Podcasts about social warfare

Co-Host Tom LaGrave (https://mountaintoppodcast.com/honor) My first time guest Tom LaGrave is a retired Navy SEAL, clinical therapist and founder of The Honor Bound Academy, an upcoming learning domain to give adolescents the proper rite of passage into adulthood. In a post-modern world where it seems like everyone is in it for themselves and the end justifies the means, Tom is all about reminding us that honor and character still matter. In fact, the man who focuses accordingly is actually likely to be the one who gets ahead. How is present-day America affecting the mental health of our young people? What's the difference between young people growing up in the 70's and our youth nowadays? And what should a modern-day rite of passage even look like for young men? Did the rise of Secular Humanism really result in the downfall of honor and character? What's Tom's specific warning with the rise of what he calls 'social warfare'? Even though honor and character are related, they're not synonymous. How does Tom describe that link between the two? What is the driving factor for honor and character that almost everyone overlooks? How has the smartphone era specifically mounted an assault against honor and character? Will AI further augment our reality with regard to values, integrity and even our behavior patterns? And of course, how does a strong sense of honor and good character really, truly affect our relationships with women? Hint: It has everything to do with having a valid rite of passage. Most importantly of all, what do we as men stand to lose when we don't fine-tune our sense of honor and our character...whether we realize it or not? NOW...join me on Substack if you can handle the truth: https://mountaintoppodcast.com/substack     === HELP US SEND THE MESSAGE TO GREAT MEN EVERYWHERE === The content in this show is NEVER generated by AI. I discovered it can't handle a joke a long time ago. Meanwhile, I'll keep the practical, actionable ideas coming as well as the entertaining part...all for free. If you love what you hear, please rate the show on the service you subscribed to it on (takes one second) and leave a review. As we say here in Texas, I appreciate you!

Tom LaGrave is a former Navy SEAL. His military career ended due to drug use. After a recovery program, he set out on a new journey. It began with his working with adolescents, then a return to higher education, and finally licensure as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. He is the author of a new book, called “Special Welfare . Social Warfare,” which pulls together all of his many years of experience, giving a roadmap of hope, especially to younger people. Tom and his socials can be found at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tjlagravejr/. More information about the Honor Bound Academy can be found at Honor Bound Academy The views and opinions of the guests on this podcast are theirs and theirs alone and do not necessarily represent those of the host, Westwords Consulting or the Kenosha County Substance Abuse Coalition. We're always interested in hearing from individuals or organizations who are working in substance use disorder treatment or prevention, mental health care and other spaces that lift up communities. This includes people living those experiences. If you or someone you know has a story to share or an interesting approach to care, contact us today! Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Subscribe to Our Email List to get new episodes in your inbox every week!

Thomas J. LaGrave Jr. is a bestselling author, licensed clinical social worker, and the founder of Honor Bound Academy, a year-long immersive program based in Sonoma, California, dedicated to the education, healing, and mentorship of adolescent men. A former Hospital Corpsmen with the U.S. Navy SEALs, LaGrave has spent over 35 years working with more than 3,000 young men, specializing in the psychological and developmental challenges of adolescence and the transition to adulthood. A recovering addict and alcoholic for more than three decades, LaGrave draws from his personal journey and extensive professional background to offer deep insight into the complex struggles facing today's youth. His latest book, Special Welfare . Social Warfare launches in November and follows his earlier work, The Bell Tolls For Thee: A Soliloquy. LaGrave's career spans hospital work, adolescent mental health, addiction recovery, and youth incarceration programs. He also served as a Military Family & Life Consultant for U.S. Armed Forces Special Operations Command. His commitment to shaping the future of at-risk youth through innovative programs and personal mentorship has positioned him as a leading voice in adolescent mental health and social development. There is an individual seeking to represent America's youth at a national level. There are suggestions offered to the American population for supporting our youth. There is a one year, in person program that is offered as a "Rite of Passage," for youth ages 18, 19, and 20 as they transition from adolescence to adulthood. Website: https://thehonorboundacademy.org/contact/

This week, I spoke with Dr. Alexander Dunlap about a range of topics, such as Degrowth, green anarchism, the violence of extractivism, questions of the conception of renewable energy and resistance to ecocide. We covered a lot in this discussion and he's written a lot on a range of related topics. Check out his ResearchGate where many pdfs are available or searching his name on AnarchistLibrary.Net. If there's something at ResearchGate that isn't available for download, you can email Alexander and request access. Transcript PDF (Unimposed) – pending Zine (Imposed PDF) – pending Our past interviews on resisting infrastructure projects can be found by checking out posts tagged "Environment" or "Earth and Animal Liberation" Other accounts for Dr. Dunlap: https://www.sum.uio.no/english/people/aca/xander/index.html http://v-u.academia.edu/AlexanderDunlap Suggested links: “The Coconut Revolution” documentary Environmental Justice Atlas Mining Watch (London) Exalt initiative Books Dunlap A and Brock A. (2022) Enforcing Ecocide: Power, Police and Planetary Militarization, Cham: Palgrave Dunlap A and Jakobsen J. (2019) The Violent Technologies of Extraction: Political Ecology, Critical Agrarian Studies and the Capitalist Worldeater. Dunlap, A. (2019) Renewing Destruction: Wind Energy Development, Conflict and Resistance in a Latin American Context. Articles  Dunlap A and Riquito M. (2023). Social warfare for lithium extraction? Open-pit lithium mining, counterinsurgency tactics and enforcing green extractivism in northern Portugal. Energy Research & Social Science 95(1): 1-21. Dunlap A. (2023) The Green Economy as Counterinsurgency, or the Ontological Foundations for Permanent Ecological Catastrophe. Environmental Policy and Science: 39-50. Kallianos Y, Dunlap A and Dalakoglou D. 2022. Introducing Infrastructural Harm: Rethinking moral entanglements, spatio-temporal modalities, and resistance(s). Globalizations: 1-20. Dunlap A and Laratte L. (2022) European Green Deal necropolitics: Exploring ‘green' energy transition, degrowth & infrastructural colonization. Political Geography 97: 1-17. Dunlap A and Marin D. (2022) Comparing coal and ‘transition materials'? Overlooking complexity, flattening reality and ignoring capitalism. Energy research & social science 89: 1-9. Dunlap A and Correa-Arce M. (2022) ‘Murderous Energy' in Oaxaca, Mexico: Wind Factories, Territorial Struggle and Social Warfare. Journal of Peasant Studies 49(2): 455-480. Next Week... Next week, we hope to bring you a conversation with Michael Laufer of the anarchist biohacking crew, the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective talking about do it yourself medical infrastructures. . ... . .. Featured Tracks: Fucked Up State by Icons of Filth Sekasortoa by Kaaos Marionett I Kedjor by Moderat Likvidation

The end of the year is a great time to reflect, examine, and set new priorities for what's next, which makes it the perfect time to do a review of your blog business.  If the word review makes you shiver and think of your end-of-year teacher eval meeting, where you have to prove to your administrator that you're an effective teacher, don't sweat it. This is your business, and you don't have to prove anything to anyone. If it helps, this is not just a review, but also a clean-up, a chance for you to clear out some digital cobwebs, and spruce up a corner or 2 of your website. And remember, teachers kind of have 2 year-ends, so feel free to do this in December, or June… or both! I start this process with the review part because that informs the cleanup portion. It takes me a few hours if I do it all in one sitting, but it's also possible to do a little bit at a time. And there's no rule that says this has to be done by a certain date. Finally, before we jump in, this is a big overview-type of process that I recommend for beginners. If you're more than a couple years into your blog, check out a more nitty-gitty review process (then come back for the cleanup because he doesn't talk about that). Gather Your Information Data, Data, Data Yes, we're all data'd out, but this is your data. And it's not being used for anything except to help you make informed decisions about your blog. Data is information.  Information is power. Some things you're going to want data for are your key performance indicators (KPIs) and can be gleaned from your Google Analytics account. Number of page views, sessions, and/or unique visitors per month.  Traffic sources. Top posts and pages Total email subscribers by month. It's All About the Benjamins (or Washingtons… whatever) If you want your blog to make money, you need to track where your money is coming from. I can't stress this enough. Now is the time to dig in to how much you made and how you made it. If you've been tracking your income and expenses, this will be easy. If not… well, it's important. In this step we're only focusing on income. You'd be amazed how many entrepreneurs don't know how much money they're bringing in!  I check in on my blog money once a month to update my spreadsheet and move my money to the proper accounts, but even I was surprised at my income when I looked. I normally just put all the numbers in the right boxes, then close it up. This time I actually looked at the monthly and yearly totals and… wow! I hadn't even realized I'd already surpassed my revenue goal for the year by October. Sometimes numbers are fun! The two things you need to know are: Your sources of income. How much each source earned. Where Are You Spending Time and Money? Not as much fun as the income, you also need to know where you're spending money. If you don't already, I strongly suggest setting up a business bank account and credit card. This not only helps you track your expenses more easily, but it also protects your personal accounts from legal action (provided you've set up an LLC). You'll definitely need to know: What you're paying for in your business How much you're paying You should also do a time audit for your own information. This involves tracking what you do for your blog and can help provide valuable insight into strengths, weakness, and improvements you can make. The goal is to find out what you're doing in an average week, and how long you're spending on it. With the other data you've collected, you'll be able to see if you're spending your most precious resource, your time, wisely. Break It Down Now that you've got all your data collected, you can start to scrutinize it. (You have no idea how hard I worked not to use the word “analyze” there, so as not to traumatize you.) The good news is that you don't need to make spreadsheets, charts, and tables to get what you need. You really just need to be able to answer these questions: What trends do you notice? Are there particular post types on your blog (or social media, if you track that) that got more engagement via comments, shares, or sales? If so, when planning ahead you want to plan more of that type of content, and try to determine what's working so you can use those techniques in other content as well. You may also notice that certain times of year are peaks or valleys for your readership and/or sales. This is normal, and nothing to panic about. For example, September is a slow month at Side Hustle Teachers because my audience is focusing on back to school stuff. Knowing this is helpful because not only do I not freak out when my stats drop, I also know not to launch something new at this time. Does your effort match your outcome? Are the places you're spending your time benefiting your blog? For example, if you're posting diligently on Instagram every day, are you gaining followers, and more importantly, are those followers becoming readers and/or customers? While it can be a good ego boost to see our follower count go up, it doesn't mean much if those followers aren't clicking over to your blog, signing up for your email list, and making you money. For example, my engagement on Twitter was circling the drain (and I never enjoyed using the platform), so I deleted my account… and it felt great!  What are your income producing activities? Knowing where your revenue is coming from, what specific tasks are moving your audience toward a sale? If 1% of people on your email list buy from you (a very normal statistic, by the way), consider the steps you take to get people on your list. At SHT, a good portion of our sales come from my free training, Profitable Blogging for Teachers, so I would examine the ways people can find this training. If your blog is not making money yet, not to worry. Since email is far-and-away the most cost effective way to get customers, focus on your list. Even if you don't have anything to sell yet, build your list. It is a marketing channel that will pay off big time in the future. In this case, you would address the question; What are my list building activities? Now that you have a big-picture view of your blog, keep the information in a visible place. When you're considering a new project, reflect on the questions above. Is the new project in keeping with the expectations of my audience? Do I have evidence that my audience needs or wants this? Is this going to build my income? Pausing to deliberately weigh the costs (of money and time) and the potential returns of each project can prevent you from chasing shiny objects or procrastinating by taking on non-income-producing tasks. Before we move on, there's two more things to think about in your end-of-year review: What did you love about blogging this year? What did you not enjoy doing this year? Remember that your blog is your business, and you get to design it in a way that makes you happy. If there are things you loved doing, moments that made you feel great, or connections made that you treasure, do more of that! When you look ahead to next year, plan more of what brings you joy. Conversely, if there are things that just drain the life from you, feel really difficult, or you put off for as long as possible, find a way to do less of them. Maybe that means those things just don't get done. Or, if it's something that needs to be handled, like sending welcome emails to new subscribers, automate it with a tool like ConvertKit, or hire someone to do it for you! Your business, your rules! Clean It Up While you've got all your data out and available, let's see if there are some things on your blog that can be tidied up. This is an important part of your year-end processes because it will make for a much better experience for your readers and can help your SEO results, too. Amp up your top posts. Once you know which posts are resonating with your audience over time, you're going to want to maximize them. A few things I recommend is adding more internal links to other blog posts of yours. This will help keep people on your site longer and lead readers through more of your content, building a stronger connection, faster.  Next, do some keyword research to find what people who are interested in that particular content might be searching for, then update your content to include these words or phrases.  Lastly, review your post images. Update them if they're outdated, and make sure you're using a plugin like Social Warfare to make pinning and sharing easy. Update or redirect old posts. If you've been blogging for more than a year, you may have some content that is a little dated, doesn't 100% fit your niche, or you just don't like. As you grow, this is totally normal. You have a couple of options for what to do with this type of content. You can always update or improve upon old posts. That's one of the beautiful things about blogging! If there's a typo, you can fix it. If there's something new you want to mention, add it in! No big deal. But not all content is worth updating or fixing. Sometimes it's better to just scrap it and move on. However, you don't want people who find old links to be taken to get an error when they click, so I suggest you use a free plugin called Redirection. This allows you to point the old URL of the post you don't want shown to another, related post that's more in line with your current blog niche and standards. This way, when anyone clicks on the old post, they'll be automatically taken to the new one. Remove or update dead links. There are few things more frustrating for a reader than clicking on a link and going nowhere (or to an error page). This happens a lot with affiliate links as other sites make updates to their inventory or system. A tool like SEM Rush's website audit will give you a list of links on your site that are dead, then you can fix each one. I actually suggest doing this more than once a year, but life happens… so definitely make it part of your end-of-year cleanup De-junkify your inbox. If you're like me, you may sign up for a lot of free trials, trainings, etc. I also like to sign up for people's email lists just to check out their nurture sequence. All of this means that my inbox gets pretty cluttered. Use this time of year to unsubscribe from things that are no longer serving you. This is another thing I recommend you do more than once a year (like daily), but it's helpful to have a reminder. The end of the year is a natural time to do a review and cleanup of your blog, but it doesn't have to be done then. If you're feeling a little unclear on where you're going with your business, this process can help illuminate where you're at, and what your options are. Remember that in the end, your blog is yours and yours alone. Make informed decisions, but make ones that work for you and your goals, not because it's what you're supposed to do or because that's what anyone else wants.

Social change is more important than social media. Tune in as we deconstruct, “The United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept: A Compensatory Counter-Racist Code” by Neely Fuller Jr. We are Kiva and Kahawia.

“STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD.” - Cobra KaiBradley talks about the importance of posting on social as a salesperson. If a salesperson is not posting on social, he is essentially giving his competitor the chance to do so. It's very important to be more active on social than your competitor and you will learn more about it from Bradley in this episode of Sales Transformation. Stop sending boring sales e-mails or videos and start sending catchy GIFs and Memes with VIDU.io!Power up your podcast experience by joining our Free Podcast Community!TRANSFORMING MOMENTSGetting started in engaging with content and podcastingFrustration from salespeople who don't do socialSocial is where your audience and potential buyers are“If you're a salesperson, you're not posting on social, you're essentially giving airtime to competitors, to communicate with your buyers.” - Bradley: Not posting on social is enabling competitors Connect with Bradley and learn more about what he's been working on!About BradleyThe Employee Advocacy and Influence PodcastAbout DSMN8DSMN8.comConnect with Collin and find out what's new in Sales Transformation and other things he's up to:About CollinAbout SalescastSalescast CommunitySales TransformationWanna kick off your own kick-ass podcast?Already have one? How about growing it, or even monetizing it?LET'S TALK.

When it comes to your blog audience, there's no denying that size matters. While your blog traffic is not the most important thing when it comes to profitability, you've got to have someone to sell to. And if you've ever felt that your blog isn't growing fast enough, you're not alone. Before we start, remember that you don't need a huge audience to make a profit from your blog. When you have a well-defined, focused niche, your audience might not be as large as others, but they will convert better. That said, here's how to maximize your audience. Retaining Current Readers A lot of advice about increasing blog traffic focuses on getting new readers to your blog. And, yes, that's important. But it's far easier to get someone who's already engaged with and loved your blog to come back and read more than it is to convince someone new to give you a try. So, let's start with some tips and tricks that will increase your traffic by getting one-time readers to become loyal fans. 1. Stay true to your niche There's a reason that Module 1, Lesson 1 in Teacher Blog Academy is all about defining your niche. Your niche - the intersection of what you write about, who you write for, and how you help them - is your guiding star when you make any decision for your blog.  What should I write about this week? Look to your niche. Which social media platform should I use to market my blog? Look to your niche. If your niche is finances for 20-something women with a focus on money mindset, stick with it. Don't suddenly start providing stock tips and your opinion about which Wall St. bankers should be in jail… That's not why your audience comes to you. It will confuse them and Google. And like Donald Miller says, “When you confuse, you lose.” 2. Email your list Your list is a group of people who like what you have to say, and want to hear more. They have self-identified themselves as potential superfans. But even loyal readers are busy. They need to be reminded to go check out your latest post. Think of it this way… I enjoy having a fresh, clean smelling house, but I still have an alarm on my phone to remind me to clean the litter boxes every Monday night. No matter how much people love your content, they need reminders when you put something new out. And by emailing them, you increase the chance that they come back and read your latest post. 3. Write great posts This may seem obvious, but there will be weeks when you feel like just phoning it in and publishing any old thing. While it may take extra time and effort, creating content that truly speaks to your audience's needs is worth it. Answer a question that your readers have. Even if you feel like you've answered it before. (You're a teacher, so you understand explaining things multiple times in multiple ways, right?) Address a mistake you see your ideal audience making. Give them something to think about in a new way… but remember that putting out content isn't the goal - helping your readers is. 4. Tweak your titles A blog title, whether it shows up on social media, Google, or your own website, should entice readers to click and find out more. A great title lives somewhere on that fine line between clearly stating what your post is about without giving it all away… It's a balancing act. Gaining New Readers Once you've done what you can to retain readers and get them coming back to your blog, it's time to think about how to attract new readers to your blog.   5. SEO Search engine optimization (SEO) is a behind-the-scenes process in which you make it easier for search engines, like Google, Bing!, and others to recommend your content to others.  According to Neil Patel, “The main Google keyword ranking factors include search intent, search volume, quality of the content, number of backlinks, domain authority, and page loading speed.”  This means that specific focus on using the appropriate keywords, producing great content that builds your authority, and upping you page speed, with something like SG Optimizer can all increase your visibility on search engines.  6. Market your blog “Build it and they will come.” is a movie slogan, not a growth plan. As of this writing, there are nearly 1.2 billion websites online, with more being shared every day. No one is going to accidentally stumble upon your blog. You have to tell people about it. This is called marketing. Social media is a fantastic - and free - place to start marketing your blog. When you publish a new post, share it on social media. Then, continue to share it on an ongoing basis so that people who are new to you, or didn't happen to see it the first time can find it. You can also make it easy for your readers to share your blog with plugins like Social Warfare. You can also use marketing channels like Pinterest and YouTube, but you can also guest blog, appear on other people's podcasts or shows, and even just updating your email signature can let people know about your site. 7. Expand your network No man is an island, even in the digital age. While you may be a solopreneur, if you want to grow your blog you're going to want help. Get to know other bloggers and build relationships that can further support your readers.  Take advantage of the technology available to network in communities that wouldn't exist in the past, like Facebook groups, and start to build a reputation for helping others in your area of expertise. This is not an invitation to spam - even under the guise of helping - just offer guidance, advice, and support with no strings attached. 8. Give it time.  The internet may be filled with stories of overnight successes, but behind that “overnight” success was a lot of patience and hard work. No one puts up a site and starts raking in millions the next day (unless they're doing some Breaking Bad level illegal stuff).  Time allows Google to know and recommend your blog in searches. Time builds up loyal followers who tell their friends about you. Time lets you create systems and processes to handle more readers and customers.  There's no rush. Again, blog traffic is not the end-all-be-all of blog metrics. You should see your page views go up month over month, slowly. There's only a problem if you're not seeing growth overall. In Teacher Blog Academy, I'll teach you how to make decisions that will help you build a profitable blog in less time, with fewer roadblocks. You can enroll now at teacherblogacademy.com

You can also get a gauge of your current brand presence by looking at how often your brand is mentioned on social media. The more prominent your brand and content are, on-site and off-site, the more aware people are of your brand. Survey your readers to gauge how effective your content is at making your brand both positive and memorable. There are several ways you can measure this (and gain insights). If you use an RSS feed, you can measure the growth of your subscribers much in the same way as you measure your social media followers. Your volume of returning visitors should also suggest something about the sticking power of your content. Head to the Audience section of Google Analytics to find the New vs. Returning report. Likes, links, and shares are all important indicators of your content's effectiveness. These three types of engagement require a reader to acknowledge your content as worthy of being spread to more people. Links directly correlate with increased organic search visibility, which drives more traffic to your website. If your website is on WordPress, you can use Social Warfare to place social share buttons on your posts. For links, you'll have to use a tool like Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs, Majestic or the SEO.co backlink checker tool .This is especially helpful for monitoring what types of content earn the most links naturally. Time spent on a page is a good metric to gauge the engagement of your content. You can also measure interactivity by directly measuring the interactive elements within it. More info about content marketing ROI: how to measure your content marketing campaign performance:    https://seo.co/content-marketing/roi/   Connect with us:  SEO // PPC // DEV // WEBSITE DESIGN

You work hard on writing helpful, easy to read posts that your audience will love. So it's frustrating when it feels like no one is paying any attention. I get it. If you want to get more eyes on your content, there are a few things you can do to accelerate your growth. Here 17 dos and don'ts to maximize your blog traffic, even if you're brand new. 1. Do stay true to your niche It can be tempting to cast a wide net with your content, and write about everything connected to a particular topic. However, when your posts are too broad it's difficult to grow your audience because people don't know what to expect from post to post. Maybe last week you wrote about a DIY birdhouse and this week you gave a gluten-free pizza recipe. They're technically both “home” related, but different people are going to be interested in each, with perhaps a little overlap.  You might think that getting different people to your site is a positive, but if someone comes to your site for a specific post, but it's the only one of its kind, they won't be back. You want to keep people who find you coming back AND attracting new people, too. That's much easier to do with a clearly defined niche. If you want to know more about niching down, check this post. 2. Don't forget about your old content One mistake people make when it comes to promoting your content is thinking of promotion as one-and-done. Remember that if you're writing evergreen posts, they're useful to your audience any time, so you can keep sharing them over and over. Make sure there's some space in between when you share the same content. I recommend resharing each evergreen blog post about once a month. You can do this most easily by using a scheduler, like CinchShare, or creating a spreadsheet of each post that includes a link and description. If you want to try CinchShare free for 14 days, click here. 3. Do guest post strategically Guest posting - writing for other people's blogs - can be a great way to expand your audience.  Essentially, when you publish on someone else's site, you're borrowing their clout and getting exposure to more people who can then follow your blog. When writing guest posts, it's important to choose the sites you write for carefully. Find bloggers who would have an overlapping audience with you, but who aren't in the exact same niche. For example, an artist might do a guest post on an interior design blog, or vice versa. Check the guidelines for each site and, if possible, include a link to one of your self-hosted posts within the post you share on their site. And of course maximize the bio at the bottom of the post with a clear description of your blog and a link to find it. 4. Do use internal links An internal link is a link that you include within a blog post that leads to another piece of content you've written. The benefit of internal links is that while someone is reading one post, happily devouring it and discovering your genius, they are naturally led to another post they may find helpful. If done correctly, this can help people stay on your site longer, going from post to post, and increasing your time on page average while decreasing your bounce rate. (More on those later.) 5. Don't spam groups your in with your links I encourage my clients and students to join Facebook groups that contain your ideal audience to build relationships. However, going into these groups and simply dropping links in every thread is not going to help you.  In fact, it can do the opposite. When you use the spray and pray method - spamming groups and pages with your links - can not only get you removed and blocked from groups you want to be in. It can also lead to a reputation as one of *those* people that no one wants to build a relationship with. 7. Do make it easy to share your posts When I read a great blog post, the first thing I do is look for a button to press so I can share it with others. But I'm not going to spend forever looking for it. At the absolute least, you should have sharing buttons at the bottom of each post, but I also recommend installing a plugin like Social Warfare that will display a floating bar on the side of each post. A floating bar follows readers as they scroll down the page, always in view, so they can share with the least amount of effort.  8. Don't try to be everywhere You have a limited amount of time, and trying to post on every platform and network is just going to drain your time and energy. And to be honest, you're going to see very limited returns. Instead, decide on a primary platform (your blog), and one social network on which to focus.  I suggest starting with the social media platform you already use the most and are most familiar with, with a few things to think about:  Since new social media platforms pop up every 6 months or so (remember Clubhouse), choose one that's more established.  Consider the content you want to create. If you love watching TikTok videos, but don't want to make them, don't feel like you have to because it's your favorite platform. Go where your people are looking for you. People are everywhere online, but if your ideal audience group is using Instagram to watch videos of people making cakes and cats riding Roombas, you may have to test the waters to see if they also want to consume your content there. 9. Do get to know SEO According to Search Engine Land, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business. I recommend using a free plugin called Yoast to help manage your SEO. It allows you to set a keyword for each post, as well as a meta-description (a summary of your post that web crawlers read as they index your site). It also gives you feedback on how to improve your post's SEO. 10. Don't stuff your content full of keywords Not to state the obvious, but keywords are important. You might say they're *key* (see what I did there?). Keywords are what people enter into a search engine when they are looking for something online. As I mentioned previously, you can set a keyword for your posts, but since Google, Bing, and other search engines read your whole post to determine its subject and value, you can also include related keywords in the body of your post.  When done naturally, this works well to boost your searchability. However, when you simply use all the related phrases in your post without regard for readability or, you know… making sense, search engines don't like that (and neither do your readers). 11. Do email your list Whenever you publish a new post, email your list. Anyone on your email list is already primed to want to read more of your content. You're not bugging them. You're letting them know that you just wrote a new kick-ass post that they're going to love. This is, hands down, the easiest way to get people to return to your page week after week and build your authority with your list. You can even start for free with ConvertKit's free plan! 12. Do put effort into your post titles Your post titles are what people see in big print when they search for something, so they're your best chance to convince people to click on your post as opposed to someone else's. A great post title should clearly state what your post is about. Fight the urge to be clever or wordsmithy.  Not only does your title play a role in SEO, a person who searches for how to save money at Disney is going to click on a post with a title that says “X Ways to Save Money on Your Disney Vacation in 2022,” not, “Save Your Mickeys!” Use a free browser extension called Headline Analyzer to help. 13. Don't be afraid of the competition My philosophy is that other bloggers - even those in my niche - aren't competition. The idea of competition is based on the belief that blogging is a zero-sum game, which it's not. Just because someone follows another person that writes about what I do, doesn't mean they won't read my blog, too. In fact, they're more likely to read my blog because they're interested in what I write about. When it comes down to it, other bloggers are your colleagues. You don't have to crush them. You can collaborate with them, get to know them, and support them! Comment on their posts. join their groups and post helpful responses with no links to your own content or courses, and reach out to them on social media.  14. Do make and follow an editorial calendar An editorial calendar is essentially your blog's scope and sequence. It organizes the topics you plan to cover, and the order in which you plan to do it. Keep in mind one key difference - when you're blogging, you don't have to order your posts like you're sequentially teaching something. In fact, if you're planning on creating a course at some point in the future, you probably don't want your free content to be structured that way. Your editorial calendar is a way for you to make sure that your content is touching upon all your content pillars. It also allows you to plan posts around things you may want to promote (whether they're your own or affiliate products/ services), and tease upcoming content to your readers. And, it takes the pressure off you each week if you know what to write about. Bonus! 15. Do track your blogs key performance indicators When you're getting started it's tempting to sit at your computer and hit refresh over and over to see how many people have read your blog, but it's not particularly productive. (Ask me how I know.) Instead, dedicate one day a month to check in on your key performance indicators (KPIs) to see how things are going. This will let you have enough data in between checks to see progress and set new goals or adjust your old ones. Some things to check on during this monthly appointment are page views, sessions, pages per session, bounce rate, new email subscribers, top posts and pages. Stay tuned for an upcoming episode all about KPIs (which I can tell you about because I use an editorial calendar). 16. Don't copy other people's content This one is obvious, right? It's not okay to copy other people's work. On top of that, it's not going to help your blog traffic (or your reputation) either. It's okay to be inspired by other posts and it's okay to curate ideas, tips, tricks, etc. from other posts. But you must create your own work, in your own words. Otherwise the post is missing what makes your blog posts different - YOU!  Also, if Google has already read and indexed their post, your copycat post will never, ever rank higher than the one you copied. 17. Do be patient Growth takes time. It's tempting to look at people who've got tons of page views and think you're falling behind, but I promise you, you're not. Even the big names started at nothing and had to grow their audience slowly.  In fact, growing slowly is positive in many ways. You can get to know your readers personally, you have a chance to find your blogging voice, and you can work out the technical kinks in your systems all while your audience is small. Take your time, give yourself the same grace and patience you provide your students, and look for progress, not perfection. Ready to jump into your blog? Enroll in my now-free 5-Day Content Challenge! In it I'll show you how to come up with 6 months worth of blog topics in just 20 minutes a day! Click here to join.

One question that comes up all the time with my clients and members of the Side Hustle Teachers community is how I manage to consistently put out my blogcast week after week.  There are 2 things I rely on; systems and tools. I'll address my systems in a future blogcast, but today let's talk about tools. I'm going to walk you through my complete content creation process and tell you which tools I use for each step. Some are free, some have a modest fee, but all of them are indispensable in my business. Google Business Suite I use Google in a myriad of ways, but when it comes to content creation, I use it in 2 key ways. First I maintain a spreadsheet of blogcast topics. Every 6 months or so I draft a list of ideas to share, then organize it into a spreadsheet, organized by planned date of publication.  When it's time to craft my content, I have created a Content Planning Worksheet that provides spaces for every aspect of my content, from title to the actual blogcast, to social media shares. (The Content Planning Worksheet is available to students enrolled in Content Made Simple.) I make a copy of the CPW for each blogcast, then craft my content in the doc.  I pay for Google Business Suite for the extra storage (it's $1.99 a month), but it's also available for free until you reach your storage limit. WordPress Once the blogcast is crafted, it gets pasted into a new post on my website.  My website is built on WordPress and it allows me to host all my content, sales pages, and everything else I need for an online presence. If you don't have a website already, I recommend getting your domain and hosting through Siteground. I've been with them since I started my blog many, many years ago and have yet to be disappointed by their service. Siteground also makes it easy to install WordPress on your site for free. I use the Divi theme on my site, but there are many free themes to use as you get started. Each year WordPress releases a new theme of the year, which are typically well designed and audience-friendly. PicMonkey My next step in the process of crafting my content is to create my graphics. I make 6 graphics for each post, but that is not what I'd recommend when you're starting out. Before deciding what graphics you need, consider what platforms you're going to use.  I suggest you create a square and horizontal image for each post or episode. If you also want to utilize Pinterest, you also need a vertical image. For my graphics I use PicMonkey. It lets me save my brand colors, add videos to images, and I get access to a massive library of stock photos. Another option that many people love is Canva. You can try PicMonkey free for 7 days here. Social Warfare Within my website I use the plugin called Social Warfare. It allows me to create prepopulated shares for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more, for each post. It also gives me the floating bard on the side of my website that allows people to share my blogcast with just one click.  Using this tool, when someone clicks the share button, let's use Pinterest as an example, their new pin will populate with the image I've selected and the description I've created. They can edit the description, of course, but it gives me more control over the way my brand is presented. Adobe Audition There are hundreds of programs that let you record your voice for a podcast, but the one I like best, and use every week, is Adobe Audition. It's part of the Creative Cloud program, so you may have access through your school.  I like Audition because it's fairly easy to learn and it enables me to edit my own blogcast in minimal time - because anything that saves me time is awesome. I know it has a lot of features I don't use, but the ones I do use save me time and money. Adobe offers a discounted rate for teachers. Scroll to the bottom of the linked page to find it. Libsyn Once the sound is recorded, I upload it to my podcast host, Libsyn (short for Liberated Syndication). I recommend using a paid hosting company like Libsyn (only $5 a month) over the free platforms because of the ease of use, customer service, listener stats, and multiple distribution channels. Libsyn also allows me to embed my episodes on the blog post page, making it easier for people to listen and helping to grow my listenership. ConvertKit Once the content is created, I draft an email to those signed up for my list. The email text is included in the Content Planning Worksheet, so I can simply copy and paste it into ConvertKit. One way I make my weekly emails easier is to duplicate the email from the week before, then adjust the sections as necessary. This also ensures that the correct people on my email list get the Side Hustle Headlines email. Those who are new to my list are in what's called a nurture sequence, and to prevent them from getting an overload of emails I don't send them the weekly messages. The ability to create nurture sequences, tag subscribers, and segment my list are what makes ConvertKit my email service provider of choice for 7 years now! Use ConvertKit for free until you have 1,000 subscribers! CinchShare The last step in my content creation process is to schedule my posts for social media. In my personal opinion a good scheduling program is essential for all business owners, but especially teachers. We aren't available to post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linked In all day long.  Just imagine, “Hang on class, I just have to post this prompt to my Facebook group.” Ummmmmm. No. Each Sunday night I get all my posts for the week loaded into CinchShare, use their auto-scheduler to set up times for everything to go out, and click “schedule.” So before I go to bed I know that all my prompts, stories, posts, questions, quotes… you get the idea… will go out on time. Try CinchShare for 14 days for free. Using the right tools can have a massive impact on your business. It can take stress off of you and make running a business while teaching much more manageable. While it may take a small investment to get access to some tools, the time, energy, and effort you save will be well worth it. For a complete list of all the tools and programs I recommend, check out the resources page on my site.

Do you know who you are speaking to online? Well, according to recent social media research, you may have no idea. Internet trolls pose a much larger threat than annoying you while you watch the latest episode of Jon Tron. Political enemies of western democracies are using troll farms to direct the narrative of the discussions you are having online, at times even deciding what you will be talking about. They do this by hacking into mainframes that then can control thousands of accounts at once. Even major publications like the New York Times have reported on tweets from fake accounts. And it is a very real threat that entire political debased are controlled by authoritarian governments. For example, as of June 2020, many of the Black Lives Matter vs. Blue Lives Matter debates were being commented on by trolls; further, the trolls did not side with one particular argument, but offered extreme arguments from both a liberal and conservative standpoint. Why would they do this? To sew confusion and to create discord. Remember the basic principle of Divide and Conquer; remember how I told you that Propaganda is the war you are already fighting. Some of you do not realize the extent to which this is true. Accounts with thousands of followers and millions of likes have been unmasked as fake accounts, with no human actually behind them. And no, you cannot simply check the profile to make sure the accounts are real anymore. Hackers know what you are looking for. They know that you think a personable picture in the profile and a brief introduction will do the trick. There are too many of these accounts for you to avoid them. Most of the arguments you have had on social media have likely been fueled by them. But you are likely arguing with nothing, with no one. You are screaming at the darkness to become the light, demanding that a shadow show its true colors. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/morecontentplease/support

Faille de sécurité, passage en Premium, maintenance interrompue... il existe plusieurs raisons pour lesquelles un plugin peut disparaître du répertoire officiel de WordPress. Que faire dans ce-cas là ? Comment réagir au mieux ? Je vous dévoile ici quelques conseils pour aborder la situation en toute sérénité si un jour elle vous arrive. ## Je vous en parle dans la vidéo : ⏩ La vidéo sur le piratage de Social Warfare : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWVgOrYeJEY ⏩ L'article sur le plugin YARPP : https://wpmarmite.com/articles-similaires-wordpress/ ## Prestataires WordPress, vous êtes en quête des meilleurs plugins, et des actualités WP à ne pas manquer ? Jetez un oeil à la newsletter Premium bimensuelle de la Marmite : le Bouillon ! ⏩ https://wpmarmite.com/bouillon/ ## Et bien sûr, abonnez-vous à la chaîne de la Marmite pour recevoir les prochains #DisVoirAlex et tous mes tutos WordPress : ⏩ https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=WPMarmite N'hésitez pas non plus à me poser toutes vos questions autour de l'univers de WordPress dans les commentaires, ou sur les réseaux sociaux !

You notice that none of your quests that you interview on your podcast are sharing their interview. There is a reason for that. The interview you did was very similar to the other interviews they have done in the past and their audience has already heard their story and the same old same old questions. It Needs to Be Different If you want your guest so share the episode with their audience it has to hold the attention of your audience, but it also has to hold the attention of their audience. It can't be the same questions they get asked over and over again.  Make It Simple To Share Then make it easy to share. Don't send them a link and say "Its live." Pre-write the tweet, the email, the Facebook post so all they have to do is copy and paste.  There is a website call clicked to tweet that you pre-write the tweet and all you guest has to do is provide a link you get.  Social Warfare is a great WordPress Plugin that makes sure that the right images is used social mentions.  If you need to make artwork, Stencil is a great tool to use to make great looking artwork with lots of templates to choose from 

Stewart m'a demandé quels plugins j'utilise sur mon site WPMarmite : je lui réponds dans cet épisode 56 de #DisVoirAlex ! ## Je vous en parle dans la vidéo, voici nos plugins fétiches, dont on ne se sépare plus sur WPMarmite : ⏩ Admin Columns Pro : https://www.admincolumns.com/ ⏩ Advanced Gutenberg Blocks : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-gutenberg-blocks/ ⏩ Akismet : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/ ⏩ AMP : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/amp/ ⏩ Archived Post Status : https://wordpress.org/plugins/lh-archived-post-status/ ⏩ Cocorico Shortcodes : https://pl.wordpress.org/plugins/cocorico-shortcodes/ ⏩ Collect.chat : https://wordpress.org/plugins/collectchat/ ⏩ Custom Login Page Customizer : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/login-customizer/ ⏩ DeepL pour WordPress : https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpdeepl/ ⏩ Download Monitor : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/download-monitor/ ⏩ Duplicate Post : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/duplicate-post/ ⏩ Elementor : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/ ⏩ Favicon par RealFaviconGenerator : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/favicon-by-realfavicongenerator/ ⏩ FeedPress : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/feedpress/ ⏩ Glue for YoastSEO & AMP : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/glue-for-yoast-seo-amp/ ⏩ Gravity Forms : https://www.gravityforms.com/ ⏩ Imagify : https://imagify.io/fr ⏩ Instant Articles for WordPress : https://wordpress.org/plugins/fb-instant-articles/ ⏩ Loco Translate : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/loco-translate/ ⏩ ManageWP : https://managewp.com/ ⏩ Members : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/members/ ⏩ Monster Insights : https://www.monsterinsights.com ⏩ OptinMonster : https://optinmonster.com/ ⏩ PastaCode : http://pastacode.wabeo.fr/ ⏩ Polylang : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/polylang/ ⏩ PrettyLinks : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/pretty-link/ ⏩ Q2W3 Fixed Widget : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/q2w3-fixed-widget/ ⏩ Redirection : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/ ⏩ Regenerate Thumbnails : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/ ⏩ SecuPress : https://secupress.me/fr/ ⏩ Coming Soon Page & Maintenance Mode by SeedProd : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/coming-soon/ ⏩ SendinBlue Subscribe Forms & SMTP : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/mailin/ ⏩ Smart Podcast Player : https://smartpodcastplayer.com/ ⏩ Social Warfare : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/social-warfare/ ⏩ Subscribe to Comments Reloaded : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/subscribe-to-comments-reloaded/ ⏩ User Switching : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/user-switching/ ⏩ Widget Logic : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/widget-logic/ ⏩ WP No Base Permalink : https://bel.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-no-base-permalink/ ⏩ WPRocket : https://wp-rocket.me/fr/ ⏩ WP Sitemap Page : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-sitemap-page/ ⏩ WP Time Capsule : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-time-capsule/ ⏩ WP-Page-Navi : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-pagenavi/ ⏩ Yoast SEO : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/ ## Vous créez des sites WordPress régulièrement ? Inscrivez-vous au Bouillon, la newsletter premium de la Marmite. Dedans, vous recevrez tous les 15 jours les dernières actu WordPress et les ressources essentielles à tous les créateurs de sites WordPress : ⏩ https://wpmarmite.com/bouillon/ ## Et n'oubliez pas de vous abonner à la chaîne de la Marmite pour recevoir tous mes conseils WordPress ! ⏩ https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=WPMarmite

This week we have an update on the Social Warfare plugin vulnerability, how it was more serious than originally thought, and a feud that has broken out between a security researcher and forum moderators. We also have some interesting data on how WordPress will become more secure soon with code signing. And along with several other news items, we have a spectacular interview with Aaron Campbell, the former head of WordPress security. Enjoy!!

Learnings and Leanings I decided to do a special edition episode for a few reasons. First, I've been thinking for a while that I'd like to share what I have learned, which feels like a lot: what I've learned from doing this podcast; what I've learned from my guests; what I think and how I feel about all of it. Second, I want to tell you about some changes that are coming. I'll explain more in a bit, but basically the podcast continues to evolve and these changes will reflect that. Thirdly, I want to talk about some of the services I use that I find beneficial for my food blog, Dishes Delish, and think would be helpful for other bloggers. None of my recommendations are sponsored. Snafu and the Lesson Learned The catalyst for this special edition episode was a problem I encountered last Tuesday, March 5th, when I uploaded Elizabeth Falcigno's interview. It was supposed to be published today, March 13th, but actually came out the day I uploaded it. I had scheduled the episode for the correct date and time, but there was a glitch that overrode my settings and Libsyn published it immediately. I noticed what had happened within a few minutes but even though I quickly tried to reschedule it, iTunes had already pulled the feed and people had already started to listen to the episode. To get downloads so quickly was amazing to me, but still, it wasn't what I'd planned. Since this snafu left a hole in my publishing calendar, once I calmed down, I realized it was my chance to record and publish this update instead of an interview. So here we are. One of the things I learned from this snafu is not to freak out about problems that come up, especially if you can't fix them. And believe me, I tried. Was I upset? Yes. Did hubby have to talk me off the figurative "ledge"? You betcha! But basically, what I realized is the only thing that really upset the order of my world was that Elizabeth's episode came out the day before Chris Collins'. Did that hurt anything? No. It just changed something. I feel grateful and protective towards my guests. I want each person to get their time in the spotlight and I was worried that Chris would lose the spotlight because of Elizabeth's episode. Well, that didn't happen. Both episodes have gotten great download numbers even though they came out on consecutive days. So, instead of pulling out my hair and wailing at the technology, I accepted it and I'm happy for the lesson I learned. Letting Stuff Go - Like Plugins Mostly, I have a love/hate relationship with change. I love it in some ways and hate it in other ways. Hubby and I used to change our furniture around a lot because both of us or one of us - usually me - needed the change. The weird thing is I would more often than not feel kind of lost after we plunked the last piece of furniture down. Because of the change. Not that we undid anything, but it used to make me cry a little. The reason I tell you this is because it sort of explains why I hung on as long as I did to using the social sharing plugin called Social Warfare after I learned it was a problem. I'd read comments on Facebook. A lot of people complained the plugin broke their site once they updated it. BROKE THEIR SITE! Can you imagine? The way I dealt with it, was to not update it, which we all know is not a good practice. When I interviewed Andrew Wilder and he raved about Social Pug, the social sharing plugin developed by Mihai Iova from devpups.com, it still took me a few months to decide to actually switch. Even though Andrew mentioned that Social Pug did exactly what Social Warfare did, I still clung to what was 'known'. Well, today I'm really glad I jumped on the Social Pug bandwagon. Not only does it do everything the old plugin did, but when I had some questions and reached out to Mihai to ask them, not only has he responded quickly but he answered my questions and really cared that I understood his answers. So, if you are like me and want to cling to what you know, I'm here to tell you that I don't regret for one moment making the switch to Social Pug! Change might be challenging, but that doesn't mean it's not good. Now, I'm eyeing Mihai's Optin Hound plugin, since I really need to change my current one, which I'm not going to renew. Services I Rely On I've mentioned before on the show the support I get from my virtual assistants, Helena and Vladi. Together they manage different aspects of the website, social sharing, and SEO for me. I've often said that one of the best things I have done for the blog was to get a site audit by Casey Markee, (you can hear his episodes here and here). But the other best thing I have done was to hire Lil Creative Digital Agency, which is Helena and Vladi's company. I've been working with them for almost 2 years and am here to say that their help has done so much for our business. Not only are they efficient and communicative, but they go the extra mile and are always positive. They answer my questions readily and take time out of their lives to send me feedback or brainstorm ideas with me. I consider them my friends. I will be interviewing Helena and Vladi in the coming months, which I'm really looking forward to. Stay tuned for their episode. One of the services I was most excited to hand off to them was the maintenance of the Dishes Delish website. Even though I'm technology savvy, it's hard to keep up with all the changes and frankly, I don't have the time or desire to do it anymore. So, I subscribe to their maintenance package and couldn't be happier. No more staring at the settings for WP Rocket (or some other plug-in) and guessing if I got them set up correctly. I can rest assured that they will get it done and I don't have to worry! As Toni Dash advises, hire someone who has the expertise you don't so you can focus on creating the content only you can create. Changes to the Podcast Okay, here's what I'm planning for the Dishing with Delishes podcast. Don't worry, I'm still going to be producing episodes for the show. Since the podcast is still growing, I'm not actively looking for ways to make money on the show, so my main source of revenue comes from my food blog, Dishes Delish. I'm imagining that as the show grows, I will do some sponsored ads that I'll insert into each episode, but I keep putting it off because I want my listeners to have a great listening experience and being clobbered over the head with an ad takes people out of the experience. When/if I do sponsored ads, I will only promote companies that I think will be beneficial to you, my audience. Just so everyone understands where I'm coming from, each episode takes me a long time to produce. First comes the pre-interview communications. It takes time to reach out to people, ask if they want to be on the show, respond to their questions and then send them next steps, if they do. So, let's say I spend two hours a week doing that. Next, comes the actual interview, which runs anywhere between 35 minutes to an hour. Then, comes the editing, because I'm not sure everyone knows that I edit every single episode. A 30 minute episode takes me, on average, anywhere between 2 1/2 hours and 4 hours to edit. Why does it take me so long? Because I'm a perfectionist. I take out as many "umms", false starts, pauses, and other types of language that I feel detract from the listening experience as I can. When we are in front of someone and speaking, we hardly notice the "umms', the starting of a sentence and then stopping mid-way to say something else. We just accept it as normal. But when you have headphones on and you're listening to the show, they are glaringly obvious. At least to me. They've got to go! Next up is the show notes page. Thankfully, Christopher (hubby) takes some of the writing out of my hands, like editing and inserting the bio we receive from guests. But I compile and add everything else on that page and that takes me around a 1/2 hour per episode. Uploading and configuring each episode for my media host, Libsyn, takes me between 15 minutes and 1/2 hour. After the episode goes live, I write to the guest, providing them links to share their episode with their social media networks (for which I'm eternally grateful, when they do). The last thing I have to do is share the episode to all of my own social media networks. Do you see how much work that is? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to do it. I love talking to my guests and hearing their stories. I love learning from them about their journeys and their businesses and want to continue producing this podcast for many years. But in order to do that, I've decided I have to limit how many episodes I produce. So instead of 52 episodes a year, I will be producing the podcast in seasons - think television seasons. I will have two seasons a year - 20 episodes per season. The first season will start in early January and run to mid May. And the second season will start early July and end before Thanksgiving. I feel very positive about this change. I think it will give me the time I need to focus on the money making activities for my blog while still reaping the benefits of producing the podcast. What I've learned One of the things I've learned after talking with over 70 food bloggers and experts is that we all have different approaches and journeys. Some of us started blogging so family members and friends could access our recipes without us having to provide them over and over via email. Some of us started because we love food and have a deep desire to share it. Some of us started because we learned how easy, fun or beneficial cooking is and wanted to inspire and help others to learn, too. And some of us started blogging as a business opportunity. One of the things I really enjoyed was when Kate Kordsmeier stated loud and clear that she started her blog as a business. It was refreshing to hear that because that's why I started mine. I felt funny saying that to people because it felt shameful on some level. But after hearing Kate say it and knowing other guests did it, now I say it proudly. Another thing I've learned is no matter if you have an expensive full framed camera, a starter DSLR or a smartphone, the more you take photos, the better your photography will be. Like the old saying, practice makes perfect. So keep plugging away and if you get discouraged, go back to your old photos to see how far you've come. Another thing I've learned is to celebrate every win you've accomplished. This is something Christopher and I both try to do whenever possible. Too often we don't take the time to celebrate and that makes us lose an opportunity, because we all know that blogging is hard work. Like, really hard. Why not look at what you've accomplished and celebrate it? The work will always be there. We put in long hours. Unless we are super lucky, it can take years to see results. So I say, stick with it and don't quit, but in the meantime work to improve your writing, your photography or anything else related to your business. It will pay off in the end and bring you satisfaction along the way. That's what I think. What do you think? If you've been listening to the show for a while and/or have a blog of your own, I would love to hear what you've learned, either from Dishing with Delishes guests or from your own journey, in a comment on this page. It doesn't have to be long or include a narrative. Short and sweet is fine. You can also shoot me an email if that's easier. Send it to Elaine at Dishing With Delishes dot com. Also, if I'm not covering the questions you want to hear me asks my guests, please either use the comment section below or email to tell me so. That is all. :) Thank you for listening to my podcast. I appreciate each and every one of you!

This episode demonstrates that it is possible to get to 6.6 million pageviews in 2 years of blogging, because Caroline Simmons of Swaddles N Bottles did it! And the best part is she loves sharing all her tips and tricks. In this episode, Caroline and I discuss how Pinterest has fueled her blog growth, and how she strategically uses group boards to find new opportunities. Learn how she hires contributors to create content for her parenting blog, and how she's started a new blog to teach other women how to build online businesses. This is all in addition to having two babies at home! If you want actionable steps to take your blog traffic to a new level, you will love this episode! Resources: Swaddles N Bottles Tailwind PinGroupie Pinning For Pageviews Canva Shutterstock Adobe Photos MiloTree Social Warfare HashtagJeff ShareASale CJ Affiliate PepperJam The Basics of Blogging The Basics of Blogging Facebook Group Mastering Affiliate Marketing The Slight Edge * May contain affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I might receive a small commission at no cost to you.   Transcript - How to Get to 6.6 Million Pageviews in 2 Years of Blogging with Caroline Simmons Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:03 Hello, everybody. Welcome back to The Blogger Genius Podcast. Today, my guest is Caroline Simmons. It's Caroline right? Not Carolyn? Caroline Simmons 0:21 Yes. Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:21 Yes. okay, and Caroline is a mother of two itty bitty kids. And she's a blogger. She's owner of a blog called Swaddles n Bottles, and it's a resource for new moms. Now what's super interesting is that she started this in 2016, and she has since grown it to over 6.6 million page views. So we are going to get into how she has done that. Welcome to the show. Caroline. Caroline Simmons 0:49 Hi. Thank you for having me. Jillian Tohber Leslie 0:51 So I have to say that we met because you sent me the loveliest email out of nowhere, just saying how much you enjoyed the podcast. Caroline Simmons 1:02 Yes, I am someone who always want to be learning about whatever there is out there that I can get my hands on involving blogging and growing. And just finding new strategies and tips. And anytime I see your email pop up in my inbox, I either read it right then and there, or I flag it because I know it's always got such great content. So yeah, I really enjoy it. And, you know, I like that we were saying that the internet can be kind of a lonely place. And so I always like to just send a positive message whenever I can. And just send you a little word of encouragement that I'm reading it and I'm loving it. And it is absolutely helping me. Jillian Tohber Leslie 1:42 Thank you. And you're also using MiloTree, because if you sign up for MiloTree, you get my emails. So honestly, like when I get an email like that. It's it makes my day. Caroline Simmons 1:54 Well, good. I'm happy to hear that. Jillian Tohber Leslie 1:56 And then when I learned a little bit about your business, I was like, please come on the show, I want to interview you. Caroline Simmons 2:02 Yes, I'm happy to share whatever I can. Kind of pay it forward everything you've given me. I'd love to share some of my tidbits and hope that it can help someone else. Jillian Tohber Leslie 2:11 Okay, so let's start at the beginning. You started this blog not long ago? Caroline Simmons 2:16 Right. Jillian Tohber Leslie 2:16 So tell me a little bit about you. And how you did this. Caroline Simmons 2:20 Okay. Yeah, so I launched it in October of 2016. Starting a blog two years ago to help other mothers Jillian Tohber Leslie 2:25 Wow. So two years ago. Caroline Simmons 2:27 Just about two years ago now. And my first daughter was just three months old at the time. And when I was pregnant with her, I spent so much time online, trying to get my hands on any and all information I could about what was to come in my near future. In terms of my pregnancy and labor and delivery and bringing home a newborn and breastfeeding that newborn. And so I spent so much time online, just trying to collect every bit of information I could. Then as I kind of started going through, you know, those first couple months of motherhood and testing things out and trying to figure out. What was working what wasn't. What were the mom hacks that were saving me time and sanity and whatnot. I thought I would love to share this. And so I decided I wanted to start a blog. I had never done anything website related in the past. Jillian Tohber Leslie 3:22 And what was your previous life? Caroline Simmons 3:24 My previous life, I kind of dabbled around in a few different things. And I spent a few years working for an energy company. I did some recruiting for them. I did some customer service for them prior to leaving my job. Right before I had my first daughter, Emmy, I was working in higher education and working with college students, which was really, really fun. So, to be honest, I can say that I hadn't found what I wanted to do long term. And then when this idea, once it struck me, like creating a blog creating something from scratch that I've done all on my own, and growing it to the point of reaching me, no, never would have guessed it would have been millions of mothers and helping them. Once that idea was in my brain, and in my heart, there was no stopping it. It gave me, it's still to this day gives me goosebumps, just thinking about having the opportunity to do that. And so that's kind of what set me on my path. Jillian Tohber Leslie 4:24 Okay, so you get this idea. You have this tiny little baby, and you think I want to help other mothers, right? So what do you do? Start a blog to solve a problem you're struggling with Caroline Simmons 4:34 I bought a domain and I'm pretty sure my husband thought I had lost my marbles because he's like, do you know anything about blogging? And I didn't. And really, when I was a new mom, I was a new blogger. I researched. I took every free course I could find. I read every book I could find. I invested a little money in some paid ebooks and paid courses. I just just dug into anything I could get my hands on to figure it out. And I started creating content. I think one of the things that was the most helpful was that I was creating content for an audience that I was in the same position. I was going through the same struggles, and I was finding solutions. And I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And I think that really helped. I had to tap into what's going on in my life. What struggles and am I going through? And how can I help others? Jillian Tohber Leslie 5:37 You know, it's so funny, because people will go, I want to start a business, what should it be? And I always say, examine your own life. Because, you know, if you're having a problem, chances are millions of other people are having that exact problem. And that's it again, we didn't set out to create MiloTree, we built it for ourselves, it worked really well. We're like, Hey, we could help other bloggers. And so we didn't set out to go, we're gonna make this app. And, you know, it's just, we scratched our own itch, and we were able to find a solution. Just like you did. Caroline Simmons 6:11 Right, yeah. And that is, I think, what what brings in the people is when you're solving a problem for them, and you're not setting out trying to do something for yourself, right? Having a mindset of helping as a blogger You're saying, and this is something that a lot of people are struggling with, how can I help? And when you have a mindset of helping, I think people can sense that. Yes. And I think that they are attracted to it. Jillian Tohber Leslie 6:35 I agree. It's like, they can smell it. Caroline Simmons 6:37 Yes. Jillian Tohber Leslie 6:39 Okay. So you start writing posts. Caroline Simmons 6:42 I started creating content and building the website, which that was a struggle in itself. Learning this new platform of WordPress, and that, that took some time. That was probably the biggest learning curve. Jillian Tohber Leslie 6:57 Did you did you hire somebody? Caroline Simmons 6:59 No, it was really just tutorials, and watching a lot of YouTube tutorials, and just reaching out to other bloggers, and just kind of trying to figure it out little by little. And still to this day. I would say it was maybe three months ago I installed a new theme in my blog and made a major change. So I tried not to be too hard on myself with it being perfect in the beginning. Because that is kind of, building a website is ever evolving. That was probably the hardest kind of hurdle in the beginning was the technical stuff. Something as simple as changing the color on my menu bar would take me, you know, 45 minutes to Google it and figure it out, and then try it and it didn't work. So I had to try it again. So, that was definitely tough. But now I'm pretty proud of what I do know, and what I can accomplish. And it was fun to learn all of those new things. Jillian Tohber Leslie 7:59 So there's a lot of content on your site. Caroline Simmons 8:02 Yes. Jillian Tohber Leslie 8:03 Did you write it all? Getting contributors to your blog Caroline Simmons 8:04 No, no. So I did in the beginning, and then I believe it was June of this year, I really kind of felt like, while my experiences were great, why not start providing some other views, some other experiences. Because every path through motherhood is unique. And why not give some other people an opportunity to share what they have. So I opened up an application and put it out there on social media, my Instagram, my Facebook. I started reading content that all of these other mothers had submitted. And I was blown away by the results. I never would have thought that I would have received as many applications as I did. And then from that, I now have three writers who write for me consistently. They are wonderful. I feel incredibly blessed to have them because they too, I think, really share my passion for helping moms and providing whatever information they can. So they helped me create a lot of the content. I have done a lot of guest posts in the past where I've allowed newer bloggers to share things. But I would say probably 70% to 80% of the content I wrote myself. I'm really loving having other views and other just stories and point of view this from others. Jillian Tohber Leslie 9:28 Do you pay them? Caroline Simmons 9:30 I do? Yes. My content writers who are with me, my three, I do pay them and I have not paid for, like blog posts in the past. But I do pay my writers. Absolutely. I mean, if you read some of the content they provide me with, it's amazing. It's stellar. And I like supporting them. And the fact that they're also trying to make something of themselves as freelance writers. So, yeah, I love being able to support them on their journey as well. Jillian Tohber Leslie 9:59 And how much content. How often are you posting? Caroline Simmons 10:03 You know, that's one of the interesting things about blogging. Since I brought on these writers, I've been a lot more consistent. When I brought home my second daughter, she was born in October, she was a little bit early, so she really needed extra attention. And so I didn't post there for maybe two months. When I first found out I was pregnant with her, oh, my goodness. I have like the worst morning sickness. And so I didn't post then for two or three weeks. So I wouldn't advise that to other bloggers. Having flexibility as a blogger But I would say it is one of the nice things about blogging, is when you do have to take time for your family, and for yourself, you can. But I have seen a lot of growth since I've been really consistent. And I'd say for the month of September, I think I'm already up to we've posted 16 times. Jillian Tohber Leslie 10:57 Okay. Wow. Caroline Simmons 10:59 And that's a combination of my own, and my writers as well. So as long as there's stuff to be shared, you know, we're going to be sharing it, we're not going to hold ourselves back. As long as we keep having inspiration on things to write. We're going to keep putting it out there. Jillian Tohber Leslie 11:17 That's awesome. Okay. Now, here is the million dollar question actually be 6.6 million question is, how have you grown your page views so big? Be where your audience is as a blogger -- focus on your most successful platform Caroline Simmons 11:29 Well, this is just kind of my philosophy for any blog is you have to know your audience and where they are spending their time, where are they hanging out. And wherever that is, you have got to work the heck out of it. For me, being that I am targeting women, new mothers, for me, that was Pinterest. And Pinterest has been the number one source of traffic for my blog. Really since day one, I have just researched and read and implemented and tested and dug into my analytics with Pinterest more than any other platform because it's what's working for me. And I think that that's something it took me time to figure out to work on what's working. You know, I think as a blogger, we can get so tied up with, well, there's Facebook, and there's Instagram. And there's Twitter. And there's LinkedIn. And, you know, there's all these different things and you're trying to make each of them work. Because you maybe hear that they're working for other bloggers or you think it could work. Where really I mean, if Pinterest is working, work Pinterest, and focus on that. And once you've got some consistent traffic from it, that's it's okay to start working on other things, and looking into other things. But I think that by really focusing on that one platform and doing whatever I could to learn and master and just make it work for me, that's what really drove the traffic. Jillian Tohber Leslie 13:05 So by the way, you are so preaching to the choir, I agree with you 100%. I always say this, which is go toward what's working. And then people will say, yeah, but what, what happens when Pinterest changes their algorithm, and I go, Oh, don't worry, they will. And then you go toward whatever else is working. But if something is working, dig deep, it doesn't mean that you ignore Instagram, but focus on what's making you money. Caroline Simmons 13:33 Right. And especially if you're just starting out, you're like, wow, this is working, okay, that means you've just skim the surface. If you've just pinned a few times, and it starts doing good things for your page views. Imagine what would happen if you really just took the time to educate yourself and read as much as you could. Even if you take three days to do nothing, but just educate yourself. It will pay you back and you will start knowing how to implement these things differently and just and really launch it. Jillian Tohber Leslie 14:01 So let's talk about this. Okay, so did you take Pinterest courses? Caroline Simmons 14:07 I did not take a specific Pinterest course. I'll be honest, I was an avid pinner before. I loved recipes. And when I was young and single, I had my dream wedding board, and all of that. My fashion board and such, so I was a pinner beforehand. And I think I understood how it worked. In that sense, when it came to making it work. For myself as a blogger, I think it was really just about digging into analytics. There's so many free resources out there, you know. Just a quick Pinterest search on Pinterest tips and what you can do to make it work for you. There's so much content out there. Which I love that about the blogging world. I love that people are willing to share, what is working for them. And so I might have taken some free Master Courses, as they call them, where it's like a one time thing where you sit and they share just kind of a few golden nuggets from Pinterest. But I didn't take one course that kind of changed everything. For me, it was more of just grabbing whatever I could, wherever I could, and just implementing little things here and there. Dig into your analytics on Pinterest to see what's working And then, like I said, it's all about digging into your analytics. You know, if you don't know what's working, you're not going to know what to stop doing and what to change. Jillian Tohber Leslie 15:32 Okay, so so let's unpack that a little bit. Caroline Simmons 15:34 Okay. Jillian Tohber Leslie 15:34 What does that mean? Digging into your analytics? Caroline Simmons 15:41 So you've got your analytics on everything, if we're talking specific about Pinterest? Jillian Tohber Leslie 15:46 Yeah, let's do Pinterest. Caroline Simmons 15:48 Pinterest analytics lets you know what boards you're pinning to that are getting the most results. Jillian Tohber Leslie 15:54 Okay. Caroline Simmons 15:54 You can also look into things like what type of pins are performing. You can see what times of day that you're pinning that are working for you. I am an avid user of Tailwind. Jillian Tohber Leslie 16:11 Got it. And we do too. Caroline Simmons 16:14 Oh, my gosh. And that it's not just the Pinterest analytics alone. My Tailwind analytics are huge for me. It lets me know so much. Using group boards as a blogger to grow traffic And especially like I said, I'm a big user of the group boards. And using group boards on Pinterest is a great way to expand your reach. And it's great how they can let you know, you've pinned to this board 67 times in the past month, and it's only been been repinned once. Well, that tells you that your ideal audience is not hanging out in that group board. That's you're not getting your pin in front of the right people. So it may be time to, take a break from that group board, possibly leave that group board and really start to focus more on where are you know, my my ideal pinners? How can I get in touch with them? And how can I make sure that they're seeing my content And clicking on it. Jillian Tohber Leslie 17:11 So in Tailwind, you're looking at which are your most successful boards? Caroline Simmons 17:17 I'm looking at what are my most successful boards. I really also love to look at what people are pinning directly from my domain. Because it shows them if there is an image within a blog post that really is like standing out to them. And they're really captivated by Wow, this is this is such an interesting graphic. And so if I see that that's being pinned a lot, I like to go in and maybe create a new PIN that's maybe a little modified version of that, that graphic, it just tells you so much. But the board analyzer as they call it, and that really helps me see where is my effort is most being returned. I'm using that time slot to pin to this board? Is it worth it? And then from there on the opposite end of, leaving boards and also helps me see what are my rock star boards? Where are my people for sure, hanging out. And I like to make sure that as soon as I have a new blog post that it's going to my rock star boards, because I know that that's going to be the fastest and the best way to reach my audience. Jillian Tohber Leslie 18:24 And how many boards do you have? Caroline Simmons 18:27 Oh, my goodness, I think I'm probably in about 145 range right now. Jillian Tohber Leslie 18:32 Okay. Caroline Simmons 18:33 And that's what's really great about group boards is because I personally have maybe 15,000 followers on Pinterest right now. But my reach is 4.5 million. Jillian Tohber Leslie 18:47 Wow, wow. Caroline Simmons 18:50 Being part of those group boards, it's expanding my reach well beyond my individual followers. And I mean, that's huge, right there. That is what I say is the secret to Pinterest is the group boards. Jillian Tohber Leslie 19:04 Is the group boards. Caroline Simmons 19:05 Absolutely. Jillian Tohber Leslie 19:05 Because, again, I feel like I've heard over time that group boards are not as useful that they need to be very curated. Are you pinning in group boards that have thousands or hundreds of contributors? Caroline Simmons 19:23 You're touching on something that I've heard a lot of debate on. So I agree with you that if you are in boards that are pin whatever you want, no rules. Pin, whatever, and there's, you know, 4.5 thousand people in it. Yes, that can be a negative. But I am personally part of a board that I think have probably 700 or 800 contributors, and it's one of my top ones. That's why when I'm looking at group boards to join, I'm not usually making that decision myself. I'm going to ask to join, I'm going to give it 30 days. And I'm gonna let my Tailwind analytics Tell me from there. So I test it out, see if it's working. And if it doesn't, okay, I'll go ahead and leave. But I also think that you really do need to have a balance, I would say, you know, 70/30. 70% of your group boards you really need to be focusing for that's very specific target audience. I'm a parenting and pregnancy blogger, I'm going to be joining boards that focus around pregnancy, babies, labor and delivery, breastfeeding. That's what I want to be looking for. Testing out group boards as a blogger I'm fine with testing them out. But I'm also very quick to leave them if I feel like they're not working. But I'm not going to rule them out from the beginning. Let's give it a try. Jillian Tohber Leslie 20:44 Now, how are you finding these group boards? Caroline Simmons 20:47 PinGroupie is an awesome resource. It has really evolved too, from when I first started blogging, they've really updated it. And it's a lot more user friendly. Now, you're able to go in and filter out the category of group boards that you're looking for. And so that's awesome. Another great thing is , go to your fellow bloggers, see what some of the bigger bloggers in your in your area and see where they are pinning to and into to get added to those group boards as well. Jillian Tohber Leslie 21:25 And so will you reach out? You emailed them? Will you messaged them on Pinterest? Caroline Simmons 21:30 Yeah, I'd usually just follow the instructions on the group board. And it'll say, follow me and, send me an email or follow me and messaged me on my Facebook page and things like that. And I think one of the most valuable things that's helped me is I have two things I always follow up, I keep a running list of who I have messaged in regards to these group boards. And then if I'm added, I make a note, send them a thank you email. But a week to 10 days later, if I haven't heard back, I send a second email and I continue to follow up with them. Jillian Tohber Leslie 22:06 I love this. Okay, keep going. How to get added to group boards on Pinterest Caroline Simmons 22:08 And then more than that, a lot of times, and this is like a really big secret. But a lot of times, you'll notice that the bigger bloggers that have, you know 300,000+ followers don't have instructions on how you can grow the board. And so it takes some digging. I go to their website, I find, you know, their email address, and I send them a very personalized email to see if I can get added. And so a lot of times, I think that, you know, bloggers will look at these larger accounts. And well, there's no instructions on how to get added. So they must not be accepting contributors. And I don't take that as a stop, I keep going, I keep digging past that. And I find a way to make a connection with them. And I've got a group board that I'm part of. And you know, she didn't have any instructions. But she has half a million followers. And they're my target audience. And I reached out to her, and I kind of established a relationship with her and asked if I could be a contributor. And that was a big launch forward for my traffic. Jillian Tohber Leslie 23:08 That is terrific. Oh, my God, I'm going to go back and kind of rethink our whole group board strategy. Caroline Simmons 23:16 Yeah, it's powerful. Not only that, it's a great way to build a community with people in your network. In my ebook, I have an ebook, Pinning For Pageviews, where I talk about the strategies that work great for Pinterest. And one of my suggestions is to have your own group boards. And, you know, pay back the favor. Give other people an opportunity to market their blog post and their blogs to your audience. And I think it's a great way to say like, hey, I've got this many followers and this group board your content is great, I'd love to add you and you kind of do like a little group board swap and build a relationship there. So for all the group boards who have given you the opportunity to share your content, pay that back and invite some of our fellow bloggers to join yours as well. Jillian Tohber Leslie 24:05 So how many would you say, how many group boards are you in? How many group boards do you have? And how many regular boards? Caroline Simmons 24:17 Yeah, I want to say I am probably part of at least like 100, 120, group boards and 40 are my own. I'm so worried that those numbers are going to be completely off. I'm thinking, like when I'm in tailwind, and I'm adding all those boards, I'm thinking of like, how many days right and so I want to say that's probably about right, I'm in like maybe 120 boards? Jillian Tohber Leslie 24:49 Wow. Okay, how do you keep track then of all of these group boards? Do you have, say, your top five group boards? So if you're pinning do you pin into 100 boards? Caroline Simmons 25:08 So this is going to be really hard to explain but tailwind, has this amazing feature called board lists. And what I do is I create groups of 10. So I have mom boards A, mom boards B, mom boards C, and that's how I go through. And I of course, have a Google Docs with all of my full list of all of them, and which one is on which board list so that way, I ensure that I'm not missing one. And then when I go to pin, a new pin, I go through my list. And I pinned to the group board A, group board B, group board C. Also having it set up in that way where I have those different board list helps me so that way, I'm not pinning, you know, all of the same boards and all the things day. Does that make sense? Jillian Tohber Leslie 26:01 Yeah. Okay. So let me see if I can say that back to you. So you can group boards on tailwind? So let's say you've got 100 group boards, you can lump them, let's say 25 into a group and then another 25 into a group. So that when you are choosing what boards to pin to, all you have to do is put that group name and all those 25 boards will be included. Caroline Simmons 26:32 Yeah, that's it. What's really nice is you can go on your first pin, you go A, B, C, D, then on your second pin, you go B, C, D, A your next pin. So that way you're really mixing it up. Group boards have rules they don't want you pinning 25 times in one day really helps you mix it up so that you're pinning all across your different boards each day. And that's really awesome, too. Because, I mean, you think about like I said 4.5 million when it's mixed up like that. You're really hitting all of those boards. All of those people throughout the week. Got it? What does your team look like as a blogger? Jillian Tohber Leslie 27:09 Yes, this terrific. Okay. So do you have somebody helping you? Caroline Simmons 27:16 You mean with my Pinterest? Jillian Tohber Leslie 27:17 Yes. So are you doing all of this? Caroline Simmons 27:19 I did have a VA for some time who was really, really helpful. And she ended up finding a great full time job that was just like, so meant for her. She's so great at it. But she was helping me for a little while. And my husband helps me with some things like outside of Pinterest. He helps me with more of like the business aspects of it. But Pinterest, I'm really kind of doing it all on my own. And that's not a bad thing. I really enjoy it. I really love it. And it's such a wonderful platform. And like you said, they're always updating, they're always changing. And I think I've yet to see a change that I really dislike. I think that they're always just making it better for the users, which is great for us. Because that means people are enjoying it more. They're spending more time there. So yeah, I really don't mind doing these things on my own. Because I just I love Pinterest. Jillian Tohber Leslie 28:12 It's so terrific. Okay, how many hours a day are you spending on Pinterest? Caroline Simmons 28:19 Spending on Pinterest? Honestly, not too many, thanks to Tailwind. I do do some manual pinning here and there. I really think that Pinterest rewards people who are in there being an active user. And pinning. So I do get in there and pin on different recipes and just things that you know, are of interest to me. So I do spend some time here and there. But I don't have much time to work each week because of you know, the two little babies. So I have to be pretty wise with my time. I'd say each week right now. And probably working. I would say 25 to 30 hours a week. Jillian Tohber Leslie 29:00 Wow, that's great. Caroline Simmons 29:02 Yeah. So I try to squeeze in as much as I can during naptime. And after they go to bed. And they go to a mother's day out program two days a week for just five hours. So the night before they head off to their little school days, we call it I like to sit down and plan well, more than five hours of work. So that way, I can really just set the momentum for myself and just get as much done as I can in that amount of time. Jillian Tohber Leslie 29:31 Who is creating graphics for you? Creating Pinterest images in Canva Caroline Simmons 29:34 I create my graphics. Jillian Tohber Leslie 29:36 Cool. Okay. Using what platform? Caroline Simmons 29:41 Canva and I also really have just discovered Shutterstock, I believe is the name of it. And Adobe Photos a little bit pricier when it comes to purchasing photos. But the quality of them is so great. And as much as I love Canvas, Canva images are very heavily used, and you really start to see and a lot of the same photos being used over and over again. So for me, it's worth it to spend, you know, $3 on a photo that I know is like 100% unique and really just is so on point with the blog post topic. But I love Canva. I am an avid user of it. One of my things for next week is to create a little tutorial for the bloggers and my facebook group who I kind of help with whatever goals they have on Canva, because it's just the possibilities are endless. And, you know, you can really I mean, every graphic on my blog, pretty much 99% of them I created in Canva. Jillian Tohber Leslie 30:41 Wow. And do you have templates set up in Canva so that you can put the image in change the text, and it looks like it's consistent with your site? Caroline Simmons 30:51 I don't. Canva provides a really great Pinterest template, which is that optimal size for a pin. But besides that, I think it's really just creating my own brand in a way in terms of I have certain fonts that I always use, I really I have just a look. And that I stick with. I really like high quality images. I like for the image to be big and bold. And I like for my my texts to be very easy to read as somebody scrolling through Pinterest. I don't want it to be too small. So in terms of templates, I'm really just using that Pinterest pin template on Canva, and then adding all of my own kind of signature things. Grow our email list faster with MiloTree Jillian Tohber Leslie 31:40 I wanted to take a short break to tell you about a new feature, we've added at MiloTree to help you grow your email list faster. Now in your email pop up, you can add add an image. So let's say you've got an e-book or a course or freebie. Or you just want to make your pop up pretty. Just add your image, you will increase the number of subscribers you get. So head on over to MiloTree.com, sign up for your account. Get your first 30 days free. And now back to the show. Keyword strategy for Pinterest Jillian Tohber Leslie 30:41 Now, what about writing descriptions? How do you think about that on Pinterest? Caroline Simmons 32:24 I think you've got to use the same kind of SEO tactics that you use on your blog with Pinterest. You've got to really sit down and create a very keyword heavy description. And you've got to be thinking in the mind of your ideal reader. What are they going to be typing into a search bar and whatever that is, you've got to find a way to work it into your description on Pinterest. Jillian Tohber Leslie 32:55 Yes, yes. Now, are you using hashtags? Caroline Simmons 33:01 I mean, I think maybe once or twice. I have not jumped into that. And I know it's a newer feature. So I haven't started using them yet. But I know others are. And I haven't heard too much feedback on it. Have you heard of people really seeing a huge difference? Jillian Tohber Leslie 33:19 We are starting to put a couple hashtags into our descriptions. And I want to go back and add some hashtags at least like one to every board description. That's a big undertaking, because we have a lot of boards, but that's what I am thinking of doing. But we are starting to put a couple in our descriptions. I don't know if it's helping. I feel like it can't be hurting. And so what we're trying to do is put like our basic search words, you know, #babyshower, #girlbabshower, you know, #pinkbabyshower, that kind of thing. Caroline Simmons 34:02 And you've just touched on like, the toughest thing about blogging, things are always changing. And then you've got to decide, do I spend an entire day going back into this? It's like a few, maybe what, six months ago, Pinterest decided that they were going to change the shape of their board covers. And we all had to spend an entire day going back and fixing all these graphics. You have to really weigh things out and say, Is this a wise use of my time or is it going to even really make a difference? Jillian Tohber Leslie 34:34 And then you don't know that's the bit, you have all these analytics and all this stuff. And then at the end of the day to, there's a part of you, that just doesn't know. Caroline Simmons 34:42 Right. And I think that that's when you've got to take care of the things that you like we've talked about with Pinterest, you got to take care and nurture the things that are working for you, and take on those outside things just one week at a time. And don't try to do all of them at once. And you've really just got to space out and use your time wisely. Jillian Tohber Leslie 35:00 And what I want to say about you is you're not using hashtags and you're still getting tremendous traffic. So will you go entire day going back and doing hashtags because I don't think it's gonna change too much. Exactly. So you do a blog post. Or let's say, even somebody you have these writers. Do you create the editorial calendar for them? Did they pitch you ideas? How to work with blog contributors Caroline Simmons 35:27 No, most of the time I'm sending them the ideas based on what I know their strengths are. I have one girl that's just awesome at the How-tos she just wrote an awesome blog post for me about the maternity leave, with financial planner and how you can basically save up. She's very good at like actionable steps things to do. I've got another one who's just she's wonderful at, tapping into the emotions of motherhood and really just writing almost what I like to call like this supportive type blog posts. And then I also have someone. I have a labor and delivery nurse who writes for me, and she gets all of the things that have a lot of a lot of medical terminology. And, and she she is a great combination and knowledgeable in her field. But she also is so great at breaking it down so things aren't so scary. They're all very, very wonderful writers. And again, I'm so thankful that I have them. At the beginning of each month, I usually send each of them three to four posts, topics, and they begin writing and they have access to Swaddles and Bottles, and so they go in on the back end, and they create their blog posts, they do the formatting and things of that sort. And then it saves as a submitted post. And then I go in, and I do all the search engine optimization, I create the graphics for it. And I do all the little back and stuff, and then I publish it. Then I add it to my Tailwind, and I get it running through all of those group group boards. And then I put it on my Facebook schedule if I plan to share it there. And that's kind of just the the lifeline of a blog posts. Jillian Tohber Leslie 37:19 And how many images are you making per post? Caroline Simmons 37:23 When I first started out, two to three. Jillian Tohber Leslie 37:27 And they all have text overlays? Caroline Simmons 37:30 Yes. Always, use overlay. I like to just play around with the different titles change some words, you know, because the science of what makes a pin go viral. And what makes the pin just die off into the abyss is something that so many people have tried to specifically pinpoint. And it's not a perfect formula. I mean, you can't do ABC and within 24 hours have 20,000 readers, right. There's a lot of great guidance that we've received a lot of just general rules that people say, but again, you know, one of these, general rules that people say, is to avoid having like, faces in your pins but some faces and some pins that have done really, really well. So I think that it's a combination of a lot of things. And so I really like to try to tweak those things with each graphic that I make, just to kind of cover a few different bases. Jillian Tohber Leslie 38:30 So what would those bases be? When you kind of go, Okay, I'm gonna make three images for this blog post, what will you go to, as things you think might be successful? Caroline Simmons 38:40 I'm just really changing the title. And I don't want to say call to action. But for example, let's say I wrote a blog post on losing weight, you know, I might do the first one on, you know, the Complete Guide to losing weight, I may do another one that's like, losing weight 101, 25 ways to get past your plateau, or than I might do another one of, Number stuck on the scale, can't get past a certain point? Here's how we can help you. So it's the exact same subject, but your wording it in different ways, because you never know what's going to appeal to someone, everyone's different. So I really just kind of rewording those things I might do maybe some different fonts, things might look different, just based on whatever the image is. If the image allows for me to do text over the whole image, then I'll do that. If it allows me to do text, they would just kind of like in a bar across the bottom, I might do that. So I really do try to make them pretty different. But the overall goal is, I want that text overlay to really be compelling, and really, really show them that there's value behind clicking through. Jillian Tohber Leslie 40:02 Yes. Got it. I meant to ask this, when you have your contributors, do you say this needs to be at least 300 words? Do you have a limit? Caroline Simmons 40:14 I usually will write that whenever I'm sending them the prompts. Sometimes, yes. The wonderful nurse that I have that writes for me, she just did an awesome blog post for me on the the biggest myths of labor and delivery. :ike debunked by a nurse, which was so awesome, because I mean, moms, you know, we got that we tell our horror stories, and everyone's like, terrified, but then to hear it straight from her. So with her, I usually just kind of let her roll with it. And they've all been writing for me, like I said, for so long, to the point where I think they just know what's the ideal length for Swaddles n Bottles. And we don't have anything that's, you know, an extensive 3, 4 page blog post, and I'd say, 2,000- 2500 words is probably the absolute most that we have. Everything ranges, probably in between, I'd say 650 to 1000 words. And the reason is, because it's a resource, we are trying to get you the information, we don't really want to fluff it a lot. We want to inform you, get you what you need, so that you can feel better about whatever it is that you're looking for. You're struggling with. Jillian Tohber Leslie 41:30 Got it. And then will you add, say, the three images into the blog post? Or will you kind of add them into say Yoast, and then if somebody is going to pin your post, those other images will show up? Caroline Simmons 41:45 Yes. So usually, I just do one in the blog post, then what I will do is create new pins in Pinterest and put that link there. And you bring up a good point, a great tool that I really like, I don't want to get into too much of the debate because they have been having some technical difficulties is Social Warfare. They've done some updates, and some people are jumping ship, I haven't had any issues whatsoever, and I really, really like it. But Social Warfare allows me to select which pin, if somebody decides to click on that Pin It button, it lets me decide which pin is going to be used. And one more than that is it allows me to write that description. Like we talked about that description that's got those keywords. I don't have to worry that they're going to pin something with a blank description, whatever they're pinning, it's keyword heavy. It's got all of those things that I know are going to help it grow. Google vs. Pinterest for driving traffic Jillian Tohber Leslie 42:42 Got it. That's terrific. Okay. Now how are you doing with Google search versus Pinterest in terms of driving traffic. Caroline Simmons 42:52 Google or search engine traffic? Search engines are number two for me. I've seen a great increase. I used to get maybe about four 450 and pageviews a day from search traffic. I'm now into about the 2,000-3000s, and again that has come from all of the amazing bloggers out there who have been kind enough to share you know their tactics and their strategies. I took an amazing paid course from Hashtag Jeff. Are you familiar? Jillian Tohber Leslie 43:38 Love him, love him. Caroline Simmons 43:39 He's so good and I love how he's so real with you. He's like look videos are not my thing. I'm not a really like out there, bubbly blogger. But man, he is so good at what he does. And he breaks it down so well. I love the checklist that he gives you and everything like that. So taking his course why probably what really launched that forward for me. Jillian Tohber Leslie 44:06 I did a workshop with him at an AdThrive conference. And I loved him. Caroline Simmons 44:12 Did you go to the Adthrive Conference last year in Austin? Jillian Tohber Leslie 44:15 Yeah. Were you there? Caroline Simmons 44:15 No, me and my husband were so close to going, and I don't remember what happened. But we weren't able to go and I have like everyone in the Adthrive group has been talking about, when's the next conference? Jillian Tohber Leslie 44:28 Yes, oh I will go. Caroline Simmons 44:30 I'm so ready to go. Jillian Tohber Leslie 44:31 Yes. Yes. So he was there. And that's where he just opened my eyes. I'm going to try and get him on the show. He opened my eyes to the power of SEO. Caroline Simmons 44:41 Yeah, he's wonderful. I love how he keeps it coming for you. Like he's constantly sending emails of new things. When this whole Google big whatever happened in August, he was the first person in my inbox saying here's what you need to do to try to fix it. Jillian Tohber Leslie 44:56 Was this like GDPR? Caroline Simmons 44:58 No, Google did a big update changed. Some things a lot of people in certain areas, saw some big drops. I didn't see anything too big. And I had one day where I got down to just like 1400 but it was one of those things where I think was really scary. A little dip and things have kind of corrected themselves since then. He's just so knowledgeable. Jillian Tohber Leslie 45:22 Yep. Yep. Okay, so how do you monetize? How to monetize as a blogger with affiliates Caroline Simmons 45:26 My monetization strategy for Swaddles n Bottles. I think is really about and I think that should be the case for all blogs, diversification. You don't want to put your eggs in one basket. You don't want to have just one way that you're making money and so we just talked about you know, Adthrive. I monetize my website through ads first of all. Secondly I do affiliate marketing and I think affiliate marketing needs to be diversified. So many people just think Amazon, and Amazon is wonderful I absolutely love it. I was an Amazon mom well before I became a blogger who was promoting it. I mean I order more stuff off of Amazon than I would be willing. So I love it and I love promoting it to to my readers and the products that I use. But then I also love the smaller affiliate marketing setups. You know there's shareasale and CJ affiliates and pepper jam they all have affiliate programs. Target has an affiliate program. I mean, really, it's kind of difficult this day and age to find someone that doesn't have one, so I really think you need to diversify that and not just stick with Amazon, but reach out to all of those those other smaller affiliates as well. Jillian Tohber Leslie 46:40 Are you making your most affiliate income with products like strollers or bottles? Or is it courses about new mothers? What works for your audience? Caroline Simmons 46:57 You know, the product that I'm using, there are so many products for just having a baby in general. It can be difficult to really navigate through them. I do a lot of suggestions -- either the best products that is cost effective products, the ones that work the best things like that. I just did a blog blog posts too, on the products you do not need, because you're going to think that you do, but you actually don't need them. And so I do do a lot of that. I also do an affiliate for courses that like you said, you're a new mom. Here are some things that could help you out, or you know, you're a breastfeeding mother, here are some things that can help you out. So I think it's really just diversifying that. And in thinking outside of the Amazon box, it's a great way to get started. It really is. But then once you've got a good steady hold on it, start looking for more things. Because there are more things out there. The courses and things add so much value for my readers. And I know that they're really, really helping them. And so I love promoting and any other blogs that have courses like that. So that's another way that I monetize affiliate marketing. And then I do do occasional sponsored posts, I'm not too big on them. Well, not to say that I'm not too big on them. I don't do them very often. Because I really do try to stay super selective and which ones I do because I want them to be just really, really in line with my audience, and what they need and what products I think would actually benefit them. And so I do them. I'm not constantly aiming to do a certain amount per month or anything. And when I find a product that I think will be great, I love pitching them. And I have a lot of messages that come to my inbox as well about partnerships. But we just try to stay selective and what we do so that we we stay in line with what our audience needs. Jillian Tohber Leslie 48:54 And if you were to break it down? Are there any other monetization strategies? Caroline Simmons 48:58 No, not for Swaddles n Bottles. Jillian Tohber Leslie 49:00 Okay, if you were to break it down, how much, percentage wise, how much would you say you're making the ads via affiliates? Caroline Simmons 49:09 Affiliates is always number one. I definitely make the most with affiliate marketing. To go back to the diversification, I was just looking at my different income for the month, and Amazon's great. It's on track. It's doing well but for the first time those small little here and there other affiliate opportunities is what I call them, has surpassed my Amazon income which goes to show you can't disregard the little things. This little affiliate program may only make you $100 a month, and this program may make you $100, but then when you've got 10 of those small wins it adds up, so affiliate marketing with Amazon and other affiliates combined, those are definitely my number one source of income each month. Ads as a close second and I think the ad network that you're with is a big part of that, and and then of course sponsored posts would probably the smallest percentage. Jillian Tohber Leslie 50:14 Right and then because you've had all this success, you created another blog and you also have a Facebook group? Teaching other bloggers as a blogger Caroline Simmons 50:24 Yes. So then I created the Basics of Blogging and obviously I hope someone can tell through everything we've talked about today. I really love helping other bloggers. I am a firm believer that I could give away every blogging secret that I have, and it's not going to hurt my success. Jillian Tohber Leslie 50:46 I love that. Say that again. Caroline Simmons 50:54 I had a wonderful mentor at my past job. And his saying was, a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. Jillian Tohber Leslie 51:03 Yes. Caroline Simmons 51:06 And so I think that as bloggers, it's a natural for us to want to hold everything close. And not give away our secrets. But I think that as long as we all promise to just stay unique and always be ourselves and create our own content. There's nothing wrong with sharing what's working for you. And so I started the Basics of Blogging as a way to share just really anything and everything that was working for me. I created two ebooks Pinning for Pageviews and Mastering Affiliate Marketing, where I just kind of share everything. And then I have a Facebook group where I try to get on there and share just little tidbits here and there. We've recently also started doing something where we invite other successful bloggers to kind of take over the Facebook page. Jillian Tohber Leslie 51:56 Oooh, can I come in? Caroline Simmons 51:57 Yes, absolutely. Come in. And you just kind of share. Jillian Tohber Leslie 52:02 Can we talk about MiloTree? Caroline Simmons 52:03 I actually talked about MiloTree this morning. Jillian Tohber Leslie 52:06 You did? Caroline Simmons 52:06 Yes! Jillian Tohber Leslie 52:07 Oh, thank you. Caroline Simmons 52:08 Yeah, I told them. I was like, I'm doing an interview this morning. I'm really excited about it. And I kind of told them why I think it works so well. And how it's helped me bring back traffic and grow big following. Jillian Tohber Leslie 52:23 I love it. Wait, but tell us what is this Facebook group? Caroline Simmons 52:26 It's called just the Basics of Blogging. Jillian Tohber Leslie 52:28 Okay, got it. Caroline Simmons 52:29 And it's very different than your typical blogging Facebook group. Because in some of the other ones, you'll see a lot of like, promo days and follow for follow and comment threads and stuff like that. It's not really my goal. My goal is, like I've told everyone is just a constant waterfall of knowledge and support. And it's just really where I want people to come and grow and learn and hopefully meet their goals that they have. So it's not a place to come and share your latest blog post on the wall and stuff like that. It's a place to kind and just kind of join this community of people who have the same goals as you. We're all trying to be successful bloggers, and I really want it to be a resource for people. But I also don't want to be the only person sharing what I know. I really want it to be a community and kind of set the standard for whatever's working for you, share it, share the wealth, share the love driven knowledge. I'm excited. You know, all of this the blogging thing blogging about blogging is kind of a newer. Jillian Tohber Leslie 53:33 It's kind of meta, isn't it? Caroline Simmons 53:35 Yeah, it's, it's new. And it's very different than blogging about babies and bumps and birth and things like that. But I enjoy it. I do I really enjoy helping people. And I love hearing your feedback. And one of the bloggers who's doing, you know, takeover soon, she was one of the first people to purchase my ebook. She was a brand new blogger. She's now, bringing in well over 100,000 page views a month. I know that it's not just because of the blog, I know that she also just has a wonderful mindset in terms of continuously learning, and she's just sharp and she's just got something about her that she's been able to be very successful at this very quickly. And so I'm gonna let her take over and share some of her stuff. Jillian Tohber Leslie 54:19 Yes, I would love to come in, just to share kind of what's worked for us. Caroline Simmons 54:24 It's a smaller community. We just, I've just kind of picked up on this with them. Now that my girls are in school, and I have a little bit more time but I've got I've got big goals for it. And I really hope that it becomes something you know, five years down the road when someone else is doing an interview like that. They can say, well, the basics of blogging really helped me. Jillian Tohber Leslie 54:46 Oh, I love that. Okay. Do you have any parting advice for a mom blogger out there? Like you have two little babies, and you're doing this, like, what is your advice to somebody who listens to this and wants to be where you are? Advice: Embrace the process as a blogger, it takes time Caroline Simmons 55:07 I would say well, I would say to just really embrace the process. It takes time. Just the process of that journey of creating something and putting in these hours and staying up late after your baby good, it's bad. And, you know, hustling during those times. It's a tough journey. But man, when you get to the point where you're seeing your goals, you're knocking them off, and you're crossing them out, because you've done it, it's so rewarding. So just embrace it. and be patient with yourself. Don't try to shortcut it or, or anything like that. Really just just embrace the process. And be patient with yourself. Continue to just make those small efforts every single day they will add up. And you will start to see it happening for you. Jillian Tohber Leslie 55:54 Oh, wow, Caroline. Thank you. Just you know, I love your mindset of small goals. It's a slow build, the overnight success is not really real. But if you just keep in there and learn and grow and do your right one thing every day, you will grow your business. Caroline Simmons 56:18 Yeah, absolutely. The Slight Edge is what I'm reading right now. And it's all about that same thing, just constantly making the daily efforts that if you look back at what you did yesterday. Those little efforts that's not what's going to make you successful. But it's continuing to do those over and over and over and over again, that's going to get you to the point where you're meeting your goals. Jillian Tohber Leslie 56:47 And one less thing, which is we all compare ourselves to others. And there are always people who are bigger than us, whose businesses look so much better than our businesses. And by the way, one thing I will say is you have no idea what really going on in that person or that business' life. When you feel yourself contracting and feeling less than, to force yourself into saying and I believe in abundance, and I believe in abundance. Caroline Simmons 57:14 Absolutely. Yeah, you're right comparison, like the saying, comparison is the thief of all joy. If we would all just focus on ourselves and anytime that we're feeling down, write down a few things that we've done and we've accomplished and be able to say that you're proud of yourself. That is a bigger motivation and to me then looking at someone else and trying to you know, catch up with that so to speak. Jillian Tohber Leslie 57:37 Absolutely. Well Caroline, this was such a pleasure thank you so much for coming on the show. Caroline Simmons 57:43 Absolutely. I have enjoyed speaking with you so so much. I hope I get to meet you in person at the next Adthrive convention. I would love it and we live kinda near each other. Yeah, we have made some family trips to Austin with our girls here and there. So I will absolutely reach out to you. If we make our way there. Jillian Tohber Leslie 58:03 I realized I ended my recording without asking Caroline how people could reach out to her me to give you that information. Now, her website is called Swaddlesnbottles.com and her email address is Caroline@swaddlesnbottles.com. Her other site is thebasicsofblogging.com and that's also the name of her facebook group. So do reach out, especially if you'd like this interview. And just like how Caroline is using Milottree to grow her Pinterest followers. Because Pinterest traffic is so valuable, you might want to do it also. So head over to MiloTree and get your Pinterest pop up that tells your visitors to follow you on Pinterest installed on your site. And if you do that you get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!  

Back in September, I decided to focus more on Pinterest in order to increase my website traffic. While I ddin't see overnight results, I do now see substantially more website traffic from Pinterest. In episode 59 https://media.zencast.fm/the-social-launch/59.mp3 I gave my Pinterest beginner tips. I now see substantially more website traffic because of Pinterest. In this episode I break down whats working. Links mentioned: Pinterest blog post: http://www.socialmediamarketingtipscanada.com/pinterest-business-beginner-tips/ Social Warfare: https://warfareplugins.com/?ref=1354 Tailwind: https://www.tailwindapp.com/i/socialmediatips Pingroupie to find Pinterest groups: www.pingroupie.com Thanks for listening. Let's connect! Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheSocialLaunch/?fref=ts | Twitter https://twitter.com/lesliemcdermid | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesociallaunch/ Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/socialmediatips/ The Social Launch Podcast http://www.socialmediamarketingtipscanada.com/podcast/

I've written about how to create binge-worthy content, but today it's all about how to create viral content. You know: the kind that everyone keeps sharing like hotcakes until your blog catches fire? That kind. Let's dive in! Going viral. I'd really love to know what comes to mind when you hear those words. Good thing? Bad thing? Something you've experienced or just hoped for? My question to you today is this: If you knew how to create viral content, would you? The easy answer might be yes. Because who doesn't want a viral post! But today I'm talking with Paula Rollo of Beauty Through Imperfection and Quick Blogging Tips about how to create a viral post, the downside no one talks about, and how to take your viral post into a binge-worthy post. Listen to Episode 128 - How to Create a Viral Post     HOW TO DEFINE VIRAL CONTENT First up, what IS viral content? It depends who you ask. There is full-on viral posts, which are the kinds of posts that take off and go worldwide. That's rarely what we get to see. Viral is often used to mean a post with a much higher reach than the normal for you, OR a post that has massive reach. Paula's encouragement was that you NOT compare yourself to others or feel like you'll never hit that massive reach. Consider what's viral for YOU. Aim for a post that has significantly more reach than your normal post. THE DOWNSIDE OF A VIRAL POST People don't often talk about the downside of viral posts. But you should realize that more eyeballs on your post can mean a few things. Here are a few negative sides when you create a viral post. If your post isn't on brand, it's not super helpful If your post is controversial, you will get the trolls If your post isn't something you're willing to stand behind, it's not helpful! I would say that you should always ask yourself before hitting publish: What if this goes viral? You don't always know if it's going to happen. You probably aren't going to get into that category of worldwide attention. But...if you did, is this the hill you want to die on? Is this post a great representation of you? Viral posts can bring unwanted attention. And if your posts goes viral, but isn't the kind of thing you usually write about or is one of those one-off posts that doesn't fully represent you, it's not going to be super helpful. If you wrote about something that's controversial or that people disagree with (which could be anything these days), you may also get ugly comments or people sharing your post because they HATE it. You could get angry emails or other negative responses. The more your post gets shared, the more likely you'll face criticism. THE UPSIDE TO A VIRAL POST On the plus side...when you have a post go viral, it gets tons of eyeballs on your site. Some people will meet you for the first time and these new readers that might become raving fans. The best-case-scenario is that you have a post that's close to your heart and your brand go viral. That will bring the right kind of readers to your post. HOW TO CREATE A VIRAL POST Viral posts aren't often the how-to posts or the ones that solve a tangible problem. Yes, those can take off and be read and shared. But the posts that get people sharing and sharing and sharing are the ones with an emotional connection. When you resonate with readers, they will share your post. So if you want to reverse engineer a post to go viral, you need to start with one emotion that you're hoping to evoke in readers. You'll need to find an image that somehow relates in feel or in the content to that one feeling. You can use stock photos or your own photos, but again--your looking for connection. As for your headlines, you can consider something like the Coschedule Headline Analyzer (also great for email subject lines!) and consider what would motivate someone to click. Your framing and description matter as well. Framing is how you introduce the post when you are sharing on social media. The description is usually the meta description that you create when you are setting up the post in SEO for Wordpress by Yoast or whatever tool you use for SEO and metadescriptions. (I do this in Yoast and also in my Social Warfare plugin.) TIPS FOR WHEN YOUR POST GOES VIRAL If you have a post go viral, you want to do the best job you can to optimize the post.

Jusqu’à maintenant j’ai très peu, trop peu, parlé de Pinterest. C’est pourtant pour moi un réseau sur lequel il faut miser, peut être même le prochain grand truc une fois que nous en aurons remis en questions nos pratiques sur Facebook, Twitter et Instagram. Le catalogue d’idées a en plus un avantage indéniable : il est un vrai outil de génération de trafic. Ce que ne sont pas vraiment Instagram et Snapchat et ce que sont de moins en moins Twitter et Facebook. Dans cet épisode je vous explique comment en tirer profit pour votre site, votre blog ou votre boutique en ligne.Liens :- Mon compte Pinterest : https://www.pinterest.fr/bertrandsoulier/- Le plugin Social Warfare pour maximiser vos partages : https://warfareplugins.com/?ref=2044N’hésitez pas à me poser vos questions sur Facebook, Discord, Instagram ou Twitter avec le hashtag #askbertrand et sur le formulaire : http://bertrand.video/askbertrand---A propos du podcastVotre Coach Web est mon podcast sur la création de contenu pour aider ceux qui veulent s’exprimer sur internet et les réseaux sociaux, développer leur visibilité et en vivre.Tout savoir sur le podcast et poser vos questions : https://www.bertrand-soulier.com/podcastS’abonner au podcast :- sur iTunes : https://itunes.apple.com/fr/podcast/votre-coach-web/id1249494221?mt=2 - sur Google Play Music : https://play.google.com/music/m/I7f4meeenujgugju3b3nxvhdsdi?t=Bertrand_Soulier_-_Votre_coach_web- Ecouter le podcast sur YouTube : http://bertrand.video/podcastNouveauté : je teste Patreon avec une page dédiée au podcast : https://www.patreon.com/bertrandsoulierPour prolonger :- Mon groupe d’entraide et de conseil sur Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/groups/242687639569739/- Ma lettre sur la création de contenu : https://www.getrevue.co/profile/soulierbertrandSur les réseaux sociaux :- Twitter : http://twitter.com/bertrandsoulier- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/soulierbertrand- Instagram : http://www.instagram.com/bertrandsoulier- YouTube : http://bertrand.videoMes blogs :- Mon blog tech et pro : http://www.bertrand-soulier.com- Cyberbougnat : http://www.cyberbougnat.net- Mon blog de mec : https://www.monblogdemec.fr

On me demande souvent une liste d’extensions à installer sur un blog Wordpress. A question simple, réponse compliquée. J’ai donc fait un plongeon dans l’interface de mon blog de mec (https://www.monblogdemec.fr) pour regarder ceux que j’utilise le plus. Voici une large revue avec ceux pour la sécurité, ceux pour améliorer le partage, ceux qui sont pratiques et ceux qui sont liés à des contenus spécifiques notamment pour le partage de recettes de cuisine ou de vidéos. Bonne écoute !Le blog de Thibaud : https://www.thibaudd.beTous les plugins mentionnés :- Thème Genesis sur StudioPress : https://www.studiopress.com- Jetpack : https://jetpack.com- CookBook : https://cookbookplugin.com- WP-Rocket : https://wp-rocket.me- Ninja Forms : https://ninjaforms.com- Social Warfare (version Pro) : https://warfareplugins.com/?ref=2044- Contact Forms 7 : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/- Disable XML-RPC : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/disable-xml-rpc/- Instant Articles for WP : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/fb-instant-articles/- Yuzo Related Posts : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/fb-instant-articles/- Loginizer : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/loginizer/- Featured Video Plus : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/featured-video-plus/- Google Analyticator : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/google-analyticator/- Instagram Feed : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/instagram-feed/- Pretty Links : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/pretty-link/- Redirection : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/- Widget CSS Classes : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/widget-css-classes/- Yoast SEO : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/- Broken Link Checker : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/- Loco Translate : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/loco-translate/- WooCommerce : https://woocommerce.com- CoSchedule : http://coschedule.com/r/54885----A propos du podcastVotre Coach Web est mon podcast sur la création de contenu pour aider ceux qui veulent s’exprimer sur internet et les réseaux sociaux, développer leur visibilité et en vivre.Tout savoir sur le podcast et poser vos questions : https://www.bertrand-soulier.com/podcastS’abonner au podcast :- sur iTunes : https://itunes.apple.com/fr/podcast/votre-coach-web/id1249494221?mt=2 - sur Google Play Music : https://play.google.com/music/m/I7f4meeenujgugju3b3nxvhdsdi?t=Bertrand_Soulier_-_Votre_coach_web- Ecouter le podcast sur YouTube : http://bertrand.video/podcastNouveauté : je teste Patreon avec une page dédiée au podcast : https://www.patreon.com/bertrandsoulierPour prolonger :- Mon groupe d’entraide et de conseil sur Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/groups/242687639569739/- Ma lettre sur la création de contenu : https://www.getrevue.co/profile/soulierbertrandN’hésitez pas à me poser vos questions sur Facebook, Discord, Instagram ou Twitter avec le hashtag #askbertrand et sur le formulaire : http://bertrand.video/askbertrandSur les réseaux sociaux :- Twitter : http://twitter.com/bertrandsoulier- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/soulierbertrand- Instagram : http://www.instagram.com/bertrandsoulier- YouTube : http://bertrand.videoMes blogs :- Mon blog tech et pro : http://www.bertrand-soulier.com- Cyberbougnat : http://www.cyberbougnat.net- Mon blog de mec : https://www.monblogdemec.fr

If you have ever wanted to find new ways to attract content reads fro people who have visited your website, there are many tools out there. For example, OptinMonster can do pop-ups, and there's social sharing like Social Warfare or Genesis Simple Share. There's a lot of different tools out there to share your content around. There […]

James Laws welcomes Dustin Stout as his co-host for the episode, kicking things off by measuring the size of their respective Twitter followings. Dustin won, and so he should, given that he is a social marketing consultant who now sells a successful social media product, Social Warfare. If we could combine James and Dustin, at a genetic level, into one man, he would be called Justin. Justin Lout. As a young adult, Dustin left small-town Pennsylvania and headed for the bright lights of Hollywood to become an actor but, after a few years, became disillusioned with how the industry actually works (no mention of whether he met Harvey Weinstein), so, he went to work as Youth Director for his church. Determined to connect with young people on their own terms, he learnt as much as he could about the newly emerging world of social media. Inspired by meeting some of the leading lights in the social media space, he started blogging about what he was learning. This encouraged others to approach him for advice on how to expand their audiences and, after just a couple of years, he became known as one of the Ten most influential people in the space, opening the floodgates to work as a consultant, his own agency for a while and, now, his current product, Social Warfare. How Dustin got into the product space by needing to certain functionality for his church. James observes that both their businesses are similar in the sense that their church activities played a key role in their journey. They talk about Jesus Christ for a bit, probably a good bet that they’ll both get a sweet spot in heaven, while the rest of us will spend eternity screaming down in Hell, being forced to use Joomla. James shares his own minor acting experience, Dustin discusses how that sort of experience can help a lot in promoting your business. Dustin discusses his surprise and delight at the acclaim his blog has received, James reveals that Dustin’s articles are considered required reading within the Ninja Forms marketing team. They discuss the wondrous writings of Seth Godin. James, feeling guilty about the woefully neglected state of his own blog, begs Dustin to lay out his process for producing valuable content. Dustin’s Writing Process: Be cognizant of who you are writing for, and the questions that come up for them on a day-to-day basis. Be on the lookout for problems that crop up for other people, and take notes. You need a place to gather those notes, Dustin uses the ToDoist app. When reviewing those notes, he starts writing around the ideas he feels most passionate about. Write. Write as much as you can, don’t worry about editing, just cover as much ground as you can. Write to someone. Dustin writes to his wife, who is not a social media person, so, which has the beneficial affect of forcing him to avoid jargon. Then he walks away. Slowly. Like a cowboy. He returns later to edit it, just to hone it and remove mistakes. He uses Grammarly to help with that. He does some keyword research, using a tool called Ahrefs, and takes the time to look at other high-ranking posts covering the same subject, making changes to his own piece accordingly. While writing, Dustin leaves placeholder words for images he’d like to later insert in various places, so, his final step is to go find those images and, also, create the promotional images for the post, usually around 4 or 6 images per article. He uses the Coschedule marketing calendar to plan out 30 days of social media promotion, and he has written an article, link below, about how he uses it.   Dustin says that many SEO experts believe that the most effective length for an article is over 2000 words, so, Dustin aims for around 2,500. The whole process, as outlined above, takes between 8 and 10 hours. The thought of spending that much time on an article almost gives James an aneurysm. James asks if Dustin himself losing interest half-way through,

Are you trying to use Pinterest for business? Do you need some tips and strategies to get started? If you've ever been on Pinterest, you know that it is an amazing resource for finding delicious recipes, cool landscaping ideas and fun activities to keep your kids occupied. But you can also use Pinterest for business. I follow some amazing bloggers like Melyssa Griffin and Peg Fitzpatrick who use Pinterest to grow their community and gain much more awareness of their blog posts. These are huge account and they have thousands of followers, so while I didn't expect overnight Pinterest traffic, I do see the potential in using Pinterest to grow my website traffic to my blog posts. When I checked my analytics, I noticed that I was getting little to no traffic from Pinterest. Here are some of the ways I helped optimize my Pinterest account and increase my website traffic from Pinterest. Links mentioned: Pinterest blog post: http://www.socialmediamarketingtipscanada.com/pinterest-business-beginner-tips/ Social Warfare: https://warfareplugins.com/?ref=1354 Tailwind: https://www.tailwindapp.com/i/socialmediatips Pingroupie to find Pinterest groups: www.pingroupie.com Hidden text mentioned in the episode: If you want to use that hidden text, simply copy and paste this text into the text (not visual) bottom of your blog post and change the IMAGEURL.jpg to your image url: Thanks for listening. Let's connect! Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheSocialLaunch/?fref=ts | Twitter https://twitter.com/lesliemcdermid | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesociallaunch/ Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/socialmediatips/ The Social Launch Podcast http://www.socialmediamarketingtipscanada.com/podcast/

Facebook : Soignez votre OpenGraphFacebook a changé fin juin son fonctionnement sur le partage des liens. Désormais il n’est plus possible de modifier les informations affichées lors de la prévisualisation du lien. Cette décision qui me semble censée a toutefois provoquer la panique chez les trop nombreux utilisateurs qui n’utilisent pas Open Graph. Alors des petits malins comme Pretty Links se sont engouffrés dedans mais ne solutionnent en rien le problème et je vous explique pourquoi.Le site Open Graph : [http://ogp.me]
Facebook Debug Tool : https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/Le plugin Social Warfare : https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/social-warfare/Le plugin Social Warfare pro : https://warfareplugins.com/?ref=2044---Votre Coach Web est un podcast sur la création de contenu pour aider ceux qui veulent s’exprimer sur internet et les réseaux sociaux, développer leur visibilité et en vivre.S’abonner au podcast :- sur iTunes : https://itunes.apple.com/fr/podcast/votre-coach-web/id1249494221?mt=2 - sur Google Play Music : https://play.google.com/music/m/I7f4meeenujgugju3b3nxvhdsdi?t=Bertrand_Soulier_-_Votre_coach_web- Ecouter le podcast sur YouTube : http://bertrand.video/podcastPour prolonger :- Mon groupe d’entraide et de conseil sur Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/groups/242687639569739/- Ma lettre sur la création de contenu : https://www.getrevue.co/profile/soulierbertrandN’hésitez pas à me poser vos questions sur Facebook, Discord, Instagram ou Twitter avec le hashtag #askbertrandSur les réseaux sociaux :- Twitter : http://twitter.com/bertrandsoulier- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/soulierbertrand- Instagram : http://www.instagram.com/bertrandsoulier- YouTube : http://bertrand.videoMes blogs :- Mon blog tech et pro : http://www.bertrand-soulier.com- Cyberbougnat : http://www.cyberbougnat.net- Mon blog de mec : https://www.monblogdemec.fr

Facebook recently made an update which affects the way your links show up that you share to your page. In this episode I talk about why Facebook made this change, what you can do and how to make sure your own website is safe and setup how you want it to be. Links I mention: You can find the Social Warfare plugin for WordPress here. The Facebook blog I reference https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2017/06/27/API-Change-Log-Modifying-Link-Previews/ Thanks for listening! Let's connect! Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheSocialLaunch/?fref=ts | Twitter https://twitter.com/lesliemcdermid | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesociallaunch/ Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/socialmediatips/| The Social Launch Podcast http://www.socialmediamarketingtipscanada.com/podcast/

This week on WPblab Bridget Willard and Jason Tucker will be discussing the ways in which you can manage social media using 3rd party tools to help you the WordPress freelancer spend less time doing more.* Sharing buttons on your blog/site are super important – not everyone is going to have or install extensions to help them share your posts* Facebook https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/* Twitter https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator* Mashshare https://wordpress.org/plugins/mashsharer/ — social media share buttons* Social Warfare https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-warfare/* Yoast SEO Plugin — Allow Open Graph Data (Social Settings — Enable Facebook)* Don’t install with another SEO plugin, just use it by itself!* Make sure to use and update your metadata!!* Don’t forget your feature images* Use iOS to grab the featured image on a iPhone or iPad https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imagedrain-download-all-images-from-safari/id932866396?mt=8* Buffer.com — Social sharing and scheduling for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus* Even the free account will allow you to set a schedule* shares your content at the best possible times throughout the day so that your followers and fans see your updates more often* Can choose to share posts immediately or save it to your queue* 10 social profiles in the Awesome Plan for $10/mo* https://buffer.com/awesome?utm_campaign=footer* Supports campaign tracking and analytics* ReBuffer – find what’s performing well and reschedule it for posting again!* Using the right tools for the right reasons is how you optimize your time* Automation vs. Scheduling – automation does not involve human interaction, scheduling is a human carefully crafting posts and setting them up for optimal times* https://2017.atlanta.wordcamp.org/session/smarter-social-sharing-for-killer-content-marketing/ * Hootsuite.com / Hootsuite Pro is $14.99* (Bridget’s affiliate link: http://signup.hootsuite.com/signup-upgrade/?utm_campaign=partner_commission_junction&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_medium=partner )* Will either automatically schedule posts or you can choose a time* Link Shortening: Bitly.com* Branded short domains from Bitly – https://bitly.com/pages/landing/branded-short-domains-powered-by-bitly?* Question: Scheduling Tweets, why do them at different times?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0e3tsZeBw0&autoplay=1“Dispatch Content with Intention #GuruMinute”* How to Post to Instagram and Twitterhttps://ifttt.com/applets/aVxGRrtD-tweet-your-instagrams-as-native-photos-on-twitter* Keep social media content relative to the network your own – be aware of your venue* i.e. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Si tu comptes lancer un blog tu te demandes peut-être quels sont les meilleurs plugins WordPress à installer. Dans cette vidéo, je fais un tour rapide des extensions ce que je peux te conseiller. J'en utilise une bonne partie sur WPMarmite. Voilà la liste : 1. UpdraftPlus ou BackWPup ; 2. Yoast SEO ; 3. SecuPress ; 4. Real Favicon Generator : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAGHgj_lv10 5. Gravity Forms ou Formidable Forms ; 6. Pretty Links ; 7. Redirection ; 8. Social Warfare : https://wpmarmite.com/boutons-partage/ 9. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded ; 10. Akismet (déjà installé sur WordPress) ; 11. Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin ; 12. WP Rocket ; 13. Imagify ; 14. WP PageNavi ; 15. OptinMonster.

Te explico cómo cambiar o migrar de http a https y por qué. 1. siteground o webempresa. copia de seguridad. https://www.borjagiron.com/siteground https://www.borjagiron.com/webempresa 2. activar certificado let's encrypt 3. revisar css o javascript insertados. fb está con https 4. really simple ssl https://es.wordpress.org/plugins/really-simple-ssl/ 5. añadir propiedad https con google search console 6. cambiar en administración y propiedades de Google Anaytics 7. comprobé que las redirecciones funcionaban. sin https, sin www, desde google, revisé las imagenes eran https 8. limpiar la caché de google chrome 9. limpiar caché del plugin de caché. wp fastest caché en mi caso. 10. actualizar en perfil de twitter, fb, google plus, el enlace 11. señales sociales se pierden? plugin Social Warfare que sincroniza automáticamente los contadores 12. vas a poder utilizar twitter cards con tu plugin de email como mymail o mailpoet 13. podras vender directamente en ecommerce, permitir login, tu propio login es más seguro, 14. un poco más lento al tener que hacer encriptación. WPO (Web Performance Optimization) 15. Referencias en bbdd? Search Replace DB. No lo he usado. 16. Comprobar referencias a contenido http que daría un aviso en los navegadores ya que se llama a contenido no seguro 17. robots.txt cambiarlo con ftp. sitemap.xml lo cambia solo yoast seo 18. cuidado con algunos plugins. cada caso es único. Cómo dejar una reseña: http://www.borjagiron.com/internet/como-escribir-resena-en-itunes-para-un-podcast-en-4-pasos/ Recursos recomendados: http://www.borjagiron.com/recursos CURSO DE SEO https://www.triunfacontublog.com/curso/seo/ CURSO CREAR UN PODCAST https://www.triunfacontublog.com/curso/crear-podcast/ LIBRO SEO BÁSICO PARA BLOGGERS ePub y PDF: http://www.borjagiron.com/libro-seo-basico-para-bloggers/ Kindle de Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jZ6a28 LIBRO SEO AVANZADO PARA BLOGGERS ePub y PDF: http://www.borjagiron.com/libro-seo-avanzado-para-bloggers/ Kindle de Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jzPSkj PATROCINADORES: MAILRELAY Ahora con Mailrelay Smart delivery los emails se envían primero a los que más abren e interactuan con tus emails por lo que la recepción se optimiza. Además se evita ser considerado spam. Cómo hacer mailing: https://blog.mailrelay.com/es/2017/01/17/como-hacer-mailing A medio largo plazo se nota una mayor apertura de emails y mejores resultados en las campañas. Mailrelay, la plataforma de email marketing que ofrece una nueva cuenta gratuita para bloggers de marca personal de hasta 600.000 envíos mensuales y esta cuenta ofrece una capacidad de 120.000 suscriptores. Es la plataforma que uso en algunas de mis listas y funciona realmente bien. Entra ahora en https://www.borjagiron.com/mailrelay y contacta con ellos para que te den acceso a la plataforma de email marketing gratis para usarla con tu blog personal. Blog normal: Hasta 3.000 suscriptores (15.000 si nos sigues en Twitter y Facebook y Google+) Hasta 15.000 emails cada mes ¡75.000 si nos pides el aumento por seguirnos en Twitter, Facebook y Google+! XOVI Herramienta de SEO muy completa. Podemos ver fácilmente los enlaces Links > Backlinks donde está la información general, links ganados, anchor texts, la calidad de estos... http://www.xovi.com/borja para conseguir un 30% de descuento durante 6 meses y 14 días de prueba gratis. HOSTINGS RECOMENDADOS SITEGROUND Una de las mejores empresas de hosting del mercado. Mi borja borjagiron.com lo tengo con ellos Desde 10gb, migración gratuita, soporte 24/7 con teléfono, https, garantía devolucion 30 días, backups diarios, bases de datos mysql ilimitadas, última tecnología. https://www.borjagiron.com/siteground WEBEMPRESA Otra excelente empresa de hosting. Mi plataforma de cursos triunfacontublog.com la tengo con ellos Migración gratuita, seguridad increíble, htts, backups diarios, última tecnología, soporte técnico super rápido. https://www.borjagiron.com/webempresa Sobre el podcast El podcast “SEO para bloggers” se emite lunes y viernes a las 7:00 del medio día (hora española). Canción: Scott Holmes – Inspiring Corporate

Karen de la Carriere was married to the President of the Church of Scientology—Heber Jentzsch (Mentor to such celebrities as John Travolta). Today Karen discusses her life inside of Scientology and the Aftermath of leaving Scientology.  Topics touched on include: ► How did Karen become known as the “Queen of Scientology”   ► What was Karen's life like while she was married to the President of the Church of Scientology  ► How are the average members of Scientology treated compared to the members who are either Powerful, or are Celebrities  ► Karen's ex-husband and President of Scientology, Heber Jentzsch had an influential relationship with celebrities like John Travolta; Did this powerful influence, cause Heber's eventual downfall   ► Does Scientology use Social Warfare against both members in good standing and suppressive ex-members; using family to fight family   ► Does Scientology force abortions   ► Does Scientology manipulate married couples to get divorced   ► Secret imprisonment compound for members of Scientology; It is said that Heber Jentzsch and Shelly Miscavige (David Miscavige's wife) are both prisoners in one of these secret compounds and face horrendous conditions  ► Do Scientologists refuse proper medical treatment (such as much needed medications and other treatments) because their cult denies them that right  ► Violence and severe depression inside the Sea Org Campuses  Plus much more on Part two of our Confessions from a Former Scientologist Podcast Series. If you're a fan of Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath then you will want to listen to this episode to hear in-depth confessions from former Scientologists.    If you are a former Scientologist and would like to share your own experience then please get in touch with Bob @ MysteriousMatters.com.  

Karen de la Carriere was married to the President of the Church of Scientology—Heber Jentzsch (Mentor to such celebrities as John Travolta). Today Karen discusses her life inside of Scientology and the Aftermath of leaving Scientology.  Topics touched on include: ► How did Karen become known as the “Queen of Scientology”   ► What was Karen's life like while she was married to the President of the Church of Scientology  ► How are the average members of Scientology treated compared to the members who are either Powerful, or are Celebrities  ► Karen's ex-husband and President of Scientology, Heber Jentzsch had an influential relationship with celebrities like John Travolta; Did this powerful influence, cause Heber's eventual downfall   ► Does Scientology use Social Warfare against both members in good standing and suppressive ex-members; using family to fight family   ► Does Scientology force abortions   ► Does Scientology manipulate married couples to get divorced   ► Secret imprisonment compound for members of Scientology; It is said that Heber Jentzsch and Shelly Miscavige (David Miscavige's wife) are both prisoners in one of these secret compounds and face horrendous conditions  ► Do Scientologists refuse proper medical treatment (such as much needed medications and other treatments) because their cult denies them that right  ► Violence and severe depression inside the Sea Org Campuses  Plus much more on Part two of our Confessions from a Former Scientologist Podcast Series. If you're a fan of Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath then you will want to listen to this episode to hear in-depth confessions from former Scientologists.    If you are a former Scientologist and would like to share your own experience then please get in touch with Bob @ MysteriousMatters.com.  

Karen de la Carriere was married to the President of the Church of Scientology—Heber Jentzsch (Mentor to such celebrities as John Travolta). Today Karen discusses her life inside of Scientology and the Aftermath of leaving Scientology.  Topics touched on include: ► How did Karen become known as the “Queen of Scientology”   ► What was Karen's life like while she was married to the President of the Church of Scientology  ► How are the average members of Scientology treated compared to the members who are either Powerful, or are Celebrities  ► Karen's ex-husband and President of Scientology, Heber Jentzsch had an influential relationship with celebrities like John Travolta; Did this powerful influence, cause Heber's eventual downfall   ► Does Scientology use Social Warfare against both members in good standing and suppressive ex-members; using family to fight family   ► Does Scientology force abortions   ► Does Scientology manipulate married couples to get divorced   ► Secret imprisonment compound for members of Scientology; It is said that Heber Jentzsch and Shelly Miscavige (David Miscavige's wife) are both prisoners in one of these secret compounds and face horrendous conditions  ► Do Scientologists refuse proper medical treatment (such as much needed medications and other treatments) because their cult denies them that right  ► Violence and severe depression inside the Sea Org Campuses  Plus much more on Part two of our Confessions from a Former Scientologist Podcast Series. If you're a fan of Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath then you will want to listen to this episode to hear in-depth confessions from former Scientologists.    If you are a former Scientologist and would like to share your own experience then please get in touch with Bob @ MysteriousMatters.com.  

In this week's WordPress panel, we looked at social media tools and services. What tools do we use to share, track, and accelerate social media engagement? We also talk social media strategies, and what platforms are giving us the best returns. We do a live show every Saturday at 9am PST. You can find details about each Saturday show here: https://www.wp-tonic.com/blab/   =======   Our panel this week:   Sallie Goetsch https://www.wpfangirl.com/   Lee Jackson http://leejacksondev.com/podcast/ and http://angledcrown.com/   Morten Rand-Hendriksen https://mor10.com/   Jackie D'Elia https://jackiedelia.com/ and http://rethink.fm/   Jonathan Denwood https://www.wp-tonic.com/   John Locke https://www.lockedowndesign.com/   ==================   Our episode this week is sponsored by LiquidWeb. Liquid Web is offering a 33% discount for your first 6 months of hosting. Head over to https://LiquidWeb.com/wordpress  and use the code WPTONIC33 at checkout for your discount.   ==================   Table of Contents for Episode 166   0:00 Podcast intros. 6:00 WordPress News Story #1: WPWeekly Episode 262 – Interview With Morten Rand-Hendriksen https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-262-interview-with-morten-rand-hendriksen   The Case for WordPress Telemetry https://mor10.com/the-case-for-wordpress-telemetry/   24:19 WordPress News Story #2:  WordPress.org Releases Plans For Customization In 2017 https://torquemag.io/2017/01/wordpress-org-releases-plans-customization-2017/ 34:19 Main Topic: Social Media Tools 34:21 What tools are you using for social media? What platforms are you focusing on? 48:45 Some tools that we have used, and social tools that we are experimenting with. 1:03:40 YouTube as a social network. 1:06:34 We mourn the loss of Blab, and what could have been for that network. 1:10:39 Podcast Outros.   ===================   Links mentioned during the show:   Gutenberg https://wordpress.github.io/gutenberg/   EA Share Count http://www.billerickson.net/share-count-plugin/   Social Warfare https://warfareplugins.com/   Buffer https://buffer.com/app   165 WP-Tonic: Mojca Marš – All About Facebook Ads https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/165-mojca-mars-facebook-ads/   Edgar https://meetedgar.com/   Social Networks Auto Poster {SNAP} http://www.nextscripts.com/social-networks-aut

Social Warfare is one of those plugins that you need to dive a little deeper into so you can understand what makes it different than all the other social sharing plugins. I had actually bought Social Warfare a while ago, had an issue and forgot to go back to it (issue was nothing major). Like many of you I'm sure, I've tried multiple different social media plugins over the years. Not all the social media plugins have the same result (some are for sharing, some are for connecting, some are for data... you get the picture). Part of making the most of any plugin that you use is understanding the bigger picture/ end result. In this case, it's not just about having options for social sharing on your site. It's about understanding how the different social media platforms work, what works better on different social networks and how you can maximize them for connection and results. Not only did I have a great time talking with Dustin, I learned a ton from all of his wisdom and experience. Questions I Asked Dustin Before we get into Social Warfare, can you share your background with the listeners? How did Warfare Plugins come about? Social Warfare is a popular plugin - what made you guys decide another social sharing plugin was needed? What were some of the challenges & struggles in launching a premium plugin company? What would you recommend to someone in this space? What's your business philosophy? What's on the horizon for Warfare Plugins? Wait until you hear the simple thing that made a huge difference with the Pinterest sharing feature in Social Warfare. Initially Dustin wasn't putting too much attention on Pinterest. Until he learned what he needed to do differently with Pinterest. He implemented a few changes that were recommended to him by friends in the social media space and saw a HUGE difference in the traffic from Pinterest. Within 1 month he saw a 300% increase. A year later he saw 1000% increase in his traffic from Pinterest. What I want to point out with this is we're not just talking about shares... we're talking about traffic. Which every website needs. What You're Going to Learn How Social Warfare doesn't slow down your website The biggest issues Dustin wanted to solve with Social Warfare (what made it different) The human psychology behind Social Warfare (and why it works so well) How Dustin became a well known name and trusted authority in social media and content creation Who influenced Dustin and how his own personal journey was the driving force Why Dustin feels every piece of content should be written for one person Where to Connect with Dustin & the Social Warfare Team Website | Facebook  | Twitter Links From this Episode Warfare Plugins Dustn.TV John Saddington Desk App Pomodoro Technique

I've been using the Social Warfare plug in now for over 8 months and I love it. Today I interview Dustin Stout, Co-Creator of the plug-in, about why they created it, his favorite features and ways to get more social shares from adding it to your site.

Because of My Podcast the Creator From the Blacklist Gets Interviewed on Podcast Troy produces numerous podcast, but today he is talking about the Blacklist Exposed podcast he had the creator of the hit NBC show contact Troy on twitter and ask to come on the show. While he was on the show he made announcements that were then used in Press Releases that had all the press releases pointing at Ttoy's site theblacklistexposed.com Tory point out that: The Creator of the Show Called THEM. It took three seasons (it didn't happen over night). Make great headlines. Evaluating Your Podcast Year My stats are basically flat from the start of the year to the end of the year. I had a bit of an upswing in the middle of the year, and I'm up a bit from last year (kind of following the trends of podcasting up about 3%). Here are some things you can look at: See what episodes were downloaded the most See what episodes had the most comments See what pages had the most visit (check your Google Analytics) See what got shared the most ( I use Social Warfare for this) Then look at what didn't do well. You want to do more of what seemed to resonate with your audience and less of what didn't. Seems obvious, but without a time to evaluate what is working you could be going deeper into the wrong direction.   Top Ten Episodes of 2015 The Journey of Podcasting Starts with a Single Episode- Profitcast's The Real Brian Taking Phone Calls On Your Podcast What to Do If You Can't Pick a Podcast Topic What Podcasters Can Learn From David Letterman Podcasting's Most Frequently Asked Questions Making a Living Talking about Horses - Glen the Geek is Never Boring Audio Technica BP40 - Electrovoice RE320 - Audio Technica ATR2100 USB Microphone Shootout Jeff Brown Shares 26 Years Of Experience Behind the Microphone 8 Ways a Stranger Can Help You Grow Your Audience   Honorable Mentions The Most Addicting Social Platform Ever What Every Podcaster Should Know About Stalkers Is Soundcloud A Legitimate Option for Podcasting?   New Tools I Started Using this Year Intelliplayer is a great tool that allows you to add calls to action to YouTube Videos, as well as get more stats than you get in Youtube. Convert Kit  - A great email marketing tool that gives great insights into your email subscribers Nimble - This is the tool I use to keep in touch with the members at the School of Podcasting and Consulting Clients Social Warfare - Sharing buttons on steroids for Wordpress. Simple Podcast Press - For me, the best "Advanced Player" out there. The ability to add an email sign up form AND any button I want, makes it a no brainer. Cover Genie Pro - Makes great covers, ebooks, and a whole lot more. *Note some of those links are affiliate links. Tools I Will Stop Using Soundcloud.com It may be cheap, but I'm getting zero return for my money. Lead Pages - Great tool, but the tools I'm using it for (squeeze pages) I can do with Convert Kit. I was going to use their lead digits, but I then realized that I would be marrying myself to the service as my phone number would be in my old episodes. The One Thing Other things I've noticed looking back at this year is a pile of training materials that I never went through. I bought them to "watch later" and then went on my ways doing things in a manner that I'm sure could be more efficient. I've used Asana for years. It's a great free project management tool. I've never really mastered the software and its capabilities. This will be the first thing I work on in 2016. Get organized and then identify the ONE THING that I will do next. I've heard about the book The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results on how you should pick the NEXT thing that you will be working on and do it. Then the next, then the next. All the while making sure yo are only working on ONE THING. Don't Forget to Celebrate the Accomplishments While I could look at the things that didn't work this year (podcasting for free proved -as I thought - to be a bad experiment), don't forget to look at the things you tried that worked (using blab.im for Ask the Podcast Coach has really made that show fun). By focusing on my next meal, I've lost over 20 lbs in the last three months. Check out apps like the Gratitude app, or the Way of Life apps to help keep you focused and engaged. In Between The Stats While we can focus on the download numbers, and the amount of revenue we generate, this week showed me my greatest asset. My audience. After many years of therapy and making each other miserable, my wife and I dissolved our marriage. I wasn't looking for a pitty party when I announced it on Facebook, but the support that flooded in via email, voicemail, etc was baffling. I felt like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life." I've had numerous pep talks, and some great conversations. I'm as fine as one can be in this situation. I'm waiting for the dust to settle, but I'm looking forward to a much more quiet future. While I've now been married twice (and for all purposely, my last), I have no children. I have ex-step children who I do miss, but nobody will be carrying my genes. Again, not looking for a pitty party, but just stating the facts. I have always felt like podcasting was a calling. It just fits me like a glove. It allows me to be creative, to teach, to help, and to use technology. It scratches every itch there is to scratch for me. So I look forward to creating deeper connections with my audience in 2016. I look forward to being focused, and finding more effective ways of getting the word out about the School of Podcasting. I look forward to serving you as we move forward. Ready To Launch Your Podcast? Join the School of Podcasting and get instant access to step by step tutorials, a private Facebook group, and "office hours" webinars where you can get your question answered live in addition to email support. If you're not happy within the first 30 days, I'll refund your money. Sign up at www.theschoolofpodcasting.com

Got Feedback? Call 888-563-3228 and get your voice on the show. The top two things I heard from clients consists of: How do I increase interaction How do I grow my audience Increasing Interaction With Your Podcast Audience Show up. Do you best to create a consistent schedule. If you show up, then they will make you part of their routine. This isn't mandatory (Dan Carlin is awesome and put out an episode every few months), but I would consider it best practice. Have someone who has never been to your website try and contact you. I AM AMAZED and people who do not have a page with a CONTACT link. Don't get cute and make it "buy me a cup of coffee" or "Interact" make the button/menu item say CONTACT. Why? Because it is what people are looking for. Let them choose the method of interaction. You can see if you go to my contact page that you can email me, call me (using podcastvoicemail.com ), or use the speakpipe button. You're choice. I've eliminated any reasons that you might have to contact me. One way to increase interaction is to ask for some. That's right, ask. If you want to know what they think, make it the last line of your show notes and ask them to leave a comment on your website or you can do what Michael Hyatt does and point them to his Facebook page. He who doesn't ask, doesn't get. How Do I Grow My Podcast Audience? I've spoken about this in numerous episodes: see here, here, here , and here . You need to Make contact that impacts your audience, GO to where they are, make friends, tell them about your podcast). Today I want to throw in something I am again not seeing on websites. A play button. If you want people to listen to your show give them a play button. This is one of the reasons I like Appendipity themes. If you want it, you can have a GIANT play button at the top of your page (see www.logicalloss.com for an example). People are not going to get hooked on your content if they can't find it. When you create content that impacts your audience, they are going to want to tell their friends. Make sure you have buttons that make it easy to do it RIGHT NOW. There are tons of plugins that can add share buttons (they are built in to the Appendipity themes). One of the best plugins is Social Warfare. This plugin is super functional and SMART. You can specify exactly how things get shared on the Internet. Another feature rich sharing plugin is Monarch from Elegant Themes if you are looking for a free tool, check out sharaholic in the Wordpress directory. International Podcast Day Recap Today we talk with Steve Lee of Modern Life Media and the co-founder of International Podcast day (Dave Lee, Steve's son is the other co-founder). Today we hear from Steve how: We had a much more global audience with people from around the world joining in on a live 30 hour live streaming podcast. Apple was involved and was tweeting out items this year Many communities were "doing their own thing" to promote International Podcast Day. Thanks to Steve and Dave for giving us a central spot to "start the conversation" Podcast Rewind I recently appeared on the PodupPod Podcast I appeared on the Moneycast talking about my different revenue streams and my book More Podcast Money Podcast News According to a new report released by comScore, almost one-third (29%) of adults with smartphones listen to a podcast at least once a month. In the 18-34 year-old range, the figure rises to 41%. The data indicates that 18-34-year-olds are more likely than the average smartphone-owning adult to listen to podcasts on their device at least once a week, 26% vs. 18%. Ready to Start a Podcast? Check out www.theschoolofpodcasting.com

Social Warfare was born from the desire to make social sharing faster and easier as well as beautiful, efficient, and responsive. After realizing that nothing existed that met all of these needs, Nicholas, Jason, and Dustin set out to create their own solution. What resulted was a plugin based on customization, psychology, and paradox of choice (or, to the lay-person, limiting options - which, believe it or not, can be a good thing!)   Although much of our discussion focuses on the great features of Social Warfare, the interview is definitely not a long commercial. Nicholas, Jason, and Dustin offer some great tips on social sharing in general. They touch on many topics, including analytics tracking, the use of click-to-tweets, and the importance of perception.

I hear about this plugin on my friend Daniel's show. He spoke about social warfare plugin for Wordpress. The Social Warfare plugin unique in a few ways. It only focuses on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. (but really, do you use others?) You can dictate what image is shared on FaceBook You can completel control what is tweeted out including hastags, mentions, etc The retweet button looks awesome (pull quote) Customize the description and picture of Pinterest. The price is $24/yr for one website.  I have not purchased this plugin yet, but probably will be in the future.  Also, I recently moved Weekly Web Tools to BlueHost just to try them out. I'll keep you posted. For more information visit  Social Warfare 

    Right click to download the mp3 to your desktop. Co-founder of Wordpress social sharing plugin Social Warfare, Dustin Stout came by the podcast to talk about the plugin and the best practices for getting other people to share your content that are behind the programming and interface of this amazing tool. Even if you don't use Wordpress and can't get Social Warfare, you can use the principles to expand the reach of your content far beyond yourself.

Right click to download the mp3 to your desktop. Our first guest with a really cool accent!!! Zach from Canva stopped in to talk about the importance of visuals in social media and blog posts. As soon as you add one image in to a blog post it tends to get twice as many shares on Facebook and Twitter. I'm guessing if we looked at Pinterest, the impact would be even larger. Canva finds that about 95% of the images that people pin are from inside the blog post rather than the image. They include some graphic design inspirational images and those are what get shared. So nicely illustrates that "inspiration" is what people want on Pinterest. We're still waiting for the arrival of our new (non-crackly) microphone, but believe me, when he says, "Twittah" you won't notice. :) Where to Start with Images Don't complicate things. Start simple and build up. Consider the importance of branding - use your logo consistently, using your color pallette, brand fonts and even things like the style or filter effect of images. This not only improves your images, but builds your visual brand. Use the Canva templates to get started. It's so much easier than starting from scratch, and it will help you learn what sorts of things make a good design. Where to Find Design Inspiration Well, Kelly and I find ours on Canva a lot of times :) The Canva design teams actually go out and look at other designs. For instance, when developing the new menu layouts, they went to restaurants and spoke to restaurant owners and looked at menus, collecting design element ideas they liked. So, when you're starting with a template, think about what you like, which elements attract you - and incorporate those into your own designs. Or, look though Designinspiration or  Canva's design stream and when a user-created image catches your eye - ask yourself why. Images for Social Media - What You Need to Know The different social networks have different specifications for images. Pinterest, of course, uses a taller image, the ideal Twitter size is much wider and shorter. Canva experiemented with using one image size for all networks and it just didn't go well. Check out the Social Warfare plugin for WordPress. You can have one image in your  blog post and specify other images of different dimensions for other platforms. Cool! What About Using Visuals with Inspirational Quotes? Some marketers love using inspirational quotes, and others feel that they're irrelevant, and maybe a little too "fluffy." Canva uses them to showcase design (by putting them on a pretty background and in an interesting font) and usually features a design-related quote. They get tremendous response. This pretty and effective approach, coupled with a brand-relevant strategy seems the ideal scenario! And remember - if you are sharing quotes, make sure they look good! The Facebook Page Challenge So, we all know that the reach of the average Facebook Page has plummeted. However, Canva finds that they get more traffic referrals from Facebook than from any other source? The secret? While they do still share some image updates, when they share a link and allow Facebook to pull in the image from the post, they get a lot more exposure. This means you still need to have a beautiful image in each blog post! Images in Emails Use them! Canva now offers an email header layout. Start there. Color Theory for Beginners Look at the color wheel - on the outside are the bright colors - great for a pop of color or for generating excitement. Move to the inside and you get your more muted colors. If you see an image with a color pallete you like, you can pick those colors right out using an online color picker. Keep track of your brand colors! Know your hex codes. Write them down and put them on your corkboard or on a sticky note on your monitor. Keeping these consistent will help build brand recognition faster. If you don't know your brand colors, you can ask your website or logo designer what your hex codes are, or use the above referenced color picker! Zach mentioned the example of Corona - they are pretty consistent in their colors and filters. Check out their Pinterest account: Taking Images from OK to Awesome Consider the key elements of what you're trying to convey - think about the choice of colors, find a color pallete. What sorts of fonts would go well together here (check the design stream or layouts).  Experiment with filters, too. If you find a filter that you like, think about using that filter on all your images. You can even create a custom filter and copy the code for it (you'll see what I mean if you click on the advanced link) and use it for every image. Trends in Images Modern and clean is where it's at today. Color palletes come and go. Color usage and image choices are partly seasonal. Which Social Networks Are Best for Visual Brands? Well, Facebook may bring in the most traffic, but the engagement on Instagram is exponentially higher. In fact, engagement rates are as much as 50 times (not percent, times) higher on Instagram when compared to Twitter. So, as always, it comes down to considering your audience, your brand, and your marketing goals. Kelly and I get a little "Fan Girl," but it really is a great tool and it will take your images from so-so, to POW! A "Super" Secret Announcement and a Free Offer!!! Canva is releasing a brand new product - Canva Pro!!! Keep track of your layouts, fonts, images and more (listen to hear the full details). From now through the end of April, you can get a free Canva Pro Trial account here. You'll get a response with your unique coupon code. Enjoy!!!

Anyone can make an engaging social presence for a fashion, pet or kid's brand, but what if your business doesn't lend itself to cute and fun content? Will anyone want to hear from you? Peg has made a success of social media for businesses that are a perfect fit for social AND those that seem like a stretch. We asked her here to teach us how – because we know lots of business owners feel like social media success isn't possible for someone in their “boring” business. PS – There is a little “swooshing” sound throughout, and for that we apologize, but trust me, you're going to love this episode anyway. It's Not All Kittens and Cupcakes! Sometimes Marketing is a Challenge No one ever said marketing is easy. If it's not working, don't spend your time complaining – get creative and make it work! And yeah, Peg can say this because she's done social media for a dry cleaning chemical company for years. Yikes. She shares her tips including posting consistently and sharing great content, not worrying too much about engagement because she knows it's working. How to Know What to Share Every once in a while she'll ask fans what they want to see. Recently she discovered that they want more of the inspirational quotes. Huh! Everything she posts, she asks, is this relevant to the audience? Will it help make their business better? And sometimes you do have to think way outside the box. After a while you will know what works and what your audience enjoys. And remember, social media is not about sales, it is about being helpful. Can you think of a series of “Did you know?” tips that you could share? People love to share those! Think about the life of your customer – think about what will help them in multiple areas of their lives. We asked Peg, “Is there any business that is too boring for social media?” Well, social media is where people meet customers now. If you don't have a physical presence, you NEED to be online especially. Everyone has gone mobile, too, so you need to be discoverable. It's not even a choice. Right click here to download the mp3 file to your desktop Why Do Business Owners Resist Social Media? People are still afraid of negative feedback. Well, people are already complaining. Wouldn't you like to be a part of the conversation? If you're not on top of it, your competitor will be! How Do you “Peg” a Post for Content Amplification? Share it in a way that looks good on all platforms. Create images that look great on each platform you use. Make sure your blog posts are shareable. Don't miss the opportunity to allow people to share your content easily. Peg recommends starting your sharing from Pinterest. Then you can share a “pin it for later” link on other platforms as well. Did you know that when you click on a “pin it for later” link from your phone, it opens right up in the Pinterest app! If you want a great step-by-step, check out her book, The Art of Social Media. Resources and People to Follow: Social Warfare! It is a great plugin to allow you to add your Pinterest image in a great big size that will look great on Pinterest, but it doesn't go in your blog post and slow it down. Stacy of Kid's World  Let's Lasso the moon Holly Homer Pinterest for business – video about the art of a good pin the art of a good board The Art of Social Media – you'll love it! About Peg Fitzpatrick Co-author of The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users • rockin' a positive attitude • passionate about social media Peg Fitzpatrick is an author, a speaker and, social media marketing pro. Covering all the major social media platforms, she frequently hears “you're everywhere!” She's passionate about life, social media, and inspiring others to be their best. Follow Peg on TwitterConnect on FacebookCircle on Google+Connect on LinkedInFollow on Pinterest