• Remember many people have short attention spans in cyberspace. Create your page with the mindset that you may have less than a minute to capture the attention of a visitor.

• Make important points stand out. Direct your readers straight to the information they are most likely seeking, with short sentences or headlines that stand out. Use larger, bolder, or even colorful letters if you have to.

• Make it easy for them to contact you. Although you might already have a contact page, going an extra mile to provide your contact information may prove helpful.Provide them with as many contact avenues as you can. Give them your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and any social network accounts you wish to share.

• Let your readers know how they can benefit from your blog. Whether it’s drama, a bit of DIY information, or a giveaway you’d like to share, keep in mind that everyone has a personal gain into whatever they do in life. So if they are reading your content because they like reading about the drama in your life, it’s because they gain the benefit of concentrating on your drama instead of their own.  DIY information you post will help them create something unique and giveaways you post will benefit them if they win.

• Provide some interesting personal information. If you are an expert in child psychology, you might want to give them a short (one or two-sentence) explanation of what makes you an expert. This could entice them to read your posts. People love to gain insights from professionals.

What NOT to Write on an “About” Page

Some bloggers focus solely on themselves in the “About” page. When it becomes an entire page about your life, it can turn readers off. Remember that most people have “amazing” stories.  If your story is insanely unique, by all means write about it. If not, readers won’t be interested enough to care.

***Please note the excerpt above has been taken from a page on The Blogger’s Survival Guide. For more clear, concise posts like this, please grab a copy of the book.

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Twitter allows us to have 140 characters to say whatever we want. This is such a good way to stream through a lot of data at once. You want the streams to get you right to the point. You don’t want garbage or endless explanations that take forever to read.

I see many Twitter posts that have about 5 to 10 hashtags on it. When I see this, I skip right through it and move onto the next. I spend no time trying to rummage through the hashtags to try to figure out what’s going on with it, when the next post is so much easier to understand.

We are all very weary about spam and anything that can hurt our online situations. Funny letters and funny puzzles in a stream that is plugged together with millions of other, more worthy information, can make it a waste of time for you, couldn’t it? Sure, it might make it much easier to sort through but don’t you want to reach those followers who started following you because they initially though you were interesting? Finding out that your wall could be filled with potential marketing promotions that they care nothing about could cause them to question the reason they started following you in the first place.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s those who are interested that will continue to follow me,” is perhaps your reaction to your unfollow list. If you search hard enough, you might eventually find that there are a lot of inactive or “quiet” followers who either don’t log into Twitter or spend very little time taking notice of you. You are being followed only for the sake of numbers. So very little return is often noticed.

So how about limiting your hashtags to one per tweet? You ARE free to tweet as often as you wish. Spreading your hashtags out into several tweets will also be more helpful and likely to really grab your audience’s attention rather than potentially steering them away … At least in the whole Twitter language scheme …

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1. You know what you want to write about, but have you considered the power your headlines can have on your traffic?

2. Consider this list before you publish your blogs.

Then

3. Pay attention to the different ways you can attract readers to your blog.

4. Pay attention to your links

5. Follow this simple SEO checklist

6. Use Social Media to the Fullest and do your best to maximize its use as much as possible!

7. Pay attention to things that might affect your blog’s performance level.

For example

8. You might want to consider compressing your images to the exact size as it should appear on your blog post.

9. Take action and do what you can to prevent content thieves from stealing your information! You work hard for your content.

10. Beware of spammers! This could lead to the death of your blog if you’re not careful. So try your best not to ignore this tid bit.

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Features of Twitter’s lists

Organization

As mentioned, you can organize members however you wish. They don’t have to be following you to do so. You can place them in your own special category, group, or list (whatever you wish to call it) and find out what they’re doing without having to search through your entire list of followers.

Private vs. Public

Private lists can only be seen by the creator of the list. What is the advantage of this? As mentioned above, Twitter lists are ways for you to follow certain groups of people without having to actually include them in your follow list. When you create a private list, they have no idea that you are keeping track of their activities, if this is your intention. Public lists are there for anyone to see.

Be entered in lists

One of the fun features of Twitter lists is being able to see who places you in their lists. If they feel you are important enough to be placed in their specially categorized list or group, then you will be.

Recommend tweeps

When you create Twitter lists, you also tell your public that those are the people in that category that you recommend them following.

How to create a Twitter list

1. Click on the image located on the right side of the search box on the top of your Twitter home page.
2. Select Lists
3. Select Create list box
4. Enter the title and description of your list in the popup box
5. Select the Privacy option
6. Save list

How to place Tweeps or remove them from your Twitter list

1. Click on the image on the right side of the follow button next to the Tweep’s info
2. Click Add or remove from lists
3. Select the list you’d like to place them in. Click Create a list if list is not found.
4. To remove, repeat step 1 – 3

Viewing your lists

1. Click on the image located on the right side of the search box on the top of your Twitter home page.
2. Select Lists

View lists you follow

1. After you’ve entered the page where your lists are located, click on the Subscribed to link next to the word Lists

View lists you are a member of

1. After you’ve entered the page where your lists are located, click on the Member of link next to Subscribed to

How to subscribe to or follow a list

1. If you find a list you are interested in, click on the name of the list
2. On the top left hand side of the page, you will see a Subscribe button. Click that button.
3. Go back to your list of Lists and you should see your newly Subscribed list

How to leave a list you were included in

Simple – just block the member who owns or started the group.

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Here, we will go over some tips that will help you get the most out of Triberr. So sit back and take notes OR just bookmark this page for future references!

Manage Your Settings

You need to make sure your settings have all the appropriate information so that all of your accounts connect according to your preferences.

1. Go to the top right section of your logged in Triberr dashboard and click on the small arrow next to your profile image.

2. You will automatically be taken to the page that has information about your Triberr account. Make sure you fill this out as best as you can and don’t forget about setting it to the correct time zone! You wouldn’t want to set posts out when people in your time zone are asleep!

3. You are allowed 2 free blogs to connect to your Triberr account. Many bloggers with multiple blogs also belong to several tribes. It never hurts to make sure your blog points directly to the tribe that fits the right category. For example, I have a parenting blog, but also run this social media blog. I belong to several tribes so I need to make sure that my blogs are setup so that the tribes with social media members are not receiving posts about my parenting blogs. They might not be too responsive, which means many of my posts could be ignored.

4. Go to the Social Network tab and remember to assign the social networks to the tribe you wish to connect with. The first and most important, of course, is Twitter.  Now, I’ve got a special little trick that many social media experts already use.  I have a few Twitter accounts that I reserve for specific things.

I’ve heard people say, “I’m afraid to lose followers because of all the junk they might think I’m sending out.”  To solve this problem, I created several Twitter accounts for specific audiences. For example, I have an account for social media followers, for giveaways and promotions, for parenting, and one for my own personal use. Of course I have 2 other reserves for parenting in case I need it for emergency purposes.

Again, since I do belong to several tribes, I assign the social networks with the tribes that have specific posts. For example, I belong to a tribe where most of the members blog about social media. With this tribe, I have @thesmpanel account connected to it, but I also belong to a tribe where members like to post about giveaways. So with that, I connect my @vB_promos tribe so that followers from both will get the information that they know they are following me for.

Create a Tribe

Creating a tribe allows you to be in charge, which means you will be the Chief. One of the advantages of creating your own tribe is that you can choose whoever you want to include in the tribe and remove whoever you don’t like.

If you don’t want to create a tribe, go ahead and skip to the next section.

I belong to a few tribes, where I often get quite annoyed at the fact that so many people have their blogs popping up, but of course you never seen any activities from them. They don’t share your stuff or anybody else’s. This usually means they have either forgotten Triberr altogether or they just don’t care all that much about it. When this happens, I usually remove them from my tribe. Of course if I belong to another tribe where members are doing this, I have no control over their status.

Creating a tribe also gives you the power to include specific category of bloggers and the reach they have. One of my tribes called Social Women Who Rock consists of women around the blogosphere who are active and have very high follower reach. It currently has 8 members but already has a reach of 378K.

To create a tribe, just go to the Tribes link on the very top of your dashboard and you should be taken to a page that has this image:

Go ahead and click on that image and you should be able to name, categorize, and invite members to your tribe.

Join a Tribe

There are a lot of tribes out there. However, just because you request to join one, it doesn’t mean you will be accepted to be a member.  So be careful when you’re sending out posts for these tribes. I’ll go over that in just a minute.

First, let’s go over how you join a tribe. In your Settings section, the My Social Networks tab will have a little verbiage on the right that tells you how to join a tribe. Remember that you will not always be promoted as a member of the tribe. However, to have a higher chance of becoming a member, I suggest you start sharing posts for that tribe. Try to be active, because according to Triberr, they wait about a week before they let the Chief know about your inquiry to join the tribe. If you haven’t shared any posts, the Chief may just be against allowing you to join.

To Approve or NOT to Approve

Triberr has done quite a lot to improve their system. They understood our needs and are doing their best to try to apply them so that we can all benefit.

• You can now filter the blogs so that a specific tribe’s posts show up first.

• You can find out immediately if the member has shared any posts from your tribe or just yours alone.  If you place your mouse over the member’s image, their shared status should appear.  This will help you determine whether or not that member deserves to have you share their post.  Take a look at the following example:

Becky McNeer has shared 52 posts total from all of her tribes, 5 posts from your filtered tribe, and 1 of our posts.

* What I do:  I know that bloggers who share others’ posts will most likely share yours even if it has a zero above the area that says “Your Posts.”  If the number of Total Posts are between 10 – 20, I will give it a chance. If I continue NOT to receive shares, I will not share their stuff again.

Right next to the Sorting option is the Settings option where you can set the time space between each tweet. For example, if you’d like your tweets to be spread out every 30 minutes, you may set it to that. If you’d like it to be spread out once a day, you may do that as well. Of course one tweet per day might be a little extreme as you could not possibly share too many posts if you do that. Plus, your followers might get completely bored of you if you are only sending out one tweet per day!

Triberr will help your traffic multiply. Not only will people spread the word by tweeting your posts but you also have the potential reach of the tribes themselves.  If a tribe has a combination of 1 million followers, then you have that much of a chance to get your posts out to that many people.  Is that not enough motivation to signup?

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You CAN schedule posts right on Facebook itself!  To be effective, many social media activists also try to hit two birds with one stone by first making sure that whatever they post on Facebook automatically gets sent through their Twitter wall so that their followers on that network can see their posts.

Here are the steps to scheduling a post right on Facebook:

1. Make sure you are on your Facebook Page’s Timeline:

2. Create your post:

3. Click on the scheduler below the status section where you place your comment:

4. Click on the Schedule button and your post is scheduled!

Now you are free to go do more important things in your life!

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Writing Your Post

1) Choose your words wisely. Play by the search engine rules and make sure you do not violate the terms of proper conduct (mainly no duplicate content and inappropriate links).

2) Refrain from having a page with too many words on it. Remember that entrants don’t want to sit there and spend a day trying to figure out your rules, especially if they can easily find another site that promotes better prizes with easier entries.  The less instructions you have, the more inclined they will be to enter.

3) Impress your audience with an attractive image – Images are not only inviting on the eyes, but they also can say much more than any description you make.

4) Create a Rafflecopter or easy entry form that has as little entry requirements as possible. I try and set a personal rule of having a maximum of 2 entry points for every dollar value of the giveaway. So for example, if my giveaway was valued at $25, I would make sure my total entry points for each entry would be 12. This means that they could earn up to 12 points for every entry point option available.

5) Make sure your Rafflecopter has a command for entrants to post information about the giveaway. This will increase the promotional process for this giveaway. Have them tweet, share, or even post in certain places about it.

6)  Refrain from making required entries. Although required entries should guarantee that entrants will perform each of the tasks you ask of them, it can also deter many people from entering. Jane might take a look at the entry form, find that there are too many required entries to make, and decide to do it at a better time.  What happens then? Jane usually either forgets or puts it off until she decides the time it will take to complete the form is just not worth the possibility that she won’t win.

7) DO NOT forget to check your spelling! You never know when a sponsor or another brand representative is looking into working with you. So make sure you look as professional as possible and have your spell check in check! Common mistakes are when the words “their” and “there” are used incorrectly! Yikes!

8) When in doubt, follow the Checklist to Go Over Before Publishing Your Post.

In-house Promotions

9) Now that your post is ready, go ahead and start promoting to all the people who love your website or blog and send out your newsletter about the giveaway. Remember, you must capture their attention quickly before they decide to place your email in their trash bin. Take a moment to think about the creativity of your compelling headline.

Social Networking

10) Don’t underestimate the specialty of Triberr. It is beyond fantastic, if you know how to maximize its potential with your blog! Some people might get annoyed by it but there are definitely ways around it so you don’t annoy your followers. Stay tuned for our post (will publish in the near future once Triberr fixes their current issues).

11) How many social networks do you belong to? Go ahead and let your followers or friends know all about your giveaway. However, if you have social accounts for giveaways, then make sure to use those. Try not to leave anything out, because most people read in streams. So if they are not logged into Facebook at a specific time, they might miss your post.

12) Use Hootsuite or a Social Media Scheduler. This will allow you to schedule your posts at different times so that you don’t annoy your followers too much. If necessary, rephrase some of your words and make sure your increments are far enough apart that it doesn’t feel like you are filling someone’s news feed with junk.

13) Build and maintain relationships. Your online friends will know who you are. Always keep in mind that your reputation can always go viral. So keep a positive attitude, help others out, and they will be most willing to help you when you really need it!

14)  Join reciprocating groups on Facebook that will help you get information about your giveaway out. There are groups that will tweet, share, or visit your blog and scratch your back as long as you scratch theirs.

15) Join voiceBoks groups. The members are well seasoned bloggers who know the art of reciprocation and have made it all work out very well for their blogs. You won’t find a better group that know the rules and know how important it is to build and keep relationships.

16) Make sure to use the StumbleUpon link shortener. It’s got its own special way of having members find your posts!

17) Don’t forget your social bookmarks! People love when things are organized!  Pinterest, Google Plus, and Scoop.it are our favorites!

Linky Parties

18) There are tons of linky parties that you can post your giveaways on. People who enter giveaways are frequent visitors of these sites because they know that the new stuff will arrive in those linkies. Places like Cuckoo for Coupon Deals will offer you an entire list of other sites that have linkies, making it more convenient for you to find giveaway places.

We see them all over the place, but which ones are the traffic drivers?

Create a Schedule

Of course if you have several giveaways running at once, you don’t have time to sit there and promote each one every single day. However, you shouldn’t neglect them because the people who ask you to promote their stuff, have a level of trust in you and deserve to get exactly what they paid for.

19) To help yourself keep sane, while having a giveaway with great results, you should do your best to manage your social media times.  Create a blogging schedule.

Clean up your act!

20) Many bloggers (yes, even seasoned ones) realize there is a lot more to blogging than hoping for the best. Clean up your blog or make sure you are stepping into it with eyes wide open and enough knowledge about its structure to really get it off the ground. Grab The Blogger’s Survival Guide, because it is packed full of great tips and information about blogging schedules, and Do’s and Don’ts of giveaways, and so much more!

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We are reminded that we’ve reached our limit on our cellphone plans, so what about our social networks?  Have you ever wondered how many people you are allowed to follow on Facebook or how many Twitter lists you can create?  Here’s a quick rundown.  (Maybe you never knew there was a limit!)

Twitter Tweets: The website keeps you from posting more than 1,000 tweets in one day.

Twitter Follows: You are allowed to follow up to 2000.  Once you reach this threshold, Twitter will allow you to follow more as long as the ratio of Followers/Follows is reasonable.

Twitter Lists: Each user can only create 20 lists on their account and each list can only include 500 users.  Check out their website for more details.

Facebook Groups: Facebook limits the amount of groups you can join to 300. Per their website, if you want to join another group, you will have to leave another one.

Facebook Photo Tags:  Facebook allows 50 tags per photo.

Pinterest Pins: There is a limit to the amount of pins you can add to your account based on your rate.  Per Pinterest if you reach your limit, you will be timed-out and can start again after an hour.

Pinterest Follows: You are only permitted to follow up to 300 users per day.  This rule is to prevent aggressive behavior on the site.

Google+ Circles: Google does not allow you to surpass 5,000 profiles in your circles.  Per their website, Google will stop you from adding anymore people in your circles.

flickr uploads: You will want to upgrade your account if you try to upload more than 2 videos and 300MB of images.

Instagram Follow: The program doesn’t want you to follow more than 7,500 users.

Instagram tags: You are allowed to place 30 tags on one image.

LinkedIn Invitations: There is a limit to the amount of invitations you can send out, but LinkedIn accounts the ratio of acceptances to invitations to define their limit.

The list of limits continues every day to prevent excessive use and abuse of these sites.  Please feel free to add any we’ve missed in the comments.  Only one per person! Just kidding.

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Now, are you ready for a workshop like no other you’ve ever had? We hold a schedule of online workshops, much like classes, that you can take from the comfort of your home.

These are NOT pre-recorded videos. We work with you LIVE so that the interaction will help you learn, ask questions, and come out of it feeling more confident than you ever had with any of the lessons provided.

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Download the Google Chrome Browser (if you haven’t already done so)

Chrome Web Store

• Once you’ve downloaded Google Chrome, go back to the Google Chrome page and at the bottom right, you will see a link for Web Store.
• Then in the search box enter Uncircle Inactives

• Click on the +ADD TO CHROME button to install it on your browser.
• Make sure you’re logged into the Google Account where your Google+ Account is located.
• Once you’ve installed the Uncircle Inactives extension, go to the top right of your browser and click on the image that looks like this:

• You will then be taken to a page that looks very similar to the one below. It will have a list of all the members you have in your circles along with the circles they belong to. On the left hand side, you can choose the circles you’d like to be included or excluded in your Inactive Search by highlight your choice. For more than one choice, highlight one choice then keep your finger on the Ctrl key on your keyboard and use your mouse to click the other circles you’d like to include in the search. Then press the button Apply Inc/Exc

• The following info will appear, allowing you to adjust the activity date based on your preference:

• Once the search is complete, you may check the results based on any of the following choices:

• Once you are satisfied with what must be removed, you may click on the Uncircle button located on the bottom left of the screen.

Note: The application is sometimes faulty so you may have to repeat the process a few times. You may even have to close your browser and restart again.

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