Do Not Worry About The Sales Pitch
By Cheval John
You are very excited when a lot of people are reading your blog on a daily basis.
That motivates you to continue providing uplifting content to your audience.
Though your blog is getting a lot of views and bringing people to your website, you notice you are not making a lot of money.
You are wondering why isn’t this blog converting readers into potential customers.
Your first thought is trying out different tactics which will bring people to your business blog.
One of the tactics is pushing out your content to different social media platforms hoping to win new business.
That fails to work because consumers are more keen to see who cares about them.
You realize you must interact with your audience on a daily basis on the different social media platforms.
Though the above always works, you have not seen the results of converting your fans into customers yet.
I can tell you to keep on building your audience on the social media platforms.
You must also understand having an e-mail list is the most effective way to convert your fans into customers.
Your blog’s e-mail lists is your real estate.
When someone decides to join your e-mail list, you have a higher chance of winning new clients for your business.
The ways how you can build your e-mail list is providing value consistently with your business blog.
Also, you can embed educational videos or podcast which applies to the industry your business is apart of.
Like the podcast I embedded here from my show.
The biggest mistake you can make when building your e-mail list is having pop-ups.
Pop-ups is like spam.
When someone is reading your blog post and all of a sudden a pop-up appears, it basically distracts the viewer.
They are in the middle of consuming your content which is solving their pain point.
When blogs engage in installing pop-ups in their website, they are truly saying we are not confident our content will help you and we need to use these tactics to get a subscriber.
If you are starting a blog for the first time, never use any type of pop-up system even if many are telling you otherwise.
If you do win over a new e-mail subscriber, do not bombard them with sales pitches in every e-mail.
They will be turned off by your spammy sales pitches and opt out of your e-mail list.
Your must have confidence in your blog content and not worry about the sales pitch
Do you have agree or disagree with this post? You can leave your comments below
Is Blogging Still Worth It?
By Cheval John
May 24th, 2017
You might be wondering if it’s worth it to have a blog after seeing these stats
There are over a billion websites in the world- Internet Live Stats
About 2.7 million blog posts are published everyday-Hosting Facts.com
The answer is yes because your blog is the home base for your website
Here are more stats about blogs:
Websites with a blog have tend to have 434% more indexed pages-Impact
43% of marketers who work for business to business tells everyone that blogging is very important for their companies-Social Media Examiner
81% of businesses consider their blogs to be an important asset to their businesses.-Search Engine Journal
Out of the millions and millions of blogs, the top hosting sites for blogs are Tumblir and WordPress (WP).
Though Tumblir host 175 million blogs, I am honestly not a fan of the platform.
WP hosts 75.8 million blogs in the world.
You might not know that WordPress has two different platforms for blogs.
There is WordPress.com, the free hosting site, and WordPress.org, the self-hosting software.
Before we get into the details of WordPress.com and WordPress.org, I want to chat about another hosting site that emerged over the last few years: Medium.
Medium was created in 2012 by Evan Williams, one of the co-founders of Twitter.
The vision for Medium was to create long form content in the manner people could express themselves more since Twitter has a 140 character limit.
People who creates an account on Medium via Twitter or Facebook will automatically increase their audience depending on the number of followers on either platform.
For example, Rachel Rofe, who is the author of 50 plus books, created her Twitter account in 2007 and built a strong community.
When Rachel started using Medium in 2014, almost 1/3 of her Twitter audience “followed” her to the blogging platform
This is an advantage for those who are looking to start blogging for the first time.
And you also keep the blog content according to the people at Medium.
With the above being said, here are the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
Pros of WordPress.com:
It is free
You can interact with fellow bloggers on the platform and build a community
Your blog could be discovered
Cons of WordPress.com:
You have limited features which can hinder you from expanding your blog
Pros of WordPress.org
You have access to the plugins which can improve your website
You can design the website which fits your business
The website is yours forever
Cons of WordPress.org
You have to pay a hosting company to run your website
In reality, it is not a con because they are hosting companies which are compatible with WordPress.org and are very affordable for small businesses.
The two hosting companies I highly recommend for hosting your website using WordPress.org are
Blue Host and Host Gator.
(Disclaimer: I use host gator for my business blog and I am not getting a commission at all.)
If you have to choose between wordpress.com and wordpress.org if you are planning to start a blog, I would select the latter.
When you built an audience over the years using wordpress.com and you want to switch to a self-hosted site using wordpress.org, you will end up “losing” the total number of views for your blog.
It will also cost you between $129-$200 to transfer your content from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.
I started this blog on wordpress.com in 2011 while simultaneously blogging for the collegiate newspaper and myself during my time in graduate school.
When I was placed on probation from graduate school, I decided to buy the domain name and upgrade the blog to vallanomedia.com using wordpress.com in January of 2012.
A couple days later, I formed the company as an llc and continued to blog about sports, travel and current events.
After looking at articles from experts like Nathalie Lussier regarding blogging platforms, I knew I had to switch my site over to wordpress.org.
So on October 1, 2012, I paid around $140 to switch my blog over to wordpress.org.
I had no idea at the time I was going to “lose” over 3,900 total viewership I built before switching from wordpress.com.
In conclusion, I want to add having a blog is important because it is your main real estate.
The social media platforms are just rented land.
If you want to build your business via blogging, you must do your research on which platform is right for you.
Here is a quote from Sonia Gregory, Owner and Creative Director of FreshSparks, which sums up the importance of having a blog:
“A blog is an opportunity to shake hands and introduce yourself. You can gain a reader’s trust through quality content.”
Are you planning on starting a blog? You can leave your comments below.
Does Not Hurt To Be Wrong
By Cheval John
I don’t have any posts this week about social media or live streaming.
However, I will chat about something else many people are afraid of.
Being wrong.
What I mean is many of us always want to be right.
We see a lot of predictions of where social media is going in the next couple of years.
Or which social media platform will be around.
Some thought that Vine would be around for a while because they were one of the first to jump start the live streaming revolution.
We even thought that Facebook was going to be a second class social media platform because they implemented their program to where you pay in order to boost your post.
Look at facebook now as they are continuing to dominate the social media scene especially with live video.
This leads to what I am chatting about in being wrong with predictions.
I made predictions over the years that turned out to be wrong.
People made fun of me for my wrong predictions that they called it the “Chevy Curse”
I keep on making some predictions surrounding a sporting event because sometimes they come to pass.
In this case, I have made a bet on myself on being a full time entrepreneur.
I am believing that things will be well with the business because I have learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way.
I understand that there is no such thing as over night success in building a business.
Yet many want to believe that when they start a business they will become profitable or even rich quickly.
The above will happen only if they experienced failure in their first business and learned valuable lessons.
Some might call us insane because we have not seen money rolling in despite years of hard work.
They will tell us to get a real work at a company.
They are the same ones who are miserable working at a 9-5 corporation.
I will tell that I am not afraid to be wrong in believing that my business will succeed because I know I am trying something new in being an entrepreneur.
I faced a situation when I started college late and wondered if I will ever graduate.
I worked hard in order to attain my college degrees from Lone Star College and Sam Houston State University.
That same tenacity will propel me towards achieving profitability this year which will take my business to the next level.
Even if people tell me I am crazy, I will continue to air my podcast every Tuesday, publish my blog on Wednesdays and participate in Twitter chats despite not seeing the positive results yet.
I rather be insane in doing the above than waste time in work that does not fulfill my destiny as a business owner.
Do you agree or disagree with this post? You can leave your comments below.
What Is Stopping You From Live Streaming?
By Cheval John
May 10th, 2017
Social media is a mechanism for business owners and companies to connect with their potential audience.
Many see it as a platform for free advertising.
So they self-promote their events or services hoping people will buy from them.
While others place all of their focus on building their business on the different social media platforms.
They don’t understand that the different social media platforms belongs to the owners who created them.
When they put all of their eggs in one basket (in this case, a social media platform), they end up losing their client base in the long run.
That’s why many scrambled to regain their audience when vine shutdown earlier this year.
Another example is when Facebook changed their algorithms which decreased the organic views of each post a couple of years ago.
Business owners now have to pay for facebook ads in order to regain the audience and make money.
I am not an expert on boosted posts on facebook, which I did try out their ads on my business page and got some likes from people I did not know pertaining to my previous articles here.
What I do know is that live streaming is an important avenue for businesses to get their message out to a prospective customer.
Facebook entered the live streaming matchup in 2015 when they allowed celebrities and public figures access to this new video on demand as a test run to see if live streaming would work for them.
When they saw the positive results of live streaming, they decided to allow everyone to have access to facebook live in early 2016.
YouTube was ahead of the video revolution when the platform was created in 2005.
The platform allowed anyone to upload videos of their cats surfing, cover songs of famous artists, even their reaction to a home run at a baseball matchup, or highlights from a collegiate softball game.
YouTube decided to enter the live stream market between 2015 and 2017 and allow anyone to showcase a news program or sporting events that is occurring.
I found out about the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) when they live streamed the playoffs on their YouTube channel.
The CWHL has been around for 10 years and it took a live streaming show to discover talented women who are professional hockey players.
You might be wondering which one of the platforms is right for you if you are considering live streaming for business.
Here are a few things to consider when choosing between Facebook Live and YouTube
Facebook:
This platform has 1.9 billion users
You can broadcast your live streams to your friends, family, group page and fans who liked your business page, respectively
The live videos is very personable
You can live stream from your mobile phones
A person can now broadcast their live streams from their own computer
YouTube:
The social media service has over a 1 billion users
It is the largest video website in the world
Google, the world largest search engine website, owns YouTube
You can become an “expert” over time with educational videos which solves a pain point for your audience
So you have seen the difference between Facebook Live and YouTube.
Both facebook and youtube are working on allowing two or more people to live stream at the same time.
Here are some video platforms that will allow multiple people to simulcast to facebook live or youtube from your computer
Their on social platform allows you to simulcast to facebook live
Zoom:
Allows you to simulcast to either Facebook Live or YouTube.
A side note: You would have to buy their Pro plan at $14.99 a month before you can upgrade to the webinar platform for $40 more.
This live video service recently launched the multi-stream software that allows you to simulcast to either facebook live, youtube or periscope.
You would have to put in the API key in order to simulcast to either platforms
This is a live streaming software of telestream which allows you to simulcast to facebook live, periscope and even youtube
Now you have seen the options which can help you to live stream for your business.
The only question is:
“What is stopping you from live streaming?”
You can leave your comment below.
Attending The Best Conference In The Midwest
By Cheval John
I had mentioned last week I was going to write about how the Houston Texans Cheerleaders won national attention after their first annual #htcpicnic.
I have not written the post yet and I am sorry about that.
The reason why was I spoke as a panelist at Social Media Week Lima for most of this week.
The conference was held in Lima, Ohio and hosted by Now Marketing Group.
I shared on my show, What’s The Word? about what I learned from social media week lima and why business owners or anyone who are looking at putting together a conference should follow the example of Now Marketing Group.
Hope you enjoy the podcast.
Share this: