Sue B. is a lifelong entrepreneur with over 30 years of business experience driven to help business owners leverage the power of Instagram to meet (and exceed) their business goals. And, with my extensive knowledge and implementation of social media, it is my mission to teach, mentor, and empower others.

WordPress powers almost a quarter of all sites on the web, and yours is not an exception. Why did you choose this CMS and would you recommend it to others to use? Also, did you have someone help you with making your website or did you do it by yourself?

Morgan Sutton, head of operations, on my team created my website. We had many team meanings to review the look and feed to finalize. It looks months of focus attention.

You have a great blog section with a lot of useful resources on Instagram marketing! How often do you blog nowadays and are there any golden rules you apply and would advice others to follow when creating content?

We share free weekly content consistently. My blog, YouTube channel and live show, The Social Sip all are a part of the value that I give to my audience weekly.

Golden Rules:

1. Create content that your perfect audience is interested in
2. Be consistent to stay top of mind
3. It’s not enough to create content.. you have to amplify, promote and broadcast your content on social to get organic reach.
   We have a system that we use every time we share a blog post.

Which social media channel you use to promote your content, besides Instagram and where do you put a bigger accent – on paid ads or regular posts?

Instagram and Facebook mostly but we also share to LinkedIn.
We only use paid ads when we are leading up to a campaign to grow our email list or in a campaign. We have great success with both FB and Instagram ads.

You also run a live Facebook show called ”TheSocialSip” and a live one-hour social media class “Instagram Stories For Business” – would you like to introduce our audience a bit closer to this?

The Social Sip – is every other week at 12:30 EST for 30 min. This is where I share conversations as a lifelong entrepreneur.

My Instagram Stores class is a comprehensive class on how to use Instagram stores – the latest trends and features marketers need to know.

Recommended reading: 7 Strategies to Make the Best Instagram Story

Top 3 Instagram tips for bloggers from Sue B Zimmerman regarding 1) posting frequency 2) post formatting and 3) increasing engagement would be?

1. Frequency for me is daily in my feed and consistency in my stories – I think staying top of mind is everything as long as you are giving consistent value.
2. Formatting – have a great blog post – https://suebzimmerman.com/blog/format-instagram-posts/
3. Block my cal – 2 times a day to engage – this is where the magic is

And what about DM on Instagram – how can a new blogger leverage their power without getting to invasive at the beginning?

1. Answer questions
2. Never sell
3. Ask how you can help them – it’s not about it – it’s about what you can do to help and serve others.

Now a very common question regarding Instagram – when it comes to hashtags, are there any particular rules or better to say advice that would be good to follow? Like should they be in comment section or in a description; should there be more or less hashtags; etc?

Time sensitive – doesn’t matter…personal preference.

What about Instagram Stories – what’s a best way every blogger can use them to promote their blog?

Behind the scenes
Blogging Tip
Collaborations
Q & A

Since we’re always wrapping up our interviews with a little fun, this one will be no different So tell us Sue, do you follow any super funny Instagram accounts that cracks you up every time, and would recommend to all of us to follow?

https://www.instagram.com/sarablakely/

https://www.instagram.com/thefatjewish/

Photos ©: SueBZimmerman.com

The post Sue B Zimmerman Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

DevriX was founded late in 2010 and we’re currently a team of 30 providing WordPress development retainers for SMEs and fast-paced startups. With 6 WordPress Core contributors in our team, we’re committed to solving the types of problems that everyone else tries to avoid on purpose.
 
Aside from the engineering department, we’ve also signed an agency partnership with HubSpot. Being vocal proponents of Inbound Marketing, our marketing department works closely with our project leads on discovering new business opportunities for our long-term clients – automating slow processes, finding new monetization channels to tackle, and moving prospects further down the funnel.
 
I wear many hats on a weekly – and even daily – basis. You can find me debugging a nasty concurrency problems behind a load balancer, drafting a proposal for a new project, preparing some snarky behavioral-based interview questions or updating the excerpt for an upcoming blog post.

Would you mind sharing with our audience, how did you start with WordPress?

A media company I worked for in 2005 started a blogging project (think of a local WordPress.com). We were assigned to explore different blogging systems and WordPress was one of the obvious choices. I started my first blog, built a few WordPress-based projects for clients, and kept tinkering around.
 
At some point, I’ve switched entirely to WordPress. We were spending too much time building the same old admin dashboards with CRUD features and user roles on numerous frameworks instead of focusing on business problems.

What would be your top three reasons why blogging rookies should start their blog with WordPress instead of other CMS?

1. Extensibility. WordPress powers 30% of the web nowadays. Every SaaS or service provider aims for a plugin or another form of seamless integration with WordPress.
    
   The template hierarchy is brilliant, too. You will struggle replicating a random design 1:1 with other popular CMS.
    
   The flexibility of the database is certainly a plus. Drupal is also extremely powerful, but isn’t as intuitive and doesn’t support the needs of bloggers out-of-the-box.
2. Data ownership. You can write on Medium or LinkedIn Pulse, but you don’t own your copy. This will bite you at some point, sooner or later.
3. Affordable start. You can hardly pull a professional solution yourself, but you can start with a DIY site until you get some traction and can afford paying for a properly developed WordPress project.

There are thousands of plugins available that help us build a better looking and functional blog. What would be your top three choices?

Plugins are tricky – quality code is hard to find and supporting hundreds of hosting vendors (and their corresponding server/PHP versions) is really tricky.
 
That said, the first three that come to mind are: Yoast SEO, MailChimp for WordPress, Contact Form 7. Won’t make your site pretty but you’ll rank better in Google, capture some email subscribers and make sure advertisers are able to contact you

It’s expected that Gutenberg editor is going to be released in WordPress 5.0 version, and it should replace default WP Editor. What do you think it will bring us? Are people going to love or hate it?

Transitions are always difficult – be it good or bad. It’s a natural psychological phenomenon as people don’t know what they lose yet and aren’t used to the new set of features. Sounds frightening, doesn’t it?
 
That said, I see that as a positive move toward a better and more powerful CMS. We’ve been spending a lot of time integrating custom metaboxes, crafting widget areas within pages, migrating visual builders and the like. We even built our own WordPress visual builder just so that we could create rows and columns within our layout.
 
Gutenberg is definitely promising. I don’t think it’s mature enough yet – supporting metaboxes from various plugins out there or providing a flexible enough API for building new add-ons. But it’s getting there fast. It will take a while, but both small businesses and enterprises will benefit from the upgrade.

Can you tell how the future of WordPress is going be?

Sending one Arduino hosting a WordPress website inside of the next Tesla aiming for Mars?
 
It’s hard to tell. WordPress keeps getting traction – but it’s still primarily picked by bloggers, small businesses, magazines. We work with various enterprises on WordPress projects. Yet, many are hesitant to use a well-known “blogging platform” for a real in-house product.
 
Certain initiatives such as the REST API could help businesses build mobile, desktop, SPA applications interacting with WordPress as an external engine. Gutenberg can improve the overall user experience while managing content. The focus on accessibility is key for governments and universities. That’s definitely a move in the right direction.
 
The WooCommerce acquisition by Automattic may help a lot pushing WooCommerce toward large eCommerce stores out there. Clients still pick Shopify or choose Magento as their online shopping platform – even though WooCommerce is the leading choice for smaller online stores.

Is there anything you would like to change about WordPress?

A lot of things – although it may harm the ecosystem as a whole.
 
A focus on better code quality would be great. The major setback for enterprises and larger organizations are plugins that throw notices (or even fatal errors at times), security warnings, performance leak and more. I won’t even discuss the premium themes market – it’s hard to find high-quality paid themes nowadays.
 
Within the WordPress Core – extracting the Core framework further would be great. Bloggers and small businesses often look at Squarespace, Weebly, Wix as easier alternatives for simple sites. Enterprises consider web content management platforms or options like Drupal simply because they seem more mature and professional (and are marketed as such).
 
A way to serve both audiences would be great. Or at least maintain an established process for enterprises – a shortlist of decent plugins, best practices for scaling enterprises (ones that will be supported 5 years from now), a roadmap for what’s coming in the future, things like that.
 
Within the community – less “race to the bottom”. Installing WordPress is a common “service” to offer nowadays and fees go down to $50 or even lower. Simple site customizations may be sold for $100. This doesn’t really touch on important areas related to stability, scalability, security – and as soon as the business starts to get some traction, everything breaks and customers may very well lose their business.
 
Establishing quality standards is definitely something I’d work on – through some sort of certification, a validation authority, an automated scanner or a partnership program outside of WordPress.com VIP.

Now, let’s talk a bit about social media. You’re very active on Quora and your answers have reached 1 million views. That’s really a big thing, congrats! For our readers who haven’t used Quora yet, can you tell the pros and cons of using it?

Sure – I do love Quora and I spend a lot of time both reading and writing.
 
It’s a Q&A platform like Yahoo! Answers or reddit – but with a large audience of industry experts and a focus on personal branding. Answering politely is one of the main rules of Quora – known as BNBR (Be Nice, Be Respectful). This isn’t something you can rely on at reddit, for example.
 
I found Quora a while ago while reading a bunch of answers by people working in Google, Amazon, Netflix – sharing their own experience and know-how. As someone running a tech agency, learning from the best is definitely on top of my list of priorities. You won’t find similar opinions in press releases or on Wikipedia.

The platform is among the top 100 most visited websites in the US even though a lot of people haven’t heard of it. I am subscribed to various topics discussing management, recruitment, marketing, sales, business process optimization. I read a couple of answers by Mark Cuban the other day on Quora. Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, writes frequently. Don’t be surprised if you stumble upon people who have programmed major components in iPhone’s core, designers of programming languages, serial entrepreneurs running several multimillion-dollar startups at once, rockstar marketers like Neil Patel and Eric Siu, venture capitalists and angel investors like Jason M. Lemkin (the main advocate of SaaS) – it looks like the secret society of cool people from where I stand.
 
I was just awarded the Top Writer 2018 quill (along with about 400 active members) thanks to my participation in 2017. I plan to keep writing and interacting with some brilliant minds along the way. And I repurpose some of my answers on LinkedIn or as YouTube videos (along with having some of them republished on Forbes, HuffPost, Inc.)

Is there any other social media network that you would like to recommend, especially to blogging newbies?

I do use Twitter and LinkedIn a lot. Facebook is still a good choice for bloggers, though I don’t enjoy it and its recent changes have turned it into a “pay-to-play” game.
 
For bloggers writing about visual stuff – clothing, art – Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest are likely a good option.

Sometimes, being an entrepreneur can be tough. What would be your “golden advice” for existing, but also future online entrepreneurs?

Keep hustling and be flexible. Entrepreneurship takes a lot of time and energy – and that’s normal. Work hard AND smart, hit your milestones and don’t give up.
 
But also be flexible – listen to feedback whenever you can and carefully analyze it. Haters are gonna hate, friends and family are going to support you “no matter what”. But any piece of feedback contains a nugget of valuable advice that could be incorporated into your business model. Agility is crucial in an ever-evolving ecosystem.

Do you have advice for other people who want to start web development business?

Don’t buy into the “race to the bottom” advice. Pick a niche or profile in a specific skill, a technology, a platform. Become a real expert and provide incredible value to your customers.
 
Everyone is a generalist nowadays in the web space. Most clients aren’t looking particularly for Laravel or CakePHP developers, either. You should either pick a vertical (legal firms, dentists, grocery stores) or profile in a complex framework, library, tech stack.

We like to wrap up with a bit of fun, so…do you have any hobbies?

Sure! I work from a hookah bar every day, try to read a couple books a month and occasionally get a chance to play some World of Warcraft with my wife. We’re raising a 4-month old princess now which requires a lot more attention and time but I’ll try to pitch her some of my favorite podcasts as soon as I get a chance!

Photos ©: DevriX

The post Mario Peshev Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

It started back in 2008 after I had built a successful business teaching people how to pass an exam in the architecture industry. That exam was called The Lead Exam LEED which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and I built that site as a result of getting laid off from the architecture industry in early 2008. Coming off the success of that website, many people were asking me how I was able to build that, and so I built smartpassiveincome.com and created it in October of 2008 as a resource to help other people realize what’s possible out there in this world of online business and that online business can be done in a very authentic manner where when you serve people and help them they will repay you.

We all know that the right domain name is important. How long did it take you to come up with yours and were there any other domain name ideas you had in mind?

For Smart Passive Income there were definitely other ideas! The one that I was going to move forward with was, and I’m a little embarrassed to say this :), but it was Passive Aggressive Income Dude. And the reason for that was because it includes that passive part which I was generating income on my Lead Exam website passively by selling an ebook study guide that people could download it and purchase it and get it sent directly to their email, while money would then end up in my PayPal account. So this Passive Aggressive Income Dude was kind of the personality I was going to become, and if you see the acronym (PAID) it was paid – I even got to the point where I hired a cartoonist to develop a superhero like character with PAID on his chest
And when I saw that cartoon character come in I asked myself Is this really who I want to become and it was very obvious that that domain and that cartoon character didn’t make sense…
 
What I really wanted to do was to show people that passive income in building a business online was possible but I wanted to show people how to do it in a very smart way and not just necessarily working harder but working smarter and that’s where Smart Passive Income then came from.

While we’re talking about website creation, which self-hosted blogging platform would you recommend to web beginners and why?

There’s lots of options out there such as Wix and Squarespace, but I still highly recommend and have always recommended a self hosted WordPress website! WordPress allows for more customization options and as you continue to grow you’re going to want those customization options. There are tens of thousands of people out there who can help you with WordPress websites; if you have questions there are tens of thousands of different resources free and paid out there that can help you and also the custom themed designs – there are more on that platform than on any other. So when planning for the future I always recommend allowing yourself that room for growth, and by self-hosting a blogging platform on WordPress you’re able to do that.

Now, the inevitable blogging question – how much time would you say you spend
blogging these days, comparing it to the time you used to spend before – is there a big difference now VS then?

There’s a huge difference, and that major difference is I have now experienced what it was like to hire other people to help me and thus those hours are still being put into place, I am just not the person that’s actually putting in those hours. I still write my own content, I still record my own podcast, I still shoot my own videos but I have other people who are editing those things, who are putting them into WordPress, who are scheduling and publishing those things. I used to blog three times a week specifically and did every single bit of it myself including the graphics and the publications of those.
 
But now I spend about three or four hours a week versus the I would say 20 hours a week on that because a lot of my time now is spent on bigger ticket items, things that require myself that nobody else can do versus a lot of these other things that I used to do that now have hired help to support.

At the beginning, what did you do to promote your blog? And how do you promote it now (which social media channels you use the most, etc)?

In the beginning I didn’t really use social media, I used writing great content and connecting with other bloggers to help get that content in front of their audiences. I built relationships and that by far is the most important thing I did to promote my blog was to actually build relationships with other bloggers, like Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and Yaro Starak from Entrepreneurs Journey and many others even those who aren’t at those levels.
 
I built a relationship with them and tried to serve them I commented on their blogs and see what I could do to help them, to have them understand that I was a) somebody who existed in the same space, but b) somebody who could also provide more value to their audience if they were to share me. And that helped out a lot. In addition to that would also help was understanding what I could do to differentiate myself such as posting income reports – those were often shared and talked about and then also expanding on to other platforms, so YouTube in 2009 and podcasting in 2010. The podcast more than anything definitely helped me get more traffic, because I’ve run surveys and I’ve discovered that the podcasts has been the number one way that people have found out about me and that’s why I created Power-Up Podcasting.com to help people through the beginning stages of starting a podcast and making sure it gets found.

You’re also very famous thanks to your awesome book “Will It Fly”,but there’s another very important book you wrote called “Let Go” – can you tell our readers a bit more about it and why would you recommend them to read?

I wrote like in 2013 because it really describes the ins and outs and all the details emotionally and physically related to what was happening with my layoff in 2008 and how I transitioned from that era to becoming an entrepreneur and all the hurdles that I had to overcome and all the things that I was conditioned growing up to learn – all those things that I had let go in order to grow and become an entrepreneur.

I wrote like in 2013 because it really describes the ins and outs and all the details emotionally and physically related to what was happening with my layoff in 2008 and how I transitioned from that era to becoming an entrepreneur and all the hurdles that I had to overcome and all the things that I was conditioned growing up to learn – all those things that I had let go in order to grow and become an entrepreneur.

So I’d highly recommend it for those of you who are at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey and want to know what it’s like really from somebody who has been successful that it’s not easy and you are not alone and everybody goes through the same process of doubt and starting and just wondering if it was going to work or not. So “Let Go” came out in 2013 and a second edition came out just recently here in 2017 that goes through some of the new things have had to let go of since becoming a successful entrepreneur, because I’ve had to learn how to let go of even more things – things that I was conditioned to believe about myself nor I wanted to go.
 
And the truth is what got you here won’t get you there.

What’s your favorite misconception that people tend to have about online entrepreneurship in general?

My favorite misconception is that things happen overnight because they definitely do not! And it’s my favorite one because I just love to be that person to tell people that hey this is not easy, this does not happen overnight and I think that helps differentiate my stuff versus a lot of other people out there who teach online business, who try to tell you that it’s easy if you try to tell you that you can become an overnight success. All “overnight successes” that you hear are not overnight successes – if you go deeper into those stories you’ll realize that there’s actually a lot of work that was done to get to that point and to provide those opportunities that that person finally had. Even in my story definitely not an overnight success.
 
So I like that concept misconception because I like to be the person to really tell the truth about those kinds of things.

The top 3 blog monetization tips from the great Mage of Passive Income himself (that’s of course you Pat ) would be…

1. Relationships matter more than anything! Relationships with your audience and having them understand you, to know you, like you and trust you needs to happen before any sort of transactions can happen.
2. Start with the problem, not the solution. A lot of people try to say ‘oh I’m going to build an online course’ or ‘I’m going to create a software solution’ but without diving into the problems first… You need to understand what the problems are that you’re solving before you can build the right solution or put yourself on the right platform in order to understand how to actually deliver something that people will want to pay for.
3. Read my book “Will It Fly”. Because it can help you understand how to validate your product ideas first before you actually spend money and time on them, to help you run through a series of litmus tests so you can understand what actually your audience will eventually pay for versus trying to just guess what those things are ahead of time.

And top 3 blogging tips you’d give to blogging beginners?

1. Write as much as you can because that’s going to help train you – it’s going to help you understand how to you can become a better writer. I was a terrible writer at first, but it wasn’t until I started writing that I started to understand how I could become better at it.
2. Answer people’s questions if you’re struggling with what it is that you need to write about. Just make it simple for yourself – answer people’s questions! There are people talking on social media right now who have questions who you could potentially come in and create answers for, and it’s when you answer people’s questions that not only will people understand that you are an authority in that space, but Google will also realize that you are an authority in that space and have a website that’s relevant to the topics people are searching for with keywords related to that topic and therefore you will become a much higher ranking search engine results for specific keywords that people are typing in.
3. Patience! Gary Vaynerchuk said “Micro hustle – macro patience”.
   Micro hustle meaning you need to know what your next task is and you need to hustle on that, you need to do it, you need to get started you need to get through it. But on the macro level you need to have patience so you’re working hard on stuff and moving quickly, but at the same time when it comes to results you need to be patient because things take time.

Now, we like to wrap up with a little bit of fun, so here’s the question:
we don’t know if you knew this BUT there is a very popular musician from Ireland named MC Pat Flynn If you were the MC, what would be the name of your first song?

Hmmm, that’s a good question! Now I will say I know about this MC Pat Flynn in Ireland. But I also know that his songs aren’t quite appropriate so I’m not going to talk much about that, but if I had a song it would be I think it would be called “Serve First” because that’s really the equation when it comes to becoming successful in any facet of life. Serve first and you will be rewarded. Your earnings are a byproduct of how well you serve your audience!

Photos ©: SmartPassiveIncome.com

The post Pat Flynn Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

I specialize in Facebook marketing success strategies for small, medium and large businesses around the world. I’ve been a passionate evangelist for Facebook for almost 11 years and my enthusiasm has never waned! Facebook has evolved each year to become one of the most powerful and effective ways for businesses to connect and engage with their respective audiences. On my blog, I publish regular in-depth tutorials and guides on how to optimize Facebook, plus I share a weekly roundup of popular articles that help readers stay on top of the social landscape.

When did you decide to start blogging – did you have any help or was it all a DIY project?

I first began dabbling with blogging in the early 2000’s and then more seriously in 2007. I started out with a simple Facebook blog, sharing tips on how to enjoy all the benefits of the Facebook features as well as utilize the platform for business. In addition, I also published a travel blog at the time while I was on the road in an RV for a year and a half – I would share “digital nomad” tips and tricks from the trenches. I’ve always been a ‘tecchie’ (or ‘chic geek’ as I like to call myself!) ever since my teens, so I am a DIY-er!

And which platform you used/would gladly recommend others to use when creating a blog and why?

Back in the year 2000, I used Blogger.com. Later, I migrated to WordPress and would highly recommend this fabulous platform, given its myriad themes and plugins out there. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform and powers almost 30% of the entire internet.

What types of posts would you say perform the best on Facebook? And also, what would be the best way to drive interactions on a Facebook page?

Video posts are by far the best performing types of content on Facebook for both organic and paid reach. Ideally, try square video format for even better performance and view-to-completion rates. Plus, square videos can be used in Carousel Ads where you can place up to ten square photos and/or videos in one ad unit, each one linking to unique destinations.
 
The best way to drive interactions is broadcasting with Facebook Live. Ideally, go live regularly on the same day(s) each week and time, if possible. Consider building out your own television-style show with episodes. Facebook just launched the Creator App to encourage influencers and content creators to use video even more and build up their audience on Facebook. If the Creator App is not a fit for your business, for sure use Facebook’s native Live video tools on the native mobile app and desktop platform. Plus, there is a wide variety of third-party Facebook live tools to try out, such as BeLive.tv, Wirecast, BlueJeans Network onSocial, Zoom, Ecamm Live and more.

How often should people post website content on their Facebook pages? Would you say there are some general rules for that?

Aim for one post a day. Experiment with up to three a day. Unless you’re a news site, it’s best not to go too crazy and post once or twice an hour. As organic reach has declined over the years, some Page owners attempted to gain more reach by increasing frequency of content publishing. But this could actually have the opposite effect. The Facebook algorithms want to reward engaging posts and Pages. It’s much better to have fewer posts that have a good number of reactions, comments, shares and video views, vs. a high volume of posts with scant engagement.

When it comes to Facebook Ads, what are the top three things that beginners should pay attention to when starting a campaign?

1. Only allocate 10% of your budget to using the Boost button. The remaining 90% should be placed inside of Ads Manager where you will have much more options. The Facebook Ad algorithms view the Boost button as a ‘lightweight’ ad interface. Whereas the algorithms perceive ads placed inside Ads Manager (or Power Editor) to be from a more sophisticated advertiser.
2. Ensure you have placed the Facebook Pixel on your website for tracking, for building Custom Audiences of your web visitors and to then retarget them.
3. Pay attention to your Relevance Score. This is an ad score from 1-10. The closer to ten you can get your ad, the more your audience is resonating with the ad. If your ad isn’t performing well, it’s best to pause that campaign and create a fresh one. Your Relevance Score goes hand in hand with the audience targeting you choose. The more you know about your audience, the more you can refine and perfectly target your market, and the more likely they are to respond favorably. This is what Facebook wants – not more ads for the sake of having more ads, but more relevant ads.

By implementing these three best practices for advertising, you may also see your organic reach perform better.

Facebook Live is also very big now! Could you share with us three best practices for a good FB Live, including the recommended length?

1. Ensure you have good lighting and ideally a professional microphone and camera. Facebook continues to place a huge emphasis on video – both live and recorded – and it’s only going to get more challenging to really cut through and stand out. To do this, ensure your broadcasts are quality… even television-quality, if possible. I recently put together my own Video Gear List – a fabulous free 28-page resource that your readers can download at www.marismith.com/fblive!
2. Ideally, map out your own show with a core concept and regular episodes. Just start out by going live on the same day and time each week, if you can. Visit Facebook’s new Creators learning center to educate yourself and get inspiration for what’s working today on the platform. Suggestions include how-to videos, comedy sketches (people love to laugh!), and talent showcase – perhaps you’re a singer, musician, artist, technical genius, or specialist in a great niche.
3. Facebook Live maximum length is currently four hours. Facebook wants broadcasters to go live for longer periods of time, which means anything from 10-20 minutes or more. Facebook is rapidly building a new digital streaming television destination and will be monetizing with ad breaks—ads between 5-15 seconds in length, placed at varying intervals in longer videos.

What’s the most common question you were asked about Facebook marketing that we perhaps, didn’t ask you here?

Is it better to just use your personal profile and a group on Facebook, or do we really have to have a business Page?
 
I get this question a lot from smaller businesses and especially those in the direct sales industry. There is a great big myth out there that Facebook does not allow the use of our personal profiles for business. But, the rules are actually around “commercial purposes” such as selling your cover image or a wall post to an advertiser. But there are no rules around talking about anything to do with our business on our personal profile. However, the big caveat I always tell people is that it’s only on a Business Page that you can then strategically amplify your content to your exact target market through ads. A personal profile is rather limited if that’s all you’re using for business. Running and joining groups on Facebook is a great adjunct to your business Page.

Though you are the Queen of Facebook, it is not the only social media platform you’re active on You’re very active on Twitter and Instagram too, so if you’d had to choose just one between these three networks (regardless of the connection between FB and Insta and all the feelings aside) which one would you choose to be active on?

Hands down, Facebook. On a personal level, everyone I know has a Facebook account. All family members, all friends, even people I went to elementary school and my elementary school teacher! But, even if there were a whole separate platform we all used just for personal, I would still choose Facebook over all other platforms given its sheer size (2.07 billion active users worldwide), the depth and breadth of ad targeting options, the array of fun features and live broadcasting ability. Oh, and now I’m in love with the newly revamped and relaunched “Local” app, which is bound to be a big competitor to Yelp, FourSquare, possibly even Meetup and Eventbrite. The new Local app makes it super-duper easy to build out your “in real life” social life with a vast array of easy-to-use filters, a map view, a personal calendar, and more. And, the social graph is of course totally baked into the app, meaning I can see which friends are going to what events, who’s invited me to their event, etc.

Photos ©: MariSmith.com

The post Mari Smith Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

Entrepreneurs On Fire is a daily podcast where John Lee Dumas (JLD) interviews today’s most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs. Through listening to the podcast our audience, the Fire Nation as we call them, gains the courage and motivation to take their own entrepreneurial leap.

In the online world, the right domain name is very important. How long did it take you to come up with the domain name for EOFire?

We came up with the domain name based on the name of the podcast/business we wanted to create.

Which platform did you use and would also recommend gladly to others to use when creating their website?

We love WordPress. Our site has gone through a lot of changes and is now fully customized, but it’s always remained on the same platform. For Podcasters who are just starting out, we co-created a platform called Podcast Websites with Mark Asquith, which runs on WordPress. It’s a great all-in-one website and podcast hosting solution.

How do you plan your content? And also, how much time do you actually spend on creating an episode – the whole process since you decide on the topic to recording and editing it?

For the audio blog the content comes directly from the posts we create on EOFire.com. I plan out that content based on what my audience asks about regularly. Every episode I’ve created has been a result of a conversation I’ve had, a question I’ve received, or a repetitive theme I see coming up a lot in the online communities and groups I’m a part of where I know my readers / listeners are hanging out.
 
Once I switched to seasons on the podcast, I was able to start planning out 10-12 episodes at a time. I start with an outline, then fill in each of the posts with full content, then record the episodes.
 
For John: he books out interviews months in advance, and then for 2 days each month he records 30 interviews.

Which social media channel showed to be the best tool for you, and why? Also, how often do you use social media?

Facebook has been the strongest for us in terms of community. We have 3 private Facebook Groups for our communities and they’ve not only allowed us to connect with our audience, but they’ve allowed us to provide a platform for the community to connect with one another.
 
We’ve also had some good experiences with Facebook ads. While we don’t use them all the time, we have had success using them leading up to our bigger launches.

From your own experience, can you say what are the top three things everyone should consider carefully before they start their own blog/website? Are there any tips you’d love to share with online beginners that you wish you knew when you started EOFire?

1. Have a strong idea of the topic / content you want to focus on. This is a combination of something you’re passionate / excited about and something you have some experience doing.
2. Know who your avatar / perfect reader is. Now that you have an idea, who can benefit from the info you’re going to provide?
3. Once you know who your avatar is, go out and find them and start having one-on-one conversations with them to get to know them and confirm that what you have to offer is something they want / need.

So, how can one enthusiastic entrepreneur get the opportunity to be featured in one of your interviews on EOFire?

We now have an application process set up for Entrepreneurs On Fire where potential interviewees are asked a series of questions and are prompted to record a short video telling a story.

Kate, you also have your own podcast named ‘Kate’s Take’ – can you tell us a little bit more about it and why would you advise our readers to listen to it? How can it help them?

My podcast is focused on the “how-to”, so anyone looking for actionable advice about how to run a business would find great benefit in tuning in.
 
I don’t really focus on inspiration or motivation – I focus on the steps you can take to make progress and grow your business.

John, your book The Freedom Journal has become a very popular guide for accomplishing goals in 100 days. But, what I’m interested more about today, is your other book The Mastery Journal – what’s it all about?

The Mastery Journal is all about mastering productivity, discipline and focus in 100 days.
 
The Mastery Journal lays out 4 focus sessions per day. By focusing in on one single task for a specific amount of time with no distractions during your focus session, you’ll end your day feeling more accomplished than ever.
 
It also helps you set up a morning routine, practice acknowledging what it is you’re grateful for, and setting up your day for success – starting the night before.
 
The prompts in The Mastery Journal will help you become more productive, disciplined and focused.

Any words of wisdom for future online entrepreneurs around the globe?

Just start. If you have an idea or wonder whether or not a certain product, service or community will work for your business, just start. You’re never going to find out until you take the first step.

Photos ©: Entrepreneurs On Fire

The post John Lee Dumas and Kate Erickson Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

I guess my job is to run a growing media company. We produce lots of free content focused on helping marketers figure out the ever-changing world of social media. Our slogan, “Your guide to the social media jungle.”
 
This is from our event page: “In 2009—the midst of the Great Recession—our founder Michael Stelzner noticed that there were a lot of people talking about what they disliked about social media. But few were sharing how businesses could benefit from the emerging platforms.
 
With no social media experience, Michael set out to create a movement for businesses. His premise: If marketers openly shared what worked with social media, businesses could thrive. His mission was to bring together the brightest minds and offer quality content for free.
 
Today, more than 60 million people have benefited from the content produced by Social Media Examiner. Have a look around and see why so many people recommend us.”

What were you doing before SME? Were you in the world of social media marketing before?

Before I started Social Media Examiner I was a professional writer. I specialized in crafting persuasive documents called white papers. I worked with many recognizable brands. I really was a rookie when it came to social media. So I was more curious than anything else and I let that curiosity drive much of our content strategy.

Building a brand can be tough… Looking from today’s perspective – what would you say was the most important part of your SME building process?

I think I am a big part of our brand. By putting myself “out there” and producing three original shows each week, we have become very popular to our tribe.
 
I produce a podcast, a live show, and a video documentary each week, along with original written content daily. That really helps us appeal to a wide range of people.

What about your content – are there any golden rules you applied at the beginning and would advise others to follow when creating their content?

Yes, our content is generally commercial-free. The only thing we advertise inside our content is our own product: Social Media Marketing World. That has been very valuable to help us stay focused on providing really high value to our audience.

Your choice of blogging platform (for web newbies) to start with would be…?

WordPress.

What about the choice of social media platform – should blogging beginners create their profiles on all of them or focus only on a few?

Over 25 years old: Facebook.
Under 25: Snapchat.

So, by using all your gained knowledge and experience so far, if you were talking to a small business owner or a blogger who is just getting on Facebook (the most popular social media platform today), what three practical tips would you give to them?

1. Get familiar with Facebook ads. You will need them to get exposure on Facebook.
2. Experiment with live video. The future is all about video.
3. Start thinking about bots. They are becoming very important.

Another idea of yours that became super popular is Social Media Marketing World Conference. Can you explain to our readers what this conference is all about and how they can benefit out of it?

Imagine attending the world’s largest social media marketing conference where you can make connections with the industry’s top social media pros, creators, and thousands of people just like you.
 
On SMMW you can discover ideas that’ll transform your marketing, your content, and your business!
 
And you can join us in San Diego, California on February 28, March 1, and March 2, 2018.
 
For more info see https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/smmworld/

Just recently, you started a new video project called “The Journey” – what is it about exactly?

The Journey, a Social Media Examiner production, is an episodic video documentary that shows you what really happens inside a growing business.

Photos ©: socialmediaexaminer.com

The post Michael Stelzner Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

There are rock stars, but I’m not one of them! If people know me, it’s because I speak at events, I blog and I wrote a book. But here’s a bit more…

I’m the co-founder of a web design company called Orbit Media Studios. It’s a 38-person company here in Chicago. We started in 2001, so we’ve done a lot of projects over that time. More than 1000 websites.

I’ve done SEO and analytics for 18 years and I’ve been doing content marketing for the last 10 years. Here’s what I’ve done in that time…

• 334 articles about content marketing
• 100+ speaking engagements per year including…
• Wine & Web, our monthly in-house event (7 years)
• Content Jam, our annual conference (6 years)
• Content Chemistry, our book (4th edition)
• Content Matters, our podcast (28 episodes)

I try to stay very active! But it isn’t as much work as you might think. I only write one article every two weeks. Also, I have help. Amanda Gant does all the editing, publishing and event production!

And as today’s rock star from the world of digital marketing, do you remember how it felt like when you started? Especially when it comes to blogging – can you describe us how did you first get into it and why?

In the beginning I was hungry. And worried. I was looking for a way to keep in touch with prospects and contacts so they would think of us when they needed a website. People don’t need a new website every day. They need one every 3-5 years. That’s plenty of time to forget about it.

So I needed a way to show expertise from a distance and over time. I needed a blog and an email newsletter!

So in the beginning, our content was just a way to help us stay top of mind with the hundreds of people we’ve met over the years without calling or meeting with each of them individually. Later I learned how events are a powerful way to build trust. I also learned how search, social and email marketing all work together. From that very moment, I was hooked.

What would you say are the biggest mistakes that people make today, when it comes to creating content?

Formatting. People don’t do enough to make their content scannable. It’s a huge problem but it’s easy to fix.

People scan more than read, so our job is to help them find things quickly. If they spot something interesting, they’ll slow down. So we need to use every type of formatting possible to slow down those scan readers.

• Short paragraphs …never write a paragraph longer that three of four lines
• Subheads …add little section headers so people know if the next section is worth reading
• Lists …bullet lists and numbered lists are easy to scan, like this one
• Bolding and italics …like the one above
• Internal links …like the one below
• multiple images …so there is something of interest at every scroll depth

That last one is very important. If the reader scrolls down to part of the page with all words and no text, they’re more likely to leave. So add pictures throughout your content. Like this one:

Actually, I recommend using relevant photos. But you get the idea. For a more complete list of what to include in every article, here’s a content checklist.

What platform (CMS) does your site run on and which one would you recommend for new bloggers?

We’re using WordPress. It’s good. I try not to have strong biases for or against technologies. I truly believe you can do great work with any system. Skills are more important than tools.

But WordPress is usually a good recommendation just because it’s so popular. It’s easy to find people who know how to use it. That’s an advantage.

One thing every website owner should add/have on their website is…?

Such a great question. Testimonials. I recommend adding social proof to every page. Fill your site with testimonials. Give them faces, names and little headlines. And if possible, use keyphrases in the text. That’s a way to increase both traffic and the conversion rate at the same time. Mousetraps and cheese!

Here’s a breakdown of my best practices for testimonials. Put these on every page…

What are the key metrics you track for the Orbit Media Studios site and would recommend new blog/website owners to follow too?

Fun reports that aren’t very actionable:

1. Topline traffic
2. Conversions for email subscribers
3. Domain Authority

These are important but insufficient for making decisions. They’re up or down. So what? Watching trends isn’t really actionable. It’s not analysis.

Actionable reports that aren’t very fun:

1. Conversion rate from visitor to subscriber per blog post
2. Change in search traffic month over month per blog post
3. Navigation summary for top pages

These give you information that you can easily act on to get better results. Great ideas jump off the screen when you look at these.

3 SEO tips you would advise new bloggers to implement are?

First, stop worrying about technical details. If your blog is new, it’s very unlikely that URL structure or page speed are affecting your rankings. Technical SEO comes much later your in SEO career.

Second, understand the basics links and Domain Authority. Don’t bother targeting a keyphrase unless your level of authority is in the same range as the other high ranking sites. If you don’t understand competition, you can’t do effective research of keyphrases. Pick battles you can win.

Finally, make the best page on the internet for your topic. Obsess about quality. Make the most detailed page you can. Cover the topic from every angle. Length and keyphrase frequency will follow.

Once you’ve finished making a truly awesome page, give it the “Control + F Test.” Did you use the phrase in the title, headers and body text?

Image source: Free SEO Advice for Beginners

Search is actually pretty straightforward. Google is a top ten list of r every topic in the universe. Make one of the top ten pages on the topic, but choose a topic you have a chance of ranking for (authority) and use the phrase on the page (relevance).

Simple, right?

You’re also the author of the book “Content Chemistry: An Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing”. Though the title says a lot about it, tell us a bit about this book and why would you recommend it for reading?

The book solves the problem with the blog. Blog are growing piles of content, loosely structured into categories. How do these things fit together? Where do you start? It’s hard to get a complete picture from a blog.

The book has a structure that make sense. It’s like a college textbook with lots of pictures. It’s a how-to-do-everything set of instructions with all of our best advice.

We always wrap up with a bit of fun, so let us imagine that search engines and SEO don’t exist – what do you think, what would the web look like?

Before there were search engines, way back in the early 90s, there were directories. Yahoo ruled!

Probably, we’d all pay to be included in big online directories. And we’d have names like AAA All American Web Design to give ourselves an advantage in alphabetized lists.

Or maybe we’d do marketing with fax machines. I’d probably have a podcast with how-to tips for fax marketing. Or a conference. “#FaxCon 2018 is going to be awesome!”

Photos ©: OrbitMediaStudios

The post Andy Crestodina Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

I’m a best-selling author and entrepreneur. I write books and teach online courses that help writers and creatives succeed. My latest book is Real Artists Don’t Starve, which was a Wall Street Journal Bestseller.

Tell us how exactly did blogging help you as a writer?

It helped me find an audience, which is essential for any writer starting out today — or any writer ever. Without an audience, you don’t exist.

And you haven’t stop blogging since! How much time do you spend blogging nowadays VS how much time you used to spend?

I used to write every day for a little bit. Typically, 30-60 minutes. Now, I still maintain that practice most days, but I also block out larger chunks of time (2-3 hours) to do more “deep work.”

How does famous Jeff Goins write? How does a writing process for your blog look like – are there any golden rules you apply and would advice others to follow when creating content?

Let’s break it down.

My writing process is based on what I call the 3-bucket system. I break writing up into three activities that I do separately: 1) coming up with ideas, 2) drafting those ideas into short (500-word) pieces, and 3) editing those pieces into something publishable. Rinse and repeat. That’s my process.

I follow four essential rules for writing a great blog post. First, hook the reader with an attention-grabbing headline. If you don’t do this well, the rest of it doesn’t matter. Second, I write a captivating lead paragraph that more or less summarizes the rest of the article while still teasing the reader a little to keep reading. Third, I write the body of the article with either supporting points of the argument or a story to illustrate what I’m trying to say. Lastly, I end with a call to action that brings it all together and asks the reader to do something (leave a comment, buy something, or just think differently). And then after that, I of course proofread until my eyes stop working. Then publish.

What about promotion – did you promote your blog and what would you advise other to do regarding this part of their blog growth strategy?

The best way to advertise your work as a writer is not to self-promote (“hey, look at me!”) but practice in public (“hey, look at what I made!”). For me, this meant guest posting on literally hundreds of other people’s websites and blogs. Doing this enough means people will eventually find your work and become a reader. If you can only do one thing to promote your blog, make it guest posting.

Which blogging tool (CMS) would you recommend beginners to start with and why?

WordPress. I recommend the self-hosted option, as this is the best way to maintain the most control and flexibility around your work.

What would be the biggest lessons you learned from running your own blog?

Don’t forget to have fun. If you can’t enjoy the process, what’s the point?

You’re also a founder of Tribe Writers, an online community for writers. How did the idea for this online community born?

Readers kept asking me to create something that helped other writers. So I did.

And yet, somehow in between all of this, you managed to author five books, including your latest “Real Artists Don’t Starve” book. Tell us a bit more about it – what’s it about and why is a ‘a must read’?

This is a book about the myth of the starving artist and why we don’t have to suffer to create brilliant work. I this book I debunk the myth of the starving artist and lay out a plan for how you can make a living off your creative talents.

Read the introduction for free here.

Now we’re always wrapping up with a bit of fun, so, who’s honest critic of “Real Artists Don’t Starve” would you love to receive?

I’d like to hear what Michelangelo thinks about how I portrayed him as the model of a thriving artist.

The post Jeff Goins Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

When I left the corporate world, I began to consult and teach. I knew that if I wanted to provide advice on marketing in this era I would have to immerse myself in social media, I needed to really do it. I started the blog as a bit of an experiment but today it is the epicenter of everything I do. Blogging helps people become aware of me, it helps clarify my thinking, it is an R&D lab for the ideas that will appear in my classes, speeches, and books.

Which self-hosted blogging platform would you recommend for new bloggers and why?

I advise people to start with a WordPress base because the site can grow into a business, as it did for me.

Any particular blogging tools (ex. plugins, SEO tools, marketing, social media) you prefer using and would gladly advise newbies to use since day one of their blogging adventure?

I’m not a big “tools” guy. I’m too busy to experiment and try things out so I leave that to others. I have a number of plug-ins I use of course, but I pretty much leave that to the tech people. If you’re going to focus on creating content, leave the tech stuff to other people, especially if you LIKE the tech stuff!

Do you have a ritual that gets you fired up for blogging? And how much time exactly do you spend blogging these days, comparing it with the time you used to spend before?

Blogging requires discipline. You need to be constantly gathering ideas. We are bombarded with messages every day. Many of these ideas could make great blog posts if we think of our life in terms of stories. You also need to reserve time to write, just as you would reserve time to have a meeting or exercise. Consistency is so important! When you have a list of blog topics to choose from (since you have been gathering them all week) and the time to actually create, blogging becomes fun!

I probably spend between four and six hours per week blogging. It’s probably a little higher now than when I started because the need for quality and deep thought leadership is greater today.

And what about content marketing – from your experience, are there any tips you’d love to share with blogging beginners that you wish you knew when you started your blog?

The world is a lot noisier, a lot more competitive than it was just a few years ago when I started. The rules that worked even two years ago don’t work today. Content marketing doesn’t start with content, it starts with research.

You need to have a clear idea of how you’re going to stand out in a crowded field. Put some thought into where you belong in the information eco-system that exists today in your business.

Find a way to add new value to your customers.

You’re a co-host of one of the top 10 marketing podcasts on iTunes named The Marketing Companion but, what do you prefer more – blogging or podcasting? And why?

I love both of them but I am really having fun on the podcast because it is so effortless. Basically, it is a conversation between Tom and I (we have more than 50 years of marketing experience between us!) and we get into some pretty wild conversations. And it’s funny. I crack up on every show. But I love writing too so I will never stop that.

Social networks changed many things and some even claim that because of them, the era of blogging is dead…What are your thoughts on that?

Blogging will be dead when reading is dead. Some people learn by hearing, some by viewing, some by reading. That won’t change. The social media options are multiplying, which is great, but some portion of your audience likes to read. In fact, millennials read more books than any generation. So yes, people still read!

You’re the author of five best-selling marketing books so far, but recently you released a new book named ‘KNOWN’ – could you tell us a little bit about it and explain to our readers why should they be known?

I’ve come to realize that so many of our personal and professional goals can be impacted if we’re known. If you’re known, and others are not, you will be the one to get the speaking invitation, the book deal, the new job, the new opportunity.

Being known is perhaps the only sustainable competitive advantage we can carry with us throughout the years. My book explains the four steps every person takes to become known in their field and also provides many case studies and exercises to help you focus on the path that is right for you. In fact, there is a workbook that comes with the book too.

This book has helped so many people. I really believe in it and hope everyone will use this book as a blueprint for their own personal brand.

We like to wrap up with a bit of fun, so if a five year old kid approaches you and asks you, “Mark, what’s blogging?”, how would you describe this to it?

“It’s like making a crayon picture, only I use words.”

Photos ©: BusinessesGrow.com

The post Mark Schaefer Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.

I started using social media to promote my in-home wine tasting business (that was a dream job right there) and really loved the connections you could make!
But as I was doing that, I didn’t find the types of tutorials I wanted to see – ones that were informative and entertaining. A lot of the tutorials I found skipped steps or used too much jargon and we also boring.
So I decided to use one of my characters, Grandma Mary, to deliver fun tutorials. And as she grew her audience, my business grew.

As an expert, what type of content would you advise blogging newbies to start with?

Blog with the type of content you want to see. If you see something missing, there are probably others who want that type of information. If you find yourself answering the same types of questions from people, put it into a blog post and then just send that link out when you want to answer that question.
Blogging is time-consuming, but it is SO worthwhile. You add value, establish yourself as an expert, and allow people to get to know you. Have a point of view about a new feature or a strategy that people should use.

Which social media channel do you consider to be most important for bloggers? And why?

I think the most important social media channel is the one you like the most and will be active on. I’ve seen every social channel work for people. If you like that channel, you will be more active there. I get most of my traffic from my site from Facebook, but that’s where I hang out the most and put the most effort into.

Which self-hosted blogging tool would you recommend for new bloggers? And which CMS do you use on your personal website?

I am partial to WordPress and use it on my site. I think it’s easy to use and there are so many plugins and themes to help you customize your site. Plus there are a lot of developers who can help you down the road. There are some learning curves to get any site up and running so just be patient if you are starting out!

You facilitate Social Media workshops, Facebook Bootcamps and Facebook webinars, and you’re also a co-author of the Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies book – tell us a bit more about all of this?

I’ve done a bit of everything in terms of social media – author, speaker, consultant, manager, freelancer, hmmm maybe I should narrow things down a little!
I did start out doing more social media management for companies and also was the Facebook community manager for Social Media Examiner for 2 years.
I now mostly do online courses, speaking and run Facebook Ad campaigns. I think it helps to have experience with all types of businesses to be able to teach and write about social media strategy. Social media has different strategies and results for different niches. I really love helping businesses grow online and social media is a great place to do that.

Now, there’s a very interesting section on your website and we have to mention that – Stand Up Comedy. Please tell us more about what is it all about!

Yes, I love comedy! I did improv comedy for 8 years and more recently have taken the plunge into standup. I have 2 kids and work from home, so I have a never-ending supply of material. I produce my own shows in Denver and Boulder and have recently been hired to do some fundraising events so that’s exciting. Comedy and jogging are two things that keep me sane (and wine).

How do you maintain a work/life balance working for yourself, in the 24/7 reality of the internet?

I think it’s very important as entrepreneurs to take breaks. I take a lot of vacations actually and that is the best part of working for yourself. The challenging part is that I do have to check in but I set up systems and plan my schedule so I can really unplug during most of the vacations (some I check in a bit more regularly).

I also don’t answer a lot of email on the weekend. Some weekends I do work a lot but I also remind myself that my week often has fun stuff incorporated like long lunches with friends or time with the kids. And as my business has grown, I’ve been able to have more people on my team who I can outsource work to which really helps.

Working on social media is VERY distracting. So I have systems to help me stay focused like blocking time in my calendar and making sure I’m only going to the places I need to be on social media so I get in, do the activities I need to do, and then get out. Some days I’m more successful at this than others –well, cat videos suck me in.

Ok, so let’s finish up this interview by hearing it a bit from Grandma Mary!
Grandma Mary – Do you have any words of wisdom for people thinking about making an online presence?

While Grandma Mary did “officially” retire, her words of wisdom were always “If Grandma Mary can do it, you can do it, too!”
And she always wanted people to have a little fun. She is proof that you can get a little crazy and still have a good business!

Photos ©: AndreaVahl.com

The post Andrea Vahl Interview appeared first on FirstSiteGuide.