8 Brilliant Facebook Marketing Tactics to Use

Posted on October 31st 2014

Facebook makes a lot of changes and that can be really frustrating for marketers, especially those of us who do it all ourselves, right? Part of my job is to keep you up-to-date on changes and tactics that will help you successfully navigate your social media marketing.
Remember, more time is spent on Facebook than on any other platform on the web (besides Google). This means that it’s getting easier and easier to market there, because Facebook really does care about making it an effective tool to help you attract your ideal clients. Here’s a list of Facebook marketing tactics that you can use right now.

1. Post as yourself or as your page with this nifty new tool.

At the top right of your status update window you will now see this little drop-down menu that enables you to post as yourself or as your Page (or any Page you manage).

2. Copy and paste a post to use elsewhere by clicking on the time stamp and getting the URL.

Now you can repost on other Social Media sites (such as LinkedIn) or shorten the URL and use it on Twitter (love this idea – thank you to Mari Smith, Facebook marketer extraordinaire).

3. Schedule your posts 10 minutes into the future to avoid typos.

It’s awful to post an update and not notice a typo until after your community has noticed it…very embarrassing! So schedule your post for 10 minutes into the future and proofread it in the activity log. You’ll be amazed at the typos you’ll avoid!

4. Use images that follow the guidelines.

Facebook is a great place to post big impactful photos and images. The ideal size for an update is 1200×628 pixels, but according to Jon Loomer, my go-to-guy for Facebook nitty-gritty, 484×252 also works well. Keep this in mind when you use photos in your blog because Facebook will pull your featured image into the preview box. Which would you rather see?

5. Don’t be afraid to spend a little bit of money on your post reach.

You my have noticed how few fans your posts are delivered to: only about 6%. All your hard-won fans really do want to see your stuff (or they wouldn’t have Liked your page). Boost your important posts for just a few bucks…it’s worth it.

6. Look at your Facebook Insights to see what time of day you should post.

It’s a great tool but many of us never look at it in depth. If you don’t have time to dig through Insights, this is the one metric (which one? this is confusing) you should pay attention to. To get there, click Insights then Posts.

7. Find out what other pages your fans Like with this nifty trick.

What’s the trick? This is a great way to get ideas from other Pages but it’s especially awesome to learn more about your fans and if you advertise, for your audience targeting:

8. Video, Video, Video!

According to Mari Smith, 2015 will be the year of the video.You don’t need a highly produced epic; short (no more than 2-3 minutes.) creative, little films work great on Facebook. And there’s word that Facebook will also be granting videos additional reach. Why? Because users love them:

 http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/8-brilliant-facebook-marketing-tactics-use-right-now-0

10 Things You Most Likely Didn't Know About Social Media

If you consider yourself a know-it-all social media guru, you're in for a surprise. Following the rapid evolution of social media analytics tools, industry experts are able to extract lots of new and increasingly detailed information that helps marketers to create more effective social media strategies. There are dozens of research studies being conducted on the subject, some of which you might not even now existed. Here are ten interesting social media facts you probably didn’t know about.

1. That's right, Facebook is growing

Even though to some markets Facebook is slowly becoming an obsolete social media platform, the global scale shows something completely different. It's hard to imagine, but it's true – every second 5 new Facebook profiles are created. That's more than the number of global births!

2. Twitter has 6 different communication networks

A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center jointly with the Social Media Research Foundation, analyzed thousands of Twitter conversations and spotted a pattern. There are as many as 6 completely different communication networks at work on Twitter. And we all thought tweeting was such a simple affair.

3. Users love videos more than ever

Even though marketers agree that original videos aren't exactly an important part of their social media strategy (have a look at this survey), facts speak for themselves. Every day, Facebook users watch more than 500 years worth of videos and an average visitor spends at least 15 minutes on YouTube.

4. Twitter is a real-time dictator

A research study by Lithium Technologies showed that the real-time nature of Twitter can result in some really high expectations from users – apparently, 53% of those who tweet a brand expect an answer within an hour. But that's not all. If they're angry and their tweet is a complaint, the number rises to a smashing 72%! Use tools to track your response time and make sure to respond as fast as possible to all tweets that make your way (especially the angry ones!).

5. Facebook is most alive on Fridays

In its recent Social Intelligence Report, Adobe analyzes over 225 billion Facebook posts and concludes that the best time to count on user engagement is Friday. That's when posts receive more comments, shares and likes – perhaps because Fridays are perfect days for slacking off at work! Something to consider when you're reviewing your own posting schedule.

6. Late evening is a perfect time to tweet

After analyzing over 1.7 million tweets, TrackMaven came up with a precise timing for maximizing our chances at getting retweeted. Apparently, the best time to tweet during the day is from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, best done on Sunday. Late night is a moment when the share volume is lower and content simply has a greater chance at being shared. If you're looking for more engagement, consider posting during this hour.
7. Every day has its winner on Pinterest
Pinterest is one of the social media platforms that drives most web traffic, so it's only natural that the team seizes their immense amount of data and granted us some really valuable insights. Pinterest revealed on their company blog the top categories that get most engagement every day of the week. While fitness posts will score high on Monday, those with inspirational quotes are most popular on Wednesday (it figures – workers like to be comforted half-way through their working week).

8. Visuals have real power on Facebook

We all know the value of great images for our social media marketing, but this figure is simply mind-blowing. Social Bakers revealed that 87% of all interactions of a Facebook page happen on photo posts. In comparison, posts with links receive only 4% of all interactions. Choosing photos that fit your brand narrative or tell a story on their own should now become your priority.

9. Written content is key

The expected rise of content marketing means that more and more marketers will be on the lookout for high-quality content to raise their brand awareness across various social media platforms. Writers can feel secure – it seems that written content is what marketers appreciate most. An annual survey conducted by the Social Media Examiner revealed that 58% of marketers considered blog posts and expert articles as the most important kind of social content. That's really impressive, especially when considered next to the meek 19% of marketers who voted for visual content.

10. The 55-64 age bracket is growing on Twitter

And growing fast. In fact, this is the fastest growing demographic on Twitter! This surprising fact will bring joy to all those who market products for mature consumers.
Judging by the practical insights brought by data derived from all those research studies, one thing is clear – in order to stay on top of your game, you simply must have a firm grasp over social media analytics and statistics.

 

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/10-things-you-most-likely-didnt-know-about-social-media

20 Ways to get Direct Traffic

Posted on October 31, 2014 by admin in Traffic Tips and Instructionals

How can you tell if your website is popular enough? You could maybe check for your google analytics for total traffic? You could also maybe tell it with your total sales and profits? Or how about looking at your engagements such as clicks and hits to say that more and more people are active in your website? All of these are correct answers, but the best way to do that is by checking your Direct Traffic. And by increasing that certain traffic, you must have your own 20 ways to get direct traffic.

Direct traffic are your traffic that came from unrecorded sources. This traffic can be achieved by users who directly written your website URL or domain name in the search bar of their browsers, clicked a link from a Word document or a PDF, or clicked a link from a mysterious unregistered e-mail. Just the first option of the three would be your standpoint of your website’s popularity. And how could you get this abundant website traffic for your site?

Are you the online marketer who still has no traffic in your own website? Don’t worry, we have listed some starters, just for you.

1. Promote your traffic non-stop – First of all, you won’t be able to get that popularity without actually advertising your website. And the best way to do that is to promote your website regularly. Regular promotion of website doesn’t only “uplifts” your website, but continuous existence on feeds and sites could attract many curious viewers’ eyes.

2. Advertise using “out of the ordinary” procedures – Standing out using ordinary and traditional ads won’t really increase your traffic that much. But by using creative ads that is new to the viewers’ tastes, you could automatically get some attention. With that, people will have an easier time remembering your site.

3. Use domain names that are short – Your domain name play a very big part of your website’s popularity. Easy to memorize websites are visited more by users. This is because users don’t want to type URLs that are too long.

4. Use URLs that is creative and unique – Ever wonder why Facebook clicked? This is because of their URL name. Facebook came from two words, Face and Book, which doesn’t really have any similarities at all.

5. Promote using business cards – Use the power of the traditional advertising using 3×4 cards. With these, you’ll get in touch with your traffic plus they’ll easily remember you.

6. Use Reddit – Another thing to consider about direct traffic is Reddit’s power of redditors. Since Reddit considered themselves as the “front page of the internet”, then continues existence to that site could lead viewers to actually be familiar to your site.

7. Go with Twitter – Use hashtags as your advantage! Use the actual trends and get your viewers be familiarized with your website.

8. Create lots and lots of PDFs –As we said earlier, PDF can be your source of direct traffic. Spread some free PDF on your viewers and you would expect a lot of clicks from there on.

9. Go crazy with guest blogging – Be the best guest blogger in those websites, create great articles so that people would remember you and your site.

10. Facebook is still a must – Facebook would still exist for a number of years ahead, use this chance to get more direct traffic to your website.

11. Tumblr it out –Tumblr is more of a viral community and a blog at the same time,. Perfect to be included in our list.

12. Create car stickers with your domain name – Forget about the “baby on board” sticker or the “stick family” stickers! Print out one big sticker with your domain name on it, and ride all the way to more real website traffic.

13. Repeatedly use vines – Invest on these funny 6 second films that goes viral very fast

14. Dominate Instagram – Every time you take a picture, include your domain name on it. In this way, people would always remember your website.

15. Give away little useful objects such as bottle opener keychains and the like – Small yet useful advertising now in the palm of their hands.

16. Have Word documents about your website and contents available – Remember to include your domain link on every document.

17. Have contests – Push the limits of your traffic by letting them compete in a friendly match against other, the winner could get a price. Do this regularly and people might actually join your website directly.

18. Create your own blog – Make your blogs lifelike and creative. Direct your readers to directly subscribe to your website.

19. Create videos and vines for your website – Want to have a viral output? Just turn on any camera, record and put your domain name in the middle.

20. SEO – Still one of the best options available.

 

http://www.yourtraffichits.com/content/20-ways-to-get-direct-traffic/

Outstanding Email List Building Success In 6 Easy Steps

 

Follow My 6 Step Plan For Mailing List Success

How To Build Your Mailing List – My Easy 6 Step Plan
In the past I have done a fair number of postings about building an email list here at IncomeDiary.com — but with today’s post I wanted to take a slightly different approach. But first I would like to ask you a question.

Are You Too Embarrassed To Build A Mailing List?

You see when I have been speaking to some coaching clients recently I noticed just how many of them felt EMBARRASSED about using their website / blog to build up a list of subscribers / potential future clients.
It was almost like they were afraid to ask for the money? I mean, what is the point being in business if you are afraid to ask for the money?
And when it comes to blogging — your mailing list is a lot of the money.
I was speaking to one person recently who is a great writer – who has filled their website with lots of great content but was reluctant to add an option for people to join a mailing list – and even when he did add it — he buried it within the site so no one would see it.
When I challenged him about it he gave me the most surprising reply. He didn’t want to be considered a spammer! My jaw almost dropped of my face!

Building an email list does not make you a spammer!

Thinking that adding the option for visitors to OPT-IN to your mailing list / download your free report somehow makes you look bad is complete Nonsense!
But then I made a realization also – you see I thought this was such a daft idea I never thought anyone could possibly think this but when I asked around I actually found other people who felt similarly. So this post is particularly for you if you feel uncomfortable building a mailing list.

Why Would I Want To Join Your Email List?

As you can imagine I am on a large number of email lists myself and I must join several new lists each week (as well as opting out of several lists each week as they no longer serve my needs)
And the reason why I join is simple — because I like what you have written and I want to read more from you!
I mean I don’t want to have to check your website daily to see if there is a new blog post to read – I want you to email me and let me know when there is a new blog post or something that might be of interest to me.
Not 100% related — but I am even on Mailing Lists for products not even directly of interest to me — simply because I like to keep up with what is going on in other industries / markets. Of course in these cases I am only on the list of the top players in those niches – it is like a Free Education – I get to see what they are doing, what subject lines they are using and I am able to think how can I apply what they are doing to my NICHE?
Of course the truth of the matter is that those people who are a bit SHY or Embarrassed about building a mailing list do in fact suffer from POOR SELF IMAGE.
Basically they think they are not worthy of attracting followers. They don’t actually think the have the right to be successful.
Remember as my good friend Jerry Gillies puts it:

Making a dollar and making a difference do not have to be mutually exclusive

It really is OK to make money doing something you love and helping people at the same time.
You are in fact doing your visitors a disservice by not giving them an option to opt-in — NOT the other way round. Add an OPT-IN and let your website visitors decide for themselves.

Another Thought…

I was reviewing this post and thinking it odd that we had a SIX Step plan (rare to see a 6 step plan — it is usually 3 steps, 5 steps and 7 steps — rarely 6 steps). Anyway I made an important realization — because this is in fact a 7 step plan because the 1st step is in fact HAVING THE RIGHT ATTITUDE.
Unless you believe in yourself and the value you deliver to your subscribers – then frankly you may as well never even get bothered building a mailing list.

Our Attitude to building a mailing list determines the SUCCESS of our mailing list

When I publish this blog post I will email my subscribers to advise them of it and in return 1000’s of them will visit this blog post because of that one thing.
Really it is not that difficult (I like to think it is simple — but people seem intent on making it difficult!)
Here is just a few of the many reasons why having a list is really important:

• You can email your list every time you have a new blog post, sending a huge surge of traffic to your site!
• If you decide to launch a product, you can instantly inform all your readers and fans to come check out the sales page.
• Email promotions, sending out emails promoting a new product launch!

1. Creating Your “Hook”

Starting with the most important part of list building, giving some away in return for their email address. Creating a hook is easy, all you have to do is produce a product that you could sell but instead you give it away. Most people say this is important to get more people to sign up, it definitely does increase conversions by a lot but it also has an even powerful-er part to it, it can make you a lot of money. In fact my first 6 figures made online was through a FREE report I gave away on one of my blogs.
Let’s say you have a web design blog, you could created a report called “17 Ways To Make More Money As a Web Designer“. In this report you teach visitors these ways, some things include them buying something that of course will genuinely help them but also make you money as an affiliate. So for example, one tip is to get business cards created and you suggest their buy them through Vista Print which of course is an affiliate link. Another suggestion could be they should become hosting resellers for their clients and then they buy a reseller account via your affiliate link. All your content needs to help them and of course make you money (by lawrence). If you are new to affiliate marketing, I suggest you read this guide. If you struggle for time, a 17 tips type report can be done in a couple hours quite easily so don’t feel you need to go all out with a long eBook.

My report being sent out in a email deliver by Aweber, they report is the emai. Most people don’t bother putting together a design for an email template, however those who want to, Themeforst have some great ones to choose from.

Hopefully now you have some sort of idea of what FREE report you want to create, it doesn’t have to be a really long thing, it just needs to help website visitors in some way so that they want to buy something in the report and stay subscribed for more content. Some bloggers deliver their report in a PDF format which is automatically sent to new subscribers via your email marketing solution (I use Aweber for this) and some bloggers fine it easier just to deliver the report in one long email, which is what I do.

2. Setting Up Your Email Opt-in Box & Funnel

I use two email marketing providers, Aweber and iContact. Both are similar, I hate to rely on one company, using multiple company’s is just good business sense. What these company’s do is allow you to collect email addresses, send and track emails, plus a lot more techy stuff that the typical person doesn’t really need.
Using any email provider, you will have the option to send a visitor to a page, you can either use their default thank you page but I like to do is create a new page in WordPress and thank new subscribers for opting in and to let them know that their free gift will be emailed to them straight away. As this is the point where their most interested in your subject, I also suggest several affiliate products related to my free gift which they may be interested in.

3. Have a Page Dedicated To Your Free Gift & Signing Up

The thing I see over and over again is people really enjoying the free gifts they get from signing up to a newsletter – so you must make it easy for them to share the source of this free gift (report, tip sheet etc) where their friends, customers and even family. Simply having a sidebar opt-in isn’t enough. You want to give your subscribers a link to a page detailing your offer, which they can pass on to friends, family etc. Something else I recommend is using OptimizePress – this allows you to create squeeze pages which have converted higher then 50% which means if you can send 1000 visitors to your squeeze page, over 500 will opt-in.

I use OptimizePress for my squeeze pages and it only took around 5 minutes, saving me at least $500 and a whole bunch of time. They have 10 different pages to choose from, depending if you want to show a video on your squeeze page, show a preview of one, a free report with an eCover – frankly they cover everything!
TOP TIP: Have your download page include comments so that readers can leave testimonials and share thoughts, this makes for great social proof!

4. Using a Lightbox Opt-in Popup

When you visit IncomeDiary you would of seen my popup which was produced using my WordPress plugin called Popup Domination. I knew lightbox’s like this worked but the ones Aweber provide had some flaws, firstly poor design, I’m not going to spend all my time and money on the perfect blog does just to devalue it with a free lightbox design. As well as that, it was missing a lot of the options I required such as setting how soon the popup showed up, how often, what pages, customizing the design and so on. Using Popup Domination I was able to go from around 15 opt-ins a day to over 50 a day almost immediately, which really helped me take off with my online marketing. Here are a couple Popup Domination settings I think work really well:

• Shown every 14 days, on the second impression and not on the homepage. This means when they visit the site, the popup doesn’t show up on the first page they visit, if they enjoy your site and further navigate to a second page, this is when they are shown the popup. These settings work very well for those who are worried about upsetting regular visitors. Additionally you may want to consider having the sign up link open up in a new window so that the visitor stays on your page.
• Shown in one particular category on the first impression and target the traffic that visits the posts in that category, for example if the category on your website is about six pack abs, provide a free gift on getting six pack abs. This is for those who want to build a super targeted email list.

We have also seen that people using Popup Domination using a theme which you can use an eCover have converted a lot higher then those without so I highly recommend you invest just a small amount of money in an eCover design related to your free gift.

5. Making Money From Your Email List

Most people reading this who want to monetize their email list will probably want to do it by promoting affiliate products. It is seriously easy money, can you imagine just sending a email to your, taking you what, 5 minutes and in return you make thousands of dollars. We are so lucky with the opportunity we have today,  we just have to make sure we take advantage of it while we can. When emailing promotions, you have three main ways to go do it:

• Directly email your list a link to the sales page
• Email your list a review on your blog
• Email your list a link to a bonus page on your site where you take them through the product and offer them a bonus if they buy through your link.

Depending on the product, you will want to do different things. I prefer to email my list a link to a review on my site, this brings them back to my site, gives me a better chance at selling it as well as a better chance of them looking else where on my blog and buying something. If the product is a high price, try the bonus page, this has definitely increased my conversions. Directly emailing your list the link to the sales page is the easiest solution, it doesn’t convert as well but it literally takes 2 minutes to do. I have to admit, I feel bad emailing a link directly to the sales page because it makes me look like I don’t care, I prefer to put in more effort and in return I make a lot more. For more help finding affiliate products to promote, check out this post.

6. Increasing Earnings and Email Open Rate

The most exciting feature for me is being able to send another email to the same list that I emailed the day before, but this time it only sends to the people who didn’t open the email the day before. I simply keep the email the same but change the title in case the other one wasn’t enticing enough for them. Figures don’t lie, let me show you how it performed:
The first email sent out got: 33.8% open rate getting 523 clicks to my website.
The second email which went to only the unopened emails got: 16.1% open rate and an additional 156 clicks to my website.
This is an example of a small list I have hosted with iContact. 156 extra visitors to my post may not seem like a huge amount but when I tell you it was convert at $3.00 a click, that’s an extra $468.00. Before using this option that would not have been possible. This feature comes with both iContact and Aweber.

The second thing I suggest you do is try split testing part of your list or if you have several different lists, try split testing one before sending to the rest. Split testing basically allows you to send different emails to the same list and compare which converts the best. In the example below you will see I sent an email to one of my lists with two different headlines, it was sent to 12,000 people and one email title performed better than the other, now that I know which one converts best, I can send that title to the rest of my email lists.

The next thing you want to do is add an autoresponder series to your email list. What this does is automatically email your subscribes at a set time for months to come, for example 1 day after signing up, then again 4 days later, then again 3 days later and so on. You want to do this because new subscribers most likely would not have seen past content and this gives you another opportunity to earn from those blog posts you have done. For example I have a review I did a while back that earned me over $7,000 when I emailed my subscribers a link to the article, that clearly converted very well for me. It’s proven to convert so I want to send future new subscribers to the post, so I set up an auto-responder for a few days after they opt-in to send out automatically that email I sent months ago to my list, this means they will get fresh content and give me a chance to earn again and again.

BONUS: Email Marketing FAQ’s
I’m stuck trying to do some of these things with iContact/Aweber.
No problem, the thing I love about these companies is the fact that they both have live chat so you can just login and talk to one of their team and ask them questions about any problems you may be having.
How often should I email my list?
I email every time I have something that is WORTHWHILE them looking at. (Note the word WORTHWHILE – think every time you email — are you adding value, are you creating value) It is easy to be lazy (and I have been guilty of it) but it is vital to keep the VALUE up there and in turn keep your connection and rapport with your subscriber. This can only be done by putting them first and delivering value and products that improve their life / their business.
I know a lot of marketers who email promotion day after day. I would say not to do that – rather you should split up your promotions with free content posted on your blog as well as your affiliate marketing promotions. This way visitors are less likely to object to being heavily marketed to and indeed are more likely to buy because they appreciate the value you deliver.
VERY IMPORTANT: Don’t promote for the sake of promoting and earning some affiliate commissions – PROMOTE only when you are a 100% confident in the product and the individual who created it.
What should my FREE gift format be?
To be honest, it can anything you like, such as a Video, Audio or PDF download. The reason I prefer to have a written gift is because you can’t skim video or audio and people live very busy lives and you can’t expect them to sit through something with out knowing whats coming up.
There are so many email providers (AWeber, iContact etc), which one should I choose?
I have tried many different providers, I personally use AWeber because that’s who all the big names were using, if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me. I personally like having accounts with two different company’s (2 hosts, 2 autoresponders, 2 domain registrars etc) because I feel safer then relying on one company, that is why I started using iContact. I like iContact and would happily recommend either of these providers.

http://www.incomediary.com/outstanding-email-list-building-success-in-6-easy-steps

A Simple Plan for Writing a Powerful Blog Post in Less Than 2 Hours

 

You already know blogging is an effective marketing channel, but how do you find the time to write a blog post?
When I started blogging seven years ago, it used to take me four to five hours to write a post. Since then, not only have I figured out how to write 1,000-2,000-word blog posts in under two hours, but I’ve also figured out how to improve the quality of my posts.
Here is the process you can use to write a post in less than two hours.

Blog on your passion

Blogging can be a chore, unless you are passionate about the topic. So, first and foremost, pick a topic you are passionate about.
Don’t just pick a topic that you “think” you are passionate about. Pick one that you definitely know you’ll love. It has to be a topic that you love so much that you want to constantly learn more about it.

Create a list

Now that you have a topic that you’re passionate about, create a list of all the popular blogs in that space. You can easily do this by searching Technorati. If there aren’t many popular blogs in your space, list all the blogs that are somewhat in your space and are popular.
Now that you have a list of all the popular blogs, make sure you browse them once a week. When browsing them, look for social buttons on each post that shows how many people either “tweeted” or “liked” the post. The higher the number, the better.
Take the posts that have over 50 or 100 social shares and list them in a spreadsheet. This whole process shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes. If it does, you are spending too much time on it.

Spin the title

The hardest part about blogging is coming up with a topic to blog about. But you don’t have to worry about this problem anymore.
Browse through your spreadsheet and continue to tweak the headlines until you come up with a topic idea that you would want to blog on.
For example, in my spreadsheet, I found this headline:
A Simple Plan for Writing One Powerful Piece of Online Content per Week
This headline on Copyblogger had over 1,400 tweets. Because the Quick Sprout audience also likes topics about “blogging” and I myself am passionate about blogging, I thought I could spin that title. Here were my variations:

• A Simple Plan for Writing One Blog Post per Week
• A Simple Plan for Writing One Blog Post per Week in Less Than Two Hours
• A Simple Plan for Writing a Blog Post in Less Than Two Hours
• A Simple Plan for Writing a Powerful Blog Post in Less Than 2 Hours

As you can see, I kept on modifying the headline until I was happy with a variation. The fourth and last variation is one I liked, so I decided to go with it.
The process of spinning headlines shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes. You should be able to produce a variation of a headline at least once every thirty seconds. So, over the course of ten minutes, you should have at least twenty headlines.

Outline your post

Before you write your post, you should outline it. List the main points you want to cover in your introduction, body and conclusion.
Once you have the main points you want to talk about in the body section, break them down into subheadings. In this post, the subheadings are:

• Blog on your passion
• Create a list
• Spin the title
• Outline your post
• Fill in the details
• Edit, tweak, and massage
• Post and share
• Conclusion

Make sure your subheadings clearly describe what you are going to write about.
This section shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes. I know you may miss some details by being efficient with your time, but that’s okay. No blog post is ever perfect, so whatever points you have in your outline, just run with it.

Fill in the details

This is the longest section, but probably the easiest. Over the next sixty minutes, you should be writing what you want to talk about.
Don’t worry about making things perfect or using correct spelling or grammar, just write. If you happen to have writer’s block in one of the outlined sections, skip it and go back to it later.
The key to “filling in the details” is to type as fast as possible. Don’t fluff things up and don’t correct any errors when you make mistakes while typing. Most importantly, don’t worry about trying to sound sophisticated through the use of fancy words… blog as if you are writing for a 5^th-grader.

Edit, tweak and massage

Now that you have your blog post, it’s time to polish it.

1. Add or remove points – you want your blog post to hit hard, so add any points that you feel will strengthen your post. Accordingly, remove any points that aren’t strong.
2. Add facts – with a few quick Google searches, you should be able to find information to support the points you are making. Find some sites to link to that back up what you have to say. This will boost your credibility and help brand you as an expert in your space.
3. Improve the flow – if something isn’t easy to read, people won’t want to continue to read it. Make sure your blog posts are easy to read. Use transitions to help readability.
4. Correct grammar and spelling errors – although this sounds like a useless step, it actually is really important. Errors can affect your credibility in a negative way. If you aren’t good at fixing your errors like me, have someone else proofread your blog posts. If you can’t find someone, read your post aloud as it will help you find the errors.

Editing, tweaking and massaging shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.

Post and share

If you wrote your post within your blogging platform, great! If not, just copy and paste it. Most blogging platforms have a “what you see is what you get” editor, so if you copy and paste your blog post over, it should keep all of your formatting.
But before you post your blog post, you need to add an image. You can find a creative commons image from Flickr.
Once your post is up, share it on your social accounts. Twitter and Facebook are two great places to start.
This process shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes.

Conclusion

There you have it! You are now able to write a blog post in under two hours.
At first, you probably won’t be able to do everything I mentioned above in two hours, but after your first few tries, you should be able to write a post within that time frame easily.
Do you know of other ways of speeding up the blog writing process?

http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/10/29/a-simple-plan-for-writing-a-powerful-blog-post-in-less-than-2-hours/

How to Monetize a Website: The 5-Minute Monetization Guide

We recently covered the seven most common monetization methods, or ways that websites can make money from their traffic. As noted in that post, the method that’s most appropriate for a specific site will depend on the specifics: the niche, the audience, the type of content, the amount of traffic, and the loyalty of visitors (among others). Today, we’ll help you figure out which monetization method is the best fit for your specific site. (By the way, if you’re enjoying this article, you may want to consider joining MonetizePros. Members enjoy access to our in-depth Ad Network Reviews, plus other monetization tools, video tutorials, and e-books: click here to sign up.)

As we’ve noted previously, most websites should be monetized via multiple revenue streams–it’s likely that the best route for your site to take may involve more than one of these:

Method #1: Display Advertising

What It Is: One of the most common forms of website monetization, display advertising simply refers to the banner and text ads that you see on most sites.

Good Fit If: This monetization route is often fruitful for sites that have:

• Significant Traffic. As an extremely broad rule of thumb, most sites can make somewhere between half a cent and five cents per pageview from display advertising. That means that in order to make significant revenue here, you need to have a pretty big audience.
• Valuable Audience. Note that “valuable” can take many forms, depending on what the advertisers out there are looking for (more on this below). Generally, the wealthier an audience is the more attractive it will be to advertisers–though that isn’t always the case: for example, an audience of thirty-something women may be extremely attractive to someone looking to advertise jewelry, but relatively worthless to someone promoting a new role-playing video game.
• Relevant, Active Advertisers. This is perhaps the biggest factor that will impact your success with display advertising; if there is an abundance of active advertisers who would be interested in appearing on your site, your odds of success here go way up.

Bad Fit If: Display advertising is a popular monetization method, but of course it isn’t for everyone. Specifically, any sites with paying users may want to think twice, especially if there’s any risk that you’ll annoy your subscribers with an abundance of banner ads. Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish stands out as a site that made the conscious decision to avoid display advertising and focus instead on subscription revenue. Here’s an excerpt from the subscription page there:

How To Proceed: If you think display advertising is a good fit for your site, your next decision will be whether you want to sell ads through a network (such as Google AdSense) or try to sell directly to advertisers and ad agencies. Going through a network will get you immediate results with little upfront costs, but selling direct will ultimately lead to much higher revenue.

Stephen Chapman at ZDNet has some good tips for boosting AdSense revenue, while Stephane Kerwer at Dukeo.com has thoughts on building your advertising landing page.

Bottom Line: Even if you’re not going to make a ton off of display advertising, the ease of implementing this monetization method makes it worth embracing for most website owners out there.

Method #2: Affiliate Marketing

What It Is: Affiliate marketing involves steering your visitors to products and services of a third party merchant; if that merchant converts your referrals to a sale, you get a slice of the action. Below is an integration of an Amazon widget into a sports blog; for each sale generated through that widget, the publisher gets a portion of the total purchase price:

Good Fit If: Affiliate marketing can be a good fit for sites that feature regular product reviews or include a forum:

• Product-Centric Site. If your site features regular reviews or head-to-head comparisons of products, software, or other services, there might be some good affiliate marketing opportunities available.
• Easy Integration Into Content. Affiliate marketing can be most effective when affiliate links can be integrated seamlessly into content on your site.
• Forum-Centric Site. Affiliate marketing can also be an effective monetization route for for sites that feature active member forums.
• Profitable Niche. You can likely make a bit of money via affiliate marketing in most niches, but of course some will be much more lucrative than others. Here are is a list of proven local lead gen niches from CDFnetworks; if your site fits into one of these, this method may be worth exploring.

Bad Fit If: Again, affiliate marketing may not be an ideal monetization route if your audience relies on you to be an objective expert on a subject or if they’re paying you for the content you produce. There’s almost always some tradeoff between the amount of money you can make via affiliate marketing and the level of trust that exists with your audience. If you’re not willing to sacrifice a bit of that relationship, affiliate marketing may not be for you.

How To Proceed: Similar to display advertising, affiliate marketing involves a choice between utilizing a network (e.g., Commission Junction) or setting up direct relationships with merchants. Again, a network will be more immediate and easier to set up but direct relationships can be much more profitable over the long run.

Bottom Line: Like display advertising, affiliate marketing can be very easy to implement (and start collecting affiliate payments) if it’s a good fit for your site.

Method #3: Lead Generation

What It Is: Lead generation can be thought of as a cousin to affiliate marketing; it involves capturing information about qualified visitors (such as email address or phone number) and selling that information to a third party who may want to sell to that “lead.” Thumbtack generates leads for a wide variety of businesses, from handymen to petsitters to legal assistants:

Good Fit If: Lead generation can be an extremely profitable business, but most publishers probably won’t have a site that accommodates this monetization method. If your site meets these criteria,

• Needy, Engaged Audience. By this, we simply mean that you cater to an audience that comes to your site looking for more information on a particular topic (and may be in the market for additional services that you can’t provide online). If, for example, you publish a home improvement blog, you might attract readers who could have use for a general contractor. As such, you might be able to capture leads that can be sold.
• Lead Buyers. In order to be effective in lead generation, you need someone to whom you can sell your leads. Generally, the more a potential client is worth to a lead buyer, the better.
• Professional Services Focus. Lead generation tends to work really well when there’s a high potential value of a converted client. That’s generally the case when any sort of professional service or big ticket item is up for grabs; lawyers, insurance agents, universities, and car dealers are able to pay handsomely for highly qualified leads. If you have a site that’s a logical fit in one of these niches, lead gen could be a good opportunity.

Bad Fit If: Lead generation won’t work well if your site doesn’t cater to a targeted audience with a consistent and logical need for some product or (more likely) service; for example, a general news site or political blog doesn’t have any logical tie-ins to third parties who might be interested in acquiring leads.

Lead generation can also be a poor fit if you have a relatively small but loyal audience that visits your site regularly. This monetization method is more effective for sites with a high percentage of “one off” visitors.

How To Proceed: The easiest way to get into the lead generation game is to work with one of the major lead aggregators out there, such as QuinStreet. Spencer Haws has some good thoughts on lead gen niches; Dragan Sutevski has a detailed series of posts on the basics.

Bottom Line: If your audience is right for it, getting into the lead gen business can be relatively painless–and very profitable.

Method #4: Email Rental

What It Is: Email rental is exactly what it sounds like: renting out your email list to third parties looking to promote their products or services to your audience. You essentially agree to send an email on their behalf to your distribution list; they provide the content and call to action in the email, and you provide the audience to whom it will be distributed.

Good Fit If: Email rental is appealing because it can fetch some premium rates; it isn’t uncommon to be able to charge $50 or more per 1,000 addresses on your distribution list. It can be good for your site if you have:

• Big (And Expanding) Distribution List. If you’ve built a big email distribution list (for example, through offering an e-newsletter), email list rental could have some serious potential.
• Regular Email Communication. If you communicate with your audience regularly via email, they’re likely to be willing to tolerate an occasional promotional email. (Think of it as the price they pay in exchange for receiving high quality content on a regular basis.)
• Relevant Advertisers. In order to make serious money off of email rental, you need to be able to find renters–third parties who want to promote themselves to your audience. It helps if you have a targeted audience (i.e., interested in a particular topic) and there are other companies in the space interested in tapping into that audience.

It’s unlikely that email marketing will be your primary source of revenue; this monetization source is often tapped in conjunction with display advertising or other methods listed here.

Bad Fit If: Email list rental won’t work if your audience isn’t willing to tolerate what are essentially third party ads being emailed to them. So if you don’t provide significant value to your list via email on a regular basis, pursuing this strategy could result in an extremely high unsubscribe rate.

How To Proceed: Email rental can be done through networks who hook you up with interested parties, or you can go directly to potential partners and attempt to cultivate a relationship without a middleman.

Bottom Line: If you can pull it off without driving a wave of unsubscribes or spam complaints, email list rental can be a very attractive and significant supplemental income stream. David Ronick at Inc. has a great article on the economics of e-newsletters, and Scott Hardigree has some good insights as well.

Method #5: Subscriptions

What It Is: Subscription revenue is generated by charging visitors to access content placed behind a “paywall.”

Good Fit If: Your ability to effectively make money off a subscription business depends on the quality of your product (i.e., is it worth paying for?), the size of your audience, and your marketing skills.

• Valuable Content. A subscription revenue model really only works if you have content that’s worth selling. That sounds obvious, but it’s something that a lot of website owners don’t fully appreciate. Take an honest inventory of your site or, even better, a survey of your users; if your content is truly unique and worth paying for, a subscription revenue model might make sense.
• Large Audience. In addition to a quality product, you need someone to sell it to. Starting a subscription website from scratch can be a daunting task; you generally need to have an existing audience to whom you can sell. In other words, you’ll be more successful in expanding to a subscription model if you’ve already built up a loyal following to your free site.
• Freemium Opportunity. A subscription model generally works well if you have the ability to provide the bulk of your content for free while charging for a smaller portion of the premium content. This can take many forms–keeping more articles free while publishing a handful of paid-only articles each week, for example.

Bad Fit If: There’s a fairly high hurdle to clear here: your site has to have content or tools that users are willing to pay for. Just because you’re putting out content that users are happily consuming for free doesn’t mean that they’ll immediately fork over a monthly payment if you offer a premium package.

A subscription model might also be a bad idea if you’re making decent money on display ads; putting content behind a paywall means it gets fewer pageviews and lower ad revenue.

How To Proceed: Setting up a subscription site requires quite a big of behind-the-scenes work before you can accept payment. You’ll need to figure out how you’ll process user payments, what your pricing strategy will be, and what content and/or features will be behind your “paywall” (among many other details). MemberGate has a good checklist for adding a subscription business; Danny Sullivan also has some great insights on pricing models.

Bottom Line: Adding a subscription business on to your existing site can be a great opportunity to open up a lucrative revenue stream–provided that you have (or can build) a product worth paying for and have an audience capable of paying for it.

Method #6: Online Store

What It Is: Exactly what it sounds like: a store online (i.e., a section of your website) where users can buy branded merchandise.

Good Fit If: Opening up an online store might be a good move if you have a strong brand and an audience that identifies with it:

• Strong Brand. If your brand is well recognized, a store could be a good fit. You don’t have to be a household name across the country. It’s fine if your brand recognition is on a micro level.
• Loyal Audience. If your audience consists of “power users” who visit your site multiple times a month and love the content you put out, you just might have the makings of a successful online store. These users are most likely to want to purchase some branded merchandise, and will be more likely to respond to an emotional appeal from you to support your site.

Bad Fit If: You have a transient audience. If visitors to your site are primarily from search engines and you have a low rate of repeat visitors, they’re unlikely to identify much with your brand or be willing to purchase anything from a store.

How To Proceed: Again, there’s a lot of work that goes in to setting up an online store. You’ll need to figure out how you’re going to make the merchandise, tackle shipping logistics, and of course nail down how you’ll be processing payments.

Side note: there is an easier alternative here that takes us back to the affiliate marketing concept above: an online store that simply links out to products offered by third parties. As an example, take a look at the Westeros Store, a fan site devoted to the popular Game of Thrones series. Their “store” features links to Amazon and HBO–meaning they’re making money without all the headaches associated with all the tasks mentioned above.

Bottom Line: For most publishers, this won’t be a big moneymaker. But it can be a nice supplemental revenue stream for sites with a strong brand and power users who like to show their support.

Method #7: Online Events

What It Is: A webinar or conference that users pay to attend and/or a sponsor pays to put on.

Good Fit If: Online events are tough to pull off, but can pull in some major dollars if you can find a relevant sponsor.

• Relevant Content Partners. Pulling off an online event is going to be a challenge, but will be much more manageable if you’re able to worry only about supplying the audience. If you have a partner who can provide quality, worthwhile content for the event and leave you to focus on getting the attendees, your odds of success go way up.
• CE Credits Available. In order to make money from online events such as webinars or conferences, you need an audience who would be willing to show up. That’s much more likely to be the case if they need to do so in order to satisfy some sort of continuing education requirement.

Bad Fit If: No one is going to show. Even if you have a relatively big audience, getting them to show up for a live event can be extremely challenging. Unfortunately, this is going to be the case for most publishers out there; no matter how big and targeted your audience is, and no matter how much they love you, they’re probably just not that interested in a webinar you host.

How To Proceed: Get to work lining up a content partner (if you decide to go with one) and, more importantly, a sponsor. Then be sure to fill those virtual seats so that you deliver value to everyone involved! Carol Tice at Entrepreneur.com has some good thoughts on making a webinar a success, and Andrew Spoeth at Marketo has some tips for increasing attendance.

Bottom Line: Online events are a lot of work. But the payoff can be huge; there’s an opportunity to make as much in a few hours as you usually do in a month if you can get the proper sponsors.

Questions To Ask

Below is a series of questions to ask yourself about your website, along with some direction to monetization methods depending on your answer:

Do you communicate regularly with your audience via email? Do you have a large collection of email addresses?

If “yes” to both, email list rental might be a good fit.

Do you have a high percentage of loyal “power users” — repeat visitors who come directly to your site?

If “yes” an online store, online events, or affiliate marketing could be worthwhile.

If “no” lead generation might be a good fit.

Is your audience considerably wealthier than the general Internet population?

If “yes” display advertising and email list rental could be your biggest opportunity.

What is the subject of your website?

If your site covers products (e.g., electronics or books) or includes a forum covering just about anything, affiliate marketing could be an opportunity. If your site touches any sort of professional services or big ticket item (e.g., insurance or weddings) lead generation could be profitable.

If your site caters to an audience that needs regular continuing education (CE) credits (e.g., psychologists or financial advisors) online events could be a moneymaker.

Do you have direct relationships with any potential advertisers or merchants?

If “yes” follow these relationships to a monetization method; if it’s a potential advertiser, get a display advertising arrangement set up. If it’s a merchant, kick off an affiliate marketing relationship.

http://monetizepros.com/blog/2013/which-monetization-methods-will-make-the-most-money-for-your-website/

Using Titles Effectively on Blogs

My Mum drilled into me at a young age that first impressions are important.

Outside of the design of your blog (that’s a whole other post) perhaps the best way of creating that impression is though your post’s title.

Titles are so important on many fronts – including:

• Grabbing Attention in Search Engines – Head over to Google and type in virtually any word you can think of and you’ll often find millions of results. The interesting thing is that for most search results in Google (and other SE’s) there is very little for readers to go by in deciding which result to click on. There is a title, a short excerpt and a URL. The most highlighted of these is the title and I believe it is key in getting SE referral clicks.

• Getting RSS Readers Attention – in a very similar way titles have the ability to grab the attention of those following your blog via RSS in news aggregators. Even if your feeds are full post feeds rather than excerpts it’s likely that most news aggregator readers scan the titles of posts for things that interest them rather than reading full text. The same principle is true in other indexes and directories like Technorati, del.icio.us, digg etc

• Loyal Readers – Good titles also impact the way your loyal readers interact with your blog. As I’ve already mentioned – web users scan pages and one of the best ways to make them pause as they roll their eyes down your site is to capture their attention with a good title that intrigues them enough to slow down their frantic web surfing and actually read some of the content that you’ve pour time and energy into.

• Search Engine Optimization – While there are many factors that contribute to how search engines ranks a page of your blog, one of the most powerful onsite factors are the words that you use in the title of that page. This means making sure that the titles of your posts end up being in the <title tags> of your page (something I’ve blogged about previously here). Also important for SEO with respect to titles, in the opinion of many, is that your post titles form the basis of your URL structure and that your titles are live links.

Using Titles Successfully

There are many strategies that successful bloggers use to draw attention to their posts with titles. There is no real right or wrong and as with many aspects of blogging what is a ‘good title’ is a little subjective. Having said this – you might want to consider these six factors in writing titles for your blog posts:

1. Keep it Simple – Most research I’ve seen into titles seems to argue that the most effective titles are short, simple and easy to understand. While breaking these rules can help grab attention (see below) they can also confuse, frustrate and put a glazed look in the eyes of potential readers. Shorter titles are also good for Search Engines – keep it under 40 or so characters and you’ll ensure the whole title appears in search results.


2. Grab Attention - Good titles set your posts apart from the clutter around them and then draw readers into your post. Grabbing attention might happen using tactics of ‘shock’, ‘big claims’, ‘controversy’ or even ‘confusion’. While these tactics do work at getting people in – it should also be said that they can do more damage than good if the rest of your post doesn’t live up to the promises your title makes. By all means try to grab attention – just just ‘trick’ your readers into thinking you’ll provide them with something you can’t give them.
3. Meet a Need – An effective title draws people into reading more because they feel you’ve got something to say that they NEED to hear. Indexes like del.icio.us illustrate just how effective this is. Quite often the articles that get to the top of the list are ‘how to…’ or ‘tutorial’ type articles that show readers that they will learn how to solve a problem or need that they might have.
4. Describe – Some readers will be drawn into a post by a cryptic title that doesn’t tell them much about what they’ll be reading – but the majority of readers need to know something about what they’ll find if they read further. Titles should describe (in a word or few) what readers will get in the main post.
5. Use Key Words – As I mentioned above – titles are a powerful part of SEO. If you want to maximize their power you need to consider using the keywords that you want your post to be found with in your title in some way. This of course is challenging when you are attempting to ‘keep it simple’ and to also ‘grab attention and intrigue’ – but it can be done. Words at the start of titles are thought to be more powerful than words at the end when it comes to SEO.
6. One last tip on titles – Take your time with your titles. Many bloggers pour a lot of effort into writing engaging and interesting posts – but then just slap any old title onto it without realizing that in doing so they might be ensuring that their post is never read.

Treat your title as an mini advertisement for your work. Take at least a few minutes before hitting publish to not only make sure your post is in order – but that your title is going to do everything it can to maximize the chances that people will engage with what you have to say.

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/19/using-titles-effectively-on-blogs/

22 Facebook Facts and Statistics You Need To Know Right Now

 

Global social media facts are often so large they are hard to wrap our neurons around. One billion today and 10 billion next year.

Facebook doesn’t disappoint.

It turned in another strong quarter with some surprising statistics, such as a 247% increase in ad prices, hints at Facebook groups spinning out into their own app and no desire to build their own payments platform.

Keep reading for a quick summary of the most important parts of the earnings call including my own analysis and what the future of Facebook marketing looks like for businesses. 

Facebook facts and statistics everyone will be talking about

Here are 22 top facts and figures that make interesting reading. The growing role of mobile is the standout!

1. $3.2b in total revenue over the 3 months
2. Advertising revenue grew 64% year on year
3. 1 billion video views a day in September
4. 8,300 employees, which is up 40% since last year
5. 1.5 million total advertisers on Facebook
6. $766 million in free cash flow in the third quarter
7. 64% of monthly active users log on every day
8. 1.35 billion people log into Facebook each month
9. 703m use Facebook mobile each day (40% growth for the year)
10. 700 million people use Facebook groups every month
11. “Whatsapp” has 600m monthly active users, on track for 1 billion
12. 3 billion links have been created through Facebook applink
13. Price per Facebook ad increased 247% due to higher quality
14. Total advertising impressions declined 56% over the year
15. Payment volume from games decreased 2% year over year
16. Instagram has 200m users with a goal to get to 1 billion in the short term
17. Average Instagram user spends 21 minutes per day on the app
18. 1.12 billion use Facebook mobile each month, which is up 250 million since last year
19. Mobile is 66% of ad revenue up from 49% during the same time last year
20. Users respond 20% faster on FB messenger app versus native FB messenger
21. 864 million daily active users up from 829 million in the second quarter of 2014
22. 1 billion engagements every week between public figures and their Facebook fanpage fans

What these stats mean for you

1. Create relevant quality content

First, business will die if they automate content creation and post generic content not highly relevant to their followers. As tools help both consumers and businesses create content faster, competition for exposure in the Facebook newsfeed will only increase.  Remember, the world cup generated 10b interactions just by itself and public figures averaged 1b interactions per day in September. The businesses that continue to get high engagement will be the ones that invest in telling personalized stories and creating deep experiences for fans. If you’re looking for creative engagement ideas, click here and click the “show me more ideas” button in the bottom right.

2. You will need to make your Facebook ads more effective

Second, ad prices increased 247%! This means businesses will need to get more clear on who their ideal customer is if they want to generate a positive ROI using Facebook ads. A simple but highly effective strategy is to capture the email addresses of your Facebook fans and then retarget them by uploading their emails into Facebook’s advertising platform. Use a Facebook contest platform like the one Jeff uses which is averaging a 17.5% conversion rate from fan to email address over the last 2,000 campaigns launched. If you haven’t organically grown your page to at least 500 fans, this strategy will not work. I recommend you focus on getting engagement first using a free tool like timeline contest creator and remember that 456m users are only using Facebook on their mobile each day. Make content easy to engage from on a mobile device.

What’s next?

1. Facebook will spin groups out into their own app within the next year

Mark specifically said that the mobile app ecosystem likes apps that are very good at doing one thing really well. He also stated that in Facebook’s effort to connect the world, reaching 1b users per app is a critical milestone to begin monetization.

2. Facebook will not build its own payments platform

Speculation around Facebook creating it’s own payments platform post-poaching of Paypal’s CEO is unfounded. Facebook will take a partnership approach to creating a seamless payment experience on the platform versus building something themselves. This is good news for Paypal, Stripe, and other major players in the online payments space.

3. Facebook’s mission is to connect the world

Facebook will focus on connecting and understanding the digital world and building the next generation computing platform over the next 3-10 years. In the short term (3 years) they’ll grow and serve the existing community of 864m daily Facebook users and 700m daily users of Facebook groups as an example. To date, Facebook users viewed video 1b times per day in September and spent 21 minutes per day on Instagram. In the mid term (5 years) they’ll focus on making Messenger, Whatsapp, search, and Instagram into their own business behemoths by helping them reach 1b users. Whatsapp is at 600m users and well on the path to reach 1b in mid term. Over the long term (10 years) Facebook will focus on getting more of the worlds population internet via internet.org and on creating the next great computing platform via Oculus rift. Mark believes Oculus is well placed to shape the long term of computing. He says:

“Virtual and augmented reality will be part of future of computing over next 10-15 years“.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/10/31/22-facebook-facts-and-statistics-you-need-to-know-right-now/#qz7TRes6KGFPoLlw.99