Just like any other social media platform, you have to stay visible (connected) to see growth.Once you have a strong foundation set up, optimize your blog posts, think like your audience and check out your analytics, you’re ready to take the final step: automation.
Read MoreTracking your marketing is essential to growing your client base and an engaged community, some of whom are potential buyers. In this post I’m going to share what social media statistics you should be tracking, why tracking is important and how to choose the right channels for your business.
Read MoreLearn why & how social media can provide a great opportunity for you to leverage your SEO, gain more knowledge about your dream tribe, improve your visibility in the rankings and, essentially get more ideal clients landing on your website.
Read MoreRunning a social media contest is a fantastic way to gain followers, connect with your audience in a fun way, increase interaction, &/or promote a new product or service you’re launching. You’ll want to bookmark this post as I’ve included:
I find myself recommending social media contests to clients more and more, so I wanted to share some quick ideas to jump-start your interactions and following.
There are two vital things you need to consider to make sure you aren’t running an illegal promotion:
A sweepstake is a chance-based campaign, with no purchase or payment (“consideration”) necessary. However, providing contact info, like an email address, is regarded as “consideration” in some US states when used for marketing purposes.
Contests require effort, skill, or merit to win a prize, with no element of chance. For example, uploading a photo, commenting, or simply the fact that you will select the winner.
When you combine “consideration” from the participant, chance, and a prize, you have a lottery, but private lotteries are often illegal, so don’t run one!
All platforms expect you to:
In each section below, you’ll find a quick rundown of the additional rules, correct at the time of posting – social media platforms update their rules often, so I’ve also included links to where you can find them.
Find more ideas on hosting Instagram contests on Later.
You only have 140 characters, so the simpler the better!
Get the lowdown on running a successful Twitter contest on Social Media Examiner.
PRO TIP: Not only will you grow your likes and following, but this is a great way to learn about your audience and crowd-source content. Turn those top tips into a blog post and best photos into Instagram content.
Need more help using Twitter for business? Read over my free Beginner's Guide to Twitter.
Increase engagement & shares with many more options than “like to enter”!
See more Facebook contest ideas by Kim Garst and Jeff Bullas.
Facebook has the most detailed, and strictest, rules of all the platforms in this post. In addition to the 3 standard contest rules:
Find apps to use & more ideas on Social Media Examiner’s blog.
You must follow all relevant laws and those top 3 regulations, and in addition:
Want more ideas to improve your Pinterest strategy? Check out my free Pinterest for Business series.
→ Know your audience – make sure your contest prompts are suitable for your ideal clients. → Only choose one platform to host your contest (but still promote it across other channels). → Keep it simple and have clear rules – you know I’m ALL about simplicity & clarity! → Create quality, compelling graphics to promote your giveaway: Take your own photos or source gorgeous styled-stock from Haute Stock* and use Canva to add text overlays. → Create a custom hashtag. → Try and make at least one part of your contest relate to your brand – either make the prize one of your offerings or the entry align with your brand, for example, the type of content you already posted on social media.
→ Create a content strategy before you start and include a pre-contest teaser campaign. When will you promote? For how long? What can you do each day during the contest to boost interactions and shares? See more tips on Social Media Today and Canva’s Design School blog.
This is your contest with your rules and, if you make them clear, no-one can dispute them. If you want to be extra-rigorous, you could create a T&Cs which you link to.
Your winning criteria can be anything you choose, for example:
There are lots of tools if you just search “contest randomizer” online. You can use The Good Luck Fairy tool by Fanpage Karma by entering the URL from your Facebook post.
You can use The Good Luck Fairy tool by Fanpage Karma by entering the URL from your Facebook post. Options available include selecting a winner by comments, interactions (likes/loves/etc.) or search
Options available include selecting a winner by comments, interactions (likes/loves/etc.) or search terms, and you can even download a spreadsheet of all entrants (name + Facebook profile link), plus select further random winners if you’re offering runner-up prizes.
You could give a prize from a partner or big-name brand, but a prize from your business will further build your brand presence. Here are more prize ideas: Physical product, e.g. book, handbag, necklace, artist’s print…
Excited to get started – which contest will you try first? Have you run a social media contest before? Tell us about it in the comments!
How to increase your blog traffic quickly by taking a look at your Pinterest analytics. Read on to see how I used my own account as a case study for step-by-step instructions for reading your stats and improving your strategy.
Read MoreIs there really a 'best time' to pin? It depends. Learn how to analyze your target audience to find the best time to use Pinterest for Business.
Read MoreNot only will these tips help you get more people pinning from each post, but they'll help you stand out on Pinterest to get more repins and brand recognition. Read on to learn how to best optimize your blog posts while using Pinterest for Business.
Read MoreHow should you write your bio? How can you add keywords to your Pinterest profile? Learn how to set up & optimize your Pinterest for Business account to increase referrals, increase sales, and get more from each blog post.
Read MoreIt's January, which means I'm deep into reviewing stats for 2015 for clients and myself. I'm a huge believer in tracking everything you do in business and adjusting accordingly. It might sound like common sense, but many bloggers don't do this!
If you've been following along this year, you may remember that I took a few months off from new clients, slowed down on blogging and accepted guest posts instead, and slowed down on social media.
I was going through a break up from a 7.5 year relationship and moving across the country, so naturally, things had to slow down. I gave myself time and room for the transition.
My reason for sharing that is to show that it's okay to not reach your goals.
In the end it gave me more clarity on the direction I want to take my business (and life in general, obviously).
It's okay to have slow business months - seasons - years. Success doesn't happen overnight.
It wasn't what I had intended for this year, and I didn't reach all of my numbers-related goals, but overall everything worked out how it was supposed to.
And looking over my stats above, I guess my growth was actually pretty good.
Referrals to my website from Pinterest grew 1,300%, from 1,000 in 2014 to 14,000 in 2015 (making up 61% of my social traffic this year). That number is not to be taken lightly!
The key here was improving some of my older images and trying to keep Pinterest in mind when creating new ones. Large, easy to read text is important.
I also started scheduling my pins to post in the evening when more people are on Pinterest. You can do this with a number of tools such as Buffer or Viral Woot (which were the two I used).
Stitch Fix was also a very specific reason I had so much Pinterest traffic. A few of my pins send decent traffic every day, but this one in particular has over 5350 repins.
Now, you might think posting my Stitch Fix reviews is unrelated to business, but I did get a client through a review. PLUS, I strongly believe in my client Ustyled's philosophy on the power of your presence and how you show up.
Referrals to my website from Twitter grew 306%, from 920 in 2014 to 3,737 in 2015 (making up 16% of my social traffic this year).
I can attribute this partly to three things:
Not sure why or how to get started with Twitter? Check out my Beginners Guide to Twitter Part 1 and Part 2.
One of my top referral traffic sources was Running with Spoons. Each Sunday she posts a Sunday Link Love similar to what I post, but she includes a link-up at the bottom where readers can add their posts.
Adding my link to her link-ups referred 1,514 people to my blog in 2015, which made up 12% of my referral traffic. I didn't post my link every Sunday because I often forgot or was trying to not work weekends, but I can see that it was worth it.
If you choose to try this method, make sure it's an appropriate match. Amanda's link up is great for me because her audience is mostly health and fitness bloggers, which makes up a large part of my target audience as well.
The posts I share with them have value, and I enjoy clicking through the other links because it's in my area of interest.
As I mentioned above, I switched to Buffer this year. I mostly use it for Twitter, and my favorite feature is the analytics (naturally..I'm an analytics nerd).
Being able to sort tweets based on how well they performed has been a game changer for re-purposing content.
Not only does it make it easy to re-buffer them, but I also get an idea of what copy or language resonated best with my audience. It's an easy way to split-test headlines or blog post titles.
You can use Buffer for all of your main social channels excluding Instagram (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest). I had been using Viralwoot for Pinterest, so this made it much easier to have all my scheduling in one place.
Another aspect that helped my click-through-rates was setting up a pre-determined schedule so I can easily add content to my queues and they will post at my best times.
My organic search traffic grew 425% during 2015, which accounted for 12.6% of my total traffic. I consistently optimized each post and photo, as well as gained more back-links. Those are just a few of the on-page factors, but the longer you have your blog and consistently post quality, relevant content, the better your SEO will be overall.
If you'd like to improve your SEO for 2016, you can start by checking out my SEO Basics series.
Twitter is a social network that people tend to either love or hate (or just not understand). It's one of my personal favorites for the speed of communicating, but many clients question the value. Not every social network is appropriate for each person or business, so I'm breaking down how to get the most out of Twitter.
In the Beginner's Guide to Twitter Part One we discussed:
Now we're going to dive into hashtags, lists, analytics and chats so you can step up your game for business.
Hashtags allow people to view all the tweets around a certain topic and interact with others with a similar interest.
Use your hashtags wisely, though. If you use too many it will junk up your tweet and distract from your actual message. You should also really think about your hashtags (on Twitter and Instagram). Are people actually searching on that topic? Are you just adding it to get likes, in which case, are they quality likes (qualified leads)?
Hashtag Tools
Twitter lists are a way to organize the people you follow so you can view segmented timelines of tweets.
For example, since my business covers a few different topics, I have lists for:
You can see which lists others have added me to here. This would be a good place for me (or another similar Twitter user) to go to find like-minded people.
Go to https://analytics.twitter.com/ while you're logged into your account.
You'll see a dashboard with helpful statistics like this:
If you are responding to someone or starting a tweet with someone's handle (@twittername), only that person and people who follow you both will see the tweet. If you want more people to see it, add a . in front of the @ symbol.
I love Twitter chats. I've only joined a few, but I always learn so much and have made some great connections. Here are a handful worth looking into:
There are a ton more great Twitter chats out there, but these are just a few I've jumped into in the past. Chloe Social has a handy Twitter Chat list in her sidebar here, and Elle & Co. recently posted this Helpful Guide for Utilizing Twitter Chats.
If you know of a good one, leave a comment to share with everyone!
Join me on Twitter. Start a conversation or ask me a question!
Read part one here: Beginner's Guide to Twitter: Profile Set-up, Posts + Followers {Part 1}
What has kept you from trying Twitter?
-or-
What do you love about Twitter?
One of the questions I hear the most from new business coaching clients is, "Do I really need to learn how to use Twitter? I just don't get it." But for me, I have the most followers on Twitter. (However, Pinterest sends the most social traffic to my website, making up 55% of my monthly traffic overall, in fact, but that's a topic for another day!)
Twitter describes the platform as, "The fastest, simplest way to stay close to everything you care about." It has become one of the top news sources, often beating out news agency's for breaking stories.
Business Insider calls it the fastest way for news to spread. "Twitter is the fastest way to spread thoughts. Not the kind of thoughts about what you'll eat for lunch. The kind of thoughts that have global impacts."
Whether these stats and benefits have convinced you or not, I still recommend giving it a try. That's the best way to see if it's a good fit for you and your business.
Retweet something if you want all of your followers to see it.
Favorite something if you want to save it for yourself. Your followers can still see your favorites if they navigate to your profile and click on your list of favorites, but it won't be broadcast out to your list. A lot of Twitter users will also use the Favorite button as a way to acknowledge that they saw a tweet.
Join me on Twitter. Start a conversation or ask me a question!
In part two we'll look at how to use hashtags, lists, analytics and a list of Twitter chats to join!
What has kept you from trying Twitter?
-or-
What do you love about Twitter?
Hi there Danielle fans! My name is Lindsay Cotter and I blog over at Cotter Crunch. So happy Danielle is letting me share her space today! Anyway, about me. I'm married to a former pro triathlete (now full time endurance coach). I’m also a Nutrition Specialist for Endurance Athletes and Gluten-Free eating. My blog is a gluten free guide (for all). Basically I like to FUEL others with EASY and DELICIOUS gluten free recipes. I also do my best to share proper nutrition tips and tricks as you work to keep your body and life in balance. Just consider me your gluten free house wife with food as fuel to support.
Now, about that food. We gotta make it look pretty right? I mean, that’s half the fun (in my opinion). So today I wanted to share my tidbits on food photography. Only this time it’s not with any fancy camera, nope, it’s with a SMART PHONE!
Easy Food Photography Tips Using Your Smart Phone. These tips have helped me become a better photographer in general. But regardless, having a great smart phone camera is KEY!
Oh instagram, how we love thee! It’s definitely the most popular social media platform these days. And I would agree, it’s my favorite, probably because you don’t have to think much. You don’t need 140 characters or less, you don’t have to state your “status.” You don’t even have to say a thing. All you need is a picture. And for many, that picture is their creative outlet. It’s a glimpse of their passion. It’s a way to express their style. It’s a way to see the world’s most amazing places without even leaving your house.
Well, that’s my reasoning for liking instagram, or any other form of photography. I love to edit pictures or create a story. And I love to use my camera and/or smart phone to capture moments that are worth “savoring.”
I know I know, corny. But it’s the truth.
And you know what? Using a smartphone for food photography has made me a better photographer in general. It’s almost like you get to practice before the real deal, ya know?
So with that being said, let’s talk ways to improve your food photography with a smart phone. I may not be an expert, but practicing these tips sure have helped me find new creative ways to photograph food --> simple and engaging.
Natural light. Try getting next to your kitchen window, or the window of a restaurant. Soft light (diffused light) works best. That means early to mid morning or just before sun set. These “golden hours” create a look that’s inviting, warm, and soft. Not harsh or grainy. Oh and be sure to turn off the flash! If you are shooting indoors, look for softer light or candle light and edit with a cool filter instead.
I’m sure you have some spare kitchen towels, herbs, fruit, or something that brings color to your picture. Play with different styles. Have fun mixing and matching with your food. Ya, I so love doing that. Really!
Yep, stand up over your food. This works best for natural light settings. I love capturing white plates from above because it really makes the color of your food ‘POP.' And yes, I did stand on chair, on a restaurant patio, in front of people, to get that picture. Totally worth it. Makes me happy every time I see that lovely set up! Haha.
Usually an odd number of items work best in photography. 3 muffins, 3 plates, etc. Here I used the new LG4 phone and took a picture of 3 muffins at a side angle. Then played with it snapping 6. Which do you like better? Well, I kind of think both are equal but that’s because that camera is that amazing. But in general, odd numbers of items always photograph better, especially in a square instagram space.
This will allow for spectacular close ups! You can lock your focus and adjust the shutter speed on most iPhones and Androids. Just going into your camera settings and check it out there. Here’s a tutorial link.
This will help with blur and allow more or less light in, similar to that of a DSLR. Pretty impressive, right? Another way to reduce shake trick is to place your hands on a water glass when taking a picture of your food, this will help reduce the shake when you snap the photo. Oh and be sure not to hit the camera button full force. You must be gentle.
All this said and done truly comes down to the type of camera phone you have and camera editing apps you use. Having a phone with great clarity and function can be key to improving your smart phone food photography.
Favorite Camera Apps – VSCOCAM, SNAPSEED, CAMERA AWESOME, and VIBRANTLY are some of my favorites for editing food photos on your smart phone/iphone. I've used all these apps on almost all my pictures in my instagram feed.
So tell me, what’s your favorite app for smart phone trick for photography? I’d love to hear more!
Cheers to technology that makes us hungry!
Website // Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // Pinterest
It's so, so easy to get caught up in the hype of followers, likes, retweets and so on with social media. This can be especially challenging when you're starting your business and want to gain attention. In this post we'll dive into common social media questions, why social media validation is a problem & how to change the focus.
Read MoreA social media contest is a great way to gain followers, connect with your audience + increase engagement. Try these super easy contest ideas.
Read MoreOnce you've gotten readers to your blog, you want to keep them engaged. You want them to start clicking around and interacting with you and your content, getting to know you, and getting as much value as possible in each visit. This list is short and sweet so you can start employing these right away without getting overwhelmed.
List your social icons toward the top of your page, and have easily accessible icons for each post. Toward the bottom or by the title is ideal.
Don't make readers search for your icons. They don't have time for that. I've heard the argument for keeping them tiny in the footer so that readers focus on signing up for your newsletter. I get it. But I don't agree.
Too many times I share a post on Twitter from someone's blog and it still has "via @shareable" or "via @sharaholic." Please, PLEASE, go into the settings and change it to your Twitter handle. This way, you'll see the tweet and be able to interact with everyone who shares your content.
How do you keep readers engaged?
This post was originally a guest post for my friend Anne over at FANNEtastic Food. She’s a DC area Registered Dietitian with delicious recipes, fitness posts and wellness tips, so make sure to check out her blog! It has been slightly modified from the original version. With that said, let's dig in!
So – you’re on Facebook, have a consistent blogging schedule, and vaguely know what SEO means. Now what? Dig into these tips to take your traffic to the next level.
1. Minimize your load time to keep readers engaged. Kissmetrics.com says, “40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.” Excessive ads, buttons and photos can slow it down. Consider what each item is worth and experiment with placement, WordPress plugins, and even removing things that may be hurting your traffic numbers.
a. Check out these 5 ways to speed up your WordPress site.
2. Expand beyond Facebook and Twitter. Instagram and Pinterest are excellent for food + healthy living bloggers.
Here are some Pinterest-specific tips to get more traffic:
Here are 34 Tips for Using Instagram for Business.
3. Submit articles to sites that sites that accept reader submissions. The more specific the niche, the better. Here are a few examples to get you started:
4. Re-purpose old blog posts to get the most out of each post. You have new followers all the time who haven’t read your posts.
5. Maximize traffic through sharing at optimal times on social channels. You can use Hootsuite or a similar automation tool to schedule most of these. Best sharing times:
6. Take a few minutes to do keyword research. Use Google Keyword Planner + Google Trends to find the best way to phrase your blog title and which keywords get the most traffic.
7. Use an SEO Plug-in, like “Yoast All in One SEO”, to make sure you cover the basics.
8. Break up your text with sub-headings. These help readers scan your post, and all heading tags signal to search engines what your blog post is about.
9. Spend time thinking of a good title. Titles with the most clicks often include:
10. Link to related posts within your blog post + have related posts available underneath. These keep readers engaged in your content and increase your page views.
11. Complete the “alt text” for your images. Use keywords that are related to your post but also describe the image. This is another signal to search engines about your blog post topic, and this helps categorize images in searches.
12. Install Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools. These aren’t as intimidating as they may seem! Reasons to utilize these tools:
What tools and tips have given you the most traffic growth? Anything to add to this list?
Beautiful images with quotes are everywhere these days. Think Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Blog Photos, etc.You get the picture. It can take a long time to create your own, and let's face it, not everyone is gifted in graphic design. It's also a great idea to make a graphic of your blog post title. Every social channel allows a featured image and it's proven to grab readers attention.
[All stats from QuickSprout]
1. Goodreads 2. Brainy Quote 3. Your blog title or quotes from your blog post
A free tool with almost 50 options. The images are watermarked, but they're super easy to create and download.
Pinstamatic will help you liven up your blog and Pinterest account. Add captions to photos, create simple quotes and more. It's doesn't have a lot of customizable options but is simple, quick and has a very attractive website!
A free tool with 28 options. They're fairly limited and not too fancy, but it's easy to use and easy to save (just right click).
PicMonkey is what I use for most of my images. It's free, easy to use + extremely customizable. They have some backgrounds to choose from or you can upload your own.
Free and easy to use. It provides small groups of stylized quotes for you to choose from. They are all fairly similar to the photo above.
Click through quotes on homepage to find inspiration and create your own with their free tool. Customize the background color, choose from a few fancy fonts + choose from a few random icons. This site looked promising at first, but I wasn't impressed in the end.
This tool has specific editors for Facebook and Google+ cover photos, wallpapers and more. You can also choose a quote from the homepage to help you get started
Designed for Pinterest. Free and easy to use. You can upload backgrounds or choose from a few plain options. Font options are limited and the image size is very small. The above image is one I created at full size.
LivLuvCreate is a social community of image quotes, but also offers a free editor. To use the editor, you have to create an account, but you can easily sign in with Facebook. The editor offers tons of options, from collage layouts to pre-made beautiful background images and Instagram-like filters.
Chisel offers images to choose from, similar to LivLuvCreate. Choose an image, add your quote and save. The downside is that you have to create an account first.
Which tool is your favorite?
Instagram can be an excellent social channel for brands. It's a great way to make your brand more personable, and visual content is super-important in your online strategy. A post from HubSpot on why you should include visual content in your marketing cites:
Instagram is especially popular among lifestyle blogger, like fitness buffs, recipe creators and fashion lovers, but we're seeing a huge increase in use across different industries.
Before signing up and snapping away, take a few moments to think about your overall strategy.
There are 4 basic content groups you can share from, and I've included a few ideas for each below. Your strategy might include any mix of these, or all of them.
Photos:
Connect with other social channels:
Hashtags:
Instagram Video: - 15-second filter-enabled, editable video
The Institute for Integrative Nutrition does #IINTakeover often. Below is an example:
Starbucks is one of the top followed Instagram accounts. Take note!
Do you use Instagram for business? How do you engage with followers?
I’m an SEO + content marketing strategist with over a decade of experience in the industry.
I work with passionate, purpose-driven business owners and marketing directors who are tired of trying to do All The Things and spreading their efforts too thin. They want to know what's working, what's not working, and where they should really be spending their time and money.
But I'll be honest- I'm not here for the people chasing vanity metrics. My philosophy is grounded in people-first marketing and what I've dubbed #SEOwithSoul. I don't believe in hacks and "beating algorithms" as a long term strategy.
Read more about me here.
