social media

If It Were Easy

August 21, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Everyone would be doing it.

If being a bestselling author was easy, everyone would be writing their own book and becoming the next bestselling author.

If having a million Twitter followers was easy, everyone would be on Twitter talking with over a million followers.

If having a mansion was easy, everyone would move into a mansion or turn their house into a mansion.

If having a successful business was easy, everyone would be an entrepreneur, and none of them would quit. Sadly, over 90% of them quit within the first 5 years.

If coming up with a big idea was easy, everyone would be thinking of big ideas. The people who can’t think of big ideas sell products similar to their competition.

If running the mile was easy, everyone would be running that mile without stopping. It isn’t as easy as it appear.

However, it’s not easy. That’s why few people do the difficult tasks. The safety zone is not safe at all. Everyone is in the safety zone which makes individuals in the safety zone become invisible.

Becoming a bestselling author, having a million Twitter followers, having a mansion, having a successful business, coming up with a big idea, and running the mile are not easy. As we get more experience, these tasks become easier.

After writing a lot of books, an author can build a following and eventually become a bestselling author.

After consistently tweeting for years and going viral, it is possible for someone to reach a million followers without knowing how to sing well or buying a million followers.

Everyone who started with a business started at the bottom. Macintosh computers were first made in garage. Now Apple is a multibillion dollar company that pays billions of dollars in taxes. They can pay those billion dollars in taxes and still make a profit with their Macs, iPhones, iPads, and more. Amazon started out as a bookstore. Now Jeff Bezos is a billionaire who recently bought the Washington Post. Not bad for “another bookstore.”

When someone thinks of a big idea, and creates a business based on that big idea, that person has a good chance of becoming successful. Twitter, Facebook. Instagram, Pinterest, and Google are some of the big ideas. The person who came up with an idea for any of these social networks (or Google) is either a millionaire or a billionaire. That’s not bad for an idea that started out on paper. Back in 2004, people would have looked at you funny if you talked about Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. Google was around at that time, but Google+ was not.

Running the mile becomes easy after a lot of practice. People give up when they run the mile for the first time because it’s excruciating. The people who run day after day will be able to easily run the mile.

It’s not easy, but with practice, dedication, and commitment, you will make it easy.

3 Problems That All Newbies Face With Social Media (And How To Fix Them)

August 15, 2013 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Social media is powerful. With social media, small businesses and entrepreneurs are given a stronger presence than at any point in history. Social media is a powerful tool that can cause any unknown business to become the next big thing.

It is possible, and it’s easier than many people think. There are 3 top problems that people face on social media, and I will provide solutions for each of those problems.

Getting more followers. You have to be patience in order to get more followers. There are plenty of ways to get more followers such as tweeting frequently, engaging in conversations, and so on. My next blog post will list 10 universal ways to get more followers with any social network.
Quickly becoming overwhelmed. There are too many people who are thinking Competitor A has over 100,000 followers, Competitor B has over 50,000 followers, and I just started using social media. These people may not even know much about using their social network, yet. That last word, yet, is the most important word in the sentence. You will learn a lot about social media by subscribing to this blog, but I encourage you to explore other options as well. Business2Community, Social Media Today, and Techcrunch are some of the many places that you can find valuable resources and posts about all of the social networks. However, don’t try to do too much in a single day. Take social media one day at a time until you have learned a lot about your social network and others as well.
No sales or clicks. What’s the point? You will start to see those sales and clicks when you get more followers and engage with them properly. However, people are worrying about their sales, clicks, and the ROI (return of investment). You’re not spending money in this investment. You’re spending time. After a couple of hours, there aren’t any sales or clicks. Remember that becoming successful on any social network requires a lot of patience. It’s my go-to piece of advice that I would give anyone about becoming successful on social media. If you have the following, but you still aren’t getting any sales, try the 80/20 rule. Tweet about other people’s content 80% of the time and your content 20% of the time. Better yet, when you tweet your content, tweet about your blog 15% of the time and one of your products only 5% of the time. People don’t want to see your product unless they trust and respect you. I finally bought Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow. I have been subscribed to his blog for more than a year, and I finally decided to buy the book. Some people will take months to build trust while others will take a year. You don’t get the return on investment right away. It takes time.

11 Ways To Get More Followers On Pinterest

August 12, 2013 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

I am very impressed with Pinterest. I never thought I would be using it, but here I am today pinning as much as I can. Pinterest is powerful social network that is the perfect place to share your hobbies, products, and more. Here are 11 ways to get more Pinterest followers:

Pin a lot. A majority of people with over a million followers also have thousands of pins. Don’t expect to get 1 million followers when you get your first 1,000 or even 5,000 pins, but just keep pinning. Don’t make it annoying for your followers though. Pin 3 times on one board and shift to the other. No one likes spam.
Include pictures on your blog. This is one of the rare times this blog has a picture of it, but with a picture, you can promote your blog posts on Pinterest. I might even revamp some of the blog posts just to make my blog more Pinterest friendly.
Comment on other people’s pins. When people look at a popular pin, they will see your comment. If your comment is the only one there, you get the spotlight.
Pin quality pictures. No matter what you pursue, quality is essential. You need quality pins in order to get more followers. Make the pictures shocking, relevant, humorous, or meaningful. Quality beats quantity.
Use Pinterest as much as you can. The Pinterest power users (all of those people with over a million followers) use Pinterest a lot. One person said she uses Pinterest more than she uses her email.
Don’t talk about one thing. People aren’t going to follow someone just for social media advice. You are going to have to offer a wider variety of pins. If some of your boards are about food, create some boards about some of your favorite product. Then, create some boards about animals, architecture, sports, and anything else that you can think of.
Be as specific as possible. Social media advice is not narrow enough. Social media advice is advice for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and so on. Instead of creating one giant board, create boards with specific niches such as “Facebook Advice” or even better, “How To Market Your Facebook Page.”
Use a lot of hashtags. When you use hashtags, more people will find you on Pinterest. When I pin about getting more Pinterest followers, I always use “#Pinterest” because more people will be able to find me. That board is also my most followed board.
Spend most of your time on a few of your boards. The people who have over a million followers on Pinterest usually have only one or two boards that are actually being followed by millions of people. The other boards get followed by tens of thousands of people which is still good though. Focus most of your time on one, two, or three boards at most.
When choosing the board to work on, look at how many people are following each of your boards. The most followed boards are the ones you should work on because people want to know more about that topic.
Get to your first thousand followers. Once you get there, you’ll get a lot more followers. This applies for all social networks. It will take longer for some people to reach 1,000 followers than others. However, when you reach that milestone, more people will start following you. When my Twitter account reached 1,000 followers, I went from gaining about 10 followers a day to gaining over 20 followers every day.

You won’t go from 250 followers to 25,000 followers in 3 days (unless you’re Andrew “Oyl” Miller). It takes time to grow a big following, but with time, you will eventually have that big following you’ve always dreamed of.