“How I Got 18 Times More ‘Likes’ on a Facebook Update” plus 2 more

How I Got 18 Times More ‘Likes’ on a Facebook Update
How to Get the Best Return on Your Blog
Don’t Ever Write Without this Writer’s Warm-up

How I Got 18 Times More ‘Likes’ on a Facebook Update

Posted: 08 Dec 2011 04:22 PM PST

Yesterday I hosted a free webinar for ProBlogger readers on the topic of using Facebook to help you grow your blog. In the webinar (attended by 1000 people) Amy Porterfield packed in over an hour’s worth of rich content.

I learned a lot from it myself (I’ll share one thing that instantly had results for me below) and we had literally hundreds of comments from those attending saying how worthwhile it was. Here’s just a few of over 250 comments:

Screen Shot 2011-12-09 at 10.47.50 AM.png

Based upon the amazing feedback and the fact that over 2000 people registered for the webinar but we could only fit in 1000 – we’ve decided to release the recording to those who missed out.

We’ll leave this recording up for a week or so so don’t miss out on listening in by doing it today.

You can listen to the hour of teaching and 20 minutes of Q&A (which was great too) here.

You will need a notepad and pen or a word doc to make some notes with because there is a heap of rich information to take in.

One Tip I learned that Instantly Increased My Facebook Results

As I said at the end of the call – there’s so much to learn when it comes to using Facebook to market your blog. I myself am taking a course that Amy is running to learn more. As I listened to her yesterday I jotted down a number of action items.

One was around the use of images. Amy mentioned in the webinar that images are the number 1 thing that people are sharing on Facebook. While I knew this I hadn’t really acted on the information. So this morning here’s a little experiment that I did:

Normally when a new post goes up on my photography blog I post an update like this:

What you see there is the status update on our page as it happens if you simply add a link to the status update box. It automatically pulls in an image from the post, the title of the post and the first line or two. I do these updates manually each day and they drive some pretty nice traffic. You can see in this case that after 25 minutes of being live that update was ‘liked’ 3 times and shared once. I’d estimate that around 100 people came and looked at the post in that 25 minute period.

Taking Amy’s teaching on board today I decided to do a followup status update with the same post a little while later – this time I decided to upload the same photo that you see above and to write something about the photo (including the link).

Here’s how it looked:

The photo is bigger and more eye catching and you can immediately see what happened as a result. 18 times as many people ‘liked it’. 7 people commented. While there were no shares I’ll bet that this type of update will typically get shared more than the other type. Interestingly since adding this update I saw a spike in traffic coming to that post that I’d estimate was around 400 people.

Update: the ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ are continuing to come in one this one.

Key take home lesson? If you have an visually interesting image in your post consider uploading it and adding the link in the description of your image rather than just sharing the link and letting Facebook pull in the image. I’m certainly going to experiment some more with this technique.

Listen to the Full Webinar for Free Here

This is just one action item I picked up from Amy in the above webinar. I’ve got another 10 action items that I’m going to implement in the coming week.

Enjoy the full webinar for yourself here and learn how to tap into the billion plus people on Facebook.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How I Got 18 Times More ‘Likes’ on a Facebook Update

How to Get the Best Return on Your Blog

Posted: 08 Dec 2011 12:09 PM PST

This guest post is by Laura Booz of Blogger Behave.

I started blogging because I caught a glimpse of its potential to give something back to me.

Can you relate? Sure, that "something" is sometimes money. But, as we all know, there's got to be more driving us to the keyboard, or we'll lose our enthusiasm. Blogging requires a ton of work, and if it doesn't offer a sweet return, we get stressed out, our writing grows thin, and our impact weakens.

Though a nice deposit in the old bank account feels terrific, money can't motivate us to love our work or grow in our craft. We humans need something more than money to be truly excellent, and truly happy. I don't want to divert you from your financial efforts or goals; I just want to point you towards the thing that will keep you motivated long after the money is invested, gifted, or spent.

I want to remind you of the far greater reward that could actually increase your likelihood for making money: personal growth.

Think about the last time you shook off a bad habit or muscled your way into greater maturity: it rocked, didn't it? Unlike money, the pay-off of personal growth is a permanent, deeply felt reward that will keep our affection over the long-haul.

At the end of this article, I'll ask for your input about ways in which we bloggers can grow in our personal lives and in our craft. But for now, sit back and consider my top three ways to ensure that I'm getting the best possible reward from my blog.

1. Write a blog vision statement

In our home, we have a Family Vision Statement that helps each member—from the biggest to the littlest—join together in achieving the same daily goals. That's what inspired my Blog Vision Statements, which help me to define what my blog looks like, where it's heading, and the type of content I will keep.

My vision statement is a brief description of what my blog is all about. It helps me stay focused and not compromise for every passing whim and tempting online offer. I use it to evaluate what I write about, the amount of time I take to write it, and the ambitions I have for my public platform. It's the permission I need to say, "yes" to beneficial opportunities and "no" to everything else.

Here's how it works: my newest blog, TheHomeschoolBaby.com exists to "equip homeschooling families with wisdom, practical application, and personal encouragement for their children from birth to five-years old".

So if I'm suddenly over-dosing on giveaways or product reviews, I'll know I'm working outside of my vision statement and possibly jeopardizing the value of my blog. The hope is that I like my vision statement so much, I think long and hard before breaking it.

2. Keep an online budget

"Time is money," isn't it? We need to be very discerning about the amount of time we are investing in our blogs: does it cross the line into costing us more than it’s worth? For example, as a "mommy blogger" I must be vigilant about my time online. Though adding one more affiliate link might put twelve bucks in my PayPal account, taking the extra fifteen minutes away from my children is not worth it to me.

I evaluate the hours in my day and all of the things that are worth my attention. If I only have one hour available for blogging, so be it. My blog will be a one-hour-a-day blog. It might not pay off the mortgage or catch the eye of thousands of readers, but it'll be as top-notch as I can make it within that time frame. I'll divide that hour up into portions so that I can write posts, respond to comments, solicit guest posts, and work on other projects. When the online stopwatch buzzes, my time is up.

Sometimes the sacrifices sting and I wish I had more time to accomplish all of my online dreams, but I'm confident that I will not regret my choices in the long run. To tell you the truth, I've found that when I keep healthy parameters on my blogging time, I have much more to offer—even if I only have twenty minutes to think smart and type fast.

3. Write tough yet reasonable expectations

My second-grade teacher was so demanding that I saved almost all of my work from that year in a big trunk. I was so proud of my accomplishments! She had high expectations, and we children were delighted to meet them.

I think about her when it comes to blogging. Thanks to Miss C, I know now to keep my blog in line by asserting some high standards for it. For example, I expect my blog to improve my writing skills, develop my voice, and make me a more honest person. I expect it to help me think twice about my opinions, and five times about my facts. I expect that the feedback from my family, friends, and enemies makes me confess, buck up, or move on.

I expect my blog to influence, help, and encourage other people whom I'd never be able to influence otherwise. I expect it to stretch me out of my comfort zone, increase my compassion for other people, and spur me on into other worthwhile projects.

Over time, I've received every item on my list. Gaining so many personally enriching treasures keeps me positive about blogging. It also keeps me in control of my blog, and not the other way around. If I didn't benefit from my blog on a regular basis, I sure hope I'd stop blogging.

If you find that the motivation to make money just isn't enough for you, consider writing a vision statement, an online budget, and a list of expectations for your blog. Once you have these in place, you'll find yourself looking for ways to grow in those areas. You'll reach out for advice, insights, and opportunities that will help you to grow as a person, not just a blogger-with-a-bank-account. You'll love the sweet return.

Now it's your turn to be the wind beneath the wings of bloggers like me. How can we grow in our personal lives and in our craft so that we get the most out of our blogs?

Laura Booz is the author of the new eBook Blogger Behave: Make your blog benefit your life so you can love both!. She writes at http://www.10millionmiles.com about homesteading, homeschooling, faith, and other things that fascinate her along the way.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Get the Best Return on Your Blog

Don’t Ever Write Without this Writer’s Warm-up

Posted: 08 Dec 2011 06:05 AM PST

This guest post is by Karol K of Online Business Design blog.

What is a writer’s warm-up? I hear you ask.

I’m going to answer this question in a minute, but first let me get an initial “yes” from you.

Did you ever notice that your initial piece of writing on a given day is not the best you can do, and you’re actually aware of that? Is that a “yes”?

Of course, there can be many reasons for this, but the main one might be simpler than you think. First of all, just because you don’t like what you’ve written doesn’t mean you have a plumber’s writer’s block. Nor does it mean that apparently it’s not your most creative day, nor that the topic doesn’t seem particularly comfortable for you, nor anything else like this.

What if, maybe, you’ve just been writing without warming up first?

Why a warm-up is important

Image copyright Robert Kneschke - Fotolia.com

I’m sure you know the value (actually, necessity seems to be a better word here) of warming up when it comes to any kind of physical exercise or sport.

You can’t lift heavy weights without starting with very small dumbbells to get you going. And you can’t run a marathon without some prior stretching (and probably a lot of other stuff I know nothing about since I’ve never run a marathon).

Well, it’s not just sports. What was interesting to me when I first went to a vocal class was that it always started with a warm-up too. This lets your voice prepare for the upcoming effort. Staying on the mouth—related topics, warm-ups are also nothing unusual for competitive eating professionals. From what I know they start their “training” by eating a modest one kilo of grapes…

Why is it, then, that most bloggers start writing their posts without any kind of warm-up?

I see four reasons:

Up until today they didn’t know about such a thing.
They feel warmed-up enough.
They don’t see the value.
They don’t realize the risks.

Let’s tackle them all at once, starting with the last one.

The risks of not warming up before writing

We all know the risks of not warming up before sports. Lack of a warm-up is the fastest way to an injury or a serious muscle pain that could take away the whole joy of doing sports. On a professional level, lack of a warm-up significantly lowers the performance and can even lead to a career-ending injury.

What about blogging? Well, you’re not going to break any bones, so the risks are not that obvious, but they are still there.

For instance, the most common result of writing without a warm-up is the amount of time you’ll spend staring at a blank screen. Everybody knows that getting started is the most difficult part, and many people struggle to get the words rolling.

Even though you have your post’s topic well researched, and you know what message you want to convey, getting those ideas to a digital piece of paper can be hard.

Thankfully, this whole process can be sped up a lot if you just take care of some basic warm-ups.

You see, no matter the activity, warm-ups are all about getting started. A warm-up is always a set of the most basic, simple and easy movements possible for a given activity.

Therefore, due to its simplicity, no one ever has problems with getting the warm-up done. No one is ever stuck on the warm-up because, practically, that’s impossible.

At first it seems counterintuitive, but warming up actually saves you time. You do begin writing later, that’s true, but you are more likely to finish earlier and create a better post along the way.

To be honest with you, I had my share of can’t-get-started problems in my short blogging career. There were times when I was sitting in front of a blank screen for up to an hour. I felt I couldn’t start writing anything decent even though I had the topic researched.

For me, the cause was simple: writing the mysterious “quality content” is not easy, just like doing a 300-pound bench press is not easy. Even when you posses the necessary skills, both these challenges require some warming up.

How to do a writer’s warm-up

Okay, so what’s the most basic thing you can write, one that doesn’t require any preparation whatsoever, and is impossible to get stuck on?

Writing an essay on the meaning of life is one thing, but I’d advise something different—a personal journal.

It fits the description perfectly. Everyone can write about how their day was, or what they have in plan for the evening, or what they think about other people and situations, and so on. Just like everyone can talk about these things to a friend.

So, every day (or whenever you’re doing your writing), start your writing session by firing up your personal journal (Penzu, for example is a great online journal tool) and jotting down whatever is in your mind.

There are no rules to writing a journal. Whatever you do, you’ll be doing it well. Besides, a personal journal, like the name indicates, is a purely private thing, so no one will ever see it.

I, personally, always write at least one journal entry before starting to work on an article. It takes me five to ten minutes to put down 300-800 words (I wish I could write some decent posts at this rate).

After I have my entry done I immediately switch to writing a post. And since I already have the right mindset, I can usually start without any hesitation lasting longer than two minutes or so.

You know what? I guess the “writer’s training program” is straightforward after all: five minutes of warm-up with a proper writing session afterwards.

I’m only asking for one thing here—have a little faith and try this yourself. Everyone who I’ve ever given this advice to has agreed that it’s one of the most effective things you can do to improve your writing. And for me, it’s been a true game changer.

What do you think about this whole idea? Are you using a similar technique? Maybe you’ve been doing this sort of writer’s warm-up without even knowing it? Feel free to speak up in the comments.

Karol K. (@carlosinho) is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland and a grad student at the Silesian University of Technology. He hates to do traditional business but loves to train capoeira. Tune in to get his blogging advice and tips on starting an online business.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Don’t Ever Write Without this Writer’s Warm-up