#clicktotweet

3 Plugins to Explode Your Blog Traffic

Explode Your Blog Traffic!As a blogger, you write content, you research and inject the juice to add value, and you even spend time carefully finding the right images to share along with your next post. You arrange it all in a nice, attractive fashion and now you’re set to hit PUBLISH. Ok, so you published your great work and two weeks later, you feel grateful for the readers who have visited but…

One of my fave chapters of The Art of Social Media has to be Chapter 5 “ How to Integrate Social Media & Blogging” I don’t know if it’s because I have just started by blogging journey or if because this chapter seemed to be more “Peg” than “Guy”.... There again are some basics such as the importance of curating yourself, adding drama be it through a photo , video etc. but they also review some great tips that some people may not have considered, simply overlooked or perhaps meant to but just never got around to it.

Add Share Buttons

Add ClicktoTweet Link

Pin every Blog post

Add a Pin if for Later option

Join Blogging Networks ... and my personal fave:

MEET PEOPLE IN REAL LIFE

It’s all too easy to fall down the rabbit hole that is social media so we have to remember that nothing resonates quite like putting a face to that twitter handle or FB page etc. it helps build on that relationship. One of the final tips in the chapter gives you the 10 step process to “Peg your Post” which in a nutshell is integrating social media & blogging. Peg Fitzpatrick explains how she promotes one of her blog posts ( which of course involves using Canva one of Guy’s projects) it is a very in depth process but for anyone committed to becoming a blogging success I think it sets a good foundation to try and cross promote it in order to increase views, clicks followers etc. It is obvious that Peg is knowledgeable about blogging, Instagram, Pinterest and a myriad of other platforms and has successfully found a formula that works for her .

Nancy gets my Weekly Whisperand asked me how I created the little one-click link that prepopulates a Tweet. Since others have asked I decided to make a short video and blog post about it. Check out the video first since it’s only 5 minutes (not counting…

By indie rapper Kosha Dillz (@koshadillz).

Most of my career and life, I would throw things against the wall from various different directions and they would stick. I made much of my career hustling and meeting the next person on to the next thing. I was never ever preparing for one specific thing, but I was always prepared to make the best out of the situation I was given.

When it comes down to release day, and your office is your parents' counter top with a laptop, you need to be prepared! Unfortunately after I was deathly ill for a week, I called my distro guy and said "hey, when is the song getting put up on iTunes?" He told me...June 11th. That's 5 days!

WIth only 5 days, I had some work cut out for myself.

I have devised a miraculous plan to help you soar in sales (or at least soar in promotion.) I'm not saying this is the only thing you should do, but these are 10 mandatory things you need to do to "push" a song, 5 days before the release! In this specific case, I did it for my single release of the song "Hangin' Out" (music video).

1. Be nice to people

Be prepared to lose your patience and be pissed because you want everyone to buy your song but not everyone is going to do it. The least you can do is be nice to people. This includes re-posting fellow artists' videos on your page, helping out your family members, leaving a tip wherever you eat this week. Why? No one wants to do anyone a favor except themselves so if you go out of your way to do nice things, people might actually do it for you when they need to!

2. Set up a Facebook event for your release

A virtual event of your song is a great way to make people aware that your song is going up for sale. I just put one up and use the "invite all codes". Be nice to enough of your Facebook friends and you'll get 20,000 invites. Not sure how much that does mean…but it does mean more than zero invites.

3. Get 30 ratings and 5 star comments from your friends/team

It doesn't sound like too much of a task, but remember you are asking for someone to do a "Yelp" review for your business. Since this is your business, private message people and ask them to show support by leaving the rating, commenting, and tweeting/facebooking the link to their networks.

4. Pay all of your debts whether small or big

No matter how you do this, make sure you do this. I think it's important that if someone wants to actually succeed in a project, it is necessary to have all ends tied and all dirty dishes cleaned before asking someone for help that solely benefits them. In the world of indie music, showing up for the other homies always helps out. When you do this, things naturally happen for the better.

5. Link your larger videos to your release

On a basic level of marketing, go back to your video where you perform this song and place your "buy link" in the video. For instance, my "Hangin' Out" video will now have a "buy link" in it which leaves people the option. Ideally, you want to release the song and video same day, for maximum exposure and income. I messed up in this case, but hey, learn from my mistakes!

6. Release a VLOG about your new project that is for sale

Nothing wrong with telling the world that your project is for sale. For instance you can make a video with your DOG and put text with your dog speaking about your project. Make it entertaining. All you have are empty pockets and an imagination. This is free marketing 101: use your imagination and make something funny so I can laugh and say "hey…that was funny, I'm going to buy you now for $1.29."

7. Mentor your young soldiers and prepare them for battle

My brother (@zevenesh) told me today that he has people who he mentors that make him special videos he is incapable of doing. People respect me for my work ethic and experience in getting things done with very little resources. Whatever your expertise is in, you should utilize that to help you get some awesome things in line.

For instance, @djsidereal, a 17 year old DJ/Producer from Minneapolis, work together on lots of things. He is savvy with the internet, makes beats, and has a deep understanding of youth because he is 17. When I am not around he can blast out invites to Facebook/YouTube/Twitter. I help him with things that many other people would pay me for and he helps me out with tedious things I need. When it comes down to release day, make sure your army of young soldiers is in line and ready to go to battle for a common goal. When he needs something, he has an open line to me.

8. Create a "clicktotweet" link

What an awesome way to get people to do something you want them to do, without them having to do anything to do it. "I want you to share this link. please click here:" http://clicktotweet.com/O0Q0r. In an instant they just shared your exact desire with one click. Imagine that! It's way easier than messaging people with a long lengthy message and telling them a huge story!

9. Get your email blasters ready

I have about 9000 people on my Mad Mimi mailer list ready to go. When it's release day, you need every email you ever had with a blast ready to go. You need to get the old ones from your AOL to the new ones in your GMAIL. Not only do I have it, but my digital label @diamondmedia360 has am email blaster, my management @supergoodmusic has one, and@diwon has one ready to go. All in all, that is like, lots of people who see my stuff at the same time. Include your "clicktotweet" link for fans and friends to click once and have it in the social media stream. Blogs will be ready to post and you gotta make sure you make it easy for 'em. If you have a publicist, make sure they are ready. @Audibletreats always does good press releases and kick ass pr. Check em out!

10. Go for your big people to give you a shout via Twitter

Say something clever here guys. Ask @MileyCyrus if she will twerk for your iTunes release. Ask @Rza if he will retweet your Wu-Tang inspired life with your link. Hashtag your link with #sxsw and see which bots with lots of followers retweets. You can Instagram the links and keep people excited with pics throughout the day. Throw a couple of these out there, and if one sticks, you might find yourself with a lil more buzz than you expected.

Extra Credit: Keep a list of people who are helping you here. These are your go to warriors that are down for your cause. Mark down who helps and who will help, and save it for the next time you have a release so you can be more properly prepared.

Ever spent hours and hours for something simple, and then all of a sudden it hit you and you came across a solution to your problem? My guess is that you probably have.

Earlier tonight I put together a signup for Groupconnect's Private Beta. After searching hours online for different html5 templates, html mailto scripts and php scripts, I finally found a solution. I came across MailChimp's API and found it to be quite user friendly once I dove into it. I've only worked with API's a hand full of times with Facebook and Twitter, so this wasn't going to be an easy task. It took a little bit of customizing and thought, but in the end everything seems to be working quite well and looks good. Below are the steps that I took in order to get this done.

1.) I started experimenting with the MailChimp API a bit, finding it very user friendly and powerful at the same time. Rare, I know. Here's a screenshot of some of the quick html changes this took.

Nothing hard, some CSS and simple HTML changes. Once I figured out how to incorporate MailChimp's signup form into my index.html page it was smooth sailing from there. On to step 2.

Step 2.) The next step I had to do was configure the CSS properties to display exactly what I wanted them to. Of course, it gave me a little troubles at first, but nothing that Firebug can't solve!

3.) Now that I had everything sitting perfectly how I wanted and working well, it was time to tie in Twitter to give this signup a chance to bring in some beta testers. I was able to put a link to our Twitter handle on the bottom of each page of the signup, but I was also able to use ClicktoTweet so that whenever someone was done with the signup process they could share the love and tweet it out to their followers. Here's what this looked like.

5.) Once I got the url that MailChimp provided me, I simply inserted the URL into ClicktoTweet and was able to add any #'s or @'s , just as long as I kept it within 140 characters.

6.) Now that I got that setup, it was almost complete. Now just add a few lines of code and we're set to roll. Here's a screen shot of the final product on Groupconnect's site.

7. ) If you see in the picture directly above, you'll see there is a link labeled as "here". This is pretty slick, because once you click the link, your page is forwarded to Twitter, taking you to this screen.

Notice that what I preset in ClicktoTweet will show up automatically, so all the user has to do is click Tweet. Pretty simple, but powerful at the same time.

Go ahead and try this out yourself here. It's kind of a cool little process that ties in a couple of different platforms. This is what API's can do for you.