How To Create Your Own Infographics

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This guest post comes to us from Cristina Roman. She’s a Digital Strategist at CMR Strategies and the founder of One Woman Shop, a resource site for freelancers and solopreneurs. In her spare time, she drinks too much Starbucks coffee, volunteers, plays tennis, blogs, and makes gluten-free meals. Want to connect with Cristina? Find her on Twitter or join her email list!

Who hasn’t heard of infographics by now? These colorful graphics have been circulating the internet for the past several years - a quick search on Pinterest generates thousands of results. A fun side note: though infographics have been having their heyday recently, they’ve actually been around for centuries- cave paintings and the Washington DC Metro map can both be considered infographics!

If you’re looking to capitalize on the popularity of this visual trend but worry about your lack of graphic design skills, take note of these tips for the amateur designer.

Get inspired
Browse Google or Pinterest for design ideas that grab your attention. Use the description area on Pinterest to add notes on what you like best about the design- is it the amount of white space? The use of various types of graphs? The incorporation of interesting angles and shapes? The theme (maybe it’s vintage or digital or 80’s…)? Obviously, copying another designer’s work is never cool, but don’t be afraid to pull elements that you love from other pieces.

Choose a palette
If you’re creating an infographic for your brand, consider sticking to your brand colors and fonts (here’s where that style guide will come in handy!). Not sure what colors your designer used? Upload an image of your logo or a screenshot from your website to this handy tool to figure out the HEX code of the color used. If you’re looking to experiment with new colors, check out one of these 10 super useful tools for choosing the right color palette. Lastly, find lighter and darker shades of any HEX color with this tool from W3Schools.

Choose fitting fonts
 Slap a cool font on anything and it instantly jazzes it up. Fontsquirrel.com offers free downloads of fonts available for commercial use. Love a font that you saw while browsing Pinterest but not sure which one it is? Use WhatTheFont! (how awesome is that name?!) to determine the font style. If you’re completely overwhelmed by all of the fonts out there, check out this infographic on the psychology of fonts (see what I did there?) to find a good fit for your purposes.

Take advantage of free tools
With the rising popularity of infographics in marketing, several websites have cropped up to make it easy to create professional-looking infographics in minutes. Both infogr.am and visual.ly offer pre-made templates that you can insert your own data and content into. Infogr.am allows you to create interactive (read: clickable) infographics from your data. It quickly converts data from Excel into an infographic and has lots of themes to choose from. On the down side, there are limitations to the graphical elements you can insert and no branding is available with the free version.

Looking to create infographics for internal use? Link Visual.ly to your Google Analytics account or Facebook Insights! Want to take advantage of the infographic trend? Visual.ly can be connected to your LinkedIn profile. Visual.ly’s limitations include the inability to customize certain data and, like with infogr.am, no branding is available on the free version.

Ready to design your first infographic? Get out there, you future design whiz! Once it’s complete, read up on a few tips for promoting your colorful and informative marketing visual.

Do you use infographics for your business or blog?  How do you create them or find them?

infographic via wired.com // by alberto antoniazzi

7 Posts That Smart, Excited-About-Their-Work People Should Read

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Do I know a decent amount writing and social media and interneting? Yes.
Are there lots of other people who know just as much (or more!) about those same (and other) topics? Also, yes.

In fact, here are a few links about said topics!

When I discovered She Takes On the World I spent at least an hour watching videos and taking notes. Prepare to surrender your evening.

Do you have a 404 page for your website?  Add a bit of personality to yours!  Here are the best, funniest error pages on the web.

Don’t quit your job to chase your dreams - until you read this
You owe it to yourself to chase your dream – but not at the expense of those around you.  Too many times have I seen men and women chase dreams in ways that put their family in the way of harm. I can recount a number of new bloggers who quit their jobs to become full time bloggers only to find that their family no longer had an income stream or health care. I’ve seen marriages break down and tragedy strike as a result of chasing dreams without a safety net or backup plan.

Whoa!  This is an SEO mistake I didn’t know I was making!

I love listening to podcasts and webinars while I’m making dinner/driving/cleaning.  This webinar about monetizing your blog is great!

For fun: what’s your business’s spirit animal? (I think I’m an otter - though that’s not one of the choices.)

Another great podcast - this one from Copyblogger - about content marketing.  They talk about using content to drive traffic to a product or service,  creating content that attracts enterprise clients, and becoming recognized as an expert in your field.

Have you read anything awesome lately?  Share links in the comments!

photo by jd hancock // cc

Collaborating Your Way to More Traffic + Clients

tips for collaboration
When you’re self-employed or running your own business it’s very, very easy to fall into the busy trap and attempt to do everything yourself.  It can be hard to delegate and when you’ve worked hard to flesh out your email list and develop an online following, you might even be a bit greedy about sharing your spotlight with someone else.

Don’t be such greedy spotlight hogger, dude!  When done correctly, collaboration will lighten your load and expose you and your stuff to tons of new people who want what you’re selling.

Want to make sure that a collaboration goes well?  Here are some questions to ask yourself before you dive in.

Does this person do something that I can’t do + that my clients/customers need?
I regularly collaborate with Maria Ross on her Slice Sessions - I’m not a branding expert and Maria’s not a copywriter, but together, we’re nigh-on unstoppable.  I’ve also collaborated with web designer Sarah to dish out advice on websites - I gave content and copy advice, Sarah gave design and coding advice.

You might not want to collaborate with someone who does exactly the same thing that you do, but if they provide a service your clients probably need, team up!  If you’re a clothing label, collaborate with stylists.  If you’re a CSA, collaborate with a food blogger who makes and promotes recipes from your produce.  If you’re a wellness coach, collaborate with a place that makes fresh pressed juice!

Are our businesses about the same size?
Different collaborators bring different things to the table.  Maybe you don’t have a large online following, but you have a PhD and you’ve written two books.  Maybe your photographer has lots of experience with commercial shoots but very little with pets.  You don’t need to limit yourself to collaborators who are in the same tax bracket, but things will probably go a bit more smoothly if you’re on - if not the same page - the same chapter.

Do our businesses ‘make sense’ together?  Would their clients like me?
If you’ve been following this blog (or my larger lifestyle blog Yes and Yes) you probably know I’m not a particularly corporate person.  As such, I will probably never collaborate with Best Buy or a middle-aged white dude who talks about investments. My readers probably wouldn’t like them and their customers probably wouldn’t like me.  I would however, very happily collaborate with Paul Jarvis or Go Mighty or A Life Less Bullshit or Barnabas Clothing and I bet our people would love each other.

Have we been insanely, incredibly clear about who does what in this collaboration?
If you landed the client, do you get a bigger cut?  If you wrote a guest post for them, will they send it out to their email list?  If they’re designing something for you, how many rounds of revisions are allowed?  How many times will they tweet about your guest post? Who’s blogging about it?

You get the idea.

Collaborations can be heaps of fun.  They’ll introduce your goods + services to a whole new audience and hopefully you’ll introduce your people to awesome stuff they were looking for anyhow!  If you do it right, that’s a win/win.

Do you ever collaborate?  Any tips on how to make the most of all that team-working?

photo by j sorbieus // cc

5 Crazy-Easy Tips To Improve Your Rankings In Google

This guest post comes to us via Ilga.  She’s a creative online marketing consultant located in Berlin, Germany. She’s been passionate about all things Google and SEO for about 10 years and has run her own business for over 3 years, helping clients gaining more visitors for their website or online shop and turning these visitors into customers. Her website is in German but you can say hello at Facebook.

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Does the online marketing world seem overwhelming? The web is so full of SEO advice, tips and tricks that it can seem rather overwhelming for startups and small business owners with limited time and budgets.

What if you could fix some things yourself or on a low budget? These quick tips on optimizing your website require little or no technical skills and most of them can be completed within a very limited time.

1. Keyword Research
What do your customers search for? While you should never obsess about keywords and don’t sacrifice good copy to content stuffed with keywords, it is helpful (and important) to know which terms your audience is using when searching in Google (or Bing). The Google Keyword tool is free to use and it will give you some ideas on how to structure your online shop or website or even which keywords to use in your headlines. (Make sure to select “exact” for more accurate results though.)

2. Title Tags
Now that you know the most important keywords, you should use them in your title tags (in a clever way, do not stuff it with a list of keywords). They’re still important to Google and quick to fix so start here when you optimize your website. Your brand should be part of your title tag but always have your keyword (phrase) at the beginning of the title tag as Google puts more weight on these keywords.

3. Meta-Descriptions
While they aren’t part of the search engine algorithm (read: They will not directly affect your rankings), they’re important for your click rate in the search results. Make your descriptions as appealing as possible so potential customers will click on your result.

Also, a quick note on meta-keywords: They used to be important to Google but that time has passed. These days you can simply ignore your meta keywords but if you *do* use them, please make sure that they’re not stuffed with words (Google thinks that looks spammy and it can hurt your rankings).

4. Headlines and Website Copy
Make sure to include the keywords you want to rank for in your headlines and website copy. H1 headlines are most important but having keywords in your h2 headlines (if you use them) can’t hurt either. Just avoid stuffing them with keywords or making them sound all unnatural.

5. Forget about Google
Yes, really. It’s important to know about what Google likes in websites and what will make you rank higher. But! Don’t obsess about SEO. Your business is still (has always been and will always be!) about your human audience. While it is good to help Googlebot understand your content, always focus on your human visitors. No compromise there!

Of course, SEO can be realllllly complicated and significantly more in-depth than this.  But these tips will get you headed in the right direction!

photo by mislav m, cc

5 Ideas For Interesting, I-actually-want-to-click-that Tweets

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We’ve talked about using Twitter lists for super-targeted, super-time-effective networking.  I’ve given you the slightly-controversial-but-I’m-standing-by-it advice that you should tweet about your blog posts multiple times.  But how, pray tell, does one write a tweet that people want to click on?

Here are five different types of tweets that I use.  For the sake of continuity, I’ll show you how I’d apply each of these ideas if I was tweeting about my blog post ‘True Story: I’m a 26-year-old Lady Deputy.’ 

1. Use a pull quote
What’s a pull quote?  It’s a juicy quote from an interview or blog post.  When you’re reading a magazine or newspaper, it’s the quote that’s been pulled out of the piece and put into a different, larger font - like this.  A good pull quote will grab a reader’s attention and lead to a whoooole lot of link clicking.  If you don’t always have space to include the title of the blog post, that’s okay!  Sometimes a little mystery is a good thing. 😉
Example tweet:
“They dive off upper bunks onto concrete floors because they want to go to the hospital and get narcotics.” [link]

2. Ask your followers a question
Social media is meant to be social, but you already knew that. Asking your followers a question about the post/topic you’re about to link to will increase engagement and clicks.  It will also help create a conversation around the topics you’re writing about.
Example tweet:
Do you think the American justice system is flawed? ‘True Story: I’m a 26-year-old Lady Deputy’ [link]

3. Share your opinion about the information you’re linking to
If you’re posting about something slightly controversial or you’re taking a stand, share that with your followers.
Example tweet:
I could never do this but I’m glad someone’s willing to. ‘True Story: I’m a 26-year-old Lady Deputy’ [link]

4. Tease upcoming posts
Since you’re promoting a post that’s not actually live and you don’t really have anything to link to, this is more of a ‘buzz-building’ tweet.  And honestly, this is a tweet that should be used sparingly.  People tire pretty quickly of ‘coming soon’ shenanigans.  But if you’ve got something big in the works, if you just got the proofs back for a new product, or found a new space for your shop, or chose fabric for next year’s line - by all means, tease away!
Example tweet:
Just finished formatting an interview with a 26-year-old female deputy. Wow. You guys are gonna love this. 

5. “Did you miss it?” tweets
This is a copywriting trick that you should also use sparingly.  It’s super effective at first and increasingly annoying with each usage.  However!  If you want to drive people towards your archives or a post that went up earlier in the day, this is a good tweet to use.
Example tweet:
Did you miss it?  An interview with a 26-year-old female deputy? It’s like ‘Orange Is The New Black’ IRL. [link]

Do you have any tips or tricks for writing tweets that people really click on? Share them in the comments! 

image by  garrett heath // cc

How To Toot Your Own Horn Without Being Totally Annoying

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There are probably a million awkward, difficult things about running your own business.
(And a million awesome things, too! Spending a weekday eating pizza and buying over-priced bras with a dear friend being chief among them.)

In addition to networking on Twitter, blogging regularly, and finding clients, you should probably find a way to toot your own horn and showcase all those satisfied customers.  Preferably without being super annoying about it.

Is that possible?  I hope so!  Here are a few things that I’ve tried.

rotating-testimonials

Rotating testimonials in your sidebar
You should definitely, definitely have a testimonial page loaded with kind words from satisfied clients (more on that below.) But even the most convincing of testimonial pages is probably tucked into your menu bar.  That’s why I have short testimonials rotating through my sidebar.  They’re  a lot more eye-catching than the ‘testimonial’ tab in my menu bar.  My designer built mine for me, but you could probably do something similar with this WordPress widget.

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A testimonial page
Buy you already knew that, right?  If at all possible, your testimonial page should also include photos of the people recommending you + your wares and links to their online home.  It adds a lot of weight to their praise and reassures us that, yes, Real Actual Humans have used your services and goods.

Not sure how to get those testimonials?  My girl Alex Franzen wrote a great blog post about exactly how to do it.  If applicable, ask your clients to share really specific, quantifiable changes that have resulted from working with you.  How many more clients have they landed?  How much longer are people staying on their website?  How many more sales have they made?

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twitter-clients
Tweet about it

Did someone say something nice about you and your wares on Twitter?  Retweet it.  Are you working with a new client?  Tweet about it and @mention them.  This shows your Twitter followers that
a) you’re a busy, popular, painfully talented person
b) you appreciate your clients
c) the type of clients you work with

You can also tweet links to clients’ new products, new websites, or new developments that you were involved with.

On your sales page
If you have several different offerings, that accomplish several different things, tuck a few testimonials specific to that offering (with headshots and links) into that sales page.  Customers want to know that they’re not the first person to purchase this product and what other people got out of it.

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On Facebook
Did someone send you a photo your product in use?  Put it on Facebook.  Did someone write you a super lovely email about how your ebook changed their travel life? With self-deprecating wit and graciousness, put it on Facebook.  Is someone using using your jam in a recipe on their food blog?  Link to the post on Facebook.

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Link to your press mentions
Press mentions are lovely because someone else is doing the horn tooting for you!  All you have to do is link to them and mention how flattered you are.  If you regularly get mentioned in the press, you can even create a ‘as seen in’ section for you sidebar.

Most importantly, toot your horn for other people
If you’ve purchased a product or service that you love, tell the internet about it.  Tweet that you just got the proofs from your photographer Leslie Plesser and you loooooove them.  Or that your designer Kim Lawler is a genius of unparalleled abilities.  They will appreciate the kind words and you’ll be supporting people and businesses that deserve it.

How do you incorporate testimonials into your websites and social media?  

8 Clever Posts Creatives + Business Owners Might Love

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It’s that time of month!  Time to acknowledge the fact that even though I know a lot about writing and internet-ing, there are (shock!) other people who know just as much - or more!  

Here are some of my favorite blog posts from the last month!

8 really good, basic tips on ‘website sussing.’

Sweet eff, I needed this.  4 quick ways to help you stay focused on your business and what you do best.

If you’ve got thousands of blog posts in your archives (um, I have 2,100+) you can reuse and refurbish them!
Essentially, refurbishing content is the process of using your existing content and creating new forms of media with it. If you take a moment to think of all the different forms of content you consume on a weekly basis you should be able to come up with a solid list of ways to reuse your content. From blog posts to videos, transcriptions to audio files, slideshares to infographics your options are only limited by your own creativity.

Amanda Genther’s latest ebook is fantastic!  I’m ashamed to admit I never wrote a business plan for Yes and Yes or my copywriting/consulting business and girlfriend has lit a fire under me.

Does your business have a manifesto? 
It’s so easy to string together a bunch of platitudes and call them a mission statement. But what happens if you actually have a specific mission, a culture in mind, a manifesto for your actions?
The essential choice is this: you have to describe (and live) the difficult choices. You have to figure out who you will disappoint or offend. Most of all, you have to be clear about what’s important and what you won’t or can’t do.

Holy helpful!  An incredibly thorough beginners’ guide to SEO.

Did you know you can use Easel to design a website in your browser?  Wowza.

A reminder that in blogging, as in life or any other career, there are many different ways to become successful.

My friend Grant wrote this great piece about how to get into advertising - but it can apply to any creative field.

What have you been reading lately?  Leave links to good stuff in the comments!

photo by striatic // cc

5 Ways to Bring In The Money Without Feeling Sleazy

This post comes to us via Michelle Ward, PCC (aka The When I Grow Up Coach). She helps creative women get out of their soul-sucking jobs and into work that feels like play. Her first book, The Declaration of You (co-written with the artist Jessica Swift), was recently published and encourages everyone to clarify their purpose sans super seriousness.

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Are you afraid that talking about your biz turns you into a used car salesman overnight (greasy pompadour and mismatched suit included)?

Then you’re gonna wanna buy this article you’re reading now, 5 Ways to Bring In The Money Without Feeling Sleazy! For the low low price of just $19.95, I’ll throw in a set of steak knives! Get your credit card ready and call –

{shiver}

When we think of Selling, we usually think of steak knives, Crazy Eddie and operators who are standing by to take our calls. We think of in-your-face aggression, one-way conversations, and telemarketers who interrupt our dinner.

Do me a favor and wave goodbye to the slimiest of salesmen that lives in your head.  Smile.  Give him a hug, even. Watch him go, dejected.

See, in your world, that slimy salesman won’t ever be able to make an appearance. Not only because you won’t let him, but because you can’t possibly become him. Ever.

You have too much of an interest in connecting with others, in bringing them goodness and improving their lives so that you’d never strong-arm someone into buying something from you that they don’t need.

It’s just not who you are, what you offer, and how you want to build a relationship - and you can bring that into all aspects of your business. I pinky swear it.

Stop Calling it Selling
Thinking of having to “sell”, “market myself”, or “advertise” brings on a big case of The Icks.

I decided long ago to group those things under one umbrella, and call it Hooplah - something silly, and fun, and a bit ridiculous, too. I had another client decide to call it Ballyhoo (isn’t that the best word ever?), and it immediately brought a sense of celebration to it all. Conversely, a coach I had called it Inviting, and it immediately created an intimate, personal connection.

Find your word for Hooplah/ Ballyhoo/ Invitations and ban the Selling/Marketing/Advertising from your vocabulary for good.

Create Your Client Profile, and Speak to Her Directly
Who will read your blog, buy your product, or hire you for your services? Think demographically + personality-wise. By starting to answer them and create a client/ customer/ reader profile, you’ll be able to have a picture in your head of who needs to pick up what you’re putting down and why. You can even cheat and use your favorite client or best friend!

Once you have that person in your head, you can write your copy and blog posts for her directly and tailor your products and services to her specifically, too. It’s so much easier than writing for My Audience, I promise (because really – who the heck is that?)!

If you’re having trouble answering these questions, grab a magazine and start leafing through. Rip out anything and anyone in those pages that speaks to you, even if you don’t know why. When you’re done, create a collage and hang it in your office space, or make it your desktop. Keep it in plain view when you’re writing, and write for the person(s) included there.

Be Yourself, Loud and Clear
When I started my blog, I was initially under the guise that, as a life coach, I had pretend that my life is perfect and I have it all figured out, instead of disclosing that I still worked a day job and was pretty damn scared and vulnerable at the time, I realized pretty quickly that my blog was so boring that even I wouldn’t read it. That’s when I chucked the mask I was wearing and let it all hang out – my “real” life, my challenges, my loud personality, my enthusiasm, my sense of humor, my silliness, my day job, my wins and the excessive use of the word “amazeballs.”

Uncoincidentally, that’s when I started getting steady readers and clients who were already excited to work with me despite never having a consultation call.  I inadvertently realized that I never have to sell anyone on working with me who’s read anything I’ve written online because they know what they’re gonna get. That’s THE BEST!

Make It Valuable
Quick - which statement below makes you want to Click Here?

“I wrote a book! It’s so great! Click here and buy it!”

or

“Want to uncover your own declarations around life’s big, scary topics in a fun, creative way? Click here to make it happen!”

I don’t know about you, but I see Option 1 more than I’d like - on Twitter, on Facebook, on blogs - they’re all over! If someone comes to your home on the Interwebs, they want to get to know *you*, and what you sell is just a portion of that. I gotta tell you, nothing keeps me away from the Follow button more than someone with a feed full of outgoing tweets that link back to their own stuff and/or only talks about themselves. Yuck.

So, swap it around and start crafting your copy to be about what your audience will find helpful (yes, that includes sharing what other people are putting out there) - not what you wanna tell them about yourself.

Have a Conversation
There’s a reason we have two ears and a mouth – it’s to listen twice as much as we speak.

On my consultation calls, there’s never a schpeel. I’m never waiting to “close” them. I’m there because I get to gage whether I can help someone, or know someone that can help them. I’m there to answer their questions and give them the information they’re looking for so they can make the best decision for themselves. I’m there to listen to dreams and offer encouragement and make a connection.

Honestly, the Hooplah doesn’t even come into the equation, and I don’t think of my consultation calls as “prospects” or “sales.” I think of them as “creatives” and “go-getters” and, um, “people.”

Imagine that.

How do you feel about selling?  What tips/tricks have you found useful?  Share in the comments!

photo by tax credits // cc

Using Twitter Lists For Fame + Fortune (or, you know, time-effective networking)

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You know you need Twitter for your business. You’re following people who seem important and helpful. You’re following locals who might shop at your business. You’re following your cousin/ex-boyfriend/neighbor.

And then allofasudden your Twitter stream is full to over-flowing and you’re wasting time digging through tweets that are really just photos of lattes.

Enough.  Let’s use Twitter lists to make your Twitter life a million times easier.
(P.S. You can follow me on Twitter here)

1. Figure out what your goals are and follow accordingly
I’d like to teach a class about internet awesome-ry at a local liberal arts university. So, I researched the instructors and department heads of every single marketing, communication, and PR class in the Twin Cities, found their Twitter accounts, and followed them.

You can do the same! Want to write for magazines? Follow all the writers and editors of the magazines you’d like to pitch. Want to collaborate with fashion bloggers who wear a lot of thrifted clothing? Find ’em and follow ’em.

2. Make a Twitter list for each goal
Magazine editors go in one list. Travel writers another list. Fashion bloggers another list. Potential clients? Yup, separate list. If you don’t want people to know that you’re stalking for a specific purpose, make your lists private.

3. Each day, spend 10-20 minutes networking with a different list
Maybe on Monday you respond to and retweet fashion bloggers. Tuesday = editors. Wednesday = travel writers. Make sure that your tweets are genuine, helpful, and (preferably) funny.

4. Pitch them!
After you’ve been doing this for a month or two, go ahead and pitch them! By now they’ll hopefully recognize your name and URL because you’re Twitter buddies. So when you show up in their inbox offering a guest post or a press release, they’ll be all “Oh, hello! It’s my old friend So-and-so! I surely want to help her because she’s a good friend with whom I have an established relationship! Huzzah!”

See? Easy peasy.  Do you have any awesome Twitter tricks to share?

photo by Garrett Heath // cc

6 (More) Oddly Obvious Mistakes You Might Be Making Online

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In May, Sarah and I spent 14 hours (!) giving mini consults to approximately a gajillion blogs.

503 comments later, I
a) had to drink some box wine and watch a lot of Parks and Rec
b) realized that both Sarah and I were repeating ourselves

If you wade through that sea of suggestions, you’ll see that there are 10-11 things that we suggested multiple times.  It began to feel sort of ridiculous and obvious, but clearly, these were things that people needed to be reminded of.  (Full disclosure: after making all these suggestions, I scrambled over to my Facebook page and took a lot of the advice I’d been giving others!)

If you subscribe to my newsletter you got an email outlining the first five oddly obvious mistakes that a lot of people make.  But since I’m not tooooootally greedy with my knowledge, I thought I’d share a few of our insights.

Here are six more oddly obvious, quickly fixable mistake that you might be making online.  Get to fixin’, tiger!

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1. You haven’t customized the tabs on your Facebook page
You were super clever and uploaded the Twitter, Mailchimp, and Blogging apps to your Facebook page. High five, you!  But did you know that you can customize the app icons so everything looks matchy-matchy and ‘on brand’?  Yup, you can.  Here’s how. 

2. You’re not really interacting anyone on Twitter
Cleverly enough, social media is called that because you’re supposed to use it to be social.  What?  I know.  While it is really important to promote your posts and products, it’s more important to actually talk to people.  Make lists of people you know in real life, lists of publications you’d like to pitch, lists of bloggers you like and then talk to them.  Done and done!

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3. You’re not writing interesting tweets/statuses to promote your blog posts
I know it’s incredibly tempting (SO TEMPTING) to set your posts to automatically update to Facebook and Twitter.  And then you end up with an update that looks like this: “Blog post: Stuff and Stuff [giant link].”  It’s time-saving, but it’s not engaging, friends.  I promote my blog posts on Twitter three times each day, with a different tweet each time.  Sometimes it’s a pull quote from the post, sometimes it’s a questions.  Interesting tweets are a lot more likely to get retweeted, too!

4. You’re only promoting your blog posts once
I know it feels a little over-kill-y, but because of the way we use Twitter, you can totally promote your posts more than once.  I promote each of mine three times (around 9 am, 1 pm, 8pm) with a different tweet each time.  If I’m feeling reallllly  ambitious, I’ll even pull popular posts from my archives and tweet those.

5. You’re not using photos in your blog posts
Do it.  Doitdoitdoit.  If you write long, personal essays or you’re an incredibly successful, well-established blogger, you probably don’t need photos.  For the rest of us plebeians, photos make our posts about a million times more engaging, clickable, and pin-worthy.  I get all of my photos from Flickr: Creative Commons.

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6. When you link to people on your blog, you’re not @metioning them on social media
When someone writes a guest post for you.  When you include someone in a link roundup. When you feature a company’s products in a post.  Get on those @mentions!  Did you know that if you have a Facebook page for your blog/company, you can follow other blogs/companies with your page?  It’s true.  And then you can @mention them in your Facebook updates, too!

See?  Oddly obvious.  I’m sure I’m missing some or making mistakes, myself.  Do you see bloggers doing anything obviously wrong that’s easy to correct? 

photo by Stephen Harlan // cc