chelsieT

5 Killer Tips For Creating A Profitable Online Store

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Let’s face it; everyone wants to make money online.

You’re probably reading this article because you’re in the same boat as everyone else. The bills aren’t going to pay itself so earning money online sounds like a great way of making money while sitting in your computer and working from home.

According to online marketing guru Neil Patel, one-third of 2017 estimated that $353.68 billion in sales actually came from the mobile phone, so the opportunity to make money these days is pretty much limitless.

Below are three ways to get started in the lucrative industry of building a mobile online storefront.

1. Create an eBay store

eBay is hands down one of the largest online marketplaces in the world so if you still haven’t heard of it; you must be living under a rock.

According to Statista, eBay currently has over 170 million active users, so it’s a great place to start an online store. You can create an account on eBay for free, but you need to pay extra if you want to set up a store.

One of the advantages of selling on eBay is that there’s instant trust. eBay customers have protection against scams and lousy service so having eBay act as a third-party middle person makes customers feel a lot safer buying from new sellers even if they’ve never heard of them.

eBay also gives you the option to auction which means you can put your products up for auction to get a much higher price. It’s extremely “search engine friendly” which means that there’s a better chance of people finding your listing while searching on Google without you needing to build a website. It has lower fees – Amazon usually charges about 15% per sale while eBay only charges 10% before its fixed-price fees.

The only problem I see with eBay is that since eBay’s has such a huge market, the competition is fierce. Since its system is also built to favor the buyer more than the seller, a dodgy buyer can ruin a seller’s reputation just like that.

2. Create an Amazon account

Amazon is another excellent website to set up a seller account because it has a base of more than 300 million active customer accounts and more than 197 million monthly unique visitors. There are two types of Amazon seller accounts, and that’s “Fulfilled by Amazon” (FBA) and “Fulfilled by Merchant” (FBM). FBM sellers ship directly to customers while FBA sellers ship to Amazon distribution centers, which then sends the products to buyers. FBA sellers tend to get more benefit because Only FBA sellers can list Prime-eligible items and they tend to rank at the top of search results.

One good reason to sell on Amazon is that it’s one of the most trusted e-commerce websites of all time. Just being a seller on Amazon will automatically give you more sales than if you were not in it because Amazon has a customer base that trusts it a lot and are prepared to spend. Amazon is also the best when it comes to upselling which is usually adding an extra product as part of a bundle and cross-selling, which is when you recommend that your customer buy another product that complements their existing purchase.

Another positive thing about Amazon is that it has hundreds and thousands of affiliates who will refer traffic to your online store as long as you are selling items within their niche and the number of goods and services that are offered in Amazon are unrivaled by any other marketplace online.

The big disadvantage I see on Amazon is that if you want your product to sell on Amazon, your product has to rank on Amazon.

If someone is looking for your product on Amazon, if they try to search for your product on Amazon and your product isn’t ranking well, people will never see it. Which means that they’ll never buy it, and your stock will fail to make any money.

You have to look at Amazon and see it as a massive search engine. It’s quite possibly the world’s largest product search engine. Amazon is probably a more effective search engine than Google when it comes to selling physical products on the Internet because according to online guru Neil Patel, Amazon has three times more search volume for products than Google does.

Unfortunately, even if the potential to make money from Amazon is massive, it also follows an algorithm just like Google. This algorithm is what tells Amazon of what products should show up on the first page, second page, third page, etc..

Amazon is a business so it wants to make the most money possible which means that it will increase the rank of products that will provide the highest revenue.

Some of most crucial Amazon ranking factors are Product title and keyword, Sales volume, Quantity and quality of reviews, Image quality and number, Product detail click-through rates, Impressions, Price, Availability, Selection, Seller authority, Inventory, Referral path, Conversion rates and Customer sales history.

So if you want to rank in Amazon, then you need to please its algorithm, so you need to optimize your product listing. So how do you optimize your product listing? Here are a few tips: create the correct product title by making sure your main keyword is contained within it, provide high-resolution photos of your products to entice buyers, create a compelling bullet point description of your product, choose the right price that’s competitive next to other sellers of the same product and collect as many positive reviews as you possibly can.

3. Create an e-commerce website

Although it’s much easier to sell via established online stores like Amazon or E-bay – if an issue arises and these websites decided to remove you and ban you from its platform, then you have to start all over again.

If you have your own website, you’ll have control over everything, but then the downside is that you just need to work twice as hard on getting more traffic to your website.

There are a number of good platforms to build your website on such as WooCommerce which is a great e-commerce platform for WordPress, but I highly recommend Shopify – it’s perfect to host an e-commerce site because you don’t need coding skills to create a Shopify site.

Shopify has pretty much everything you need to set up your online store such as hosting, a web domain, payment gateways, etc.. just about all of the things you’ll require. It’s the most credible of its kind and has been used by a number of entrepreneurs to make thousands or even millions almost entirely passively. Here are five tips that are going to actually help you make money from Shopify.

– Make a decent offer. If you want more people to buy your product then you need to provide a better offer. A little discount or an extra item wouldn’t hurt because it’ll put you ahead of other sellers out there.

– You need to find a product that has a decent profit margin for you to make money from because realistically, it will take a while before you start earning consistently. Therefore, earning a dollar or two per product may not be worth your time. Unless you have money to burn, then I suggest really looking into your pricing.

– Capture your customer’s emails. Realistically, people won’t really buy anything yet if it’s the first time for them to visit your website so it’s essential for you to capture their emails so that later on you can encourage them to revisit your site. The most effective way of obtaining people’s emails is to offer something that appears to be expensive but is actually cheap. Once you’ve captured their emails, send them a reminder once in a while that your website still exists. Try not to make your email look like an advertisement – make it look like you just want to let them know you’re still around and try to strike a conversation with them to get an idea of what they need.

Now if you want to make serious money from your online store, below are six killer ways to do it:

Use Google Analytics to get to know your customers

Setting up an online store without a way to track down your progress is a set up for failure. Google Analytics is the best place to start if you’re looking into understanding your customers because it can provide you with very detailed information about your audience and it’s free.

Get active in online forums

Most online marketers would know that backlinks are one of the most significant foundations of SEO. The more links you have from reputable sites, the more Google favors your website because these inbound links tell Google that you’re an authority site.

One of the best ways to get backlinks is to start participating in forums. Two of the most reputable online forums are Quora and Reddit. Quora, similar to Yahoo Answers is a question-and-answer forum known for giving out expert answers to various questions.

Reddit is one of the most popular forums out there and is an excellent traffic driver for various websites. Just be careful with Reddit though because it has a crowd that’s relatively hard to please. If you want to participate in these online forums, try to comment on topics related to your industry and try not to directly advertise your business. Instead, focus on providing information that can be useful for the audience so you can build authority and then they would be more inclined to visit your website.

Create a blog

If you want to generate traffic and leads to your website, then the best thing to do is start a blog that is related to your niche. A site that has a blog will always get more eyeballs than a website without one because blogs are always lingering online just waiting for their customers to find them. The more you blog, the more traffic you’ll drive to your website. But you need to keep in mind that your blog posts need to be of value otherwise nobody would read it.

Get active on social media

Most businesses use social media marketing to boost their business because they know for a fact that everyone is on social media, so you need to use it to your advantage.

However, not all businesses with a social media strategy will have the same positive results. Some companies will thrive while some won’t. It all boils down to three words: social media engagement. If your business can’t get its audience to engage on social media, then you’ll be missing out big time.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to seem like a pesky and pushy salesperson online. If you want to improve engagement on social media websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest, you need to start a conversation with your audience and get to know them on a personal level. You also need to post consistently, but in saying that you need to create quality posts rather than focusing on releasing a number of posts and hoping for some kind of positive result. You also need to understand what sort of content your audience responds to; you need to pick the right time to post your content and engage with your audience by responding to comments and likes.

Create a YouTube channel

For those who don’t know, Google owns YouTube which is a guarantee that it’s going to appear in search results. Video marketing has become a crucial part of digital marketing because almost 50% of Internet users look for videos related to their purchases before visiting an actual store. Big companies are always trying to find new ways to use YouTube to boost their brand because they know for a fact what it can do for their business. Keep in mind that there’s also the option of using YouTube live-streaming functionality that is similar to Facebook Live.

Establish an email list

Email is still one of the most popular marketing communication methods because every person on your email list receives an email the same way that they would receive a physical mail. Most people check their email several times a day, and it’s also a cheap yet well-documented way of reaching someone. Online services such as MailChimp and Constant Contact are two one of the most popular options so if you want to create an email list then you need to look at these two.

In Conclusion

Following these tips doesn’t guarantee success, but then everything in life is a risk right?

However, if you put in the time and build it all the right way, it’ll all work out so don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work the first time – keep trying and testing and eventually, you’ll find success.

chelsieT

6 Killer Tips To Make Snapchat Work For Your Business

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With 173 million daily users that send 400 million snaps every day, Snapchat is quite clearly an untapped social media platform that most businesses should include in their marketing plan.

If you’ve been holding off taking Snapchat seriously, you need to take the blinders off as soon as possible because Snapchat can actually help engage your followers and boost your brand’s visibility – you just need to use it the right way. Here are seven tips and tricks to use the app to your brand’s advantage.

1. Use Snapchat to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Although Snapchat was not really built to drive traffic to your website unlike like social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, it can still help drive traffic to your site. Keep in mind that Snapchat doesn’t allow you to include clickable links, so all you can really do is to direct your followers to your website URL – but since Snapchat doesn’t allow clickable links, you need to ensure that your URL is easy to remember for when they decide to use your link later.

A good way to engage your audience is to provide a useful tutorial in your Snapchat story, but don’t give everything away straight away – show just enough to whet their appetites and then tell your followers to visit the particular URL at the end of your story if they want to get more information.

Editorial credit: FashionStock.com / Shutterstock.com

2. Provide behind-the-scenes access to exclusive events

If you want to engage more people to your brand in Snapchat, then you need to take them on a journey with you.

I’m pretty sure your followers would love to see some behind-the-scenes footage of how your business operates on a day-to-day basis or footage of an exclusive VIP event your company went to because that will bring the action to them directly.

For example, high profile designers used New York Fashion Week to grow their Snapchat following by posting behind-the-scenes videos and photos of the event. Since these videos and photos were only available for a short period, their followers became glued to their Snapchat accounts because it made them feel as if they were part of the show.

Here’s an image that was taken from Michael Kors SnapChat story. Michael decided to increase his social media presence via Snapchat since Fashionistas following the New York Fashion Week were also using the app to cover the event.

Everlane is another excellent example of a fashion brand that’s making Snapchat a massive part of their online marketing strategy. They let their followers know in advance about new products and releases, and they also use Snapchat to take you behind the scenes inside their office. At one point Everlane even offered limited edition items to their customers via a “Secret Shop,” and it was only available on Snapchat at certain times.

Snapchat is definitely a big part of Everlane’s online marketing strategy, and it’s something most businesses can learn from.

3. Tap Influencers

It’s a highly known fact that using influencers to promote your brand is the quickest way of getting more people to follow and engage with you.

However, there’s the realistic fact that not everyone has a marketing budget to work with so tapping high-profile influencers is out of the question because it’s going to be too expensive. Therefore, your next best option is to draw B-grade or C-grade influencers because they’d be willing to promote your brand at a much lower price. B-grade or C-grade influencers aka “Micro-influencers” may not be as massive as the big guns in Snapchat with millions of followers, but they still should have a decent following that you can tap.

A great example of a popular brand using an influencer to increase their following in Snapchat was the Sour Patch Kids. Sour Patch Kids teamed up with social media star Logan Paul by asking him to take over their Snapchat account and by doing that, they also invited his more than half a million Twitter followers to follow their Snapchat account.

Digital Training Academy confirmed that Sour Patch Kids received 6.8 million Snapchat impressions and 120,000 new Snapchat followers through the campaign, so it’s safe to say that it was a successful campaign.

4. Offer Special Deals

If you’re selling a service or a product then why not use Snapchat to promote your exclusive deals?

You can promote your discounts and special promotions through Snapchat which in turn will engage your followers and at the same time enable your brand to gain new followers. You can create Snapchat stories highlighting your special deals which should encourage more people to follow your account.

Crunchwrap Sliders, for example, shared this 10-second snap with a special referral code so that they were able to track down how many people actually got their hands on their product.

5. Provide incentive to your loyal followers

A good marketing move would be to reward your loyal followers for following you so that they continue to engage with your brand.

A fun yet effective way to engage your audience is to have a hidden message targetting your followers hidden within your Snapchat Story. You can tell your followers that whoever caught the secret message and responded accordingly will get a prize – but then they have to know that only those who watch the story until the end will get the instructions on how to claim the prize.

You can even tell your followers to take a snap of themselves promoting your brand, and if they send you the snap, they’ll get a prize for their efforts. Keep in mind that you can use these photos on your social media accounts as proof that people are following your brand.

Here’s a good example taken from frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles’ Snapchat account. They offered an exclusive discount to their existing followers that can only be redeemed if they sent snaps eating their fro-yo. They gained new customers by highlighting exclusive times and store locations, and when customers snapped photos of themselves or their friends eating 16 Handles yogurt, they immediately received a coupon code for between 16% and 100% off.

GrubHub effectively used Snapchat by organizing an online scavenger hunt called Snaphunt. They asked their followers to post a snap to them and then they announced ten random winners every day, who received $50 in free takeout.

6. Assert your authority

Addressing a relevant issue in Snapchat may sound a bit too serious seeing that majority of its users are young people, but sometimes, it pays to be the voice of authority in this app.

Take for example soap brand Dove, they got 30 women to chat with psychologists and other ambassadors on Snapchat to share personal thoughts about self-esteem issues. It was a campaign that was aimed at boosting young women’s self-images. Overall it resulted in 75 conversations and a whopping 130,000 views!

In Conclusion

Snapchat has 173 million active daily users, so it definitely needs to be added to your marketing plan.

If you want to be successful in your marketing campaign using Snapchat, then you need to be innovative but at the same time, show some personality and have some fun. The more authentic you seem, the more people will follow you.

chelsieT

12 Killer Pinterest Tips That Will Set Your Business Up For Success

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If you’re not using Pinterest to grow your website and your business – you are seriously missing out on a gold mine.

Most entrepreneurs have promoted their products on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for years, which is a smart thing to do, but a number of entrepreneurs and online marketers have now started using Pinterest to reach new customers.

Why? Well, let me give you some quick facts about Pinterest, and you’ll see why.

– As of now, Pinterest has a whopping 175 million active users

– 50 billion pins have so far been used by Pinterest users

– 2 million is the total number of Pinterest users who save shopping pins on their boards daily

– 81% of Pinterest users are female

– Time magazine referred to Pinterest as one of the top five social networking sites

Looking at these insane stats, I think it is safe to say that if you’re not using Pinterest to grow your website or your business, then you are seriously missing out on a gold mine. Especially retailers that cater to women.

So for all the newbies out there, what is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a free website where users can upload, save, categorize, and manage various images known as “pins” as well as other media content such as videos through collections known as “pinboards.”

Pinterest enables users to discover new ideas and find inspiration for anything and everything. Pins are actually ideas that can help you get creative, whether you’re launching a new product or promoting your existing ones – Pins are saved to Pinterest boards, making your ideas organized and easy to find.

A lot of people use Pinterest for a number of reasons, most people use it though to look for inspiration, particularly those people looking for ideas about new products to buy. Now before we look at how to use Pinterest for your business, let’s first look at how to set up a business account on Pinterest.

How to Create a Pinterest Business Account

– First, you need to go to Pinterest for Business and sign up. Complete all the details about your business.

– Now choose five or more ideas relating to your niche then read and accept the Pinterest Business Terms of Service and click “Create Account”.

– As soon as you sign up you’ll see something like this:

To give you a basic overview of the features of Pinterest, a “Pin” is an image or video that you can choose to save to Pinterest. If you have a businesses account then your image needs to contain a link for referral traffic because every pin links back to the original source. Pinterest users aka “Pinners” also sort their pins into collections called “boards” in order to keep things organized. So far there’s been a mind-boggling 100 billion pins to date and that’s pretty incredible stats!

– Next, you need to upload your most current photo or logo, choose your username that should be a direct representation of your business, add a bio that includes keywords that are optimized for search engines, add your location then add your website. Keep in mind that Pinterest is a visual social media platform so think visual.

To change your settings click at the top of Pinterest to open your menu, click settings to open your settings, scroll down to the Profile section, click change picture, then choose file, let it upload, then finally click save settings.

– Some basic terminologies you need to know besides boards and pins are “Secret Boards” which are also boards but the difference is that they’re secret so only you or anyone you’ve invited to pin with you are able to see your pins until you make the board public. There’s also the “group boards” which functions the same as normal boards but the only difference is that it has multiple pinners sharing content within the board. You’ve got the option to “repin” someone else’s content which simply means that you can share that specific pin with all of your followers similar to retweets. You’ve also got access to the “Pin It Button” which is a widget or plugin that can be added to your website or blog.

How To Set Up Pinterest Boards

Now that the technical stuff is out of the way – it’s time to start setting up your Pinterest Boards. I recommend around 5 boards, to begin with, so you get the basic idea of how Pinterest works. Think of boards as folders containing your photos, you’re basically sharing your photos with other people.

First, you have to name your board.

Keep in mind that the name of your board should be based on your chosen keyword so if you want your board to be search engine friendly then you need to choose a name that’ll represent your niche.

Your Pinterest Board Name needs to be attention-grabbing and highly clickable, it needs to contain your chosen keyword and specifically catered to your niche. Your main aim is to encourage pinners to browse through your boards and pin as much as they can so you need to also choose visually captivating images that can link and drive traffic to your website.

Try to make your board names more fun with a bit of attitude and personality – but at the same time really descriptive and direct to the point so that pinners can immediately grasp what your boards are all about.

 Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a board and start with a few pins. Let’s say I want to create a board about movie trailers and link the pins to one of my websites, instead of naming the board movie trailers, I’d want to make the name sound more catchy so I’d name it “addicted to movie trailers.”

Next, you add the name of your board, in this case, it’s “Addicted to movie trailers.”

Once you’ve created a board it’s going to look like this, once you see this in your screen, you need to click on “create a pin” to start posting pins.

As soon as you click on create a pin you’ll end up with this two options – “The Web” and “Your Device.” If you want to drive traffic to your website then I recommend that you click on “The Web.”

Once you click on “The Web,” this prompt will come up. Basically, it’s asking you for a link to your website. So I go to my website, get the link to the article, then post it on this tab.

Click “Next” and you’ll be given a choice of a pin, either you choose from the photos Pinterest has extracted from your website otherwise you can choose to upload your own image.

As soon as you’ve chosen a photo to pin, you then need to provide a description of the photo – be as detailed as possible. Once that’s done you’ll be taken to the page below which means that you’ve just added your first pin. The photo will be clickable which means that it can potentially drive traffic to your website.

Add more photos and repeat the same process and before you know it you’ve created your first board and first set of pins.

How to get your pin to the top of Pinterest Search

There are three main factors that usually helps a pin reach the top of Pinterest and these three are a compelling photo,  a highly optimized board name that supports the pinned content and a compelling blog post.

Now if you want to create a pin that can go viral then you need to look at these eight elements.

Compelling Description

Your pin description needs to be compelling enough if you want pinners to repin and click through to your photos. Take some time and work on your description before you hit that publish button.

Pin Size

A pin size is a big deal when it comes to creating a viral pin. According to danzarella.com, portrait and vertical images are the best to use on Pinterest. Award-winning social media marketer Dan Zarrella studied over 11,000 pins and discovered that taller images are actually more repinnable. I recommend trying the size 800 x 1,300 pixels because this size has worked well for me in the past but really, you need to try testing things out in Pinterest so you can find out which Pin size will do wonders for you. The minimum size is 600 x 900 pixels, make sure you don’t make your pins longer than 1500 pixels because they will get truncated.

Simple and Uncluttered Images

Granted that Pinterest is a visual social media platform, you still need to make sure that you don’t post photos that are way too busy to look at it literally hurts your eyes. I recommend using bright colors on a white or neutral background. Simple yet captivating photos tend to perform well on Pinterest. The colours red, pink, and purple tend to be repinned more, while green, blue, black, and yellow has the opposite effect,

Compelling images

According to Pinterest, informative pins are up to 30% more engaging than other pins and using some simple text on top of the image to quickly describe the pin helps make the pin more pinnable. Images with multiple colors apparently get repinned 3.25 times more than the ones with a single dominant color and medium lightness is repinned 20x more than very dark images. Don’t post images that are too light or too dark, stay natural.

FIle names

Since search engines can’t really see your images, you need to include file names that contain your targeted keywords. You’re most likely get much better search performance with “pacific_dresses.jpg” than you will with “JPEG23343.jpg.” If you do it this way, when someone pins your images from another blog or website using Pinterest’s browser button, the image alt-text by default is what is going to be used as the pin description.

Clear and legible Font

Obviously, you need to pick a font that people can read otherwise no one would click on your photos. Try to pick a photo that’s not too busy that it eats up your font, the neater the better.

Compelling images

According to Pinterest experts White Gloves, images without a human face receives 25% more repins. “Lifestyle images” drive 159% more likes and repins because it helps your audience actually visualize what they can do with your products and it shows your products being used in real life.

Optimize your Board Name

If people can’t locate your board then obviously they’re not going to find the content on your board. Therefore you need to use a board name that your target audience is searching for so that they can find your content.

 Now if you want Pinterest to work wonders for your business here are twelve killer tips:

Follow your competition

What better way to find out what sort of Pinterest strategies you can implement in your own account than by following your competition and figuring out what’s working for them?

You can find out who your competition is by searching them on Pinterest or using good old Google. Once you’ve pinpointed out other businesses related to your niche then explore their Pinterest accounts.

What’s working for them?

What sort of photos is getting more engagement?

Do they have active followers on Pinterest?

You need to determine what’s working for your competition, implement those strategies on your own Pinterest account and if you can improve on it.

Turn your Pinterest Page into a Business Page

There’s no massive difference between a personal page and a business page; the only difference is that business pages have added analytics features so you can get more data to help you. You can insight like how many unique users your Pinterest account gets, or which of your content gets the most repins.

You also need to create boards that are a direct reflection of what your business is all about. Creating boards that reflect your business is great for branding purposes.

Add a Pinterest Hover Pin It Button to your photos

A Hover Pin It Button is an excellent call to action because it’ll drive referral traffic from Pinterest direct to your website.

This button actually appears over the images on your website whenever a Pinterest user’s mouse hovers over them. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your site because it makes it easier for Pinterest users to pin images from your website.

Pinterest provides detailed instructions on how to use it so you should be able to get it going in just a few minutes.

Interact with your followers

If you want to actively engage your followers, then don’t forget to engage with people that comment on your photos.

Customers love a brand that interacts with them so a quick response to a user’s comment is good public relations and will engage your followers.

Build rapport With Influencers

Building rapport with influencers is a must for every social media platform because these people have hundreds and thousands of followers that might also follow your brand.

Start following the influencers in your niche and interacting with them. Repin their content, like them and even make comments on them. If these influencers can see that your brand is reaching out and making an effort, then they might decide to collaborate with you.

Optimize your Pinterest account for SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) should always be present on all your social media accounts, and the same goes with Pinterest.

Make sure your username is a direct reflection of your business for SEO purposes; your ‘about’ section should also contain keywords preferably long tail ones that are related to your niche. Make sure the file name and description of your pins are related to your niche, include relevant hashtags on your posts and of course, include links to your website.

Your business description is also a relevant piece of your Pinterest account so make sure you make it count.

Look at using Rich Pins

Pinterest has five types of rich pins that’ll enable you to add a pin that’s specifically related to your niche. These are the five:

•Movie pins which include reviews, cast members and ratings
•Place pins which include a map, an address and a phone number
•Article pins which include the link, the headline, the synopsis and the author
•Product pins which tell you where to buy and includes real-time pricing and product availability
•Recipe pins which include ingredients, serving information and even cooking times

Figure out which rich pin applies to your niche then apply for it, this should give your followers more specific information about the pins that interest them.

Invite users to a Group Board

A group board is a great way to engage with your customers and potential clients.

Create a group board then invite other Pinterest users to pin on your board. Of course, as the admin of the board, you have the power to control which pin stay and which pins go, but this is definitely a great way to gain potential new customers and followers.

Don’t be afraid to use old photos

Most people who follow brands businesses are usually keen on seeing their journey so why not dig up your old photos and do a throwback board?

Take your followers on a walk down memory lane by showing the progress on how you started to where you are now; success stories are always a hit with the masses.

Get smart when it comes to naming your Images

If you want Pinterest users to find your website photos, then you have to tweak your image names a little bit. Add keywords and hyphens, and that’ll make your image more search friendly.

For example, instead of a standard camera name like EOS SBCS0000.JPG – try “women’s-designer-shoes.jpg.” This should help make your photo easier to find online.

Use other forms of media

While we all know that Pinterest is a visually driven social media platform, there’s also the option of using other media to make your brand stand out.

Try posting videos from YouTube or slideshows from SlideShare – that should make your brand stand out more. You can also try audio from SoundCloud to make things a bit more interesting.

Don’t use too many hashtags

You need to choose hashtags that are relevant to your pin’s theme. If you’re using a hashtag that is more than one word – try capitalizing the first letter of each word to make it easier for Pinners to read your hashtag. For example, instead of #bluedress try typing #BlueDress.

Unlike Instagram where hashtags are a vital component to making your content go viral, in Pinterest, you don’t use more than 20 hashtags in your pin descriptions because it’ll look spammy and it’ll turn Pinners off. The less clutter there is in your pin description, the better.

Keep in mind just because you are using hashtags in your content, it doesn’t mean your content will automatically shoot up to the top of the Pinterest search engine because you’re still competing with other pins using the same keywords and hashtags. If those other pins are appropriately optimized with high repin numbers, those pins will always be ahead of your pins. You need to wait for at least a couple of months until you actually see a new pin’s value. SEO is a long-term game – it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

In Conclusion

If you’re not using Pinterest to market your products or services, then you’re seriously missing out. because more than 87 percent of Pinterest users have bought a product because of the website.

Pinterest is one of the biggest website traffic drivers in the world and is actually 80% more viral and three times more effective at generating leads than Twitter. So if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to take your business to another level then what are you waiting for??

chelsieT

10 FREE Online Marketing Tools That Are Guaranteed To Boost Your Business

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Let’s face it; maintaining an online business can be quite expensive so as an entrepreneur, we’re always looking for free options that are readily available online.

If you’re currently stuck trying to find free marketing tools that can help you boost your business, I may have a solution for you. Here are ten Internet marketing tools that can be very useful in your marketing efforts.

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Feedly

Feedly is a news aggregator application for various web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others. Basically, it’s a central place to organize, read, and share the information you need to stay ahead of the next big trend in your industry.

Keyword Niche Finder

Keyword Niche Finder is a fantastic tool that’ll help you find most profitable keywords in your industry. It’ll help you to categorize your keywords as well as provide you with keyword suggestions depending on your niche.

PhotoPin

Photopin is an excellent tool that sources out free images from websites like Flickr which you can then use on your site because they’re copyright free. The first 10-15 photos will be sponsored images so you can disregard those, but the rest should be free.

Content Idea Generator

Have you ever been stuck trying to come up with an awesome idea for content? Don’t fret because I’ve got a solution for you. The Content Idea Generator will provide you with a number of ideas that’ll help you get rid of that pesky writer’s block.

Google Drive and Dropbox

These tools will save your valuable files online so that you can access them later or share them with other people. Dropbox gives you 2GB space, and if you refer other people, you’ll get an extra 20GB of space. While Google Drive continuously saves your work while you are still in the process of preparing a document so even if your computer suddenly dies down, your docs will still be safe.

Small SEO Tools

Small SEO Tools is hands down one of the most awesome websites for small businesses. This website boasts some of the best FREE tools that are guaranteed to help you boost your business. It contains fantastic tools such as Article rewriter, Backlink checker, Google PageRank checker, Keyword suggestion tool, Plagiarism Checker, Page speed checker tool and many more.

Ahrefs

If you want to find out how many backlinks (incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website) your website has, then Ahrefs is the most reliable marketing tool for the job. Using this tool can even help you discover your competitors’ backlinks, and once you find out, you can try to approach these websites to link to your website as well.

Google page speed

This tool determines the loading time on your website giving you an insight on how fast your website loads. As you would probably be aware, no one likes a slow loading website so this can be a factor when it comes to getting more traffic. Google itself gives search priority to websites that load fast.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the best website to use when it comes to tracking your website’s activities and stats. It’ll give you detailed stats on how much traffic your website gets, what keywords your website is ranking for, which countries your visitors are coming from etc.. You’ll get few lines of code that you need to add to your website and then you can start tracking your visitors almost immediately.

MailChimp

MailChimp is an email marketing software that you can utilize to help you build subscribers for your website. If you have 2,000 or fewer subscribers, you can send up to 12,000 emails per month absolutely free. But if you have more then you would need to pay a fee depending on the number of your subscribers.

chelsieT

How This Woman Turned Her Passion Into A Million Dollar Business

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Photos courtesy of Madame Methven

Kaila Methven is the brains behind possibly the world’s most expensive lingerie label.

Kaila’s family once upon a time owned The Rainbow Unlimited Chicken Company (RLC), which used to supply 90 percent of KFC’s poultry. After inheriting her family’s sale of RLC shares back in 1991, Kaila decided to step away from the fried chicken business and focus instead on a much sexier line of work: a luxury lingerie company.

At just 16 years old, Kaila interned at her first Paris Fashion Show and went on to earn a Master’s Degree from the International Fashion Academy – Paris. She completed advanced training at Polymodo in Florence.

Kaila has so far been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Maxim and she has dressed some of today’s sexiest stars including the likes of Demi Lovato, Katherine McPhee, The Kardashians, and more. Kaila has just released her new vivacious, ultra sexy lingerie and intimate apparel line called “Lady Methven” and it was created for the everyday woman. Combining childlike innocence, erotic playfulness, and female power, Kaila dares everyone to fall in love again.

We recently sat down with Kaila to find out more about the luxury lingerie brand the whole world is currently gushing about and here’s what went down.

How were you actually ‘discovered’?

The first person who discovered me was Jean Charles de Castelbajac. I was a student at IFA, and he was visiting the school at the time. I was designing a jacket that day, he saw it and fell in love with it. After that, he gave me an internship in his company.

What do you like most about being a designer?

My most prestigious reward is to see women fall in love again wearing my lingerie. It is an honor for me when I see them feeling empowered, beautiful, sexy and confident.

What’s it like dressing some of the most famous people in the world?

It is extremely rewarding that famous people recognize my talent and want to wear my designs. However, I try to stay humble, and a client is a client. I don’t treat my clients differently because their name is well known. Each of my clients gets the best service I can provide, no matter who they are.

What first interested you in style/fashion?

I was born in LA, grew up in Paris, and graduated with my bachelor at Esmod, masters at IFA, MBA at Polymoda. I interned as a makeup artist at Paris fashion week for Dior, and when I saw all those models walking down the runway, I knew my destiny was to become a designer.

What made you decide to make it into a career?

Originally, I wanted to be an entertainment lawyer. But when my mother passed away, I moved to France, and I was immediately inspired by the fashion and the arts, so I entered in design school.

When did your career start?

I began filling my business documents to become legitimate a year and a half ago. I then started my design process and brought it to fruition during the summer of 2017. It took my team and me about six months to make the entire collection.

What do you enjoy most about style/fashion?

The most rewarding thing to me is the creativity it brings to my clients and the smiles on their faces.

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We note that you have more than 500,000 followers on Instagram- what is your secret to gaining a lot of followers?

I always have new content. I don’t want my followers to get bored. Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms; it is important to provide new content, make stories, like other amazing influencer’s posts, etc.

What sort of marketing do you do to make your image and brand more appealing to the audience?

We do a bunch of stuff from social media, Amazon, Ads, Parties, and other PR work.

How active are you on social media?

I am extremely active on social media. I post almost every day.

What is your favorite social media platform?

Definitely Instagram.

Do you have a specific inspiration that keeps you going in your career?

There is one woman who always pushed me to accomplish my dreams, whose name I’ll keep confidential. As of today, we are still in contact, she is very proud of me, and I always turn to her for advice. Ultimately, I am impressed by many successful business women who started from the ground up.

What has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned. This can be about the industry or about yourself. Or both!

Always believe in yourself, never give up on your dreams, and continue to work hard because hard work always pays off.

What are your plans? Inside your career or out of it.

Hopefully, I will have a store open, be an even better person, a better CEO with a very accomplished company, and have international stores.

“This is an Advertisement Feature”

chelsieT

15 Powerful Twitter Marketing Tips (That Actually Work)

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Can Twitter actually help boost your business? Or is it just a social media platform that’s mainly catered for teeny boppers who loves following their favorite celebrities?

The honest answer to this question is yes, Twitter can give your business a much-needed boost, but you need to know how to use it properly to get results out of it.

As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Twitter has an average of 330 million monthly active users – you don’t want to miss out on tapping such a vast market right?

If you want to know how you can use your Twitter account to gain new potential customers and engage your existing followers

then read on and find out.

1. Interact with your followers

If you want your Twitter account to engage with your customers, then you need to start interacting with them.

It doesn’t matter if you get a positive or negative tweet about your brand, you need to address these feedbacks to show everyone that your brand care.

If someone is giving you positive feedback, then you need to like the tweet and even retweet it – if people can see that you’re actively interacting with your followers, then they’ll engage with you too.

Don’t forget to retweet and mention other Twitter users and “like” tweets. You can mention other Twitter users by including their @usernames if you want to respond to something someone said about your brand and you want them to know about it. Retweeting or Tweeting what someone else has tweeted before is also a great tactic on Twitter because it creates a sense of goodwill.

If your business gets mentioned in the media, you have to make sure you tweet right back and mention their username to show them that you’re aware of what they said and you’re happy to respond to them. You can also offer a”Twixclusive.” A Twixclusive is an exclusive on Twitter that your followers can’t find anywhere else. You can tweet behind-the-scenes videos or photos, Connect with followers in real time by hosting exclusive Q&A sessions, interviews and chats.If your content is high-quality, you’ll end up getting more retweets that could potentially attract new followers.

2. Integrate Twitter into your blog

If you have a website, then it’s definitely a good idea to integrate your Twitter account into your blog so that you can encourage whoever reads your article to follow you on Twitter. You can either embed tweets or apply the Twitter share button or even the “Click to Tweet” button.

3. Post consistently and create a relevant profile

If you’re an entrepreneur, then you obviously need to have consistency in your social media profiles, so you need to choose
a username that is a direct reflection of your business. Twitter allows up to 15 characters for usernames, so you need to choose wisely and smartly. On that note, once you’ve chosen a username, you need to create a compelling profile. Choose a relevant profile pic (your business logo) and a compelling cover image as well as a brief but clear bio highlighting specific points about your business. People should be able to pick up what your brand is all about based on your Twitter profile.

4. Tweet briefly but consistently

If you’re not active on Twitter, then people will assume that your Twitter account is dead weight, so no one is going to follow or engage with your brand. You need to show everyone that you are actively tweeting about something hence the reason why celebrities tweet all the time. Try to tweet at least once a day or more if you can and maintain consistency.

On that note, Twitter actually has a 140-character limit so keep it short and sweet. You can also use tools to help you manage your Twitter account more efficiently. Here are a few good ones you can use:

TweetDeck: This tool great for scheduling Twitter posts and monitoring mentions among others.

HootSuite: This tool allows you to monitor all of your social media profiles from one location.

TwitterFox: This tool is a Firefox plugin that allows you to see tweets in a popup menu within your browser, so you don’t have to exit your current browser to check your Twitter account.

SocialOomph: This is a tool similar to TweetDeck that enables you to schedule your tweets in advance.

Followerwonk: This is a service that enables you to grow your social reach and review your Twitter analytics.

5. Post compelling and shareable tweets

Try to make your tweets compelling and always keep the interests of your followers in mind. Make your tweets more conversational, friendly, unique, or even funny to get your followers to engage. Try to also include other forms of media in your Tweets to make it more engaging. You can add images, links, animated gifs, and even videos. Tweets that include other media types tend to get more retweeted than those without. You can also plan your content to make sure that you are consistent with your Tweets and your followers know what to expect from you.

For example, Mondays and Tuesdays can be posts about your blog articles, Tuesdays and Wednesday’s can be a spotlight on what’s trending within your niche, Thursdays can be special promo days where one of your followers can win something and Friday through to Sunday can be a tweet highlighting special interviews with industry heavyweights. Having a content plan is must if you want your Twitter account to grow. You need to also tweet links to your content more than just once. Posting a single time is good, but reposting your content is better because not everyone is going to see your content if you only post it once. I recommend spacing out your tweets, so you’re tweets are always on people’s timelines all the time. You can use tools like Tweriod that can tell you the best time to Tweet something or when your followers are most active on Twitter.

6. Be at one with your competition

If you’ve just created your Twitter account and you don’t know what to do yet, why don’t you follow your competitors and see what they’re doing with their Twitter accounts that are engaging their followers? Find out what they’re tweeting about and their Twitter strategies and then implement those strategies in your account as well. Try to find a way to improve their tactics, that way; you’ll eventually get more engagement from your followers.

7. Follow other users

If someone follows you on Twitter, don’t be afraid to follow back. Just make sure you check out who you’re about to follow because you don’t want to be following a spam account. If it’s someone relevant to niche or a potential client, then you need to follow them right back. Especially aim to follow influencers in your niche, if you’re not sure who they are then there are tools such as Klout, Twellow, or Commun.it that’ll help you locate influencers. Once you’ve found these influencers, engage them, mention them and retweet their tweets, you can also use Buzzsumo to filter out and find influencers in your niche.

If they can see that your brand is actively interacting with them, then they’ll most likely follow you back. You need to follow these influencers, like and retweet their content and engage in their content. The key is to build relationships with people so that Twitter users will remember your brand.

8. Use strategic Hashtags

A hashtag is an extremely powerful marketing tool used by businesses in Twitter because the “#” symbol is a keyword or a phrase used to describe a topic or a theme. Hashtags in tweets are used to categorize a specific topic or a theme in a way that makes it easier for other Twitter users to find and follow other people’s relevant tweets. Basically, once you hashtag a word via Twitter, the specific hashtag goes into the world of hashtags which will enable Twitter users who are not following you to view your tweets and your content, so you get more eyeballs on your tweet. Hashtags increase engagement with new Twitter users that’s why it’s important to use relevant hashtags that’ll describe your content.

9. Use Twitter Lists

Twitter lists are an excellent way of keeping up with what’s trending in your industry and connecting with relevant people in your niche. Twitter lists are actually curated groups of users segmented by category. You can create lists for yourself or subscribe to other users lists. It gives you a sneak peek of what users are talking about and enables you to keep in touch with other people in your industry and your customers.

10. Use Twitter Chats

Twitter chats are actually scheduled hashtag discussions that highlight specific topics. If you’re an expert in your niche, then you can always host a Twitter chat where your customers and even potential customers can ask questions about your business and your niche. Cool tools like TweetChat or Twubs are available if you want to make your Twitter chats more manageable.

11. Use Twitter Cards

Twitter Cards enables users to attach rich photos, videos and media experiences to their Tweets, which can eventually result in more traffic to their websites. Majority of Twitter Cards are typically free, but then Lead Generation Cards are part of Twitter’s advertising program which means it can only be used within Promoted Tweets. The cost will, of course, depend on your marketing budget and how much you are willing to bid for each engagement.

12. Use Twitter in real time

If you have a special event or you’ve been invited to an important event, a great way to engage your followers is to live-tweet the event as it’s happening. Live tweeting is a great way to engage your audience especially if you’re attending a high-profile event.

13. Measure your engagement

If you are using Twitter for business, then you need to monitor your Twitter account’s metrics to make sure that you’re on track to achieving your goals. Are your followers engaging with your tweets? Are you getting new followers? Is your website getting any traffic from your Twitter account? How many people are interacting with your posts? If you’re not measuring your Twitter performance, then you won’t know where to improve on.

14. Try a ‘Flock to Unlock’ Campaign

Twitter’s Flock to Unlock campaign is an effective way of encouraging your followers to execute a specific type of action for you to reveal an exclusive deal. The choice to reveal the special deal in your initial tweet or keep it top secret until a specific benchmark has been met is entirely up to you. ‘Flock to Unlock’ Campaigns creates a much-needed buzz and builds brand awareness. If you want to stir things up a bit in Twitterland, then this campaign is gold.

15. use Twitter Ads

If you have a marketing budget, then you may look at using Twitter ads to expose your account to other Twitter users who may want to follow you. There are three different types of Twitter ads, and that’s Promoted Accounts, Promoted Tweets, and Promoted Trends. Promoted accounts are where Twitter will promote your Twitter account so you can gain new followers. Your account will show up in other people’s timelines and search results.Promoted Tweets is where Twitter will promote your regular tweets to other users who aren’t following you yet and who don’t know about your brand. Promoted Trends is where Twitter can promote a hashtag. When users click on your chosen hashtag, they’ll be able to see your promoted tweet first before they see all the other tweets.

In a nutshell, you can pay Twitter to promote your account to get more followers, you can pay Twitter to promote a video and then pay for Twitter users to view it or you can pay for Twitter to promote your tweets for brand awareness and website clicks. Bottomline, you need to choose a Twitter ad campaign based on your goal.

In conclusion

If you want to grow your customer base using Twitter, then you need to use it the right way.

You need to set goals to figure out what sort of result you want then you need to stay active on Twitter and engage your followers by retweeting their tweets and mentioning them when applicable. You can also use Twitter ads to gain more followers and engagement if you have a marketing budget to work with.

What about you? Have you used Twitter yet to grow your business?

chelsieT

10 Killer Ways To Generate Publicity For Your Brand

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Are you getting enough publicity for your business?

Let’s face it; if your business is not getting any publicity at all then it will never survive. Publicity is spreading the word about what your business is all about and what it can offer.

Although it’s ideal to have your business featured regularly in magazines, newspaper, radio, and television, the problem is, this can cost you a fortune especially if you’re aiming for a TV ad. The production cost alone is enough to make you broke if your financial situation is tight.

The good news for frugal entrepreneurs like myself is that getting media coverage for your business for a slight fee or even for free is not that hard if you know what you’re doing.

If you’re interested in generating publicity for your business, then here are 10 effective tips to attract media:

1. Make HARO a part of your marketing plan

If you haven’t heard of HARO then you are seriously missing out. HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is an awesome website that connects reporters who are looking for experts in a variety of industries with people who are an authority in their field.

You can be an entrepreneur, a therapist or even a financial adviser – if the reporter wants a story, you just need to put your hands up and you get free publicity. All you have to do is go to HelpaReporter.com, sign up for a free account and once you’d done that you’ll start receiving queries directly to your email from various reporters. Just go through the queries and respond to the ones that are suited to your business or your area of expertise and if the reporter likes your response voila! Free publicity.

2. Try to win an award

Award-winning businesses are always a target for the press, so if you want the press to come to you then submit your business to as many award-giving bodies as you possibly can. If you end up winning an award at some point then the press itself will come knocking on your door.

3. React to a trending topic

If there’s a trending topic that everyone is talking about then it’s a good idea to react to the story and make sure your opinion is all over your website and social media channels. Of course, you have to make sure that your reaction is of value and highly engaging, chances are, journalists will be searching the internet for reactions about the trending topic and if your reaction is controversial or valuable they’ll quote you in their article.

4. Offer free valuable information

Everyone loves free stuff, you do, I do and I’m pretty sure all the reporters do. If you’re an expert in your niche then why don’t you blog on your website and promote it all over your social media platforms? Most of the time if the reporters are doing a story on a specific topic they’ll start looking for quotes from experts so if your posts are incredibly detailed and valuable you’ll get quoted by various journalists so you’ll drum up publicity for your business. There are probably millions of experts all over the world who know what you know or who know more about you in a certain subject matter so you might as well be known as the person who revealed the information and gets the better out of everyone else.

5. Use Fiverr to generate publicity

If you have a slight marketing budget then Fiverr is just the website for you. For as little as $5 you will find a number of bloggers and reporters looking to exchange a story in exchange for payment. The bigger the website they are writing for the more expensive the fee, but if you want to kick things off with five bucks then why not right?

6. Get involved with charity organizations

Getting involved with charity organizations is always good publicity because it helps with your brand’s image, especially the high profile ones like Cancer Council or Save the Children Foundation. Instead of handing out cash which doesn’t do much for your image, why don’t you try to organize an event and raise funds for a worthy charity organization? Not only will you be helping other people out, you’ll also be raising your brand’s image. Most publications would willingly go to a fundraising event if it’s supporting a notable charity organization.

7. Organize an ex-deal with bloggers

If you want to generate publicity for your business then you need to start small and work your way up. First, try to get bloggers to take notice of you and then reporters from much bigger publications will follow. Try to offer your products for free to a blogger in exchange for a write-up. I doubt the less popular bloggers would say no to you.

8. Offer your expertise to media outlets

A great way to generate publicity for your business is to share your expertise to magazines and publications. Try to reach out to publications, magazines, and authoritative media outlets and explain your expertise. Or better yet, try to get someone you know to pretend to be your secretary to make you seem a lot more successful and bigger – get that person to reach out and email the media. A Free insight from an expert is very helpful since publications are always looking for new content on their websites.

9. Try to solve a trending problem

If you’re an entrepreneur then you need to be up to date with the most trending topic so that you can use it to generate publicity for your business. If there’s a trending topic like “how to keep up with the rising costs of housing” then why don’t you offer a solution to this problem? Write a solution on your blog and make sure the article gets out especially social media. if you’re confident that your solution is authoritative enough try to post it on Facebook and then boost your post. if you can get Facebook users to like it and share it then it might get picked up by a reporter looking to make a story on that trending topic. If you can position yourself as an expert when it comes to solving problems then the media themselves will be clamouring for an interview.

10. Try to beat a world record

Everyone loves a world record holder so if you can be a world record holder then you’re well on your way of getting free publicity from the all over the world. Someone I know hired a really young person to be the editor-in-chief of one of his magazines. Eventually, the kid was named as the younger editor-in-chief ever and you can only imagine how much free publicity that garnered.

In conclusion

Getting the word about your business can be extremely hard especially when you are working with little, or no marketing budget. That’s why you have to work smarter not harder to get the media to pay attention. If you can follow the tips above then you’re guaranteed to get publicity for your business.

chelsieT

5 Advanced LinkedIn Marketing Hacks That Will Help You Double Your Business

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If you’re not using LinkedIn for your business then you are seriously missing out.

For the newbies out there who haven’t heard of LinkedIn before, it’s a social network that is designed for career and business professionals to connect with each other. Unlike Facebook wherein, you can ask to be a friend of anyone you like, LinkedIn is not about numbers, it’s about quality, not quantity. It’s about building strategic relationships and connecting with people that are relevant to your business. In fact, if you reach 500 connections LinkedIn will actually stop showing your number of connections to other users.

LinkedIn has over 65 million business professionals from around the world and majority of its members are decision-making authorities for their companies so it’s an amazing platform that you can utilize for your business.

1. Use LinkedIn to grow your email list

Email lists have always been at the top of the list for a number of online marketers because your message goes directly to your target’s inbox. Whenever you make a new connection in LinkedIn try to be polite and thank them for the connection – then try to invite them to be a part of your email list. Since you’ve connected with them already, nine times out ten they’ll probably say yes. Of course, it’s always a good strategy to offer something in exchange for their emails, maybe offer a free eBook that you’ve written? You’ll get a much more favorable response if you’re exchanging something of value in return for their emails because most people think you will spam their inboxes.

2. Laser-focus on your target market and connections

Advertising in LinkedIn is way different than advertising on other social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram because you can laser-focus on your industry, job roles of LinkedIn users who would normally purchase your product and even the company size. For example, if your company is selling high-end women’s shoes, you can focus your entire advertising campaign to female executives of businesses with over 100 employees that are focussed on fashion – these women can afford high-end shoes and have the budget for them.

3. Stay active and post constantly

If you want your connections to recognize that you’re an authority on your field then you need to stay active on LinkedIn.

Provide daily status if you can and create blog posts to show authority. Keep in mind that you are catering for your connections and possible new connections that have come across your profile so keep active and stay relevant by posting authoritative blog posts. Try to join LinkedIn groups that are relevant to your target market as well. This is an excellent way to find out what your target audience is buzzing about and joining groups will also enable you to message the members of the group even if you’re not connected.

4. Post compelling content

If you want other professionals to notice your brand and you as an authority figure in your industry, then you need to post topnotch content that is highly compelling. Keep in mind that your connections and audience are also professionals in their field so they would only see value in your content if it’s going to help them in the long run. Keep in mind that if a post begins to gain traction, LinkedIn will actually put a spotlight on it in one of their categories, and you’ll get more eyeballs on your post and your profile.

5. Sponsored Updates

Sponsored updates is a great way to engage a more targeted audience on LinkedIn because it allows you to get your content in front of a larger, more qualified users. Basically, you can pay to push your content onto a LinkedIn user’s feed similar to boosting a Facebook post. The beauty of using this function is that you can customize your content to laser-focus on a person’s job title, company that person works for or even what sort of skills they have. It’s a great way to reach decision makers and authority figures from various companies so you need to make sure that the content you’re pushing is compelling and that you also have a prominent call to action.

6. Make sure you claim your custom URL

If you’re serious about growing your brand then you need to claim your custom URL and make sure it includes your name in it. If you’ve just met a potential sponsor or client, chances are, they’ll probably Google your name to get a feel for you and LinkedIn profiles are usually at the top of the search results that’s why custom URL’s are very important. On that note, make sure that the summary section on your own profile is topnotch. Having a custom URL is pointless if your summary section is lame. Make sure that you write in the first person and that it clearly sums up your expertise and why you’re an authority in your niche. It’s what prospective customers or clients will look at if they come across your profile.You have roughly 2,000 characters to make a kickass profile so make it good. Don’t forget to include your contact information in your profile as well to make it a lot easier for potential clients to reach you so that you can turn random people into qualified leads.

7. Don’t be pushy

No one likes a pushy salesman so if you come across as one of those annoying pushy salesmen you’ll most likely turn other people off. LinkedIn is all about connecting with other businesses and professionals so if you want to make an impact on LinkedIn then you need to focus on building relationships. Try to connect with other entrepreneurs and prospects on a more personal level and build rapport. Make people like you. Most people will say yes to something if they like the person.

Being a hardcore sales rep out of the 70’s will get you nowhere because LinkedIn is full of smart professionals who have probably heard what you’re selling anyway.

8. Have a business profile page

If you have a Facebook page and an Instagram page then you definitely need to have a business page on LinkedIn as well.

The look and feel of your business page should be consistent on all social media platforms so make sure the visuals and content are consistent all throughout. Stay active on LinkedIn because the more active you are the more relevant your brand becomes. If you come across a business page that hasn’t been updated in three months what would be your opinion of that business? You’ll probably think it’s not in business anymore. You’re better off not having a business if you’re not planning to update regularly. Maintain a consistent and active business page on LinkedIn and you’ll have a better chance of earning more qualified leads.

9. Create your own LinkedIn group

Similar to creating a Facebook page, creating a LinkedIn group is a great idea because it’ll connect you directly with potential clients or customers. If you want other LinkedIn members to join your group all you need to do is join as many groups that you can that are related to your brand or your niche. Once you’ve been accepted to the other groups, focus on getting the members of that group to join your own group by sending them each a personalized invite. Laser-focusing on your target members is essential here so you need to invite members that you feel could be your potential customers. The more personalized your invite is, the better your chances of recruiting them to join your group. Once your group has a decent size, you need to post valuable content to keep them compelled. if they can see that you’re offering something of value to your group then they’ll more than likely become your client or customer in the future.

In Conclusion

One in three professionals in the world actually owns a LinkedIn account, and 50 percent of key decision makers use LinkedIn for business purposes so if you’re not using it for your business then you’re seriously missing out on a potential gold mine.

LinkedIn provides valuable networking opportunities, allows you to build rapport and relationships with other professionals, establish authority, generate quality leads, gain awareness for your brand and improve your reputation. So what are you waiting for??

chelsieT

3 Killer Reasons Your Website Isn’t Making Money And How To FIX It

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If you’ve been blogging on your website for quite some time but have yet to see any cash flow coming in, you might be doing something wrong and you don’t even know about it.

If you’re new to the blogging scene you might have heard of terms like “affiliate marketing” or “sponsored posts” as easy ways to make money online, but the question is – are you making any money on it at all?

In this article, I’ll highlight three crucial things why you’re still not making any online even though you’re consistently churning out content on a constant basis.

You’re not creating shareable content

Let’s face it, if you want to make money online then you need traffic on your website. if you’re not getting traffic on your website it’s probably because your content is too short or it’s not compelling enough that people would want to share it.

To be honest, you don’t need to be an amazing writer to create compelling content, although you should aim to be a better one, you just need to follow a formula that other successful bloggers in your niche are following.

I highly recommend visiting Buzzsumo as this website is a gift to entrepreneurs and online marketers. Buzzsumo is a great website that will reveal the most shared content in the online world. You just type in your niche in the search field and it’ll give you a breakdown of which posts are shared by people all over the world. This should give you an idea of what sort of headlines captures people’s attention and what sort of content people are willing to share with their friends.

If you see a content that you think will resonate with your readers, try to create a similar or possibly better content to get more readers. If it’s already working for that blogger then there’s a huge possibility it will work for you too because it’s a tried and test topic.

Let’s say for example your niche is handbags. All you need to do is type in the word “handbag” in the search field.

Buzzsumo will then give you a list of the most viral articles all over the web. It’ll show you which articles are the most shared content via social media so you can get a feel for what people are actually sharing online. You’ll also get an idea of what sort of headlines are grabbing people’s attention.

Now that you’ve found a content you want to work on – what can you do to make it better? Here are a few tips.

– Include much more compelling images.

People are very visual so the more compelling images you can add the better. If you don’t know where to get some, get stock photos because these photos are high quality and quite cheap. Photos have always been a touche’ subject for bloggers because of copyright infringement, so registering in a stock photo website like Shutterstock might be a good idea for you. Stock Photos can be quite pricey but if you sign up for a year in Shutterstock for example, you can get access to 50 photos per month and the cost would be $100 per month which is not too shabby.  But if your budget is on the tight side you can always visit Photo Pin – this website will find the best free photos from around the Web.

– Create a more in-depth content.

Let’s say for example if the headline of the article you want to base your content on is “Top 10 Designer Bags To Invest In For 2018” – why don’t you make the list Top 15 or Top 20 instead? Do some extra research on the article and make it your own. You can even add a video somewhere in the post highlighting your list because people engage more with videos. Remember, your aim is to make the article better to get more people to share your content.

– Create sub headings and make the article more readable.

Most people get bored with extremely long articles so you can improve the blog post by making it much easier to read for your readers. Try to include subheadings, make the paragraphs shorter and highlight some sentences in your blog post – these may be minor details but trust me, it can make a huge difference.

Another good tip I can give you is going back to your old posts and make them better. Remember, blog posts are like wine – the older they are the better because the older blog posts acquire authority and historical SEO power. As long as your blog posts are search engine friendly, they’ll get more eyeballs if it’s a great content. Most people are so consumed with sharing brand new content to get more traffic and quality leads. But, if you’re smart, you’ll discover that old blog posts are in a much better position to get traffic as long as you allocate a time to update them since these blog posts have built authority over a period of time. Some of my posts from 10 years ago are still getting constant traffic because the content was compelling and it was well optimized. Try to focus on your best older posts and give them a quick upgrade, if it’s being shared around already then it’s worth giving it an overhaul. Try to add links within these blog posts linking to your newer blog posts as well. This is an easy way of driving traffic to your newer or less popular posts.

 

You have to make sure that your blog has opt-ins as well once the traffic starts flowing in. if your blog has no opt-ins then you are seriously missing out on getting more readers.

How else are you going to reach your readers personally by email if there’s no opt-in available on your website?

Make sure your opt-ins are really visible so that when you get new readers and they like your content they’ll end up signing up for your email list.

You’re not using the power of social media

Although it’s always great practice to optimize your blogs so that it can become search friendly, everything can change in a blink of an eye if Google decides to change its algorithm which it constantly does.

Case in point: I used to comfortably earn $6,000 per month from Google Adsense eight years ago, but when Google decided to change its algorithm, my earnings dramatically went down to just $500 per month! Then it changed again and eventually my website was getting less than $100 per month so I decided to take out Google Adsense from my website because it was useless for me and it ruins the readers experience anyway.

Enter social media.

For my blogs, the main traffic driver is Facebook followed by Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. I use Instagram to drive traffic to my blog by posting compelling photos and then adding eye-catching captions. For example, if my headline reads “The 10 best moments from the 2018 Oscars,” my caption would be something like “if you want to find out the 10 best moments from the 2018 Oscars then click the link on our bio.” Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t allow active links in posts anymore because a lot of people abused the system, but as long as you mention “click the link on our bio” – at least you can direct people to the link in your profile since that link is active. Just make sure your website link is in your bio otherwise your efforts are useless.

You can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website by creating compelling photos and headlines and adding a link from the photos to your website. Again, Pinterest is a very visual social media platform so your images need to be really compelling to make people click on your photos.

Facebook is my main source of traffic at the moment because basically everyone is on Facebook so your posts will get more eyeballs. You need to create a Facebook page for your website and you need to grow this page since people are always on Facebook. Maintaining an active Facebook page is advisable if you want your brand to have more engagement on Facebook. Make sure you mix up your posts as well, besides posting a link to your website on your Facebook page, try to add some images and share some video for maximum engagement. If you want more detailed information about this subject then here’s a link to my previous post.

For some people who want to get traffic immediately, they resort to PPC traffic which is fine as long as you know what you’re doing.

If your marketing budget is super tight then Facebook Ads is the best place to start because it’s very cheap and it allows you to laser-focus on your target readers. You can spend as little as $2 per day on Facebook ads. You have a few choices to choose from when it comes to directing traffic to your website, you can boost a Facebook post if you think it’s compelling enough, you can try to get more likes for your Facebook page or direct all the traffic to your website. If you’re going to use Facebook ads then you might as well focus on growing your Facebook page first because you’ll get more social shares that way.

You don’t know how to monetize your website

There are many ways to monetize a website but at the end of the day it all boils down to probably three main options.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing, in a nutshell, is an arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to your website in exchange for traffic or sales generated from your website’s referrals. Basically, if you promote someone else’s product and people end up buying it, you’ll get a commission out of the sale. Some advertisers might want to place a banner ad on your a website and will pay you for any visitor clicks on that link.

Some of the best ones out there are Rakuten Linkshare, Clickbank, eBay, ShareASale, and Amazon. The best way to get more people to click on your links and get a sale is to create an in-depth review of the product and get your readers to trust you enough that they’ll buy what you recommended. You can even add multiple affiliate links within the blog post to get more chances of someone clicking the link. You can also create list posts so you can have multiple products within a single blog post. If you want a more in-depth information about making money from Affiliate marketing you can click on this link.

Sell Advertising on your blog

Another option to monetize your website is by selling advertising on your blog – it can be an banner ad or a link within a blog post. If you want to take this route then you need a substantial amount of targetted traffic before any company decides to get in bed with your website. They might require proof in terms of statistics that their ad in your website is working to make sure that their money is not going to waste so it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Sell a product in your website

You can either sell a digital product or a physical product in your website. If you’re going to take this route, make sure the product you’re going to sell is related to your niche otherwise no one will be interested. If you’re thinking of creating an ebook and selling the book on your website, try to search related books in Amazon first to give you an idea of what readers want. I would even go as far as read the comments on the book so you can get an idea what is working or not working for that book and you can address it on yours.

If you’re thinking of selling a physical product, try to create in-depth reviews on this product. Don’t be afraid to point out the pros and cons to make your review more authentic and add plenty of testimonials for social proofing. The more honest you are with what you’re selling the more genuine you’ll sound.

In Conclusion

Some of you may question if it’s really possible to make money online.

For some people, it might take time so be prepared for the long haul. Basically, it’s consistently releasing compelling content, leveraging the power of social media and effectively knowing which monetization process works for your website.

As long as you don’t lose hope and you continue to be consistent then you’ll eventually reap the fruits of your labour.

chelsieT

What This Millionaire CEO Can Teach You About Building A Wildly Successful Business

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Timothy Trudeau’s earliest and fondest memory of getting a taste of the business world was hanging out with his father who was a successful business owner along with other successful business owners. While other kids were playing video games, Timothy was hanging around entrepreneurs and gaining powerful business tips. His first taste of success was when he sold his first beat to a Senior in his school who rapped back when he was in 9th grade. His foray into the business world started out at this early age when this Senior heard the beats he was making and decided to share an idea he had for a song. He immediately went home and used the equipment that he had collected through saving and bartering, and that’s when he first experience a real collaboration with an artist, and he officially became a producer. Eventually, his business grew, and he accumulated his wealth via his company Syntax Creative as well as rental income from the property that he owns.

We recently caught up with Timothy Trudeau and here’s what went down:

Could you please tell our readers a brief background about yourself and how you started making money?

I remember clearly listening music while riding through the South Bay neighborhood of San Diego. Sitting in the backseat of my father’s car, I was nodding my head to songs that were well beyond my years. I may not have known it then, but I was planting the seeds that would lead to my love for music and the subsequent foray into business. No one could have predicted that an unassuming kid from California like myself was quietly developing the ability to create original music and the chops to build a business around it.

How did you get started in business? When did you start? Did you ever imagine you would become this successful?

Some of my earliest and fondest memories include attempts at launching small businesses. I loved “negotiating” with the adults around me and selling products to other children based off knowing what they wanted.

My Dad was a successful business owner and socialized with other successful business owners. While other kids were trying to play outside or manipulate pixels on a screen in make-believe worlds, I would jump at any chance to go with my Dad to hang out with him and his friends.

While I doubt I fully grasped the idea of success, I knew that I would one day be an adult and that it would remain that way for the rest of my life so I wanted to acquire as much insider information into this journey as possible.

The first memorable transaction I remember, that is most closely associated with what I do now, was when I was in the 9th grade and sold my first beat to a Senior who rapped. It started out because he had heard the beats that I was making and decided to share an idea he had for a song, I went home and used the equipment that I had collected through saving and bartering. I was officially a producer and had just experienced my first real collaboration with an artist.

Though not music-related, the earliest legitimate business operation that I launched was when I was in the 10th grade. It was a business where I sold and serviced pagers along with the monthly airtime charge, as well as accessories to customize an otherwise boring world. Because I was only 15, I engaged my brother, who was 4 years older than me, as a partner who could legally register the business.

Most of my clientele were other students who I would see every day. Like any small community, the word can travel fast so it was important to keep customers happy and for them to share their happiness with others.

What is your main source of income?

My main source of income is the salary that I earn at Syntax Creative as well as rental income from the property that I own.

What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?

While some may be sitting on their equity, others are using it to purchase jet skis or other fun items that will decrease in value the moment the ink is dry on your purchase contract. I have used the equity to purchase assets that increase in value or that I can make money from. The main one being, more real estate.

While I’ve dabbled in the real estate market of other states for over a decade, I ended up cashing out and focusing on the San Diego market. This is where I am blessed to live and a market I understand very well. Like Bitcoin or the Foreign Exchange Market, if you are strategically buying and selling, you can do very well for yourself.

tt2

What social media platforms do you usually use to increase your brand’s awareness?

Social Media is a double-edged sword. While there are definitely benefits to utilizing it well, using it well can be a full-time job. If I am regularly posting on social media to promote myself or my business and convince people to work with me, I’m probably becoming the type of person that you wouldn’t want to work with.

It’s better to use one well, than many on a mediocre level. Which is what I primarily see. For me, that one social network would be Twitter. Twitter is informative, short and sometimes funny. And as long as you can fit into that too, it’s a great place to get your message out.

The main thing for anyone to understand is that the first word in social media is social. I try to picture real live scenarios and how my engagement on those networks would play out. If you were at a party with friends and everything you were saying was a pitch, you probably wouldn’t be invited back. If you were argumentative, same.

Be polite and friendly, and as you engage with people, your message will naturally get out. No need to beat people over the head with advertisements. They get that everywhere they go, so if you are just more noise, you will be unfollowed or muted.

What is your main tactic when it comes to making more people aware your brand and engaging your customers? How did your business stand out?

My main tactic is just to treat customers the way that I would want to be treated as a customer. I really can’t stand when I work with a business, and I can tell that the business doesn’t value me or my money and could not care less if I return to spend more.

Doing business this way has led me to build an entire company off of word-of-mouth marketing. I really haven’t spent a dime to market or advertise myself or my company. Instead, I sat on all sides of a deal. I’ve been an artist signed to a label, I’ve signed artists to a label, as a label I’ve signed to a distributor, and as a distributor, I’ve signed labels. So my goal was to create the kind of company that I would have wanted to work within any one of those positions that I had firsthand experience.

In doing so, people are happy to pay our fees. Even if they are higher than our competition. The fee isn’t the be all end all in negotiating, though many negotiate as if it is.

Most of our clients came from another client, and that puts on the pressure to perform well, which is not unlike the pager business I had where my customers were my fellow students.

What is the toughest decision you had to make?

The toughest decision I’ve had to make is to kill a business or a partnership. It’s easy to get emotionally invested in something, especially if you’ve been doing it for a while. There comes a time when you have to step outside of what you are doing and take a look at it logically and see if the numbers are adding up or not.

Even businesses with a great cause may need to be shut down. You are able to do much more for a good cause with a solvent business than an insolvent one.

And if you love your friend or family member but they are contributing nothing or dragging the business into the ground, they must not love you very much back. If the relationship dies because you want to kill the partnership, there was never a relationship, to begin with.

What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from (or something you’d do differently)?

I hate debt. Like, HATE it. Because I hate it, I am always trying to pay it down as fast as possible. And at times, that has strapped my cash flow in a way that was unnecessary. While loans can certainly be a millstone tied around your neck, they can also be an incredible tool if used properly. Find your balance somewhere in between the extreme of no-debt-at-all and using credit cards to pay other credits.

What new business would you love to start?

Syntax Creative has a broad reach and has me working with people all over the world. This is a lot of fun and I love it. However, for my next venture, I want to do something really localized. I want to have some kind of small business that serves food and drink. One that gets into a community and becomes a part of it. I want to take those same principles I’ve learned about having peers as customers and friends recommending friends for marketing to a local establishment. I also love growing individuals, so the thought of hiring young people to help them learn not just how to do their job well, but how to think well and do all future jobs well. How to open their own business someday.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what would you do differently?

I would immediately go back to before time machines were invented and start a time machine business.

Do you have any favorite business-related or personal development related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?

The most important thing someone can learn to help his or her own business would be economics. One of my favorite recent books for this is The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution. Another fantastic book is On Writing Well: The Class Guide to Writing Nonfiction. This book has, of course, helped my writing, but it has also helped my communication. Communication is one of the main tools that I use when transacting with people. So the better that I can do that, the better the transactions will be and we are right back to word-of-mouth marketing.

What advice would you give to a newbie Entrepreneur setting up their first business?

Preparation is awesome. But over-preparation can be crippling. I coach a lot of young or new entrepreneurs and many of them have fantastic ideas. The first thing I think is, why aren’t they already doing this?

That initial plunge off of the cliff seems to be the part keeping them from doing anything other than making charts, graphs and spend time talking about starting something. There isn’t a failed business in my past that I launched that I didn’t learn something valuable from. Most successful entrepreneurs were first unsuccessful entrepeneurs.

You just have to go! Get started. You can’t possibly know everything up front and you can’t plan for all that will happen along the way. But you also can’t have a business if you don’t take that first step.

chelsieT

How To Test If Your Chosen Niche Can Be Profitable Without Wasting Money

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Are you thinking of making money online but you don’t where to start?

You probably have an idea on what sort of niche you want to focus on but then again you don’t know if this niche is going to be worth it or whether it can be turned to something profitable.

You probably want to make sure you focus on a niche that is not just your passion project but at the same time, something you can make money out of so that you can possibly do it fulltime.

Well if you want to really find out if your choice of niche can be profitable then I have some suggestions that can help you out.

First, you need to decide on your passion topic.

What gets you going?

What sort of niche can you write about that will continually stimulate you and enable you to keep writing about it?

The aim of the game is to be as specific as possible so that you can narrow down your niche down to a tee.

Let’s say for example you love writing about women’s shoes so you have decided to you want to target women between the age of 18 to 26 and who loves shoes – what sort of women will you be targetting? Are you trying to target the frugal ones who are always looking for the elusive sale or the shopaholics who buy shoes like its the end of the world?

The more specific you are, the easier it would be for you to narrow down your market.

Once you’ve chosen a niche you have to ask yourself these questions:

Is there really a market for your chosen niche?

Is this a profitable niche that people will actualy pay for?

Will there be enough people to focus on? Is this a niche that will never be out of trend?

If you want answers to these questions then I recommend the strategies below:

Find other products online related to your niche

If you’re scared that there’s too much competition in your niche, you shouldn’t be, because if other people are making money from it that means there is a market for your niche and there’s money to be made.

Let’s say your focus is diet and fitness, a good strategy would be visiting Amazon and searching through books that have been written related to your niche. I recommend going through the comment section of these books because that’ll give you a clear indication of what information people are finding relevant and what other information people are seeking for. You can create your website catering to these issues. Here’s a screenshot example from Amazon.

Pay a visit to Google Trends

Google Trends is an awesome way of finding out if your niche is in demand and the best thing is – its free!

All you have to do is place your niche keyword in the search bar and it should give you an indication of the demand for your niche because Google will present you with a graph confirming the interest for your niche. If there’s a consistent rise on the graph then it’s a good indication that you’re on the right track. You can even scroll to the bottom of the page of your search and you’ll find “related queries” and “related topics” to make your decision easier.

Pay a visit to video sites like YouTube and Vimeo

Another good strategy is to pay a visit to video websites like YouTube and Vimeo and try to see if there are any popular videos on your niche. If there are plenty of videos and millions of views then you’re onto something.

Search for your niche in social media

Social media should always be a part of your strategy because everyone is pretty much on it. Pay a visit to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

For example, type in designer women’s shoes in Facebook and Instagram. If you see on Facebook that there are a ton of Facebook pages dedicated to your niche and the hashtag also has over 100,000 posts that’s a good indication of demand.

Pay a visit to Udemy

Udemy is an online learning platform that uses content from online content creators and selling them for profit. Basically, it’s like an online college.

Search your niche in Udemy and if you can see that there’s a lot of courses focussing on your niche then that’s a good indication that your niche is profitable.

In Conclusion

If you want to find a niche you want to start a business about you need to first look at what really interests you first then do your research to see if your niche can be sustainable in the long run. Make sure you examine the trends surrounding your niche and once you’ve decided on one you have to start NOW.

chelsieT

3 Major Secrets To Actually Attracting Advertisers To Your Social Media Accounts

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Can you really make money from social media even if you don’t have a website?

The simple answer is yes you can. However, you have to bear in mind that for every superstar influencer making millions on Instagram or Facebook, there are also hundreds of thousands of people who are not making any money at all. The brutal reality is that nothing is ever guaranteed.

Since Instagram has boomed to insane heights, there’s also been a boom in social media influencers who are earning ridiculous amounts of money via Instagram. Top influencers like Selena Gomez, who has over 122 million followers, can earn over $550,000 per post. Kim Kardashian earns an average of $500,000 per post so you can see how some people can make millions out of their Instagram account.

Obviously, the brands that are willing to pay top dollar for influencers want to make sure they maximize their money so they would be looking for influencers who have a lot of followers. So how do you get sponsors to advertise on your social media account? Here are a few tips:

– You need to do your research. Approaching a sponsor without knowing what they need is like rushing into a war blindfolded. Take a look at their Facebook page and Instagram and Twitter account for example. What are they lacking? Is there a way for you to help them out? Are they engaging their followers? Can you suggest a few things that you can improve on if the sponsor decided to give you a chance to explain yourself?

– You need to post consistently. If you want to gain new followers and engage your existing ones then you need to post compelling content consistently. That’s the best way to gain authority and get people and brands to take notice.

– You need to tag brands, especially on Instagram. If you want a specific brand to take notice, you need to tag their Instagram page. If they like your posts and photos, they might even end up sharing your posts on their Instagram account which means more eyeballs for your account.

– Make sure brands know that you are open for sponsorship. If you want potential sponsors to reach out to you then your profile needs to specify an email or a phone number where sponsors can reach you for promotional opportunities. Make sure it’s really loud and clear that you’re open to potential partnerships.

– Be bold and send them a direct message. Tell the potential sponsor how much you love their brand and that you have some great ideas for a possible collaboration. If you message a sponsor but you don’t get a response at all, don’t lose heart because they probably a thousand emails themselves. If they do response then try to get an email address, it’s much more professional than chatting on Facebook or Instagram. Here’s an example of an email that can get you results.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I hope this email finds you well.

My name is Mike and my Instagram account is @miketheinfluencer. I’d love to be given the opportunity to collaborate with your brand.

Just to give you a quick outline of what my Instagram account is all about,  my account focuses on men’s suits, based on my 10 years of being a fashion stylist. The people who follow me tend to be men aged between 21-36 who are actively prepared to spend for decent suits, which seems like a good match for the audience your brand targets with marketing. I currently have 10,000 followers, and an 85% engagement rate on my posts and I was previously a brand ambassador for Montagio Mens Suits Sydney and InStitchu.

I think there’s a great opportunity for us to benefit each other, and I’d like to propose a collaboration. Please let me know if my book account sparks any partnership ideas.

Thanks for your consideration!

– Try to interact with the brand’s posts and use their hashtags. If you do it constantly, their bound to take notice, especially if your social media profile has a decent amount of followers and you keep tagging them repeated again and again.

In Conclusion

Most brands hesitate to invest money into social media because they worry about the return on investment.

If you want to gain sponsors for your social media account then you need to do your research, back your proposal with some convincing statistics and generate results. If you can provide results to potential customers then you’ll get sponsors that’ll come back to you again and again.

chelsieT

This Man Bought A $100,000 Watch As A Marketing Experiment. The Result Was Mind-Boggling

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Would you buy a $100,000 watch to conduct a marketing experiment? Well, this man did!

Let’s face it; most people like to associate themselves with luxurious, expensive and exotic things. A Panerai watch costing $6,000, was given as a gift to online marketing guru Neil Patel and though he doesn’t like wearing watches, he decided just to wear it one day.

He was walking through the TechCrunch office wearing the watch when one of their writers asked him if he was wearing a Panerai watch. When he said yes, that reporter befriended him almost immediately.

The watch not only helped generate media buzz, but it also enabled him to close some good business deals.

Photo from Quicksprout

That said, he decided to push things to another level further by buying a $28,000 watch this time. Neil is not really a fan of expensive watches; he just bought this one because he was curious to see if it could bring any more business deals.

Unfortunately, the watched bombed because it was too flashy and in fact, he was actually looked down upon by a few entrepreneurs.

Screenshot from Quicksprout

He decided to do further research on what type of watches impresses big-time entrepreneurs, and he eventually discovered that the watch brand Patek Philippe was regarded favorably. This led him to spend $50,000 on a Patek watch even though he uses his iPhone to see what time it is.

Within the first 30 days of wearing the watch to meetings, he generated no income from it. It seemed as if no one even noticed he had the watch. The trend continued onto the 90th day. The watch didn’t help him win one single business deal.

Luckily, he kept wearing it though, and on the 4th month, he met a 70-year-old Jewish man while having breakfast at a New York restaurant. They were both eating breakfast by themselves, and he commented on his watch.

The man asked Neil if he would like to join him, and Neil accepted the offer. Within minutes Neil discovered that he was a Patek Philippe collector and owned over 20 of them. When Neil asked him what he did, he mentioned he owned a lot of the commercial real estate in New York City and Brooklyn.

After chatting for an hour, they ended up trading contact information, and within a month he signed a contract with this man’s company for $500,000 a year – all because he spotted Neil’s watch across the room and saw it as a sign of him being a successful entrepreneur.

 

Screenshot from Quicksprout

Once he landed that contract, Neil decided to take things to the next level and spend $100,000 on a watch! So he bought a much more expensive Patek watch.

Neil said that during one of the events he attended, a private equity manager, who oversees $10 plus billion dollars, spotted his watch and struck up a conversation with him.

They ended up exchanging contact information, and within two week time, he was scheduled to pitch a $1,200,000 marketing contract to his firm. Safe to say, his marketing experiment, although bold and risky was able to gain him amazing leads.

The Takeaway

Most of the time in business you need to spend money to make money. Neil Patel’s marketing experiment is proof of this. The man Neil met in the restaurant probably wouldn’t have paid attention to any watch worth less than his Patek. But then again, not everyone has the money to pull off such an outrageous experiment right?

It’s clearly vital to try and build the image you want to portray to potential business partners or clients. Sometimes if you want to succeed and you’re not there yet, you just have to fake it first until you make it.

Editorial credit on top photo: andersphoto / Shutterstock.com

chelsieT

5 Killer Strategies to Increase Your Website’s Traffic By 100%

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So you’ve been working hard on your website’s blog, you’ve been working on producing high-quality content day and night yet somehow you’re still not making any progress – you’re still not getting any decent website traffic. You just can’t tell what you’re doing wrong….

Don’t worry my friend I’ve been there myself. I’ve hit publish on my latest blog post a number of times and expected the likes, comments, and shares to start pouring in, but instead, I get… ZILCH. Although there are billions of people and millions of blog out there, the World Wide Web sure can feel lonely.

Just wait up though, don’t take down your blog just yet. Instead, give it a good revamp. Here are some proven tips and strategies to increase the traffic to your blog post.

1. Use compelling headlines

According to Copy Blogger, an average of 8 out of 10 people will read the headline, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret power of a fantastic headline, and why it so crucial to your blog post.

If a blog post piece lacks a compelling headline, it doesn’t matter how good your content is. You might as well throw away all the effort you spent writing your content because your potential audience won’t click to read any further since it doesn’t grab their attention. Here’s the secret to writing compelling headlines:

Using simple but engaging language

Words that are too technical or boring aka “dull words” are highly likely to turn potential readers away. Try addressing the audience directly by using the word “you” to grab your readers attention on a more personal level. You can also try using words that “leap off the pages” according to Wordstream. A word like “never” can definitely pique people’s interest. Here are some examples:

“You’ll Never Flirt The Same After Watching This”
“What you’re about to see will leave you speechless”
“You’ll Never Guess What’s Below This Abandoned Shopping Mall”

Try to make your headline more mysterious

If your headline gives too much away already then the reader will have no reason to click and read the rest of your content. You need to make sure you’re giving away just enough information to pique your audience’s interest so that they’ll be forced to click and find out more. It’s just like the movies, if the trailer gives too much away then you won’t be interested in watching the movie anymore right? Here are some examples of mysterious headlines:

“Lost Child’ Social Experiment Takes A Terrifying Turn For The Worse”
“Warning: This trailer is making people faint all over the country”
“It Only Takes 3 Minutes To See Why This Coke Ad Has Gone Viral”

Provide a shock factor

Injecting a shock factor into your headline is always a crowd pleaser. Think of different ways to add zing to your headline, and word it in a manner that can immediately draw readers to your headline. You can never go wrong with controversy on your headline. Here are some examples:

“This Short Film Shows Just How Terrifying Life Is For LGBT People In Russia”
“He Was Found Freezing And Dying. Yet Somehow The Last Photo Made My Entire Year”
“This Guy’s Dad Hadn’t Been In His Shed For 2 Years. When He Opened It Up… OMG!”

Create a headline with a Sense of Urgency

Creating a sense of urgency always grabs people’s attention. You can create a sense of urgency by providing a date when a special offer is going to expire and using urgent language like in the examples below:

“Hurry! Limited-time offer. You don’t want to miss this!”
“Last chance! This special offer expires tonight. Don’t miss out.”

Ask a Weird or Witty Question

Asking a quirky or funny question is a great way to grab a reader’s attention because the reader would be interested in finding out what the answer is. If done right, this technique can rake in traffic in your blog post.

Helen Nesterenko of Writtent said “Questions appeal to reader emotions like few others can. It promotes that ever-important conversational tone vital to a good blog post. It makes readers want to know more.”

Here are some examples of compelling headlines based on questions:

“Can You Make It Through This Post Without Getting A Lady-Boner?”
“Want to Raise Successful Daughters? Science Says Nag the Heck Out of Them”
“Think This Cruise Ship On Top Of A Cliff Is Weird? Wait Until You See How It Got There.”

Include numbers

People love reading articles with numbers because it’s much easier for the brain to process since the format is going to be pretty straightforward. According to Buffer’s Courtney Seiter “Numbers work well in headlines because humans like predictability and dislike uncertainty,”

Below are some examples of compelling headlines with numbers:

“The 12 Most Powerful Photos Of Grooms Blown Away By Their Stunning Brides”
“Here Are 16 Foods So Bad For You They’re BANNED In Some Countries”
“9 Celebrity Facts That Might Explode Your Brain”

Now once you’ve laid the click bait and managed to convince visitors to click on the post and show interest in reading your content, it does not end here. The article with a gripping heading should then be followed by high-quality content to retain the interest of the reader.

2. Tell a story

People love reading stories. Don’t you?

Alex Limberg wrote an excellent post on storytelling at BoostBlogTraffic.com and here’s what he said:

“Why a 30,000-Year-Old Trick Still Works Today

“As long as humans have existed, we have been hardwired to satisfy one urge. (No, it’s not what you think.) I’m talking about storytelling.

“Some 30,000 years ago, when our ancestors carved the thrilling tale of their last mammoth hunt into rock walls, their scraggly-haired friends must have consumed these stories eagerly.

“That’s because the need for stories is rooted deeply inside our brains.”

If the blog post is in the storytelling mode, there’s a higher chance you’ll keep the reader engaged even though you’ve written a lengthy article.

Let’s be honest; gripping stories have a strange hold on people. I can name a number of people who can just sit on the couch and binge-watch their favorite shows all day long.

If you want potential customers to care about your brand, then you have to understand them first. People love hearing compelling and rags to riches stories. Invite your audience to your brand’s story, and speak honestly about the hardships you went through on your journey. You’ll not only make your brand more relatable to the public but by demonstrating your vulnerability, you’ll also lay the foundation for a connection to bloom.

Figure out your brand’s story, and determine what will interest your readers. Once you finally know what your audience likes they’ll be able to empathize with you, and you can use it to your advantage.

Make sure your blog has a tone that is simple and can be understood easily. Avoid spelling or grammatical errors as this may ward off some audience.

3: Create list posts

Hands up if you’ve heard of Buzzfeed.com?

This website is a master at creating list posts hence the reasons why it has millions of readers.

Do you know why Buzzfeed is focused on writing list posts?

Because list posts get the most social shares.

So how many items should you actually have in your list post Well, the magic number seems to be 10.

After analyzing 100 million articles, Ok Dork and Buzzsumo discovered that the most popular list posts featured the following number of items: 10 followed by 23, 16, and 24. So if you’re planning to do a list post, might be a good idea to stick to a top 10 list to encourage social shares.

Just make sure you have an introduction in your list post, include plenty of visuals to engage your readers, use words such as “you” and “I” to create a conversation with your audience and ask questions within the post. The more conversational your blog sounds, the more engagement you’ll get. Don’t forget to write a conclusion as well at the end of your post to summarize your message.

4. Make your content search engine friendly

If you want people to read your articles and find your website, then you need to make sure you optimize your blog post so that people can find you.

So before you publish a blog post, here are some things you can do:

You need to have a focus keyword for your blog. For example, if you’re blogging about women’s shoes, then this keyword needs to be present in your headline, in your blog post’s URL, in the first paragraph of your post and spread out within the blog. Just make sure the keyword is not overused to the point that the blog doesn’t sound natural anymore because search engines like Google will penalize you for “keyword stuffing.”

You need to specify a meta description (summarized description of what your blog post is about) otherwise search engines will just randomly pick lines from your blog instead.

You need to add appropriate images, the more visual, the better.

Add alt text to your images. Alt text is for visitors who can’t see your pictures in their browsers. If a reader can’t see your images, alt attributes will show up when the user hovers over your image.

The recommended minimum word count in any blog post is 300 words, but you need to be looking at around 1,000 words or more because long-form content is the best way to engage your readers, get return traffic and brand searches.

Link from your blog post to other parts of your website. This is a great way to bring traffic to your much older posts.

5. Focus on Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are actually just keywords that are longer and much more specific. Basically, instead of focusing on a single keyword like “handbag,” you need to focus on a 3-4 word keyword like ” designer handbags online.”

Why? Because focusing on a common keyword is way too hard – there’s just too much competition. But if you focus on a long-tail one, you’ll probably attract less traffic, but the traffic you do attract will be much better because it’s more focused and more dedicated to your product or services.

For example: if you sell handbags online, there’s probably no chance in the world that your website is going to appear near the top of an organic search for “handbags” because there’s too much competition for that keyword. If you’re a small business, there’s no way in the planet you’ll be able to beat the websites of massive companies with deep pockets. But if you specialize in, let’s say, cheap designer handbags, then keywords like “designer handbags online,” and ” handbags on sale” are going to find those consumers looking for precisely that product consistently.

Focusing on long-tail keywords is merely a matter of setting up better lines of communication between your business and your potential customers.

Conclusion

There are numerous ways to get more readers to visit your blog. These five tips are just the tip of the iceberg. You need to implement them and then test the results – that’s the only legitimate way to determine what will work for your website.

Which strategies are you using to get more visitors to your website?

chelsieT

10 Proven Strategies That’ll Help You Create A Profitable Facebook Page

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What began as a way for Harvard college students to connect with each other has now grown into one of the world’s biggest social networks and the best marketing resource out of all the other social media platforms.

Facebook currently has over 200 billion active users.

Yes, you read that correctly, 200 BILLION users.

Hence the reason why Facebook remains ahead of other social media platforms when it comes to social media marketing. This is also the main reason why I highly recommend all entrepreneurs to get serious about promoting their businesses on Facebook by creating highly engaging Facebook business pages because that will translate to money in your pocket.

So how can you make your Facebook page more profitable?

Simple, you need to attract potential customers by engaging them first on your Facebook page and then eventually driving them to your website. But here’s the thing, you have to do it organically though. Doing this organically won’t cost you anything besides your time and effort. You need your customers to engage with your content because the more organic reach you have, the better your chances are of converting potential buyers into actual buyers.

So the big question is: how can you engage potential buyers? How can you get organic reach?

Well, first we need to take a look at how Facebook’s news feed algorithm actually works first. Then we can take a look at some practical strategies we can implement to increase your business page’s organic reach.

There are a ton of factors that decide which posts eventually show up in a user’s news feed. Adam Mosseri, the VP of News Feed at Facebook, explained in detail how the algorithm works by presenting a real-world problem – he compared it to ordering something for his wife at a restaurant as an example.

Adam broke the explanation down into four steps:

1. He goes over the menu to determine what his options are.

2. He takes into account all of the information that is at his disposal (for example, what does his wife like to eat, is it lunch or dinner time, what’s good at the restaurant?)

3. He then comes up with predictions in his head (for example, would his wife enjoy having salmon for lunch today or would it be weird if he ordered her a chocolate soufflé for breakfast?).

4. After considering all of this information, he’ll be able to then place his wife’s order.

Here’s a quick summary of his explanation:

Inventory – What’s on the menu?

When you first open your news feed, Facebook’s algorithm immediately takes an inventory by reviewing all of the stories posted by your friends as well as the pages you follow which is similar to Adam reviewing the menu.

Signals – Is it lunch or dinner time?

Facebook then reviews all the available data and tries to decide how interested you may be in a particular story. Facebook refers to this information as “Signals”. This is what Facebook uses to rank your content. Facebook takes into account things like who posted the story? What’s the frequency of posts from that person? What’s the average time spent on the content? What phone is the user on? What time was the content posted? What’s the overall engagement the post already has? When was the story posted? Facebook even takes into account your friend’s tags or even recent comments from a friend.

Predictions – Would she enjoy the salmon?

Facebook then uses these signals to create predictions and calculate the probability of specific outcomes; for example, how likely are you to click or comment on a story? How likely are you to spend time or share a story?

Score – Place an order.

After coming up with predictions and calculating the probabilities, Facebook combines all the information it has gathered to calculate a “relevance score,” an actual number that represents how interested Facebook thinks you may be in a particular story.

Adam eventually pointed out that Facebook doesn’t really know how interested you are in a specific story – it’s an educated guess at best. In a nutshell, Facebook’s algorithm uses these four steps to help it decide as to how to rank your content in the news feed.

So what’s Facebook’s ultimate goal for its News Feeds?

Just like Google, Facebook cares the most about its users. Facebook only wants its users to experience high-quality and relevant content.

So how can you boost your Facebook organic reach taking into account its constant algorithmic changes? Below are ten effective strategies.

1. Focus on providing valuable content rather than reach

Going after Facebook’s organic reach can only get you so far. In hindsight, it should just come secondary to providing valuable content because your audience should come first.

When you post Status updates – your primary focus should be engaging your followers and getting likes and comments. When you post links – your primary objective should be driving traffic to your website.

So how do you do that?

Simple, you need an attention-grabbing headline as well as an attention-grabbing photo. The post should also be short; it should just be around 40 characters or less for maximum engagement. Here’s a perfect example from Buzzfeed.

2. Find out what your audience wants

What better way to gain engagement than by finding out what your audience actually wants?

Maybe they want to see photos? Or perhaps they want links or videos?

The best way to find out is through your Facebook Insights which I will explain in more detail later. You need to keep a sharp eye out and figure out which content gets more likes and shares.

Another way is to conduct a voting poll on your Facebook page to figure out what content appeals to them the most. You can create a Facebook voting poll by clicking this link on your page.

3. Build authority

It’s nowhere near enough to just focus on increasing your business page likes because realistically, the number of likes on your page gives no indication as to how the content you post will perform.

What really matters is building authority and strong presence online because by being an authority in your field, you’ll be able to command your audience to respond favourably to your posts. Therefore, they will be more likely to positively engage with your content.

If you want to increase engagement on your page here’s what you can do:

– Only post content that is relevant to your business and make sure that you post consistently.

Posting about a cute cat video on a business page that sells plumbing tools is just plain dumb and will get you 0% engagement because you’re just posting irrelevant content.

– Promote your Facebook page on your other social media platforms.

If you have a huge following on other social media channels such as Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter, you can leave a link of your Facebook page in their bio section.

– Use your audience insights to track and analyze your organic search.

You need to identify where your weaknesses are by gathering significant metrics to measure your page’s performance. Without this data, you won’t know where to focus your efforts on.

Here’s how to export insights data from your Facebook page:

First, you need to click on the “Insights” tab at the top of your page.

There’s a button on the top of the insights page, that will allow you to export your data called “Export Data” – click on that.

A window will then pop up with three different options for your page insights. Pick an option and then click “Export Data” to save your data to an excel file.

Next, you need to take a look at your post metrics. I personally see more value in post metrics than page metrics because while page metrics will give you a comprehensive view of your page’s performance, post metrics, on the other hand, will provide you with a more thorough look at how your followers are interacting with your content.

To take a look at your post metrics you need to go to “Posts” and then “Post Types.”

With this information, you’ll be able to tell what types of contents your followers prefer and which ones have the highest organic reach.

– Invite people who have liked your content to like your page.

To do this, you need to first select one of your more popular posts.

and then click on the group of people who’ve liked it. Invite them to like your page, and I bet that you’ve got a 95% chance that they will like your page.

4. Publish compelling content

You need to publish “evergreen content” if you want to engage your followers – a type of content that is always relevant to readers and highly unlikely to become immediately dated.

The word “evergreen” is usually used by editors referring to the type of stories that are always interesting to readers. The idea behind this kind of posts is to write compelling stories that can be easily found by search engines while making sure they are always fresh (forever green) without needing to be updated so that your followers engage with your content.

Once you’ve found a compelling post that has gone viral, you can always repurpose that post by taking note of this content and approaching that piece of content and putting a new spin on it or change the context. Make sure you publish your repurposed content at different times. This guarantees that there always be some fresh eyes that get to see and engage with this “new” content.

5. Share other people’s compelling content on your page

Another smart way of getting your followers to engage in your page is to look at other similar Facebook pages from across the internet and sharing their viral content in your page.

Here’s the thing, you can’t just press the share button, and that’s it. Instead, you need to put a different spin on it. A great example is Problogger’s reading roundup of posts related to blogging. It’s a great way of putting a new spin on other people’s engaging content.

6. Post content when it’s the best time to post on Facebook

The best times to post on your Facebook page is when your followers are active on the network. This data garnered by Optimal times shows 20 studies that prove that posting at the best days and times will help you get more traffic, more engagement, and of course, more followers.

This data taken from 20 studies proves that posting at the best times will help you get more traffic, more engagement, and more followers.

Of course, I don’t recommend that you blindly follow this post because every Facebook page is different, I live in Australia, and I find that for my pages, the best time to post is past 5 pm on a weekday as most of my audience are on their phones on the train on the way home and around 3pm on weekends.

But to make it easier for you, I suggest that you take a look at your Facebook Insights to find out exactly when your fans are online.

You go to your Facebook Insights and go to post, and you’ll see the most popular times your audience visited your page. You can even monitor the social media marketing posting strategies of your competitors by visiting Fan Page Karma if you want to take a peek how your competitors are going.

7. Keep an eye out for the latest Facebook app updates

Just like Google, the Facebook app gets updates all the time. You need to be on top of these updates because there’s always a new feature released and you need to take advantage of these updates so you can master it faster than anyone and be ahead of the game.

Here are some updates worth noting:

Facebook stories: Similar to Snapchat and Instagram stories, Facebook stories are short user-generated photo and video collections that can be viewed up to two times and disappear after 24 hours.

360-degree photos and videos: this feature gives you the ability to capture a 360, panoramic view of pretty much anything you want.

Video autoplay: Facebook users no longer have to manually tap the play button to play a video. You can now watch a video while still scrolling through your news feed.

Facebook offers: This feature enables you to create and share coupons, discounts, and other promotional offers on your Facebook business page.

8. Share your content on your Facebook Profile

If you want to boost post views on your latest post, then you need to first share a post on your Facebook page then share it from the page on your personal Facebook profile.

This is a useful technique for posts that you feel would resonate well with your Facebook friends. There’s also that chance for them to share your content if they like it so your brand will be exposed to a new crowd.

9. Use hashtags effectively

If you’re always on Facebook, then you’ll surely be familiar with hashtags and how they actually work.

But do you know how to use them efficiently for maximum engagement?

After analysing more than 1 billion Facebook posts from over 30 million pages, BuzzSumo discovered that Facebook users are in fact prone to hashtag fatigue. Posts with a lot of hashtags shockingly performed worse than those without.

Therefore, hashtags should be used in moderation – according to online marketing guru Neil Patel only two hashtags maximum should be used in any given post.

Why only two?

After analyzing 200,000 brand posts on Facebook, SurePayroll discovered that interactions were highest when only one-two hashtags were used that’s why.

To make the most of hashtags, your hashtags need to be unique so that it doesn’t get confused with anyone else’s. You can also use your hashtags to search for your content. This way, you’re enabling your users to continue to refer to your past content by carrying out a hashtag search.

10. Run a competition

Facebook contests are an excellent way to establish brand presence quickly.

First, you need to determine the reason for the poll, are you looking to generate more fans or more leads? The answer to this question will decide what you’ll do next.

Next, you need to figure out what sort of competition you need to run. If your goal is to get more emails then you need to establish an email grab system, if your goal is to get more followers on your Facebook page, you can require willing people to follow and like your page before they can enter the competition. Just make sure you have a decent price for the winner of the contest, offering something silly like “exposure” on your Facebook page is not going to get you anywhere.

Don’t forget to review Facebook’s guidelines when it comes to running contests and challenges before you start any contest – you don’t want Facebook to shut down your Facebook page for not following instructions.

Let’s face it, Facebook is an incredible marketing tool.

As long as you put into practice the ten strategies that I’ve enumerated above, you’ll definitely be well on your way to improving your organic reach and generating more income for your business.

Editorial credit: rvlsoft / Shutterstock.com

chelsieT

How This Man Became A Millionaire Making Rubber Ducks (Yes, You Read Right)

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Like most self-made millionaires, Craig Wolfe came from rather humble beginnings. His idea was to create rubber ducks that looked like celebrities. Since he was starting small, he did all his PR and sent press releases to everyone he knew. Fortunately, a newspaper on the other side of the country ran his story, and the vice-president of one of NBA’s top franchises loved the idea and had him create a duck based on their superstar. That was the big break he was looking for because, after that, people and businesses started contacting him from all over the country. Fast forward to today, his current net worth is sitting at a cool $5 million.

We recently caught up with Craig Wolfe and here’s what went down:

Could you please tell our readers a brief background about yourself and how you started making money?

I became the largest publisher of artwork from television commercials creating the first ever animation art lines for Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, M&M/Mars, etc. I figured no one else was doing this so why not me! Eventually, I sold it all off to create CelebriDucks which was a whole new art form of celebrity rubber ducks of the most celebrated icons of film, music history, and athletics. They were voted one of the top 100 gifts by Entertainment Weekly and featured on hundreds of TV shows, magazines, and newspapers including The Tonight Show. We have sold millions of them, and we are known as the top custom duck manufacturer in the world. We do them for everyone from SeaWorld to The New York Yankees.

Then I had the idea to address the importance of bringing jobs and industries back to America by bringing the whole rubber duck industry back to America where the rubber duck was invented before the whole industry went overseas. We are now the only ones making them here and are doing them for companies and organizations such as Harley-Davidson and The Future Farmers of America. Our second US factory in Michigan is now making PVC Free rubber ducks out of food and medical grade materials which are considered the safest rubber ducks in the world for babies to teethe on.

I also just launched our new chocolate division, www.CocoaCanard.com, with our Spooning Chocolate, the only Dairy, and Gluten-free hot chocolate that can instantly mix up in a cup of hot water and you will never miss the milk. It is now the go-to product in that category and considered the purest and finest hot chocolate on the market and uses Fair Trade chocolate. I basically do things that inspire me, and fortunately, it has worked out for me.

How did you get started in business? When did you start? Did you ever imagine you would become this successful?

You know, with the ducks, I never expected it would get that big, but I did think it was a cute idea – rubber ducks that looked like celebrities. I did all my PR and sent press releases to everyone. Fortunately, a newspaper on the other side of the country ran my story and the vice-president of one the NBA’s top franchises loved the idea and had us create a duck of their superstar. When we got done with that duck, it looked more like him than he did! The promotion went great, and then people started contacting us from all over to have us create ducks for them. I eventually sold off the animation and became all ducks!

What is your primary source of income?

Funny enough, it is just making rubber ducks which proves that if you own your niche and have a decent idea, anyone can become a millionaire.

Would you be willing to tell us your current net worth? How did you accumulate your net worth?

5 million. It started with the animation company and then with the ducks, funny, whimsical characters made my money – who knew!

What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your net worth?

I keep the business fresh and innovative; I never stay complacent. I’m always bringing out new ducks and fresh products. I don’t invest in the stock market, real estate and CDs. Bottom line, I invest in myself, in my business and thus, I am debt free with no outstanding loans – plus, I own the whole company 100%.

What social media platforms do you usually use to increase your brand’s awareness?

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram…..we pretty much post on our company website regularly.

What is your experience with paid advertising, like PPC or sponsored content campaigns? Does it work?

Actually. We find running on PR does the best marketing for us and the most cost-effective. Social Media is a game changer today and anyone can do it very cost effectively. We do have a great Amazon partner who handles that for us and they do campaigns for us which do very well and people love them.

What is your main tactic when it comes to making more people aware your brand and engaging your customers? How did your business stand out?

Well, PR is key for us and of course, social media. But if you really want to stand out in the clutter, then you need to build a better mousetrap. Create a great product that is cool, fun, innovative, unique and different and then be so good at it, that you dominate your own your niche – that is the key to success. You really want to become the best in your niche and be focused like a laser in getting your message out, one you can make that happen then you can give people a reason to talk about you and tell others.

What form of marketing has worked well for your business throughout the years?

PR and social media.

What is the toughest decision you had to make in the last few months?

I decided to terminate all our Amazon re-sellers. It was tough as we had so many, but we finally chose one major company to represent and protect our brand on Amazon, and it has worked out great. Now, we can control the look of the brand on there and also the MAP pricing.

What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from (or something you’d do differently)?

Control your destiny. One of the biggest mistakes people do is give creative or financial control to raise funding to get their new venture off the ground. At one point, to expand quickly and take some of the burdens off me, I had a lot of my business pass through my manufacturer who took on more of the financial burden. But I did not like my loss of control, and after a bit of a struggle, I took it back. So you should never give up any equity or control unless you absolutely have to as no-one will ever run your baby and have the passion for it as you, the company creator.

What have you learned in the process of becoming wealthy that others can learn from?

Never get complacent. And honestly, money is only as good as what you can do with it to make a difference in the lives of others. For me, the end game is about leaving it all to non-profit entities that can further be doing good in the world and helping those who have less.

What new business would you love to start?

I am actually already in the midst of that. Our chocolate company is just in phase one. We are writing a children’s book to go with it, and a whole lifestyle branding to bring the entire Cocoa Canard themed merchandising program to the market. Ducks, chocolate, children, fun licensed products, and a heart-warming message in a children’s book which is entirely different from what’s out there – what’s not to like.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what would you do differently?

Well, I think I would have been more creative in the kinds of properties I brought to market. But it’s funny, it’s like trying to be who you are now thirty years earlier. Who you are now is based on those thirty years of doing things both right AND wrong. So yes, our Costume Quacker line of celebrity parody is our best work ever. But it took us years and years of design and testing to evolve to this point. But I do wish I had thought of this a long time ago.

Do you have any favorite business-related or personal development related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?

I love ALL the Trout and Reis book – Positioning, Bottom-up Marketing. They are not just brilliant, but so much fun to read and filled with so many interesting case studies.

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

“Never give up control and ownership” – Mom. She was right, well at least she was right for me. Everyone is different. But for me to feel creatively motivated and inspired, I need to have control of my baby to do whatever I have to do to bring it to life. I always said that when I wanted to return our whole industry back to the USA where it began, if I had a board of directors, I would have been fired, no doubt for ”not maximizing shareholder value in the short term!” But I always looked at the big picture. I knew if I did this we would own our niche and over time no-one could duplicate what we can do. I didn’t have to convince anyone as I owned the whole company and did just that and it really worked out in the end.

What advice would you give to a newbie Entrepreneur setting up their first business?

It’s not how much money you make; it’s how much you keep. Excessive overhead can bring down any business no matter how much you make. Lean and mean is the key to survival especially in the beginning before business gains traction.

Do not try and be all things to all people or you become nothing to anyone. Focus like a laser on your niche and be really clear on what you stand for.

Reflect your core brand ethics and quality in every marketing communication to the public.

Compete on the cheap end, and someone can always make it for less. Quality like the tortoise will ultimately win out or as I like to say, “live by the penny, die by the penny,” don’t compete on price alone. Quality is the hardest thing to knock off.

chelsieT

4 Brilliant Ways to Get More People to Watch Your YouTube Video Ads

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If you’re serious about growing your business or your online personal profile, I recommend using one of the most powerful technologies known to mankind: Videos.

According to Inc.com, people are 85 percent more likely to buy a product after viewing a product video -now that’s some serious stats!

A number of small businesses are currently investing time, money and resources into shooting, editing, and producing topnotch YouTube videos in the hopes of building awareness of their brand and engaging users, but unfortunately, none of them are getting any engagement at all from the viewers.

So how do you engage viewers and actually compel them to watch your video ads? Here’s how.

Make your ad look natural

Don’t use too much branding on your ad because you’ll just end up driving viewers away.

Instead, make your ad feel natural as possible – as if it’s actually not an ad so that you can reach your target audience and make them like your brand. A great example of this principle is this ad from Oreo featuring Youtube stars Dude Perfect. This ad involved Dude Perfect in an Oreo Dunk Challenge where they used nothing but ping pong balls. The ad looks totally natural and highly watchable.

Create A Call To Action

A call to action is the action you want a viewer to take after watching your ad. Your goal is to eventually have a viewer give you their contact information or convert them to become a lead by engaging them with your content.

As an entrepreneur, you need to decide how you want to direct the attention of your viewer once your advertisement is over. You want the consumer to act immediately after they have viewed your video so there should be a clear call to action in the ad, especially if you want to direct the viewers to do something.

A great example is this ad for Clash Royale, a multiplayer mobile game, there’s a call to action at the end of this ad which pushes viewers to download the game for free – that tactic is gold right there.

Catch Your Viewers Attention

You literally only have a few seconds to grab the attention of the viewer so you need to make it count.

One way to do this is to have an intro that’s eye-catching or even downright controversial. You can capitalize on a trend or produce something funny. You should use people in the first frames or even celebrities if you can manage it to engage the viewer on a more personal level.

Have a celebrity talk about their favorite food, for example. Close shots, as well as cropped shots, can also work wonders. If you’re using any thumbnails, make sure these are clear. The titles you use should also be clear and compel the viewer to want to click on them. You can even try to have playlists to connect the videos so that if a person watches one video, they can find related videos in your playlist.

A great example is this Apple commercial featuring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.  This ad was the brainchild of the agency, TBWA, and it apparently grossed more than 25 million views by the end of 2017. Using Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in the ad was a smart move since he’s a huge Hollywood star and commands a strong presence onscreen.

Connect With Your Viewers

Use tools like YouTube analytics so you can see your view-through rates and where it may be dropping.

You might decide to do something different when it comes to editing your video to get viewers back to your ad. Thinks about your editing strategy as you create the videos. Your aim is to hook the viewer, so they stay glued to your ad.

There are two ways to hook your viewers, it’s either you make them laugh or you make them cry it’s as simple as that. Humor is always a crowd pleaser and it’s a great way to connect with viewers. Creating an emotional connection is the next best thing next to humor. You can try to come up with a touching story that goes beyond the brand message in the ad and watch the views skyrocket.

A great example of an effective commercial that uses humor is this awesome Mr. Clean ad. The man in the famous white muscle shirt never looked so attractive while mopping hardwood floor before.

In Conclusion

These are just four clever ways you can get more engagement with your video ads, there’s definitely plenty more out there. Try these methods and I bet you should start seeing better results with YouTube advertising.

Screenshot from Apple’s Youtube video

chelsieT

8 Legit And Realistic Ways To Make Money Online In 2018

Posted on by admin

You probably spend a great deal of time on social media every day so why not make money while you’re using Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?

Let’s face it; when you try to Google the words “how to make money online” you will most probably get close to a million search results on the topic. That number is hardly surprising as more and more people find that social media opens up ways to make some extra money or to even make a living.

Many naysayers will disagree but recent polls and trends have shown the exact opposite. Even just looking at the number of active users on social media can make your eyes pop out. Facebook has over 2 billion active users, Instagram has 800 million active users and Twitter has about 330 million monthly active users. Most people will say it is risky to try to make money online but that is the very nature of any business though – it’s all risky.

Bottomline, the internet, and social media have given you the opportunity to make money from your business idea via social media and it’s pretty much up to you to do something about it.

Here are a few ideas of how you can maximize social media for your monetary benefit.

1. Define your niche/target market

You need to give your business idea more specific definition.

Broad strokes are not useful when you’re trying to strategize for online success. Your business idea has to address a certain target market or niche.

First off, you need to decide on your target audience and be specific.

This may seem like a moot point but one that is constantly overlooked. The more specific your audience the more impact you will have.

Secondly, define the product or service you are offering to your audience.

You may find that you will need to structure your offering a bit more. For example, your business idea may be to venture into marketing. However, what type of marketing are you offering specifically?

Will you be offering digital services, traditional marketing or perhaps copywriting?

Each type of marketing speaks to a very different target market.

2. Figure out your ultimate goal

It is vital for you to decide what you really want from this exercise. Before you subscribe to any social platform or app you must know what it is you are aiming for.

For example, do you want to use social media to attract more traffic to your website, or do you want to become the next Instagram influencer?

Your goal will decide which strategy you’ll eventually employ. Once you have decided on the ‘why’ then commit it to paper. This will help keep you on track if you are on the path to success.

3. Test your hypothesis

Every successful growth hacker and digital influencer will tell you to test before hitting the throttle at full tilt.

Missing this crucial step will cause you to miss a few vital insights.

For example, are you sure your target market is big enough for monetary gains?

Also, the problem you are trying to solve, is there an actual market for it?

And finally, does your plan follow the precepts of your original goal?

Testing and validating your idea is a very important next step.

Search Google Trends to view your niche market

Punch in your niche keywords and hit search and a graph will pop up showing you the level of interest in that topic over a specified time.

The graph should give you a good indication regarding the interest level of your niche among your target audience.

Research any competitors

Competitors are a good indicator of whether there is a market for your business or not.

This should not be a negative factor as competition will highlight the demand for your product or service.

You can do a simple search on Amazon as book sales will also give you a good indication of demand.

A search on Udemy (an online learning platform) will also highlight a demand especially when there are loads of courses in your niche that are being offered.

YouTube is the most popular video platforms and if people are viewing your niche content then there is a clear demand. YouTube will also reflect the number of people viewing the content, this is a great indicator of demand.

Instagram is the second most popular app and a simple hashtag search will show you the number of posts in your niche. A big number of post is a good indicator of demand.

Once you have successfully validated your idea, you can go about monetizing the idea on social media.

4. Develop a content strategy

A content strategy is not a marketing strategy.

Social media relies on content to attract your audience. The type of platform you choose will determine how you deliver that content. For example, videos will work for YouTube and photos will work for Instagram because that’s what those two social media platforms cater for.

You need to research the content that is already out there to give you an idea of what works and what does not.

Determine what makes you different from the rest.

Use this element to make your content great. Finding out what your competitors are doing and making it better is one way of ensuring that people are attracted to your posts. Be sure to make it unique.

5. Monetize

Here are a few proven ideas of how to make money via social media:

Affiliate marketing

People in the blogging world have known about affiliate marketing for a while now. It has steadily made its way into the mainstream of social media marketing and monetizing.

Affiliate marketing involves a process where you promote other people’s products or services for a commission. You need to have a blog to get into affiliate marketing and as long as people click on the link you provide links to the Affiliate site you’ll be able to score a commission.

Affiliate marketing is all about trust, if people trust you online then they’ll most likely purchase whatever you’re pitching to them.

There are actually a lot of affiliate networks that you can become a part of, but some of the best ones out there are Amazon Associates, CJ Affiliate, and ShareASale.

If you’re thinking of posting affiliate links on Facebook or Instagram hoping that someone would click on it, you’re living in a fantasy world sparky. The best and most effective way of promoting affiliate products is through honest reviews.

If you’ve personally used a product and you honestly like it, and you also know that your followers can benefit from it, then write a review on your blog and then share a link to the product. The more honest you are the more people would trust you and buy whatever you’re promoting.

Just make sure that you are not selecting products that are unrelated to your niche. You’d run the risk of losing your followers trust. Don’t forget to tell your followers about your affiliate partnerships as well, transparency goes a long way with your followers.

Sponsored advertising or blog posts

This method is actually more popular on Instagram and not in blogging circles. This is where you will earn a fee for publishing a post or promoting a product on your account. Brands themselves will pay you for the post as long as you have a decent following.

A number of Instagram influencers who have more than 50,000 followers can easily earn $1,000 per post.

But if you’ve just started your Instagram account and you don’t have a lot of followers yet, you can still make money online, you just need to assure potential sponsors that you can offer them something of value.

Why don’t you offer an Instagram shoutout post and sweeten the deal by adding a blog review? If you have a Twitter account or a YouTube account you can also throw in a Twitter shoutout post or a YouTube vlog review. That should catch someone’s attention.

Provide informational products

Products as information are gaining incredible momentum. Providing an audience with product or service information is incredibly lucrative when done correctly.

Every single person is always searching online for information. For example, you can provide online events, courses or ebooks and you don’t even need a website to host this, you can just set up funnels using land pages and email management.

Keep in mind that quality is key to creating something people would want to pay to read.

Websites such as Gumroad, Sellfy and Amazon’s KDP program can make it easy for you to sell your books or videos as long as they can take a small commission.

Offer a service

If you have some sought-after skills, there will always be someone willing to pay for it. Use your skills and strengths to offer a service. For example, there is a huge demand for social media marketing or freelance writing so you can try and tap that niche if you have a background in it.

Sell your photos online

If you’re active on Facebook or Instagram and you love taking photos you can try selling your photos online. Just make sure you’re active on these two social media platforms and you’re engaging with your followers so that they’ll buy whatever you’re selling.

You can also use websites such Snapwire, Mobileprints or Twenty20 if you want to find buyers for your photos. There’s also the option of selling professional photos to stock photo websites like Shutterstock or Istockphoto.

6. Focus on a few social media platforms

It is just plain dumb to try and cover every single social media platform available. Unless you have nothing better to do then knock yourself out.

Instead, focus on a few social media platforms and focus on those. Most people will focus on the top three or five. You need to consider elements such as your target audience, your content, and what platform will work best for you content.

When it comes to social media platforms, you are spoilt for choice because there’s just so many out there.

7. Create a kickass profile online

Use your profile to attract clients and an audience. Gaining followers is a golden ticket to validation of your idea.

To make your profile stand out, ensure your profile photo is professionally done and add your chosen keywords with your name before you upload it.

Be sure to complete your profile. Do not leave any blanks and the more information you can give out online the better.

Don’t forget to add a message or note that will appeal to your target audience. Think of your profile as your billboard. Make sure it is unique and that it highlights your unique selling point.

And most importantly, you need to tell your audience what to do so you need to insert a call to action statement.

8. Do not overlook email list

An email list is like treasure to any entrepreneur. Successful marketers will use email marketing as their go-to marketing tool.

It is important to start compiling an email list from the very start. All you need to do is use a call to action asking online traffic to subscribe or sign up for a newsletter or blog. There are plenty of platforms out there that make email marketing simple, such as MailChimp so you need to start working on getting those targetted emails.

In conclusion

In today’s digital world anyone can make money online or via social media.

The question is, how far are you willing to go to make it happen for you?

Just like any business venture, it needs careful planning and strategy. Luckily, there are many tools available online to help you formulate and execute a clear path to success.

The one great thing about social media is that you don’t even need a website or a laptop, as you can do all you need with a smartphone or any mobile device. Long gone are the days where you need to be desk-bound to start a business and make a profit – welcome to the future!

Don’t forget to visit StarCentral Web if you want more tips and tricks when it comes to making money from your website.

chelsieT

How To Make Over $5000 Per Month Publishing Kindle eBooks On Amazon

Posted on by admin

 

Did you know that you can make a LOT of money publishing Kindle eBooks on Amazon?

Here’s another question that might shock you, did you know that you can earn a lot of money writing Kindle eBooks without actually writing it??

Some people even earn over $100,000 a month, and I’m about to reveal the secret to making money from Kindle eBooks based on my own experience.

If you’re a pretty good writer who’s got a knack for words, then you may look at considering publishing Kindle eBooks on Amazon’s Kindle program because it can be pretty lucrative as long as you’re consistently churning out dozens of quality books.

Long gone are the days where you need to approach publishing companies to look at your book clinging to the hope that they’ll one day publish it. Nowadays, anyone can be a self-published author as long as you are willing to put forth the effort and a few tricks up your sleeve.

The beauty of publishing a digital/kindle book is that you don’t need a lot of money to publish, you just need a lot of time to write the books and market them the right way.

Publishing a digital/kindle book is similar to blogging – if you’re an author who sells a lot of books and gets a lot of positive reviews per book, then you are well on your way to cash kingdom.

I’ve actually earned a lot of money from publishing books on Amazon, and the thing to remember is that not every book is going to be a hit, some books will sell and some won’t. You just have to be consistent when it comes to publishing books and eventually, you’ll start seeing some results.

My first book was around 30,000 words, and it was a niche that is very popular in Amazon – romance.

I chose romance for my first book because after much research I discovered that romance is one of the most popular Kindle categories, so the market for romance books was huge.

Based on my research the most in-demand romance books involves super rich people like the dude from Fifty Shades of Grey, war romance and military men, love triangles and even vampires.

Writing my first book

I wrote a love story based on one of my previous relationships on a trial basis – I was involved in a love triangle at one point in my life, and the plot was juicy enough to turn into a book.

The book took me a few days to complete, and as soon as I finished it, I headed straight to Fiverr and got a book cover made for just $5. Once done I then uploaded the book to the Amazon Kindle store. I was shocked that I received many compliments about my awesome book cover when it only cost me $5 to get it done.

I sold maybe five copies in the first month and around 15 on the second which wasn’t too bad for a first book since I had no expectations whatsoever. But in the same breath, I wasn’t rushing to quit my fulltime job either. I also didn’t do any form of marketing for the book because I assumed Amazon is excellent when it comes to marketing its products via organic search.

After my first book, I wrote five more books on romance. They weren’t epic novels, so I managed to finish the five books in two weeks. It wasn’t anything like those Danielle Steel books with over 200,000 words. Mine were more like short novels ranging from 20,000 to 30,000 words. Four of them went on to make an average of $300 per month, but one of the books surprisingly made over $5,000 per month which was shocking because I didn’t think that specific book was the best out of the five books I wrote.

What drives sales in Amazon’s Kindle program

I discovered that making money on Kindle books boils down to two things: People tend to buy Kindle books based on how great your cover looks and a compelling book description. Funnily enough, the content comes third. Once you’ve hooked Amazon users with your eye-catching cover and enticing book description, then it’s up to your content to keep your audience mesmerized and keep Amazon users wanting more.

Let me put it to you this way, would you watch a movie if the trailer was crap? Of course not! Movie trailers are deal breakers when it comes to how a film will eventually perform in the box office hence the reason why movie producers shed a lot of money on their trailers.

Similar to Amazon, a weak book description is a sure sign that your book won’t ever have the chance of taking off because you need to establish a “hook.” Why would random strangers buy a book with a bland book description? You need to hook the readers in the first two sentences of your book description to keep them wanting more.

How to write a book without actually writing it

Since I was running a number of businesses at the time, I had no time to sit down and write books anymore, so what did I do?

I went to Fiverr and hired some ghostwriters!

Just in case you didn’t know, a ghostwriter is a person who is hired to write books that are officially credited to another person as the author. You’ll probably be shocked to discover that many big-time authors also hire ghostwriters themselves.

I know… shocking right?

First I sent out a press release in Fiverr, and around 20 ghostwriters responded. I chose five that I liked out of the applicants because the five writers I picked can really fill space, churn out paragraphs loaded with flowery words and make the book sound a lot slicker.

I discovered that a lot of authors make money from short stories with around 10,000 – 20,000 words so I decided to get in on that market. I created five different romance books in point form; they were around 4,000 words each – I submitted them to my ghostwriters, paid them $250 for each book and within a few weeks they’ve come up with five books with around 30,000 words each.

How much should you charge for your book?

I sold the books at around $2.95 each which is a price that most Amazon users would gladly pay because most people would hesitate to pay anything that’s more than $5. Amazon is the best platform for impulse buys so $2.95 is right up that alley.

Since it only took me a few hours each to create the five books, I didn’t feel bad about selling them at a much lower price. I also discovered that selling them in a bundle was also more lucrative so I decided to offer that as an alternative.

Prime Reading programme

Another option I tried was the Prime Reading programme. Prime Reading offers free access to subscribers similar to Netflix, and you’ll get paid based on pages read by Amazon users. You can earn decent money out of it, but I prefer the bundle route because I can earn much more.

I was easily making more than $5000 per month, and that’s with the help of cheap but talented ghostwriters, 5 dollar book covers, and attention-grabbing book descriptions.

I was even writing random books about random subjects like women’s shoes, parenting, baking, home improvement, etc.. As long as I could see a potential niche, If it’s a niche I could see making a book out of it I even hired professional editor on Fiverr around $100 to edit the books since I didn’t have time to edit the books anymore.

How to hit the bestseller list

Some of my books have surprisingly hit the bestseller list, and once that happens, you’ll see a lot more cash coming in.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to be a massive authority in your niche to be a best-selling author. It just means that you’ve reached the number one spot in any category. I’ve hit the bestseller list for some small categories but only for a few hours but those few hours should be enough to get more eyeballs on your book.

A secret trick to getting into the bestseller list is to place your book in specific categories that aren’t that competitive so that it’s a lot easier for your book to make it to the top. Case in point: when I chose romance as a category, I was competing with a million other books in the same category because this specific category is way too popular. When I switched to categories such as “Australian historical fiction” and “Religious Historical Fiction” – that’s when I was able to reach number one.

How to get more reviews for your book

Reviews are also critical when it comes to making money for your books because the more positive reviews your book has, the more chances people will buy it. It’s called social proofing – you’ll convince a lot more people to buy your books if hundreds of people had a positive experience out of it. The magic number is around 30 reviews, any book with 30 reviews and over has a better chance of getting sold.

Here’s how you can get more reviews for your book:

Once you’ve published a book, Amazon will give you the option of giving the book away for free for up to 5 days as a promotional tactic. You can send a link to people you know during this time and ask them to review your book.You can also

look at the reviewers of similar books within your niche – target your competitor’s reviewers.

To do this, you need to head to the review section of one of your competitors. Pick a reviewer who gave the book a positive

review, click the reviewers’ Amazon profile, and you’ll be able to see their contact information including an email address,

Facebook account, Twitter account, YouTube account as well as other SNS accounts.

Once you’ve got an email address, you can shoot them a friendly email telling them about yourself and your awesome book and give them a link to your free book. I used to have the time to do this, but now I just hire Book Razor to do it since this process takes forever to do and I just don’t have the time to do it anymore. The good thing is, once you’ve compiled your reviewer’s list you can just keep that list and keep those reviewers in the loop whenever your latest book has been released.

In conclusion

So in a nutshell, if you’re thinking of making money out of publishing Kindle books in Amazon, think Eye-catchy cover and breathtaking book description. Once you’ve gotten through these first two hurdles, then it’s up to your content to keep the readers coming back for more.

Did you know that you can make a LOT of money publishing Kindle eBooks on Amazon?

Here’s another question that might shock you, did you know that you can earn a lot of money writing Kindle eBooks without actually writing it??

Some people even earn over $100,000 a month, and I’m about to reveal the secret to making money from Kindle eBooks based on my own experience.

If you’re a pretty good writer who’s got a knack for words, then you may look at considering publishing Kindle eBooks on Amazon’s Kindle program because it can be pretty lucrative as long as you’re consistently churning out dozens of quality books.

Long gone are the days where you need to approach publishing companies to look at your book clinging to the hope that they’ll one day publish it. Nowadays, anyone can be a self-published author as long as you are willing to put forth the effort and a few tricks up your sleeve.

The beauty of publishing a digital/kindle book is that you don’t need a lot of money to publish, you just need a lot of time to write the books and market them the right way.

Publishing a digital/kindle book is similar to blogging – if you’re an author who sells a lot of books and gets a lot of positive reviews per book, then you are well on your way to cash kingdom.

I’ve actually earned a lot of money from publishing books on Amazon, and the thing to remember is that not every book is going to be a hit, some books will sell and some won’t. You just have to be consistent when it comes to publishing books and eventually, you’ll start seeing some results.

My first book was around 30,000 words, and it was a niche that is very popular in Amazon – romance.

I chose romance for my first book because after much research I discovered that romance is one of the most popular Kindle categories, so the market for romance books was huge.

Based on my research the most in-demand romance books involves super rich people like the dude from Fifty Shades of Grey, war romance and military men, love triangles and even vampires.

Writing my first book

I wrote a love story based on one of my previous relationships on a trial basis – I was involved in a love triangle at one point in my life, and the plot was juicy enough to turn into a book.

The book took me a few days to complete, and as soon as I finished it, I headed straight to Fiverr and got a book cover made for just $5. Once done I then uploaded the book to the Amazon Kindle store. I was shocked that I received many compliments about my awesome book cover when it only cost me $5 to get it done.

I sold maybe five copies in the first month and around 15 on the second which wasn’t too bad for a first book since I had no expectations whatsoever. But in the same breath, I wasn’t rushing to quit my fulltime job either. I also didn’t do any form of marketing for the book because I assumed Amazon is excellent when it comes to marketing its products via organic search.

After my first book, I wrote five more books on romance. They weren’t epic novels, so I managed to finish the five books in two weeks. It wasn’t anything like those Danielle Steel books with over 200,000 words. Mine were more like short novels ranging from 20,000 to 30,000 words. Four of them went on to make an average of $300 per month, but one of the books surprisingly made over $5,000 per month which was shocking because I didn’t think that specific book was the best out of the five books I wrote.

What drives sales in Amazon’s Kindle program

I discovered that making money on Kindle books boils down to two things: People tend to buy Kindle books based on how great your cover looks and a compelling book description. Funnily enough, the content comes third. Once you’ve hooked Amazon users with your eye-catching cover and enticing book description, then it’s up to your content to keep your audience mesmerized and keep Amazon users wanting more.

Let me put it to you this way, would you watch a movie if the trailer was crap? Of course not! Movie trailers are deal breakers when it comes to how a film will eventually perform in the box office hence the reason why movie producers shed a lot of money on their trailers.

Similar to Amazon, a weak book description is a sure sign that your book won’t ever have the chance of taking off because you need to establish a “hook.” Why would random strangers buy a book with a bland book description? You need to hook the readers in the first two sentences of your book description to keep them wanting more.

How to write a book without actually writing it

Since I was running a number of businesses at the time, I had no time to sit down and write books anymore, so what did I do?

I went to Fiverr and hired some ghostwriters!

Just in case you didn’t know, a ghostwriter is a person who is hired to write books that are officially credited to another person as the author. You’ll probably be shocked to discover that many big-time authors also hire ghostwriters themselves.

I know… shocking right?

First I sent out a press release in Fiverr, and around 20 ghostwriters responded. I chose five that I liked out of the applicants because the five writers I picked can really fill space, churn out paragraphs loaded with flowery words and make the book sound a lot slicker.

I discovered that a lot of authors make money from short stories with around 10,000 – 20,000 words so I decided to get in on that market. I created five different romance books in point form; they were around 4,000 words each – I submitted them to my ghostwriters, paid them $250 for each book and within a few weeks they’ve come up with five books with around 30,000 words each.

How much should you charge for your book?

I sold the books at around $2.95 each which is a price that most Amazon users would gladly pay because most people would hesitate to pay anything that’s more than $5. Amazon is the best platform for impulse buys so $2.95 is right up that alley.

Since it only took me a few hours each to create the five books, I didn’t feel bad about selling them at a much lower price. I also discovered that selling them in a bundle was also more lucrative so I decided to offer that as an alternative.

Prime Reading programme

Another option I tried was the Prime Reading programme. Prime Reading offers free access to subscribers similar to Netflix, and you’ll get paid based on pages read by Amazon users. You can earn decent money out of it, but I prefer the bundle route because I can earn much more.

I was easily making more than $5000 per month, and that’s with the help of cheap but talented ghostwriters, 5 dollar book covers, and attention-grabbing book descriptions.

I was even writing random books about random subjects like women’s shoes, parenting, baking, home improvement, etc.. As long as I could see a potential niche, If it’s a niche I could see making a book out of it I even hired professional editor on Fiverr around $100 to edit the books since I didn’t have time to edit the books anymore.

How to hit the bestseller list

Some of my books have surprisingly hit the bestseller list, and once that happens, you’ll see a lot more cash coming in.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to be a massive authority in your niche to be a best-selling author. It just means that you’ve reached the number one spot in any category. I’ve hit the bestseller list for some small categories but only for a few hours but those few hours should be enough to get more eyeballs on your book.

A secret trick to getting into the bestseller list is to place your book in specific categories that aren’t that competitive so that it’s a lot easier for your book to make it to the top. Case in point: when I chose romance as a category, I was competing with a million other books in the same category because this specific category is way too popular. When I switched to categories such as “Australian historical fiction” and “Religious Historical Fiction” – that’s when I was able to reach number one.

How to get more reviews for your book

Reviews are also critical when it comes to making money for your books because the more positive reviews your book has, the more chances people will buy it. It’s called social proofing – you’ll convince a lot more people to buy your books if hundreds of people had a positive experience out of it. The magic number is around 30 reviews, any book with 30 reviews and over has a better chance of getting sold.

Here’s how you can get more reviews for your book:

Once you’ve published a book, Amazon will give you the option of giving the book away for free for up to 5 days as a promotional tactic. You can send a link to people you know during this time and ask them to review your book.You can also

look at the reviewers of similar books within your niche – target your competitor’s reviewers.

To do this, you need to head to the review section of one of your competitors. Pick a reviewer who gave the book a positive

review, click the reviewers’ Amazon profile, and you’ll be able to see their contact information including an email address,

Facebook account, Twitter account, YouTube account as well as other SNS accounts.

Once you’ve got an email address, you can shoot them a friendly email telling them about yourself and your awesome book and give them a link to your free book. I used to have the time to do this, but now I just hire Book Razor to do it since this process takes forever to do and I just don’t have the time to do it anymore. The good thing is, once you’ve compiled your reviewer’s list you can just keep that list and keep those reviewers in the loop whenever your latest book has been released.

In conclusion

So in a nutshell, if you’re thinking of making money out of publishing Kindle books in Amazon, think Eye-catchy cover and breathtaking book description. Once you’ve gotten through these first two hurdles, then it’s up to your content to keep the readers coming back for more.