Good morning!  Here it is the 1st of February and we are about 1 quarter of the way through our goals.  How is everything going?  I am not putting the linky anymore because I just didn’t have enough interest.  So, if you are playing along, please leave your link in the comments section!

OK on to my 12 Weeks to Goal blogging goals and how they are going:

Update on my Blogging Goals:

• GOAL NUMBER ONE:  Increase Twitter Followers to 12,250 for @momof3boys3702 and 5,300 for @Deals_3BD – As of 02/01/2012 I am at 11,185 for main and 4,472 for deals!
• GOAL NUMBER TWO:  Increase Newsletter Subscribers to 800 – As of 02/01/2012 I am at 832!  I reached my goal!!  Whoo hoo!!
• GOAL NUMBER THREE:  Add pictures to 10 of the 37 recipe posts missing images As of 02/01/2012 I have no idea where I am.  Since I started www.southernmomcooks.com, I have been working on it differently. LOL!
• GOAL NUMBER FOUR:  Complete A-Z Alphabet Book through K!  As of 02/01/2012 I am at the same as last week 1/2 way through G.  This is not going well! I have gotten bored with it because it is taking me so long.  I really need some motivation to get some of this knocked out!

This week, let’s talk about Facebook.  How to get the interaction up and the likers up.  Here’s what I (and my assistant) have done in increase my facebook Fans.  It must be working because at the time of my writing this, I had about 200 less than 4,000 fans.

#1 – Ask Questions!  Come up with a list of fun things like “What are you wearing today?” and “What are you having for supper?” and put or of them one a few times a week. 

#2 – Ask advice!  If you are stuck about something or unsure about something, ask on your fan page!  I found that I go to my fan page more and more often these days instead of (or in addition to) asking my family.  People love to help others! It works!

#3 – Visit other sites’ Fan pages as your site.  Meaning?  Log into Facebook on the right hand drop down menu and select “use facebook as page” then scroll through and start commenting on half a dozen or so pages.  It sparks interest! Not only do they come check you out, but so do their readers.

I am going to start off by talking about my goals.  Many of you said you are coming into this a bit late.  I suggest just starting now and making your goals a bit smaller so that you can finish when we do.

OK on to my 12 Weeks to Goal blogging goals and how they are going:

Update on my Blogging Goals:

GOAL NUMBER ONE:  Increase Twitter Followers to 12,250 for @momof3boys3702 and 5,300 for @Deals_3BD – As of 01/25/2012 I am at 10,863 for main and 4,198 for deals!

GOAL NUMBER TWO:  Increase Newsletter Subscribers to 800 – As of 01/25/2012 I am at 832!  I reached my goal!!  Whoo hoo!!

GOAL NUMBER THREE:  Add pictures to 10 of the 37 recipe posts missing images As of 01/25/2012 , I am at 33, and now have a few more photos. I will be spending this week trying to get some more pictures and updating the posts.

GOAL NUMBER FOUR:  Complete A-Z Alphabet Book through K!  As of 01/25/2012 I am at the same as last week 1/2 way through G.  I did do some research on it, but that is as far as I got!

On to what to do about Google Friend Connect:

If you were on blogger and then moved to WordPress, chances are you brought your Google Friend Connect followers with you.  If you haven’t heard the news yet, you are going to be really upset… in March of this year, Google will be shutting down GFC on all non-blogger blogs!  Yes, really.  So, what do you do with your thousands of blog followers that are going to literally disappear over night?

Guess what, there is not much you can do except beg your readers to move to something else.  Either follow your blog via RSS or sign up for your newsletter.  I have been begging since December and out of the 2000+ followers on this site and 500+ on my deal site, only about 400 have actually moved over.  So now what?  Will my traffic significantly drop come March? Yes, this is a major worry for me.  I have worked so hard to get my readers and I don’t want to lose them just because of Google’s flights of Fancy!

So, what do we do?  We should start a petition that Google will allow us to continue to use Google Friend Connect OR allow us to access the reader emails so that we can move them to something new!

As a reader, what is your opinion on Google Friend Connect leaving us?  As a Blogger, what do you think?

We are now in week three of our 12 Weeks to Goal!  How are you doing on your goals?  I think I am doing pretty good on some parts, but I really need to spend some time this week working on other goals!

Update on my Blogging Goals:

GOAL NUMBER ONE:  Increase Twitter Followers to 12,250 for @momof3boys3702 and 5,300 for @Deals_3BD – As of 01/18/2012 I am at 10,558 for main and 4,081 for deals!

GOAL NUMBER TWO:  Increase Newsletter Subscribers to 800 – As of 01/18/2012 I am at 675!  So close to my goal! I put out my NEW weekly newsletter every Thursday morning.

GOAL NUMBER THREE:  Add pictures to 10 of the 37 recipe posts missing images As of 01/18, I am at 34, and out of ready photos.  So, now I have to start making things that need pictures. I have a few things on my menu plan this week, just hoping I can remember to photograph them when I cook them!

GOAL NUMBER FOUR:  Complete A-Z Alphabet Book through K!  As of 01/18/2012 I am at the same as last week 1/2 way through G.  I really have to find time to work on this next week!! I am almost there with my other 3 goals, so I need to stop working on them so hard and focus more on this one.

Last week I promised you that I would cover a few of my topics and discuss ways to reach them.  Since Twitter seems to be something I am pretty good about (at the start of this, I had 9724 Twitter Followers on my main site and at the writing of this have 10,558.  I can’t imagine me NOT reaching this goal.

I have covered ways to grow your Twitter followers numerous times in my Blogging Basics posts, so I think the best thing to do is to simply do a little round up of them right here:

How to Get More Twitter Followers: 4 super easy ways to help you get more quality Twitter Followers.

How to Get Good Twitter Followers:  A few more tips to getting good followers, not spam ones!  Spam ones don’t help you at ALL, all they do is increase your numbers.  Anyone can do that, but you need ones that are going to actually make a difference in your site!

How to Make Twitter Work for You:  Do you have a decent amount of Twitter followers but not see any interaction, click through, etc?  This post will help you overcome that!

This week, instead of just allowing you to link up your goals and how they are coming along, you can also link up your best Twitter Tips posts!  Maybe this will get some players this week.

***SCAVENGER HUNT ANSWER WITHIN THIS POST!***

By now, you should have your goals. Did any of you spend anytime last week working towards reaching any of those goals?  If not, it is perfectly ok!  If you are jumping in a week late, please go back and read the first post on 12 Weeks to Goal.

I made you some super simple printables last week to help you keep up with things.  If you are looking for specifics increases, you should take the time to write down your starting point AND check in each week.  This will help you to see what is working and what isn’t.

I also have a daily check in sheet to help you brainstorm or simply write down what you have done for the day.

Ok, for this week you need to spend a little time every single day (I do week days only) working towards each goal.  If you only have 5 minutes to work on each goal, then spend the entire 5 minutes doing something to help you reach it.  I try to spend AT LEAST 10 minutes on each goal per day.  I find that this way keeps me working smarter and not harder.

If you need an extra push, you can find me on Skype (ID:  Kelli_3boysandadog ) or visit my Facebook page to beg for a little timer fun!  Timer fun means you say, I am going to work on a specific thing for x-number of minutes.  Who wants to play?  You set your timer and do it.  When the timer dings, you check back in and see how the others did and let them know how you did.  It helps to make you accountable to the specified time and even gives you a cheering squad!

Update on my Blogging Goals:

GOAL NUMBER ONE:  Increase Twitter Followers to 12,250 for @momof3boys3702 and 5,300 for @Deals_3BD – As of 01/11, I am at 10,102 for @momof3boys3702 and 3,905 for @Deals_3BD

GOAL NUMBER TWO:  Increase Newsletter Subscribers to 800 – As of 01/11, I am at 616!!  That means that I have increased this by a little over 200 this week!  I will discuss how I did this shortly. <– This is an actual newsletter through Aweber, this is NOT my RSS email subscribers.  I put out my NEW weekly newsletter every Thursday morning.

GOAL NUMBER THREE:  Add pictures to 10 of the 37 recipe posts missing images As of 01/11, I am at 36, but I actually have a few pictures taken.  I just need to update the posts.

GOAL NUMBER FOUR:  Complete A-Z Alphabet Book through K!  As of 01/11, I am at about half-way through G. My goal is to complete it and H this week.

How to Increase Newsletter Subscribers:

Honestly, it is just like increasing any other followers.  You have to work at it. LOL! 

I sort of cheated this week by joining a $500.00 giveaway hosted by another blogger.  With that said, I am seeing a huge increase in the number of followers,  I am just curious to see if they actually stick around or start to disappear after the giveaway winner is announced.

That isn’t all I have done this week though, so I am going to give you a few hints.  Aside from joining in one of the cash giveaways that bloggers host (or hosting your own and using the newsletter subscription as the entry), you can:

1.  Put random notes on your Facebook page asking them why they aren’t signed up to your newsletter.

2.  Have a newsletter only giveaway item – example:  a free ebook only to newsletter subscribers!

3.  Put some random Tweets asking your twitter followers to join your newsletter.

4.  Tweet and Facebook your newsletter when it goes live.

5.  If you have Google Friend Connect followers and you are NOT hosted on Blogger, you need to start sending regular messages to them letting them know that in March, GFC will be going away.  So, if they want to keep up with your updates, they need to sign up for your newsletter.

Today, you can link up your tips to increase your newsletter subscribers and your updated goals!  Next week, I will be discussing ways to increase your Twitter Followers!

If you have missed any of my Blogging Basics posts, you can read the Huge Tips post that lists them in order with a short description of each. Also, if you have a topic that you would like to see me tackle, be sure to email me with “Blogging Basics Request” in the subject. You might even get your blog linked to!