Increase blog readers immediately using Pinterest group boards.

I recently started training a few women entrepreneurs in Bangalore about using Pinterest to make their brand seen and aim for followers first and then explore the ways to increase the sales.

Most of my trainees are not even aware of Pinterest as a visual social media and it is the best place to market anything globally.

I completed already 9 sessions of training yesterday. The last session excited them as I showed them how Pinterest group boards help an entrepreneur/blogger.

Image is linked to the source.

A Pinterest group board is more like a blog party. The creator of a group board would invite other Pinners to share their blog post in his board laying a few conditions like sharing/saving/liking the posts of other board members.

As my trainees are craft makers I showed them a few Pinterest boards that focus on DYI ( Do It Yourself) crafts. Similarly, group boards may invite shares/posts of specific niches like recipes, blogging, Internet marketing etc.

Though there are group boards with no condition at all (it means a board member can just share any number of posts without reciprocating), I like the idea of sharing and caring. Else, it will be a huge SPAM Yard of blog posts.

In addition, by going through the PINs of other members, you derive a lot of ideas for your own business.

I did some research before coming up with 5 different Pinterest group boards that can serve the purpose of my trainees and allowed them to send a request to join the group boards.

I am sure their PINS will soon be exposed to more new targeted pinners across the various parts of the world.

A sample group board.

Here is a Pinterest group board by Suzie.

https://in.pinterest.com/Suzie81speaks/share-your-blog/

Here is how you can join the board.

I quote Suzie:

“You can request an invitation by commenting on one of the pins, and you’re welcome to share posts from both your blog and others, but ensure that you aren’t spamming the group by sharing everything you’ve ever written all in one go.”

You can find Suzie’s other Pinterest boards here:

http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks 

Group boards Directory.

Find a directory of Pinterest group boards here; where you can also enlist your group board free of cost.

http://www.thepinjunkie.com/p/pinterest-group-board-directory.html

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How to promote your art through blogs?

"Rangan, How do I promote my art work through blog?", a budding artist asked me having come to know that I have been blogging since 2005. I assured him that I will look it up and revert.

As usual, I browsed through a few of my favorite content curation sites and Scoop It obliged me almost immediately.

The title, "49 Amazing Examples of How Creative Artists Use Blogging to Promote Their Art" caught my eyes. I am a big list buff/  I quickly clicked on the title and landed on the content by Leanne Regalla.

Since, I am a novice when it comes to creative art, I knew I could not usefully extract from the content and hence, I scrolled down tp the 98 comments to draw something useful to my friend and which I can understand too.

This one comment below spoke of the usefulness of the content:
By Marsha Stopa

"Hot damn! What more solid, real-life inspiration could you want?
May this post forever banish all the questions about “What would I write?” and “Who would read it?” that artists ask. I can’t wait to get into discovering these artists, most of whom I’m not familiar with. Thanks for the road map!"

I forwarded the link to this blog post to my artist friend. 

How can a blogger use Pinterest for blog promotion?

For the past hour or so, I have been clicking on PINS  in Pinterest.com related to
blogging
money blogging
blog traffic increasing

The following points were observed by me on what made to click on a PIN to read further. After all, this is the success of the said pinners in Pinterest and I must pay rich accolades on their creativity to PIN an image on correctly named boards and the compelling title that force you to click on.

Of all the PINs that I clicked today, I realized that I wanted to know more on how bloggers should make use of Pinterest to
attract new visitors
increase the number of visits of followers
sell anything through blogs
stamp your authority on your blog's niche

When I started composing this blog post, I thought I would show at least 5 PINs on which I clicked related to using PINTEREST for blog promotion. Now, I realize I am not able to do that because, I have collected and saved as many as 23 PINs on the topic of my interest.

One thing I can assure you that PINTEREST can be anyone's ultimate content curation tool. I forced myself to pull away from Pinterest.

Oh, let me at least show blow a PIN. I am sure you will click on it to read what is inside.

Note: I am not the authors of the PIN.

How people use YouTube to promote their blogs?

Yes, I would think so but it certainly depends the subject line you use to describe the content of your video. If the subject line is not attracting clicks, then, your video would draw a blank.

Test it yourself.

Go to YouTube and search for something you want to view or learn. Browse over the list of videos in the search results and note the titles that enticed to click.

Now, go over the list of titles you clicked and it would surely give you a clear idea on how to come up with a 'click worthy' title.

Now do some experiments with your own video and pour over the analytics after 15 days. If you are a self learner, you could quickly become a blogging coach if not in blog marketing.

How blog carnivals can help your blog to become popular

 A blog carnival is a digital event in cyberspace. You, as a blogger choose a topic related to your blog’s theme, invite blog entries from other bloggers through a platform located at Blog Carnival.

You are the host of the carnival. You go through the submissions and decide which of them to publish in your blog. You don’t publish the full blog entry but only the title of the blog post which is linked to actual blog post.

How it works?       

You as the host of the blog carnival announce the carnival date and topic.

The carnival would act as a promotional event that is intended to drive traffic to participating blogs. Since you are the host of the blog carnival, your blog URL posted in the ‘about’ section of the carnival would be visited by the prospective participants to decide whether your blog is worthy of posting their content.

Bloggers who chose to participate in the carnival, publish a post related to the blog carnival topic (that you have announced )on their own blogs then send the link to that post to the blog carnival host.

Since, they are getting backlink, participating bloggers would naturally promote the carnival on their own blogs thereby driving traffic to the host's (your) blog. This is a prestigious issue for the contributing bloggers and hence, they would go all out to promote the event resulting in a good flow of targeted traffic to your blog.

What is your role?

On the date of the blog carnival, you as the host would publish a post on your blog briefing about the event and give the links to the participants' submitted posts that you have chosen as good. This would certainly drive traffic to the participants' blogs.

Blog Carnival-is it a onetime event or an ongoing event?

The host can make it as an ongoing event announcing the future dates in advance. However, they can be one-time events as well.

Places to Promote a Blog Carnival.

Like any event, your blog carnival needs to reach as many bloggers as possible and there are ways to announce your impending carnival. A seasoned Internet marketer would surely explore all the IM avenues but a first time would feel all at sea after announcing his carnival. He would be very disappointed with the poor response if he has not promoted his blog carnival.

It's not difficult to start a blog carnival as it only takes a few minutes and also it is totally free. However, you need to promote it for it to be successful.

1. Forums

As a serious blogger, you would be a member in various forums dedicated to blogging. Announce your blog carnival there. In fact, there is an exclusive discussion going on in About.com Web Logs forum where there is a folder dedicated to blog carnivals. In addition, it is a place to find carnivals posted by others.

2. Social Networking Sites and Groups

Use your social media connections to announce your blog carnival. Find related Facebook groups and Google + communities to post your carnival.

 3. Design your own image for your blog carnival, link it to your carnival page.

Here is a sample image depicting a Travel Blog Carnival

 When you visit the blog carnival site, you would find the recent carnivals, archive of the past carnivals (18134 carnivals) and search carnivals under various categories. You would know how a carnival looks like.

Tips

In fact, I would advise you to browse the site, read the submission guidelines before you either participate in a carnival or start your own carnival.

My archive about Blog Carnivals

The submissions from participants won’t be always relevant. In my experience I could only choose about 25% of the entries. So, be prepared to read a lot.

Summary:

Overall, it is a learning process to get involved in blog carnivals. The experience is definitely worthy of your time.

What to do after you publish a blog post-part 5-social voting

For those of you who have landed here either through my deal friend Google or though social media signals, you might want to catch up with what has been going on prior to this post regarding the subject matter. I have listed all of my earlier posts at the end of this article.

Social voting sites: You as a social news reporter.

What? Haven't you heard of them before? They are also known as social bookmarking sites where the links one shares is either voted up or down by others. Some sites call the action of voting down as 'bury this story'.

In addition, these social voting sites are also called social news, the most popular being 'Reddit.com'. Ah yes, it has a 'vote down' facility. 

While there are more than hundred such social voting sites, I am going to talk about a handful of them only that I think are worthy of your time and effort. Before I list them out, I want to speak about their benefits for bloggers, the Dos and Don'ts etc.

Benefits of posting your blog post's permalink in social voting sites:
1. Attract targeted visitors
2. Possibility of getting your link shared in blogs, forums, social media sites and even in webinars
3. Might attract comments which might lead to a prolonged discussion
4. Your link might get curated along with the content
5. Some sites are 'Do Follow'

 The DOs and DON'Ts in social voting sites:
1. Come up with a catchy headline which alone gets clicked
2. Read news posted by others and take time off to share, vote, comment as the facilities are offered.
3. Curate whatever you think is good in your blog
4. Don't ever SPAM by which I mean not to post blog post links that are irrelevant to the site's niche.
5. Don't post your link and exit in a rush. Spend at least 5 minutes to browse through others' posts.

These social bookmarking sites come and go. I have witnessed the death of some extremely good sites such as Earners Club (http://www.earnersclub.net/  for blogging, money making online, internet marketing and freelancing.) Therefore, do not put all your eggs in a single basket. I think it a very appropriate proverb to put it here.

Submitting your blog posts' links is a simple process of filling up 4 or 5 fields in a web form. If you use the bookmarklet tool given by the site, the work is further reduced.

Now, to the list of social voting sites that bloggers should make use of:

1. BLOKUBE

 http://www.blokube.com/

Blokube is a social voting site dedicated to professionals in Blogging, Marketing, SEO, SEM, web development etc. You can submit links to your blog posts related to bloggers. Blogging, Marketing, SEO, SEM, Make money online, Business news, Web Development and web design.

You can start submitting on one condition; You must view and vote for at least 5 stories before you submit your blog post. This is 'do follow' site.

2. Biz Sugar

http://www.bizsugar.com/

This is a social bookmarking site for small business owners, Business news, strategies, tips and trends. Yes, this site is prone to SPAM attack as users fail to notice the site's niche and submit links to all sorts of sites. In fact, I too failed to notice the site's niche when I joined.

3. Spicy Page

http://www.spicypage.com/

It is one of my favorites and in fact the joined social voting site. It is a very good place to get targeted traffic to your blogs. It lets you  post, comment on, vote on, share your favorite sites or blogs and blog posts with your friends and others like you.

4. Do Splash

http://www.dosplash.com

DoSplash – this is a place where you can share your blog posts on topics mentioned in the site.
  Jane Sheeba, a famous blogger from India owns the site and she says the community is created so that like-minded folks can hang out, promote each other’s stuff and create a healthy community.

5. Stumble Upon

http://stumbleupon.com does not require any introduction. It has lasted long enough to be the favorite of millions of Internet marketers. It also offers a 'unlike' facility.

6. Blog Engage

http://www.blogengage.com/

This has been around for a long time. Owned by Brian who can be spotted in most of the web 2.0 properties, it has got some loyal supporters.  It is no longer a free joining site.

7. Zoom It

http://www.zoomit.ca/

This is only for Canadian related social news sites. Other nationals!Please stay away and don't SPAM.

I would certainly add Digg, Reddit and Delicious to the above list but your submissions are most likely to get buried among thousands of submission. It is not a place for newbie bloggers and Internet marketers.

What to do after publishing a blog post-previous blog posts:
http://blogavenues.blogspot.in/2013/07/what-to-do-after-publishing-blog-post.html

 
http://blogavenues.blogspot.in/2013/07/what-to-do-after-publishing-blog-post_28.html

 
http://blogavenues.blogspot.in/2013/08/what-to-do-after-publishing-blog-post.html  

http://blogavenues.blogspot.in/2013/08/what-to-do-after-publishing-blog-post_19.html