Successful Blog

Steal This Growth Idea: The Power Of Group Expert Interviews for Your Blog

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By Jessy Troy

The Power Of Group Expert Interviews for Your Blog

Lately, there have been a lot of groups interviews showing up around the web, Transcripts, email group discussions, Google Hangouts on Air footage… everyone wants to put together influencer round-ups on their blog, and it is no wonder.

These mastermind roundups have become a primary way to produce high quality content, and offer something truly valuable to the user.

The problem many people have is that they don’t know how to go about getting an expert to take part in an interview, especially if their blog is not yet huge enough. Pitching to someone who already has a full schedule may seem nearly impossible. Perhaps you have even tried, but never managed to land the opportunity that you so badly wanted.

MyBlogU, the absolutely free community of bloggers I’ve been using for several months now to feature and get features in expert interviews, has you covered on that front.

 

Group Interview Feature

Group Interview Feature

Rather than having you contact experts, the Group Interview feature takes you to where they already are. You ask your question of people within your industry, and they answer. Since they are already there to connect, and are interested in both sharing and taking part in the creation of content, you are guaranteed results every time you post a question.

Not only that, but you are able to get multiple quotes from various sources, and bind them together into a group interview transcript. It is much faster, easier to organize, and doesn’t require all of the planning usually needed to find a good time or chance to bring people together for a discussion.

Building Your Reputation

Once you start publishing these interviews, you will notice a jump in your own reputation because you are producing and promoting quality content, with established names attached from your industry, you are going to get more attention. With this attention comes a chance to connect with other influential people in your niche.

This can lead to what? More interviews! It is a great way to climb up the ladder and produce more and more popular content while offering a really helpful resource for those who are reading it. Who doesn’t want tips from those who are already successful, and have had to work their way up to the top?

I don’t suggest publishing only interviews on your blog! Too much of anything could become harmful as you risk losing your voice! But making it a regular colums (once a month or once a season depending on your editorial calendar intencity) covering hot trends is a great idea!

Brainstorming With The Pros

Another great feature is the brainstorming tool. MyBlogU allows you to put ideas out onto the site, and get feedback from others who are a part of the community. If you feel uncertain of an idea, just want some opinions on what should be included, or even want to bounce off of someone else to generate more ideas for future content, this is the place for you.

You can also help to influence the others in the community. Offer your own feedback on their ideas, and let them know what you would personally like to red. Share insights from your followers and what you have learned through your target audience. Build yourself as an authority, and soon people will want to interview you!

Conclusion

MyBlogU is a great tool that allows users to join a community of like minded individuals. While there you can take advantage of their expertise, and create unique group interviews that will provide you with excellent content.

Try it for yourself!

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the site except for I am a member.

Example interview from the screenshot can be found here. Here are more examples from MyBlogU and their members.

Featured image via Flickr CC: aboutmodafinil.com

Author’s Bio: Jessy Troy is a creative writer and editor at Social Media Sun. She Tweets as @JessyTroy.

Top 5 Content Recommendation Tools for Social Media Managers

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By Jessica Davis

With the continuous need to come up with new content to keep your social media audience engaged, curating great content can seem like a challenging task.

As they say, content is king, and its importance in the world of social media marketing cannot be understated. In order to do a good job of sharing interesting content with your audience and keeping them hooked to your page, you need to know and understand their preferences and post content that interests them.

Here are five content recommendation tools that can help you curate unique content for your readers.

DrumUp

DrumUp provides you with free content recommendations through its tool and allows you to schedule your posts too, freeing you from the worries of what you should post and when you should post on your social accounts. All you have to do is insert a few keywords into the tool and DrumUp will process them to give you the most fresh and relevant content suggestions in your stream. It also features an added control of negative keywords to refine your results even further.

DrumUp screenshot

Flipboard

This app brings to you all the recent content published in newspapers and magazines from all over the world. Flipboard offers you more than 34,000 topics to choose from, and you can access all this content through a smartly designed graphic interface that offers easy navigation and even allows you to store articles for later reading.

Flipboard screenshot

Klout

Klout works as a content recommendation search engine. By keying in the topics and keywords relevant to your business, you can unlock Klout’s suggestions in the form of articles and blog posts that will be useful in your social media marketing efforts. You can review and choose the ones that you think will generate most engagement and share them on your social accounts. The app, with its Klout Score feature, lets you measure the success of your social media posts and presents the data in the form of a graph for easy understanding.

Klout screenshot

Scoop.it

Scoop.it recommends articles for you to share in your social media circles based on the keyword search you run. Once you find the articles of your choice you can add a customized message to the article before posting it online for your audience. The good thing about scoop.it is it allows you to post on multiple platforms at one go.

Scoop.it screenshot

Bottlenose

This social media management app brings to you real time news and data. Bottlenose helps you identify new trends and directs you to opportunities that you can explore to create content and share it on your social accounts. It keeps you updated with trending stories allowing you to ride the social media wave with the most relevant and fresh industry stories.

Bottlenose screenshot

With these five topnotch content recommendation tools you will never face a dearth of content options as they will bring you the best and most effective content suggestions for all your social media marketing efforts.

Author’s Bio: Jessica Davis follows the social media and content marketing space closely, and writes about it extensively. She represents Godot Media – a leading SEO writing services firm.

Freelance Writing – Guide to Inspiration

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Freelance inspiration

By Jessy Troy

 

I have spent several years in the wonderful, strange world of freelance writing. While it is a blessing in many ways, it can also have a downside. Mainly trying to maintain inspiration and motivation when writing for such a large number of publications. From magazines to newspapers to webmasters, there are so many projects that can sap your time and energy.

Because the topics are always the same, and they are almost always on subjects you have to come up with, it can be difficult to get that spark of artistic genius that leads to a successful, interesting article.

While common sense would dictate that taking a hiatus to clear the mind would be the way to go, such as with novelists, that isn’t an option for the freelance writer. This is the job and if you don’t do it you don’t get paid.

But all is not lost, whatever despair you may feel. Keep this list of ways to keep your creative juices flowing, to look at whenever you find yourself stuck.

Freelance Writing, a Guide to Getting Inspired

  • Get away from your computer and do something relaxing, such as go for a walk, get a cup of coffee or take a long shower or bath.
  • Move on to something else for a while and go back once you feel more clearheaded.
  • Ask someone’s opinion. This can be anonymously on the web, or from someone that you know personally. Just make sure all direct quotes are properly credited.
  • Find sources on a topic. You should obviously never copy these sources, but using them for ideas can be a great way to bump start the brain.
  • Go back to old ideas. Remember that article you were thinking of writing three months ago that ended up as a hastily written sticky note pressed to the side of a filing cabinet? It might be time to get on it.
  • Check out some local places and see if anything strikes you as interesting. Maybe speak to a local business owner about the latest news, or ask around about any interesting developments in your area.
  • Get a community calendar or join a website with a local community focus. This will often show you upcoming benchmarks in time for your city, state or county. Take some time to research an upcoming anniversary such as when your area was founded, and write something interesting and educational to commemorate it.
  • Check out sites that host press releases, especially those about trending topics.
  • Use real time search engines to see what people are speaking about right now, to see if there is anything interesting you could look into.
  • Use your own life. For example, I am a writer and I frequently struggle with trying to come up with ideas for articles when I have been writing all week. I am now writing an article to discuss that, and to give other writers the benefit of my brainstorm on the subject.
  • Write an article based on a numbered list. For example: Five Ways to Get That Summer Look in November.
  • Ask for help: There is a free community for people to brainstorm together!
  • Go out for a night on the town with no set plan of what you are going to do, in an area you don’t know. Ditch the car so you can walk around and learn about new restaurants, movie theaters, galleries, cafes, etc.
  • Find a client or publication that is looking for a specific topic to be researched and written about.
  • Get writing! You will be amazed at what can come from a stream of consciousness.

How do you keep yourself elevated and inspired? Please share your tips!

Author’s Bio: Jessy Troy is a creative writer and editor at Social Media Sun. She Tweets as @JessyTroy.

5 Sites that Boost My Creativity Each Time

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By Jessy Troy

No matter what field you are in, there is no doubt that creativity and inspiration play an important part in helping you finalize a project or two.

This may be especially true for writers and those in the Arts who rely heavily on sparks of aha! moments to get their creative juices flowing and create something extraordinary.

Yet surprisingly, we have heard many stories about how they often get their inspiration for their masterpiece from a totally different field. A fashion designer can get ideas from a marvelous piece of art and an architect may base his latest innovative design on a great photo of nature.

This proves that inspiration is out there just waiting to be seen or experienced. Thanks to the Internet, we can now have access to such sources with a click of the mouse.

Here are some of those awesome websites worthy of a look should you be suffering from a writer’s block.

1. Book Of Joe

 

This website gives you your daily dose of interesting news and the latest innovations in almost any field you can think of. From fascinating statistics to delightful photographs, you can spend the whole day reading each and every article.Be amused by the lamest invention or be bewildered by amateur video clips. If it’s trending, you’ll surely find it inside the Book of Joe.Bookmark: Book of Joe

2. Web Urbanist

 

Web Urbanist is another website that you can surf through and not notice that an hour has passed. The features are categorized into Art, Architecture, Gallery, Urban, Tech and even Graffiti. This is useful should you like to get your spark of creativity from a certain field only, or see what’s up everywhere.The titles of the articles are well worded, so you can readily click to read more on those that are relevant to you or those you find interesting. The writing is concise and topics are unique.Bookmark: Web Urbanist

3. Print Me Poster

 

One of the biggest collections of photos that can be turned into posters. Or you can upload your own image and create a poster too!I love browsing the site and I often buy new posters to match my current mood. The site adds something fresh to my interior which always boosts my creativity.Bookmark: Print Me Poster

4. Moodstream

 

Moodstream is a delightful website that plays music and images according to your well, mood. You can choose from a list of emotions including stabilize, simplify, intensify or excite to get the mash up you need.So if you are among those people who prefer this visual and audio compulsion, then Moodstream is the site to visit. You can always opt to customize your mood with the settings if you want to be more precise. Doubles as a meditation!Bookmark: Moodstream

5. 99 Percent

 

Inspired by Thomas Edison’s saying that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, this site offers interesting articles on how to best help yourself and provides tools on coping with the usual life challenges including facing your critics.The topics are varied and range from technology and writing to graphic design. The site also focuses on works related to collaboration and self-marketing. It’s also great for budding entrepreneurs who require that extra push toward creativity and effective business planning. You can follow them on twitter or sign up for the newsletter for their latest inspirational piece.Bookmark: 99 Percent

I am sure you have lots of other great free sources of inspiration to share!

Author’s Bio: Jessy Troy is a creative writer and editor at Social Media Sun. She Tweets as @JessyTroy.

7 Death Traps to Avoid When Starting an E-Commerce Business

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By Simon Horton

The Web offers endless possibilities to businesses. You sure are aware that the Internet has changed the dynamics of buyer-seller relationship forever. The lure of the Web is very difficult for an entrepreneur to resist and you are already planning your e-commerce blockbuster.

There is more happy news for you. The holiday season has brought in bumper sales for retail sellers. Cyber Monday saw sales totaling $2.68 billion with almost 21% of that sales coming from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

The weekend after Thanksgiving raked in more than $2 billion in online sales. Online sales in the US for the months of November and December combined are expected to surpass $89 billion, an increase of 16% over 2013.

The Internet obviously is the place to be for businesses. Amazon shipped approximately 426 items per second on Cyber Monday, with sales totaling in excess of 37 million items.

But finding your place under the sun in an unforgiving online marketplace is not easy. With super-hot competition breathing down your neck it becomes increasingly important for you to be at the right place at the right time to land the sale.

Success is very hard to find in an over-crowded global marketplace. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind to avoid a potential disaster for your online business.

1) Think Style over Substance

Once you have decided to take the leap and start selling online, is time to work out a clear strategy.

Do not spend hours creating the most attractive, interactive, responsive and stylish website. Not only are you required to put in endless hours, but you also end up spending quite a lot of money.

Dive into the potential customer base you are targeting. If you are selling kids’ garden accessories, make sure you know where to find your customers. Parenting blogs, forums and self-help groups offer much potential.

So do schools and kindergartens. With increasing stress being laid in schools on teaching children to eat healthy and natural, on how to source food from their kitchen gardens, and in general encouraging them to spend more time outdoors, your products do have potential to sell.

Go where your potential customers are more likely to find you and try to engage them constructively.

2) Neglect Content

Your website need not pay big bucks to bloggers to write for you. Spare some time to share valuable, informative, engaging and interesting content with your online visitors.

Blogging would not take up more than a few hours every week. Once you get the hang of it you will be easily able to post two fleshed out posts every week. And that’s all that is required in the early stages of your business.

Do reply to all comments and suggestions, and ensure you do not neglect any visitor to your blog.

3) Not Stay Social

Social media holds much sway over the online marketplace. This is where your potential customers meet and share ideas, opinions and latest gossip. You need to be familiar with popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Once you have succeeded in building up considerable traffic to your site, you will be able to leverage social media to increase your visibility to a much vaster audience.

If you ignore social media sites very soon you will be left behind in the race with your competition getting there first and building up a dialog with the prospective customers.

4) Not Gauge the Practical Aspects

Your business is not all about your brilliant idea and yourself. You will need the help and support of plenty of others to actually get your business up and going.

Vendors, suppliers, shippers, customers and employees are all stakeholders you need to work with to ensure the success of your online venture. You need to measure how much all of this is going to cost you financially. How long can you sustain the nuts and bolts of your venture if the revenue takes time rolling in?

Amazon would not have been the success it is if it had shipped stuff late and broken all through its formative years. You will have to sweat to win your customers trust and most importantly their familiarity with you.

You have to honestly and thoroughly assess all of this before you set up your online store. Do you have all the necessary ancillaries in place for your business to flourish and run well?

5) Do Not Have a Customer-Centric Site

This is one of the biggest mistakes that could really mar the customer experience.

An online business site should be a delightful experience for any guest, not just for those who have painfully created an account. Do not make it mandatory for visitors to register to complete sale. Ensure the visitor faces as few hurdles as possible.

Quality, high-resolution images should be provided along with comprehensive product descriptions. There should be no room for doubt in your prospective customer’s mind as to what he is paying for.

You should also clearly specify the price of the product and the shipping options available. All modes of shipping do not cost the same. US Postal Service offers several benefits for small businesses that you can pass on to customers. Be clear to your customers about the choices available to them..

You should also clearly define your return policies and provide all info regarding customer support for all available channels including phone, e-mail and instant chat.

6) The Checkout Process Is Tedious

Tedious checkout processes can really depress your sales. Help your customer complete the payment in a single click. Follow the industry standard for entering credit card information and make the flow as intuitive and responsive as possible.

When you shop at Amazon or eBay the breezy checkout process makes shopping a pleasant experience.

A long and tortuous order placement process can make your customer abandon the shopping cart and find a better place to shop at.

7) Limited Payment Options

71% of e-transactions are made with cards. But a whopping 29% are using non-card methods which include PayPal and e-wallets. Go for payment methods that are favored by your target audience.

Lack of preferred payment options will deter your prospective customers from completing the transaction.

Ensure you allow payments without having to create an account and do not redirect people to other sites. SSL and PCI badges add to the credibility of your website. Customers value the padlock icon and the https URL prefix that shows you are using a secure payment gateway.

The path to online marketing success is waylaid with potential deathtraps. Avoid these mistakes and your venture is sure to succeed and win customer loyalty.

Author’s Bio: Simon Horton is the Founder of ShopIntegrator.com, a Hosted Shopping Cart Store Add-In. His years of experience has helped him setting up this platform. Feel free to reach him out on Google+.

How to Use Curated Content for Content Marketing

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By Jessica Davis

Content is at the center of everything digital. It is what people look for when searching for something on the web and it is what makes them share, like, subscribe, comment, follow, buy or donate.

But creating valuable content can often be quite challenging, and when you are not quite ready for this challenge, curated content comes to your rescue.

What is curated content?

Content curation basically involves sifting through relevant information on the internet and sharing the best of what you can find on your social profiles. However, curating content manually takes a lot of time and effort. To make things easier, you can use tools like DrumUp, Scoop.it and List.ly and overcome this hurdle. Using high quality, curated content projects you as an expert and an authority in your field. It gives you the reputation of being a reliable source of information, which will act as your social capital.

Why use curated content?

  1. To save time and money
    Original content can be expensive and takes a lot of effort and time to create. Content curation is a way in which you can make sure that you have quality content when you’re strapped for money or time.
  2. To become the trusted source of information
    Prudent use of quality curated content will turn you into an authoritative source on the web. Sharing high quality content can make you the preferred source that others refer to for advice, tips and suggestions.
  3. To create round-ups for better engagement
    Your audience could easily miss some content you share because information moves quickly on the web. Doing a round up of the best stories of the week on a specific topic can help them stay up to date. They will be grateful to find all the noteworthy advice and news that interests them in one post.
  4. To reach out to a wider audience
    Using different content formats such as audio,video, presentations, and infographics on different social media platforms will add variety to the content you share and will help keep it interesting.

Top 3 ways in which curated material can be shared and how

  1. Social media
    In a survey of 400 marketing professionals, 76% of the respondents said that they share curated content on social media. When using curated content on Twitter, try expressing an opinion or asking a question. But you’ll have to keep it short since you only get 140 characters. Facebook and LinkedIn on the other hand give you a little more scope for long-form content. You could write a summary, add a commentary or ask a question to begin a conversation.
  2. Newsletters
    Use newsletters when you need multiple pieces of fresh curated content all put together in one place. Remember that newsletters should include the latest in industry trends and data from the previous week, fortnight or month. Along with curated content, a good newsletter will include a note from the editor, original articles, calls-to-action and information on how to contact you.
  3. E-mails
    Though email has often been prematurely declared dead and irrelevant, there are marketing tactics that live on. Curated content can be used in email marketing. You can charm your subscribers with interesting and quality curated content sent straight to their inboxes. Share links to your blogs and social network profiles in the mail. You will only earn more loyal subscribers.

There are three main challenges you face while creating original content – paucity of time, inability to create sufficient amount of content and inability to create engaging content. Curated content can help you overcome all these challenges effectively.

Are you curating yet?

Author’s Bio: Jessica Davis has a keen interest in social media and content marketing, and writes about it extensively. She represents Godot Media – a leading content development company.