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How to Promote Your Guest Blog Posts on Social Media

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guest blogging social media

Social media and guest blogging were meant to be together– they both can increase your exposure, allow you to meet new people, and make it easy to share your ideas with the world. Whether you are the blog needing guest posts or the blogger who has posts that you would like to publish, guest blogging can be more successful if social media is involved during the entire journey.

Setting Up Expectations

Before even getting actual guest posts, be sure to set up the expectations from either the writer or the website. Besides setting up the guidelines for the content of the post itself, it is also important to iron out how social media is going to be used. Will the writer or website promote your guest post? If so, on what accounts? How many shares are they going to post? Is there a special hashtag that is going to be used? It’s also important that both sides know each other’s Twitter and Facebook profile names so they can tag one another.

It benefits both the writer and website to promote any and all guest posts– the website gets more traffic and the writer gets more exposure for both him or herself and their business or website.

Building Up Your Social Audience

Building up your social audience should always be at the forefront of your mind when it comes to social media. If you have a big following across multiple social media platforms, this can be an added incentive and benefit to your perspective guest author or publisher of your content.

For instance, if you propose a guest post, you can mention that you also have 10,000 Twitter followers. This not only lets the website know that you can increase the exposure of their website by tweeting your guest post link, but it also shows that you are an established and knowledgeable person in your industry. Including other metrics, such as your Facebook likes, Pinterest followers, and website metrics (such as pageviews per month) can also be useful to websites that are considering you as a guest writer.

On the flip side, for websites that are looking for high quality guest writer, a large platform will bring better writers (and therefore, higher quality posts). The more traffic you get, the more credible you will look to potential writers who are looking for places to submit unique content.

Building a great social audience can make a difference, no matter which side you are on.

Find Your Opportunities

In addition to increasing your credibility, social media can also be used to find guest blogging opportunities. Putting a call out on Twitter for guest bloggers or asking fans on Facebook for places to submit content can be a great way to connect with others who need content or who are writing it.

It also helps to search by keyword or hashtag via social media– #guestblogging or #writeforus might be good places to start. Set up an alert for specific hashtags or phrases and have it send you an alert as soon it appears online.

Besides searching for hashtags and phrases, you should also regularly follow businesses and individuals that are in your industry. Some may follow you back, allowing you to connect. This type of digital networking can lead to genuine connections that can create all different kinds of content opportunities.

Working With the Writer

From a website perspective, you should treat writers with respect and admiration. These writers are wanting to give you content for free, and you should be appreciative. It is easy to do this if you expectations have been declared up front. Have a unique guest blogging page or section on your website that outlines:

  • The types of post you are looking for
  • The length of the post
  • Whether or not the writer needs to include photos, attribution, links, etc.
  • The type of bio allowed, including what type and the amount of links

It is also helpful to include topic suggestions, “ideal” post examples, and places to find royalty free stock photo content (photopin.com is amazing).

Working With the Website Owner

If you are a writer needing places to distribute your content, it is important to choose websites that fall into your industry or interests. For instance, don’t ask to guest blog on a website that sells jewelry if you work for a travel app start-up. While there are some creative ways that blogs and websites of all industries can work together, it’s usually best to stick to what you know (this also makes your posts easier to promote via social media).

When you are contacting the website owner about a guest post, be sure to:

  • Pitch a topic for a post
  • Ask any follow-up questions, such as photo sources or bio length
  • Frequency opportunities

 

Website owners and writers can both greatly benefit from guest blogging. Even though it can be a time-costing endeavor, it is worth it to all parties involved, especially when social media is thrown into the mix.

To learn more about the guest blogging services that Performancing provides, please contact us. 

How to Utilize Google Analytics for Social Media

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How to Utilize Google Analytics for Social Media

The recent updates to Google Analytics has made it possible for SEO professionals and webmasters to evaluate their social media presence and how it translates into actual user traffic and activity. Google Analytic’s new upgraded platform offers an exclusive social media section that wasn’t available in previous versions.

The social media section is a customized report that is located under Traffic Sources on the sidebar once a user logs into a specific website in Google Analytics. Under this report, users can track social media referrals, landing pages, trackbacks, conversions, visitors flow, plugins, and more.

Goals

To get the most out of the social media report, specific goals should already be set up for the entire website profile. Goals can be segmented by URL destination, visit duration, pages/visit, and event (such as completing a contact form or purchasing a product on the website). These metrics can all be utilized when looking at social media traffic. The Event goal type is especially useful, as it can show actual proof of how many sales come directly from social media traffic.

Once goals are set up, the social media report can display data better in a way that translates to goal completions (also sometimes known as conversions. In this case, they are called social conversions).

Social Value

Back in the social media report, after setting up goals, the report will display the chosen goal metrics, as well as a quick overview of overall visits and how many of those visits were from a social referral.

The Social Value section also shows traffic as broken down by each specific social media website, including lesser known networks, such as Tumblr and StumbleUpon. These reports can also be segmented by URLs visited and scheduled to be sent as a report every set interval (e.g. weekly, monthly, etc.)

Social Plug-In Analytics

The plug-in analytics are a great new feature of Google Analytics. According to Google, “If you have Google “+1” and Facebook “Like” buttons on your site, it’s important to know which buttons are being clicked and for which content. For example, if you publish articles on your site, you’ll want to know which articles are most commonly “liked” or shared, and from which social networks they’re being shared (for example, Google+ or Facebook). You can use this information to create more of the type of content that’s popular with your visitors. Also, if you find that some buttons are rarely used, you may wish to remove them to reduce clutter.

The Social Engagement reports allow you to see how people shared content on your site via social actions. Examples of social actions on your site that can be tracked include Google +1 button clicks, Facebook “Like” and “Send” interactions, and Del.icio.us bookmarks.”

By setting up plug-in analytics, it’s possible to get a good overview on how often social sharing buttons are used on your website. While different plugins may not always report the same social button interactions, utilizing this reporting feature in Google Analytics can give better overall information to average the reporting metrics for these social sharing reports.

Data Hub Activity

This section of the social media report deals with online discussion groups, commenting systems, blogging platforms, and other networks that allow users to discuss your website content on external websites. Basically, this section of the report is showing where users are discussing your website (provided they give a link to your website).

This is a great way to see where users are sharing your content and to get involved on those platforms, if possible. For instance, if the conversation is taking place in a commenting plug-in like Disqus, a representative of the company could log in an answer any questions from users directly on the platform where they originally asked the question.

This data can also help with advertising strategy– if a large number of users are discussing your website on another site, then it might be beneficial to advertise there if possible. It stands to reason that that advertisement will get more clicks (and possibly higher ROI) than an ad on a website that doesn’t have any current discussion about your website’s content.

Visitors Flow

The visitors flow chart is a great way to visually grasp the path that users use when getting to your website via social media. The chart provides a visual representation of the where users go after coming to a specific landing page on your website.

Google Analytics Visitors Flow

This chart can help you see what type of content is most interesting to your website visitors who are coming from social media, as well as what pages they are exiting your website from. This can go a long way when it comes to crafting content strategy and blog post ideas for your website, as well as published social media content.

All of these metrics can help you get the most out of utilizing Google Analytics for your social media campaigns.

 

The Benefits of Content Marketing

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content marketing

It has been said before that “content is king”, but when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), this is really the case. Regular high-quality content can help websites and blogs get better rankings online and also drive more traffic to a website. In addition, it also helps companies be seen as a resource and important resource in their field or industry.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are an easy way to continuously provide a website with fresh content. Blog posts should be published on websites 2-3 per week, on a variety of topics that are related to the industry or the company’s products and services. These are easy to find if marketers read online content daily. Companies that create publishing calendars for their blog content may find that they be more productive and organized, leading to better overall content.

To get the benefit from regular blog posts, the blog must be hosted on the same domain as the content. The blog can be on a subdomain, but most users and search engines are used to finding blogs at domain.com/blog.

External Content

Providing content to other sources is another great way to get the benefits of SEO, even though it’s not on the company’s website directly. Guest blogging, press releases, testimonials, videos, and other types of content are examples that can give links to the company’s website. Besides getting links, users see companies that have a wide reach (meaning that they are published/seen in a variety a different platforms) as being more reputable than those that aren’t seen anywhere else online besides their own website.

To find places that will accept your content or mention your company, do Google searches for “guest blogging + “industry keyword”” or look at guest blogging websites like MyBlogGuest and Hullabaloo. Use these platforms to create connections with other companies and website owners to help get your content and website out there.

Social Media

Google and Bing now include personalized search results based on a user’s social network, so being active on social media, for both employees as individuals and companies, is definitely key. Websites should also have social sharing buttons on all blog posts so they can be shared online easily.

Social media shouldn’t just be a place to share your own company’s information and content, but to also be a fun resource and industry news source. Occasionally post updates about current events, holidays, fun facts, and other information that your audience will find interesting.

photo credit: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML via photopin cc

Are You Sharing the Right Type of Content?

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social media content

Sharing and promoting content that your target users are going to be interested in is key when it comes to having a successful social media strategy. It is not a good use of time and resources to post any content that users won’t find interesting or may make you or your business look unprofessional. For example, including an unrelated or uninteresting link with commentary that is full of typos isn’t going to give your audience a good impression of your company online (and sometimes, as a whole).

 

To find the right type of content to share, check out competitors’ pages (but do not copy them) as well as pages that you yourself find interesting as a member of the industry you are in. Sometimes being aware of what you find interesting and sharing it is all it takes to get started.

 

In addition, asking coworkers and online users themselves what type of content they’d like to see can be a very enlightening experience. They may have ideas or suggestions that you haven’t thought of before, or they may say they like something that you thought wasn’t popular.

 

To find out the best type of content that is best for your social media marketing campaigns and publishing campaign, test different types of content to see what gets the most clicks or engagement. It’s also important not to over think it. Not surprisingly, content about improving your LinkedIn profile goes over great on LinkedIn, and comics or funny news pieces can usually be popular on Facebook. Additionally, on Twitter, content that has really interesting titles, such as “5 Mistakes You’re Making While Networking” will get more interest than something like, “Common Networking Mistakes”.  These are all over-arching factors to take into consideration, as well as finding more specific niche topics for your business.

 

When sharing content, use link shorteners that have analytics attached to them when possible (such as cli.gs or bit.ly links). This will help you track shares, clicks and referral sources from your shared social media links. This just provides even more information that makes it possible to have the most targeted social media publishing calendar that is possible.

 

Along with the type of content, timeliness is also important. Because social media is very focused on the now, be sure to only share content that is relevant and timely to that day. For instance, when Michael Jackson passed away, it just wouldn’t be in good taste to post a news story announcing his death two days later. Everyone already knew. It will make your business seem out of the loop and just struggling to keep up– not an image you want to promote.

 

5 Resources and Tools for Social Media Productivity

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social-media2

Staying connected online can often be overwhelming, especially if you are managing several social media accounts on a daily basis. Fortunately, there are several apps and websites which can help you stay on top of your social media marketing game and help you stay productive.

Buffer

As mentioned previously, Buffer is a great tool for users that allows you to build up a queue of social media messages on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You set the days and times that the posts should go out, and Buffer releases the next one in the queue at each set time. It is $10/month and has a great mobile app that makes it possible to add content on the go, while you are on the metro or waiting in line.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck continues to be a valuable player when it comes to staying productive online. It now offers a chrome app and also has a mobile and downloadable program version. Twitter recently announced that it was ending the support of the Adobe AIR and the mobile apps. However, the web-based versions (such as the Chrome app) still makes it easy to monitor your Twitter mentions and posts for multiple accounts.

SocialMention

SocialMention is a great listening/monitoring tool to see what users and websites are saying about your product, name, or brand online. Searching by specific keywords can bring up the most recent mentions and links surrounding it, making it easy to monitor conversations. Regularly participating in these conversations about you or your business can help increase credibility and awareness.

SocialOomph

SocialOomph is an easy social media scheduling service. They offer paid and free memberships. You can shorten links, schedule posts, enable auto following, post in Facebook groups, and much more. What it lacks in design, this website makes up for in unique and useful features for its members.

SocialMediaToday & Business2Community

It can be hard to keep up with all the current social media trends and news that are developing every day. News aggregators SocialMediaToday and Business2Community make it easy to get a good overall grasp of the current news and trends in the online marketing industry. Both websites syndicate content from some of the top blogs and websites online, making it easy for bloggers to get more visibility while readers get a heavy dose of great content, all in one place. AllFacebook and AllTwitter are also good places to find news on social networking.

 

image courtesy of Tweepi.com.

Have You Heard of Pheed Yet?

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pheed

Think of it as an eclectic mixture of Twitter, Vine, YouTube, Instagram, and your voice memo service all in one.  This new social networking website and mobile app is gaining traction, especially among the teenage and hipster generation. States website Inquistir.com, “Is Pheed just another new social media network to add to the seemingly ever growing list, or is the new social sharing platform really about to give Facebook and Twitter a run for their money? That’s the question social media commentators have been asking all week a Pheed takes over the number one spot as the most downloaded free social media app in iTunes, and holds the position for over a week.”

Pheed, an obvious pun on the word feed that Twitter and Facebook both use, is fairly easy to use, especially because its main features– upload a video/photo/audio recording, share someone’s content, follow someone, and more– has already been made intuitive by regular, daily use of other social networking websites and apps.

So what makes Pheed stand out among all other social networks? Claims the Huffington Post, “The catchphrase for Pheed, which launched in October 2012, is, ‘A new way to express yourself.’ Whether you want to do so in text, photos, videos, audio, voice or live broadcast, Pheed offers all of that functionality. Other social networks offer some of that, but not all of it.”

A quick sign up of a new profile (which allows you to use your existing Facebook or Twitter login information) shows no glaring glitches or confusion navigation paths. In fact, the only problem that a user may find with Pheed is that not enough of their friends and favorite celebrities are on it yet. Some celebrities– such as Kim Zolciak-Biermann from The Real Housewives of Atlanta and Jamie Foxx– are on and active on the site, but many of us who are in our twenties, thirties, and beyond may have a hard time finding other friends who are using the site.

Even though teenagers are seeming to be driving the growth of Pheed and other new social apps, it shouldn’t be ignored. The #1 downloaded app in the iTunes app store should never be ignored. However, Pheed is still less than six months old, so there is no telling how big (or small) it may be a year from now. While Twitter-owned 6 second video sharing app Vine continues to get attention, Pheed may be the next social networking site that you should be paying attention to.

How to Market Your Business on Pinterest

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pinterest business marketing

It is possible to have a great marketing present on Pinterest. This is especially a case for companies in creative fields, especially home-improvement or hobbies, such as scrapbooking. However, websites that don’t have a lot of images may not be so successful at Pinterest when it comes to sharing their own content, especially if they’re wanting to share content that doesn’t have a catchy image attached to it.

If this isn’t the case, they may be more successful on content-heavy social media platforms, such as Twitter and LinkedIn. Additionally, Pinterest is a social media platform that needs to be updated daily, much like Twitter. This is because pins are shown by the date that they’re posted, so profiles updated on a regular basis are more likely to be shown in search results. This also leads to better engagement with the target community, which means engaged users will be sharing your company pins and links to content.

When first setting up company Pinterest account, it’s a good idea to get a base of 100-200 pins minimum in order to make a profile more credible. Pinterest profiles that are more likely to be spam usually only have a few pins (usually under 50). If you don’t have time in your company to set aside time for creating these initial pins and then maintaining the profile on a daily basis, it may not be worth the hassle. It’s important that companies are dedicated to providing a constant queue of new pins in order to be successful.

Another important step that may be obvious to some but surprisingly many companies don’t do is to completely fill out the profile. This includes the bio, links to Twitter and the company website, and making sure that your website link is verified. This usually involves uploading custom file or tag to your website to prove to Pinterest that you own the website you listed. It is important to note that only one Pinterest profile can verify one website at a time (for instance, Lowe’s can’t have 2 Pinterest pages and both have Lowes.com as their verified website).

When you have your initial pins and your profile is completely filled out, it’s time to set a schedule for maintaining your profile. This includes a pin strategy that list how many links to your own website content that should be pinned every week. For e-commerce websites that have several products, distribute this gradual process is over many months. Besides your own content and products, be sure to pin related images from other websites.

Much like twitter and other social media sites. Pinning other sites content, show that you are invested in being a valuable participant in the Pinterest community, making your target Pinterest count you as a profile to find creative ideas.
Finally, if your company is not yet open minded enough to give the employee managing Pinterest a more creative reign over what is posted, then Pinterest may not be right for your company at this time. However if your company is looking for creative outlet that is customer friendly and inspiring, then the Pinterest profile may find success and bring more traffic to the company website.

How to Participate in Twitter Chats

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twitterTwitter chats are a great way to participate with like-minded individuals in your community or industry, as well as possibly to get new Twitter followers. It also allows you to find new people to follow as well.

Twitter chats are usually about 30 minutes to an hour once a week. During the set time, there is a moderator who starts the chat with a discussion question or topic. Other participating users then chime in on their Twitter accounts, all using the designated Twitter chat hashtag.

For instance, there is a Twitter chat for glass manufacturers and vendors and their chat hashtag is #glasschat. When a user wants to respond to the discussion question or to another user’s comment, they tweet, and then end their tweet with #glasschat.

There are several different Twitter chats that are happening every day, in all different kinds of industries, including publishing, fitness, design, and marketing. The key to being successful in utilizing Twitter for this purpose is to only tweet with the hashtag when you have something valuable to say and to stay away from being self-promotional, unless it directly relates to the topic at hand and isn’t pushy or cheesy. This is the best way to turn people off from you and your company.

Here are two great resources that will help you find and participate in Twitter chats:

ChirpGuide is a great place to find Twitter chats to participate in. The chats are broken down into topics, such as politics, sports, TV, and news. You can also search by keyword or topic. If you sign in to the website using your Twitter profile, you can save your favorite streams or Twitter chats. This makes it easy to re-access them.

TweetChat is another Twitter chat website that functions more like a chat room when you are participating in a Twitter chat. You log in and choose the hashtag you want to follow. It then takes you into a “room” or window where you can see the tweets that contain that hashtag, streaming in real time.

No matter how you decide to participate in Twitter chats– whether through a site like TweetChat, TweetDeck, or just the old fashioned way through the Twitter website– regularly taking the time to talk to people in your industry can be a great way to continue to show credibility and value to you or your company’s Twitter profile.