudulent sign-ups (probably based on IP addresses) so you don’t have to worry about people gaming the system just to get the exclusive videos or content that you offer.

#8: Promote Your Landing Pages On Social Media…A Lot

You can’t complete any type of list without saying “promote on social media.” Use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and all of the other social networks that you can think of.

However, don’t just stop at promoting your landing page once in a given day. At least 25% of my social media posts send people over to one of my landing pages.

Most of your social media audience will not see your first post about your landing page. The more times you promote your landing page on social media, the more traffic those landing pages will get from your social media efforts.

#9: Include A CTA In All Of Your YouTube Videos

It’s easy to promote a landing page on most social networks. Write the right copy, include the link, and then post it.

YouTube is a completely different animal. While the description is a great place to promote your landing page similarly to how you would on other social networks, YouTube requires an in-video call-to-action.

At the end of my recent YouTube videos, I have been adding this CTA.

youtube call to action

It leads people to my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter. In the future, I plan on promoting specific landing pages that are very relevant to the video topic.

People who make it to the end of your video appreciate the value you provided. That’s the exact moment you want to provide those viewers with the CTA.

#10: Appear On Other People’s YouTube Channels

Some YouTube channels allow guest contributions similar to guest posts. While these channels are hard to find, it is possible to do a guest video on someone else’s channel where you provide the CTA.

Tim Schmoyer of Video Creators provides this opportunity for people with YouTube tips to share. So far the Video Creators channel is the only channel I have found that allows for this type of collaboration.

#11: Create A Podcast With A CTA

If you checked out my May 2016 Performance Report, then you know that podcasting has taken up a large portion of my time lately.

I have learned all about its potential. Podcasting allows you to share your expertise in the form of audio. In a world fueled by content and video creation, audio is one of the lesser utilized methods of getting traffic.

And if you utilize it well, podcasting can bring in a massive amount of traffic. Just ask Pat Flynn 🙂

At the beginning and end of your podcast episodes, you can introduce several CTAs such as leaving a review and subscribing to the podcast.

The critical CTA to mention within all of your podcast episodes is a free offer relevant to that particular episode.

When you mention the free offer, make sure the link is easy for people to remember. This is important because podcasts are all audio unless your listeners are also reading through the show notes.

When Mike Stelzner asks for a review on iTunes, he refers to the link as socialmediaexaminer.com/itunes.

He does not refer to the link as https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/social-media-marketing-podcast/id549899114?mt=2&ls=1

Both lead to the same destination, but the first one is much easier to remember. Please have mercy on the person who must recite the longer link.

While this is an example that relates to podcast reviews, the same general rule also applies to landing pages.

#12: Write Guest Posts With The Optimized Author Bio

Writing guest posts on relevant blogs is a great way to get more traffic from people reading your guest posts, and you’ll get a high-value backlink.

Whenever you write a guest post, you’ll usually get a quick bio of yourself. Within 1-2 sentences, you need to let readers know where else they can find you on the web.

Within this quick bio, you can direct people over to your landing page. In my Business2Community bio, I provide the CTA to check out my landing page.

guest post CTA

#13: Promote Your Landing Page During Podcast Interviews

The way almost all podcast interviews work is that after all of the questions have been answered, the guest has the ability to tell listeners where they can find him/her on the web.

When you are a guest on a podcast episode, mention your landing page. I have bullet-points in front of me specifically for that question so I know what to say when I have to promote my landing page.

Wondering how to be a guest on more podcasts? Neil Patel shows you how in his article How to Become the Person Everyone Wants to Interview

#14: Provide Perks

Give your subscribers certain perks (i.e. discounts and exclusive content) that people outside of your email list won’t get. Then, make it known to your blog visitors that only subscribers get these perks.

You can include these perks as incentives to get more of your visitors to subscribe.

#15: Design Matters

The way you present your free offer is just as important as the value of that free offer. If your free offer has a bad design, people won’t want to enter an email address.

One reality of life is that we all judge a book by its cover. If you don’t believe me, let me know which book you’d rather want.

bad ebook cover

good ebook cover

It doesn’t matter that the content for both of them is the same. The second one looks better. The better the design, the better the perceived value of your free offer.

All you have to do at that point is deliver on the value.

#16: Live Stream Your Message

Live streaming is the hot thing right now. I think it will stay hot for a very long time (if it ever cools down at all). The attractive lure to live streaming is that you get immediate results.

Promote a landing page with an easy to remember URL, and you’ll instantly get a bunch of subscribers if you have a large enough live audience.

On Periscope, you either need the easy to remember URL or a link to your landing page within your bio. For Blab and FB live however, you can drop a link straight into the chatting section for Blab and the comments section for Facebook.

If you feel too stressed to include those links during your live stream, hire a freelancer who will get the job done.

#17: Co-Create An Offer

I have created over 20 courses on Udemy. I created some of those courses alone while I created other courses with some help.

The courses I have co-created with other instructors have combined to bring in over 12,000 new students which I can email at any time. If I didn’t co-create some of my courses, I would have lost out on a lot of extra students.

Co-creation is not something that only exists within Udemy. You can co-create a free offer with someone else and share the subscribers who sign-up for the co-created free offer.

The cool part about this type of co-creation is that both you and the person who helped you create the free offer will be actively promoting the landing page. You’ll be helping each other out.

#18: Create A Product With An Affiliate/JV Program

This is an advanced method to grow your email list, but depending on who is a part of your program, you can get tens of thousands of new subscribers overnight.

To get at that level, you need a top-notch product and a lot of connections. But even if you don’t expect to get 10,000 subscribers in one day from your program, you could still get hundreds or thousands of subscribers that you wouldn’t have gotten on your own.

Leverage other people’s marketing for the growth of your brand at any moment you get. Your landing page will reach more people and you’ll be putting in the same amount of work you put in now.

#19: Publish A Kindle Book

When promoted correctly, a Kindle book can bring in a massive amount of email subscribers. Within all of your Kindle books, promote a free offer relevant to the book people are reading.

Here’s how Nick Loper promotes his free offer within the first page

kindle offer

Promoting your free offer on the first page is important because anyone can see that offer through Amazon’s free preview option.

If you are wondering how to drive sales to your free Kindle books, Nick Loper had a great podcast episode about that.

#20: Put Your Presentations Up On SlideShare

SlideShare is a social network that people either seem to not use at all or use it often.It takes time to create a quality SlideShare presentation while it only takes a few seconds to send out a quality tweet.

However, SlideShare presentations have viral potential if you make yours awesome and promote it to enough people.

Self-published author Steve Scott uses SlideShare to grow his email list.

For his traffic and income report from 2014, Steve included that he got 1,915 new subscribers from SlideShare within those three months. That’s an average of 638 new subscribers per month just from SlideShare.

Steve did hire a freelancer to help out with the presentations to save time, but it will be worth the money if you can get those new subscribers to buy some of your products.

#21: Interact With Your Audience

Interacting with your audience allows you to build trust. The people you interact with will be more likely to enter their email address when your free offer comes up.

Even if you only interact with your audience for five minutes each day, you are creating more trust. The trust results in more people promoting your content and subscribing for updates.

The more interactive your brand is, the more your audience will love you. If you want to take this level of interaction to the next level, you can create a podcast in which you answer your audience’s questions.

#22: Analyze Your Results

If you create landing pages, get subscribers, but then don’t analyze the results, you can be missing out on a huge opportunity.

Analyzing the results allows you to discover which of your landing pages have the best conversion rates and which ones you are promoting the most.

Let’s say you have two landing pages. Landing Page A has an 80% conversion rate. It’s the king of all landing pages. Landing Page B has a 5% conversion rate which puts it at rock bottom.

You promote them equally and they each get 100 daily visitors.

The mistake lies right there. You are promoting them equally.

If you have a landing page with an 80% conversion rate, you need to promote that landing page far more often than any of your other landing pages.

If one of my landing pages had a 5% conversion rate, I would stop promoting it or completely change that landing page’s design.

#23: Offer A Content Upgrade

A content upgrade is exclusive content or video content that is related to the blog post your visitor finished reading. The only way to get access to the content upgrade is to enter an email address.

Content upgrades are valuable because they are specific offers based on the specific content your visitors were reading. While content upgrades create extra work, they get you a lot of subscribers.

I learned this method from Brian Dean. He wrote a very informative article about the subject which you can read here.

#24: Sprinkle Relevant CTAs To Landing Pages Throughout Your Blog Posts

When you have a content upgrade available, you want to reference it at the beginning and the end of your blog posts. That way, your visitors are constantly reminded of your content upgrade.

If you don’t utilize content upgrades, then promote a free offer relevant to the content your visitor is reading.

#25: Write An Expert Round-Up Article

I got the idea from Codrut Turcanu who has written several expert round-up articles. These articles get a lot of traffic because people love sharing articles that they get featured in.

You ask several experts for their #1 tip in something. You choose the best tips and put them in your expert round-up article. Then you email the experts and let them know when the article gets published.

Ask them to promote it.

This strategy works for getting traffic, and more traffic in most cases equates to more subscribers. To ensure you get more subscribers, include a relevant content upgrade within the expert round-up article.

#26: Optimize Your Current Traffic

Let’s say you get 100 daily visitors on your blog and you get five of them to subscribe each day. What if you made a few changes on your blog to get 10 daily subscribers with that same audience.

In a rush to grow and get exposure, some bloggers make the mistake of forgetting to optimize the experience for the audiences they have already built.

#27: Advertise Your Landing Page

Facebook ads, AdWords, YouTube ads, and any other type of online ad can be used. Of course, not all online ads are equal, and some of them are downright difficult.

You should only begin to advertise your landing page once it is proven to make money. You should know how much money you make per subscriber so you can identify what a conversion is worth to you.

For instance, if each subscriber is worth an average of $2, and your Facebook ad gets you new conversions at a rate of $3 per subscriber, you need to stop that Facebook ad or make your average subscriber worth more than $3.

#28: Use Permission Marketing On Reddit

The Reddit community is fierce if you get on their wrong side, but if you get on their right side, you’ll get a lot of added exposure.

The key to Reddit is leveraging permission marketing. The Reddit community will come at you full force (don’t underestimate the Reddit community) if they think you are self-promoting.

If you ask for permission, you have a chance at going viral.

Eddy Azar wrote an awesome article on SumoMe about harnessing the marketing power of Reddit. He does a better job at explaining it than I could.

#29: Capitalize On The 404 Error Redirect

When people enter the wrong URL, they get sent over to the 404 error page. Some 404 error pages don’t bring people back to the blog. Others simply reference the homepage.

Why not reference your free offer. Your 404 error page can have a message like this:

“Sorry! What you were looking for does not exist, but I don’t want to leave you empty-handed…”

Then you promote your free offer, and BOOM! People who were once lost are now sent over to your landing page.

#30: Keep Your Current Subscribers On Your List

If you get 100 subscribers per day but you lose 100 subscribers per day, then you are not growing.

Part of growing your email list is providing an awesome experience for your current subscribers so they are more likely to stick around.

#31: Host A Free Giveaway

Giveaways are great for getting subscribers because few people would turn away the opportunity to get something just by entering an email address.

When these people subscribe, you present them with a free offer that everyone gets. Maybe it’s a report or a video series. Regardless of what you choose, everyone gets it.

Only a few people will actually win your giveaway. Using UpViral to reward points to the people who share your giveaway landing page will result in more people participating.

But you want the right people to participate. Don’t be the marketer who offers a $50 Amazon Gift Card. EVERYONE wants that. You’ll get a lot of subscribers, but most of them won’t be qualified.

And you have to pay for having those extra subscribers on your list.

To avoid that heartache, offer a giveaway that only the people in your niche would care about.

Matt McWilliams hosted one of the best free giveaways for getting targeted subscribers. He didn’t offer the Amazon Gift Card. He offered five free books all related to his niche.

book giveaway

People interested in reading those books participated in the giveaway by entering their email addresses and promoting the giveaway on their social networks for extra points.

People not interested in the books didn’t sign-up. Most if not all of the leads he got from that giveaway were targeted leads.

#32: Add A Link To Your Landing Page In Your Email Signature

Email is one of the top forms of communication today. Including your landing page link within your email signature can give it more exposure.

The impact of this method is dependent on how many emails you send in a given day. The more emails you send each day, the more subscribers you’ll get from this method.

With that said, avoid getting trapped in your inbox.

#33: Promotion Exchanges

The word exchange has a bad rap in the online world. Most of us are introduced to the word “exchange” in the online marketing sense when people either ask for link exchanges (even though Google doesn’t like that) or following a random, non-targeted person just for the follow back.

Promotion exchanges can put your landing page in front of a massive audience if you know how to use them. It is ideal to do a promotion exchange with someone who has a similar audience size as you. There are several promotion exchanges you can use:

Promote each other on your social networks

Send email blasts to your lists promoting the other person’s landing page

Interview each other on your podcasts (if you both have podcasts)

The opportunities are endless, but the second option works for growing your email list. By promoting someone else’s landing page to your email list, your landing page also gets more exposure. The final result is both of your email lists will grow.

Imagine how much bigger your email list would be if you did this with dozens of people.

#34: Collect Email Addresses At Events

The old-fashioned methods still work. Go to the event with a notepad, pen, and paper. On the piece of people, provide a section where people enter their email address.

Let people know on that piece of paper and through your conversation about the free offer these people will get upon writing down an email address.

You can segment all of these people on a custom list where you thank them for meeting you at the event.

#35: Host A Webinar

Webinars convert very well because they provide free value and are time sensitive. If you have a monthly webinar, your audience will begin to expect webinars.

Some people within that audience will not currently be subscribed, but when you host a webinar they really want to listen to, these people will subscribe.

#36: Host A Webinar With A Guest

Hosting a webinar with a guest is better than hosting a webinar on your own because the guest will do some of the promotion.

You’ll get the email addresses of some of your guest’s audience members. Have a monthly webinar with an influential guest, and you’ll be sure to see a big increase in your email list.

#37: Utilize Social Proof

Not everyone can leverage social proof equally, but leverage it whenever you can. Here’s an example of social proof in action.

Within this opt-in box, Buffer indicates that 42,023 people are on their email list. This social proof indicates Buffer is a popular blog, and popular blogs almost always have valuable content.

Buffer is no exception to the rule. If you haven’t checked out their blog yet, I recommend giving it a look…after you spend some time here though 🙂

#38: Write Longer Content

This is one of my longer blog posts. At a little over 4,000 words at this point, this blog post is the second longest blog post I have ever written.

Why spend so much time writing a single blog post? They increase the reader’s time on your blog. If this blog post only contained five tips, you would have been finished reading a few minutes ago.

However, I stuffed this one with methods up to the gills. It’s a power post which is bound to rank higher on search engines. The longer your blog post is, the more search engines love you.

Plus, I wanted to use Brian Dean’s skyscraper technique, so I knew this blog post had to be massive and filled with value.

#39: Include The Landing Page Link In Your Social Media Bios

This is an easy change you can make to get more subscribers. Most people link to their blog home pages within their social media bios.

Unless your home page is a beautiful landing page, that URL needs to be changed. Notice how in my Twitter bio, I am promoting a very specific page on my blog.

More specifically, I am promoting one of my landing pages.

#40: Make It Easier For People To Share Your Blog’s Content

[Tweet “50 Tactics To Grow Your Email List”]

See what I did there? I know that not everyone will tweet my blog post with that plugin. However, some people will, and that creates more exposure.

Don’t just stop with the social sharing buttons on the top or bottom of your blog posts. Include chances throughout your blog post for people to share your post.

I used the Click To Tweet plugin by CoSchedule to put in that tweet.

#41: Pay With A Post

I have not used this method myself, but I hear it’s powerful.

The way pay with a post works is that visitors can only read some of your blog post. The rest of it gets blocked.

The only way people can get access to the rest of the blog post is by sharing that blog post on one of their social media accounts.

That’s how you get the name: Pay With A Post.

The website I recommend based on my research (but not implementation) is Pay With A Tweet. Pay With A Tweet has expanded to include other posting options in addition to tweeting.

#42: Build Relationships With Influencers

Building relationships with influencers helps out in the long-term. If you create a product with a joint venture program, you will know several influencers in advance who would be willing to help you out.

You can also host webinars with influencers as guests, and some of them may promote your content a few times each week on their social media accounts.

Having a relationship with an influencer gives you the potential to spread your message to the people within that influencer’s audience.

Some influencers will help you more than others, but any extra visitor you can get should be highly appreciated.

#43: Include An Opt-In Box At Your Blog’s Footer

Ever scroll to the bottom of a blog post? Maybe you wanted to go to the next page and see the next batch of blog posts, but you scrolled down too quickly.

Maybe you were looking for the blogger’s contact me page.

Some people make it to the blog’s footer, and within that footer, you can include an opt-in box. The Buffer Blog’s opt-in box which I showed you earlier is at the footer of their blog.

Some of the people who make it to your blog’s footer read a bunch of your blog posts to get there. These people will be more likely to subscribe since they stayed on your blog for a longer period of time.

#44: Improve Your Homepage

The homepage is one of the most visited pages on your blog. Most homepages lead to a bunch of blog posts. While this is a great way to get more blog readers in the short-term, it’s a disaster for the long-term.

Your homepage needs to make your blog easy to navigate while promoting a can’t miss CTA.

On Pat Flynn’s homepage, the CTA is to click the “Start Here” button. Scrolling down will reveal more CTAs on his homepage.

Pat Flynn Homepage

Seth Godin took a simplistic approach with his homepage. There are several CTAs, and if you have been reading Seth’s content long enough, you’ll probably click on all of those CTAs.

seth's blog

Both of these homepages include CTAs and easy navigation throughout the blog. Seth’s homepage includes a subscribe option and Pat’s homepage includes a subscribe option towards the bottom.

#45: Create Urgency Around Some Of Your Offers

If you have enough landing page, test creating offers that are time sensitive. Webinars are a great example of this.

People know the webinar will be packed with value and that it won’t be up forever. Do that with one of your free offers.

You won’t get consistent growth, but you’ll get a spike of growth from that one landing page. Your other landing pages can bring in the consistent growth.

#46: Republish Your Blog Posts Elsewhere

This method is designed to get more exposure for you and your content. Including your landing page link within the byline will help you get more subscribers directly from your republished content.

As your republished blog posts appear on more blogs, people will remember you. Some of them may decide to search for you on Google or social media and come to your blog.

Provide these people with an enticing offer and BOOM, you have more subscribers.

#47: Make The Free Offer Better Than Anything Else Out There

I believe this is an underrated tip that can be better understood with a comparison to blog posts.

There are billions of blog posts, and chances are millions of those blog posts are about growing your email list.

In an attempt to make this blog post stand out from the crowd, I went all-in and spend hours of my time on this blog post.

Are you spending hours of your time crafting your free offer? Are you truly going all-in?

There are some blog posts that would dwarf over most of the free offers someone with an email address could get access to.

Create free offers that would dwarf over any blog post imaginable.

Combine that with excellent design, and you’ll have an offer that people won’t be able to resist.

#48: Create An Infographic With Your Landing Page Link

Infographics have the potential to go viral. This is old news, but how you set up the infographic determines the success you get out of it.

One strategy you can use with your infographic is to include the link to your landing page at the bottom of the infographic.

Most people just include the link to their blog homepage, but the link to your landing page (or a homepage that functions similarly to a landing page) would be better.

#49: Waiting List For Your Upcoming Product

More people than ever are launching their courses to massive success. Depending on the people in your joint venture program combined with your own efforts, it’s possible to make seven figures in a few weeks.

But what happens after the launch? What happens to the people who missed out and didn’t hear anything about the launch?

After the launch, any pages related to the launch become redirect links.

The redirect links lead to a landing page that encourages people to subscribe so they can be notified when the product is available again.

There’s also a free offer included to increase the desire someone would have to provide his/her email address.

#50: Make Your Blog Load Faster

If the landing page takes 30 seconds to load, are you sticking around?

Probably not, and a landing page that’s one second slower is bound to get fewer conversions.

Patience is a virtue, but almost none of us have it. In certain scenarios, we want to achieve or get access to something immediately.

To Amazon, site speed time is critical. According to an article from Fast Company, Amazon loses $1.6 billion if the site loads one second slower.

You won’t suffer that type of loss if your landing page is one second slower, but you’ll definitely get fewer conversions.

I wrote a blog post about boosting your blog speed. I promise it isn’t as long as this one. In fact, it may take you less than a minute to read.

In Conclusion

Growing your email list is the best thing you can do for your online business. That’s where the money is.

Growing your email list involves creating a bunch of free offers and promoting those free offers to as many people as you possibly can.

You’ll have to do most of the work on your own, but it’s always good to leverage the help of other marketers when you can.

The next time you consider an opportunity or are utilizing a platform, ask yourself this question: How will I use this to grow my email list?

If you can’t think of a way a particular opportunity or platform will help you grow your email list, ignore it or find a way to make it grow your email list.

What are your tips for growing an email list? Did one of these tips resonate with you the most? What are your thoughts on email marketing? Sound off in the comments section below.

3 Juicy Email List Building Methods You’re Probably Not Using

April 29, 2016 by Marc Guberti 3 Comments

The money is in your email list. It’s a well-known fact that gets mentioned again and again on blogs like this one.

The importance of an email list has led to marketers all around the world trying to grow their email lists as quickly as possible. The thinking is that the more people on the email list, the better.

If you know how to promote your content and products to your email list, then yes, more is better.

So most marketers grow their email list by using some of the same tactics. Create a landing page and promote that on each social network. Have a subscription box on the blog’s sidebar. Maybe some Facebook advertising if you’re serious about getting leads.

Those methods work, but there are certain methods for getting subscribers that remain untouched by most marketers. These methods can result in a significant increase in subscribers because of the logic behind the methods combined with how your audience would react to these methods.

#1: Content Upgrades

I only write one blog post per week now. Every other blog post I put up is a video. This decision allowed me to save a massive amount of time. The extra time allowed me to pursue a new email list building idea.

Content upgrades!

Content upgrades are additions to the current blog post that your visitors can get access to in exchange for an email address. I first learned about content upgrades through Jeff Bullas’ Blog.

Content upgrade example

I remember reading the article a while ago thinking that it sounded like a great idea, but in the end, I didn’t have enough time. I was also in the middle of my junior year of high school.

Outsourcing and video blogging reintroduced me to a lot of extra time. That’s why all of my future blog posts will now include content upgrades.

In other words, EVERY blog post I write from here on is also a LANDING PAGE.

I am also working towards adding content upgrades to my most popular blog posts. And the conversion rates for content upgrades are amazing.

According to the article from Jeff Bullas’ Blog, you can expect a 20% conversion rate from a content upgrade. Some content upgrades have over 50% conversion rates.

The reason content upgrades work so well is because they are hyper-targeted to the specific blog post that is being read at the time.

I recently started using content upgrades for my blog. Here’s what I did for my blog post about avoiding the top five distractions.

Content Upgrade Marc Guberti

It’s targeted and directly below the blog post. People don’t have to click on a link and get redirected to a landing page.

Imagine what would happen if 20% of your blog visitors became subscribers. If you wanted to gain 100 subscribers per day, you would only have to get 500 visitors per day in order to get that many subscribers per day—assuming all of your blog posts came with content upgrades. And that doesn’t even include subscribers from landing pages.

#2: Live Streaming

I am still exploring the possibilities of live streaming, but it is very exciting to think about the possibilities.

Live streaming apps like Periscope, Meerkat, and Blab give you the opportunity to interact with your audience live. You can answer their questions in real-time, and your audience will hear how you answer the questions.

One thing you can do with live streaming is promote your landing page. As you wrap up a live recording, you can mention a landing page related to what the live stream was all about.

This is where Blab outshines the competition. Blab comes with an interactive chat section that allows viewers to ask questions and engage with one another.

Within this chat section, you can insert the link to your landing page for everyone to click on. If you want to use something like Periscope or Meerkat, then you must state what the link is.

To make it easier for everyone to remember the link, you need to come up with a custom link.

For instance, https://marcguberti.com/2016/01/twitter-audience-remember-and-trust-you is a link that would be very difficult for me to say and very difficult for my audience to remember (where do the dashes go).

Having a link like marcguberti.com/twitter makes it a lot easier for people to access the same URL. It’s much easier to remember that “Twitter” goes after the slash line instead of all of the mumbo jumbo after the slash line for the first link.

#3: Webinars

Promote your landing page in a webinar? No, no. You promote products in webinars.

You use webinar landing pages to collect email addresses.

There are some notable differences between a webinar and a landing page.

First off, the webinar is set at a specific time and date. The landing page you use to promote the webinar won’t be good forever, so you have a stronger incentive to promote that webinar’s landing page to as many people as possible.

The incentive will force you to get more creative with how you promote your landing page. However, the creativity and extra work with promoting a webinar isn’t the only advantage to having a webinar.

The other advantage is that you can get a lot of sales with a good webinar. If you want to get high conversions for sales, host a great webinar with a call-to-action.

As an affiliate who has promoted many people’s products, I generate most of my total commission on the day I promote someone’s webinar with my affiliate link.

Webinars grab people’s attention, and the audience can ask questions. At the end of the webinar, people can take immediate action and buy your product—if you provide the call-to-action.

Then, you can invest some of that money into growing your email list even more (i.e. Facebook advertising).

In Conclusion

Building your email list should be your top priority regardless of what niche you are in. Email marketing is the most successful type of marketing on the web.

Email marketing allows you to build the strongest relationships and generate the most sales at the same time.

Literally everything you do online should have the primary aim of getting you more subscribers.

What are your thoughts about growing your email list? Do you have any tips for us? Sound off in the comments section below.

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5 Surprising Ways To Be Completely UN-Productive

January 20, 2016 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

When was the last time you wanted to be unproductive? Chances are you never go into your day asking yourself, “How can I be as unproductive as possible?”

We strive to be productive and enlist certain habits and principles to guide us. However, some of the activities people do each day that they think are productive are actually unproductive.

The problem with productivity is that there is conflicting advice about what actions should be taken to bring forth a more productive you. Conflicting advice brings forth confusion, and ultimately, misconceptions.

We praise certain methods of doing work that actually hurt our productivity. Here are the most surprising methods that, although we often praise them, are the main culprits to being less productive.

#1: Being Available 24/7

Corporations have popularized the ability to be available 24/7. Whether you are calling your customers or responding to their questions, the belief is that you should be available 24/7.

However, if you are available for your customers 24/7, then you are not available for yourself 24/7. You won’t have as much time to create products, grow your social media audience, and do anything of the like.

I don’t answer my emails the moment I get them. Sometimes, it can take me several days for me to respond. I focus on writing my blog posts or doing videos for an upcoming product.

After all of that work is done and I want to take a break, I will then respond to the emails within my inbox.

I used to make it a policy to respond to emails less than 24 hours after they were sent. The amount of time I would spend responding to emails would cut into a majority of the time that I could have spent writing blog posts and creating products.

Being available 24/7 is a myth. The only reason corporations are able to pull it off is because they hire several employees to respond to emails and take phone calls.

If you call Apple Support right now, Tim Cook is not going to pick up the phone.

If you want to be available 24/7, then you need to hire several freelancers who you can trust. That way, you can focus more of your time towards productive activities.

#2: Multitask To Get More Done At Once

In our busy world, we are constantly looking for ways to feed two birds with one scone. Some of us are trying to use that one scone to feed three birds.

The result of our efforts is multitasking. The idea behind multitasking is that you get two things done at the same thing instead of doing them one at a time.

Behind our made-up definition of multitasking lies the real definition. Multitasking is simply the act of doing two things at the same time in a less efficient manner than if you were to approach one task at a time.

I can run and read a book at the same time. I might run really slow, not absorb any of the content, or crash into a lamppost. I can run and read at the same time, but I wouldn’t get much out of the run or the book.

Are you running and reading the same time with your business? Are you trying to write a blog post and schedule your tweets at the same time? Are you listening to music on your smartphone while trying to listen to a tutorial on your computer?

Multitasking in its most basic form is a productivity myth. The only thing multitasking does is makes you less productive. It can even kill your brain.

#3: Work Hard

If Person A worked for five hours today and Person B worked for three hours today, who worked longer. The answer to that one is Person A.

But who was more productive? Answering this questions requires that we explore each person’s work ethic and the work that was actually done.

An interesting thing I have noticed about my productivity is that as my time diminishes, I become more productive. When I have less time to spend on my business, that’s when I become very productive.

I am more productive when I work for 2-3 hours than some people are when they work for over eight hours every day. How does that happen? It’s based on a few factors.

The main factor is how you are working. There is a major distinction between working hard and working smart. You can work hard but not get anywhere. Working smart ensures that you are to make some type of progress each day.

Working smart is simply asking yourself which path is the right path for me, how can I get there faster, and where do I sign up to get started.

Once you work like that, you will be more productive than most of the people who simply work hard.

Another big factor is how much of the work you actually do. Most of my work time is exclusively spent writing blog posts or creating new videos. Those are my top priorities.

But what about everything else I do. What about scheduling over 100 tweets per day, growing my audience, creating slides, video editing and all of that fun stuff.

Outsourced to the last drop.

On a good weekday, I’ll put in three hours of work towards my business. However, I have freelancers who put in at least three hours of work for me every day.

By outsourcing several parts of your business, it is possible for work to be put towards your business for over 24 hours per day without you doing any of that work.

The big dream many entrepreneurs have is their businesses functioning on autopilot. The only way your business will ever function on autopilot is if you outsource the work to other people.

Might as well get started now. That way, you’ll work smarter and actually be more productive.

#4: Use A Productivity App*

If there is one method of productivity that receives a lot of praise, Productivity Apps are it. Under certain circumstances, Productivity Apps CAN make you more productive.

However, there is a danger with using productivity apps.

The danger is that you must use them on a device. More specifically, you must use the Productivity App on a device with millions of other options.

If you use a Productivity App on an iPhone, all you have to do is click on the menu button. Suddenly, the Productivity App disappears and you see all of your other apps.

Maybe the Angry Birds app distracts you. Maybe the ABC News app does the trick. Maybe it’s Safari. The moment you get out of that Productivity App for the slightest second, you are exposed to numerous distractions. And this is true regardless of which device you use.

What’s hot on YouTube? What’s trending on Twitter? Maybe, just maybe this time I’ll beat my high score in Flappy Bird.

Some Productivity Apps in their design are brilliant. But the nature of devices and the way we use those devices can sometimes undermine the power of Productivity Apps.

If you can find a Productivity App that locks your device into that one app for a certain amount of time, then that Productivity App will work. The apps themselves are not bad.

But since I don’t trust myself to not browse around on a device, I use a notebook to stay more productive. I write all of my goals with pen and paper. I use real sticky notes instead of the digital ones.

What I have observed with goal setting is this: There is truly a more potent feeling when you write a goal versus when you type it on your computer.

Typing produces the same font that anyone else can produce with a keyboard. Writing the goals on paper is like writing your own signature. Only you get to do that.

Plus, your notebook will never crash. If your device crashes, or the Productivity App isn’t functioning correctly, then you are going to lose valuable time.

Even if you find a Productivity App that keeps you locked in, never handicap your productivity to that one app alone. Sometimes the old ways work the best.

#5: Commit Yourself To Accomplishing Everything On Your Workload

For some people, accomplishing everything on their workload would be productive. Most people who find themselves committed to this goal could be more productive.

The simple reason is what the workload entails. Is the workload easy or is it challenging? What types of results would you get from accomplishing the work? Would you be better off, or does the workload consist of “Get-By” Work?

This misconception strongly applies to all of the lone-wolves who believe it is possible to be a successful solopreneur.

Just because all of the work you do is important for your business doesn’t mean you should be doing all of that work.

There are certain tasks within your workload that can easily be delegated to other people. Thus, the idea of outsourcing resurfaces. Think about all of the things you do and then ask yourself if any of those tasks could be given to someone else.

Then think about what all of that extra time would get you.

Outsourcing is the only reason I am able to create courses on Udemy. It’s also the only reason I am still able to write three blog posts every week.

The truth is I was considering going down to only writing two blog posts per week so I could focus more of my time towards Udemy. Outsourcing changed that. What can outsourcing parts of your business change for you?

In Conclusion

We all want to be productive. There’s no question about that. The confusion begins when we ask ourselves which methods of boosting productivity will actually boost our productivity.

Multitasking for instance does not work. Speaking of work, it is possible to be more productive than the person who puts in more hours than you.

In the end, the methods that work best for your productivity are the ones that you must be guided by. Certain methods work for me that don’t work as well for others and vice-versa.

However, these five methods need to be thrown out of your way of thinking because there are more efficient tactics out there.

Outsourcing alone will transform your productivity and what you achieve. And there are plenty of other ways to boost your productivity as well.

What are your thoughts about this list? Which one of these methods came to you as the biggest surprise? Do you know of any other surprising methods that would decrease productivity? Sound off in the comments section below.

100 Social Media Tips In One Sentence Each

November 25, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Social media is a complicated tool. Once you know how to use it, social media presents one of the best opportunities for growing an audience and your business.

This blog post is a way for me to make the learning curve much easier for you. The best part is that all of these tips are one-sentence tips so they will be quick reads. Building a solid foundation for yourself is essential for you to take your social media strategy forward. Here’s the foundation:

#1: Do a little bit each day to move your social media strategy forward

#2: Be present on the top social networks (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others)

#3: Choose which social network is the best one for you and spend 80% of your social media time on that one social network

#4: Master one social network before trying to master another social network (think of mastering social networks as learning different languages)

#5: Outsource some or all of the work

#6: Post on your social networks consistently by scheduling posts with HootSuite

#7: Have a social media post calendar that identifies when social media posts for specific social networks need to get scheduled

#8: Engage with your audience

#9: Get into other conversations

#10: When a chat related to your niche is trending, join that chat and tweet with the hashtag

#11: Most of your social media posts should point back to your content (one of your blog posts, guest posts, videos, etc)

#12: Use pictures in your social media posts to boost engagement

#13: Experiment with advertising on social media (Facebook ads work the best)

#14: Utilize hashtags in your social media posts (1-2 hashtags per tweet but Instagram posts should be stuffed with seven hashtags)

#15: Promote your landing page on your social networks, and if you don’t have a landing page, create one now.

#16: Don’t over promote your products on social media

#17: Make sure your bio highlights as much about you as possible

#18: Make your bio a sentence fragment with commas and no “and” or period to list as many credentials as possible

#19: Don’t let the shiny object (i.e. a new social network) distract you from mastering your main social network

#20: Get on new social networks immediately, but don’t let those new social networks ruin what you already have going on

#21: It is ridiculously easy to gain hundreds of daily followers on the day a new social network launches, but only if you use it (I was an early Periscope adopter and gained 1,000 followers on the first day because I did two broadcasts)

#22: Occasionally share other people’s content related to your niche to provide a variety of content for your audience

#23: Recognize the fact that social media is just one part of your business so you don’t spend too much time on social media

#24: Build relationships on social media

#25: Look through your interactions to see if one of your followers wants to interview you or have you as a guest blogger

#27: Contact people who have podcasts and guest blogs and offer your help (in the form of being a guest or contributor but do so with a nice tone since some people get a lot of these types of emails/social media posts)

#28: Look for methods to save as much time as possible on social media

#29: Pay extra money for social media tools if it means you save extra time

#30: Use HootSuite to do all of your social media activity instead of going on the actual social media sites (more productive since you don’t see the trending topics and other stuff)

#31: Write down important things that you learn about social media

#32: Create a blog about social media so you force yourself to learn something new about social media every day

#33: The avatar for all of your social media accounts must either be a picture of you or your company’s logo

#34: If you make the avatar for all of your social networks the same, your followers will have an easier time identifying all of your social media accounts.

#35: Keep up with the latest social media news so you can determine if you need to make a change in your social media strategy

#36: Focus on the social networks that yield the best results

#37: Ask yourself what small changes to your social media strategy can yield better results (you’d be surprised)

#38: Remind yourself what are you aiming for in your social media strategy

#39: Get all of the social media mobile apps and engage with your audience on the go

#40: Hire one virtual assistant for your social media strategy and see how the experience goes

#41: Don’t get consumed by social media

#42: Focus on growing a targeted audience instead of merely growing an audience of people who may not even be interested in your content

#43: NEVER, EVER, EVER buy fake followers because it will taint your reputation and possibly result in your account getting suspended

#44: Cross-promote your content so all of your social networks are promoting each other

#45: If something is working very well for you right now, ride with it until it stops working

#46: Don’t get distracted by anything when you are using social media

#47: The way you use social media determines how successful you become on it

#48: Look at your post engagement so see what type of content your audience likes the most

#49: Then give them more of that content

#50: Thank the people who share your content by mentioning them or commenting on the post

#51: Understand that social media is the best platform for indirect and an okay platform for direct sales

#52: Getting indirect sales on social media means building trust and providing valuable content that eventually asks for an email address

#53: Get help if you need it

#54: Implement what you learn because most people stop at the learning part

#55: Ask your favorite experts some quick questions that don’t require lengthy answers because some of them may then respond and offer advice

#56: Follow back to build relationships

#57: Follow people in your niche who are likely to follow you back

#58: Post at the optimal times throughout the day (these differ for each social network, but for Twitter, if you are tweeting once every 15 minutes, then it doesn’t matter for Twitter)

#59: Tweet once every 15 minutes

#60: Publish two YouTube videos every week

#61: Post three Instagram pictures per day

#62: Post four Facebook posts on your FB Page per day

#63: Send pins consistently throughout the day (at least one pin per hour)

#64: Don’t do everything from Tips 59-63 if it means you are going to overwhelm yourself with work

#65: Outsource some or all of the work related to Tips 59-63

#66: Promote your social networks on your blog

#67: Promote your new blog posts at least five times on your social networks on the day your blog posts get published

#68: Create multiple social media accounts on the same social network to promote your content

#69: Create a team of ambassadors that will share your content on social media no matter what

#70: Create evergreen blog posts (they will still be valuable years later) and promote them on your social networks often

#71: It is okay to share the same thing on social media more than once

#72: It is okay to have a posting cycle that results in you sharing the same thing dozens of times throughout the year

#73: Use Twitter polls to create a new type of social media engagement

#74: Ask your followers what they want and use their suggestions as blog post or product ideas

#75: Publish your blog posts on LinkedIn so they have a greater reach

#76: Use AdWords to advertise your YouTube videos at the rate of $0.01 per view

#77: Use Facebook advertising to get your Page likes for less than $0.01 per like

#78: Constantly monitor your social media ads so you see which ones are consistent and which ones need to get tweaked

#79: Share content from authority sites like Forbes, The Huffington Post, and others

#80: Get you know your followers by name and avatar

#81: Answer a need on social media that you believe most people are missing

#82: Tweet about your niche 95% of the time because if you go off-topic too much then people won’t stick around

#83: Valuable content is content that your audience believes is valuable, not what you believe is valuable (I have read many blog posts about running but never tweet them out since my targeted audience cares more about digital marketing blog posts)

#84: Be patient with your social media success (to achieve any type of success, you must be very patient)

#85: Don’t get discouraged when you get bad results because you can always make a change

#86: Use social media in a meaningful way

#87: See what other experts in your niche do on social media and mimic then while adding in your own style

#88: For any social network, focus on getting past that 1,000 follower milestone through almost any means necessary (no buying fake followers or doing things you’ll regret later)

#89: Don’t use too many social media tools but instead ask yourself which social media tools you can live without

#90: Statistics for your social media strategy let you see your results, where you are, and how you can improve

#91: While these statistics are good, if you spend too much time viewing them without taking action, then you are walking into analysis paralysis

#92: Take a one-day break from your social networks if the workload gets too stressful

#93: Pin a tweet to the top of your profile that promotes your landing page so your audience always sees it

#94: Use social media to promote product discounts

#95: If you become a part of an affiliate program, use social media to promote other people’s landing pages that have your affiliate ID.

#96: The focus of social media should be to build trust between you and your audience

#97: Write blog posts at a consistent and frequent rate so you have more to share with your followers

#98: Search your blog’s URL on social media to see who’s sharing it (not everyone will mention you when they share your content)

#99: Use the Twitter Advanced Search to find very specific users who you can then engage with

#100: Always have fun on social media

In Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed these 100 one-sentence social media tips. It took me a while to compile the list.

The main purpose of providing you with all of these tips is to give you a foundation. I understand that you won’t implement all of these tips in one day. However, the hope is that a few of these tips grabbed your attention more than others. The tips that especially grabbed your attention are the ones that you need to get started on.

If I had to implement these tips, I would look into growing my audience and outsourcing the work. Outsourcing the work allows you to explore the implementation of more of these tips (and eventually outsource that too).

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other tips for social media success? Which social network do you spend most of your time on? Sound off in the comments section below.