Pinterest Savvy is Free on Kindle Today

Pinterest Savvy: How I Got 1 Million+ Followers (Strategies, Plans, and Tips to Grow Your Business with Pinterest)
Today there are 3 Free books on Kindle that may be of interest to you as a blogger. I have had a chance to look over Pinterest Savvy and have found that it is filled with tips that I think can really be useful to growing your following on Pinterest. Some tips that I have already used prior to reading this book and have found helpful are:

  1. Create a board named for your blog – pin your blog posts there first before repinning.
  2. Pin from the original source. Then you (and your Pinterest board) will be named as the original pinner no matter how many times it is repinned.
  3. Have detailed boards broken down by micro subjects for areas you want to gain followers. Instead of “Food I want to try” create boards named “Cake Recipes”, “Decorating Tips”, “Barbecue and Grilling Recipes”, etc.

Since Melissa Taylor recommends things that I have already discovered to be effective, I feel that many of her other tips are worth giving a try.

Free Books on Kindle Today:

Pinterest – Build Your Brand, Your Tribe, Your Sales (2nd Ed)

How to get 1000 Real Twitter Followers in 25 Days or Less. A Step by Step Formula.

Pinterest Savvy: How I Got 1 Million+ Followers (Strategies, Plans, and Tips to Grow Your Business with Pinterest)

 

Thanks to Saving in Nevada for sharing this and other free books on Kindle.

I don’t know how long this book will be free, so check the price before you “buy” it. You don’t have to have a Kindle to take advantage of this deal. You can download Free Kindle Apps for your Computer or Smart Phone.

How to Use Twitter to Increase Engagement

Twitter is an effective way to quickly get your posts or information out to followers in 140 characters or less. You can also use twitter to quickly connect with readers and answer questions. Since Twitter forces me to limit correspondence to 140 characters I find I can pop on and tweet without getting bogged down like I do with Facebook. In addition, Twitter levels the playing field. You can respond to any tweet even if that person doesn’t follow you (and you don’t follow them) and that person will see your tweet.

Interested? Go to Twitter and click on the sign up button to get your free account. You enter your name, pick a user name (15 letters or under. I recommend your name or your blog name.) Choose a password (make sure it is not related to any other vital password!) and enter your email. Pretty simple. Now you are ready to start tweeting.

Before you Start Tweeting, Fill Out your Profile!

 How a Food blogger Can use Twitter to Increase Page Views.

1. Upload a picture, nobody wants to follow an egg! (The one you use on your blog and other social media accounts will work).

2. Enter your blog’s URL in the Website field (So many people overlook this step!)

3. Write a short bio. You only have 160 characters, so share things that will help people decide if they want to follow you. If you are a frugal blogger, you don’t have to mention your handsome husband and 5 adorable children. If you are a homeschool blogger, the 5 children lend credibility.

I love my friend Sarah’s  Twitter Bio:

Add bio when setting up a twitter account

You know from her bio that she is really parenting a baby, and though she is so many other things, that is the most important piece of information for someone writing posts on the care and feeding of a baby. Make your bio personal, but make it relevant to what you are writing about.

Add a Twitter Social Icon to Your Blog:

Go ahead and pop off  a tweet if you must, but then come back to your profile and beneath the box where you entered your web address, you will see a link to add twitter to your blog. Click on that and you can then add a twitter follow button on your blog.  If I visit a site and like what I read, I always look for the twitter follow button and am disappointed if I cannot find it.

If you are on WordPress, you can use the Social Media Widget Plugin to add links to all of your social media accounts on your sidebar.

How to Use Twitter as a #Foodie:


When I tweet a post, I check to see if there is a Twitter share button at the bottom of the post, if not I use the share button on my  tool bar. This will automatically shorten the URL, giving you more room to add comments. You can also use Bitly, if you do not have share buttons on your toolbar, but I find this adds an extra step.

To send a tweet to a specific person, put @ in front of the person’s Twitter Username: @BloggingFoodies Do not leave a space between the @ and the Username. If you make a mistake you can delete your tweet and resend it.

There is a search box in the toolbar at the top of your twitter account. Click on @Connect to view any tweets mentioning you. This means you don’t have to worry about being on twitter all day to catch a tweet directed at you. That is how conversations occur (over several hours/days) despite all of the other tweets, because you can pick up the last comment to you by checking on @Connect. You can also type in your blog name or post title to see if your work is being mentioned.

You can retweet a tweet you think your followers will enjoy by clicking the retweet button beneath the post. Or you can copy it, hit reply, paste the original tweet, then add a RT in front of the post. This is useful if you want to retweet it AND add a comment.

How to Use #Hashtags:

You can add a hashtag (like #organic, #realfood, #glutenfree, #pizza, #dessert, #chocolate, #gardening, #recipe) to a tweet to reach a specific audience of individuals even if they are not followers. You can add hashtags on any word you like, but it helps if it is a word that people search on.  You can also do a search on particular hashtags to see what people are chatting about on that topic to see if it is one you want to use.

Adding a #hashtag also increases your chances of being picked up and included in a paper.li, which increases your distribution.  Paper.li is an online curation platform which allows people to turn tweets into an online “newspaper”.

Don’t use too many hashtags. Pick a couple of hashtags that best represent the content of the link you are tweeting or the community you are trying to reach. If you want to reach several different communities or represent a lot of content with hashtags, it may be better to tweet the link twice and divide the hashtags between the 2 tweets.

TweetGrid is a free application that allows you to follow several key words at the same time. There are several tutorials on how to use TweetGrid on their site, but to jump-start, just click on one of the grids 2 x 2  or 2 x 3. In the upper left you will see a log in button, click on it and it will connect to your twitter account ( a twitter button will pop up asking you to authorize access to your twitter account and you click yes. If it is your first time you may have to enter your twitter Username and password. Many applications ask you to log in using your twitter username and password which is why you want to have a very different password for Twitter than your other accounts).

I use TweetGrid to easily follow a twitter party. Tweet Grid also allows you to schedule tweets in advance, so if you are a night owl you can schedule tweets for when your readers are actually awake.

Following, Followers, and Following Back:

Start by following people who you know and start by following a fairly small amount of tweeters. I would suggest following 15 – 25 of your favorite bloggers. If you are a regular commenter, they may immediately recognize you from your username and bio and follow you back. Follow people who have tweeted your posts, even if they just mentioned your blog name and not your Twitter Username. They may not have realized that you were on twitter and will probably be delighted to discover that you are. As people follow you, add more followers.

As a general rule, I don’t follow people who have thousands of followers, but only follow a few people. I am not interested in being talked at. I also don’t follow people who are only on twitter to sell something. I do follow people who have a product to sell as long as they also share something else besides that product. I follow my local grocery store, although they are obviously selling something, because they share tips, sales and recipes.

I followback almost everybody who follows me.  When someone follows me and I do not already know them, I view their profile page, read their last several tweets, read their bio, and if I am still not sure, I click through to their website to check them out.

What if someone slips through and you find you are following someone you don’t wish to follow. Click on their username, then you will see a button with a gear on it, click on it and scroll down until you see the unfollow option, click and you have officially unfollowed that individual. I have unfollowed people because they used foul language or tweeted about something that I felt was inappropriate.

Who Unfollowed Me is an application that allows you to see who unfollowed you. Sometimes people try to manipulate their numbers to gain a high following. They will follow lots of people and once you follow back, they unfollow you. Every so often I check who unfollowed me. Usually the person who unfollowed me was someone who I did not follow to begin with, however if I did follow the person, the Who Unfollowed Me application allows me to quickly unfollow them if I choose to.

How to Automate Twitter:

Do you have feedburner set up for your blog?  Feedburner allows non-bloggers to subscribe to your blog without having to set up a blogger account. It also allows people who want all of their blog subscriptions in one place to subscribe in a feed reader via RSS. You can follow the Sit’s Girls Simple Instructions for Setting up Feedburner (and Branding your Feed).

If you have Feedburner, you can socialize your feed, so that each new post is automatically sent to twitter.

1. Click on account (next to dashboard)

2. Click on Feedburner

3. Click on Publicize

4. Click on socialize. You will be able to set up twitter feeds from here. Make sure you click the box that says include link, so people can easily find your post. You have the option of having a hashtag automatically attached to each tweet from your blog if you like. If you are a dedicated foodie you may want to add #recipe in the additional text box.

Final Thoughts:

You can customize your header and background on your Twitter profile page, but this is not necessary. It is more important to get up and tweeting than to create a pretty background that few people will see.

Never add hashtags to your post titles. Adding a hashtag to your post title makes you look lazy and  spammy. Either add a  hashtag specific to your niche through feedburner or create a tweet and add a hashtag.

Do not send your Tweets to your Facebook page. Your tweets will seem out-of-place on Facebook and will not generate as much engagement as if you create a unique Facebook status for the same content.

If you are on Twitter, leave your Twitter handle in the comments, so I can follow you.

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Use Pinterest to Decide Which Posts to Update

Do you know how to tell which of your posts are being pinned? Besides looking at your blog stats at the end of the day. Do you want to know what people are saying about your posts when they pin them, if anything? Or if they are being repinned?

Well, I will show you how, but I don’t want you to waste a lot of time doing this. Use this occasionally as a tool to improve your posts and traffic.

How to find Which Posts are Being Pinned on Pinterest:

In the link below, replace my blog’s URL (it is in orange) with your blog’s URL

http://pinterest.com/source/premeditatedleftovers.com/

and then enter the link in your browser and hit enter and you will be taken to a list of your posts that have been pinned.

How to See which posts are being pinned

How is seeing which posts have been pinned helpful? Just from these few pins, I can see that my followers are already thinking ahead to fall. Now, would be a good time for me to start sharing fall posts, both old and new, across my social media accounts.

I can also tell that my followers are not writing blurbs, they are using the names of the pictures in my posts. Which is okay for the posts that have nicely named images using key words. But as you can see from the image in the center top row, I still have unnamed images on my blog. And since that casserole is a turkey rice bake, now would be a good time to update that post and name the image because turkey recipes are going to continue to trend over the next 2 months.

How to Update Old Posts:

Rename the Images in Your Old Posts – Seriously, this is huge; take the time to do it.

Include Internal Links to Related Posts this is the easiest way to increase your page views.

Look for Opportunities to Include Key Words and consider bolding key words. Reorganize the post to include  H1 or H2 headings to make your keywords standout and your post easier to follow for your readers.

Monetize Posts with Relevant Ads

Once you have updated your post, go and share it on all of your social media accounts!

Have you started updating your fall and winter posts yet?

How to Increase Blog Traffic with Pinterest

While the rest of the blogosphere was pondering Pinterest, complaining about it, and talking about how it would never become a significant social media like Facebook or Twitter, Foodies were quietly dominating the Pinterest boards. Image rich posts like recipes and tutorials do really well on Pinterest.  Here are a few tips to maximize your usage of Pinterest to increase traffic to your blog.

Use Pinterest to increase your blog traffic

Use Pinterest to Grow Your Blog

Make sure you have filled out your profile and linked to your blog, Twitter and Facebook Page. I cannot tell you how many bloggers forget to add a link to their blog. If another pinner likes your pins and clicks on your profile to see if you have a blog and you don’t have a link…they will just move on…and you will have lost a potential follower. Always include a link to your blog on your social media profiles!

Create boards that are an extension of the topics you blog about. If you blog about food, don’t have one board titled “Food I Like”. Break your food boards down by topic: Appetizers, Soups and Stews, Desserts, Fast Dinner Recipes, etc. Then pin items that you discover that fit those categories to those boards.

Arrange your boards so that the board topics that most people connect to your blog are at the top of your wall and your personal boards are at the bottom. You can also rearrange your boards to place seasonably appropriate boards at the top of your wall. Once people are following you they will find your pins in their stream. However, before they follow you they will check your wall to decide if they want to follow you.

Share your reader’s posts on Pinterest. I often pin posts that I discover on the blog hops that I co-host. Pinterest also allows you to share your pins on Facebook and Twitter, so you can share over several different medias at once. Adding the “pin it” button to your tool bar makes this process fast and easy.

Add the “Follow Me on Pinterest” button to your sidebar. You will find the directions for adding the button on the Pinterest Goodies page.

How to Generate Traffic From Pinterest on New Posts

Remember, not every post is pin-worthy. Posts without pictures or posts that are visually uninteresting won’t do well on Pinterest. Other types of posts that should not be pinned: sales, giveaways, coupons and most reviews.

You need at least one good picture of the final product for a pin-worthy post. Tutorials with multiple pictures on just about any topic do well. Posts pinned to Pinterest do not need to be as jazzy as those that are stumbled. Pinners have a longer attention spam than stumblers and are looking for some meaty content as well as a good picture.

You can add a “pin it” button to your post. WordPress users can use the “Post It On Pinterest” plugin. The plugin allows you to choose the picture and text to go with your pin. WordPress users can also add the “Pinterest button to their ShareThis buttons.

Unfortunately, there is not a plugin that I know of for bloggers, but you can create a custom pin for a particular post. You will find a form to create your custom pin in Pinterest Goodies. Even with the form, it is a bit time-consuming, so I recommend adding this only to posts that you think people will want to pin – be objective!

Generating Traffic and Income from Old Posts:

People are finding my old posts by doing a Google search, then pinning the post, which creates traffic for my old posts. Another way to generate traffic for your old posts is to pin your old posts as they become relevant again.  When you notice that fellow pinners are pinning posts on a certain subject review your old posts and see if you have any relevant posts to add.

Once you find that one of your old posts is being pinned, optimize it!

Go over old posts that have been pinned and check to make sure all of the links work.

Check to see if there is a natural way to monetize the post with something that is relevant. If there isn’t, it is better to leave the post unmonetized than to annoy your readers.

Add related links. I like to do this by hand rather than allow a plugin to do it because I can pick the posts that I feel are mostly like to interest those that land on that page. For instance, most of the people who pin my post Ideas for Reusing Kleenex Boxes pin the picture of the marshallow catapult, so I know they are looking for ideas for children. A plugin would probably link “reusing” or “repurposing” posts, but I hand-picked “frugal fun ideas for kids” posts when creating “related posts” to appeal to the people who were arriving at Ideas for Reusing Kleenex Boxes and generate more traffic for my blog.

Final Tips for Pinterest

When people create a board, they assign a category to it, so when they pin your post to a board it is seen not only by their followers, but anybody who has expressed an interest in following that category. Your post is in their stream for a day or two, unless it continues to be pinned and goes viral, but it remains on their board unless they remove it. Even if the pinner has few followers, their pin is seen longer than it would be on faster moving social medias.

Pinterest has allowed me to get to know my readers and my readers to get to know me at a different level. Because I have personal boards in addition to my blog-centric boards, my readers see a different side of me and I see who is planning a wedding, who has an Angry Birds addiction, who is redecorating a room, who is homeschooling, and who has rambunctious children and pin tips for keeeping them entertained.

I find it easier to limit my time on Pinterest than other social medias because I can quickly look through pictures and push repin if I see something I like. I don’t have to think of a witty response, I just click through to verify that it is a legitimate pin,  hit repin, pick a board, and I am done. The same pins move up and down the boards throughout the day, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time on Pinterest to see what is being pinned. I spend 5 -10 minutes 2 -3 times a day. If you find it addictive, set a timer.

How are you using Pinterest?

Related Posts:

How to Grow a Facebook Page and Increase Engagement

How to Link to Specific Social Media Statuses in Posts

Is NetworkedBlogs Reducing Your Page Views and Your Link Juice?

You spend so much time maintaining your blog, creating solid content, finding pictures, optimizing SEO, and managing your social media outlets, so when you find a time saver you want to take advantage of it. And I am all for time savers. Unless those time savers hurt your blog.

Many bloggers use NetworkedBlogs to automatically send their posts to their Facebook page. It is easy to use and appears to be a time saver, but in reality it is reducing the page views you receive from Facebook. How come? Networkedblogs opens the link to your post in an iframe if your reader clicks on the image or post title (they include a link to the full article at the bottom of the status, but most people don’t know to click there). So your followers are not actually clicking through to your blog to read the post, they are reading it on a NetworkedBlogs iframe. NetworkedBlogs is getting page views for your posts read by your followers.

Instead of getting link juice from NetworkedBlogs, you are losing page views.

How do you know that you are on a NetworkedBlogs iframe instead of the actual blog you thought you were visiting?

1. Look at the URL. Notice in the above image that the URL includes www.networkedblogs.com

2. Look at the flavicon. That is NetworkedBlogs’ flavicon, not the blog’s flavicon.

3. Look at the grey tool bar that is installed right above the post. If you click on those share buttons, you will share a link back to NetworkedBlogs iframe, not to the actual blog post. Which means that when your readers click on one of those social icons Networkedblogs receives your link juice in addition to your page views.

How to Share Your Posts to Facebook Without Using a Third Party Application:

After you publish your post, use the social share buttons at the bottom of your post to share your post to your Facebook Page.

I use the ShareThis plugin on my blog posts and can easily share to a variety of social media at one time. You can also customize what you say about the post and tailor it for the different platform audiences. The words you use and the picture you pick to go with the a link greatly affect how many people click through to read your article.

What if you publish your post in the middle of the night and don’t want to share it then? I have two posts that go live at 1:00 am when I am asleep.  I share the link on my social media accounts when I wake up in the morning. However, if you really need to you can schedule a post on Facebook.

Have you found any beneficial time savers?

How to Link to Social Media Accounts In Posts

There are times when you will want to link to a Facebook status, a tweet or a Pinterest pin in your post. Linking directly to the status has the advantage of bringing your readers up to speed on a conversation, without boring the readers who have already seen it. It also shows those who are not following you on those platforms what they are missing out on. By providing them with a link demonstrating how you use that account, you are giving them more incentive to follow you and participate.

How to Link Directly to a Facebook Status:

How to find the URL for a Facebook status

To create a link to a Facebook status, you need to find the URL (permalink) for that status.

1. Each Facebook status has a date and time stamp. You will find it right below your Facebook Page Name. In my case, below Premeditated Leftovers. It might look like 5 minutes ago, 18 hours ago, Tuesday, or 21 July. When you mouse over it, you will see the exact time and date that status was published. Click on the time stamp.

2. Once you click on the link, you will be taken to link for that status. Select and copy the URL.

3. Paste that URL into your link box to create a link. (Here is how to create an effective link)

Example using the above Facebook status as a link:

Yesterday, we had a discussion on how to get picky children to eat vegetables on my Facebook page and some of my friends pointed out that it isn’t just children who are picky. Since my husband learned to eat anything while serving in the Navy, it didn’t occur to me that spouses could be also be picky.

Although I talk a lot about key words, it really isn’t necessary to use keywords when linking to one of your social media accounts.

How to Create a Link to a Tweet:

How to find the URL for a Twitter Tweet

Creating a link to a tweet on Twitter is similar to creating a link to a Facebook status.

1. On the top right of your tweet, you will find a time stamp. It can look like 15s, 3m, 5h, or 14 Aug. It is directly across from your name and Twitter handle. Click on the time stamp.

2. Once you click on the link, you will be taken to link for that status. (If the tweet is part of a conversation, the tweets before and after it will also show up). Select and copy the URL.

3. Paste that URL into your link box to create a link.

Example using the above Tweet as a link:

My friend Melinda shared her method for keeping her house free of flies.

How to Create a Link to a Specific Pinterest Pin:

How to find the URL for a pinterest pin

If I wanted to tell my readers that my Earthquake Cake was described as a “chocolate love bomb” on Pinterest, I could use the opportunity to send them to the pin.

1. Ignore all the buttons surrounding the picture and click directly on the picture.

2. Once you click on the picture, you will be taken to link for that status. Select and copy the URL.

How to find the URL and create a direct link to a pin

3. Paste that URL into your link box to create a link.

Example using the above pin as a link. You don’t have to limit yourself to using these links in your blog post. I could use this link to create a Facebook status:

My Earthquake Cake was described as a “chocolate love bomb”: http://pinterest.com/pin/229331805995023371/

I know you have links to your social media on your side bar, but some readers will not recognize your link format as such, and still others have become desensitized to all the sidebar links and ignore them. Linking to your social media accounts in your blog posts can increase engagement across your various platforms. It also allows your readers to enter the conversation on a media that they feel comfortable using.

Growing a Facebook Page

I asked my friend Beth to share how she has grown her Facebook page. I have been impressed with how she has grown her Facebook page organically, without contests and giveaways. Her authenticity is evidenced by the level of engagement on her page. I checked her stats before publishing today. Beth has 1555 likes for her page Aunt B’s Kitchen, but more importantly, she has 1027 people talking about her page. That is an amazing level of engagement! Beth isn’t just growing a Facebook page, she is growing a community.

Growing your Facebook Page and Increasing Engagement

When Alea paid me the great compliment of asking me to write a piece on how I’ve grown my Facebook page, I was both flattered and surprised. I’ve never felt that there was any great secret to what I do on my page, nor have I made any sort of formal plan for courting new “likes.”

I do know that I spend a lot of time on-line. Between writing, photographing, and promoting my blogs (there are four of them), and the time I spend interacting with readers on my Facebook page, I invest an average of 40 to 60 hours each week.

All this on-line activity is really a full-time job, and I’m very fortunate that my employer allows me to work on it during quiet times at my office. Even with that overlap, much of my “leisure” time is given to this project.

There is, for me, no fast and easy path to growing a page but I’ve come to understand that the process does break down into a few simple concepts:

Be Positive

Focus on happiness. Share things that make you smile. No one wants to listen to a Whiny Willie or a Critical Clara.

Be Polite

It should go without saying but, if a behavior annoys you on your page, it will annoy someone else if you do it on their page.

Be Present

Facebook is all about interaction. Your readers want to hear your authentic voice and to know what interests you. Share links, pictures, and posts you enjoy. Reply to comments made on your page. Comment often on posts and blogs made by other pages.

Facebook weights your posts in part upon their frequency and upon the frequency with which you “like” and comment on other posts. If you are going to absent yourself throughout the day, consider setting up timed posts, either through Facebook or through an application like Hoot Suite.

Even with timed posts, you should set aside some time both morning and evening to respond to comments, to visit other pages, and to scan through your activity log.

Be Kind

People will remember your kindness long after they’ve forgotten any posts you may have made.

Encourage people who are just starting out. Be generous in sharing links from other pages, and be generous with your praise for their work when doing so.

Listen with care to what people are saying. If they’re sharing a success or a family celebration, congratulate them. If they’re in a difficult situation, let them know that you’re sending positive thoughts their way.

Be Patient

No amount of asking or reminding will make people join the conversation on your page. It takes time for people to find you, but they will.

Have Fun

This is the most important thing of all.

Growing Your Facebook Page and Increasing Engagement without Contests

 

If you’re having fun and enjoying your interaction with your Facebook readers, people will sense it and want to join in too. More than any other thing, enjoying the process will help to grow your page.

Beth’s family jokes that she started writing because she just doesn’t know when to be quiet!  In truth, her blogs grew out of a long illness and helped her to keep in touch with the world around her.  Beth believes the world to be a fascinating place, providing us countless gifts and wonderful surprises every single day.  She’s interested in everything, and shares her interests at Aunt B on a Budget, A Word from Aunt B, B on Balance, and B-Attitude.