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7 Effective Ways To
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10 Semi-Legit Ways to Grow Your
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COVER STORY
How to Start a Blog That Makes Money (Lessons Learned)
7 by Lars Lofgren
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How To Launch Your Own Facebook Group And Get Loyal Fans
87 by Daniela Uslan
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magazine.
Not only does it give you a great creative outlet, but it can also generate extra income
for you on the side.
It wasn’t always like this. But using a few proven systems, it grew from a tiny little
site with a few articles to an income generating powerhouse.
If there’s one step you want to get right, it’s this one.
Choosing your blog’s topic (or niche) determines the rest of the website’s future.
This is what you’re going to be writing about and — hopefully — making money from.
I have good news: The world is HUGE. That means there’s practically an audience
out there for any topic.
That being said, there are some topics that tend to perform better than others. You
need to find the topic that both appeals to a big audience while appealing to you.
To find the perfect blog niche, you’ll need to answer two questions:
This is the basis of your blog niche. After all, if you don’t love the topic, you’re not
going to want to write about it day-after-day.
• Talents. Is there something you’re naturally talented at? Maybe a sport, game,
or musical instrument.
• Knowledge and skills. What skills and knowledge have you built up over the
years? Maybe there’s something you went to school for that you can write about
now. Think academic subjects or skills like languages and car repair.
• Career. Your current career can be a fantastic place to write about. For example,
if you’re a developer for a startup, you can start blogging about front-end
development or the tech industry.
• Interests. Is there a topic you just love learning about? Think about the things
you do in your free time. Maybe it’s reading books, or working on your fantasy
novel, or repairing that old car in your garage. This can be great topics to write
about in your blog.
ACTION STEP: Write down 10–15 topics you’re interested in. Pull up a Word document
or sheet of paper and actually write this down. It’ll help you keep your ideas focused.
Plus, you can refer back to it later when you make your final decision.
You need to find out what other people are interested in as well. Otherwise, you
might find yourself with a blog that doesn’t draw in a lot of people.
On the other hand, a blog about how to take care of and train dogs appeals to a
much bigger audience of readers.
That begs the question: What topics are people interested in? Here are a few popular
categories that always do well:
• Personal finance
• Fitness
• Online business
• Investing
• Productivity
• Real estate
• Careers
• Test prep
• Freelancing
Pro tip: Use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to see how often people search for a
specific category or niche. It’ll reveal what people are and aren’t interested in.
ACTION STEP: Take a look at your list from before. Do any of them fall under these
categories? If not, that’s okay! There’s probably still an audience out there for one of
your topics.
For now, I want you to choose a topic from your list that you want to turn into a blog.
Once you do, you’re going to make it even more specific and niche it down.
For example, you might want to start a personal finance website. Niching it down
might mean you make a personal finance website for millennials making $100,000
a year. Or for thirty-somethings who want to retire early. Or whatever else
• Bad news: Most of the very “best” domain names are already taken.
• Good news: That doesn’t matter because we’re going to find the best one for
you.
After all, the Internet has been around for decades now. Of course the best domain
names are already taken.
But that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find a perfect one for your blog.
Here are a few good rules-of-thumb to keep in mind when choosing a good name:
• Keep it short. Don’t force potential visitors to have to type a bunch of words to
visit your website. We recommend no more than 14 characters.
• Choose a .com, .org, or .net. These are the easiest ones for people to remember.
• Easy to spell and pronounce. You don’t want to spell it out constantly for people
when you mention your blog’s domain.
• Avoid numbers and hyphens. Not only does it look clunky in the URL but it’s
also difficult to type out when you add hyphens.
• Use your name. It’s pretty likely that your name is available as a domain. That
makes it the perfect choice for a personal blog. I’ll speak more on this later.
• Use a blog name generator. If you need domain name ideas check out this
post about the best blog name generators for some ideas. You might not find
the perfect domain name but you’ll get plenty of inspiration from it.
When you come up with a domain you like, head to BlueHost to see if it’s available
using their domain tool. If it is, great! If not, you now have two options:
1. Search until you find an available domain. I highly recommend you do this until
you find a domain that’s available.
already has it, that’s an advanced option and can get expensive fast. Low-quality
domains will usually go for a few thousand dollars. Highly quality domains that
are two words can easily go for $10,000 to $50,000. I’ve even been in discussions
to purchase domains for over $100,000 and the really hot ones can break seven
figures. Not to mention all the hassle that comes from finding the person who
owns the domain, negotiating with them, and transferring the domain if you can
get an agreement.
Your best bet is to keep going until you find a domain that you like and can purchase
directly from a domain registrar for about $10.
We go into lots of detail on which domain registrar to use here. But I highly suggest
you buy a web host that allows you to register a domain for free. That means going
with BlueHost.
The reason is that changing your domain later will mean that you have to start over
from scratch. There are a lot of mistakes in blogging that can be corrected later;
having the wrong domain isn’t one of them.
Let’s say you pick a domain like fitnessfordoctors.com. Then after six months, you
realize you’d rather be doing personal finance blogging for doctors. You’d need to
get a new domain and start over from scratch.
Personal domains are much more flexible — it’s just a name after all. So if you
jump categories after a few months, it’s not a big deal. Take down any old content
that’s not relevant with your new direction, start posting new content, and you’re
good to go.
1. Scalability. It’s much more difficult to recruit other writers or grow your blog
beyond your personal identity later on.
2. Sellability. Personal blogs, even if they’re generating serious cash, are much harder
to sell. Prospective buyers want a site that isn’t dependent on a single person.
These are pretty advanced problems to have though. So if this is your first blog, the
benefits of using your name as the domain greatly outweigh the costs that only
show up down the road.
While it’s important to pick a good, brandable domain name, the most important
thing to do in this step is to make a decision and go. You don’t want to be stuck in
the dreaded state of “paralysis by analysis.” Instead, just choose one based on the
system above and run with it.
Go deeper: Want to learn more about this topic? Check out our article on how to buy
the right domain name.
People who visit your website do so through this server. So as you can imagine, it’s
pretty important.
We went through all the main hosts for WordPress sites (by far the best tool for
blogging) and put together our recommendations here.
While there are a few other choices it really comes down to two options:
For your first blog, you want a host that is popular, trusted, easy to use, reliable, and
reasonably priced. No need for anything fancy.
(when using our discount link). That’s a steal considering how many positive reviews
it gets.
For the vast majority of folks starting blogs, BlueHost is going to be the best bet for
hosting their blog.
WP Engine comes with a lot of extra hosting features for security and scalability.
For sites of that size, you end up having to do a lot more maintenance in order to
keep the site healthy. WP Engine handles all that stuff for you. Their support team
is also world-class. They do a great job.
But there’s a major downside: it’s more expensive. The lowest plans start at
$30/month. This is 7X the price of other hosts.
You can’t really go wrong with any of the options. If you’re just starting out and
would like very affordable, yet reliable web hosting, BlueHost is perfect.
If you’d like something with a bit more scalability, WP Engine is the one for you.
Years ago, there were a few competitors to WordPress like Joomla, Typepad, or
Blogger.
This is going to sound kind of bad but whenever I hear of someone using one of
those old WordPress competitors, I just laugh. It’s hard to take them seriously.
Because of how popular WordPress is, most web hosts offer a one-click install for
WordPress. It’s super easy.
WordPress theme
One of the best parts about WordPress is that it’s really easy to change the way
your website looks.
WordPress uses “themes,” little packages of code that can be swapped in and out.
Whenever you change your theme, your site will also change but your blog content
stays the same.
This makes it very easy to evolve your site over time without having to rebuild your
entire site from scratch.
The number of themes out there makes me dizzy. There are… a lot.
When picking a theme for any of my blogs, I go straight to StudioPress. The themes
are a bit more expensive at $130. (Most themes go for $20–50.) But it’s totally
worth it.
StudioPress was purchased by WP Engine and WP Engine now includes all the
StudioPress themes as part of its hosting package. It’s a nice freebie if you are
already planning on hosting your site with WP Engine.
After you purchase your theme, log into your WordPress blog, go to the Theme
section which is under Appearance in the WordPress sidebar menu. Then follow
the instructions for adding the theme.
You’ll have to upload the theme files to WordPress and activate the theme from
within WordPress. You can find the upload option by going to Themes > Add New,
a button towards the top. Then you’ll see this option to upload:
The easiest way to make changes is with plugins. Plugins are little batches of
software you can install within WordPress to get extra functionality. This is how
you’ll add a bunch of extra features to your site without having to code anything
yourself.
Some bloggers will install dozens or even hundreds of plugins on their blog. That
can cause a bunch of problems later on.
security liability since it’s unlikely that every plugin owner will maintain the plugin
over time. They also become a huge headache to manage.
When you have that many plugins, you’re never sure which plugin is causing a
particular problem.
• Yoast SEO – The most highly recommended SEO plugin, it handles a bunch
of SEO tasks automatically for you and also makes on-page SEO tasks a lot
easier.
• Contact Form 7 – The most popular contact form out there. Set up a contact
page on your site and then use this plugin to create a contact form that will
email you any time someone fills out the form. Super easy.
• MailChimp for WordPress – More on this below. It’s the easiest way to connect
your WordPress site to a MailChimp account, create an email sign up form, and
start collecting email subscribers.
• WordPress Popular Posts – Easiest way to add a list of your most popular
posts to your blog sidebar. The list will update automatically.
• See what blog posts and pages are receiving the most visits
Which is why we’re going to ignore the majority of what’s in Google Analytics for
now.
All you need to do is create a Google Analytics account and install it on your blog.
First, Google Analytics stores your data over time. When you’re ready to dive in later,
you’ll be thankful that you’ve been collecting data since the beginning.
Second, it’s exhilarating to watch people visit your site in the beginning. I remember
the first time Google Analytics recorded a visitor on my first blog. I thought it was a
mistake. “Someone visited my site? Really? Why would they do that? Who are they?
Did they like it?”
Seeing those first visitors come in will give you a huge motivation boost. Even if you
only check Google Analytics to see your total traffic, it’s well worth the time it takes
to set up.
It’s also pretty easy to set up. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help:
If you’re not logged into a Google account, it’ll ask you to login to your Google account.
If you have one, do so. If not, create one and login with that.
Don’t worry about the boxes with the checkmarks for now. You can always change
them later.
It’ll now ask you to fill in some details about your website including its name, the
URL, your industry category, and your timezone.
Voila! That’s it. You are now tracking Google Analytics for your website.
And there’s a good reason for that: Email lists are the best marketing tool. Period.
Think of your email list as a giant laser ray you can focus on any offer you want.
Selling consulting? Pitch your list.
Of all the marketing channels that have come and gone over the years, nothing
compares to the power of a high-quality email list.
thing is you start gathering a list of subscribers and build the foundation early.
Using Constant Contact or other email marketing services, start collecting emails
on your blog so that the list is ready for you as soon as you need. It takes time to
build a decent size list so your future self will be extremely grateful if you set it up
now.
Even a super basic opt-in in your blog sidebar is enough to get you started.
Don’t even worry about sending any emails yet unless you want to. The main thing
is that you’re collecting email subscribers from the beginning. Email lists can be a
gold mine once you have a few thousand subscribers, and the money really rolls in
once you have 10,000 subscribers and above.
The best bloggers settle into a consistent writing pace they can maintain for a few
years. That’s right, years.
• At the bare minimum, find a way to post once per week. This needs to be a
substantial post, too: 2,000 words at least. I recommend you start here.
• Larger sites quickly get to 5-7 posts per week. This requires multiple authors.
• The heavy hitters who push things to the limit will do 25-50 posts per week.
No joke, this is for large businesses using content marketing as their primary
customer acquisition channel. HubSpot is a classic example of this.
A few takeaways: 14% of bloggers post monthly. But let’s get real, monthly isn’t
really consistent enough for your readers to anticipate a new blog post from you.
If you post weekly, you’re already posting more regularly than 37% of other blogs —
this gives you a huge advantage.
I know writing isn’t easy. After writing blog posts full time for three months, I always
want to throw my MacBook out the window. It’s a grind for all of us. This is why I
recommend starting at one post per week.
That still gives you the majority of the week to focus on other aspects of your site
while also giving you a break from writing blog posts all the time.
A really great post should take you two days to complete. The first day is for research
and outlining, along with as much writing as you can complete. The second day is
for finishing the writing, proofreading, and publishing the post in WordPress.
Also, push quality as hard as you can. The key to building a site and traffic over
time is to write posts that are more valuable than what other people have already
published in your category.
There’s a super famous old article in blogging circles: 1,000 True Fans.
Basically, getting 1,000 true fans means you can fully support yourself. You can
quit your job, work from wherever you like, and be in complete control of your life.
All from hitting a very reasonable goal of 1,000 true fans.
With blogging, you’ll build your audience of 1,000 true fans slowly and consistently.
As long as you keep at it, you will get there. Typically, it takes a few years.
• On every post, push on quality as hard as you can. Google the topic and see
what other people have done, then ask yourself how you can write something
even better.
• Write stuff that hasn’t been written to death already. Find a new take or
perspective on your topics that other people haven’t already covered.
• Find your voice and be authentic so people can get to know you. This builds
connections with your audience faster. A quick hack for this is to pretend that
you’re writing your posts to a close friend.
• To push even harder, get active in other online communities. Post in Facebook
groups, subreddits, on Twitter, do podcast interviews, get speaking engagements
when you can – anything and everything. Be as helpful as you can be in these
communities.
• For all of your content, constantly ask yourself, “How can I make this as valuable
as possible?
you grow.
• Affiliate programs. You work with a brand to promote their products and you
get a cut of any sales.
• Freelancing and consulting. You use your blog as a platform to find clients and
customers for your own services.
3. Once they’re an email subscriber, run them through a launch funnel. These are
email funnels specifically designed to sell infoproducts. Usually, these are courses
that include a bunch of video lessons.
4. Depending on your volume and target market, you’ll convert about 0.5% to 1% of
new email subscribers into a customer at a price of $500-$2,000 for your course.
At volume, that adds up fast.
Second, it helps to be in the right category. People want money, status, and
relationships.
When your audience clicks through the link of that recommendation, they get a
special tracking code. If they end up purchasing, you get a cut of the sale.
The main downside is that only a small percentage of people will ever click through
and an even smaller percentage of people will purchase. So it really helps to have a
massive amount of traffic in order to make enough money from your blog.
That’s why I believe freelancing and consulting is the best way for beginners to start
making money fast blogging.
To make money quickly, this is by far your best option. It’s also the easiest to do.
When I worked at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, our freelancing programs taught
thousands of people how to get started freelancing. What always blew me away
was how life-changing those first few freelancing gigs are.
larslofgren.com and got a few freelancing clients doing it. I’ll never forget that first
$100 payment sent via PayPal. The amount sounds so small now, but the real impact
was knowing that I personally produced that income myself.
Guess how much traffic that personal blog of mine has? Only a few thousand visitors
per month, spread across about 20 blog posts.
Anyone can create a blog that size and use it for freelancing lead generation. It’s
enough to build a client base that pays you $3,000 to $5,000 per month. That’s
enough to quit your job. That’s life-changing.
And it’s a much easier goal to hit than a full-ramped affiliate or infoproduct marketing
machine. You always have the option to build that stuff later anyway.
• Books – Great for marketing. Adds a ton of credibility to your brand. But you
won’t feel the impact on revenue at all.
• Events – I loathe events with every fiber of my being. All the risk is front-loaded,
all contracts get locked up ahead of time, they’re a pain to sell, and you don’t
even know if you’ll make any money until right before the event. Even if you do
make money, the margins are terrible. For me, these are complete distractions
and a huge opportunity cost for the business.
• Banner ads (Google Ads, formally Adsense, for example) – The last time these
made any decent money was around 2003. These days, I’m not even sure it’s
possible to get banner ads to cover your hosting bill. I’m only partially joking.
builder. And while it sounds amazing to get paid $20,000 per speaking gig, it’s
not nearly as amazing once you learn most speakers never get paid, it takes
months worth of work to create a talk that commands that kind of fee, you really
need a New York Times Bestseller in order to charge real fees, and you’ll get
so sick of hotel rooms after the first year that you’ll never want to travel again.
Do speaking gigs when good opportunities come up; don’t build a business on
them.
Don’t let this discourage you though. The important thing is that you get started
building your blog and writing. Do it consistently and stick to the system, and you’ll
find that success comes quicker than you think.
LAST ACTION STEP: Keep Growing! Read articles on how to start and grow a
successful blog
I won’t talk about obvious email finding methods here. I’m going to assume that
you’ve already checked contact pages and “about” sections on social media without
luck.
1. Use 2. Make
email lookup your best guess
services (and test it)
3. Use 4. Subscribe
Twitter’s to your target’s
advanced search mailing list
7. Find
email addresses
at scale
Email discovery tools provide perhaps the easiest way to find an email address.
Just feed them a person’s name and website, and they’ll work their magic to find
their email.
There are hundreds of these tools on the market, and some are better than others.
To keep this post up to the date, each year, I take popular email lookup services and
search for 100 email addresses that I already know.
• Hunter: 50 free searches per month. Paid accounts start at $49/month for
1,000 searches ($0.049 per search).
• Find That Email: 50 free searches per month. Paid accounts start at $29/month
for 500 searches ($0.058 per search).
• Voila Norbert: 50 free searches as a trial. Paid accounts start at: $49/month for
1,000 searches ($0.049 per search).
• Clearbit Connect: Chrome extension. 100 searches per month. Free access.
• Skrapp: 150 free searches per month. Paid accounts start at $34/month for
1000 searches ($0.034 per search)
Their Chrome extension is free and does not limit the number of searches.
It has just one drawback: you can’t search email addresses in bulk.
Hunter, Find That Email, and Voila Norbert showed very similar results and share
the second place with a success rate of ~80%.
FindThatLead also performed well with a success rate of 71%. Considering the price
of $0.01 per search, it’s potentially an excellent solution for big outreach campaigns.
SIDENOTE. This is the fourth time that I’m running a test for email lookup
services. If you’re curious about last years results, check them out here.
While email discovery services offer a good solution for finding emails, they’re not
perfect.
If you want to learn a few more effective ways to find an email address, keep reading.
If you know the first name, last name, and domain of your target, you can simply
guess someone’s email address.
Around 70% of my contact list consists of email addresses that use the name@
domain.com format.
Format Example
First name tim@ahrefs.com
First name + last name tim.soulo@ahrefs.com
timsoulo@ahrefs.com
First name + the 1st letter of their last name tims@ahrefs.com
tim.s@ahrefs.com
The 1st letter of their first name + last name tsoulo@ahrefs.com
t.soulo@ahrefs.com
Initials ts@ahrefs.com
So here’s a shortcut:
These tools will get you a list of possible email addresses in seconds.
Head over to Gmail, click the “Compose” button and paste all the email permutations
into the “To” field. Move the cursor over the email address one by one and observe.
A pop-up will show you if the email address is associated with a Google profile.
If this does not help, you can run another check by searching for the exact
match of your best guess on Google or another search engine to see if it
was mentioned anywhere on the Web.
Go to the Twitter Advanced Search and look for the words “at” and “dot” in tweets
from your target person. You can also include words like “email,” “contact,” or “reach”
in your search to narrow down the results.
GOTCHA!
Some people don’t even bother ciphering their email addresses in their tweets.
Most newsletter emails will come from their personal email address.
Just reply to one of the newsletter emails with a quick question or ask for an opinion.
I signed up for Brian Dean’s newsletter and replied to the first email I got.
PRO TIP
But if you reply to these, the person might reply from their personal email
address.
on Twitter
I’ve seen plenty of contact pages where people say that the best way to reach them
is to drop them a line on Twitter.
But generally, the message you want to send is more than 280 characters long.
So don’t hesitate to find that person on Twitter and ask for their email address.
Just make sure you have a real Twitter profile that clearly states who you are.
Just shoot a simple message and ask them to connect you with the person you
want to reach.
IMPORTANT
This works best if your email signature clearly explains who you are.
If you’re using a VA to collect email addresses for you, make sure that their
signature mentions you as their boss. J
Head over to our Content Explorer and search for the topic you’re interested in.
If the article specifies the author, Content Explorer will show you their name.
=REGEXEXTRACT(C2,”^(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:[^@\n]+@)?(?:www\.)?([^:\/\n]+)”)
Now that you have the domains and the authors’ names, you can upload the list to
your favorite email lookup tool, e.g., Hunter.
PRO TIP
You can use Hunter for Sheets add-on to find emails in bulk quickly.
I’m begging you once again! Use these methods responsibly. Don’t make people
that you’re reaching out to hate me for writing this article. J
And if you know any other good ways to find someone’s email address, ping me on
Twitter or drop me an email. I’d love to learn them!
to Facebook Shops
(With Examples)
customers.”
Facebook Shops are an easy, free way to start generating revenue directly from the
largest social networks in the world. Here we’ll help you understand how Facebook
Shops work and how to set up your Shop, and we’ll offer some inspiration from
three small businesses that are taking advantage of the best features Shops have
to offer.
Facebook shop tab) was rolled out in 2016 and is the predecessor of Facebook Shops.
Eventually, all Facebook Page shops will be converted to Facebook Shops. While
the old Facebook Page shop offered some of the same features as the new Shop
tool, there are also some key differences.
For example, the old Page shop wasn’t customizable to fit your brand, and it didn’t
integrate into your main page (you had to install a “shop” tab, and visitors had to
click it to get to your products). Also, you couldn’t automatically create a similar
shop on Instagram or integrate it with WhatsApp and Messenger.
Overall, the new Shops are easier to manage and offer a more seamless, unified
experience for the shopper.
There are fees if you wish to allow customers to complete their transactions in your
Facebook Shop (as opposed to heading to your website). To do that, you’ll need to
use Checkout, Facebook’s payment-processing product, and they’ll collect 5% of
your total shipment for a flat fee of $.40 for shipments under $8.
The good news is that Facebook is waiving those fees until the end of 2020. So you
can give Checkout a try and decide if it will be worth a 5% hit to your bottom line
when fees kick in.
Facebook Shops make it easy and cost-effective for even the smallest business to
create an attractive online shopping experience for their customers. Here are a few
ways a small business can benefit from launching their own Shop.
You can build a Facebook Shop even if you don’t have an online store or use an
ecommerce platform.
You can display products, answer customer questions, and collect a payment, all
from your Shop.
If you do have an online store and use an ecommerce platform like Shopify, you can
sync it with your Shop. That way, updates to inventory, pricing, and so on that you
make in Shopify will be automatically reflected in your Facebook Shop.
First, after a shopper has made their first purchase through Checkout, their payment
and shipping details auto-fill for any other vendor also using Checkout.
Second, shoppers can float from one app to the next and continue their shopping
process. So if your customer sees a product on Instagram and places it in their cart,
they can complete the purchase later on Facebook.
Customers can find your Shop through popular Facebook app features.
People interact with Facebook and Instagram in lots of different ways. Facebook
Shops help you catch users’ attention no matter how they use those platforms.
collections, and a Shop link on your you sell on a Facebook Live Video and
Business Page or Instagram profile: Instagram Story:
The shopping search tabs are basically the shopping mall of Facebook and
Instagram. You don’t need to do anything to have your products featured there. Like
most things Facebook, their algorithm will surface products that a visitor is likely
interested in, based on prior activity.
• are on a laptop or desktop (you can’t set up your Shop from a mobile device).
Facebook’s Commerce Manager is where you’ll set up and manage your Shop.
Navigate to Commerce Manager to start the process.
The first thing you’ll select is where you want customers to complete their purchase:
process:
In the Business Information section, you’ll give your business a name and connect it
to your Facebook Manager account. If you don’t have a Facebook Manager account,
no worries. Learn how to create and use one.
Continue on to the Inventory and Shipping Preferences section. Here, you’ll create
a catalog, set delivery options, and add a return policy.
and email addresses, add a business category (e.g., clothes, services), include your
location and tax information, and link your bank account.
Congrats! Your Shop is now set up. It’s time to add products and customize your
Shop so it perfectly aligns with your brand.
Add products
There are several ways to start building your catalog of products in your new
Facebook Shop.
If you’re starting fresh, no problem. You can add products to your Shop manually,
in bulk, or through an API . Just create a catalog to hold your products. Then, add
products to it.
If you already had products loaded to an existing Facebook Page shop or used
Instagram product tags, you don’t need to do anything. Those products will be
available for your new Shop.
If you have an ecommerce store on a platform like Shopify, you’ll be able to import
your products directly to your Facebook Shop. You just need to set up the Facebook
Shop channel in Shopify.
if you like.
Click “Next” to start placing products in your new collection. You can add from 6 to
30 products in each collection.
Any product in your catalog is available to be added to your collections, and a single
product can appear in multiple collections. A ball cap, for example, could be in your
“headwear” collection and your “top seller” collection.
Click “Next” again and review your collection. Click “Confirm” to tell Facebook your
collection is ready to review. As long as your collection meets Facebook’s commerce
policies, it should be approved in about a day.
Until Facebook released Shops, you didn’t have many options for branding your
Business Page. You were just stuck with the Facebook color scheme. Now, Shops
allow you to customize your store’s design to give it a personalized feel.
To get started, click “Shops” in Commerce Manager and “Edit” on the right.
On the top left, you’ll see a “Layout” and “Style” buttons. Layout is where you’ll add,
remove, or reorder collections. Style lets you edit the size and alignment of all titles,
change the color of the buttons and links, and change the shape and outline of
buttons.
Gunnar Kennels
Gunner Kennels makes ultra-tough dog kennels to keep your four-legged family
members safe while in transit.
Facebook allows you to take more than one product from your Shop in an organic
post. Take a look at how Gunner Kennels incorporated an unexpected second item,
a branded ball cap, in this organic post.
Also, notice the Shop tag in the original post. That tells visitors they can click and
go to an image with more information. From there, the shopper can pick a product
from the photo and save it, share it, or buy it from the Gunner Kennels website.
The business has created collections of their products, which are featured
prominently in their Shop.
Even better, The Tiny Tassel wrote a brief description of the collection. Visitors will
know that each item in the group offers something a little extra special: it was was
“handmade by mom.”
The business has done a couple of things to make it really easy for their customers
to shop and buy. First, Ink Meets Paper used the button on the front of their Business
Page to lead right to the Facebook Shop (many companies use that button to direct
visitors to their website.). Then, the company incorporated Checkout so a visitor
can make a purchase without leaving Facebook.
And since they’ve used Facebook’s Checkout, Ink Meets Paper’s customers won’t
have to fill out their details every time they make a purchase. That reduces all the
friction from logging into different websites or filling out “guest checkout” details
over and over again.
Facebook Ads
Opening a Facebook Shop without advertising it is like throwing a party and not
sending invitations. Luckily, Facebook offers several ways to show off your new
Shop in ads.
To get started promoting your Shop, make sure you have a solid ad strategy. Then,
test multiple ad types to see which work best with your audience.
This post answers that question. Then it goes into some practical tips to grow your
Twitter following, including some of the more spammy tactics. Yes, we’re going to
step over to the dark side of social media.
Quick disclaimer: before you scorch me, please understand that this post is informational
only. These are not recommendations or judgements.
Surprised? I was.
The statistical relationship is very weak. Only 10% of the accounts that tweet a
lot are growing fast.
In 35% of cases, Twitter accounts that get retweeted a lot are also the accounts
that grow fast. This suggests that being engaging does help.
Size matters a lot. The size of the following has a powerful relationship with the
follower growth rate, much more than any other factor. Twitter accounts with
large followings are the fastest growing accounts in 96% of cases.
A large following is social proof. It’s evidence of legitimacy, even if that following is
How to get more Twitter Followers
No one checks for fake followers before clicking the follow button, right?
Regardless of the reason, it’s clear that big accounts grow faster.
So it’s a chicken and egg problem. The key to getting more followers is to have a
large Twitter following. But how do you get followers in the first place?
Here are ten ways to grow your Twitter following, from sketchy and spammy to
human and high-touch.
When you follow someone or favorite a tweet, you appear in their notifications.
Some of them will notice you, check you out and follow you back.
These two activities, following and favoriting others, will gradually grow your account,
How to get more Twitter Followers
but it’s slow …unless you automate it with a robot. Here are two tools for automating
Twitter activity, so you can do social media without actually being social!
Note: We don’t use these tools. We aren’t recommending them. We are simply explaining
one type of social media automation.
That last one keeps your following / followers ratio in balance. So your account
looks less spammy.
But these accounts are still easy to spot: lots of followers, the followers and following
numbers are almost the same …and often and there are very few tweets.
If you’re simply trying to grow your following, you’re actually looking for spam
accounts like these. Follow them and they’ll follow back.
Of course, these tools will win you a mostly irrelevant, unengaged following. Not
very social, but hey, it was easy, right?
Rating: Sketchy
Spend a little time on Twitter every day and simply follow a bunch of people. Look
for these Twitter users:
• Anyone who looks likely to follow back (they have a close follower/following
ratio)
If the manual approach gets boring, you can find someone on Fiverr to do it for you.
Here’s a way to create artificial fame. Use your new autofollow/followback robots
to build up a large following of maybe 100k+ accounts. Then, on a sunny morning…
unfollow everyone!
It’s known as the “mass unfollow” and here’s what it looks like. It’s also common on
Instagram, not just Twitter.
Now, at a glance, you’ll appear to be loved by thousands …but you are quite picky
about who you follow. You must be a rockstar. Put a velvet rope around your phone.
Interesting read: Chris Brogan (legitimate influencer and thought leader) did this
How to get more Twitter Followers
back in 2011, partly as an experiment and partly to reduce direct message spam.
He wrote about his experience here.
Now let’s move on to some more legitimate ways to grow a Twitter following.
You’re trying to be more visible. To stand out. They won’t follow you if they don’t
notice you.
These are our best tips for social media profile pictures. Here’s a quick summary for
visibility in Twitter, where competition for attention is fierce:
The Twitter interface is dominated by cool colors (blues in the logo and UX) so
warm colors stand out (red, orange and yellow). So a picture with
Be a person, if at all possible. Show your face and smile big for the camera.
Uploaded logos should have a square (1×1) aspect ratio. Upload a wide logo
and it might be legible on your profile page, but too small to see in streams,
where it’s squished down to 50 x 50 pixels or even 20 x 20 pixels in some
places.
Put those together and you have a hierarchy for visual prominence in Twitter profile
pictures. The profile pics at the top stand out much more, don’t they?
Once you’ve got your profile picture optimized for visual prominence, work on your
header image. Make it non-boring. That means interesting, clever, unexpected,
helpful or funny. And make sure it looks professional.
A lot of Twitter bios are just “About Us” content. That’s fine. But boring, maybe. Here
are three ways to write a bio that grows your following:
Some Twitter bios actually give people a reason to follow you. It tells them specifically
what they’re going to get. Names the topics while adding a little credibility. A Twitter
bio can be a little CTA.
Another reason to write a descriptive bio is SEO. You can optimize your bio, making
it more likely to appear in Twitter searches, by adding relevant keywords. Make sure
a few keyphrases are in there. And make sure to add your city, if possible.
Twitter is still a research tool for a lot of users. Imagine you’re a prospect or journalist,
looking for you. How do you search? What do you find?
For this, I have no evidence or research. But I do have common sense. Hashtags within
bios aren’t likely to help your bio get found. They are really just little opportunities to
leave your bio page. They’re actually competing with the follow button.
I’m all in for a hashtag (maybe two) on a tweet. But this isn’t a social post, it’s your
bio. Hold the hashtags, please.
If you’re actively watching the streams, you know which posts get engagement.
If you schedule your tweets using a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer, check the analytics.
We don’t really care about clicks or traffic here. We’re just looking for visibility and
follower growth.
You’ll probably find that a lot of the most engaging posts don’t even include links.
They are sometimes just little tips or inspirational quotes
Keep tweeting these. Keep ‘em in rotation. And pin the best one to the top of your
stream.
7. Tweet more
Now that you’re using data to decide what to share, this next tip will have huge
value: increase your frequency.
There is no upper limit (that I know of) for how often to tweet. I know one marketer
who tweets every 15 minutes. I know the guy. He has a huge following (500K+) and
I asked him about frequency. He told me his goal is website traffic and that after
testing, he learned that more is better.
That doesn’t mean you can set it and forget it. You still need to be there to engage
with people who engage with your content. You still need to amplify.
“You have to have it open. You can’t dive in and dive out. The way
to grow a following is to be conversational and to add value to
interesting, real-time conversations. You can’t do that if you post
once a day at noon.“
And beyond using Twitter for short posts, here’s a tip for bigger engagement through
bigger content, right on the Twitter platform:
When you share something, whether you wrote it or not, share it with people who
will love it. Twitter is a great way to find people with extremely specific interests.
If you wrote a post about personal branding, mention people with “personal branding”
in their bio. They’ll likely thank you for it! They’re very likely to share it and follow you
back.
Let people know you’ve active on Twitter by linking to your Twitter bio every chance
you get. Here’s a quick list of places where you can link to your Twitter account.
• Your website
• Your presentations
As you use other networks, keep Twitter open and in mind. Enjoying a conversation
on another social media platform? Take a minute to find them on Twitter. There’s a
good chance they’ll be happy to connect.
These will likely be high quality connections, since they’re people you already interact
with.
This builds stronger connections to more relevant connections, the ones that matter
most in the end.
“Social followings are more than just a number. If you want a social
following that can make an impact on your business growth or
success, they need to actually be interested in you or your brand.
Otherwise, you have a bunch of followers who won’t convert.“
Would the world be a better place if you have 100k followers? Would it really help
your business? Your career? Your personal life?
Probably not.
Large Twitter followings are not usually very engaged audiences. And remember,
organic reach in social media is low (likely only 2% of followers see anything you
post in their stream).
A large following in Twitter is worth less than other platforms. Here is the cost-per-
post in paid influencer marketing. Only Facebook is lower.
They want us to play it like a game. That’s why they make the number of followers
look like a score.
But the most visible metrics aren’t always the most important. In fact, the easier a
metric is to see , the less impact it has on your business. We call that “Julian’s Law.”
In this post, we listed all of the content marketing metrics, from most visible/least
important to least visible/most important. Here’s a preview of that post:
…your followers are engaged. Twitter is a powerful source of traffic, but only
if your followers care enough to pay attention. If you have an auto-generated
following or robots, you’re unlikely to capture this benefit.
…you already have their attention. Generally speaking, some content creators
are more likely to be impressed and more likely to use you as a source. A large
following is “social proof” which lends credibility in a PR context. This is a
practical reason to want a large following.
But the real benefits of Twitter (and of all social media and the internet as a whole) is
the connections between people. It’s a powerful tool for research and networking, PR
and influencer marketing. On Twitter, you can find almost anyone you can imagine
and start a conversation.
Facebook Group
And Get Loyal Fans
by Daniela Uslan
And because your audience members are already on Facebook (Facebook addiction
is a real thing, people), they are far more likely to engage with you and your brand in
Facebook groups than they are on your blog.
With Facebook Live, you can now do live training right inside of your group.
You can also create original content that your members will actually see (unlike
Facebook page posts).
Your members will look up to you as a leader, both for the valuable content you
share, and for the relationships you help them forge.
And (possibly) best of all, Facebook sends people to your group organically – which
means that you will grow your email list (and your customer base) everyday, just by
having a valuable group.
You want to know who it’s for, what you’re going to provide in the group, and why
you’re starting one in the first place.
If you already have a handle on your ideal audience for your blog, that’s a great
place to start when creating your group.
If not, think about who you love connecting with in real life. If you could fill a room
with your favorite people, what would they have in common? Your group is kind of
like a party that never ends, and you want the right people hanging out on the dance
floor with you.
Also, keep in mind that your members must have a specific need in common.
Otherwise, you will struggle to find ways to create engagement with them.
My group, Blogging on Your Own Terms (editors note: group is no longer live),
provides bloggers with a place to share their posts, get advice, and connect with
other people who “get it.” Because many bloggers don’t know anyone else who blogs
in the “real world,” and because they always want a place to share their content,
bloggers actively look for Facebook groups.
What need can you fill for your audience members? (Hint: If you don’t know, ask
them.)
Whatever the reason, get clear about it before starting your group. And know that
running a Facebook group takes a lot of work. So make sure you’re really invested
in it.
Facebook requires you to add at least one other person to the group. I suggest
adding a close friend and then messaging them and letting them know what’s up.
Also, set it as a “Closed Group” so that you can regulate who comes in.
A label that your members relate to + the type of community you are creating.
Two examples of this are The Freelance to Freedom Project Community and The
Badass Solopreneur Society.
You can also name it based on your values, like Blogging on Your Own Terms or
Uncaged Lifers.
Once you’ve come up with a name (you can always change it later), create a header
for your group. The current dimensions are 801×250 pixels, but check out this post
for updated sizes.
Put your photo in the header to immediately establish yourself as the leader. And
don’t worry, just like your name, you can always change your header later if you want!
If you don’t want promotions, put that in the group description. If you want people
to share freely, let them know. Be as clear as you can in defining what is and isn’t
acceptable behavior.
Also, create a pinned post where you welcome new members and invite them to
introduce themselves.
My pinned post is “10 Things to do After Joining Blogging on Your Own Terms.” Other
Facebook group leaders have created videos where they outline group expectations.
Whatever you choose to use for your pinned post, remember, it’s your best chance
to welcome new members in and make them feel like part of the community.
Share about your group (where appropriate) in other Facebook groups. Email your
list about it. Write a blog post about it. Add it to your social media profiles.
Do whatever you can think of to spread the word that you’ve launched a brand new
fantastic Facebook group.
If you have Facebook friends whom you think would make ideal group members,
reach out to them and ask them if you can add them to the group as well. Don’t be
afraid to put yourself out there. Your group is a valuable resource, and you want as
many people to benefit from it as possible.
I waited a long time to start my Facebook group because I was afraid of not having
enough members in the beginning. Don’t let that hold you back. Small groups often
feel more intimate and get more engagement.
I follow these rules when deciding whether to allow someone into my group:
1. They need to have a Facebook account that’s at least a month old. (After all, how
many real people do you know who just joined Facebook?)
3. If those two things look questionable, I go and look at their profile to see how
many likes their recent posts have (the more the better) and what kind of things
they post.
If someone seems questionable, don’t let them in. Or message them and check
them out ahead of time. Your group quality is determined by the people inside, so
make sure they’re not spammers.
When people join with a specific purpose and a guided format for engagement, they
are much more responsive and ready to connect.
Reach out to a few members and ask them what they’re looking for in a Facebook
group. If possible, get on the phone with them and have actual conversations.
(Imagine that!)
Then invite them to become group leaders. Encourage them to ask questions and
start conversations. When other members see that you’re not the only one in there,
they will come out of the woodwork as well.
• Opportunities for them to get their content out there (like social media sharing
threads)
• Twitter chats
• Free challenges
Bonus tips: Create a special graphic for each recurring event. That way your members
can quickly find the graphic in the group photos. Plus, it will give your group a more
professional look.
You could even take things further by displaying the events on your blog. If you use
WordPress, check out this post on events management plugins by WP Superstars.
And, you could save time by using a social media scheduling tool to schedule posts
about these events in advance.
• Fill in the blank questions (like “Fill in the blank. I wish I could _____ right now.”)
Even if your prompts have nothing to do with the group topic, they will get your
members talking and connecting.
Plus, these questions will give your group members a chance to get to know you
better, which builds connection and trust with you and your brand.
If you ask a question, be sure to answer it yourself. If you want people to come
forward and be vulnerable or share their stories in the group, be sure to model that
behavior for them.
And if you want group members to show up everyday, make sure you are present in
the group on a daily basis as well.
Share your struggles (which helps people relate to you) and your successes (which
helps you stand out as an authority). And, if you have a good sense of humor, have
at it with the funny stories, too.
Also, demonstrate your expertise by writing posts that help your members take
action on their goals.
For example, if you create a group that helps people get organized, write a post
with “The 3 first steps to getting your desk organized” and then ask people to share
pictures of their desks below.
If you’re working with someone one on one and they tell you they’re loving it, gently
request that they put a post about it in the group.
If you’re promoting an offering, reach out to past customers and ask them to write
positive comments about your offering.
And then take screenshots of the comments to share in your emails to your list.
Then put the link to your landing page in your group description and in your pinned
post. Make it clear that they aren’t officially in unless they sign up on your email list.
If you use WordPress, you can easily create a landing page with a dedicated landing
page plugin. Alternatively, you could use a standalone landing page builder.
But you’re going to need some software to help you. Check out Blogging Wizard’s
post on webinar software to learn more.
When you do sell, create multiple posts to be scheduled out using Hootsuite, Buffer
or another social media tool. Your posts can each include a nugget of helpful content,
or they can count down and let people know how much time they have left to buy
your product.
Make sure to reach out to past purchasers to ask them to jump in and provide
honest testimonials. This will not only add social proof to your launch, it will also
move your post to the top of the group so that more people can see it.
Over to you
As you can see, Facebook groups are a natural way to build your authority and
connect with your audience in real time.
And, if you do them right, they will also get you paying customers and grow your
email list on a daily basis.
Your LinkedIn profile is an essential part of your personal brand, and having a great
one is a MUST if you plan to do any form of LinkedIn marketing or business building.
Sadly, that doesn’t mean much. All you need to do to reach LinkedIn’s All-Star status
is add something – anything – to the various sections of your profile without even
completing it. Yet, you still have the All-Star status, giving you a false sense of having
a professional presence on LinkedIn.
• your profile intrigues people, prompting them to want to learn more about you
• when you send connection requests to people, they are so impressed by your
profile that they are willing to accept your requests
• you are easily found when someone searches for what you do
Follow the steps in this article and infographic to create a professional, captivating
and optimized LinkedIn profile, transforming it into a lead generation magnet.
In fact, having a polished and professional profile is so vital that I recommend you
don’t start actively using LinkedIn for lead generation until you complete this step.
What do you think the first thing a prospective client does when they want to find
out more about you?
interested in learning more about you professionally, it’s likely your profile is the first
thing they will click.
Personal branding has become a hot topic, and your personal brand is reflected in
everything that shows up in Google search results and your social media profiles.
If you want your profile to stand out among nearly a billion other LinkedIn profiles,
these skills are vital. You need to know how to grab the attention of your ideal clients
with your profile and then convince them to click on it to read it.
them – your ideal clients. You do this by talking about their goals, their challenges
and their aspirations.
Before you can craft an effective, client-centric LinkedIn profile, you must know who
your ideal clients are.
A misconception you (and many) may still have about LinkedIn is that your profile
should be all about you, like your resume or professional CV. That’s fine if you are
seeking a job, but if you are using LinkedIn for business building, your profile should
be client-focused, speaking directly to the target market you want to reach.
People are much more interested in what you can do for them than they are in you
personally. They are thinking WIIFM – what’s in it for me?
Make sure you identify who your ideal clients are, the specific problems/challenges
they face and ways you can solve those challenges.
Establishing your authority is another important way of capturing and keeping the
attention of your ideal clients. Your apparent expertise or authority will cause them
to pay more attention to you than to others.
Another important strategy to keep in mind when re-writing your LinkedIn profile
is to make your profile interactive. An interactive profile will more easily persuade
a viewer to keep reading than a passive profile will. You can make your profile
interactive by adding multimedia in a number of key sections.
On LinkedIn, people tend to look for people rather than things or information as they
do on Google.
For example, on Google, someone may search for how to write a great LinkedIn
profile or LinkedIn profile examples.
marketing consultant.
When adding keywords throughout your profile, think about the words and keyword
phrases your ideal clients would use on LinkedIn versus what they would type into
a Google search.
Below this infographic, you will find more specific details on how to write your
LinkedIn profile, including what to add in each section. Be sure to read to the end if
you are committed to building a powerful personal brand and LinkedIn presence.
expand on some of the most important sections within your profile to ensure you
understand exactly what you need to do to have a professional presence that attracts
your target audience.
Your cover photo should not only reflect your personal brand but also inform people
of who you are and what you offer. Let your cover photo tell the story of who you are
and whom or how you help.
Ensure your profile image makes the right impression on your target audience.
Adding something other than your name in the name field violates LinkedIn’s Terms
of Service and can get your account restricted. LinkedIn’s Terms of Service state
it is unacceptable to add personal information, such as email addresses or phone
numbers, or to use symbols, numbers or special characters.
But beyond this breach of contract, using something other than your name makes
you harder to find, looks unprofessional and reduces your credibility.
To increase your chances of showing up in the search results, include one or two
keywords in your headline. But it is not enough to show up in the search results as
you will be competing with many other profiles there.
You must stand out to attract your ideal clients. You can achieve that by creating a
compelling statement to capture your readers’ attention and intrigue them enough
so they click on your profile to learn more about you.
A vanity URL replaces that random, full of letters and numbers, hard-to-remember
default link with a unique and clean link with only your name.
You should change the default URL to a vanity URL. If at all possible, select your
name for your vanity URL. If your name is not available, try adding a middle initial or
a designation at the end.
Instead of leaving the default description of your website field as “Company Website,”
customize it.
LinkedIn gives you three spots to include websites. If you have more than one
website, include up to three of them in this section. If you have only one website,
you can still take advantage of all three fields.
For example, one URL could go to your homepage, another to a service page, and
a third to your lead magnet landing page. This will encourage people to visit the
specific pages, where you can provide more information about your business.
Like in your headline, the first sentences of your About section need to catch the
attention of your ideal clients and pique their curiosity so they click the …See more
call to action to read your entire About section.
If you don’t grab their attention, they will click away, and opportunities will be lost.
You have a total of 2,600 characters to write a compelling and client-centric About
section.
For this reason, you should always write your About section in the first person.
(ideal clients—problem—solution)
Next, identify your ideal clients. You want to ensure that once your ideal clients land
on your profile, they realize you are someone who can help them solve their current
problem(s).
If you miss this part, they will be less likely to act after reading your profile. People
often have the best intentions when planning to follow up, yet they usually don’t.
Do you want them to call you or email you? Tell them exactly what they should do next.
The Featured section gives you an attractive and prominent visual opportunity to
highlight your most important features, services or news about your business. It
also makes your profile more visually appealing and provides interested viewers
with the opportunity to get more information about you.
Engagement helps get a conversation going, which helps build relationships and
trust.
Your most recent engagement with others is also visible on your LinkedIn profile
under the Activity section.
This makes it extremely easy for anyone viewing your profile to see just how active
or, rather, inactive you are on LinkedIn, which can influence their opinion of you and
how likely they are to reach out to you.
First, begin with a couple of paragraphs highlighting your company and showcasing
your business’s credibility and expertise.
Share the most compelling information about your company here. You can also
provide information that highlights the benefits clients receive when working with
you.
If it is relevant, you may also want to include any well-known clients or brands you’ve
worked with to enhance your social profile.
You can use the same call to action you used in the About section, or a variation of
it, and add it to the bottom of your Current Work Experience section.
A video is very effective in humanizing you and helping you build trust and connect
with your viewers. You can also include a product video, a company video or a
testimonial video.
provided or list them within one month of each other, LinkedIn will automatically
group them together. This allows you to showcase the different services you offer
with a description of each one.
Your Past Experience section does not require very detailed descriptions unless you
want to highlight the accomplishments of a certain position.
Did you know that members who list their skills on their profiles receive up to
17 times more profile views than those who don’t? In addition, a high number of
endorsements of your skills enhances your social proof of those skills.
Recommendations are a vital part of establishing trust and building your authority
and credibility on your profile. This is the most important form of social proof on
LinkedIn.
Don’t be afraid to ask for recommendations from people you have worked with and
who can speak to your expertise and results. Be sure to personalize your request
and provide ideas of what you would like them to write about.
• stands out
In this section, include content or resources you have created that are of value
to your ideal clients. These could include books, eBooks, reports, whitepapers or
articles you have written.
elevate your overall personal brand to ensure you make a good online impression.
If you found this article on how to write your LinkedIn profile helpful, please share it
via social media to help others succeed at LinkedIn marketing. ❤️
The first is using hyper-popular hashtags that get searched for most often. The good
part about using popular hashtags is that you know tons of people are searching
for them. And the bad part? Tons of people are searching for them. In other words,
get noticed.
The second strategy is to find and use hashtags that are commonly used for getting
more likes and follows (e.g., #like4like and #follow4follow). These will result in more
general followers, which can be great for connecting with a much wider audience.
The third and final strategy is to identify extremely relevant and specific hashtags
that will be more likely to get you targeted followers. These hashtags are the ones
most commonly used in your niche, and will be the ones your target market is most
likely to search for.
In my opinion, all of these strategies can work well. In fact, using them together is
the best way to get both optimal reach AND targeted followers.
Just keep in mind that there are always trending hashtags as well; consult
Hashtagify’s Top 30 Hashtags list regularly to find the top monthly and weekly
trending hashtags!
highly-relevant hashtags
your target market is using
If it’s quality of followers you’re focused on rather than quantity, there are three tools
I recommend for finding industry-specific hashtags you can use.
1. Use Hashtagify to find the top influencers in your niche. Go to the Top Influencers
tab, and search for industry-related keywords. The free version of Hashtagify will
reveal the top 6 influencers for those keywords. Now you can investigate to see
which hashtags those influencers are using.
2. Once you’ve identified some popular hashtags in your niche, use Keyhole to
identify related topics. How to do this: Go to Keyhole’s home page and enter in a
hashtag. Be sure to check off the Instagram icon (not Twitter), and then click the
Search Scroll down to find related hashtags and keywords you can use.
3. A relative newcomer to the scene, For Display Purposes Only is a tool that has
one purpose: to help you find popular hashtags related to your primary hashtag.
To find the most targeted hashtag results, type in several hashtags at a time.
What are some other top Instagram hashtags you use for gaining new followers?
Co-Founder/Strategic Director,
Orbit Media Studios
Andy Crestodina is a co-founder and the
Strategic Director of Orbit Media, an award-
winning 38-person web design company in
Chicago.
(With Examples!)
by Kristen McCormick
In this guide, I’m going to cover the importance of online customer reviews and
various scenarios that you can turn into opportunities to ask for reviews. Plus, I’ll
share some great examples of how to ask that you can adapt to your own business.
If that is not enough to get you to leave your comfort zone and start collecting
reviews for your own business, here are some more stats that might give you the
boost you need:
• Consumers see out reviews. According to Google, mobile searches for “reviews”
have increased by 35%, and searches for “best” have increased by 80%.
Only 18% of consumers say they don’t read online reviews. That means 82% of your audience
can be influenced by reviews written about your business.
• In person
• Over the phone (or via text)
• Through your website (ideally, a reviews page)
• Via email (email blast, personal email, company email, email signatures)
• Via social media (direct message or post)
• Via thank you pages
• On receipts/invoices
is coming in about your business. Multiple and recent reviews help earn you more
trust from customers and also help your business to rank higher in search results.
You: That is so great to hear. We really try our best to [do what you’re being
praised for]. And thank you so much for taking the time to provide your feedback.
Customer: For sure, thank you for providing such great service!
You: You know, those kinds of comments really help prospective customers to
feel more confident in choosing us. If you wouldn’t mind writing what you just
said in a quick review on [platform of your choice], that would be awesome.
• Is this your first time [using the product you’re about to purchase]?
• How is that [product you’re purchasing]? I’ve tried [a similar product] but I have
yet to try this one for myself.
In-person review requests are the most popular method. (Note: As we will mention later in this
post, we do not recommend asking in exchange for a discount, cash, or free gifts/services.)
Don’t force it
Important: Don’t ask for a review upon a customer’s first positive remark about your
business. This will render your conversation ingenuine and you will come off as
Instead, get a read on the customer. If their response is short and indicative that
they don’t feel like talking, don’t force it. If they respond positively and offer more
information or feedback, continue the conversation. As it comes to a close, ask
them for the review. For example:
“Well hey, thanks for the feedback. We love sharing that kind of stuff with
potential customers so they can feel more confident about choosing us. If
you’re comfortable with it, it’d be awesome if you could share any of what you
said to me in an online review.”
“I’m glad we were able to help you today and we so appreciate your business. We
would love it if you shared this experience on [link to the online review platform
of your choice]. Seeing glowing reviews from existing customers makes others
more comfortable knowing they’ll get the support they need should an issue
with our services arise.”
You’ll make your customer feel appreciated and valued which not only increases
customer loyalty but will also increase the chances of them actually giving you that
review.
Using email to ask for reviews is a solid approach for businesses. First of all, it’s
still a great channel for communicating with your customers: 91% of consumers
open their email on a daily basis, and 58% of consumers check their email before
doing anything else online. Second, you can include the link to the review platform
right in the email and even test out different formats and language. Here are three
approaches and examples of using email to ask customers for reviews.
Email blast
This is an email that would go out to your customer list. You may want to do one
broad email or segment it out as you see fit. This type of email could be as short
and simple as a 1-10 scale rating, or it could include some brief copy.
Hey everyone!
Positive reviews from awesome customers like you help others to feel confident
about choosing [business name] too. Could you take 60 seconds to go to [link
to review platform] and share your happy experiences?
Hey everyone,
Did you know that the number of [business name] fans has doubled in this year
alone? We must be doing something right! Let us know what keeps you coming
back for more. This enables us to continue providing the best experience
possible for you, and helps others understand how [ business name] can make
their life easier.
Thank you for your recent purchase. We hope you love it! If you do, would you
consider posting an online review? This helps us to continue providing great
products and helps potential buyers to make confident decisions.
Thank you in advance for your review and for being a preferred customer.
Nothing can make a customer feel quite as appreciated as when they receive a
personal email from the business owner. Choose a handful of loyal customers who
have done a great deal of business with you, or customers with whom you’re hoping
to cultivate lasting relationships, and send them a personal note thanking them for
their business and asking for the review.
Involve your employees in the process. Stress the importance of customer reviews
to your staff and ask that they send personal emails to customers. Let them know
that they would be personally contributing to the growth of your organization and
they’ll feel empowered to participate in the initiative.
Note: Be sure to keep email correspondence short and sweet. People are busy and
you’re already asking them to take the time to write a review—don’t make them read
a two-page letter about it!
Here are two short and sweet ways to request reviews or feedback in your after-
purchase thank you pages:
“Thank you for your purchase! If you enjoyed your shopping experience, tell us
(and others) about it!”
“Thank you for your purchase! If you are happy with your [new product], please
take a minute to review it here [link to review platform].”
Chewy’s email is a great example of providing the actual items the customer
purchased and a link to review each. And I particularly like this one by Biscutteers
because they include others’ reviews. This helps give customers a starting point so
they’re not starting from scratch, while also boosting their own reputation.
“If you find our information to be helpful, write a review! Reviews help us to not
only improve our products and services but also to let others know that we
care about delivering the best quality.”
“Could others benefit from [business, product, or service name]? Let them know
by writing a review!”
If you offer downloadable content or tools, you could include a review request in
your landing page or thank you page as with this example:
If you do a lot of B2B work, consider your vendors and partners for reviews. Other
business owners understand the value of a review, and leaving one on their website
or listing may be enough to get one from them without even asking.
However, there are opportunities to ask for reviews from them as well. If you find
yourself in a meeting with a client or a business partner, don’t be afraid to simply
say,
“Mr. Smith, I really have enjoyed working with you on this project and value
your insight. Would you be willing to share your experience with our company
by contributing a short review for our testimonial page?”
Or
“Positive feedback from not just customers, but also the partners we work with
really helps us to continue attracting more great customers and partners such
as yourself. If you wouldn’t mind leaving a review, we would really appreciate
that.”
page in text form (as opposed to screenshot or image). This is because reviews are
often packed with important keywords that can boost your SEO, but Google won’t
pick up on these words if they’re in image form.
Include a card in your product packaging: With a design tool like Canva, you can
easily create little cards that encourage reviews. The card can say something like:
• “Got feedback? We’d love to hear it! You can leave us a review at [link].”
Add a review option to your chatbot: The great thing about using a chatbot is that
you can basically set up a survey right within the chat—and set up filtering such
that only your customers can leave them.
Incentivizing with gifts or discounts:. You should not, under any circumstances,
offer a discount or free gift in exchange for leaving reviews. This is against the terms
and conditions of many review platforms like Yelp and Google, and can lead to a
high volume of low-quality or star-only reviews (with no explanation). The purpose
of reviews is not primarily to benefit the business but to empower prospective
customers to make informed decisions. However, something like this would be
perfectly suitable:
Asking apologetically. Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews. People (as mentioned
above, 67% of people) are generally willing to leave reviews. People like being heard,
and will be extra willing to lend their voice to a company they feel has met their
expectations, as a way of returning the favor. Plus, you are empowering them to
give other consumers just like them the confidence to make an informed decision
Forgetting to follow up: Don’t forget to respond to reviews. First off, this is a way
of acknowledging and expressing appreciation for the customer’ taking the time to
do so. Second, this can help you to build customer relationships and retain more of
them. Finally, it shows the rest of the public that you are attentive to the voices of
your customers. Responding also builds engagement and activity on your listing,
which Google takes into account when ranking business listings.
• Reviews aren’t selfish; they empower your customers to help other consumers
make smart and confident decisions.
• Make it as easy as possible for the customer to leave a review (including using
short, easy-to-remember links for printed materials).
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