blogging

My Stance On Blogging and Social Media

October 12, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media and blogging are my jam. I have over 300,000 social media followers and get hundreds of thousands of annual blog visitors. I’m also getting a lot better with Facebook ads. In less than a month, my Facebook Page went from 300 likes to over 10,000 likes. And I average $0.01 per like.

But social media and blogging are just two slices of a much larger pie. They are critical pieces of the pie, but if you exclusively rely on blogging and social media, you will be disappointed.

Two years ago, I aspired to surpass 100,000 Twitter followers. I eventually surpassed that milestone, but my income didn’t skyrocket in the same sense. I quickly went from 1,667 Twitter followers to over 100,000, but the changes in my income were minuscule at best.

Getting all of those Twitter followers resulted in a big increase in my blog’s traffic. Social media is the main reason this blog became successful, and seeing that social proof every day boosted my confidence.

So I was successful on social media and getting a ton of blog traffic. Why was my income at the same level?

I didn’t look at the rest of the pie. I was missing out on some great opportunities. And yes, I’ll say it. Many others already have.

I SHOULD HAVE FOCUSED ON MY EMAIL LIST EARLIER!!

I was getting traffic, but I wasn’t getting sticky traffic. I wasn’t building strong enough relationships with my audience. Creating an email list is the best way to strengthen the relationship between you and your visitors. Some email lists are also highly profitable.

When I focused on my email list, I started getting better results. Each of my product launches was more successful than the last because my audience continued to grow. So far, my most profitable months on Udemy were because of email blasts.

But I’m about to turn the tables and flip the world upside down.

Your email list isn’t enough either!

You need to make money. More specifically, you need to make money by creating your own products. Affiliate marketing is an option, but if you rely on affiliate marketing, then your income depends on other people creating products and giving you good rates.

Most of the money I make comes from my books and training courses. The best part is that this is passive income. I create the product, market it, and then people buy it. I make money in my sleep.

Blogging and social media get the ball rolling—you can grow a large audience. Your email list and products allow the ball to roll in the right direction—you build the relationship and promote your products.

The best part with this strategy is that you can scale up. That’s why each of my product launches has been more successful than the last. My audience continues growing each day. Across all of my social networks, I gain over 1,000 new followers per day. This growth leads to more subscribers and more revenue for each of my product launches.

Since we are on the topic of product launches, I want to discuss one important thing about product creation. It is tempting to look at the most recognized entrepreneurs in the world promoting one product for a long period of time. They may go on numerous podcasts promoting this one product for many months before finally launching it.

For these entrepreneurs, it’s a great strategy for getting a massive amount of sales. Some of these entrepreneurs are also authors who use this strategy to turn their books into bestsellers.

However, I don’t recommend that approach (unless you are one of those entrepreneurs with millions of subscribers. Then go for it). The reason is that if you only create one product and focus on it, it either makes or breaks you.

I focused on one product for six months. I didn’t spend any of my time creating other products. That one product broke me. Luckily I didn’t lose money, but I lost a lot of time.

Now I create four Udemy courses each month. Not all of my Udemy courses become successful, but some of them bring in a bulk of my income. I get to learn what works and what doesn’t work.

Creating more products also makes it mathematically easier to reach income goals. Let’s say you want to make $1,000 per month from Udemy training courses. If you have 10 courses, then each course needs to make $100. If you only have one course, then that one course must make the entire $1,000 per month.

I’m not saying to trade quality for quantity. However, you don’t want to gamble your success on one product launch.

In Conclusion

Social media and blogging allow you to grow a large audience. It takes a lot of time and effort to accumulate that large audience. That’s why you want to make sure you pay attention to the other slices of the pie. While having hundreds of thousands of social media followers and blog visitors helps, you must also build your email list and create products.

What is your stance on blogging and social media? What other slices of the pie do you take seriously? Sound off in the comments section below.

7 Ingredients To Online Success

October 7, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

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

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

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

#1: Large Audience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#2: A Product

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

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

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

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

#3: Provide FREE Value

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

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

Paid value is better than the free value

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

#4: Relationship Building

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#5: Effectively Communicating Your Message

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

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

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

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

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

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

#6: Seize The Game Changing Opportunities

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

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

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

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

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

#7: Look At The Results To See What Works

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

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

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

In Conclusion

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

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

What To Do When You Lose Faith In Your Blog

October 5, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

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

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

Inspiration
Clarity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any plan that looks good is just theoretically good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Conclusion

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

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

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

7 Ways To Stand Out In Today’s Marketplace

September 18, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Today’s marketplace is constantly expanding. Just a decade ago, it was difficult to publish your own book. Nowadays, anyone can self-publish a book in a matter of minutes with KDP.

Technology has virtually wiped out the barrier of entry for most industries. Business owners can now enter the marketplace and grow a large audience without paying a single penny. For less than $150 per year, I grew my Twitter audience to over 250,000 people.

You don’t need advertising dollars to stand out in today’s marketplace. While they help, they are not needed. However, the ease of entering the marketplace has resulted in an outpour of experts.

How exactly do you stand out when thousands—nay, millions—of people are trying to do what you do? Here’s how:

#1: Write Fantastic Content

Blogging is one of the main reasons why the barrier of entry is so low. You can create a free blog on WordPress in a matter of minutes. It’s easy to get started. The challenge is standing out.

The main reason some blogs stand out more than others is because of fantastic content. With that said, I understand that a larger audience gives a blog more leverage. However, to accumulate a large audience of returning visitors, the content must be fantastic.

We all have a favorite blog. We return to that favorite blog because the content is fantastic. When I become a returning visitor, I’m not returning just so a system can tally me as another visitor. I am returning because the blog posts fascinate me.

I always find myself returning to Seth Godin’s blog. Most of his blog posts are thought provoking and quick reads. In “The interim strategy,” Seth Godin brings one major point home: a great organization must start great and never cut corners in the beginning just for quick success.

Stay on his blog long enough, and you’ll find yourself reading dozens of his blog posts trying to catch up with what you missed.

#2: Create Awesome Videos

I understand this sounds similar to writing fantastic content. It sounds as if the only difference is that I’m talking about videos instead of blog posts.

However, videos are huge on the web. The average video gets more engagement than the average blog post. So does that mean give up writing blog posts all together?

NO! It’s understood that videos tend to perform better than blog posts. However, writing blog posts is an essential part of standing out. Here’s why doing both is the best approach:

Blog posts can easily be edited and revised while you type. In a video, you are put on the spot. While you can do a redo, it’s much easier when writing a blog post.
Writing a blog post in my opinion doesn’t require as much energy. Typing is easier than talking and barely stopping. I can type, stop, and think. That luxury is only available for videos by splicing and editing.
Videos get more engagement than blog posts.
Videos and blog posts are two different types of media which gives your audience more options
Writing blog posts about something strengthens your skill in that area. Strengthening your skill makes it easier to do awesome videos. I wrote hundreds of blog posts to strengthen my knowledge before I did my first video.

Creating videos is commonly associated with putting them on YouTube and getting subscribers from there. However, you can also create videos that you put into a training course.

From my experience, creating a training course is quicker than writing a book. With speed on your side, you can create high value products at a higher frequency.

#3: Be “Everywhere” Your Targeted Audience Goes

To be successful in your niche, you must meaningfully put yourself in front of your targeted audience. Whether you put your blog posts, videos, or something else in front of your targeted audience, it must be something that positively grabs your targeted audience’s attention.

To be everywhere your targeted audience goes, you must first know where your targeted audience goes. Are they reading Inc Magazine? Are they on this blog right now? Are they reading celebrity blogs? Are most of them on Twitter?

The places where your audience goes are the places your content and videos must show up. Ask bloggers in your niche if they take guest posts. Submit that application to Inc Magazine again and again until they say yes (preferably get other writing opportunities first. Inc Magazine wants writers with solid experience). Partner up with people in your niche to reach new audiences.

I recently listened to one of Jeff Bullas’ webinars about getting blog traffic. In that webinar, Jeff talked about how he got a speaking opportunity. Jeff asked the event organizer why he got the opportunity, and this was the (paraphrased) response:

“Because I saw you everywhere.”

It turns out Jeff’s content has been featured on many prominent guest blogs. He has also been featured on The Huffington Post, Forbes, and a few others for his social media savvy. When the event organizer said he/she say Jeff everywhere, it wasn’t an exaggeration—to a certain extent.

Jeff didn’t get featured on a celebrity site. He got featured on most of the blogs and top magazines about business and digital marketing. As people see you more often, and they appreciate your content each time, they will remember you.

It’s hard to forget about the blogger you see dozens (or hundreds) of times on the web.

#4: Expert Interviews

Expert interviews—whether you are the interviewer or interviewee—are growing in importance. These interviews positively affect your social proof and the way your audience views your brand and mission. Here’s a quick breakdown:

When you get interviewed by an expert in your niche, that signals two things about you to their listeners:

You had enough expertise and/or a great enough story to land the interview
You probably say something valuable in the interview

Interviewing an expert in your niche signals two things about you to your listeners:

You’re good enough to get that expert on your show
Your podcast (or series of interviews if you don’t run a podcast) must be valuable)

Not only do expert interviews make the host and guest look good, but they also contribute to a larger audience.

The guest usually promotes the interview or podcast episode on the day it gets published. That means more visibility for the host. The host repeats the process a few hundred times and the results multiply. New listeners watch/read the past interviews.

The more of this interviews you are a part of (as the host or the guest), the more interviews you get. Hosts of podcasts see how well you can answer questions, and then they choose you as their next guest. Notable experts ask if they can be guests on your podcast.

It’s this ripple effect that has allowed some podcasters to accumulate six figures every month and attract millions of people to their episodes.

#5: Write A Book That Becomes Successful

Writing a book is challenging the first time. Making a book successful the first time is more challenging. For all successful products, the marketing side is more challenging than the creation side.

Why would a successful book make a big difference? Take a look at the people event organizers choose for public speaking events. Most of the speakers have a successful book. If they don’t have a successful book, then they have a massive amount of social proof. Some speakers have both.

Writing a successful book shouldn’t be on the top of your list of things to do (unless you are a passionate writer). You need to accumulate a large audience so when it comes time to promoting your book, you can rest assured it will get plenty of sales.

#6: Do Cool Things For Your Audience

Making your audience feel special is the difference between any audience and a cult-style audience. Engage with them on Twitter. Build relationships in the most meaningful way you can think of.

Random acts of kindness and random gifts—no matter how big or small—can go a long way. There is one true fact about every successful blogger, singer, baseball player, and President (in a word, every successful person).

All of the individuals within the audience make the success happen. Recognizing this success will let you realize how important the people in your audience are. Random acts of kindness and random gifts aren’t suggestions. They’re mandates for building a cult-style audience.

#7: Have A Powerful Philosophy and Purpose

Your mission affects the way people see your brand. Let’s say two people offer Twitter courses at the same price, and they are virtually the same. One person’s stated mission is to make money. The other person’s stated mission is to give everyone the ability to become successful on Twitter.

Who do you think gets the sale?

The person with the better mission. Of course, we know why the person who wants to simply make money won’t get the sale. However, we’ve become smart at crafting great mission statements.

The most powerful mission statements have the biggest impact on sales. Take a look at the people in your niche who experience the most success. Then look for their mission statements. Some will state their mission statements right from the start. For others, it takes some digging in the About Me page to find someone’s mission statement.

The mission statement is a starting point, not a final end. The mission statement implants a thought into a visitor’s mind. If that person sees your mission statement driving your journey and content, then the mission statement is valuable.

Creating a mission statement that doesn’t support what you do is the quickest way to disaster.

In Conclusion

Standing out in an ever expanding playing field isn’t easy. There will be great struggles but also great triumphs along the way. Providing value in what you do, getting a large amount of people to respond that value (visiting, subscribing, purchasing, etc.), and having an authentic mission statement is how you dominate your industry.

What tips do you have for standing out in today’s marketplace? Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you believe it’s better to fight against competitors or work with competitors? Sound off in the comments section now!

How To Build A Successful Blogging Empire From Scratch

July 27, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Get More Blog Traffic

Remember what it felt like to start your blog from scratch? Choosing the URL (if you haven’t done that yet, this post will help), what we would write about, and the themes we would choose for our blogs were three of the many questions we asked ourselves as we created our blogs. Once a blog is created, it can be taken in many directions. After struggling in the beginning and learning as I continued in my journey, my blog has now become a successful blog that routinely gets tens of thousands of visitors every month.

Making your blog become successful at a quick rate requires you to have direction early in the process. It took me a long time to acquire the knowledge that I know now, so I wanted to share with you how you can build a successful blog regardless of whether you have been writing blog posts for years or if you just created your blog a few days ago.

Getting Everything Set Up

Preparing yourself for success is just as important as putting in the work that will allow you to become successful. Right when you set up your blog, you must write a compelling About Me Page that tells your story, where you came from, where you are now, and your expertise.

After you write an About Me Page, you must develop a structure for your blog posts. What will they be about? How will you start them off? What will the body of your typical blog post look like? How will you conclude your blog posts? How will you get pictures on your blog (I use Canva)? How long will your blog posts be? These are some of the questions that you must ask yourself as you set up the structure of your blog posts. If you do not know how to set up your blog posts, then look at other bloggers for inspiration. I read hundreds of blog posts written by different bloggers, and after reading those blog posts, I got exposed to many different blog post structures and styles of writing, that when combined with my unique style, I came up with my own blog post structure that I go by for every blog post I write. Establishing your structure in the beginning will make it easier for you to write high value content.

Getting Traffic

Your best bet to getting traffic in the beginning is to use social media. Twitter alone led to the transformation of this blog. In 2013, this blog almost got 15,000 visitors for the year. In 2014, this same blog almost got 250,000 visitors for the year, and Twitter led the massive transformation. SEO traffic also dramatically increased, but the main reason my SEO traffic increased was because my Twitter traffic dramatically increased. The best and easiest way to increase your SEO traffic is to get more social media traffic because social media plays a big role in how much traffic you get from the search engines. The more active you are on the social networks, and the more time your content gets shared on various social networks, the more search engine traffic your blog will get.

Based on my experience of accumulating hundreds of thousands of social media followers, the best thing you can do for your social media strategy is to focus all of your time on social media towards growing one of your social media accounts.

Optimizing Your Blog For Subscribers

One of the things you should focus on right from the start is growing your email list. This is the one factor I missed for a long time, and it cost me thousands of subscribers. Because my blog was not optimized for getting subscribers, my first 150,000 visitors only resulted in 300 subscribers. I knew that I could do better than that, and I was reading more and more blog posts that included the famous phrase, “The money is in the list.”

After reading enough of those blog posts, I decided to create an account on iContact, create an emailing list, and then optimize my blog for getting more subscribers. The advantage of using a service like iContact or Aweber is that you have more control over what emails get sent to your subscribers, you can use tools with these services that you can’t use with a free service, and you get access to powerful email marketing features such as autoresponders and segments.

A few days after I joined iContact, I had my own landing page. I used Optimize Press to create my first landing page and the other landing pages on my blog. Optimize Press makes landing page creation simple, and right when I had my landing page, I promoted it on social media. In a few weeks, I found myself going from gaining no subscribers every day to gaining 10 subscribers every day. The quick transformation occurred in part because I already had over 100,000 Twitter followers at that point, and I gained a steady 200-500 new followers every day.

Getting Sales

The first way most bloggers promote their products is by displaying those products on the sidebar. Although product placement on a blog’s sidebar does lead to some sales, most of the top bloggers rely on email marketing and state that email marketing is more successful at getting sales than a blog’s sidebar by a long shot. This is why growing your email list is so important.

As you grow your email list, you must communicate with the people on your email list. Set up a week long autoresponder that automatically sends a series of emails to anyone who joins your email list. In this autoresponder, you should let people know about your story, provide advice, and then do a product pitch at the very end of the email.

Not only can you get more sales with an autoresponder, but you can also send an email blast to your list in which you do a product promotion. You should be routinely communicating with your email list once per week and providing them with value, but every 6-12 weeks, don’t feel shy to promote one of your products. Part of the reason you build your email list is to accumulate more revenue so your message can survive and spread. You get that revenue by promoting your products and getting sales. Whether you choose to rely on affiliate marketing, your own products, or both of them is your call, but I recommend creating at least one product so you have more control over how much revenue that product generates.

In Conclusion

Building a blogging empire from scratch requires you to know just enough about building a blogging empire from scratch. The other requirement is that you implement the knowledge and learn along the way. You just need to start out with enough knowledge in the beginning because you will acquire enough knowledge later in your journey that will allow you to turn your blog into a massive success.

Did you just start your blog? Do you remember the first blog post you published and how you felt? How is your blogging empire going? What tips do you have for us so we can grow our blogging empires? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 Tasks That You Must Fulfill Before You Get Another Like Or Follower

July 20, 2015 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Who wouldn’t want more likes and followers? The primary goal of using social media from a business standpoint is to grow a large, targeted audience of people who will engage with our content. However, this primary goal is insufficient for generating a full-time income. Having a large, targeted social media audience will help you towards achieving a full-time income, but when talking about an income, other elements come into play.

Not only do other elements beyond social media come into play, but the way you use social media and present yourself also affect how successful your brand becomes. It is great to get likes and followers, but what are they worth? What type of impact do they have on your brand? We must ask ourselves what happens after we accumulate the likes and followers. We must ask ourselves how we can use our time on social media more productively. We must ask ourselves what tasks we must fulfill before we get another like or follower. These are the big seven.

#1: Know Your Niche

The most important thing to do before you get another like or follower is to know what your niche is. This is a basic step, and many people with decent sized audiences know what niche they are in. If you already know your niche, you should skim through this section and head over to the second method. However, if you do not know what your niche is, it is time to discover which niche is the best one for you. The best niche you can choose for yourself is a combination of these factors:

Passion for potential niche
Knowledge about potential niche
Willingness to constantly learn more about potential niche

You should choose a niche that fits into all three of these factors. Those are the ideal niches that present the easiest choice for pure domination. Remember that in your lifetime, you can do anything. You can be anything from a motivational speaker to an expert on gadgets if that’s your style. Once you identify your niche, you must build your social media audience around that niche.

#2: Know Your Customers

Once you know what your niche is, it is easier to know who your customers are. Your customers are the people who buy your products and make your entire journey possible from a monetary point of view. Not only do your customers make the continuation of your brand possible, but knowing their specific needs will allow you to create better products that better serve your customers. Knowing your customers all comes down to knowing your targeted audience, and knowing your targeted audience all comes down to two simple questions:

“What is my brand’s purpose? What type of people would be interested in my brand’s purpose?”

The more specific you are when you identify your brand’s purpose, the easier it will be for you to know who your customers are. If your brand’s purpose is too vague, then you won’t grow a strong customer base. If you own a restaurant, then your purpose shouldn’t be just to feed people. In that case, your targeted audience would be anyone who eats, which initially sounds good because everyone eats food, but with many options, people won’t notice you. Instead of presenting yourself as the ideal choice for everyone, you must get specific. Is your restaurant an all-vegan restaurant? Does the Wi-Fi Free experience allow real-life conversations to develop? You may not own a restaurant, but you need to ask yourself those types of questions for your brand, regardless of what your niche is.

#3: Create A Better Posting Plan

The way you post your content affects how your audience sees you as an individual and how often your audience sees your content. Publishing posts daily is completely different from publishing one post per month. You must post content on your social networks several times per day, but if you publish 10 posts in five minutes, then you are bound to annoy your audience. The workaround is to create a better posting plan which consists of the following:

Scheduling posts. If you are looking for a way to schedule posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a Google+ page among other options, then look no farther than HootSuite. The HootSuite Pro feature makes it easier to schedule content in bulk. I can literally schedule over 100 tweets in just six clicks.
Posting content made to spread. Each social networks has a different set of rules based on users’ experiences that determines what spreadable content is. However, almost all of the viral content posted on social media contain pictures. You can use the free, easy-to-use tool called Canva to create stunning pictures. I use Canva for hundreds of pictures that appear on this blog.
Knowing when to post. Facebook Insights allow you to discover when the highest percentage of your audiences is on Facebook while Tweriod is the equivalent for Twitter. Schedule your posts to get published at the times you know when the highest percentage of your audience is on that social network so your posts get the optimal level of engagement.

#4: Look Over Your Social Media Profile

Looking at your social media profile and making sure you are proud of what you see is a way to gain verification that you are on the right path. Not only do you gain verification about your path (or if not, you’ll have an idea of what needs to be changed), but in a rapidly moving world, many things are bound to change in the next six months for your brand. Maybe you won an award that you could mention in your social media bio. Maybe you acquired another hobby worth mentioning, and mentioning your hobbies on social media is not so bad. Maybe you changed your brand’s logo or want a cooler background picture. Maybe your bio needs to be re-polished. By checking your social media profile once per month and making changes where they need to be made, you will always reflect up-to-date information within your social media profile. You don’t want to change your brand’s picture, bio, or background just for the sake of doing it because that affects your brand’s recognition. If Apple constantly changed its logo, it would be more difficult for customers to remember the brand. Only make a change when a change is necessary.

#5: Get Your Email List Straightened Out

If you are going to do one thing before you get another like or follower, you must straighten out your email list and choose which paid service you will use. I use iContact to build and manage my email list, but MailChimp, Aweber, and Constant Contact are three other worthy options among the pool of efficient emailing services. You must choose a service that allows you to send custom emails to your subscribers (in other words, not just the RSS Reader type of emails) and enables autoresponders. Autoresponders allow you to build the relationship between you and your subscribers which will increase the chances of someone buying one of your products. If you want to go the extra mile and get more subscribers from your social media efforts, create a landing page (I use Optimize Press for mine. Here is an example of a landing page) that collects email addresses. Then, promote that landing page to your social media audience every day. If you wish to promote your landing page to your social media audience every day, then you must schedule numerous posts per day so you don’t appear to be over promoting your landing page.

#6: Have At Least One Method To Generate Revenue

Social media won’t generate much direct revenue for your brand, but social media is great at generating traffic that can lead to more revenue. You can lead the people within your social media audience to your landing page, your blog, and in rare cases, your product sales page. You want your social media audience to generate a high ROI, and in order to get that ROI, you must lead people to places where you can potentially make revenue for every transaction that takes place.

#7: Procrastinate Less Often On Social Media

Social media is the least expensive method I have come across to generate a massive audience, but it can also take away a large portion of our time. Never before has their been a double-edged sword like this for business owners. If you procrastinate less often on social media, you will have more time to create products, write blog posts, and grow your audience.

The first step to reducing procrastination on social media is to identify what causes you to procrastinate in the first place. Knowing the problem is the first step towards finding a solution. The second step is to do something about it. I found myself reading through the trending topics often. The solution for me was to only read the first five posts about a trending topic so I know what happened. I also spend less time looking at the trending topics because I do more of my social media activities on HootSuite nowadays, and HootSuite does not have a trending topics section for me to get distracted by.

In Conclusion

Every business wants a larger audience, but what are you going to do with your audience? How will you become successful once you get the large audience? What most people do not realize is that a big audience does not guarantee success. You need to have a big audience of people who appreciate what you do and are willing to pay their money for your expertise and/or product. You must also use your time more effectively and specialize in what you do so you get the right results in the right areas.

What are your thoughts on these seven tasks? Which task do you think is the most necessary? Do you have an 8th task that you believe everyone must do before getting their next like or follower? Please share your thoughts and advice below.