Monday, November 30, 2015

The 6 Key Skills of a Brilliant Content Marketer

content marketers

Some jobs are easy to define and prepare for:

Want to be an engineer? Go to school and get an engineering degree.

Want to code for Google? Go to school and study computer science.

What do you do when you want to be a content marketer?

Go to school and study content marketing? Hmm…there doesn’t seem to be a program for that, please try again.

Sure, it wouldn’t hurt to study general business or marketing, but that’s not enough either. You’ll end up learning many things you don’t really need and not learning those you do need.

All the top content marketers I know have a wide variety of useful skills that closely relate to content marketing.

This is largely out of necessity.

Content marketing—the modern version of it—didn’t really become popular until the last few years.

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And while the future looks bright for content marketers of today, who knows if the subject will ever make its way to mainstream education.

If you really want to be a great content marketer, there’s only one place for you to get your education:

The real world.

There is very little barrier to entry, which means you can jump in the deep end immediately and start learning.

You’ve likely already started your content marketing education but might be looking for information on how to take the next steps.

Well, there are 6 skills that I believe all great content marketers need.

I’m going to tell you what they are and go into detail about why they are important and how you can develop them.

1. A love for data analysis sets you apart

Many writers have transitioned to content marketing in the past few years.

They have many of the skills I’m going to go over, but they commonly lack this one.

Being able to tell a story is good, but it’s what you do with that story that really matters.

The content in “content marketing” needs to be created for a purpose. And the only way to know whether that purpose is being fulfilled and goals are being met (or progressed upon) is to look at the data.

A great content marketer is a lover of both content and numbers, which is a rare package.

A great content marketer is results-based: It starts with knowing that you need a way of measuring your results.

To do this, you need to understand the role of metrics in a business. These metrics are also being called key performance indicators (KPIs).

Metrics are a way of describing goals.

If your goal is to increase readership, the metrics you’ll be concerned with are traffic and subscribers.

You can monitor metrics over time to see if you are making progress. If the progress is too slow, you can test different approaches and look at the metrics to see if they are working.

Although every content marketing plan has its own goals, there are a few metrics that are important in nearly every scenario.

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You’ll notice that those metrics cover numbers both before and after a sale.

The most common purpose of content marketing is to improve sales, so you’d better see an increase in revenue if you’re doing it right.

Data collection and analysis are the basic skills a content marketer needs: The first step is realizing that metrics are a necessary part of business.

You don’t need to obsess over them, but you do need to make sure you know how to track and analyze them.

Tracking is very simple.

Know how to install something like Google Analytics or KISSmetrics.

Analytics software not only tracks your readers’ behavior but also provides you with a dashboard for quickly organizing and analyzing it.

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The first big obstacle content marketers need to overcome is learning how to use the analytics software.

You can find tutorials online to help with this, but the simplest way is to simply play around with it yourself and look through different tabs and settings.

The second obstacle is much larger.

You need to learn how to analyze that data.

You can get the basics of this pretty quickly:

  • choose your metrics
  • look at them over a valid time period
  • assess whether the metrics have improved or worsened

The hard part is knowing how to analyze data properly.

Really good content marketers know how to look at the situation, conduct very specific tests, and segment the analytics data to provide meaningful information.

Often, new marketers will make decisions based on analytics, but they don’t look at the right set of users.

For example, if you had two versions of a blog layout and saw that one had a better time on-page, you might conclude that it’s better.

However, it’s possible that it’s really not if you dig into things like:

  • browser
  • returning visitors
  • time of week

It may turn out that the second page performs better in all browsers except Internet Explorer.

That would lead you to investigate why that is, and you’d probably find out that it’s not showing up correctly. Fixing the errors would change the results of your experiment.

By having more experience and knowledge, that content marketer may have just made his or her business tens of thousands of dollars. Repeat that over the course of several years, and you see why a good content marketer is worth a lot.

This is a skill that needs to be developed through experience or mentorship by an expert. There are no shortcuts, e.g., you can’t just read a blog post about it and become an expert.

Every marketer should be able to do basic A/B testing: I’ve already mentioned testing a few times.

While there are a few types of experiments you can run, the most basic is an A/B split test.

First, you should understand what split tests are and why they are valuable.

They allow you to test two different versions of content to see which one leads to better metrics.

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Split-testing is very useful for gaining continual small improvements in metrics such as conversion rate.

These small improvements add up to impressive results over time.

Second, you need to know how to run split tests and analyze the results.

Fortunately, it’s very simple now with modern software.

If you want a more detailed look at running a split test, you can refer to my guide on conversion optimization. Otherwise, there are just a few main steps.

First, you’ll need to pick a piece of software to help set up the test and track the results. For example, you can use Optimizely.

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Then, you’ll need to create a hypothesis for a test.

The best split testers know how to test something that is likely to have a big impact on the metric you’re trying to improve.

These aren’t usually pulled out of thin air. Instead, they are determined based on analyzing analytics and user behavior data.

Software like Crazy Egg can show you how visitors use your website. You can use that information to make an educated guess about how to improve the clarity of your content.

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Finally, you’ll need to determine a significant sample size and collect data. Most types of software do this for you nowadays.

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At the end, you pick the winner and start again.

It will be a big benefit to understand the statistics behind split testing to spot mistakes and set up useful tests.

If you’ve never taken a statistics class, you can take one online free.

There are many, but here are two popular classes:

It’s not mandatory, but it’s a nice asset to have.

2. Research is the key to any type of marketing

One of the most important but overlooked skills a content marketer can have is the ability to conduct research.

That’s a pretty broad term.

It covers everything related to discovering and understanding a topic.

With respect to content marketing, there are a few main reasons why your ability to research effectively is so important.

Reason #1 – To understand your customer: If you want to be a good content marketer, you need to understand the type of reader you’re trying to attract.

If you don’t, you can’t produce content that they will be interested in.

You won’t be able to write about the right topics, and you won’t know how your readers enjoy consuming the information.

If you don’t research your target reader and understand them, you’re basically just guessing what they might like.

It can still work, but be prepared to produce hundreds of pieces of content until you learn what works.

Or do some research, and get it right the first time. Clients don’t want to pay you for months on end while you figure things out by trial and error.

So, how do you actually research your reader and customer?

There are tons of ways.

And there are no wrong answers.

You might start by paying attention to what readers are saying in the comments of your, or your competitor’s, website.

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Answer questions like:

  • what do they like about the content?
  • what don’t they like?
  • what other subjects are they interested in?
  • what kind of job/life do they have (readers will often tell you)?

Or you can hunt down small niche forums and spend time digging into threads:

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This is a great way to find out about their problems, which make great content ideas.

Or you can research demographic data using sites like Alexa.

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Demographics are a key part of building a reader profile.

These are three of many options.

Great content marketers keep digging until they have as clear of a picture of their reader as possible.

They do this before they ever start writing.

An hour of research here might save several hours of work in the future.

Research #2 – To understand your product: Selling products isn’t an accident. You need to have a plan to effectively sell anything with content marketing.

Many inexperienced content marketers will say, “I’ll worry about the product later,” and focus on just producing content.

BIG mistake. Why?

Because when you do that, you don’t ensure that your product matches your audience’s needs.

This is called product-market fit.

Instead, you need to figure out how your content should relate to and add to the promotion of any products you sell.

This is where research comes in.

There are two main scenarios that you’ll need to be comfortable in.

The first is when you’re hired by a company that already sells a product. You need to research the product and understand what it does (and sometimes how it does it).

Pretend I hired you to manage the Crazy Egg blog. How could you do it without understanding the product?

You wouldn’t be able to create product tutorials or content that features the software until you get familiar with it:

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While that’s far from the only content produced on the blog, it’s a type of content that plays an important role in the sales process.

The other scenario is when you don’t have a product yet.

Research is even more important in this case.

You’ll need to find out which products your audience will pay for and potentially how to create those products as well.

Finally, and most importantly, a great content marketer knows how to research content topics.

You need to know what you’re talking about in order to write a high quality article.

This involves knowing how to look up high quality journal articles as well as other resources:

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It also involves spending the time understanding those resources.

If you’re writing about advanced topics, this takes considerable persistence, and many weak content marketers will simply find a lower quality resource instead.

Great content marketers aren’t lazy.

Reason #3 – To solve problems independently: The final main reason why research is an important skill for content marketers to have is because without it, you’ll often get stuck.

Content marketers will always be faced with questions and problems:

  • What should I write about?
  • What’s the best format for this content?
  • How do I create this form of content?
  • I don’t understand this topic, so what do I do?

Let me give you a realistic scenario…

Let’s say you’re keeping up with the latest SEO posts, and you see this filter before a list of tools on Backlinko:

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And you think: “A filter like that would really improve a piece of content I’m working on.”

Here’s the problem: there’s no simple plugin to do it for you.

So, what then? Most will give up. A great content marketer, however, will dig in and figure it out.

They will learn that the filter uses a simple Javascript script.

Now, most content marketers don’t know how to create one of their own. However, the best will find someone who can make one.

They’ll head over to Odesk or Upwork and create a job posting for a developer.

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(That’s not a relevant posting to this problem, by the way.)

The big difference between a good and bad content marketer is persistence.

Great marketers will keep researching until they find the answer to their problem. That’s what makes them stand out from everyone else.

3. Content takes many forms; being able to create it starts with writing

Although content marketing is a niche of marketing, it’s still fairly broad.

Content can take many different forms:

  • text posts
  • infographics
  • videos
  • slide shows
  • tools
  • charts
  • e-books

While it’s good to know how to create all types of content, they all, to some degree, involve writing.

Even making videos requires you to produce a script.

As you also know, most content marketing is done in the form of blog posts—typically text- and image-based content.

There are a few skills that go into being a good writer (and content marketer).

Skill #1 – Basic writing ability: There’s a common misconception about what it takes to be a “great writer” (at least when it comes to web content).

No, you don’t need to be able to write an essay like you were taught in school.

No, you don’t need to have an extensive vocabulary with tons of fancy words in it.

In reality, great writing for most situations is very simple. As long as you can write while following basic grammar and have enough of a vocabulary to express your ideas, you’re fine.

Basic writing ability also includes a few more things.

Research, as we talked about before, is one.

In addition, do you know how to use the writing tools at your disposal? Can you work in MS Word or Google Docs and know how to format your content?

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Can you then take that post and format it in a major content management system such as WordPress and Drupal?

No, it’s not difficult, but you still need to know how to do these things.

If you don’t, spend a bit of time Googling and learning how to make the most of modern writing tools.

Skill #2 – Being able to write persuasively: When everyone has the same basic writing tools (that we just went over), how do great writers stand out?

Using the same words doesn’t mean you’ll have the same message. The words you choose will have a large effect on how interesting your content is to read.

You want to be able to write persuasively and conversationally:

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Writing persuasively begins and ends with how well you understand your reader.

If you know exactly how they think, you can guide them from one thought to another until they reach a conclusion that provokes action.

This takes practice, and the more you write, the better you’ll get.

Additionally, you want to write conversationally.

It’s not complicated. There are only two main aspects:

  • Use first and second person pronouns - e.g., “you”, “us”, “your”, “we.”
  • Use the reader’s language – use the same words they do to describe their problems.

You can see that writing persuasively and writing conversationally overlap because to be good at both, you need to understand your readers’ language.

Skill #3 – Being able to come up with the right kind of ideas: There are some fantastic writers out there who make poor content marketers.

While they can write well when given a topic (or guidance on which topics are best), they struggle to see how it all fits together.

It’s not enough to come up with ideas to write about. You have to come up with content ideas that address readers at each step of the buying process.

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In addition, you need to take interesting angles on each topic so that people actually would want to read them.

Let’s look at an example.

If you follow multiple marketing blogs, you’ve seen several posts on video marketing in the last few months.

These are typically along the lines of “X tips on using video marketing effectively.”

A post like that doesn’t have an angle to it. There’s no hook.

Instead, I wrote a post titled “4 Clever Ways Videos Can Help You Attract Customers”.

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My readers are smart. They don’t want to do video marketing for the sake of it; they want to do it to achieve a result.

So, I took an angle on this topic. I showed how videos can be used to get more customers.

That’s something readers are actually interested in.

Skill #4 – Being able to write efficiently: Finally, it’s worth noting that the best content marketers are able to crank out high quality posts on a regular basis without burning out.

They can only do this by writing fast.

They’ve all developed a process that works for them, and it’s something that you’ll have to do as well.

If you’re a slow writer, read how you can double your writing speed.

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One final note about this is that it will take time.

Everyone is a slow writer when they start. At that point, focusing on quality is most important.

Once you have a handle on that, then start focusing on producing content at a faster and more consistent rate.

4. The world of marketing will always change: those who adapt will survive

If you look at the great content marketers of today, you’ll notice something.

They were great marketers a few years ago although they might have had a different title.

All industries evolve over time and shift to new areas.

When a shift occurs, usually over a few years, everyone has a decision to make:

Should I adapt?

Some never make it and fall into obscurity.

There are still SEOs who are preaching tactics from the early 2000s that are no longer effective.

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They never adapted to the changes in the SEO industry because they were afraid of losing what they had gained.

But the people you see who stay consistently at the top of their fields are always looking to learn about the “next thing.”

They adapt no matter what the circumstances are.

What this means to you as a content marketer: Content marketing, as we define it today, is still relatively young.

It’s only going to grow in the foreseeable future.

However, that doesn’t mean it won’t change.

Content marketing itself will continue to evolve. It’s up to you to always keep learning and improving your skill set.

Many poor content marketers know how to implement only one tactic or strategy successfully.

However, that’s not enough. A single tactic or strategy will never work in all situations. Also, it may not work in the future.

The best content marketers right now know how to use a wide variety of tactics and strategies depending on the situation (client, niche, resources, etc.).

They are also continually testing new ones to stay ahead of everyone else.

For you, this means that you need to keep learning.

When you find something that works, by all means use it. However, don’t think that you “figured it all out.”

5. No time should be wasted waiting, which is why you need to be a jack-of-all-trades

There’s one more area that I think will continue to become more important.

And it doesn’t contain just one skill, but a few different ones.

I’m talking about two in particular:

  • coding
  • design

These are “accessory skills.” You don’t need them to be a great content marketer.

However, they will help.

There are two main benefits of having some skill in either of these (you don’t need to be an expert).

First, it will save you time.

Instead of having to hire a developer to create a simple script (like that filtering example we looked at earlier), you could do it yourself.

Typically, being able to do something like that can save you days when producing a piece of content.

Add that up over many instances, and a content marketer who can code or design becomes even more valuable.

The second main benefit is that it will help you come up with better content ideas.

When you understand the role of design and coding in content, you start to see opportunities where they could be used to improve content.

Instead of just making a list post, you might think of creating a sortable list post where each item has its own custom icon.

But if you have no knowledge in these two areas, it’s never going to cross your mind unless something tells you to do it.

Helpful skill #1 – Coding: For the non-programmer, coding is very intimidating. It’s actually simpler than it looks (for most basic things).

In particular, for content marketing, you’ll want to learn three different languages:

  • HTML5
  • CSS
  • Javascript

Yes, technically HTML and CSS aren’t programming languages, but to a non-coder, they all appear similar.

The first two are the simplest and affect how your content shows up on a page.

Javascript is an actual programming language that allows the visitor to interact with a web page (and run a script).

You don’t need to become an expert, but you should be able to sort out simple problems.

For example, if a picture isn’t showing up correctly on a page, what do you do?

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That’s a simple issue. You really want to avoid having to find someone who can help you fix it because that results in wasted hours.

Instead, you can go into the page source, find the error, and then fix it (in this case, the image width was wrong):

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That fix should take less than a minute.

So, how do you learn these?

Take them one by one, and start with the Codecademy track for each of them:

If you complete each of those, you’ll be ahead of the majority of marketers.

Helpful skill #2 – Design: Design skills can be used for just about every piece of content.

Think of the number of times a custom image could improve your content. Probably at least a few times a post.

One option is to hire a freelance designer to create them, which isn’t a bad option.

However, it’s silly to be waiting for a freelancer when all you need is one simple picture.

You don’t need to be an expert, but you should have basic design skills.

I can show you 90% of what you need to know in a single post. And that post is my guide to creating custom images for your blog post without hiring a designer (like the one below).

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6. Oh yeah, there’s one more thing that’s kind of important…

No, I didn’t forget it…

The final skill you need in order to be a great content marketer is a strong knowledge of content marketing.

Without that, you can’t put together a full effective strategy that produces results you want, no matter how well you write, research, adapt, etc.

This is where blogs like Quick Sprout and Content Marketing Institute come in. Short of having a great content marketer as a mentor, in-depth blog posts will be the best way to learn (along with paid courses if possible).

There are no shortcuts here either.

There are many areas of content marketing to learn about.

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It will take continuous time and effort to learn all of these. I’d estimate at least three years for someone very committed to become an expert in all of these.

That doesn’t mean you’ll suck before you get to that point—you can still have a lot of success.

The important takeaway from this is that you need to make learning an integral part of your life, even when you get busy.

Conclusion

Being a content marketer is not easy.

You’re expected to wear a lot of hats and contribute to a business in a lot of ways.

While doing this, you need to be developing these 6 skills along the way.

If you do, you will see your value as a content marketer rising, and you will get to the top of the field in time.

If you stay committed to developing these skills, you’ll stay there too.

I have a few quick questions for you now: Which of these skills do you still need to improve? And are there any in particular that you need more detailed help with? Let me know in a comment below.



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Income Report Roundup – November 2015

One of the most popular posts I publish are my income reports.

So I decided to round up as many income reports as possible and rank them based on earnings to see how I stack up against the rest.

If you publish an income report on your blog and would like it included in next month’s post then please let me know in the comments!

Here we go-

#1) MakingSenseOfCents.com – $31,782.00 (+$2,952.00)

It’s been a great month for income for Michelle as she continued to manage a great work life balance.

She had a great time on the road travelling highway 101 and working from an RV every day and is working towards her goal of writing a book.

She’s feeling great after working ahead and pre-scheduling all of her blog posts for November and continues to aim to promote more particularly on Pinterest.

#2) PinchOfYum.com – $26,003.84 (-$7,356.98)

Lindsay & Bjork are switching up their give and take balance this month.

They have closed sign ups for Food Blogger Pro while they focus on delivering quality content and plan to reopen the option to sign up and switch back to “asking season” in 5-6 months.

They recently hosted an AMA chat focusing on blogging and will be donating a portion of this month’s income to a project which provides a complete holiday meal for hungry families.

#3) MatthewWoodward.co.uk – $25,024.85 (+$815.23)

This has been one of the most hectic months I’ve ever had as I spent all month preparing and releasing my free video training.

After a heavy workload with next to no time off I’m really looking forward to some relaxation once November is out of the way.

As one door closes another opens though, and my next big project is going to include huge changes on the blog that are long overdue!

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#4) AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com – $18,351.00 (-$9,566.00)

Jon spent this month pushing the pace of his Amazon FBA business and is happy to report that it’s all set to fully capitalise on the holiday season.

His successes this month include having a clear goal for his business laid out and getting lots of content up on his Amazon sites ready for the christmas rush.

His main goal going forward is to cut back on expenses and control costs better while really pushing the last months of the year to increase his income numbers!

#5) JustAGirlAndHerBlog.com – $14,652.00 (-$931.00)

Abby spent most of October dedicated to the launch of her latest product.

After getting a lot of questions about how to find time for product creation she decided to go into the topic in this month’s income report.

She encourages readers to create helpful products for their audience as selling her own products has been a major game changer for the business.

#6) TrueValhalla.com – $10,022.00 (+$3,257.00)

Matt was excited to launch the secret project he’s been working on recently, his new book ‘Learn To Make Games’ as well as achieving a five figure month!

He sold lots of HTML5 games in October with demand soaring as predicted for the holiday season and sales of his updated book were strong.

Despite a huge workload he still made time to design several new games including an experimental high-budget game in development and is expecting book sales to become a more consistent source of his online income.

#7) Untemplater.com – $6,941.00 (+$3,931.00)

untemplaterAfter feeling disheartened by September’s results Sydney is happy to report that October was a totally different story, coming just shy of her best months earnings!

After chasing up the client she secured a statement of work with last month with no success she’s written this off as a bad experience and says the pros of contracting outweigh the cons.

She was relieved to see traffic recover form the unexplained dip she experienced in September and actually returned to work for a former employer negotiating a better salary for herself in the process!

#8) MyTanFeet.com – $6,652.13 (+$1,052.02)

Yeison & Samantha had a great time in Thailand participating in TBEX Asia this month and were included in the Expeditioner’s top 50 travel blogs list.

They have just started to build a new theme and layout for the site from scratch and are planning to re-write their newsletters while Samantha continues work on her eBook.

They’re also looking forward to visiting an area they haven’t been to yet this month in the Osa Peninsula.

#9) DigitalNomadWannabe.com – $5,708.00 (+$578.00)

digitalnomadWith her best month so far for income Sharon also had what she describes as her biggest personal success yet in her presentation at TBEX Asia.

Her income this month increased in all areas except amazon and she had an increase on the list of Top 50 Travel Blogs based on traffic.

Going forward she’s getting ready for another busy couple of months travelling before heading back to Australia.

#10) MissBiziBee.com – $4,771.91 (+$2,071.89)

bizziKaitlin’s celebrating her best month so far this month and setting records across the board for traffic, Etsy and Amazon earnings.

With traffic up 23% she started October with a bang and a mountain of Etsy orders totalling £774 in just one day! Etsy continues to be her biggest driver but Amazon affiliate earnings also reached new highs this month.

Although she saw a lot of the revenue this month was driven by Halloween she’s happy to report Amazon earnings coming from posts written months ago!

#11) DumbPassiveIncome.com – $1,652.90 (+$334.36)

Matt is reporting a very good month in October, having spent most of his time working on his ‘one thing’ website which is earning very little, his passive income still continued to flow.

Traffic on Dumb Passive Income continued to grow and he’s been working on a lead magnet for his Amazon affiliate site and focusing on growing an email list.

He’s excited about the possibilities that come with having his email list and the potential of the niche itself!

#12) IncomeMesh.com – $948.10 (+$620.40)

incomemeshIt’s been Drazen’s best month for income so far this month and he says his biggest game changer has been an increase in social traffic.

After originally hitting his target of $1000 he was dissapointed to lose some commissions due to a refund bringing him just below his goal.

He says he still isn’t spending as much time as he should on promoting content on social networks but speculates that if your content is good then the shares come naturally.

#13) MyPathToPassiveIncome.com – $92.05 (+$57.23)

mypathtopassiveincomeAnother best month for Esteban as his site continues to grow and he has seen almost 50% more sessions, users and pageviews in October.

He focused his time this month on boosting his social media engagement and also picked up a few jobs on Fiverr.

His goals moving forward include guest posting for two different blogs, reaching 100 email subscribers and reaching $100 profit to move into those triple figures.

#14) OneHourProfessor.com – -$547.46 (-$935.16)

ohpOctober was one of the most expensive months for Ron with costs exceeding income as he hired video editors and transcribers and worked hard to finish his new course.

He also created a free mini course while adding everything on Udemy too and reveals that most of his time went into building the sales funnel after underestimating the work required.

He’s hoping to see lots of extra income in November for his efforts and going forward will be working on reducing costs, guest blogging and possibly redesigning the site.

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In Summary

We’ve had no change in the line up with no newcomers again this month.

The month’s total has risen $3,073.99 to $148,682.32 as the spending season starts to draw in with a number of the featured sites here reporting their best months earnings so far.

With a mix of growth, record setting and investment this month it will be interesting to see how sales improve for everyone next month, especially with Black Friday coming up fast!

If you feel inspired to start your own blog then why don’t you start a blog now? It only takes a few minutes!

Performance Tracking

I only include the earnings history of the top 10 blogs each month to make the graphs easy to read.

I’m having a problem with the graph right now and will update the post when fixed




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Income Report Roundup - November 2015 was originally published on November 30th, 2015 06:55 AM by Matthew Woodward Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved.

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Friday, November 27, 2015

The Very Best Black Friday 2015 Deals For Internet Marketers

Black Friday is finally here and I have listed every single internet marketing related deal in one place for you.

On top of that I have also negotiated a bunch of extra exclusive Black Friday discounts that you cannot find anywhere else.

So what are you waiting for? Get instant access to all of the deals now-

http://ift.tt/1OqUeA5

Don’t forget a lot of these deals expire today and when they are gone – they are gone.

I have listed the expiry date of every deal so you don’t get caught out.

*** Important ***

I will be updating the site over the weekend as more deals for Black Friday & Cyber Monday are released so check back often.

This is going to be the biggest Black Friday yet so don’t miss out-

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The Very Best Black Friday 2015 Deals For Internet Marketers was originally published on November 27th, 2015 11:33 AM by Matthew Woodward Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The 16 Best Pinterest Tools for Social Media Marketers

pinterest

It’s easy to waste hours every week on social media, doing things that could be automated…

…or at the very least done faster with the right tools.

Add up those few hours a week, and you’ll see that the average social media marketer easily wastes over 100 hours a year.

I’m guessing you have better things to do with your time than mess around on social media.

In this post, I’ll address one network in particular—Pinterest.

The massive, image-based social media site is one of the best for finding new customers:

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The average user on Pinterest has money and is willing to spend it.

That being said, Pinterest isn’t for every business. Considering that Pinterest is dominated by American women (68% female), it works better for certain niches than for others.

If you’re not sure if Pinterest is right for your business, check out my complete guide to creating a social media strategy.

Assuming that Pinterest is a good fit for you, you want to make sure that you have the right tools for the job.

Tools can help you:

  • save time
  • get better results (more pins, repins, and traffic)
  • be consistent (less effort on your part)

I’ve compiled a list of the 16 best Pinterest tools for social media marketers. I’ve divided them into four main categories.

You won’t need all of them, but if you pick one from each section, you’ll save a lot of time and get a lot more out of your time on Pinterest. 

For posting content easily and more efficiently

The tools in this section all make your life easier by helping you post images to Pinterest faster.

Not only that, but most of them also provide some sort of a visual schedule, so you know if you’re posting as much as you’d like.

Let’s jump into tool #1…

1. Buffer: Buffer needs to be included in any list of social media tools for the big networks.

While it originally did not have support for Pinterest, it does now.

Buffer does a few things and does them really well. It allows you to:

  • pin images automatically – Buffer will automatically pin content to your account when you tell it to (you have to supply the content).
  • create a posting schedule – you tell Buffer which times of the day (and which days) you want to make posts.
  • easily add images to your queue - Buffer pulls images from your queue in the order you add them. You can add images to your queue using the tool or browser extensions.
  • post to multiple networks - although we’re concerned only with Pinterest here, you can also connect your Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn accounts. Then, you can tell Buffer to post the same image to any of those accounts as well.

After you’ve created a Buffer account, the first thing you want to do is connect your Pinterest account.

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All you need to do is authenticate the app with a click of a button.

Next, you’ll want to head over to your schedule tab. Here, pick the days you’d like to post, the number of times you’d like to post each day, and specific times to post.

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The final piece of the puzzle is to add content to your queue. From there, Buffer does all the hard work.

Like I mentioned before, you have a few different options to do this.

First, you can add the content through Buffer itself. Go to the content tab to see your existing queue, and then add a post into the text area. Make sure your Pinterest account is highlighted (which will allow you to pick a board to post to).

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If you ever return to your queue, Buffer will show you a list of any content you’ve added, organized by the time it’s supposed to be posted.

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Additionally, you can install the Buffer browser extension.

Once you do, you will see a “share image” button on any image you come across on the web. Click it, and a message composer will come up, which will allow you to customize the message and add it to your queue:

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Finally, on top of allowing you to schedule pins automatically, Buffer will also show you the performance of each pin as well as your account overall. You can see the number of followers you’re gaining as well as the amount of engagement you’re getting on your pins:

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2. Tailwind: Like Buffer, Tailwind is a tool that allows you to schedule pins.

However, it’s a tool specifically designed for Pinterest. This is a good thing if you only focus on Pinterest for your business. It’s a bad thing if you also use other networks because then you’ll need extra tools to handle them.

It also has a few extra features that you might find useful.

First, create your Tailwind account, and let it access your Pinterest account. It would also be a good idea to add the browser extension at this point.

Just like in Buffer, you can go to the settings and set your own schedule for posting.

Once you do, you can click on “create new pin” in your main schedule tab, which will bring up a window that is similar to what you’d see on Pinterest:

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This same window will also pop up on any webpage if you click the Tailwind button that shows up on an image (if you’ve installed the extension).

Pick your board and description, and indicate whether you’d like to post it to Facebook or Twitter. It does have that feature even though it doesn’t support those networks beyond it.

At any time, you can return to your schedule tab and see the pins you have in your queue and when they’ll be posted.

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You can also see a nice visual schedule in the right sidebar.

Once you’ve made some pins, you can go to the “pin inspector” (using the left side menu) and see how each individual pin performed. You can sort it by any engagement metric.

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You can also dig in further and let Tailwind analyze all your boards to see which one gets the most engagement for each pin.

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If you see that one board has a high engagement and virality score, you should focus more of your effort on it. Conversely, you may want to delete any low performing boards.

Overall, it’s a very complete tool and can replace 2-3 smaller Pinterest tools. There’s a lot more beyond the essentials I went over here.

3. ViralTag: This is another good option when it comes to scheduling pins, but it isn’t quite as in-depth as the first two options. But this could be a good thing if you’re just looking for the bare minimum.

The first thing you’ll want to do is create an account. Then, drag the ViralTag bookmarklet into your browser.

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It creates a little bookmark on your bookmarks bar.

Whenever you’re on a page with images, you can click the bookmarklet, and a pop-up window will show you all the images on the page:

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Click each image to add a checkmark to the top left corner (or click again to take it away).

If an image is checked, you’re telling ViralTag that you want to share that image.

After you click Next, you’ll have the option to choose which board to post the images to as well as to set a time and provide other image information:

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You can always go back to your ViralTag account and change any of that information:

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This tool is best for marketers who typically post images others have created (which is fine on Pinterest with attribution).

You can quickly add several images to your queue while you are browsing other boards on Pinterest.

4. IFTTT: IFTTT stands for “If this, then that.” It’s an automation tool that you can use in many areas of marketing.

Not only is it incredibly useful but it’s also free.

Here’s how it works:

  • you define “this” - specify an action. It could be a post being published or something being shared. “This” is some sort of action.
  • you define “that” – another action that you specify. When the “this” event occurs, the tool will automatically do the “that” action that you specified.

The combination of both is called a recipe. Here are a few examples:

image41

You can use IFTTT with just about any website, including most social networks.

The great thing is that you don’t need to come up with recipes yourself. Chances are other marketers have already come up with and published the recipes you could benefit from.

Here are the top IFTTT recipes for Pinterest.

Let me show you how to set up a recipe once you find one that looks useful.

If you’re on Pinterest, you might also be using another image-based social channel—Instagram.

This recipe automatically posts any picture you post on Instagram onto a Pinterest board:

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First, you’ll need to connect each channel. You only have to do this once for each account.

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Click the “Connect” button, and give IFTTT access to each account.

Then, all you will see is an Add Recipe button:

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Click this, and the recipe will be activated. That’s it!

5. Hootsuite: Hootsuite has been one of the top tools for social media marketers for years.

It’s received some criticism for not evolving as quickly as other tools, but it still has all the core features you’ll need.

Something that’s really cool is that Hootsuite can be integrated with other tools we’ve looked at when it comes to Pinterest.

For example, Hootsuite can be integrated with Tailwind.

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You get to use all the features of both Tailwind and Hootsuite.

And if there’s one thing Hootsuite excels at, it’s letting you create a great dashboard.

As you can see from the picture above, you can get a lot of useful information on your screen, like a list of your scheduled pins and your calendar.

You can control which panels are shown on your account. Click “+ Add Stream” at the top of the dashboard, and choose from the many options.

The other common option for Hootsuite integration is ViralTag. Again, you can schedule pins, see how your recent pins are performing, and edit any scheduled pins before they go live.

image01

Hootsuite by itself isn’t a great option, but when you combine it with ViralTag or Tailwind, it can be. It’s especially useful if you like what those other tools can do but don’t like their interface.

Make the most of Pinterest

This next batch of tools help you use Pinterest more effectively (and more efficiently).

If you use them as intended, you will be able to get more pins, more traffic, and a higher conversion rate.

6. PinGroupie: One of the most underrated tactics for getting traffic from Pinterest is becoming a part of group boards.

Any member of the group can contribute to such a board.

Some boards have tens of thousands of members, and a large chunk of those are active members.

When you pin something on one of those boards, it’s automatically going to be seen by thousands of users. If you’re posting interesting images, you can regularly get hundreds of pins.

And all of this is without a following of your own.

The tough part is finding these groups. After you do, you usually have to send a request to join. As long as your account looks natural, you typically get accepted.

PinGroupie is a simple tool that makes finding groups much easier.

It’s basically a database of high-activity Pinterest groups. You can search the database for groups that fit your niche.

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There are a few different ways you can use the tool:

  1. specify a category - using the category drop-down menu, you can pick a broad category you want to see. This is best if you have an authority site that covers many topics in a niche.
  2. filter by title – you can enter a word in the “title” box and then click the “filter” button to see groups with that word in the title.
  3. filter by description - you can also enter a word in the “description” box and click the “filter” button to see groups with that word in the description. This is better in most cases since descriptions have more words than titles.

All three ways can work, so try them all, and make a list of groups to join.

After you get accepted to them, make sure you’re not spamming them with your own content. Contribute other content on a regular basis.

7. PinAlerts: Pinterest does something neat. When someone repins something you originally pinned, it sends you a notification.

That allows you to do things like follow that person in the hopes that they follow you back. This leads to more pins in the future.

You know what would be even more useful? Getting a notification every time someone pinned something from your website.

If you’re using high quality pictures in your blog content, many of your readers will pin them.

If you knew when they did this, you could not only follow them but also repin their original pin of your image and possibly comment as well.

If you haven’t guessed yet, this is a tool that sends you a notification when someone pins something from your site.

There are three steps to set it up.

First, you enter your domain into the tool. Then, you choose what kind of alerts you’d like to receive. Finally, you press the button to create it (hard, I know).

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It’s not pretty, but it works.

8. LoveList: This tool is really useful if you find yourself in stores a lot.

It was originally created when a couple was trying to put together a wedding registry but couldn’t find an easy way to do it.

So, they created this tool.

You scan the barcode of products in stores with your phone, and the tool will automatically pin pictures of those products to a Pinterest board (that you specify).

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This tool won’t be for everyone. However, if you run a business about a hobby, let’s say home decorating, you might find yourself in decorating stores often, especially if you’re really passionate about it.

You might as well make the most of your time and load up your Pinterest account while you’re doing it.

9. Loop88: Some marketers are great at building social media accounts and getting highly engaged followers.

However, it’s not always easy to convert that into profit.

This tool was created to connect popular pinners to advertisers.

Fair warning: To get accepted, you will need a fairly popular account.

They work with brands of all sizes, including big ones. For example, the TV show “The Mindy Project” wanted to build brand awareness.

They paid pinners (through this tool) to post quotes from the show:

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I don’t know the exact payouts from this tool, but I think a moderately popular account could make an extra few hundred dollars a month.

It’s just another way to generate some revenue with your social media efforts without too much extra work.

Get more shares and traffic with these tools

Let’s shift directions a little bit…

Now I want to share some tools that will help you get more pins and overall traffic from Pinterest.

Considering these are two of the most important metrics when it comes to Pinterest marketing, these tools are pretty useful.

10. SumoMe Image Sharer: This tool is actually a website plugin that will take you just a few minutes to install.

However, it can lead to hundreds or even thousands of extra pins over time. Oh, and it’s free.

When a reader of your blog sees an amazing picture on your website, what do they do?

In most cases, nothing.

Even if they have a Pinterest account, only a small portion of those readers will think to share the image.

Why? Because nothing prompts them to make the connection that this picture might be a good one to pin.

Additionally, some won’t pin it because they’re lazy.

You’re missing out on extra pins and traffic because of this.

The image sharer tool allows you to add floating buttons to all your images.

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You’ve likely seen it before on other blogs.

Now, readers of your blog can just click the Pinterest button, allowing them to post an image in under 30 seconds.

You can also add other network buttons to your images, but typically the Pinterest button will work best. 

11. Pinterest widgets: Sometimes, we look to other tools to do some extra things we need. Pinterest actually has a really useful widget creator tool that can create attractive widgets for your website.

There’s no need to find other tools to use if you’re looking to highlight your Pinterest account or recent pins somewhere on your website (usually the sidebar).

You can pick from a variety of different widgets in the tool. Click one of the boxes to select a widget.

In the example below, I picked a board:

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You add the URL of the board and pick a size, and then you can see what it will look like in the preview.

After, it will generate a code that you can copy and paste into your website.

You can also feature your Pinterest profile as a whole or as a single pin, or you can create pin and follow buttons.

The default design will follow the standard Pinterest color scheme, but you can always edit the CSS to create a custom display.

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12. Rich pins validator: On top of regular pins, it’s also possible to create “rich pins.”

These pins stand out among regular pins and typically get extra shares and engagement (Target got 70% more traffic with rich pins).

These pins consist of an image and also have useful information for users.

Here’s an example of a film rich pin:

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You can see why that would stand out from just an image of the movie cover as a regular pin.

On top of movies, you can also create rich pins for:

  • Places
  • Articles
  • Products
  • Recipes

In order to get rich pins to show up when you pin content from your site (or someone else does), you need to have open graph (OG) schema markup on your articles.

Once you do, Pinterest will pull information from those meta tags to use.

The easiest way to do this is by using the SEO plugin by Yoast.

Go to the social settings tab in the plugin, and then go to the “Facebook” tab first. Check the “Add open graph meta data” (both Facebook and Pinterest use the same ones).

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Next, go to the Pinterest tab in the settings.

Here, click the link to “verify your site with Pinterest.” This will take you to Pinterest to get a meta tag to add to your site. Add this tag into the space here, and save changes.

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Some meta tags will be added to posts automatically.

However, you’ll also want to go into your posts (in the WordPress editor) and scroll down past the content.

You’ll see a box for “Yoast SEO” and a tab for “Social” with a few meta tag fields:

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Fill them out for Facebook, and Pinterest will take them when appropriate.

Now back to the tool: I suppose we’re looking at two tools together here. On top of the Yoast plugin, you can now use the rich pin validator.

This will allow you to input a URL from your site into the URL debugger, and it will tell you if everything is set up okay or not.

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If all is well, you’ll get a success message:

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Create high quality images that get more pins

The final category of tools can help you get even more pins.

To get pins and repins, the main thing you need is great images.

These tools will help you create those images even if you’re not much of a designer.

13. Snappa: You are a marketer, not a designer. While it’s good to have some design skills, chances are you don’t have the time to master Photoshop.

With modern tools, you can still produce awesome pictures perfect for Pinterest.

Snappa is one of them. It’s actually designed specifically for marketers.

When you create an account, you’ll see that you can pick from different image sizes:

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In this case, we want the Pinterest pin size, of course.

This will bring up a new screen with different templates on it. You can either choose one of these or create an image from scratch:

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This will bring you to the actual image editing window.

Using the menu at the top, you can control what shows up in the left panel. When you click something in the left panel (like a background or graphic), it will be added to your image on the right:

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The beauty of this tool is how easy it is to edit the image.

You can click any element and then drag it to move it, drag a corner to resize it, or press Delete to delete it.

If you use the templates, you can easily make your own custom images in less than 5 minutes each. And they look great.

14. Canva: Canva is a lot like Snappa, but it came first. It’s not specifically designed for marketers, but it still has a fair number of templates that will be useful to you.

For pins, click the “More” button under the “Create a design” section on the home page (once you’re signed in):

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Then, click “Pinterest Graphic”:

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Again, when you’re editing your image, you’ll see two main parts: your image on the right and options on the left.

Start by going to the “layouts” tab on the left, which has a bunch of great templates to choose from:

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In addition, you can add text and graphics or change the background using the other tabs.

Of course, you can edit the image itself on the right. Refer to this guide for more detailed instructions on creating your own images using Canva.

15. Pablo: Canva and Snappa are both amazing and simple to use tools. Pablo is even simpler.

If you doubt your design skills and want the easiest option possible, this is it.

This tool was created by the Buffer team, who obviously understand the needs of social media marketers.

On the side menu, choose the “Tall” picture size, which is the perfect size for Pinterest.

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Then, pick a background from the left side menu:

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Click on the text, and add a custom quote or message your audience will like.

Obviously, this tool is a bit more limited than the others, but it’s a great way to make beautiful pictures with quotes on them, which often get a ton of pins and comments.

16. Picmonkey: Sometimes, you will find a picture you’d like to share, but it doesn’t look good enough to pin.

That’s where a tool such as Picmonkey can be useful. You can change all aspects of the picture such as:

  • contrast
  • direction (rotation)
  • sharpness
  • brightness
  • color

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On top of those useful editing features, you can also add filters to enhance the look of pictures (just don’t go overboard with them).

Click the little flask icon on the left menu, and you’ll get a list of different filters. Click on a filter to apply it to the image on the right:

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Conclusion

Pinterest is one of the best platforms for social media marketers.

However, you want to make sure that you’re getting the best return on your time and effort.

I’ve shown you 16 awesome tools you can use to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your Pinterest marketing.

I don’t expect you to use them all, but it’d be a good idea to try a few at a time until you determine which ones fit well into your marketing.

I’d also like to hear about any great tools I missed in this post, so leave me a comment below and let me know about them.



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