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The 3 Social Media Sites That Bloggers Should Be Using

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The 3 Social Media Sites That Bloggers Should Be Using

The 3 Social Media Sites That Bloggers Should Be Using

When you start a new blog it is important to also set up social media accounts to go with it. I actually did this differently. I had a Twitter account before I had my blog. It came soon after but still. I decided to join Twitter on a whim back in 2009. I am not even sure why. I started connecting with others, mostly photographers. It was fun to share my work there and see what others were doing.

Once I started my blog I ended up finding other Military Spouses on Twitter and connecting with them. I also started a Facebook page for my blog and a few years later a Pinterest account.

There are a lot of social networks you can join but there are 3 sites that bloggers need to make sure they are on and using on a regular basis 🙂

Twitter- Twitter is a great place to connect with others and share your blog posts. I also like to find other blog posts to read on there as well. It moves very fast and has the biggest learn curve but it is worth checking out. I don’t just tweet about my blog. I tweet about pretty much anything that comes to mind. I use lists to keep up with the people I follow and I also set it up to share my blog posts on there throughout the day.

Facebook- Starting a Facebook page for your blog is pretty easy. You can just use your blog’s name and get it going. Start off sharing the page with your friends and family members. Then their friends will see it and you will start to get likes. You should then talk about your new page on your blog as well as other social media sites. You can join Facebook groups to help get you likes. The Milspouse Blogger’s group I am in is great for this. Growing your Facebook page can be difficult. I still haven’t totally figured it out but there is a lot of advice out there on what to do. I really like Hollie Homer’s videos about how to grow your Facebook page and different tips and tricks to use.

Pinterest- If you are not on Pinterest yet you should get on over there, especially if you have a blog. It can be a great way to generate traffic but it is also a great way to share other’s work as well as find new ideas. I try to always have a photo in my posts that could easily be pinned. Then I make sure to pin it myself to get it started. My hope is that others will repin it either from Pinterest or from my site directly. I started off with a personal account on Pinterst but switched to Business once they started offering that. Changing over is easy to do and you should do it if you are using Pinterest with your blog.

I also really like Instagram and although I am following a lot of people I have met through blogging, I don’t use it as much for my blog. Some people do and have great success with that. I find that because I can’t post a link when I post a photo that it is hard to connect the two. I enjoy sharing photos I have taken, quotes I enjoyed or anything like that. I didn’t include Instagram in my list because I think you can get by without it as a blogger but it can add to your social media experiences when it comes to blogging.

What about you? What are your favorite social media sites to use with your blogging?

Why Bloggers Need Social Media

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Why Bloggers Need Social Media

Bloggers need social media! Are you a blogger too? Awesome! Are you on social media? You should be. For a few different reasons. Social media can be good, it can be bad but you need to be on it if you are a blogger.

There are three main reasons for this. To connect, to promote and to make money. Yes, you can make money on social media if you are a blogger. Pretty cool huh?

To Connect

This is the most important reason that bloggers need social media. To connect with others. To connect with other bloggers and to connect with your readers or possible readers. You will do this in different ways depending on the platform. On Twitter, you will set up your account and start following people. Then start replying to what they are talking about. Start retweeting what you like and your numberswill start to grow. On Facebook, start a Facebook page for your blog, connect with other bloggers to gain followers, share with all of your friends and put the page on your blog. There are many ways to connect with others on social media. Just keep doing it. Not only will you make friends but you will help get your blogging name out there.

To Promote

Social media is great for bloggers because it is an easy and free way to promote your blog. Although you can pay for some of it, you don’t have to. You can just put it out there for the world to see. Make sure you have a strategy of some kind. Some people like the posts to automatically end up on social media. Others would rather have control over that. You might need to try a few things before you figure out how you want to do it. Use tools like Buffer and Hootsuite to help you schedule your posts. Don’t forget to go back into your social media accounts in real time. Your followers want to know you are a real person and that you are really there, even if some of your posts are scheduled.

To Make Money

Once you start to get a good following on social media, you can actually make money with it. I do this in a few different ways. People can buy Twitter mentions from me from my blog. I also get offers from Izea, Sverve and Advowire. Each of these sites operate a little differently.

  • Izea– Here you connect your social media channels and then check for offers. Some might be for your blog or Instagram, most of them for me have been for Twitter. You bid a certain amount and have to wait to see if you will be accepted by the company. Sometimes you are and then it allows you to write your tweet right there on the website. Then it will be Tweeted out after it is approved. Other times you won’t hear anything so either they didn’t pick you or they dropped the campaign. It is hard to really know. It is a good idea to pay for one of the plans. The cheapest is only $1 a month and it will allow you to bid on a lot more campaigns.
  • Sverve– This is more of a blogging community where people share their posts but they also have campaigns. They have them for blogging, Twitter and Youtube but I have only done blog campaigns as well as Twitter ones. The pay is a lot lower than you will find on Izea but you can Tweet the campaign once every 24 hours until the campaign ends.
  • Advowire– I like this place because they always have something you can Tweet out. They give you points and then you turn in the points for prizes. I like to get the movie tickets because we love going to movies and will always use them. You can move up and get paid a little more, the more tweeting that you do. You can only use this every 12 hours but I try to go there at least once a day.

I am also able to do Facebook or Twitter campaigns through Blogher and MSB New Media. If you are a Military Spouse Blogger you must join their network.

As a blogger, there are a lot of tasks I do on a regular basis. Social media is one of them. It is the best way to get your name out there while connecting with others. And let’s face it, in most cases you would be on social media anyway, why not make it work for your blog too?

What is your favorite thing about social media as a blogger?

* This post contains affiliate links!

6 Things Bloggers Should Do On A Regular Basis

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6 Things Bloggers Should Do On A Regular Basis

Blogging is such a great way to get your words out into the world. Whether you are blogging as a hobby or doing it as a business. Whether you have 100K followers or just your family and a few friends.

However, if you want to grow your blog, if you want to make money from blogging, if you want to make it into more of a business, there are certain things you have to do on a regular basis. I haven’t always been the best about completing this list on a regular basis and I could see the difference.

Being a blogger is more than just writing. It is a mix of using your blog for good, for writing from your heart to connecting with people and putting yourself out there.

So what should you be doing on a regular basis?

Here’s my list of 6 things bloggers should do on a regular basis:

1. Write posts. You need to be writing on a regular basis. For some, this would mean just a couple of times a week. For others, it means every day. What you don’t want to do is write and then wait 3 weeks to write again. If you want to grow your blog and get out there, you need to be posting regularly.

2. Write for other sites. This might mean guest posting or it could also mean writing for other sites for free or pay on a regular basis. By writing on other sites you might be able to write about a different topic and you can gain new readers who head on over to your site from the site you wrote on.

3. Update old posts. My blog is about six years old. Which means I have a lot of older posts I have written that need to be refreshed a bit. I wrote them before I even thought about Pinterest or what type of photos would be best. I need to go back through and update some of my older posts and reshare them. By doing this I am able to promote some of my older content in a new way.

4. Schedule Social Media. Some of my social media I write live and other posts I schedule. I do this to save time and to always have something going out. I use Buffer, RoundTeam and BoardBooster to do this. Buffer is my favorite and I go on there everyday to add new posts to share. Both my own and others I have read that I want to share with my readers.

5. Respond to comments. I can say I am not as quick at doing this as other people are. I am working on it though. But isn’t it nice to get an email back after you leave a comment on a blog post? So I do try to go through and do that too.

6. Visit Facebook Groups. I am apart of quite a few Facebook groups for bloggers. My favorites are the Mil-Blogging Buddies group, Blogger2Business and The Business of Blogging. I have learned a lot from these types of groups and I have also been able to meet and connect with other bloggers through them. I recommend joining a few, especially if you are a new blogger and just getting started.

7. Visit Other Blogs. I use Bloglovin to keep track of other blogs I am reading. I try to go through and read a few everyday. I am never going to read every single post of every single blog I am following but it is fun to go through them. I also click on links I see on social media for posts that look interesting to me.

Are you a blogger? What would you add to your list???

* This post contains affiliate links!

5 Great Work at Home Job Ideas

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Work At Home job Ideas

Working from home is ideal for a lot of people. There are different ways to do it but you have to find the job that is going to work for you and your situation. Someone who has three kids four and under at home will have to find something different than a mom of all school-aged kids or a woman without any children. If you are wanting a work from home job, ask yourself when you would work, how much you could work and what type of jobs sound good to you.

There are jobs that require that you be on the phone and there are jobs that require you to work at specific hours. Others can be done over the internet and can be done during any hour that works for you.

Here is a list of work at home jobs that you might want to consider if you are trying to find a way to make money from home:

  • Freelancing- this can be writing, graphic design, social media or any type of service you can provide for someone else that you do as an independent contractor. You would not be working for any company, you would probably get a 1099 at the end of the year for taxes. This will allow you to work on different projects and for different businesses. You can be as busy as you would like or just take a couple of jobs a month.
  • Blogging- There are a lot of bloggers out there making a full-time income, others are making a part-time income. It can be done and it is a good goal to work towards. You need an idea for your blog and to be able to put the time into it. The money won’t happen overnight but it is possible to work from home as a blogger.
  • Working for a company who hires at home workers- Some companies hire people from home to work for their companies. You would apply and then have a few weeks of training all from home. They might require you to work certain hours or schedule you based on each week. This type of job would be best for people who do not have little kids at home every day, all day long. It requires a lot of your attention as you might be answering customer service phone calls and would need a quiet house. One example of this is working for Apple. This article explains more.
  • Direct Sales- You have all heard of direct sales. Scentsy, Jamberry, 31 Bags, Young Living Essential Oils, Tastefully Simple, etc. With direct sales, you will be signing up with a company and selling the items. You would not be an employee but you would be considered an independent consultant. People could sign up under you and you would make part of your income based on their sales.
  • Selling Handmade Goods- If you are creative and can make something worth selling, this might be an option for you. It can be done on a part-time basis or you can step it up and make it a full-time job. You can sell online, at vendor fairs or even put your products in a local shop. The key is being able to make something that is worth buying and to know how to sell it. Having a business mindset will go a long way in this type of job.

What would you add to this list? What have you done to make money from home?

Making The Best Use Of Your Working Hours When You Are A Work At Home Home

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Making The Best Use Of Your Working Hours When You Are A Work At Home HomeWhen you work for yourself, you are your own boss. This is nice. You can take time off when you want. You don’t have anyone looking over your shoulder. You don’t have to ask anyone when you can go to lunch. On the other hand, when you are your own boss, it is on you to stay on task and get your work done. This can be difficult if you are not used to it. Working from home comes with a lot of different distractions. From kids to piles of laundry that need to be done. It is way to use to not make the most of your working hours.

How can you make your work time more productive?

1) Make Lists- This is so important when it comes to working for yourself. You have to have a list of what you plan to get done each and everyday. If you don’t, you will quickly feel overwhelmed with everything. Spend 5 minutes every night making your list for the next day. This is even more important if you have any type of deadline. I have posts I need to write on certain days so I always make sure to put them on my calendar as soon as I get them.

2) See Where Your Money Goes- When it comes to Internet business it is way too easy to sign up for every little course or app. Be careful. It is way too easy to spend too much money each month. If you signed up for a service and want to give it a trial period, put an end date on your calendar. On that date decide if that service is worth keeping or if you should let it go. I have done this with a few different services that I ended up cancelling after a few months. I just wasn’t getting my money’s worth.

3) See Where Your Time Goes- It is so easy to waste time online. You plan to go online to write a blog post and find yourself on Facebook. Just be careful about where you are spending your work hours. Since you work for yourself, you are not going to have to hide what you are doing online from anyone. If you spend too much time messing around, your work will suffer. Too much fun time online will mean a lower paycheck for you when you make money online.

4) Find What Works for YOU!- When you get started in this business you might want to follow what another person has done. This is all well and good but make sure you are finding what works for you. If you have three little kids at home with you during your work time you are not going to be able to do the same thing someone without kids at home might be able to do. Figure out your strengths and weaknesses and find a work method that makes sense for you and your goals and environment.

5) Let It Go- I figured this out pretty quickly. If something I am working on is taking too long, if I can’t get it to work right, if I can’t find what I am looking for…I put it away. I can always go back to it later. I have spent too much time trying to figure out how to change a theme or look up something when I should have just let it go for a while. Move on to something else and go back to what you were doing later. Don’t waste too much time on something you might not be able to figure out. Don’t be afraid to ask for help either. One time my blog went down and I asked on Twitter what was wrong. I got an answer right away and it was easy to fix once I knew what the issue was.

Do you work from home? What tips could you add to this list?

Don’t Make Me Type In A Code And Other Blogging Annoyances

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blogging annoyances

I enjoy visiting a lot of different blogs in different niches. I try to get to a few other blogs everyday. I have been doing this for a few years now and I have noticed some things that drive me a little crazy when I see them on a blog…

1) Music that plays by itself.Remember the days of Myspace and playlists? That was fun but I don’t enjoy seeing it on a blog. When I am looking through blogs I am usually listening to music or a podcast and if music starts randomly playing on a blog, it is a huge turn off for me. In fact, it drives me nuts. Any music you have on your blog should not start automatically. I understand wanting to share music but it is so much nicer to let the reader chose if and when they want to hear it.

2) White writing on a black background. This is frustrating because it is hard to read. I might really enjoy what you are talking about but if it is hard to read I am more likely to stop following you. It also can give some people a headache and that isn’t good. It might work for sites that are more photos than words as photos look really nice on a black background.

3) Word verification or captcha. I hate this. I really really hate the Blogger.com version of it with the numbers against a wall. I usually can’t even figure out what the numbers or letters are. Now I know spam is a problem but there are other ways to deal with it. Word verification is a huge turn off to me. I also don’t like when I leave a comment and get up from my computer only to come back to it hours later to see I missed filling it out because of captcha. Just say no to captcha. I would rather check a box or something easy like that.

4) Not allowing comments. I know there are certain blogs where this is needed but if I am reading your blog and want to respond, let me leave a comment. I don’t want to click on another link and go somewhere else to do it. I want to leave it right there on your blog. I can understand turning off comments if things get too heated on a certain post or even after a certain amount of time but please let your readers have a say.

5) No way to share you on Social Media. I know that I can copy and paste your link to whatever social media site I want but it is a lot easier if you have a button right there for me to use. It makes it easy for me to share your post which is better for you. If nothing else, make sure you have share buttons for Google+, Facebook and Twitter as those are the most popular of the social media sites.

Not everyone blogs the same way and there is a lot of debate about how to handle things in the blogging world but I think most of us bloggers would agree on this list. When you have your own blog, you don’t want to be turning people off for silly reasons that you could easily change.

What drives you nuts about a blog?

How To Stick To OPSEC When You Are A Military Spouse

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OPSEC

There has been a lot of talk about Isis and blogging and PERSEC and OPSEC and what we military spouse bloggers need to do about it.

Some of us have decided to keep on blogging like normal. We are not too worried about it and although we are safe with our personal information, we don’t think that we need to stop blogging like we have been.

PERSEC and OPSEC are very important for all military spouses, not just us bloggers. If you have a spouse in the military, you have to be very aware of what you post on social media. There are certain things you can’t say like the return date of your loved one or how many days you have left and other information like that. You also can’t talk about the day they’re going to leave until after the fact.

Different bloggers have different comfort levels when it comes to what they share with the public. Some don’t want anyone to know that they are a military spouse and that is totally fine. Others have a blog that centers on the fact that they are a military spouse and Military life is a huge part of their lives.

It really just depends on your comfort level. This is the decision to tell you that my husband is in the military. It is the decision to tell you where we live, although not the exact address of course. It is also the decision to tell you when my husband is deployed or if he deploys. I know for myself since I blog about military issues, especially deployment, that there would be no way to carry on my blog the way that it is without letting you know that my husband was deployed. It’s kind of one of those things.

When I have spoken about deployments, I have tried to keep it more general. I am not going to tell you the day that he’s going to leave. I am not going to tell you the day that he gets home. I might say he is going to be deploying rather soon. I might say that he will be home rather soon and that we are at the end of the deployment. I really don’t even want to know about his mission or where he is until he is home with me so sometimes I don’t even know what he is doing or where he is exactly.

OPSEC

OPSEC comes into play when you’re talking about dates, locations and all of that. If you are a non-blogging military spouse, the most you have to really worry about is Facebook although it is not a good idea to talk about the dates openly in public either.

For the military spouse blogger, it is even more important since more people are reading what we are writing. If I were to write on my blog that my husband is getting home in 10 days that would not be good in that would be a big violation of OPSEC. There have been cases of groups of soldiers being delayed because of people breaking OPSEC. Think about how frustrating that would be if you’re waiting for your husband and you find out that the only reason that they are getting delayed is because somebody talked about it on Facebook. It happens.

So, if you are a blogger, what are you supposed to do when you want to write about the deployment? When you want to share your feelings about the night before he leaves or the day before he gets home?

What I have done about this is I write about these things when they happen but I did not publish them until after-the-fact. This way, I can share with my readers my feelings on those days but I’m not breaking any OPSEC rules. When you do get to read them, it has already happened and it is no longer an issue.

I don’t want to live in fear. I want to be safe but not fearful and that includes my blog. I don’t want to break any OPSEC rules. I’m not going to tell you things that you don’t need to know. However, I am going to share that my husband is in the military as that has been a huge part of my life and a huge part of this blog.

I do encourage bloggers to only post what they feel they are comfortable with. If they don’t want to share that their spouse is deployed or even in the military, that is okay. Not everyone blogs the same way.

How do you decide what you’re going to share on your blog? If you are not a blogger how do you decide what to share on social media?