Blogging | 3 Boys And A Dog

Blogging Basics: Four Unexpected Benefits of Social Networking

April 10, 2013 by Kelli 1 Comment

We started out this blog series talking about how it’s a truly social web out there. No one can argue that. People are flocking to Facebook (a billion active monthly users) and are spending a large portion of their Internet time on social networks. Because of this, the experts tell us, as business owners, we also need to be on social networks.

It make sense. It definitely does.

But beyond simply trying to connect with our target audiences, social networking offers some other unexpected benefits including…

SEO Benefits: More and more, search engines are taking cues from social media to discover what content is truly valuable and what they should include in their search results. That’s why it’s not just important that you are present in social networking, but that your target audience is talking about your content. Make it easy for them to share your blog posts and create buzz for you. It will not only increase your traffic from social networks, but it can also increase your traffic from organic search.

Knowing People Before You Meet Them: Okay, I’m not talking about stalking anyone here, but there is tremendous value in already knowing a lot about people before you make a connection with them. Social networking gives you the opportunity to find people who share similar interests and values as you before you attempt to make a connection. Then, when you do approach someone, you can use the information you already have to get their attention and show them you’re someone who has done their homework.

Learning About Stuff: Social media is a great research tool that allows you to learn new things about your subject area, get business advice and more. If you’re approaching social media simply as a broadcasting tool, you are missing out on a much more enriching experience. Always be selective in the people you follow, so you can get the best results from your social media streams as possible.

Media Coverage: If you’ve positioned yourself as a person knowledgeable in your subject area and have grown a nice following, congratulations. You have become an expert that can be called on by various members of the traditional and new media for opinions, interviews and more. It’s not uncommon for reporters to find their sources through social media, so put your best foot forward and showcase your knowledge.

It’s clear that the social web is here to stay and that’s definitely a good thing. There is so much value it can bring us if we approach it responsibly and wisely.

Stayed tuned next week as I bring you more Social Media tips and trick to grow your blog as a business! ~Greg Watson

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Filed Under: Blogging Basics Tagged With: Blog Series, blogging, Blogging Basics, Business Owner, Expert Tells, social information processing, social media, Social Network, social networking, Social Networking Service, Your Social Media

End of First Quarter Goals Check In

April 6, 2013 by Kelli 6 Comments

We are over a fourth of the way through 2013! Now is the time to sit down with your goals that you made at the beginning of the year and do an evaluation!

How are the goals coming?
Has your focus changed?
Have your priorities changed?
Are you working towards your goals?
Do you have new goals?

So, here were mine and how things are going now!:

1. Increase traffic on all 3 sites by 60%! This isn’t really measurable until the full year is up – but my traffic is higher for Jan, Feb, and March of 2013 than it was for those months in 2012. So, I feel as if I am on track. I am spending more time trying to write the things that you guys are wanting to read.

2. Increase Twitter followers on all 3 by 50%

Main started 17,455 so goal is 26,183 – As of 4/6 this is at 18,930 – if you do the math, I am not on track to reach my goals. So, I am going to push a bit harder this quarter on getting my Twitter following higher and better.
Deals started 6,212 so goal is 9,318 – As of today this is at 6,871 followers. Again, I am not on track to reach my goal. So, this will be something I really work on this month!
SMC started 2,095 so goal is 3,142 – As of today I am at 2,780 followers. YAY! I am on track to reach this goal!

3. Increase Facebook fans on both (3bd and smc) by 50%

Main started 5,584 so goal is 8,376 – Currently at 6,221 – Uggh, I am about 60 fans away from being on target to reach my goal.
SMC started 1,190 so goal is 3,142 – Currently at 1,267 – Here I am about 400 fans away from being on target to reach my goal! OK, so I need to be spending more time working Facebook as well.

4. Make $6000 for the year on Google Adsense (this is actually doable at my current traffic) – By only month 3, I am half way to this goal already!!

5. Add 12 new videos to YouTube account (I currently have 44, so I will need 56 by the end of 2013) – Thanks to my weekly G+ Hangouts, I have already surpassed this goal! So nice to mark one as complete in the first quarter!

6. Be a speaker at a Blog Conference I have applied like crazy but not heard a word from anyone.

7. Increase Pinterest Followers to 10,000 only have 4,800 so I am not sure that is doable, but I am going to try! – Currently at 8,791 makes me about 2500 OVER where I should be to reach this goal! YAY!

8. Finish the A to Z Veggies book! Geez, this HAS to get finished. LOL! – Uggh, seriously thinking of hiring someone to do it for me. ROTFL! Ok, adding this (and the SEO book I am working on) to my DAILY to dos. If I only do 5 minutes towards each one, it isn’t taking tons of time and I will be working towards the goal of completion!

9. Hire another paid employee (home craft/DIY writer for main site) DONE! I now have 3 paid employees and several product review contributors!!

10. Have 10, $1.00 printable packs available for sale on Deals Site (working on this!) Pshaw… this is on the back burner until I finish the other books I am working on.

11. Increase Aweber newsletter subscribers to 5000! I am working hard to get this increased and am seeing changes daily now. I am a little over 1/2 way to this goal. Since I don’t know what I started with, I can’t figure out if I am on target.

12. Be host/party planner for 6 twitter parties – I actually hosted more than this in 2012, but wasn’t the planner for all of them. I want to be the planner for at least 6. I have completed 2 that I have planned which actually puts me on target!

13. Become a Walmart Mom!

So, I am on track for a good portion of my goals and reevaluating like this tells me what I need to be working on. So, I have set up a few tasks into my daily planner to help me work towards reaching these goals!

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Filed Under: Blogging Basics Tagged With: blog goals, Blogging Basics, First Quarter, goals, how to reach your blog potential, My Goals, Reach My Goal, Twitter, websites, Your Goals

Blogging Basics: 3 Productivity Boosting Approaches and Tools

April 3, 2013 by Kelli 3 Comments

Earlier in this blog post series, we talked about how each social network is just a little bit different and our approach to each one should be carefully crafted. At the time, I cautioned against simply using social media integration tools to broadcast the same thing across your social networks. I stand by that advice wholeheartedly, but there are still plenty of useful tools you can use to streamline your social networking process.

Here are 3 types of tools that are worth checking out:

#1 Integrating and Managing Your Streams: Hootsuite.com

Hootsuite creates an easy-access dashboard for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and more.

By connecting your accounts, you can view all your social networking streams in one places, instead of logging into each site individually. It also allows you to schedule posts to publish at specific times that you choose.

Hootsuite provides some analytics, but many of the features are available with a Pro account and can get quite expensive. Depending on how much you use Hootsuite, this may or may not be worth it. A Pro account is also useful if you have more than 5 profiles to manage and/or you have a number of members on your social networking team.

Other similar tools in the marketplace include SproutSocial.com, Tweetdeck.com

#2 Getting Your Analytics: Twentyfeet.com

TwentyFeet provides you with a dashboard of social networking analytics for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more. It also can bring in your analytics for bit.ly, if you happen to use that as a link shortening service. They actually call it an “egotracking service,” but it’s more meaningful than something like Klout, which reduces social networking into a popularity contest.

The site allows you to compare the analytics from various sites to see where you might increase or adjust your efforts. The service also notifies you whenever something noteworthy happens in your accounts.

A basic account with one Facebook account (not Page) and one Twitter account are free. There are monthly fees if you want to add anything from there, but the cost of analytics is more affordable than provided with Hootsuite.com.

If you’re looking for something more in-depth, but more expensive, you can look at a service like Trackur.com. Or if you’d like to track where people are talking about you and your brand, do a free search at SocialMention.com. At this site, they’ll give you an idea of the sentiment in the mentions

#3 Timing Your Posts: TweetWhen.com and Tweriod.com

There’s something to be said about finding the optimal time to participate in social networking. After all, you want to ensure you reach the biggest percentage of your targeted audience as possible, right? While, there are plenty of studies out there to help you find the optimal time, it always depends on your own unique audience, so you have to analyze things yourself.

A couple of tools that might help you include TweetWhen and Tweriod.

TweetWhen analyzes your audience for you and gives you an optimal time to tweet, based on when you are most likely to get the best response. Because you don’t have to log into your account to use this service, you can also use it to gain intelligence on the best times for other Twitter users like your competition and other likeminded tweeters. However, it’s important to realize that TweetWhen’s data is based on when you’re actually tweeting, so if you tweet more at certain dates and times, these are more likely to be favored in the results.

Tweriod is a service that looks at the activity of your followers to determine your best time to tweet. The logic is, you should be more active when they’re active. Taking the data from TweetWhen and Tweroid together can help you figure out ways to adjust your participation in Twitter for best results.

Technology is out there to help us and you can certainly use it to your advantage to make it easier and more efficient to participate in social media…without looking like some kind of bot that is just auto-broadcasting everything. Find the right tools for you and it will be much easier for you to manage your social media participation.

Stayed tuned next week as I bring you more Social Media tips and trick to grow your blog as a business! ~Greg Watson

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Filed Under: Blogging Basics Tagged With: Blogging Basics, Hootsuite, Integration Tool, Klout, social media, social networking, Social Networking Service, tools, Twitter, web analytics, Your Social Networking

Thanks to My Top Traffic Referrals! (My Traffic Increased in March)

April 1, 2013 by Kelli 1 Comment

top five main Thanks to My Top Traffic Referrals! (My Traffic Increased in March)

Actually, my site is a bit up this month on here because I had a post go semi-viral. wlEmoticon smile Thanks to My Top Traffic Referrals! (My Traffic Increased in March)

Thanks a million to my TOP Five blog referrals!

I received referral visits from 329 sources during last month!

1. Crystal and Company sent me 523 visitors (down a bit from last month, but not too much. Last month was 553)

2. Southern Mom Cooks sent me 327 (WAY up from last month’s 96)

3. Belrea.edu sent me 286 (still seeing traffic from being named top 25 dog blogs over a year ago! Traffic is up from last month’s 255)

4. Org Junkie sent me 186 (Up a tad from 159)

5. We are THAT Family sent me 82 (didn’t even make the last last time! wlEmoticon smile Thanks to My Top Traffic Referrals! (My Traffic Increased in March) )

I also want to note that:

Pinterest sent me 11,924 (WAY up from last month’s 8,611)
Twitter sent me 168 (uggh, still down! What is going on with Twitter? Last month was 320)
FaceBook sent me 222 (and yet, this one is up! From last month’s 174)
Stumble Upon 62 (so stinking far down from last month’s 103)
Google sent me 2,450 (and this continues to grow! Up from last month’s 1,969)

Want to find out where others are getting their hits to website?

Crystal and Company shares how she is getting traffic each month, too!
Southern Mom Cooks talks about how she is getting more traffic to that site so quickly!
Deals_3BD talks about where her website visitors are coming from
You can also go here for past hits to website traffic referrals on this site all list their top traffic referrals for the previous month!

If you want to play along, please leave a direct link to your top five referrals post in the comments section.

Here’s how it works:

Go into your tracking service (I use Google Analytics) and set the time period for the previous 30 days.
Find the sites that have referred readers to you and put them in order from most sends to lowest. (I only do blogs and small businesses, not big sites!)
Write a post (like this one) listing your top 5 referrers.

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Filed Under: Blogger Appreciation Day Tagged With: Blogger Appreciation Day, getting traffic, hits to website, more traffic, thank your traffic referrers, top blog referrals, traffic generation, traffic to sites, website visitors

Blogging Basics: Remember Your B2B Social Connections

March 27, 2013 by Kelli 3 Comments

While many bloggers work with social media to grow their target market audience, there is so much opportunity to meet with and connect with other blog owners. You can share advice, find service providers, promote one another’s content, connect each other to resources and other people. In short, if you’ve got friends…you’ll go far.

Always take the time to create and nurture these relationships when participating in social media. A few things you can do:

- Join a group or a forum to meet likeminded business owners. Facebook and LinkedIn have the opportunity to create and join groups, but good old fashioned message boards are a great social connector as well. And yes, forums are the original social networks, so they’re included.

- Help others first, before expecting anything in return. Offer advice, provide content, ask if you can record a webinar and do all the work. Fellow business owners are so busy and it makes it difficult to cut through the noise to make a meaningful connection, but by first offering to help someone, it’s easier to grab attention.

- Take it offline and connect with people directly, not just through status updates. Check out sites like Meetup.com, create your own meet up or attend seminars and other business events. There is nothing like cementing a connection by meeting face to face.

- Take another look at LinkedIn. Since LinkedIn is a network of professionals, it’s one of the best venues to make B2B connections. It’s a network that can help you find service providers and joint venture partners. You can get answers to your business questions, share your own business expertise and more.

Remember Your Audience

Just a word of warning when B2B networking. It’s important to keep your audience in mind when broadcasting on your social networks. Your customers may not be interested in business topics, but your B2B connections are.

For example, on Google+, use the Circles feature to identify and communicate with your B2B contacts.

On Facebook, you can separate contacts into Lists, so you only broadcast status updates to certain individuals. Always be mindful of this, so your information is targeted to the right audience.

And again, join specific groups and forums for your business connections. These will allow you to speak more freely and stay on target with what the audience wants to hear.

Being Approachable

Not only do you want to actively seek out new people to connect with, you also want it easy for people to approach you. You can ensure you’re approachable in a few ways, including:

- Have a detailed profile that shows what you are interested in. This is particularly important on professional networks like LinkedIn and forums.

- Respond to messages directly and in a timely manner. Don’t get so big for your britches that you think you can simply ignore people.

- Participate in discussions other people are having. Share your thoughts, ideas and be generally helpful. Helpfulness makes you much more approachable.

Trying to run a business completely on your own is doing it the hard way. There are so many opportunities to meet and mutually benefit from relationships with other business owners. Whether you’re looking for a graphic artist, can’t figure out what’s wrong with your web code or need a partner for your next project, when you’ve got a network of business contacts, it’s much easier to get things done.

Stayed tuned next week as I bring you more Social Media tips and trick to grow your blog as a business! ~Greg Watson