Blog Tips, Grow Your Audience, Mom Marketing Coach |
Using Pinterest to Promote Your Mommy Blog
Last week, we began our discussion on how to use Pinterest to promote your mommy blog.
We advised you to create a free Pinterest business account. From there, we told you to develop a niche for your Pinterest Page so that followers could find your board based on their needs. We then gave you instructions on how to create a Rich Pin, which gets more attention than a regular pin. Finally, we discussed how to write a Pinterest bio that was rich in keywords.
Sorry to leave you hanging, but we have more ideas on how to use Pinterest to promote your blog.
Here are the next steps of the process
Determine the best blogs to pin.
Look at the content you have created. Which articles do you feel would be best for the Pinterest audience? Do a little keyword research by playing around on the website. For example, if you type “potty training” in the search bar, the first thing that comes up is “potty training boys.” The next is “potty training girls 2 year old tips.” The fourth search option is “potty training puppy.”
Do you have any content that would help anyone with those scenarios?
If you have decided to only post articles on your board offering nutrition advice for kids, you may search Pinterest for “hiding vegetables in kids food.” Others have searched for “hidden vegetables” or “picky eaters.”
Do you have any articles that would help anyone feed picky kids?
Although every type of content can be found on Pinterest, you may have the most luck with “how-to” pieces that other moms may pin to reference over time.
Choose an image to accompany the pin.
Choosing the best image to accompany the pin is one of the most critical steps in this process. Some bloggers develop a specific style that they use for each of their images. Having a style helps brand and identify their blogs. Others experiment on what images receives the most clicks.
Regardless of what image you choose, you must include text with your image. Otherwise, your beautiful photo that took 45 minutes to get right will be meaningless to the person browsing Pinterest.
If you have a rich pin, at least there will be some surrounding text to explain the image, but don’t rely on it. We told you last time that it sometimes takes Pinterest a few days to process your request for a rich pin.
Write a description of your pin.
Once a person clicks on your pin, he or she will see a description of what type of content they would receive once entering your website. Write a clear, concise sentence or two about what your reader will learn. Use different keywords to describe your content.
Pinterest allows you 500 characters when writing a pin description, but don’t feel as if you need to use every single character. Use hashtags to describe your pin as well.
Make sure your pins are searchable.
It would be a pity if you went through all this trouble only to find that your pins weren’t searchable. Go to your account settings and make sure the search privacy setting allows users to find your content.
Engage.
If you are an experienced mommy blogger, you know what “engage” means. If you are new to this gig, “engage” means to follow the people who follow you. Like and comment on your followers’ pins. Repin items that would appeal to your audience. Respond to comments on your own pins.
In short, become a part of the Pinterest community just as you did with the blogger community. Bloggers do not work in isolation. They work together to promote each other.
Make sure you have a “pin it” button on your blog.
There are a variety of online tutorials teaching you how to create a “pin it” button on your blog, but probably the easiest way to do it is to WordPress plug-in.
Having a pin it button will enable your subscribers to help you gain a larger following.
Rinse, Lather, Repeat.
Why stop with one Pinterest board for your blog? Have one board highlight children’s nutrition. Create another board to focus on the cheerleading mom community. One board can focus on potty training, and another can focus on strategies to help your child with homework.
Soon you will have created a one-stop-shop empire that will answer all the questions that have plagued parents since the beginning of time. Or at least you will be able to teach moms how to hide spinach in their child’s chocolate cake.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Grow Your Audience, Mom Marketing Coach |
Oh, how quickly things change.
One minute you are picking gum out of your daughter’s armpit, and the next minute you are helping her pick out a homecoming dress.
If you are earning an income as a mommy blogger, this change may cause you concern. It should cause you concern.
Here is why:
1. Your child’s “issues” aren’t quite so cute anymore.
Kids say the darndest things, and people like reading stories about what they say. The internet goes crazy over pictures of round-faced toddlers with crazy hair, and cute videos of toddlers often go viral.
As your child ages, their idiosyncrasies may not be as funny. Their tantrums become embarrassing, and their strange way of saying things becomes less cute and more cause for concern.
If you are earning your bread and butter from sharing these cute stories of your daily life with the rest of the world, it’s time to develop a back-up plan. Or you can have another baby.
2. Your child is going to begin to resent your blogging.
Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers may know that mommy takes a lot of photos and spends a lot of time in front of a laptop, but they are clueless as to the reasons why. Your grade-school aged kid will be much more aware of your hobby.
They will not find it amusing when a friend at church mentions an embarrassing moment that was chronicled in your blog. They will not be impressed when you receive hundreds of likes and shares on the article you wrote about bed wetting. And when your child’s friend finds a funny photo of your kid and shares it with their classmates, your child will become downright angry.
3. Blogging about your older children may be unsafe.
When your children are young, they never leave your sight. You don’t go anywhere without your kids, and your kids don’t go anywhere without an adult.
As your child ages, he or she will have more independence and freedom. This is a natural part of the aging process.
Even though most people are good, there are some creepy people who will see photos of your child online and have ill intent. You can protect your children from these icky people when they are younger, but you will have a more difficult time doing so if they are walking to and from school on their own.
While it’s understandable that mommy bloggers should quit when their children age, it really is a pity. Parenting doesn’t get easier as kids grow up, and people still need advice and reassurance. Even though parents of older kids aren’t as likely to read posts about teething or diaper rash, they would want to learn about issues that affect older kids.
You may be sad when your mommy blogging days end. The blogging community tends to be a close-knit group, and after you quit sharing the details of your day, you may feel as if you are losing a group of friends.
But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. You can take the skills you learned blogging to earn a few extra bucks each month.
1. Change the focus of your blogs.
Perhaps your child is a figure skater or a golfer. Maybe your daughter shows horses. Chances are you have learned a lot about these sports as your child has advanced in skill. You probably have also learned a lot about the expensive equipment that accompanies these pastimes.
Write a blog about being a figure-skater mom. You don’t have to include specific information about your child. In fact, you can protect his or her privacy as much as you like. Other parents will still want to read your stories and advice if they also have a child who participates in those sports.
You can also use your influence and knowledge to create an affiliate marketing program. Write reviews on the best type of bedazzler. Write about where to buy golf clubs for your growing child. Create affiliate links to sell products through your website.
2. Guest write on someone else’s blog.
If you have developed your writing skills through your time as a blogger, you can utilize those skills and find freelance work on mom-focused websites. There are tons of jobs posted on Upwork that are seeking short articles. They don’t pay well, but they will at least keep you active within that community.
3. Assist others with starting a mommy blog.
If you gained popularity as a mommy blogger, you could teach others how you did it. Evaluating and editing someone else’s work may not seem as satisfying as writing your own copy, but you can at least feel good that you are sharing your knowledge and expertise with another mom.
This article is originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach!
Blog Tips, Blog Traffic, Blogging, Blogging Success, Grow Your Audience, Marketing Tips, Mom Marketing Coach, Mompreneur |
Mom Blog’s Five Content Ideas
Social media marketing has been one of the most effective strategies in introducing a brand. It’s also a proven tool to sustain a good reputation.
The question is, have you been using social media to boost your business presence? And if you are, are you using it the right way?
These are the questions that we plan to address in this post. If you’re encountering problems like not knowing how to start in marketing your online shop or mom blog through social media or running out of content to share, you’ve come to the right place.
What we’d like to share with you first is that you can’t post just about anything in your online shop or mom blog’s social media accounts. But you cannot be too careful either that you tend not to post anything at all.
For us, the perfect balance lies in the diversity and sufficiency of content that you share in these accounts. Here are some content ideas that will help keep your social media presence consistent.
Blog Posts
Obviously, if you’re a mom blogger with your own blog site, you should publish these blog posts to your social media accounts. If you write once, twice, or even more frequently in a week, then you should have more content to post in your social media accounts.
Even online shops should have a blog page in their website where posts can be published. This is where your ideas, tips, explanations, and elaboration about your products and services can be written.
Quick notes on publishing blog posts to social media:
- Always upload an attractive featured image that goes with the link to your blog post
- Make a very short description as the caption for the link post
- Instagram doesn’t show a clickable link so you might want to shorten the URL of your post by using third-party apps or programs like Rebrandly
- Better to have a uniform caption across all social media accounts for consistency
Your Own Photos
Photos are eye candies. This has been proven by the popularity of Instagram as a photo-sharing site. People love sharing and looking at photos whatever those photos may be so make sure you show yours.
If you’re selling products from your online shop, share photos of them on some days when you don’t have any new blog post to share. If yours is a mom blog site, share a photo related to your niche and write a catchy caption for it.
Graphic Design
As we said earlier, the content of your social media accounts should be diverse. Aside from purely single photos or collage of photos, post graphics on some days too. This kind of content is more catchy than pure texts and it’s effective in delivering a message at one glance. It could be a graphic design of your promo for the month or an infographic explaining something on your niche.
If your mom blog is about parenting, you might want to share a creative infographic showing a day in a businesswoman-mom’s life. If you’re selling healthy baby products in your online shop, you might want to share graphics showing the advantages of those products. Extend your imagination and go as creative as you can. You have so much time to do that with 7 posts a week, one each day, or more!
Website Pages
Still not enough graphics, photos, and blog posts to share? Then post a link of your website pages to your social media accounts.
Publish a link post of your About page and write a very short summary of it as the caption. Share your Reviews page so your audience can see how trustworthy you are. You can also share links to your Service pages to tell everyone what you can do for them.
Use these website pages to introduce yourself, your products, and your services to your audience little by little.
External Sources
Now, we’re going offsite. You can make your social media posts highly diverse by sharing something interesting from another website every once in a while.
For example, if there’s a latest global news that everyone is talking about, share a link from a news site to your page and put a caption that people can relate to. The same strategy applies when there’s a local news in your country that’s worth sharing.
Some other external sources that you can publish in your social media accounts are links, videos, and photos about trending online topics. They will easily catch the attention of your audience so expect to reap thumbs ups and hearts when you post them!
Last Piece of Advice
Consistency is the name of the game in social media marketing. You cannot stop because you don’t have a content to post. Instead, you should keep looking for content so you’ll have something to share with your audience. This is how you start building and maintaining a strong presence in this marketing arena.
This article was originally posted Mom Marketing Coach
Blog Tips, Blogging, Blogging Success, Grow Your Audience, Mom Marketing Coach |
Monetize Your Mom Blog
With any small business comes costs, and it’s no different for a newly created mom blog. Of course, with these costs also comes the desire to make money to sustain the needs of your new business, also to help support your family, your passion, and hobbies!
Below you’ll find four great ways to jumpstart and monetize your mom blog quickly after launch! All of these are easy to do, and with a little work and research can help you earn money for years to come thanks to your new blog.
Advertising
Starting our list we have one of the more obvious ways to make money through your blog; advertising.
Now don’t shy away! Many people feel that running ads on your blog has to be intrusive, annoying, or downright scummy. I’m here to tell you that this is definitely not the case! It’s all about how you do it and all about the kinds of ads you run.
Depending on your niches, you may be able to find an online ad service that will target their ads to your blog’s topic. Not only does this help them by showing ads your audience actually cares about, but it helps you make more money, since more people will want to click on the ads on your site.
Better yet, find a company or service provider in your niche and partner with them directly! While this may not be possible early on in your blogging career, plan for it down the line. This way you’re choosing exactly who to run ads for, ensuring they align with your blog’s message and values, and that they pay you a fair price for the precious internet real estate you’re giving them!
Affiliate Marketing
Next up we have affiliate marketing, which is in many ways similar to advertising, but more organically woven into your content.
For example, have you ever been researching, say, the best crock pots available on Amazon? You probably found a lot of blogs with an affiliate notice at the top. This lets you know that, if you buy one of those crock pots from the link on their site, they earn a little kickback at no charge to you.
Guess what? You can do this on your blog too!
Through super simple programs like Amazon Affiliates, affiliate marketing has never been easier. Whenever you mention a product you already enjoy and use on your blog, make it an affiliate link. That way, if one of your readers finds it equally as useful and buys it through your link, you earn a little bit of money as a thank you from the seller!
It’s a really simple process, and is likely to earn you way more money than plain old advertising!
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is similar to affiliate marketing in that it’s essentially advertising that’s been organically included in your blog’s articles and posts. Sponsored content differs in that it’s usually done through a direct partnership with your sponsor company and that the entire article is geared towards selling that product to your readers.
In terms of advertising, sponsored posts will probably be the most lucrative you can do, though they’ll also require the most work. Researching, writing, and promoting the article are key if you want to earn money and a good reputation with your sponsors.
However, when done right, these types of posts are great ways to promote products and services you enjoy and use to your readers while making a large chunk of income for your blog!
Ebooks, Courses, and Coaching
Last but not least we have the most work intensive of the four; ebooks, courses, and coaching.
Essentially, this method requires you to spend a large chunk of time upfront to create a product or service, design it, market it, and sell it to your audience. However, what you get from all of that work is a sustainable source of income that doesn’t require much upkeep once it’s been created!
This is likely where you’ll want your mom blog to go in the future, moving you away from relying on other’s sponsorships and ad money and instead relying on your own fantastic products and offerings! Product creation is definitely a “down the road” endeavor for the beginning mom blogger, but it’s something to keep in mind as you start planning your monetization strategy and preparing your mom blog to become a profitable endeavor.
When combined, these four methods are a great way to start small, making bits of money here and there through ad revenue, and then grow as your blog grows, moving on to affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and eventually your own products.
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Blogging, Blogging Success, Grow Your Audience, Marketing Tips |
Improve Mom Blog’s Traffic Using Social Media
Every blog in its early days will struggle to get enough traffic to sustain it. It’s totally natural, but it is disheartening for many new blogging moms.
Fortunately, there are some simple social media hacks that can help you get more traffic for your blog and grow a loyal audience that will sustain you for the rest of your blogging career!
Facebook
First up we have Facebook! The titan of the social media sphere, practically everyone is on Facebook, making it the perfect place to begin your social media work. Best of all, you probably already know quite a few people on Facebook who would happily follow your blog’s page and help promote your posts!
Don’t be afraid to leverage family and friends here! The more exposure you can get the better. Your focus on Facebooks should be to provide excellent, in-depth content that you can promote over and over. Of course, don’t be afraid to promote other people in your niche as well and share the love. This is a great way to make friends and create some good will. Good karma never hurt anyone!
Instagram
Of course, not every blog is ideal for Facebook! Some blogs have a stronger focus on photography, food, or fashion than in-depth articles. If that’s what your blog is all about, then Instagram is the place for you.
A social media platform dedicated entirely to photos, Instagram is the perfect place to promote your beautiful, enticing, or delicious photo skills and earn followers that love you for them. Your focus here should be on creating the most alluring photos possible. Make sure they’re well lit, colorful, and fit a cohesive style that your whole blog contributes to.
And don’t be afraid to share articles here as well! Just focus on providing a beautiful image to link people back to your article, and make sure the photo relates to your topic! That way the people who come to your blog from Instagram have something to stick around for beyond your photography skills.
Twitter
Next up we have Twitter, one of the often overlooked younger brothers of the titans that are Facebook and Instagram. Hopefully, you won’t make the same mistake of underestimating Twitter that many of your competitors do!
If you’re an engaging writer and are proud of your wordsmithing skills, then Twitter is the perfect place to begin finding an audience. Because of the short character limit, Twitter works best for promoting articles on your site with catchy headlines and memorable quotes.
Of course, Twitter has its own unique requirement when compared to Instagram and Facebook, and the focus is more on your existing readers than on new ones. You can use Twitter to remind your audience of a new post, and encourage them to visit your site. When they read your article and love it, encourage them to retweet it to help you reach a broader audience.
If you already have a small, but loyal fan base, Twitter may be a great place to get started on your social media growth, letting you leverage existing readers to gain a new and highly engaged audience.
Pinterest
Last, but definitely not least, we have Pinterest! A strange hybrid between Instagram and Facebook, Pinterest requires both great writing and quality graphic design, but the payoff for the extra work is immense.
While a Facebook post or an Instagram photo may last on someone’s feed for four or five minutes, a post on Pinterest can continue to be circled around for years after you initially created it. That means you get a huge return on your time investment, making Pinterest one of the best social media platforms for beginning mom bloggers!
Because of this, Pinterest has a ton of moving parts to keep in mind. Setting up rich pins, joining group boards, and even just the basics of designing pins can all seem super intimidating at first. However, once you’ve done the research and mastered these skills you’ll be a pinning genius in no time, and can reap the rewards Pinterest has to offer as one of the fastest growing social media platforms around!
Thanks to all of these great social media platforms, gaining new traffic for your growing mom blog is more attainable than ever. Since everyone already congregates on these platforms, why not take advantage of them? They’re free, easy to use and learn, and the perfect way to jumpstart your blog’s growth and success!
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
Blog Tips, Blogging, Blogging Success, Grow Your Audience, Marketing Tips |
Growing Your Mom Blog’s Audience
So you have your mom blog up and running. Congratulations! You’ve passed the biggest hurdle on your blogging journey! Now comes growing your mom blog’s audience and reaching newly engaged readers for your content.
Of course, this will require a bit of learning and work on your part, but don’t despair. The three methods you’ll find below are all simple to get into and proven to work, bringing your blog the traffic it needs to become wildly successful!
Social Media
Starting our list is the simplest of the bunch; Social media! You probably already use and love social media in your everyday life and you aren’t alone. Nearly everyone is on some form of social media these days, and you can be sure you’ll find tons of people who’d love to read and experience your content. You just have to know how to reach them!
There are a variety of platforms you can explore, depending on your audience from Facebook, to Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. What you choose really depends on the type of people you think would enjoy your content.
Once you’ve decided which platform is right for your blog, all you need to do is focus your content to fit what succeeds on that service. Facebook likes clickable articles, while Twitter is a great place for impactful quotes and tidbits of information. Instagram is perfect for photobloggers, fashionistas, or culinary geniuses, while Pinterest acts as a hybrid of all three!
Once your social media strategy is in place, give it a few weeks to pick up traction! These things take time and will grow exponentially if you give them a chance to take off. Don’t rush things! If you only get a handful of followers your first week, that’s ok! So long as you keep growing slowly and steadily, you’ll be just fine.
Advertising
One of the next most popular ways to grow your mom blog’s audience is through good old advertising, but not the type you may be thinking of. Most people imagine the annoying TV commercials that interrupt their favorite shows, or the pop-ups and banners ads that litter many websites. Advertising this way doesn’t really work for most bloggers though. Instead, there’s a better way!
Much like how you used social media platforms above to generate organic, free traffic, you can also use these platforms to generate extra paid advertising traffic. Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram all have the ability to display your paid ads on their site, and since that’s where most of your users already are, it makes sense to embrace these types of ads.
One of the best strategies for maximizing your return on these social media ads is to pick from posts, articles, photos, or pins that have already done well for your organic traffic. Did you have an Instagram post that went viral or a Pinterest pin that doubled your traffic? Set those up as ads to reach even more people with an ad you have essentially already tested, for free!
Newsletters
Finally, we have a slightly unorthodox way to increase your mom blog’s audience, and that’s through your email newsletter!
While at first glance this doesn’t seem to make sense, think about it. Someone comes to your blog, likes your content, and decides to sign up for your newsletter so they don’t miss your future posts. As more and more people sign up for your newsletter, more and more people come to check out your posts when they go live thanks to the newsletter they receive. Soon you’ve built an audience that loves your work, is excited about your products or services, and wants to hear from you.
Having a loyal audience like this is one of the most vital elements of having a successful blog and something you simply can’t ignore if you want to do well in the blogging space!
Of course, it isn’t as simple as putting an email signup form and waiting for the subscribers to flow in. Many people will want some incentive or reason to sign up, and this provides you with an opportunity to provide them with more great content that will encourage them to come back for more.
Here are some ideas you can use to encourage people to join your newsletter!
- Make a free ebook about your niche
- Make a pretty checklist, planner, or calendar based on one of your posts
- Write a short email course teaching your readers skills you mentioned in one of your posts
- Offer something personalized for people who sign up
- Run a short giveaway or contest for people who join your newsletter
All of these are excellent ideas that will jumpstart your newsletter activities. Paired with social media and advertising, you’ll have a successful mom blog in no time!
This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.
