• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • getgood.com
  • Privacy & Disclosure
  • GDPR/CCPA Compliance
  • Contact

Marketing Roadmaps

Professional Blogging For Dummies

Reviewer’s Retreat 2013 Presentation: 10 Principles for Successful Professional Blogging

July 14, 2013 by Susan Getgood

This version of the 10 Principles presentation includes a section specifically about working with the BlogHer Publishing Network.

Thanks again to all the terrific attendees of Reviewer’s Retreat 2013 for being such an engaged and smart audience.

Filed Under: Blogger relations, Blogging, BlogHer, Professional Blogging For Dummies

Blogging While Brown: 10 Principles for Professional Blogging

June 24, 2013 by Susan Getgood

I was privileged to speak at the annual Blogging While Brown conference this past weekend at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. I joined BlogHer co-founder and COO Elisa Camahort Page (@elisac) on the stage for a session about monetizing your blog and social media influence. As always, I’ve posted the pdf for the presentation in my sidebar as well as in this post.

The 10 Guiding Principles is a constantly evolving presentation, so even if you’ve checked it out before, you’ll find some new material.

Related articles
  • Blogging While Brown Conference Hits New York City Friday (bet.com)
  • Blogging While Brown Holds 6th Annual Conference in New York City (newsone.com)
Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Blogging, Influencer Marketing, Professional Blogging For Dummies, Social media

The Pinterest Chapter, Part One: Using Pinterest To Promote Your Blog

May 29, 2013 by Susan Getgood

Disclosure: I am Vice President, Influencer Marketing at BlogHer. Advertising and social media marketing programs are a significant source of revenue for my company and for the bloggers in our advertising network.

When I wrote Professional Blogging For Dummies in 2010, I tried to make the advice as evergreen as possible. This was challenging at times, as the For Dummies style is very example driven; in tech, this is the very definition of an “annual plant.” Where possible though  I gave guidelines that could be applied to new tools based on the simple premise that regardless of how we communicate and share with others, we are still communicating and sharing. The why and what of that doesn’t change all that much, even if the how does.

So, if you pick up a copy of my book and read the chapter on social promotion of your blog, much of the advice I give for Facebook and Twitter could very easily be extended to Pinterest. But I thought it might be helpful if I delved a bit deeper. So here is the chapter on Pinterest that I might have written if Pinterest had existed in 2010. Except not completely in For Dummies style. That’s the publisher’s IP.

English: Red Pinterest logo
English: Red Pinterest logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Let’s start with a baseline. My lens is that of a professional blogger. This has a few ramifications for the discussion.

First and foremost, the professional blogger has an objective for her blog. It is story telling  with a purpose.

Second, this purpose is often to monetize. Even when the surface intent is to convince, as with political, charity and cause related blogs, there is almost always a fundraising component.

So I am not looking at the social graph as a way to connect with family and friends or create a personal scrapbook. It is sharing with intent to promote your blog, grow your overall influence and achieve your professional objectives.

Initially the ethos of Pinterest was to share others’ content, not your own, and in fact, commercial (ie promotional) activity was prohibited. This changed in November 2012 when it launched business accounts so there is no reason to not use the platform to promote your own content.

You just want to do it in the “right” way — welcomed by your followers and effective for the promoted brand, whether it is you, your blog or a product.

If this were a true “For Dummies” chapter, I would have to carefully explain what Pinterest is, how it works and how to use it. But it’s not, so I am going to assume that readers are familiar with Pinterest and understand three basic things about the platform —

  • Pinterest is visual. Images are everything.
  • It’s curation of content, not broadcasting a message.
  • It’s a long-term play. Something pinned today might not get traction for days, weeks or even months.

So let’s dive right into how Pinterest can support your promotional strategy with some suggestions for maximizing your Pinterest promotion.

  1. Convert your personal Pinterest account to a business account. Per the Pinterest Terms Of Service, you MUST do this if you are planning to use your Pinterest account for commercial purposes.
  2. Make sure your blog/website images are gorgeous, high quality and tell a story visually. If an image needs a caption or title, keep it short and incorporate it in the image so it stays with the pin as it is repinned. But subtly. If your caption is larger than the image, it won’t be pinned/repinned.
  3. Use (at a minimum) the tools Pinterest provides business accounts:
    • Make it easy for people to pin your content using the Pin It button.
    • Pinterest’s analytics are pretty basic, but a little information is better than none, so use them to understand the content that people like on your site. So you can create more of it!
  4. Give your boards names that clearly identify what sort of content folks will find if they visit the board.  Most folks engage pin by pin, not by checking out boards to see what’s new, but a clear name improves your chances that someone seeing a pin might check out and follow the related pinboard. And thus see subsequent pins. Maybe even dig around in the old ones; see above, Pinterest is a long term play.
  5. Pin when your audience is online and engaging with Pinterest. A recent survey of the BlogHer community suggests weekday evenings are when our audience of digitally savvy women is most likely to be engaging with Pinterest.
  6. Follow the 80/20 rule — 80% of your pins should be promoting other people’s content, and no more than 20% promoting your own. This is a best practice for any social platform, but it also has a benefit beyond simply NOT being a shill. Fully engaging with the platform shows that you are a knowledgeable and reliable source of relevant content, and helps build your influence. Brands are increasingly looking at influence across the social graph, and not just blog readership, to determine who they want to work with for sponsored opportunities.
  7. If your blog content fits one of the new rich pin categories – recipes, products or movie reviews (as of May 2013), I’d go ahead and set it up. While it is still too early to predict the long-term impact of rich pins, it is safe to say that:
    • they clearly make it easier for Pinterest users to access some of your content without visiting your blog, but
    • they will increase the value of pins from your blog/site within the Pinterest ecosystem, which should positively impact repins, your overall influence and traffic to your blog from folks seeking out additional content like the pin they found.
  8. Experiment with third party tools that offer additional metrics and support for your pins. Right now, I am experimenting with Pingage.

Next week, Part Two: Engaging with Brands on Pinterest and Sponsored Pins

Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Blogging, Marketing, Pinterest, Professional Blogging For Dummies, Social media

Intermission: My sessions at BlogHer

August 13, 2010 by Susan Getgood

Before I forget, I’m posting the links to the live blogs of the two sessions I participated in at BlogHer. My book and I also made it into a couple of the official photos, also linked here for your amusement.

The FTC Endorsement Guidelines – One Year Later

  • Live blog
  • Photo of panel

Bringing Sexy Back to Branding

  • Live blog

Photo of  Professional Blogging For Dummies.

Thank you, official photographer! And just to be clear: While I am not unaware of the promotional value of  carrying the book around, mostly  I wanted to show the members of the BlogHer community who were kind enough to share their stories with me where they were mentioned in the book.  I just loved the reaction when folks who were profiled in depth saw their bit.

Filed Under: Blogging, BlogHer, Professional Blogging For Dummies

Reviews of Professional Blogging For Dummies

August 10, 2010 by Susan Getgood

I’m back from BlogHer, with a lovely case of laryngitis from speaking just about 4 days straight with so many interesting, talented and successful women and men.

Coming attractions on the blogs:

  • Here on Marketing Roadmaps, I’ll have a brief report on BlogHer  along with a case study of Gap’s pre-conference blogger outreach campaign #gapmagic.
  • Over on Snapshot Chronicles, I’ll continue my thoughts on the evolution of the BlogHer community.
  • On my Roadtrip travel blog, I’ll share my impressions and photos from the trip on Thursday to Ellis Island sponsored by Liberty Mutual‘s Responsibility Project. Plus pictures from my visit to the Central Park Zoo to see the new snow leopard exhibit, sponsored entirely by me.

In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple reviews of Professional Blogging For Dummies.

  • So I bought a book (It’s Not a Lecture, David Wescott)
  • Review/Giveaway: Professional Blogging For Dummies (Cornered Office, Mir Kamin)
Related articles by Zemanta
  • The evolution of community: BlogHer at 5 (snapshotchronicles.com)
Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Blogging, Professional Blogging For Dummies Tagged With: BlogHer

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

 

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Recent Posts

  • Merging onto the Metaverse – the Creator Economy and Web 2.5
  • Getting ready for the paradigm shift from Web2 to Web3
  • The changing nature of influence – from Lil Miquela to Fashion Ambitionist

Speaking Engagements

An up-to-date-ish list of speaking engagements and a link to my most recent headshot.

My Book



genconnectU course: Influencer Marketing for Brands

Download the course.
Use code Susan10 for 10% off.

genconnectU course: Influencer Marketing for Influencers

Download the course.
Use code Susan10 for 10% off.
Susan Getgood
Tweets by @sgetgood

Subscribe to Posts via Email

Marketing Roadmaps posts

Categories

BlogWithIntegrity.com

Archives

Copyright © 2022 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}