The Unplanned Blog Break: What I Learned & How to Avoid It

August 23, 2016 by Angie 21 Comments

Occasionally, when it comes to Summer, the blogging world kind of simmers down. Readership drops, sales decrease, and most people just spend the warm-weather away from their computers doing other fun stuff. I’ve always seen my way through these Summer readership slumps with a steady posting schedule that doesn’t vary much from my typical plan, and have always prided myself on not disappearing. But this summer? This Summer found me taking an unplanned blog break.

About My Unplanned Blog Break

No, I wasn’t completely gone, but I definitely wasn’t around much… I mean last week I posted 1 post. ONE POST. Who is this blogger? Certainly not me-the person who sits in front of a desk every single day even during the Summer months and continues to pound out post after post.

But it was me-and as my posting dwindled through July I promised myself I’d be back at it bigger and better in August… And then August came and it was worse. The amount of time working two jobs increased and the amount of time being able to write, post, and promote my blog plummeted.

Let’s not kid ourselves, I’ve always been too busy, but out of all of the things that keep me busy, the blog is the one that I’m most passionate about and most adamant about not dropping the ball on. But drop the ball I did… I was working 60-70 hours a week between my two jobs and just exhausted all of the time. On nights I closed at work I’d get home late and have to get up early the next day, and end up so tired that when I had an evening off I’d just crash because my body desperately needed to catch up on sleep. This brought many a day looking at my blog, blinking, and unable to mentally put what I wanted to write into form.

How My Unplanned Blog Break Made Me Feel

Every time I thought about my blog I’d get anxiety. I wasn’t posting as much as I wanted, I hadn’t participated in my blogging group (which I admin) as much as I wanted, and I wasn’t getting around to reading everyone’s posts as much as I wanted. My inbox was overflowing with unread email, my sponsors weren’t getting their fair share of promotion, and there were literally 30+ posts sitting in draft that I hadn’t gotten around to finishing and scheduling. It made me sick to my stomach to think about, because my blog has always been my safe space, passion project, and just my favorite thing.

The more anxiety and stress I felt about my blogging issues the less likely I was to blog or work on promotion. I’ve always been the type that if I get too stressed about something I pretend it doesn’t exist until it explodes into a bigger and messier issue I have to then clean up. I’m the worst type of procrastinator, even procrastinating my procrastination, and so it snowballs out of control, and before I can stop it, and my anxiety gets the better of me.

What I Learned from my Unplanned Blog Break

Now, more than ever, I know that with blogging your heart must be in it. More so, even if your heart is in it, you have to have time you can actually devote to it. Blogging may be my passion project, but it is a full-time job in and of itself, and if you’re overworked and stressed-out there’s just no way to keep it up-let alone produce meaningful content for your readers. Don’t get me started on promoting it properly… If you let that go on too long the burnout is harsh, and eventually you lose the love you hold for your favorite hobby/income source.

How To Avoid Taking an Unplanned Blog Break

Chances are, if you’be been blogging for as long as me (8+ years!) you’ve already experienced an unplanned blog break in one way or another. If you haven’t had an unplanned blog break yourself, you’ve seen bloggers you follow go through it-and possibly you’ve seen some never come back. I couldn’t imagine putting so much hard work into my blog just to get so burnt out I took a break that became permanent. I don’t think my heart could take it.

So how can you help avoid taking an unplanned blog break that could turn into giving up blogging? Here are some ideas.

Don’t Take on Too Much

This is my biggest problem-I take on too much. I’m forever taking on more than I can handle-though it’s typically because I’m really excited about the project at the time. I loved blogging here so much that I branched out and opened up several other blogs, a few on my own, and a few with friends. Then I took on managing Facebook groups, Instagram challenges, big group giveaways, reviews and sponsorship from multiple programs, and much much more. As it turns out, I can’t do it all. I’m really not Wonder Woman.

It’s Okay to Say No

Seriously, if you have too much on your plate it’s okay to turn down a sponsored post, giveaway invite, or other projects. Things like that will come around again, and it’s better to say “I’m sorry, I can’t do that at this time” than to promise something you can’t deliver and burn a bridge with that company/person forever.

Let Some Things Go

If you’re like me, and you find yourself with way too much on your plate-let some things go. Sit down and take stock of everything you have to do and all of the projects you’ve committed to and decide which ones you MUST keep and which ones you should probably let go of. It doesn’t have to be super detailed, but it needs to be clear to you what you’ve got on your plate and how to handle it.

I recommend sitting down and making a list of all of the things you need/want to be doing and compare it with a list of all the things you’re actually doing, then adjust as needed. It’s definitely fine to let some things go in order to achieve more of what you want to be doing and reach your goals.

Accept Help

If you’re starting to feel overwhelmed and stressed out with all you have to accomplish, get some help. If it’s your daily life, ask your partner/friend/family member to assist with a few things. If it’s your day job (assuming you have one aside from blogging) get a coworker to take on some responsibility for a while. If it’s blogging, there are a few things you can do to lighten your load.

Hire a Virtual Assistant

That’s right, there are lots of fantastic VAs out there looking for work, and while it may up your monetary expenses, it definitely lowers the expense your body/anxiety has to put out. I’m so grateful for my VA and her help completing some of the threads in my groups.

Request Guest Posts

If you’re struggling to find the time to write/create content, why not reach out to some of your favorite bloggers for help? Many bloggers would love the chance at a free guest post on a well-established blog, and in return for awesome content they’ll get credit and a shout out that will help their SEO and help your readers find them.

Take on a Partner/Regular Contributors

If you’d like to take the guest posting to a new level-take on some contributes! I’m so grateful for my fantastic partners Kenzie and Beth on the two other blogs I co-manage (Our book blog Page à Vu and the blog swapping blog Chaotic Goddess Swaps). But, if you don’t want a full-on partner on your blog, take regular contributors and set up a signature that allows them credit for their posts.

Want to know what that looks like? Take a peek at how Dana from The Wonder Forest has her blog set up for contributors. It’s so well done (but everything she does is) and a great example.

Take a Planned Blog Break

If all else fails, and you still really need a break away from your blog, that’s okay. Seriously. Plan some time away and let your readers know. Remind them that you’ll be back and you’re not just disappearing, and that they can keep up with you somewhere else if they can. Typically, you may still update your Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat while you’re not blogging, so it’s a great way to keep your readership base actively engaged and interested until you start posting again.

Have you ever taken a blog break?

Angie

Angie is a coffee-fueled writer, artist-wanna-be, and over-worker who currently resides in a tiny fixer-upper near Salt Lake City with her boyfriend and 70lb rescue pittie. She works full time in Customer Service/Computers, part-time in retail and fashion, goes to school part-time on and off, maintains this and another couple of blogs, as well as volunteers with rescue dogs. In her free time, what little of it there is, she likes to read, play nerd games, craft and create art, and spend time with all of the awesome people in her life.

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

Blog Investments to Up Your Blogging Game – Better Your Blog

June 15, 2016 by Angie 39 Comments

If you’ve been blogging for a while and have decided to step up your blogging game in order to take your blog to the next level, chances are it’s time for you to make a few blog investments. Blog investments are things that you pay money towards in order to improve your blog. The key word here is investments, because putting the money out for these things can help increase your chances of having your blog found, building a following, and earning money with your blog.

Especially if you plan to use your blog for any kind of business, be it for a full-time job or just a little money earned on the side, you’ll need to make some blog investments. As the old adage goes, you have to spend money to make money, and it turns out it’s quite true. The following blog investments will not only help make your blog a more legitimate source of income, but will at the very least, improve your life as far as your ease of usability is concerned.

This post does contain some affiliate links. At no extra cost to you I may receive compensation if you buy something through my links. Doing so allows me to keep the good posts like this one coming.

The Most Necessary Blog Investments

Some blog investments are as little as a few dollars, some could be quite as large as a few hundred dollars, and you’ll have to decide which ones are important for you to make now and which ones you may be able to put off until you have more income coming in to cover it. I’ll start with the investments that I feel are really most necessary to having

A Domain Name

Perhaps the most important thing you can invest in for your blog is a domain name. This is your statement to the web of what your site is-and that’s important. You’ll want to go ahead and buy yourself a domain early in the process of blogging, so that when you finally get around to it you don’t find that someone else has bought the domain that goes with your blog name, and then you have to re-brand. That’s not super fun unless you’re craving a new start.

Plus, let’s face it, www. mysocalledchaos .com looks much better than what I started with on Blogger, though I was very lucky to be able to buy my domain when I finally got around to growing into a real blogger. I went from agofish.blogger to mysocalledchaos.blogger to my actual domain-and the subdomains of basic blogging sites (yourname.blogger, yourname.wordpress, yourname.squarespace, etc.) don’t necessarily scream “I’m a professional blogger!” If you’re hoping to turn your passion into a profit, you want everything about it to tell the world, and potential partners, that you are a professional.

Web Hosting

Another thing I’d urge you to consider is your web hosting. Sure, you can sign up for free hosting through Blogger or WordPress (or a few other sites), but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best thing for you-especially if you want to actually turn your blog into a business venture of some kind. There’s a lot you can’t do with your basic free platforms, and while I sincerely loved working on Blogger, moving to self-hosted WordPress was the best move I could have ever made.

Being on self-hosted wordpress gives me easily ten times the editing options, easily installed plugins (that I use for nearly everything-it’s amazing what kind of plugins are out there to save you effort, time, and money when you are on self-hosted WordPress) and I’m loving it so much so far. I personally did not care for Squarespace as much, but lots of bloggers have chosen to go that route instead and many are happy with it as well.

A Good Computer

While you could technically get by with an old junky computer, or a tablet, it’s not going to be the best option for you. You’re going to want something that allows you to create blog posts without it crashing out on you ever few seconds. I’d recommend investing in a computer with some good RAM (Random Access Memory-it affects how many things you can have open at once) so that you can utilize all the programs you may need to use without the computer slowing beyond use.

Other equipment you may want to consider when investing in a new computer:

A Wireless Mouse – I don’t know why it took me so long to buckle down and order a wireless mouse, but it’s totally changed the way I do things when I’m at home working on my laptop. Also, I just ordered a simple Amazon Basics Wireless Mouse and it was under $12. Such a small investment and it sped up my whole process by a surprising amount.
A Big Monitor (or Two) – At work, I have three monitors, and it is the most amazing thing ever. At home, I have a tiny 13″ screen on my laptop, and I find myself not even wanting to bother with any editing, designing, or even the basic blogging-it’s just too small. Logically, I know I wont be able to afford three nice monitors at home, but I can invest in at least one good size monitor and that’s one of my next investments.
Backup Drives – Another imporant aspect of hardware you should have are backup drives. I always recommend that you back up your blog and then store it off of your hard drive. Computers crash, can be damaged in natural disasters (or by spilling your coffee), or can be stolen. Having an external drive for backup is much safer than just leaving everything on your hard drive all the time. I also recommend having some kind of online backup software too-because to be completely honest-if something is important absolutely back it up twice.

Brand Blog Investments

Since we’ve discussed (what I deem to be) the most important blogging investments, let’s move on to some different items you may want to consider investing in; items like your brand. If you want to stand out in the blogging community and be approachable by companies and potential sponsors, you’ll want to invest in items to brand your blog. Your brand should go along with your blog name, and the domain you purchased.

Important elements of your brand include:

Blog Design

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, but your blog design is so so so important. I’ve already written about some of the most important blog design basics to think about, but investing in a good design is really your best idea. If you took my advice from above and went with self-hosted WordPress, wordpress themes are AMAZING. Themes can be totally interractive and beautiful, and you can even customize most of them to fit how you want them to be.

Scarlet Genesis WordPress Theme by 21st Avenue Design

Natalie ECommerce WordPress Theme by Lovely Confetti

I bought my current blog design off of Etsy, as you can find lots of WordPress Themes on Etsy, but I’ve also enjoyed snagging themes from Envye (the blog design shop by the talented Dana of The Wonder Forest), and I’ve heard great things about Theme Forest for purchasing them as well. From my experience, themes can run anywhere from about $15 to $200, but I’ve had great success with the $40-$60 range of themes out there. You can find some really great stuff for not too much-and then tweak it a bit to be more personal to you.

The two pretty WordPress Themes shown above are Scarlet by 21st Avenue Design and Natalie by Lovely Confetti.

Collective Dots Blogger Template by Social and Chic

Josefin Blogger Template by BThemez Templates

If you can’t afford to go ahead with self-hosted WordPress or one of the other hosting options, there are pretty designs you can buy for blogger too. You can pick up a more unique Blogger Template than what is offered in the actual Blogger design section, and it will look a lot better than something that’s terribly basic. Unless you have killer web and graphic design talent, I’d totally recommend that option. There are tons of Blogger Templates on Etsy.

The two pretty Blogger Templates shown above are Collective Dots by Social and Chic and Josefin by BThemez Templates.

A Branded Logo

You may want to start by thinking about a logo for your brand. A logo could be as simple as your blog name in a specific font, or it could be an image/design that reflects your blog and your branding. This is great for putting on the blog as your header, or putting anywhere else where you want recognition of the brand relation-like your social media sites or your watermark on photos.

Logos can cost anywhere from a small amount of money to a large amount of money, but having one designed for you that fits your style, design, and brand is important. There are lots of designers out there, and you can find a lot of options for custom logo design on Etsy as well.

Fonts

Fonts are a great way to differentiate yourself from everyone else, and I recommend tying this in with your branding as well. If you like the fonts that came with the blog design you purchased, but they weren’t included for your use with the blog design, I’d recommend purchasing the matching font (you can email the designer if it’s not clear up front what font it is) so that you can use it for any of your own editing. Especially if you are making graphics for sharing (i.e. for creating Pinterest-worthy images) and want them to match your branding.

Visual Content Investments

The visual elements of your blog are some of the most notable elements, and thus you’ll want to focus on making them really stand out professionally. You’ll want good images to incorporate with your well-written content (I’m assuming you already have that) and you’ll need to really invest in some good equipment to pull it off. Yes, you don’t need nice equipment to take photos, but it sure helps your images stand out against the rest.

A Nice Camera

I could probably put a nice camera up at the top in the necessary blog investments, but I decided against it and put it down here. Yes, you can take some fairly decent images with simple cameras or camera phones these days, so you can get by without it if you have to. However, I’d still highly recommend investing in a good DSLR if you plan to have a nice visual element on your blog. You can really tell the difference in images. Yes, I do occasionally still use my phone to snap a good Instagram photo (which occasionally gets shared to the blog as well) but for my really great posts I always try to use my Canon T3i if possible. It’s an older model now, but it is still a good little camera. One day I think I’ll update to the Canon EOS 70D though

If you look at the example above, you’ll see that while you can still take a fairly pretty photo with a camera phone, the one taken by the DSLR just comes out so much more stunning and vibrant. You get a level of quality with a DSLR than you do with a regular point and shoot or mobile camera.

Other nice photography supplies I would recommend investing in with your camera include:

A 50mm Lens – Often called a “fast 50” this lens takes the most gorgeous photos. It’s by far my favorite lens I own, and while they can run you a good $300 plus, I snagged one for only about $99 when I got my camera a few years ago. It’s simpler, butthe photos still turn out wonderfully.
Lights – If you want to be able to take good photos inside, you’ll definitely want to invest in some lights. Your flash just wont cut it I’m afraid, but I picked up a couple of soft box lights for only like $75 and they’ve been WONDERFUL. They help so much. A good light box would work wonders for any products you want to shoot too.
Backdrops – Photo backdrops can be a great thing to have on hand too. If you have a little money you can purchase some fantastic and unique photo backdrop options on Etsy or pick up a cool photo studio backdrop from Amazon instead.
Photo Props – That’s right, having lovely props in any stylized photos you take can seriously be a good investment. I picked up some silk flowers at the craft store, and some other little things like pearls and fake diamonds for not very much-and they look nice in product shots as a little table decor here and there.
A Photo Editor – Personally, I use Photoshop and Lightroom the most in editing my photos, and I signed up for the Creative Cloud membership where I pay a small fee each a month for access to it all-so I didn’t just buy the software outright and never have to upgrade. They have cheaper pricing for students and teachers. If you’re not ready to go all out with a heavy hitter like Photoshop, you can get memberships to services like PicMonkey which a lot of bloggers use, and I’ve dabbled with a few times. It has a lot of functionality for a web based editor. If you need an editor on your phone, I’d recommend VSCO or A Color Story, both available in the app store.
Stock Photos – Another thing to consider for your visual elements are stock photos. No, I don’t mean the cheesy blonde girl holding a sandwich and smiling at you with teeth so white she could bring a ship in from harbor (unless that’s your thing, then no judgement lol) but there are quite a lot of good looking stock photos out there that you can use when you don’t have the ability to take a photo for a certain post you’re working on. I use Canva quite a bit, since you can get an image for $1 on there and edit yourself, or add elements they offer for editing as well right through their site. I’ve also heard amazing things about memberships to something called The Styled Stock Library (read Anne’s review for more information) and am considering trying it out. There are so many other stock places out there though-you can get memberships to ShutterStock, Ghetty Images, Pixabay, Death to the Stock Photo, etc.

Blogger Organization Investments

One of the most crucial things I can recommend to any blogger is to get organized-and that’s coming from someone who is one of the most unorganized people ever. In fact, getting organized is hard enough as it is for me, but staying organized is far less easy. But, to be a good blogger and maintain your proper commitments, you need to be organized-and the only thing that keeps me afloat with that are some organization investments I’ve made for my blog.

An Editorial Calendar

I know I’ve mentioned CoSchedule to you a million times, but I just can’t not here. It’s easily one of the best investments I’ve ever made, and even though I see the price tag for my renewal in a few months and cringe a little, I know I can’t live without it. It’s an editorial calendar that also does social media automation from it-and I almost exclusively work from my calendar dashboard. I haven’t found anything that at all competes with CoSchedule, but if you know of something, let me know in the comments-I’d love to be informed.

Social Media Automation

Another important thing to consider is social media automation. We spend so much time drafting and creating awesome posts it’s hard to find the time to promote and share on all of the social media channels we need to. Luckily, with CoSchedule, I can schedule the majority of my social media right from my post as I’m editing it-for any date, time, etc. It’s wonderful! I can also schedule social media from the actual Editorail Calendar dashboard I mentioned above, and see a break down of everything I have scheduled.

A Planner

Aside from having the Calendar, a good planner is nice to have on hand too. Whether you use an actual Blog Planner or just a regular planner (I’m loving my Happy Planner this year) you’ve purchased for the year, writing stuff down is a fantastic way to stay organized. Write down your due dates, make yourself a to-do list for each day and check things off as you get them done (you can even use these adorable checklist box stickers to deck it out), keep a running tracker of your blog goals, etc. It’s nice to have a physical copy of everything as well as any you have virtually.

Promotional Blog Investments

Advertising

Advertising is such a great investment for your blog (or any business related venture) and you should always plan to set aside part of your budget for it. Some of the most common places to advertise your blog would be google, social media (you can pay to have your posts seen more on most social media sites-such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest-and Facebook is one you definitely need to consider paying to promote posts on more often on), and other blogs. I love advertising through other bloggers, and I love offering advertising on my blog as well.

In fact, this Summer I’m having a BOGO sale on advertising and all ads are buy one month, get one month free! So purchase any ad between now and September and you’ll get a free month added to your plan as well! Buy two months, get two months free! It’s a sweet deal so reserve your ad today! (This only counts for sidebar and in-post banner ads, and not for consultations or other services.)

A Virtual Assistant

Another thing to consider investing in to help you stay organized and on top of all your promoting is a Virtual Assistant. This is especially useful if you’re promoting your posts via Facebook Groups, and hiring mine was one of the best decisions I made. Yes, I now pay out a bit more (though mine is less expensive than some I’ve seen) but I no longer have to spend tedious hours doing all of the threads I’ve promoted in. I still do some myself, like Pinterest and comment threads, but she takes care of a lot of the other stuff for me. It’s such a time saver!

Educational Blog Investments

Another great thing you can do is get properly educated on blogging so you know what you’re doing and feel more confident in it as well. There are lots of free resources out there, including my Better Your Blog Series, but you can also invest in some well put-together blogging education materials as well.

Blogging Courses

Taking a blogging course from another blogger can really help you learn from someone who’s been there. Some of these bloggers offer periodic free webinars so you can see their teaching style and what they have to offer, and decide if it’s worth it to sign up for a more costly paid course. While I’ve sat in on a few webinars, the only paid course I’ve taken was the Grow Your Instagram Course from Anna Scanlon (I really liked it, and would recommend it to anyone wanting to improve their Instagram.) I have also heard good things about the courses that Melissa Griffin offers, and if you do a little searching, so many bloggers are offering courses now as well.

Blogging Books

Another great way you can learn is by investing in some blogging-related books to read. There are tons of published books available, and even a lot of eBooks available from other bloggers out there that you can keep an eye out for as you browse your favorite blogs.

Other Blog Investments

Head Shots

You need good photos of yourself for your blog. I know, you may be thinking you don’t really need to post a photo of yourself-but unless you blog completely anonymously, you should have a quality photo showing your face in your About page and on your sidebar. This helps your readers connect with the person behind the blog, and a nice photo makes your blog look more professional.

A Photographer

This may seem a bit silly if you’ve already invested in a nice camera for your blog, and maybe it’s unnecessary if you’re a wizard with the self-timer and/or remote setting, but if you need photos taken of yourself you’re going to want a photographer’s eye. Especialy for your main head shots that I mentioned above-have an actual photographer take the shots for you. Also, a photographer is especially important if you’re a fashion blogger and are taking regular photos of your outfits and styles. Yes, you can have a friend or significant other take the photos, but unless they’re really skilled with a camera it wont turn out as good as a professional doing it.

All of the photos in the example above were taken with a nice DSLR, but the ones on the left were taken by my non-photographer friend (and then edited by me) and the one on the right was taken by my professional photographer friend Valor, of Valor Photography. The first example shows that a friend can do a fairly decent job, but it’s still not on the same level as the professional who has a trained eye for composition. The latter example is more often what you get when you just have someone who’s not trained in photography do it for you.

Blogging Conferences

To be completely honest, I have yet to attend a blogging conference… It’s a matter of money + time + introvert tendencies that has kept me from going to some (even though there have been a few held right here in Salt Lake City a few times-and I just noticed that the Build Your Blog Conference will be here next February too… Hmmm…). I’ve also kind of regretted not going… I see so many other bloggers making such great connections and doing wonderful networking at these things, and then even though I had anxiety at the thought of going, I get a powerful case of FOMO. The truth is, networking is key in building your blog into something more, and conferences are one of the best ways to do that.

Business Cards

Especially if you’ll be attending blog conferences you’ll want to have business cards handy to hand out to other bloggers and potential sponsors. Even if you don’t have any conferences planned, having a few business cards for your blog in your every day purse can be very useful as well. I can’t tell you how many times someone has introduced me and said “Oh Angie has an awesome blog!” and I’ve had to be like “Oh yeah its My So-Called Chaos…” and the better option would have been to hand them the business card. I’ve probably missed out on a few followers and sponsorship options just because I didn’t have any business cards with me… They’re still packed away somewhere after I moved, and I should get to finding them.

You can order some pretty inexpensive business cards from various sites, but I personally only use (and recommend) MOO for business cards. They’re high-quality and thick, and they look really nice and classy when you give them out. Plus, they come in other sizes (like square so you can use your Instagram photos for them) and you can use one of their designs or upload your own.

Fashionable Clothing

This one is pretty optional, but if you’ll be taking photos of yourself for your blog, or attending blog conferences and networking, you’re going to want some clothing that make you look fashionable and presentable. You’ll want to show your own style, but also keep up with current trends. Keep it classy. 🙂

What blog investments are you making?

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

How to Create Pinterest-Worthy Images – Better Your Blog

May 24, 2016 by Angie 38 Comments

Oh yes, I have another Pinterest post for you this week as another installment in The Better Your Blog Series. Pinterest is easily one of my favorite platforms, both to use personally and professionally for my blog and business. It’s one of the platforms I was most successful on the earliest in my blogging career, and I’ve been doing some updating lately that’s resulting in some great growth both on my actual Pinterest account and on page views brought to this blog from Pinterest. The biggest piece of the puzzle? Pinterest-worthy images.

No joke. You can pin until you’re blue in the face and write awesome content, but if the images in your post aren’t Pinterest-worthy they wont be re-pinned by as many people, and especially not by the hard-core Pinterest users… Those are the people you really want pinning your content too-the people with all of the followers and the prettiest Pinterest accounts.

I touched on this a little bit in last week’s post about how to rock your Pinterest profile, but I really wanted to go a little bit more in-depth with it here. Not only do I want to go into the reasoning behind making sure your images are Pinterest-worthy, but I also want to make sure So are you ready to learn more about making sure your images are Pinterest-worthy and how to create pinterest-worthy images? Yay! I’m so glad, keep reading…

How to create images that are worthy of Pinterest – #BetterYourBlog

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Why Your Images Need to be Pinterest-Worthy

So what exactly makes an image Pinterest-worthy? Well, I’m glad you asked because technically, just about any image can be pinned to your Pinterest account, but that doesn’t make them Pinterest-worthy. Pinterest-worthy would mean that the image not only looks good on Pinterest, but entices people to want to re-pin it, and as I mentioned above-entices the right people to want to re-pin it. Yes, we want everyone to pin our images no matter who they are, but we especially want the big-time pinners with all the followers and often-visited boards to pin our content-that’s how things could go viral.

What Your Images Need to be Pinterest-Worthy

You might be asking yourself what would keep the right pinners from pinning your content as it is already. Well, nothing… Technically. They could just as well pin your pin as anyone else’s and maybe they’ve already done so-if so, that’s GREAT! Maybe you are already making Pinterest-worthy goodies, or maybe even if your image wasn’t that pinnable the content was so great they saved it anyway (I’ve been known to make exceptions for good content).

But the reality of it is that if your image isn’t Pinterest-worthy it’s less likely to be pinned and most likely wont be pinned by as many people as it could have been. These big-time Pinterst users are getting picky-they only want to pin and share content with their friends and followers that fits a certain standard-the standard they themselves are trying to live up to and promote.

Pinterest-Worthy Images Are Vertical

Pinterest has openly put out there that pins that are vertical not only look better on their site, but get more pins, and a lot of bloggers have taken to only pinning vertical pins to keep their profiles looking good. It’s not that you can’t pin images that aren’t vertical, but I’d recommend at least making the main pinnable image in your post vertical.

If your pinnable images aren’t vertical you’re falling behind-step up your game.

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Since I started making sure that my pins were vertical, I’ve seen repines and shares go up and I think my boards look much nicer. Just look at the differences here between how it used to look and how it looks now.

Before I Paid Attention to Pinterest-Worthy Images:

Updated with Vertical Pins:

Pinterest-Worthy Images Are Large

If your image is tiny, even when vertical, it’s not going to look good on Pinterest. I’ve seen it said that the perfect Pin size is 735px wide by 1102px tall, but I’ve had lots of luck with pins taller than that. Have a look at this Pinterest board for an idea of how pins look at different sizes.

For that matter, it probably doesn’t look good in your blog either. I’d highly recommend making sure your photos take up a good portion of the width of your blog post-if not all of it. For more information on making your photos look good in your blog post, see: Sizing & Positioning Photos

Look how much better the larger pin looks than the smaller pin:

Pinterest-Worthy Images Are High Quality

Your image should look good if you want people to share it. If it’s stretched, dark, blurry, etc. no one will want to pin it. People will pin things that are visually appealing to them, so make sure your pin is actually visually appealing. This means clear, crisp, and generally good-looking.

People want to pin quality content-are your images worthy of Pinterest?

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Pinterest-Worthy Images Contain Words

A good pin should tell people what it is before you they even read the accompanying message. It’s fine to have pins that are high quality without words on the image (though I’d recommend enabling Rich Pins for sure if you’re going to be pinning images that don’t have words on them), but at least one good pin in your post should be your main Pinterest pin or shareable image, and that one should contain words. People will most likely choose to pin the image with words in your post over any of the other images.

From my experience I’ve seen that pins with words are pinned more often than pins without. Here are examples of two different posts from my blog where I pinned the main image with words and a secondary image with no words (but it was still a pretty good quality image):

As you can see, the first pin (with words) for my Today I Am Thirty + My Thirtieth Birthday Photo Shoot post had 42 repins and 14 likes, whereas the one without words from the same post had only 10 repins and 2 likes. As with my Makeup Favorites | Loving the Natural Look pin, the first pin has 78 repins and 10 likes, while the second one has 14 repins and 3 likes. The worded pins just seem to do better, and I highly recommend at least one pinnable image with words on it for any content you want shared to Pinterest.

How to Create Pinterest-Worthy Images

Alright, so now you understand what it takes for an image to be Pinterest-worthy and why that’s a big deal, but what about how to do it? For those of you without any experience in design this might be a tough one-but I’m here to help! My design skills are largely self-taught, and it has taken 10+ years of trial and error with The Gimp, Photoshop, and and other design programs for me to finally figure out what works.

Step 1: Start with a Quality Image

The first step towards achieving Pinterst-worthy status with an image for your post is to start with a good image. Whether you’re taking it yourself, or snagging it from a stock photo site, you want to make sure it’s large and high-quality so there’s no stretching or weirdness. Since the optimum size of a pinnable photos is at least 735px wide by 1101px tall, then you need to make sure your image is at least that or bigger.

Where to Find Quality Images

If you’re not taking your own photos for the post, then you’ll most likely need to snag one from a stock site. It’s important that you follow copyright laws when it comes to photos you’re using for your blog, because otherwise it could cost you big time.

It’s important to follow copyright laws when creating pinnable images-it could cost you BIG time.

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There are actually quite a few sites where you can find free stock photos. I personally recommend Unsplash, stocksnap.io, and Negative Space for free photos. The only downside to free stock photos is that everyone is using them and your image and pin may not be entirely unique since so many people will use the same image to create theirs-you may have to go to extra work to make it stand out. The risk with a paid photo from sites like Canva ($1 images), Creative Market ($5-$25 on average), or bigger ones like Shutterstock and iStock by Ghetty Images (both run plans from about $29-$500 per month) is much less likely that someone else bought the same paid image that you did, whereas you see the free images everywhere.

Step 2: You’ll Need an Image Editor

In order to edit a photo, you’re going to need an image editor. If you already own or pay for Photoshop you’re in business-it’ll do everything you need it to do, but if you don’t and can’t afford to get it-you may need an alternative. Here are a few I recommend:

The Gimp – An open source software similar to Photoshop that you download and install on your computer. It’s free (though they accept donations) and it does nearly (but not quite) everything that Photoshop does. I’ve used this for 10+ years and I love it-it’s also what I’m using in the examples below.

Canva – I listed Canva as a great place to get images above, and I do use it quite often to get a stock photo and then I download it and run it through The Gimp so I can use my own installed fonts. However, one of the awesome things Canva offers is a full designer that allows you to simply select what kind of image you need to make (or input custom dimensions) and they have all the basic social media ones including Pinterest.

It’s easy, all you have to do is select the Pinterest option, select a background or image, and then add design or words. Not only can you buy images there, but you can find free images as well, and they offer lots of free elements and designs-as well as easy pre-made designs you can just alter the wording on.

PicMonkey – I’ve seen a lot of users use PicMonkey to create posts for their blogs and they have a lot of fun things for actually editing the photos too. They offer filters and different effects as well as the option to add text and crop your photos.

Step 3: Make Your Image Vertical

If your image is already vertical-that’s great! Go ahead and skip to step 3. For the sake of this tutorial, I’m going to go ahead and assume you have a horizontal image you’re using for your pin, and help you with that. For example I’m going to go ahead and use a photo of a pineapple I scored from Unspalsh.

It’s pretty, but horizontal, and if I were writing a post about the beach or pineapples I might include it just as it is in my content. However, I wouldn’t use this as my main pinnable image. I’d need to alter it to make it more Pinterest-worthy by cropping it vertical and adding the words for the post.

Resize the Photo

To make your image vertical, first you’ll want to resize it’s height to fit the size you want (if it’s already vertical you can . If we’re going with the standard, I’m going to go ahead and first resize my image to be 1101 tall, and then I’ll crop.

Crop the Photo

When you crop your photo, keep in mind the rule of thirds which states that you keep split your image into thirds both vertically and horizontally, and put the main subject either in 2/3 of the photo or 1/3 for a better aesthetic. In this case, I’ve gone ahead and put the pineapple off center (as it kind of is already in the vertical image) and in the bottom and right two-thirds. Most programs have the option to enable grid lines if you need them to do this.

Step 4: Design Your Pinnable Image

A good Pinterest image will have information right on the photo-this makes it so people who are repinning don’t have to go searching for what the pin is about if someone has re-pinned it and put their own comment in the post rather than a good description.

Decide on a Style for Your Pinterest-Worthy Images

Typically, you’re going to want one fancy font paired with one standard font. It just looks better and really makes your information look professional and pop. To be even more professional, make sure that your Pinterest-worthy image will also match your branding. I recommend selecting a font or a style that you like and using it throughout both your blog design and your pinnable images and then sticking with that style or template for all future posts as well as editing old posts to make it match.

For example, I use the same two fonts in all of my pinnable images-the Jacques-Gilles font for my title (sometimes this matches the post title, sometimes it is changed a little to draw different attention) and then I add a tagline (for further description of the content the pin links to) in Pathway Gothic and my blog address in Pathway Gothic also. I also pretty much stick to the same kind of layout, though I do move elements around a bit so that they look good with the image. I like the way my images all look like they go together even if the elements change just a little bit.

Optional: Add Other Elements to Make Your Pins Stand Out

Of course, you can add other branding elements to make your pins look awesome-such as color blocks or spaces, little designs, etc. I like the words on the photos for my typical pinnable images, but for pinnable images that are collage like, I have a different standard where I also use the colors that match my branding-the blue at the top where the title and tagline are and the gold at the bottom where the blog address is.

Need Some Inspiration?

Here are some pinnable images from other pinners that look awesome-hopefully you can get your own unique idea inspired by their pins-I know they inspire me to up my Pinterest game. They’re all very unique in their own way, but they’re well put together, attractive, and they tell you exactly what the pin will lead you to-all great qualities to have.

How I Doubled my Pinterest Following in 30 Days

9 Juicy Pinterest Tools: How I Get 30k Website Visits A Month From Pinterest

Click on the Pinterest-worthy images above to go to the actual pins they represent and re-pin or follow through to the posts they are for. Aside from looking stellar, they link to some really great content, which is why I chose to re-pin them originally.

How Pinterest-worthy are your Images?

Let me know if you have any questions-I’m happy to help in any way I can.

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

How to Rock Your Pinterest Profile – Better Your Blog

May 17, 2016 by Angie 119 Comments

In case you missed the memo, Pinterest is easily one of the biggest places blogs are getting traffic from these days, and I’ve definitely seen it as one of the leading contributors to the traffic I’m getting here at My So-Called Chaos. Personally, I’ve even skipped trusty old Google to search for recipes and projects directly on Pinterest, now isn’t that crazy? So if you don’t have a Pinterest account set up yet, you should really get on that, and if you do-it’s time to make sure that Pinterest Profile rocks peoples’ socks off.

Why should your Pinterest profile rock their socks off? Well, because for starters, anything you do should leave people’s toes bare just from the sheer awesomeness it emanates. As bloggers and entrepreneurs we take pride in our work and put so much of ourselves into our posts or products, and your social media accounts should reflect that pride and accomplishment as well. Today, let’s talk about how to make our Pinterest profiles the bomb dot com, shall we? Does anyone say that anymore? Can I bring it back? Man, I feel old right now…

Anyway, it’s safe to say that if you’re adequately rocking your Pinterest profile you’ll also gain some new followers. Let’s get to work…

Is your Pinterest profile up to snuff? Check this out…

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Set-Up Your Pinterest Profile

You’re going to want to set up a Pinterest Profile that not only shows off who you are and what content you produce and love, but that looks valid and professional as well.

What Your Pinterest Profile Needs to be Great

A Branded Username

Make sure the username on your Pinterest account is in line with your branding elsewhere. Since my blog is My So-Called Chaos, I use @mysocalledchaos or mysocalledchaos for any social media account linked with the blog. Using your name also works, as long as your name is easily associated with your blog or shop.

A Profile Picture

You definitely want a profile picture on your Pinterest profile that goes along with your branding. Whether it’s your logo, or a photo of you (I recommend using the same one you use for other social media associated with your blog or shop for good branding across all platforms), you want to be easily recognizable to your fans and followers by it. Your profile image should be square and at least 165px by 165px.

As you can see from my image above, it’s the same one that is at the top of my sidebar here on the blog, as well as the same image I’m using for my profile images on the My So-Called Chaos Facebook page and my Twitter and Instagram profiles. It’s important to be easily recognizable anywhere.

A Description

You want your followers to know who you are, so make sure you put a nice description describing who you are and what kind of things you’ll be pinning. This helps people decide if who you are and what you pin will be in line with them and what they want to re-pin, and you definitely want the right kind of followers re-pinning your content. This description is short, so don’t be too lengthy, but give a good taste of who you are and what you’re about.

As you can see from my profile above I gave a good indication of who I am and what they can expect. Let me break it down:

“Purple-haired plus sized blogger & creative” tells them they can expect some plus-size fashion and bright colored hair, and it also gives them a little indication of my personality. It also indicates that I’m a blogger and creative, and that this profile is associated with that line of interest.
“New home owner” tells them that they can expect pins related to anything home-home improvement, home decor, etc.
“and doggy mom to a rescue pitbull.” tells them that they can expect pins related to dogs and pet-ownership, as well as animal rescue and pitbull advocacy.
“Wannabe photographer, artist” indicates that I’ll be sharing photography and tips for that, as well as art.
“DIY junkie” indicates that they can follow me for DIY and crafty re-pins.
“foodie, & more!” indicates I’ll also be sharing pins related to food and recipes, and the more leaves it open for anything else I may want to pin. 🙂

How much does your Pinterest profile tell possible followers? Update it with these tips…

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Your Location

This is important because sometimes local pinners will want to find other local pinners to follow, and also because brands and advertisers who may want to work with you often need to know this before they contact you.

Links to Other Social Media Sites

It’s all about the branding and the cross promotion. If someone likes your pins, they may choose to also follow your blog, Twitter, or Facebook page to keep up with more of you.

To edit your Pinterest Profile:

Log into Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/login.
Go to your profile.
- Click on your profile image in the upper right hand corner then select Profile.
- Go directly to your profile URL at http://pinterest.com/YOURUSERNAME.
Click Edit in the upper right hand corner.
Edit your information and then click Save.

Confirm Your Website

If you are a blog, shop, or other business owner and your Pinterest profile is in relation to that business-you NEED to confirm your website. It looks better, and it allows followers and pinners to learn more about the site where the content they’re re-pinning comes from. It also helps your Pinterest profile really mean business, and it improves your SEO and rankings.

For information on how to do this, see the Pinterest help article to Confirm Your Website.

Have you confirmed your website with Pinterest? You NEED to do that to be legit…

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Give Your Pinterest Profile & Boards a Good Feel or Flow

Considering that we’ve already discussed how visual Pinterest is, and how most people do go off of how visually appealing something is, you profile is no exception. Think about it like your Instagram account, you’ve probably seen articles and information on how having a good Instagram account flow (i.e. all the photos you share look good together-often due to using the same filter or color scheme), and I’m here to tell you that you should feel the same way about your Pinterest profile.

Here are the two ways I recommend doing this (you choose which one works best for you):

Upload a Branded Cover Photo to Each Board.
- Pros: Your boards can match your blog/website’s branding or theme. All the boards look like they fit with each other. You have creative control over your boards.
- Cons: You have to create an image for each board and upload it (this is time consuming). If you don’t get the sizing right (which happened to me-even though I was going off of recommended sizes) your images/text can look blurry. It can look too similar sometimes. Also, if you ever change your blog/brand theme, you’ll have to do this all over again.

Pinners Who Rock the First Method

Some bloggers who have really pulled this off beautifully include the following (click on the image to go to their Pinterest profile and see for yourself):

Pick a Theme for Your Cover Photos and Choose a Pin from Each Board that Fits it.
- Pros: Less time-consuming, shows variety, and gives an idea of what’s in the board.
- Cons: Can’t always find a pin that fits your “theme” or “look” and it’s not really branded.

This is the one I’ve gone through. I tried uploading branded images to each one and they just didn’t look right (they sometimes look blurry, even when you go with the recommended size). So I chose a theme similar to the theme I’m doing on Instagram-crisp, bright, white, and colorful.

Pinners Who Rock the Second Method

Here are a few more bloggers that are seriously rocking this method and have beautiful profiles (again, click on the image to visit them):

See, don’t you want to follow them? They’re so pretty!

Whichever option you choose, I would recommend that you still keep consistent with your board title styles as well. If you look at the example that shows my boards, I’ve set up a theme where I show the topic in caps, then a separator, and finally a sub-category or description in regular type. I like this since I do a lot of boards that fall under one category, for example: RECIPES, but have sub-categories like Desserts, Drinks, Breakfast, etc. So they look like RECIPES | Breakfast, RECIPES | Sweets, RECIPES | Entrees, etc. Other examples are shown above, like Dana of Wonder Forest above, and how she does hers in caps but with spaces in between like B L O G G I N G, B U S I N E S S, etc. It just contributes further to the look and feel of your profile.

Whoa! Bloggers like @thewonderforest and @PopShopAmerica? Here are tips to help…

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How to Change Your Pinterest Board Covers

From your Pinterest profile, click Edit under the board you wish to update.
In the Edit Your Board screen, next to Cover, click Change.
Use the arrow to scroll through your pins and choose the one you want to use.
- If you wish to use a custom image as seen in the first method, you’ll need to upload or pin it first so it’s in your board.
Once chosen, click no the image to move it up or down so the part of the image you want seen is shown.
Click Save Changes.

Beef Up Your Boards

Speaking of boards, let’s talk about yours and what we can do to make them better-after all, they’re an integral part of your Pinterest profile.

The Number of Pinterest Boards You Should Have

How many boards do you have? Chelsie of Hey There, Chelsie attended a blog conference and shared what she learned from a Pinterest Ambassador who was speaking there. She said that on average you should have around 30-35 boards. Any less than that may not provide enough variety, and any more than that could be making Pinterest much harder on yourself as you pin and manage these boards.

I have 86 boards currently, and that’s after doing some major editing and bringing it down from about 100+. While my Pinterest is currently still under construction as I work to clean it up and make it better, I’m not too worried about having more boards than average because I am a very active Pinterest user and I have a wide variety of interests. Plus, I like to keep things a little more well-sorted by breaking down the categories I mentioned before. Still, I have some cleaning up to do.

Create a Board for Your Blog/Shop

This was one of my favorite pieces of advice-and I’ve been very successful in having a board that’s specifically for my own content. I just pin posts from the blog directly into that board. It’s great, because if someone wants to follow my blog but they don’t really use something like bloglovin’ or RSS, and they don’t necessarily want to follow all of the boards I pin to, they can follow that one board and keep up to date on my content. It also gives me a nice place to send anything and everything in relation to my blog, and I pin stuff there that talks about my blog or myself on other sites as well.

Be Detailed in Pinterest Board Names, Categories, & Descriptions

Keywords are so important on Pinterest, so make sure you are using them when creating boards and editing their categories and descriptions. When I first started using Pinterest my boards had fun names like “It Has Been Said”-which was a board full of quote images, and “Matters of the Heart”- which was a board full of things related to love and heartbreak. However, these didn’t serve well for people to find them and follow them, even the people looking for that kind of content specifically. So, in my updating, they were changed to “QUOTES | Life” and “QUOTES | Matters of the Heart” so that people who are specifically looking for quotes can find them.

As you can see in the board above, it’s all related to travel-so I’ve added travel to the title and the description, as well as the word “Wanderlust” as it’s a well-used term with travel junkies and people dreaming of far off places. I’ve also used key words such as “destinations” and “inspiration” in here for people looking for those kind of things. I only pin travel and destination content to this board. It’s also set to the Travel category for people who are searching via category.

Optimizing your Pinterest Boards with SEO keywords is SO important!

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How to Update Pinterest Board Names, Categories, & Descriptions

Log into Pinterest and access you profile to go to the board you wish to edit.
- Click Edit under the board you with to change.
- Click on the board you wish to change then click Edit Board from the upper right hand corner within.
Fill out the Name and Description.
Choose a Category.
Click Save.

You can also add collaborators here if you want other people to be able to pin to this board, and you can set it to Secret if you wish for no one else to see it. However, the point of this article is to have people follow you and build a following on Pinterest, so I’d recommend not making it secret unless you don’t want your followers to see it.

Pinterest Board Clean Up

Chances are, if you’ve been using Pinterest for a while without paying much attention to most of what we’re talking about here, you have lots of boards that you want to delete without losing the pins in it, or that have the wrong pins for the category you’ve updated it to. Luckily, Pinterest made this easy by giving us a “Move” button which allows you to select multiple pins at once and move, copy, or delete them. This will make it super easy for you to run clean up on your boards and make sure the content in them lines up with the category.

When was the last time you cleaned up your Pinterest Boards? They need it…

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To Select Pins on Bulk on Pinterest – Move Pins, Copy, or Delete Pins

From the board you wish to alter pins in, select Move in the top right.
Select the pins you wish to move, copy, or delete by clicking on them.
- A red check box in the upper right hand corner of the pin means it’s selected.
- A clear check box in the upper right hand corner of the pin means it is NOT selected.
Select the option you want to utilize-Move, Copy, or Delete-from the upper right hand corner.
- Move will ask you to choose a new board to move the pins to. Once chosen, click Move to complete.
- Copy will ask you to choose a new board to copy the pins to. Once chosen, click Copy to complete.
- Delete will ask you to be sure that you want to permanently delete the pins, click Delete Pins to complete.

Using on Your Pinterest Account with Intent

Once you have everything set up like you want it, you’ll want to start pinning and also keep up with maintenance on your boards and pins to ensure everything keeps looking good. Here are some things to think about, and ways to keep up with it properly.

Pinning With Intent

I’ve heard the term “pin with intent” thrown around a lot, and I couldn’t even begin to tell you how important it really is. When I was first promoting and working to build my boards up, I pinned everything with little thought other than where to place it. Can you imagine the pain that came with cleaning up years of pinning willie-nillie? Yep, that’s why it’s taking me so long to update my Pinterest account, but it’ll be so worth it when it gets all together. If I can catch you now and press upon you the importance of pinning with intent before you get too far in I can save you the trouble.

Basically, if you’re pinning with intent, you’re paying close attention to what you’re sharing with your followers. It means that you’re pinning and re-pinning content to your Pinterest boards that not only fits your Pinterest account style, theme, and overall focus-but that looks good and is something you actually want to promote. Your intent will be different from someone else’s, so you need to make sure you know your own content and figure out what you’re willing to associate with it.

We should definitely be pinning with Intent. It’s part of being authentic…

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Your Overall Pinterest Focus

Think about the blog or shop that you are associating your Pinterest account with. What kind of things do you blog about or sell on your website? You’ll want to keep your focus around those things. It’s okay to have a few different boards that don’t totally fit, but they should still be kind of related. It’s also okay to have a different personal Pinterest if you want that you can pin anything to, but the main Pinterest account associated with your site should be in relation to it’s content. Your followers follow you for that content, so they expect similar from any accounts they follow you on that are in association with your blog or website.

Here are a just few examples (and they’re only suggestions-really it’s open to interpretation based on the way you handle your content):

If you’re a DIY or Craft blogger, pin stuff like: DIY tutorials, handmade goodies, crafty tips and tricks, recipes, etc.
If you’re a Fashion blogger, pin things like: Other outfit posts, clothing and shoes you love or want to buy, beauty products, etc.
If you’re a food blogger, pin things like: Recipes, kitchen tools and useful items, restaurant reviews, kitchen makeovers, etc.
If you sell baby clothing, pin things like: Baby food recipes, other baby products, nursery makeovers, etc.
If you sell paper products, pin things like: Pretty stationery, paper crafts and tutorials, planner supplies, etc.

Etc. and so on, you get the point. If you are a lifestyle blogger with a wide array of things you blog or talk about (like me), you may have a lot more room for differing boards and focus, but you’ll still want to narrow it down a little so as not to overwhelm your followers and yourself.

The Quality of Your Shares

Another thing you may want to focus on with your intent is the quality of the images and content you pin or re-pin. Here are some things to consider:

What the Pin Links to: Some pins on Pinterest look great but don’t lead anywhere, so I’ve taken to double checking pins by clicking on them to make sure they go where I want them to go before I share them. It does me no good to have a beautiful pin about how to make chocolate dipped waffles, but then when you click on it the link is dead or it just links back to the image.
What the Pin Looks Like: I have taken to mostly only pinning vertical pins, with the occasional square or wide one thrown in very rarely. Vertical pins just look the best. I also pay attention to the quality of the pin-it needs to be large, clear, and visually appealing for me to share it.
Where the Content Comes From: I also like to double check where my content is coming from so I don’t pin something from a site I don’t want associated with me. This can be tricky, since sometimes a site will post one thing you agree with, but when you look at their other content you find it morally repulsive or tacky-just be careful who you align yourself with.

Pin Your Content More Than Once

When you are pinning your own content, don’t just pin it once and be done with it. If there are multiple images, pin a few of them to your personal blog board, but make sure you spread them out so you can catch people at different times of the day. You can also pin old posts again down the road, or pin to other boards, etc. This keeps your older content fresh, and brings more attention to your posts.

I use CoSchedule to schedule out multiple pins directly from my content-and it’s wonderful. I can schedule days, weeks, months in advance, or several per day, etc. It even has a new option that allows me to select “Best Time” for posting, and it checks my Social Media to make sure it will share at the optimum time for interaction. CoSchedule allows me to even schedule pins with pinnable images not included in the post-and for this very post I’ve created a few other shareable images that I don’t intend to include in the post visuals, but I want to use them to promote the post repeatedly over a few weeks.

I have three different boards that I can promote this in, the one for my personal blog, my Blogging resources board, and the Grow Your Blog group board for our Facebook group. I’ve set this up to pin once to each with the main pinnable image, and then once to each with a secondary image I created using the examples of good visual accounts above. Before I post this post, I’ll go in and add the Facebook, Twitter, G+, and other shares here too.

Schedule Pins

My new favorite thing in the world is scheduling pins and re-pins. You’ll want to figure out a schedule and stick to it, so that you’re pinning consistently, but not too much. Personally, I’m such a big pinner that my schedule has come down to one pin per hour at varying times to catch different followers when they’re active. This includes my own content, and content I’m pinning for others, though I do occasionally break the mold and pin a few things not within the schedule when it’s required or when I just need to save it and don’t have time to work it into the schedule. At any given time I’m about four days to a week in advance scheduled out.

If you’re not scheduling your pins, you’re doing WAY more work than you need to…

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I’ve heard really good things about both BoardBooster and Tailwind for re-pins, but have yet to use either thoroughly. (Those links are affiliate links and offer a free month if you sign-up through them.) Personally, I use CoSchedule which doesn’t really do the re-pin thing like the other two, but I’m already paying for it because of the editorial calendar and scheduling options directly from within my posts so I have been hesitant to sign up for any other paid options.

Delete Old Pins

You may not know this, but deleting old pins actually tells Pinterest that you mean business and want to be a valuable pinner. It’s a good strategy for a lot of reasons, most of which you can read from Sarah Titus’ article 9 Reasons You Should Be Deleting Your Pins, but also just because you have a lot of old pins hanging around. I’ve recently gone through my boards as I consolidated and cleaned them up and deleted any pins with broken links, or that I didn’t like the look of, wouldn’t ever use, and that no one was re-pinning.

How Are You Rocking Pinterest?

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

Better Your Blog | Professionalism vs. Authenticity

April 20, 2016 by Angie 42 Comments

Balancing professionalism and authenticity can be a very fine line to walk when managing a public-facing blog and/or business. This is especially true if you’re building your brand based on your life and personality, and chances are if you are a blogger, you’re doing just that. On the one hand, you definitely want to show your fans and followers the real you, after all, that’s what they come back for time and time again right? They love your personal style, way of writing, and/or stories-right? Right. Trust me, they do, but there is also a lot of other things to consider when putting so much of your personal life out in a public forum.

So how can you run your blog in a professional manner while still being true-to-life about what you post about? While it’s definitely possible to do both, and most of us do it without too much stress, it does require some effort and a constant check to make sure you’re managing both without too much getting out that you don’t want out.

Striving for Authenticity & Professionalism

Isn’t that what we all want? To be real? Don’t we all just want to put our real honest selves out there and be loved for exactly who we are? Yes. I think the answer to that for most people is a resounding YES PLEASE! Especially when it comes to blogging about ourselves and our lives. Especially when it comes to bloggers who blog about their lifestyle, family, or deeper feelings-we all just want to be able to be real without having to change who we are in order to be read.

There is always a constant debate about authenticity in blogging. On the one hand, there are bloggers on one side of the fence writing about why you should be striving for authenticity, but then you also have those on the other hand stating that authenticity is a lie. So which is it?

Should you be striving for authenticity in blogging or is being authentic online just a lie?

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Personally, I feel that it’s a little bit of both, and that it comes down to that fine line I mentioned earlier and a whole lot of balance. So, let’s start by talking about why both professionalism and authenticity is important, and how you can up your game and balance the two out more often.

Why Professionalism is SO Important to Your Blog

Okay, so we can skip over why professionalism is important to your business, I feel like that’s pretty self-explanatory, but what about your blog? When you’re blogging about your personal life or your hobbies and not blogging for a business, why do you need to be professional? Can’t you just be you-no editing, no sprucing up, and enjoy your blogging?

The answer is, of course, yes. You can totally do that if you want to, no one is going to stop you and if it makes you happy-GO FOR IT. If you’re just blogging to keep your family up-to-date or to keep an online journal, you really don’t have to worry about it too much. However, don’t just be as amateur as you want and expect to still build your blog into a business. You can’t be unprofessional and then wonder why you’re not getting more paid contracts, reviews, or advertisers.

Be professional on your blog or don’t be surprised when companies or people wont work with you.

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Companies Expect Professionalism

A company is a professional entity, so it makes sense that if they are planning on enlisting you to talk about their product, review it, or just link to it in a post; they’re going to expect you to be a professional entity as well. If you’re representing a product, person, or company-you need to put your best professional foot forward while still being honest about the product.

People You Know and Love Probably See Your Posts

Unless you’re 100% private (and even then you can never be too sure on the internet), the chance of someone you know reading what you write is pretty high. If you wouldn’t be okay with your mother or grandmother reading something the way you’ve written it, you may want to rethink hitting the Publish button.

Your Boss (or Future Boss) Might See Your Posts

Yep, you may not expect that your boss will look up your blog-but it’s quite possible he will. Especially if you run your blog publicly and with your real name, you want to make sure it’s something that wont get you fired, or keep potential employers from hiring you in the future.

You Can’t Take it Back

Remember, above all, that nothing put into the internet is ever truly gone. Delete means almost nothing in the word wide web, because there are always copies, screenshots, caches, and more that keep it floating around out there.

Why Being Real is Good For Your Blog

Your Readers Want Authenticity

They do. Trust me, that’s not just coming from a blogger who craves being authentic with people; it’s coming from someone who actively reads other blogs. Yes, I get sucked in by a good fictional story now and then, but if a blogger is constantly spinning these elaborate tales that seem super far-fetched and trying to pass it off as their factual life, I get bored. Really bored. Then I start craving a return to reality and I’ll move on to another blog that’s more honest.

You Actually Want to Connect With People

I want to see the real you. I want to look into the depths of your soul, see your darkest and brightest feelings, and connect with you on a profound level. Whether it’s fleeting or long-lasting, that feeling of really being connected to the person writing the words you’re reading is incredible.

If You’re Real With Readers, They’ll Be Real With You

Want your readers to actually comment on your blog? Be genuine and ask for honesty in return. You have to give to receive, and a reader will skip commenting if they think you only want them to say what you want to hear. No, you don’t want some troll leaving negative comments all the time, but you do want to encourage open and honest discussion on your blog.

For example, I commented on another bloggers post the other day and shared my honest opinion about a store they were talking about. I’d had a negative experience with the business (actually, several negative experiences with that same company) and just wanted to state the truth. I wasn’t rude, I wasn’t disrespectful, I just said “I wish I could shop there, but unfortunately they have repeatedly not followed through with their promises or warranties.” The blogger deleted my comment and told me I wasn’t allowed to say anything negative about the company on her blog.

I kind of scoffed at this, and then I started really grappling with this. If she didn’t want an honest discussion, why didn’t she just put “only comment if you agree with me on everything” at the end of her post? I was mad for a minute, and then I quickly moved on and decided just not to bother with her posts anymore.

I mean I get it, honestly, if it’s a sponsored post you really have to worry about things that people could say negatively in the comments-I know, I accept sponsored posts on my blog as well and I have run into people in the past who have not had the best experience with the company or product I was talking about. However, I do NOT delete their posts as long as they present their opinion in a respectful manner-I open it up for discussion. Since I personally reviewed the company and product I know how my experience was and reported it in the post honestly, and if it was different from theirs I want to find out why and offer input. I also want to encourage the company to get involved and respond or make it right if they choose to do so.

That’s actual productive authenticity.

Your Passion is Attractive

Seriously, there is nothing more attractive than someone’s passion. If you’re just writing about what everyone else is writing about because you think it’ll help your SEO and bring more people to you via certain buzzwords, you’re probably not super in love with what you’re writing.

If you’re writing about something you truly love and want to share with people, it’s going to shine through your words and readers will be more apt to enjoy both the post and the writer behind it. Your passion will keep your readers coming back, and it’ll attract new readers, thus growing your base of followers bigger and better than ever.

There’s nothing more attractive in a blog than a blogger who is passionate about what they’re writing and sharing.

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You’ll Attract the Right Readers

Along with people being attracted to your passion and sticking around to see more of it, the readers who find you and actually relate to what you’re writing will become loyal subscribers. A loyal fan base is so important to build. Having that large loyal fan base will then, in turn, earn you more opportunities with companies and people who want to reach out to those people.

Why Being Real is Good For Your Business

On the other side of things, what about when you’re a business? Well, in today’s day and age you must have social media for your business or it just won’t do as well. Everyone from enormous companies to small handmade Etsy shops have Facebook Pages, Twitter Accounts, Instagram, and more now. It’s how you market. It’s how you connect with the people you want to know about and buy your product. So why should you be sincere on the accounts for your business?

Clients Will Connect More Strongly With You

When you’re realistic in your dealings with customers and clients on social media it humanizes you, which is a good thing. Your products are just that-products. Even if you’re offering a service which is done by a human, the company itself is not an actual human being, and thus humans can’t really relate or empathize with it. Sure, they may want it in their lives to make their lives easier, but in a word where everything is available to everyone, how do you make yourself stand out? By being more real. Show them the person or people behind the brand, and they’re more likely to attach to your goods and services over a company that doesn’t show some sincerity.

When you interact with your customers authentically, you turn first-time visitors into repeat buyers.

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Customers Will Feel More Appreciated

If someone comments on your businesses’ Facebook page, and you don’t respond or acknowledge it, they’re less likely to leave with a positive experience or any kind of lasting memory. Sure, they may not feel negatively that you didn’t respond, but will they remember they left that comment? If you take the time to reply to your customer’s comments, tweets, etc., at least the valid ones, you’re way more likely to leave an impression that turns that first-time customer into a loyal repeat buyer.

For example, recently I tagged Overtone in some of my photos on Instagram. I’d become a recent customer of theirs, as their product is helping me maintain my purple hair and I’d heard that you’re supposed to tag companies you appreciate on Instagram. Not only did they take the time to comment and tell me they were glad I was enjoying their product, but they featured me in their Instagram account among some other beautiful purple-haired ladies. I ended up following them, and several of the other featured IG profiles too!

How to Balance Professionalism & Authenticity

So you’ve decided you definitely want to be professional AND authentic on your blog, because hey-you want it to grow but you also want it to be honest. So how can you do it? It almost seems like professionalism and authenticity are two different ends of the spectrum, and to have one, you have to give up the other. To be completely honest, in some cases you do have to give up a little “authenticity” in order to be more professional, or you have to be slightly less professional in order to be more genuine with portraying your feelings-and that’s okay. To all things balance is necessary, and compromise is important.

Being both authentic & professional-to all things balance is necessary, and compromise is important.

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Improve Your Grammar

Grammar is probably the main thing you’ll be judged on if you’re writing on your blog or on social media. Yes, we all make mistakes and mistype or mess something up, but on social media there are so many people who just have the worst spelling and grammar mistakes. It’s painful to read, and nothing will scare away potential readers and partners faster than poor writing. How can you improve your grammar?

Spell Check. Use it, enable it on your browser, install a plug in, etc.
Proofread. Before posting your blog or social media post, read through it again to make sure it looks right.
Read it Out Loud. It helps to read it out loud and make sure it flows well.
When in Doubt-Look it Up. Aren’t sure if that word should have an apostrophe (we’re looking at you-its/it’s!) or if you need to use the word effect or affect? Google it. There are a lot of sites like Grammarly or The Owl Purdue (which is a life saver for college papers, by the way…) that will answer your question quickly and effectively.

Make Sure Your Blog Looks the Part

Yep, I’m mentioning design again, because I still feel like having a good blog design is SO important. Yes, your writing is important and the reason you started the blog, but in spite of what they always say, people do still judge a book by its cover-or a blog by its design-and wont even take the time to get to your writing if your blog is unappealing or hard to read.

The simple suggestion I have is to make sure your blog design also balances authenticity with professionalism. It needs to reflect who you are as a person (you can do this with the use of fonts, colors, and other artistic flare), but it that it also looks professional. To make it look professional you need to make sure you have a few important and key elements, such as:

Information About Who You Are You want an About page that includes:
- Your name or the name you go by on your blog.
- A photo of you.
- Information about where you live-city/state location. (Advertisers especially will want to know this.)
- A little bit about your history/background/what led you to blog.
- A few fun facts about you to make more authentic connections with readers.
- Other photos that show off who you are, your style, things from your life, etc.
Information About Your Blog: This is best added to the about page as well, and should include:
- What kind of topics you cover.
- Links to some of your favorite posts.
- Links to where you can be found on social media.
- Links to posts written about you or by you on other blogs/sites.
A Clean and Easily Readable Layout & Color/Font Scheme: Yes, it needs to reflect who you are, but it also needs to be easy to navigate and read or other people won’t be interested in sticking around to connect with you-especially advertisers. Check out my post Blog Design Tips for more ideas on how to make your blog design shine.

Be Personal, Just Not Too Personal

Tell those personal stories, whether it’s on the blog or on social media, because people want to hear about you and relate to the things that have happened to you. However, you don’t need all the little gory details of things people don’t want to really know about. Your readers will eat up any drama or hilarity you portray in your stories, but they’ll be revolted by certain details that could have easily been left out. You could be telling me a personal story that effected you and describing how you feel about it, and I could be oging along with it and relating or laughing, and then bam-something entirely too personal could take me right out of it and push me away. Super personal things like bodily functions, sexual escapades, etc. can totally be mentioned and discussed as part of your personal history, but you don’t have to go into great detail about the how, why, and description of them.

I would also avoid giving out personal information that could be used against you in some way. People don’t need to know things like your address/phone number, what medicine’s you’re on specifically (unless you’re writing about a certain issue and helping spread the word), or anything that should be considered confidential like work or school information.

When sharing on social media be personal but not too personal. Let people relate, but don’t overshare.

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Limit Negativity and Drama.

Don’t go on a huge rant on your Facebook page about a company, product, or person (either in your life or online) and post awful hateful things. That brand of drama will make you nearly instantly lose a few followers who suddenly feel you’re too immature or crazy. What can you do if you want to post some critical feedback or respond to someone who’s not being so nice to you on your own page/blog?

Be Polite. “You catch more bees with honey…” That saying may be kind of cliche, but it still rings true-if you’re nice you’re going to get better results and come out looking like the bigger person.
Take a Step Back. Remember, you don’t have to post ever, let alone when you’re upset or feeling low. Sometimes it’s better to just take a breather and come back to it when you can be more logical and not let your emotions rule you.
Don’t Ever Call People Names. Calling a person names, even if they’re really being that specific term, never makes you look pretty. It makes you look immature and it just fuels more of the same behavior.
Watch Your Language. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of swearing when appropriate. I don’t feel like people should be so easily bothered by words, but the truth is that some of them are. Some of those people who are offended by words are likely to be your readers, or the owners of products you’d really enjoy working with. So, I’m not saying you should never put a swear word in a post, but use it cautiously and only when you need it for creative emphasis or when it’s the only word that fits there.
Limit Controversy. It’s totally fine to post about something controversial and share your opinion, but don’t lash out when people disagree with you, and don’t be rude pushy.
Don’t Use Hate Speech. Seriously, be a good person and don’t say things that are going to hurt people. There’s just no reason to say racist/sexist/offensive things about other people, or to use terms that could push away people you may love.

Consider Your Comment Moderation Policies

Take a moment to think about your current comment moderation policies. How easy is it for people to reach you? People want to feel like they are able to reach out to you and have their comments and opinions heard. If you make it too hard to comment, or make it so they feel like you may not approve their comment, they’re not going to bother interacting with you. You want them to interact with you authentically, so make it easy on them, and encourage discussion-discussion that’s still presented in a professional way. Here are some things to think about with your commenting set up…

How do you run discussions on your blog? Strict comment moderation or can people discuss things easily?

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Spam: Yes, there is a lot of spam and trolling out there on the internet, so you still want to pay attention to comment moderation, but you don’t want to come off as too ridiculous with it. My comment system automatically filters for spam (via keywords) and I have to manually approve any comment that has a link in it, since most spam comments will be linked for advertising.
Anonymous Comments: Personally, I’ve turned off anonymous commenting because, while I definitely want to encourage honest conversation and debate, I feel like people should own up to the comments they want to leave. Anon comments tend to just be rude or spammy since people feel like they can just leave the comment and you have no way of responding so they don’t have to face the consequences of their words.
Negative/Rude/Hateful Comments: Since I have my spam filters set up and anonymous commenting turned off, I rarely see anything that’s too hateful or rude. Occasionally something comes along that is negative or against what I’m talking about, and as long as it’s presented in a logical and respectful way I’ll leave it, and often even respond to it. If it’s just bashing on me/the product/the post or someone else in a mean or disrespectful way I will still allow myself to delete it-my commenters still need to keep it kind of professional too if it’s going to show publicly on my blog. I almost never have to worry about this though…

Interact With Your Readers

Responding and interacting with your readers and followers is very important, and it is both the professional and personal thing to do. Real interactions inspire loyalty, appreciation, and return visits. See how I emphasized real there? The key thing is to definitely interact with them in an actual genuine manner, because people see right through auto responses and fake replies. Here are some ideas for not only responding, but inspiring interaction from them too…

Reply to Comments

Yep, it’s simple like that. Reply to people who take the time to comment on your blog posts or social media. They took the time to reach out to you, and you can take the time to reach back to them and let them know you appreciate their valuable time and input.

No, you don’t have to reply to every single comment. It can be very difficult to reply to everyone if you get a lot of responses, but you should make sure to go through and at least reply to the most thoughtful and interesting ones, and you should make sure you’re not saying the exact same thing to every single comment, because people can see right through copy and paste.

Visit Your Readers

This is another one you wont be able to do for everyone, because goodness knows we only have so much time in the day and most of us are doing so much more than just blogging and commenting (work, school, kids, home businesses, writing, etc.) but readers want to know that you notice them and value their time. If they leave a link to their blog (or have set up their profiles so you can easily find a link to their blog by clicking on their names) take a moment to head on over and comment meaningfully on one of their posts. I recommend doing this for a few people out of every so many comments (the numbers are up to you) and especially doing it for the people who comment regularly and keep coming back.

Showcase Content from Others

This is especially good on social media. Share a Facebook post you like, retweet a tweet, or spotlight another blogger’s post on your blog or social media. This not only makes that person feel good, but it shows other readers that you take the time to do exactly what you want them to do-interact.

If you need a good idea for showcasing info from others, I’d recommend linking up with our Monthly Coffee link-up where Aubrey and I showcase the blog posts we’ve liked from other bloggers throughout the month. It goes live on the last Thursday of every month.

Always Sometimes Put Your Best Face Forward

To stay professional, you definitely want to put your best face forward… But to be personal and authentic, you need to sometimes show your flaws and let people see your vulnerability. You need to talk about personal issues, causes you support, and why things should matter to people in order to spark that relatability. The balance is, even when you’re showing the negative or sensitive aspects of your life, you need to present it with the things I’ve mentioned above like proper grammar, positive tone (instead of negativity and drama), not sharing too many personal details about it, etc.

How do you find the balance?

All in all, I hope if nothing else, this post helps you start thinking about the balance of authenticity and professionalism on your own blog or space of the internet. This doesn’t just apply to your blog or business site, but any social media accounts associated with it as well. Anywhere you are publicly facing potential customers, readers, advertisers, or anyone really; you’ll want to make sure you’re finding the right balance and walking that fine line carefully.

The Better Your Blog Series is a series of posts written by myself, Angie of My So-Called Chaos, from my own personal experience as a long-time blogger, small-business owner, and as someone who’s worked with technology and customer service for many many years. They are written with the intent of sharing the knowledge I’ve acquired through years of practice and education (both self-taught and school-taught) with others in the blogging community.

In this collection of posts you’ll not only find tips for maintaining your blog, but also for anything that goes along with being a blogger and/or small business owner-like design tips and tutorials, social media, tools, and more.

The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

Better Your Blog | How to Get Blog Posts Shared

March 17, 2016 by Angie 25 Comments

There is now doubt that as a blogger you want your posts to be shared. When people share your post, it not only shows that they like it, but it introduces all their friends and followers to your post. Your post reaches new eyes, and other people who could possibly love it and share it too. But how do you actually get blog posts shared? How do you encourage people to pass it around and show it to their fans?

I want to help answer that for you, so I’ve put together some tips, tricks, and all around good suggestions on not only how to get blog posts shared, but how to make them more shareable too. I’ve got some ideas for you here…

Write Shareable Content

This is probably a pretty common sense thing to add here, but it’s important that you think about whether or not your content is really “shareable” when you’re putting it together. When I say “shareable” I really mean “relatable.” People share things they relate to, that inspire them, that they want others to know represents them in some way… So that’s the kind of content that’s going to get shared the most.

How to Know if Your Content is Sharable

So that begs the question, how do you know if your content is shareable? It can be tough. What we think might be shareable, could not be, or there may be something we’re not doing that’s holding us back. Here are a few things to be aware of…

Is your blog content truly shareable? Are you sure? It’s so important, and here’s why…

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Know Your Audience

Who are you targeting with that post? How big is your target audience? Is it narrow or nice and wide?

The kinds of posts you’re going to see most shared, are posts that relate to a nice wide audience. Things like recipes, DIYs, life hacks, and inspirational posts are going to be shared most often-and the wider the target audience is, the more they will be shared. For example, sharing something like this DIY Lip Balm post is pretty widely shareable-which is reflected in the fact that it’s been shared 1.1K times since it went live last October. Most women use lip balm, and a lot of people would like to try and make their own if it’s not too difficult.

However, these DIY Easy Halloween Goodie Bags have only been shared about 176 times. While they’re super cute, they’re really only relevant to people who have kids in their life or who give little gifts for holidays like that. People who aren’t inclined to do that sort of thing aren’t likely to share it, so my audience is a bit more narrow than the one for the lip balm. 176 is a good number, don’t get me wrong-but it’s not huge.

Would you share it?

Well, ask yourself this question to start: If this post wasn’t written by you, would you want to share it? You have to take yourself completely out of the equation when asking this question. If you wrote this post all about how your daughter made the winning goal in the soccer match last week, you have to think about it like it was some stranger’s child in the post. Would you share a post like this about someone else’s kid? Some stranger’s son or daughter?

For most people, the answer is going to be no. Someone who doesn’t have kids isn’t likely to share it at all, and most other moms-while they might enjoy keeping up with your family-probably aren’t going to pass it along to other people because why would they? Sure, your best friend, mother, grandmother, etc. will probably pass it on, but if you’re trying to grow your blog into something bigger you want a bigger audience to be sharing it.

That doesn’t mean you have to stop sharing the stories about your kids, or your life experiences, etc. It just means that the more relatableyour post is, the more it’s going to be shared.

Give Your Post a Message

So how can you make these life and family posts more shareable? Give them a message. A real message can make them more relatable-people are more likely to relate to some kind of message than they are just a story about a kid kicking a ball into a net. Go ahead and write about little Suzie and her success out on the field, but give it a purpose-some kind of message that goes along with the story.

If that reason is just that you want to share your kids story-that’s fine, but it’s probably not going to get shared a ton and that’s okay. You just have to be okay with that and not expect too much.

However, if the story wraps up with a good message about perseverance and how she really pushed herself to make that goal when she was feeling afraid of failing, or maybe your platform for the post is to encourage parents to put their kids in sports so you wrap it all up with why this confirmed your decision to do so, etc. Those are the things that are going to bring more people into that area where they can relate to your post. If your post makes people think and feel through experience, it’s way more likely to be shared.

Make Your Shareable Content Timely

You’ve heard it said before, timing is everything, and this is especially true for blog posts. It’s one thing to write good content that can be shared, but it’s another to make sure you’re within the sharing zone for that content. People are going to share content that is relevant to where they are in that point of their life, and how they’re feeling just then. Some posts (like holiday-related and current event posts) are going to be highly shareable for only a short time due to the nature of people being very excited for what’s coming up or what’s happening. You get a lot of bang for your buck if you position these within the window, but if you miss that window of time-they’re not as likely to be shared.

How can you make your shareable content more timely to your readers? We have some ideas…

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Holiday Posts

Holiday posts are highly shareable for a short time. People love to be in the holiday spirit of whatever holiday is coming up, so they’re going to share content related to that holiday-DIYs, recipes, messages, etc. However, the window for a holiday post is a lot smaller than a different post If your post is holiday related, you’re going to want to make sure to post it prior to the holiday and with enough time that they can actually utilize your post while in the holiday spirit.

Have a great Thanksgiving Dinner recipe? Fabulous! Share it a good 1-2 (or more) weeks before Thanksgiving. You want it to be close enough to the holiday that they are feeling the spirit of it (aka you don’t want to post it in July when they’re thinking of water parks and ice cream and the holidays are the furthest thing from their minds) but early enough that they have time to prepare for and plan to incorporate your recipe. People plan their dinners and dishes early, and then they need time to shop for it, make sure they have the right equipment, and get it ready to go.

Yes these holidays will come around again, but with them will come a lot more holiday-themed posts on the web. To maximize your holiday content you want to make sure those old holiday related posts are up to date each year, and that you are sharing them again to bring them to the front of the line and into people’s view.

Current Events

Current events are a big time shareable post. If something huge happened politically, there was big news in the world, or something in social media is changing-posting about it will give you a likely boost in shares for that post-but only if you share it in a timely fashion. With the way things move in these days of the internet, your timeline for sharing a current event before it becomes a past event is small, so you have to act quick! Unlike with holiday posts, it’s not likely these will come around again, so when it’s no longer an issue that people care about your shares will likely drop.

Posts Related to Age Ranges or States of Being

Writing posts that relate to a state of being or a time in your life, like a certain time in your life or an age range, may seem like they’d only be relevant for those years, but it’s not entirely true. For example, let’s take our twenties-a span of ten years. Posts like Cosmo’s Things Every Woman Should Do in Her Twenties and Buzzfeed’s 27 Epic Adventures Worth Taking in Your Twenties are only relevant to you for those ten years, but there will always be new twenty year olds moving on to the scene. Those posts will probably always be relevant to people who are in that span of life.

I maintain that both of those are still good after thirty though. Seriously. Says the girl who turns 30 in exactly a month from tomorrow…

Use Proper Spelling and Grammar

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to share a post I related to, but stopped myself because it was just so full of spelling and grammatical errors. Yes, these mistakes don’t really mean everything-good content is good content-but it’s still hard to push out a post that is hard to read, even if it’s such a great topic and/or opinion. It feels dirty to recommend my readers go through it with all those mistakes and troublesome spots.

Have a Good Looking Site

I know I harp on blog design a lot in these Better Your Blog posts, but it really is so important. Having a nice clean blog design and posts that are easy to read and follow is key to keeping your readers happy. As it turns out, it’s also key to getting your posts shared too. No matter how many times we’re told “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, we still do it-and we judge blogs by their cover too. If a blog looks totally unprofessional it’s hard to share a post and have your friends and readers go to that blog and take it seriously. Make your design appealing so people are drawn in, and more likely to send people your way for a pleasing experience.

How to Get Blog Posts Shared

Okay, so you’ve determined now that your post is shareable, at least on some level, so how do you get that post shared by other people? Naturally, some people will share it anyway as they come and read it, as long as you don’t make it to difficult on them. Some loyal readers or people who are seriously passionate about what you’ve written will just share it manually. They’ll copy the link and post it to their Facebook page, or tweet it out, and if you’re lucky and they have the Pinterest button added to their browser maybe it’ll get pinned.

Make Sharing Easy

If you’re counting on people going to all that work to share your posts, you’ll probably be disappointed. People mean well-they really do-but when something takes too much effort it’s likely to be abandoned before it’s brought to completion. If you make sharing as easy as the click of a button-it’s ten times more likely to get shared.

Do you make it easy on your readers to share your content? 90% of the time, if it’s too difficult, they’ll give up and your post wont be shared.

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Install Share Buttons for Multiple Social Sites

Seriously. This is the number one thing you should do if you want sharing to be done easily and often. Having visible share buttons on my blog increased my shares three-fold. See those pretty buttons to the left of my post? Readers have the option to share to various different social media accounts-giving them the optoion to share it where they really want to. Most people don’t have accounts on all of those sites. Sure, we do, we’re bloggers/businesses/social media experts, but the vast marjority of internet users who aren’t those things share stuff too-and you want to give them the option to share it to the site they do use. So the more options you have, as long as it looks nice and tidy, the better.

Those pretty little buttons on my sidebar are Flare by Filament, but I’ve also heard really good things about SuMoMe. There are a lot of great free and paid plugin options out there though. A lot of them even work on Blogger now, which was basically unheard of in the past.

Have at Least Two Kinds of Sharing Buttons

Oh man, I would seriously stress the importance of this one. Don’t rely on just one set of sharing options in one place. Yes, my pretty little share options on the side float down so no matter where you are in the post you can share it, but what if they fail? It’s happened. The plugin needs updating, or something goes down on their servers, and bam-the post is temporarily not shareable.

This is why having other options is so useful-even if I don’t have ALL of those options, I have some important ones like the Pin It button (Need a good pin it button plugin? Read all about it and my other favorite WordPress plugins.) when you hover over my photos, or the little tweetable quotes that make it easy for people to share my post to Twitter.

I’ve been using Click to Tweet as a great free option for adding tweetables, but I’ve recently upgraded to a one-time paid (meaning you buy the plugin once, and don’t have to continue paying for it, so that’s nice.) service called TweetDis (note, they sent me the plugin free totry, but all opinions are 100% mine). So far I like it. There are a lot more options to it and you can set up defaults for how you want it to appear-some of those templates offer a few customization like size and color. Overall, I wish it had a little more customization where colors are concerned, as it would be nice if I could make it match the colors on my blog, but I think the switch will be worth it. I can set it up for all sorts of different kind of tweets-including images!

Share Your Own Posts Everywhere

If you want others to share it, you should be sharing it, and the truth is there are going to be people who miss your post. Sharing your content to your social media sites, both the blog/business ones and your personal ones, will make it more visible to your followers. Plus, they can then easily share from there if they want to do so. Hitting “share” on facebook, repinning, or retweeting is even easier than clicking on the button in your blog post.

This also provides them the opportunity to share your post before they even read it. I know, it sounds kind of weird, but do you have any idea how many times I’ve been thumbing my way down my Facebook or Twitter feed while I’m getting ready for work and seen a post I wanted to read but didn’t have time for? Millions. Oh hey, there’s an article on all the things I didn’t know about Gilmore Girls? CRAP! It’s 7:50 I have to go! You know what I do? Share it. I share it so I can go back to my wall or feed later and read it.

Schedule Your Shares Appropriately

I don’t even have to wait til a post is published to share it. Luckily I use CoSchedule so I can schedule out the sharing of my own posts in advance. I easily schedule Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google +. However, one share doesn’t always work. Sure, Google + and Facebook are pretty good with only one share, but the average life of a tweet before it gets flooded out by other tweets is something like a half hour on someone’s feed. That’s a short window.

To work with that, I schedule at least 2-3 tweets for the post, each at a different time of day so that it reaches different people in my audience. I also schedule out a tweet for the post at a future date and time and label it “from the archives” so that people can see it then too and my shares don’t go too far down over time.

For Pinterest, sometimes your post fits into more than one board that you have or collaborate on, so I schedule as many pins for those boards as I need, and spread them out over time so they’ll reach different audiences on Pinterest as well. It seriously makes my life so much easier.

Funny story, as I was typing up this post I had to reboot my computer becuase it was running super slow. While I was waiting for my reboot I opened up Twitter to browse Tweets and CoSchedule had actually just posted a post related to this post called Why People Share: The Psychology of Social Sharing. What a coincidence! To be fair, I put off reading their post until I was finished with mine so I wouldn’t be influenced-but I still wanted to share it with you so you could get even more information on the subject should you wish to research it further.

Share Other Bloggers’ Content

This blogging thing can be quite the give and take. If you want other bloggers to share your content with their following, you should be sharing content from other bloggers as well. If you see a post you like from another blogger that you really like, or you think your readers will find useful, share it! Sharing content from other bloggers/sites/sources only helps your reputation with other bloggers as they’ll see you share their content, and you’re more likely to build a connection with them that will result in them sharing your content too, and with your readers who will probably be happy for a nice wide range of topics to find through you.

Sharing related content from other sources just gives your followers more of what they love-and they’ll keep coming back for it.

TWEET IT

Keep it Related to Your Feed

I would advise that you keep your content pretty closely related to that which you provide to your readers. They follow you for a reason, and they expect a certain level or type of thing coming from your account. My brand is “lifestyle”, which makes it easy for me to share most things, but I still try to keep it to some of the main stuff I talk about here. It’s pretty rare when I will share something for kids, or parenting, or what not-since I don’t talk about those things.

However if you’re a food blogger and you only post about food, your followers are going to follow you for food, and they may not always react well if you post something that is totally outside the bounds of cooking/recipes/restaurants, etc. If you’ve been sharing recipes for cookies and flan for months, and then suddenly share a review of a romance novel you read, you may shock or lose a few of your followers.

Sharing related content from other sources just gives your followers more of what they love-and they’ll keep coming back for it. They’ll know you’re their go-to source for certain things, and when they’re looking for something they’ll be likely to check your feed or reach out to you about it. Blogging is very much about building connections-this is one of the better ways to grow strong friendships with other bloggers, companies, and your fan base.

Let’s Wrap It Up

So in summary, here are the key points you want to pay attention to in order to get posts shared:

Consider your audience, and make your posts relatable to that audience.
Present those posts in a professional and well-put-together manner.
Maximize your timing with topics and events.
Make it as easy as possible to share your posts.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket with one sharing option.
Share your own posts multiple times, at different times of day, and across various platforms.
Share related content from other sources.
Make it easy on yourself by scheduling things out.

What’s your favorite way to share?

The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.

This post does contain some affiliate links. This means, at no extra cost to you, I may receive compensation or product discounts for purchases or sign ups made through those links. Thank you so much for supporting my blog, I couldn’t do this without you.

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

Better Your Blog | 10 WordPress Plugins That You Should Be Using

February 24, 2016 by Angie 94 Comments

Previously, I’d been a pretty strong advocate of remaining on Blogger, which is why my blog lasted a good six and a half years over on Blogger. However, after toying with the idea for quite a long time, there was one thing that finally persuaded me to attempt the switch from Blogger to Hosted WordPress, and that was Plugins. I’d heard so many wonderful things about WordPress plugins and how much easier they make life, and I was finally enticed over to “the dark side” as I’d seen it then.

Well, after six months of blogging on WordPress, I can now officially say that this is the light side baby-the bright side. Plugins ARE worth it. I mean, there are a lot of other awesome reasons to move to WordPress such as the right to own your own data (if you blog on Blogger, Google owns your data-it’s in their TOS) and clearer tools, but if there’s one main reason to make the switch-I still firmly belive it’s plugins. Plugins have made this little blog run SO much smoother. Now when I want to add a feature to my site, instead of googling how to do it and then playing in the code for hours and hours to finally get it semi-right (or just giving up and dealing without it because it is too much hassle), I pull up the Plugins section of my blog and do a quick little search. I’d say about 90% of the time they have exactly what I’m looking for-and it’s marvelous.

My Favorite WordPress Plugins

Over the last six months I’ve installed, used, tested, and removed countless plugins from my blog. At this point in my blogging life, I have it pretty narrowed down to what plugins I need to keep using-and I haven’t added a new one in a little while because I’m quite happy with how it’s running. So, today I’d like to share with you my list of favorite WordPress plugins in hopes that those of you using WordPress may find a new one to love and use, and those of you who aren’t on hosted WordPress can see if these plugins make it worth it for you to make the switch or not.

Yoast SEO

If there’s one WordPress plugin I can recommend above all others, it’s Yoast SEO. One of the most confusing things when I first started paying attention to blogging was SEO, and the Yoast plugin makes it SO much easier to understand and prioritize. Not only does it add a fully-functional SEO sitemap to your site to help indexing and searching, but it also adds it’s lovely little plugin to the bottom of every post to help you optimize your SEO presence on each and every post.

The plugin lets you set a focus keyword (which is important for SEO-it’s all about the keywords and searchable terms), edit the title and meta description (this is how they’ll show up in search results), and then it gives you a list of check points to make sure that you are really utilizing that SEO. As you can see from the above image, my SEO on this post is mostly good, but Yoast is also encouraging me to move the placement of my keyword in the title and the first paragraph. I’m not going to, because I like how it’s set up and my SEO is still pretty good, but if I were to it would improve it even more. I also love that it scans the page and lets you know how easy to read it is and other SEO tips.

Plus, it works throughout your blog in other ways also. If you look at the screenshot above, you’ll see that there’s a little stoplight icon next to “Move to Trash” in the bottom right hand corner. That gives me a nice quick look at what my SEO score looks like for the post so far. If you look at the one below, I can see from my list of posts which ones have good SEO and which have bad. It looks like I need to go back and update my “Top Tips for Contact Lens Wearers” posts because I forgot to set up the SEO on that one. Oops. But see? So useful.

Click to Tweet

Click to Tweet is made by CoSchedule (who I’ll mention talk about in a minute, and it is a simple little plugin that inputs a quick little tweetable box right into your post. This makes your post super shareable to twitter, so if someone’s reading and see’s the little box, all they have to do is click on it. Just see for yourself here:

[Tweet “Are you on Hosted WordPress? These are the WordPress Plugins you NEED to be using!”]

See how easy that was? From my end, when I’m editing my post, all I have to do is click on the cute little Twitter bird up by my other post editing options, enter what I’d like my tweet to say, and it’s ready to go for publishing.

CoSchedule

Okay, CoSchedule isn’t free-I know that’s the biggest hang up that most people have (trust me, so did I at first) but man… I could write sonnets about CoSchedule. It’s an editorial calendar that has built in social sharing and analytics. I wrote a more in-depth post about why you should be using CoSchedule before, but since then I’ve come to rely on it even more heavily.

Filament

I tried out several social sharing plugins before finally settling on Filament. I really like the way it works, and how it counts things (it even seems to see shares that weren’t done via those buttons-but don’t quote me on that). Plus it’s customizable and looks great hanging out to the left of my post there-have a look, click a button, test it out. 🙂

JQuery Pin it Button for WordPress

This was one of those things that when I was on Blogger I had to mess around with the coding to input a custom Pin It button on my blog. JQuery Pin It Button for WordPress totally made it easy-I installed, set a few settings, and then uploaded my pretty custom Pin It button that matched my theme. Trust me, I tried several other pin it plugins before I found the beauty of this one.

MailMunch

MailMunch was a fantastic find-it totally helps add great sign-up forms to your site for your mailing lists and allows you to customize them and control them. I mean, look how cute my little sign up form just under this post is. Adorable.

Convert-a-Link

This one is only applicable if you do affiliate marketing via Affiliate Window, but man do they make it simple. This is why they’re my preferred affiliate program to work through. They have a link builder (which I use occasionally if I post to other sites or my social networks) but here on the blog all I had to do was install the plugin and it automatically converts the link of any link of an affiliate program that I participate in into my affiliate link. This was great, since it even went back and scanned all my old posts and converted those links, and when I’m writing up a post I don’t have to convert every single affiliate link before putting it into my post. I simply copy and paste it, and the plugin does it for me.

For example, see my Update Your Home with the 2016 Pantone Colors of the Year post. That post already took me hours to research, edit, and put together-it would have doubled my time if I’d had to convert every single link in it prior to putting it into the post.

Use Any Font

Use Any Font is great because I can upload the fun and unique fonts I’ve purchased for my design work and use them in my actual blog. I can select them from the font drop down in my post editor and change the words to any font… For example, the two main fonts I use around here for blog images are Jacques & Gills and Pathway Gothic. For a while I used Carolinea, but when I updated my blog design I changed it to swich things around.

Not only can I change fonts in my post, but I can set rules in the plugin so that every time I set a post to H1/H2/etc. it sets to a certain font. That’s fun if you want all of your headers to be a certain font without creating images. Interesting fat: images instead of actual text actually are detrimental to your SEO-so I don’t recommend doing it that way. I did for a while, trust me, and changing back helped.

JetPack by WordPress

Okay, JetPack is a default WordPress Plugin, but it does SO much. In fact, there were several other third party plugins I was able to eliminate simply because Jetpack had it covered in a way I preferred (such as my related posts section). It even does analytics. If you aren’t taking advantage of. Just look at all of these features:

Simple Author Box

When I was looking at other blogs that were self-hosted WordPress blogs, I noticed wonderful little author boxes at the bottom and went on a mission to find the right one. I tried so many plugins, but Simple Author Box was really the one that stuck for me. They seem like a great way to get a little bit of info about the person behind the blog at the end of the post, and if you have multiple contributors on your blog you can set it up so it shows the info of that person specifically. I like it better than just inputting a signature because I don’t have to think about it-it’s just there, and it has links to my social media and everything.

What are your favorite plugins?

HERE

A couple of the links in this post are affiliate links, by signing up or purchasing through them I may receive a small compensation at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for doing so, you really help keep this blog of mine afloat!

The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

Better Your Blog | Everything You Need to Know About Accepting Sponsored Posts

January 18, 2016 by Angie 98 Comments

Let’s talk sponsored posts, shall we? Before we get started, and so you know that I know what I’m talking about, I have been taking sponsored posts for years now. It all started when one little company emailed me asking if they could pay me to write a post about them and put it up on my blog. I accepted, and the rest is history. Well, not really, but over the several years since accepting my first compensation for a post I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also changed my strategy drastically since that first post, and I’ve seen the benefit for it. Today, I want to share some of that benefit with you, and also help you understand the risks and rewards of posting sponsored content.

What is a Sponsored Post?

A sponsored post is a post that you publish on your blog that has been paid for by a company or someone other than yourself. Basically, any post you receive compensation for, or set up a compensation arrangement for, prior to posting.

Types of Sponsored Posts

Silent Sponsored Guest Post

The most common sponsored post I’ve been contacted about lately are these silent guest posts. Basically the content is written by someone else and you publish it on your blog, but you don’t credit the author. It typically looks like it is something you’ve written for your site.

An example of one of my silent sponsored guest posts: How to Plan the Perfect Valentine’s Day

How Sponsored Posts Can Benefit You

Money. They pay you, and it’s nice to earn money doing something you love-like blogging. Especially since blogging can come with costs like hosting, advertising, image use, etc. Accepting some sponsorship definitely helps keep the lights on.
They provide content. Sometimes you are at a lack for content, or sometimes an idea is pitched to you that you just love, and thus, you have more great content for your readers.

How Sponsored Posts Can Hurt You

Quantity. Posting too much sponsored content, especially one right after the other, can be unappealing for loyal readers.
Quality. If your posts don’t include actual story line and are just a straight up review or notification-they can read poorly and people tend to skip them. If you’re doing that every day? They wont come back.
Lack of Originality. If your post is a sponsored guest post that has also been shared multiple places it can definitely be noticed, and people don’t love it when they find the same content in multiple places. Why read yours when they’ve read it so many other times?

How to Get Sponsored Post Opportunities

Contact Companies You Like

This can often be good for you because you know it’s something you can promote on your space because it’s a company you already like and support. Most companies have a “Press” or “Media” section where you can find contact info for them, and a lot of them even list their opportunities for blogger reviews and stuff like that. Most of the time, reaching out to them won’t turn up anything-and they may not even respond to you at all, but sometimes they’ll send you a little something for review or hook you up with whatever company they run their promotions through.

Join a Site Specifically for Sponsored Posts

I’ve belonged to a few sites before where I’d get paid for posts and/or reviews. Here are a few I’ve worked with, and my thoughts on them. Each has their own way of running things. Some of these email you when an opportunity arises

Tomoson – I actually stopped working with Tomoson because the payout is pretty low, and the struggle to get their merchants to actually follow through with sending you something is real. They also rate you, and if you don’t post on time (whether or not you received the product) your ratings as a promoter can look pretty bad. I got so fed up I quit, but a lot of other people have had good experiences with it.
Linquia (referral link) – Linquia is a really popular one that I’ve worked with a couple of times. The payout depends entirely on how many clicks the links get and not the actual post. This can mean you can make as much as their maximum price (I’ve seen them listed as anywhere from $60-$100+ typically) or you can make as much as .50 cents. I’ve usually made around $20-$40 on their posts, and for the most part they have their stuff so well laid out that they’re a breeze to work with.
BlogHer Publishing Network – I’ve not written a sponsored post for the BlogHer/Momentum Publishing Network because to join the program they require exclusivity and I’m not ready to commit to turning away everyone else who wants to work with me or whom I want to promote. However I know lots of fabulous big time bloggers who do work with them, and I do social media promotions with She Knows, a part of the BlogHer setup.
IZEA (referral link) – I joined IZEA because I used to belong to this really fantastic site for sponsored posts and reviews (I forget what it’s called) that was eventually phased out as IZEA took it over. I used to love that site, and unfortunately I don’t love IZEA as much as it. There are good opportunities in there, but I haven’t had a ton of success getting ones I’m actually interested in so I tend to avoid it these days. However, it is set up really nice, and there is typically a lot on there.
Social Fabric – From what I can tell (since I only recently signed up), you have the potential to make a LOT with Social Fabric. Most of their opportunities run from $200-$700 payouts. I have not yet completed a “shop” with them, due to the fact that they have a lengthy course you have to go through first (and I’ve not taken the time to complete it) and the competition is high. You have to fill out a form for each opportunity explaining exactly what you’d write about, how you’d execute it, and why you should be considered. I applied for a couple and was never chosen or heard back.
MassiveSway – This is one created by The Sits Girls if you remember or read them still. I used to follow their site really well, and their paid opportunities pay well, but the competition is super high and I have not actually done a post through them yet.

There are others that I don’t have much experience with yet or have never tried to work with, including:

Blog Meets Brand
Mode Media
Clever Girls Collective (They have a lot of rules for your blog to apply-I did and was declined.)
Pollinate Media
Her Campus
Weave Made Media

Wait for Sponsored Posts to Come to You

Most of my sponsored posts come to me. I recieve 3-5 sponsored post requests a week typically from companies. Some I have worked with before on sponsored posts, and some I have never even heard of. Some I say yes to, and some I turn down, but we’ll get to that later. In any case, you definitely want to make sure that you are not only encouraging companies to reach out to you, but you are making it easy for them to.

How to Encourage Companies to Contact You with Opportunities

Make contacting you easy. Do you have your email listed on your blog? Make sure you have a distinct “Contact” page where companies can learn how to contact you, and don’t just put up a contact form. Also list your email, or install a button they can click to email you directly. Companies want to be able to reach you without jumping through hoops. I would recommend making sure your contact info is also easily available on any social media you use in conjunction with your blog.
Make your location known. No, you don’t have to post your address, but some companies are looking for specific people in specific regions-so make sure you note on your About Page or in your author information what area you live in.
Talk about products you love on social media. Love those shoes you picked up at Target last week? Tag them in your Instagram photo. Like the smoothie place you stopped at this morning? Shout out to them on Twitter. Once companies know you’re open to giving out the love, they’re more likely to reach out to you. Brands seriously do keep an eye on social media-they’ll notice.
Include the sponsored post option in your sponsorship/advertise/work with me section. I not only mention several times that I accept sponsored posts in my Work With Me page but I also have a way to purchase one directly on my Advertising page. A lot of the time companies reach out to me by email because they’d rather pay another way, but it’s good for them to know that it is something I clearly offer.

How to Make Yourself Appealing to Companies

You want want companies to consider you for sponsored post opportunities, whether it’s because they reach out to you, you to them, or because you belong to a site where you apply. Here are a few things to consider if you hope to be chosen for these paid opportunities.

A Few Things to Check if You Want to Receive Sponsored Opportunities

Your Blog Design

Take a moment and look at your blog design. How does it look? Do you have a clear, concise, and inviting design? Does it look professional and clean? Can you clearly read the words in your posts without straining? Companies want to make sure that their brand will be aligned with not only appealing sites, but professional looking ones too. If you need ideas on how to make your site better in the design department, check out my post on blog design tips.

Your Previous Posts

Companies are going to get an idea of the way you’ll write about them from the other posts currently on your blog. Make sure all of your posts are cleaned up and attractive looking, and that you’re using good grammar and organizational skills in the layout. This is especially true if you’re writing about a brand or product-they want to see how you’ll write about them. Keep examples of your best work on hand in case they ask for it too!

Your Blog’s Searchability

SEO is HUGE right now, and a lot of the time a blog well set up for SEO is going to get preferential treatment. This means making sure your photos are all tagged with titles and alt tags, your links all work and are concise, and you have active keywords working for you on your blog. I’ll admit, SEO is still something I have a lot of learning to do with (which is why I recently enrolled in a course on it), but luckily using my Yoast SEO plugin with WordPress has been a huge help.

Your Analytics

Do you have analytics set up on your site? If not, that is definitely working against you. Companies want real proof of the kind of traffic you receive-things like page views, unique visitors, time spent on your site, etc. You can’t guess at these things, so using a product like Google Analytics (which is an industry standard these days) will calculate it for you and provide you print outs you can share with potential sponsors.

Your Social Media Channels

If you don’t have active social media channels set up for your blog, you’re missing a huge market. Not only is it a great way to interact with your followers, but it’s one of the best way for brands and people to find you. Make sure they’re all clearly branded to match your blog, include your contact information, and that you’re using them both actively and professionally. Don’t complain, use terrible languag, or bash people. Be upbeat, use proper grammar and spelling, and make sure your voice shines through.

How to Know if A Sponsored Post is the Right Fit

This is a big one, and unfortunately not enough people are choosy enough about the sponsored posts they accept. Trust me, I can say this because I used to be one of them. I was so darn thrilled to be offered money to post on this little blog of mine that I just readily accepted payment. But here’s the thing-your space is valuable and your readers expect you to treat them to quality work.

Don’t just accept every opportunity that comes your way. Be picky. This not only shows brands that you they’re special when you work with them, but it shows your readers (who let’s face it, are the whole reason you’re receiving these opportunities in the first place) that you value the time they’re taking to read your posts.

A Few Things to Ask Yourself Before Accepting a Sponsored Post

Would I actually support this product?

If the product, service, or web page that you’re linking to or talking about isn’t something you’d actively use yourself and recommend to your friends, why would you recommend it here on the blog? If you don’t love the product and you say you do-you’re faking it-and readers can always tell. Your work is sloppy, your voice doesn’t shine through, and in turn you don’t get people excited about it. So it’s really best not only for you and your readers, but the company itself, that you turn it down.

How much are they paying?

Definitely work out how much money they are going to pay you before accepting the opportunity. Like I said before, your space is valuable. Value yourself, your blog, and your readers by asking what you’re worth.

What do they want from me?

Get a clear understanding of what the company wants before agreeing to the post. If they want you to promote their product and never promote a competitor ever in the future of your blog, is it worth it? If they want you to lie about their product, not disclose that you received compensation (which can be a huge no no-see why coming up), or do something that feels sketchy to you-turn it down! Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough that you should trust your gut when it comes to sponsored opportunities or working with companies.

Mandatory Disclosure

The title of this section just about sums it up-disclosure is mandatory. This is not only just for the benefit of your readers, but it’s required of you by FTC (the Federal Trade Commission) guidelines. You can be fined heavily if you’re caught not disclosing that you have received or may receive compensation for that promotion. I always make sure to note where posts are sponsored, or if they are affiliate links, because it not only gives my readers a clear understanding of what I’m saying-but because I really don’t want to get my butt taken to court.

If you asked me to count how many times a company asked me to promote a post without acknowledging that it was sponsored or affiliate, I couldn’t. It’s unfortunately been too many times, and I always try to warn the companies that they could get a hefty fine too for soliciting such a thing-but that doesn’t stop them. In fact, just this week I posted a post with a sponsored link in it and the company emailed me to ask that I remove my disclosure about the affiliate link-I told them exactly why I could not. They opted to have me remove the link entirely even though I notified them that it was necessary.

Writing Sponsored Posts that People Want to Read – What Works

Telling a story. People want to be engaged-even if a post is promoting something they’re not interested in, if you can tell a compelling story and get them involved in what you’re writing, they’re more likely to consider the product or at least remember it to tell someone about it if the opportunity arises. This is how you become a good influencer.
Sharing personal anecdotes. Don’t just write a story about the product, write a story that shows who you are and allows your readers to not only connect with what you’re promoting, but you-the author-the voice behind the post.
Promoting products/services/companies you feel strongly about. Whether you’re sharing them on your own, linking to them as an affiliate, or promoting them because they asked-make sure you’re sharing your true feelings in a way that shows your readers that you’re passionate about it.
Sharing your promoted posts. Don’t hesitate to share these posts on your social media or in Facebook groups for blog promotion. That’s the best way to show real support and spread the word not only about your post, but the product in question.
Big beautiful photos. Seriously, a picture is worth a thousand words and your photos are going to be an intricate part of your post. The post should be totally sharable to Pinterest and other social media, and it should be bright and clear. Your images really give one of the biggest impressions about your professionalism and creative style. I wrote about good photos in another Better Your Blog post about sizing and positioning photos.

Work for Free? NO WAY.

Oh man, along with people expecting me to not disclose what is legally required to be disclosed, I get countless emails daily asking me to promote their product for free. If you’re a blogger at any level, it is likely you’ve seen a few of these too. They’re not fun to receive, and they’re not fun to turn down, but it’s better than getting roped into some kind of scam that doesn’t benefit you in any way. I will never understand why these companies, who are getting paid for their time, expect you to do a job for them with no compensation. That’s not okay.

What Requests for Free Promotion Look Like

Sometimes these look like blatant requests for free work, but usually they are spun to look like they’ll benefit you in some way-even if they won’t. Knowing how to recognize good and bad opportunities is really important.

Examples of Bad Sponsored Opportunities

Example: “I see that you wrote about [insert previous post topic], and I was wondering if you could mention my company there?”

Why this is bad: They don’t want to pay you to promote their company, and they want you to change your already carefully constructed post that had nothing to do with them in the first place. #byefelipe

Example: “We here at [company/organization name] are promoting [event] and we want you to be a part of it! Write up a post talking about [your favorite things/what you would do if/etc.] and link to our company, and we’ll share our favorites on our social media channel!”

Why this is bad: Not only are they not offering to pay you anything, but they’re only offering you the chance at a social media share. They’re not even offering to actually promote you anywhere. The worst part about these ones is they almost always come from some huge company that could definitely afford to pay you for your time. Just say no.

It all comes right back to valuing yourself and knowing your worth. You’re worth more than they are valuing you at, and you shouldn’t be afraid to state that.

How to Handle Requests for Free Promotion

This is tricky, for reasons which include not wanting to offend companies that might come back with actual paid opportunities. Some of these people might not actually realize what they’re doing is not great. I think the majority do know they’re offering you nothing in return for your work, but some may actually be naive about what kind of work it takes to run a blog, write for it, and promote it. This blog is a full-time job that I balance with another full-time job, three other small part time blogs, volunteer work, and part time college.

Responses I Use When Asked to Write Free Sponsored Posts

“Thank you for reaching out to me. I definitely do accept sponsored posts and I love working with brands like yours! If you’d like to purchase an opportunity on my site, please check out my advertising page at mysocalledchaos.com/advertise for information and prices. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns, I look forward to working with you!”

A few times, that has actually resulted in a response that is like “I can budget [x amount of money that may or may not be what I’m asking] for a sponsored post on your site as long as it includes [this, this, and this], will that work?” I always try to work with brands to fit their budget and what I need if they are respectful and willing to work with me like this.

Most of the time they just write back to inform me that they are not paying for this current promotion, but that they’ll keep me in mind for future paid opportunities. It is a great way to keep the lines of communication open between you and the company, and remain in good standing with their media department.

“I apologize, but due to a full content calendar and the costs of upkeep on my site which I run as a business, I cannot promote your [product/service/goods/message/etc.] at this time. Thank you for reaching out to me, and if you have any promotional opportunities arise in the future with fair compensation I’d love to be considered.”

Again, this one is polite and it gets the message across clearly that I run my blog as a business and I want them to treat it that way. In business you don’t work for free, or if you do-you’re doing it wrong, so why should they expect this to be different? It also helps inform them of what running a blog may entail, and it shows that I’m not hurting for content and sponsorship.

I’ll admit, there have been a few people that respond to these and just don’t get it-and I want nothing more than to be blunt and explain just why I’m offended that they would not want to pay me my value-but most of the time I just stop responding. There’s no need to keep trying to explain it if they’re not getting it in polite answers-years of working in customer service has taught me this!

Have a question about Sponsored Posts?

Leave your questions in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do for you.

The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

Better Your Blog | Basic HTML for Bloggers

April 7, 2015 by Angie 10 Comments

When I was in high school I took a web design class. Back then, HTML was pretty much the name of the game, so my classmates and I took the time to design websites for ourselves using HTML coding and editing. These days there are so many different types of code that are more commonly used, however my basic HTML skills have been some of the most useful when it comes to updating my blog. So I thought, let’s share some basic HTML for bloggers, why don’t we?

I can edit my design, alter little things in my post, or do so much more with HTML-sometimes I can even use that HTML coding to go around some of the pre-set conditions by blogger. So today I wanted to take the time to share a little bit of my basic HTML knowledge with you so you can use it in your blog posting.

Basic HTML for Bloggers

Common HTML Terms

Before we get started with actual coding, it’s important for you to understand some of the common HTML terms you may need to know. Here are some of the more important things:

Angle Brackets: <code HERE>

In HTML coding, the “greater than” and “less than” signs are actually called angle brackets. You need angle brackets around anything you post. So all of your coding will be put in angle brackets for it to be recognized as code and not just as something you’ve written. Each section of your code will need to start with a less than sign < and end with a greater than sign > to be complete.

Attribute

An attribute is something added to a basic tag/HTML code to give it further description. For example, if you were to have a basic image code, but want to define it further-you could add a size attribute to change the size, or add an alternative text to the photo. The additions to the basic IMG tag are what we would call attributes.

HTML Converter

A software that converts HTML into actual code. Most blogging software automatically does this when you switch between the HTML and Compose tabs. Though, in Blogger at least, you can turn it off in the right hand menu of your post-which I have done for this post so I can show you the HTML.

Closing Tag: </>

Some codes require a closing tag which is usually just a mirror of the start of the opening tag but with a backslash in front of it. For example, if your opening tag is <center> your closing tag is </center>. This tells the HTML code to stop there, so you can move on to something new. Some tags require closing (links, formatting, etc.) and some do not (such as and image).

HTML for Images

Image Code: <img src=”IMG URL HERE”>

Alt Text is the text that shows in place of a photo on your blog/site before the image has fully downloaded. This text provides an alternative description of what the photo is in case the photo stops loading so that someone can see whatALTERNAT there-or for those people who have disabled images entirely in their browser. Without the Alt Attribute it would just show up as a missing photo icon, like this:

But if you have an alt tag and the photo link is broken, it would look like this at least:

This image is supposed to show you the alt attribute

It’s also extremely useful for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as the search engines can pull from your Alt Text when crawling-<a href=” googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com=”” http:=”” src=”www.mysocalledchaos.com” target=”_blank” using-alt-attributes-smartly.html=”” />Google has officially stated
that they use the alt tag for this purpose. This is also useful for someone with a disability such as blindness, as the software they may be using to read your blog can also typically pull from that alt text to tell them what they would be seeing if they could see the image. In Internet Explorer the Alt Text shows up when you hover over the image.

To add an alt tag to a photo you would add the above code to the IMG code. For example:

Title Text/Title Attribute: title=”TITLE OF PHOTO”

This one is pretty self explanatory, it should be a concise title of the image. In browsers such as Firefox or Opera, this is what shows when you hover over an image.

If you add both, your new IMG code would look like this:

Image Sizing: width=”###” height=”###”

If you want to adjust the size of your photos you can add width and height tags to it. The numbers for the sizes is in pixels though, so you’ll want to make sure you understand the width of your blog post in pixels.

Your IMG code would now look like this:

For example, the main photo in this image (at the top) has a code that looks like this:

HTML for Links

Anchor: <a href=”URL”></a>

An anchor tab is for linking. Meaning you are anchoring whatever you want to “link” (a photo, some text, etc.) to a specific location. To anchor/link something you use the code above, and the HREF stands for Hypertext Reference. You must use a closing tag.

If you want to link to an external location with text, the code would look like this:

If you are linking a photo to an external location, the code would look like this:

If you want the photo to link to itself so it simply opens larger when someone clicks on it, simply place the URL for the picture in both the anchor tag and the image tag. For example:

The Style Basics

Most of the time when writing a post your blogging platform or document will allow you to just do this using their toolbars, however the tips are still good to know in case you want to change things on your sidebar or clean up your HTML.

Center: <center> TEXT/IMG </center>

This will center whatever you’re working on. It does need the closing tag or everything after putting in the opening tag will center.

DIV Alignments:
 <div align=”center”> TEXT/IMG </div>

Bold: TEXT/IMG

Italicize: TEXT/IMG

Underline: TEXT/IMG

Strike Through: <strike> TEXT/IMG </strike>

Line Break:

I use this one a lot. Sometimes blogger makes an absolute mess of my posts and simply hitting enter doesn’t fix it. In those cases I can go in and use the br tag to put in my own breaks. Each br tag takes you to a new line, so if you want a line space between instead of it just being on the next line, use two br tags right next to each other.

Horizontal Line: <hr />

Unordered Lists:

The ul tag is for an unordered list-which we may just call bullet points.

List item one.
List item two.
List item three.

<ul> <li>List item one.</li> <li>List item two.</li> <li>List item three.</li> </ul>

Ordered Lists:

The ol tag is for ordered, or numbered, lists.

List item one.
List item two.
List item three.

<ol> <li>List item one.</li> <li>List item two.</li> <li>List item three.</li> </ol>

Start Your Ordered List with a Specific Number:

Sometimes when using an ordered list you want to add something after and then start with the next number, but the code wants to start with 1 again. Never fear, you can change that by adding a “start with” code, like this:

List item eighteen.
List item nineteen.
List item twenty.

<ol start=”18″> <li>List item one.</li> <li>List item two.</li> <li>List item three.</li> </ol>

Block Quote: <blockquote cite=”LINK TO QUOTE”> QUOTE HERE</blockquote>

Sometimes you want a quote to show up in a different format so it’s clear that it’s a quote. Like so:

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

-Steve Jobs

Add a Text Box:<textarea cols=”40″ rows=”1″> YOUR TEXT < /textarea >

Possibly one of the most useful HTML bits of code I’ve used in composing blogs is a text box. I’ve used it a lot through this post-since you can put HTML in a text box without it converting. This is really useful if you want to provide HTML For a button or something other people can grab from your site. You would remove the extra space in the closing tag from my example though, as I had to remove it so my text box wouldn’t close prematurely.

Scrolling Text Box:

It looks like this:

This is a scrolling text box. You can use the slider bar on the right there to scroll up and down and read my code here. You would replace what I’ve written here with the information you want in a scroll box. The more you rattle on in here, the longer your scrolling could be. The sky is the limit!

Are there any HTML tags you use regularly that I missed?

The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

Better Your Blog | Sizing & Positioning Photos

February 18, 2015 by Angie 9 Comments

How to Size and Position the photos on your blog for better visuals.

There’s something about a blog that has their photos figured out-something wonderful. When I visit a blog the first thing that draws me in are their photos. If they have large clear photos lined up beautifully in the post I’m much more likely to click their little follow/subscribe button. Even before I read through a lot of posts-it’s just a fact that we live in a very visual society, and I am a visual person. This is why I feel like the sizing & positioning of photos is a very important thing to think about.

I’m not saying I wont read a blog that doesn’t have good photos, there are plenty that I follow, I’m just less likely to check in as often, and I’m less likely to follow new blogs that have bad photos or poorly composed posts.

Understanding Your Post Space

First thing is first, you must understand the space you’re working with. It’s kind of like how you can’t really buy blinds for your window without first knowing how big your window is-what if your blinds are too small or too big? Man that would look funny.

Most blog editors are going to allow you to customize the size of your posts a little by altering the width in your template design. With blogger (unless you’ve purchased your template somewhere else and it’s preconfigured) you can easily alter it by going to Settings > Template > Customize. Once you’re in the Blogger Template Designer you can click on Adjust widths from the left hand menu and adjust your sliders there. The post size is going to be a combination of how large you set the Entire Blog vs. how large you set the sidebar sliders.

How to change your blog widths in Blogger.

If you feel comfortable enough, this can also be adjusted in the actual HTML-which may be the only way if you’re using a pre-configured template. For help doing so, I recommend checking out this post. Warning: Not all templates will be the same-it may be best not to alter this if you aren’t 100% sure what you are doing-and ALWAYS back up your template before altering the HTML. I have a tutorial for that HERE.

If you’re happy with your blog widths, you can play with the size of your photos in your blog posts to see about what sizes happen to work for you, it will probably differ for other people, but the best tip I have for you is fill the space width-wise as best as you can. For example, I currently use a 750px width as my widest photo in order to best utilize the space in my blog posts. I try to make all photos total up to that size so they line up nicely. I’ll show you how to change that in a moment.

Choosing Photos For Your Post

Once you’re aware of what space you’re working with, you’ll want to choose which photos you want to use in your post. Whether they’re photos from your Instagram, higher quality photos you took with a nice camera, something you created, or stock photos; you’ll want to make sure they have the capability to fill the space you’re working with. Most high-quality photos can easily be made to fit any space-but if a photo is too small you may want to consider using something different.

Adding Photos to Your Post

Uploading the photo can easily be done directly through most photo editors by clicking on the photo icon and choosing a method to upload. Once in there you can upload from your from your computer, drag and drop, choose something that was uploaded previously, enter the URL for the photo, etc.

For blogger simply click on the little picture icon in the editor bar along the top of your post:

For WordPress, click on the Add Media button that typically shows between your title and post:

You can also use your HTML to add the photos. Instead of using the tool that is given to you in your editor, you can use some very simple HTML codes. The first thing you’ll want to do is go into your HTML section (instead of the Compose section) and in the spot you want to put your photos in you can use some of these very basic codes:

If you want to insert an image that is not clickable, either to go anywhere or to show larger, use this code:

If you want to insert an image that does not link anywhere, but that opens up full size when someone clicks on it, use the following code. (This basically links the photo to itself.) If you want to link the photo to another page, use the same code but for the first url, put the web address of where you are linking the photo to.

Changing the Size of Your Photos

Some blogging editors have a default sizes in pixels for width on horizontal photos or the height on vertical photos, for example the default sizes for Blogger are as follows:

Extra Large: 640px
Large: 400px
Medium: 320px
Small: 200px

That would mean for horizontal photos setting it to extra large means it would be 640px wide, but a vertical photo would be 640px tall. Same for Large, horizontal would be 400px wide, but vertical would be 400px tall, etc.

To change the photo size, simply click on the photo and from the pop up below it will give you the options to choose from.

Better Your Blog | Sizing & Positioning Photos

Here’s an example of what it looks like. I’ve uploaded this horizontal photo four times. The actual photo is the same size all four times (I made these non-clickable), but using the selection method above I’ve changed it to each different size:

New Blogger Series: Sizing & Positioning Photos

Most of the time the blogger defaults are going to work great for you, and typically the extra large size is going to work great for filling your space. However if your posts are slightly smaller, or slightly larger than the defaults you may need to manually edit the coding. Personally, I upload the photo first, select extra large, then I go in and alter the coding in the HTML section.Here’s the code as it shows normally for my first photo selected at Extra Large:

Since my optimal sizing is 700px wide, I go in and change the width to “750” and adjust the height accordingly. Make sure you change the height too or the photo may look weird and stretched out. I can eyeball it, but sometimes putting it into a photo editor and re-sizing the width there will show you what the height should be, and then you can input the most accurate number. Here’s what my code and photo look like now:

Another great trick, and often a better one if you are concerned with storage space on your photo hosting service is to simply set the photo to the correct size you need before uploading, then tell blogger to just show it at it’s Original Size when selecting the sizing. The only downfall to this is that it wont be able to be seen larger if it’s clicked on.

Positioning Photos

Now you’ve got the sizing down, it’s time to look into positioning photos. The first thing is your alignment. Clicking on the photo (see the example above in changing the size) will also give you the alignment options such as Left, Center, and Right. I typically think that left-aligned text with centered photos look best, but that’s just my personal opinion.

You can also set the alignment with HTML too by using simple Center tags like this:

Or a more complex tag like this:

There are so many ways to position your photos, and it’s super easy to do with wide photos when you just want them to fill the space, but then when it comes to vertical/square photos and putting them next to each other, it can get a bit tricky as you try to keep the widths lined up properly.

For example, when it comes to vertical photos do you want the width to fill like the wide ones do? Or do you want two vertical photos to show side by side? If you want it to fill, both the simple upload method and the HTML upload method work great-all you have to do is go in and alter the width of the vertical photo to match in the coding.

For example, if you simply upload it and set it to extra large it’s not going to fill properly and may look kind of weird like this:

Here’s how it looks when I take an extra couple of minutes to go in and adjust my sizing and alignment:

Here’s what that code looks like:

If you want to put two photos side by side then typically the simple uploader is not going to allow them to sit right next to each other. But you can use that uploader and then grab the code from what it uploads to put into your own code, or host the photos somewhere else and just use the code. In this case, you’ll want to break it down by sizing and whether your photos have spaces or not.

For this blog I don’t have any spaces in between photos (my template doesn’t even allow it) so I can simply take my 750px and divide to see how wide my photos need to be. For example, I know two photos next to each other have to be 375px wide each, or three next to each other have to be roughly 250px each to fit right. If you have spacing you’ll want to accommodate your sizing to include those spaces. You can play with widths too-maybe one photo needs to be 370px and the next 380px just on how it fits, as long as they total up to match it’s great!

Here’s an example of what mine looks like with two next to each other:

Here’s the code for that:

You can always play with sizing and setting things next to each other too. Sometimes I want a tall photo next to a short photo (tricky, but possible) like this:

So in this case, my code looks like this:

Are you on your way to better looking photos?

The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.

Angie

http://www.mysocalledchaos.com

About My Unplanned Blog Break

How My Unplanned Blog Break Made Me Feel

What I Learned from my Unplanned Blog Break

How To Avoid Taking an Unplanned Blog Break

Don’t Take on Too Much

It’s Okay to Say No

Let Some Things Go

Accept Help

Hire a Virtual Assistant

Request Guest Posts

Take on a Partner/Regular Contributors

Take a Planned Blog Break

Have you ever taken a blog break?

The Most Necessary Blog Investments

A Domain Name

Web Hosting

A Good Computer

Brand Blog Investments

Blog Design

A Branded Logo

Fonts

Visual Content Investments

A Nice Camera

Blogger Organization Investments

An Editorial Calendar

Social Media Automation

A Planner

Promotional Blog Investments

Advertising

A Virtual Assistant

Educational Blog Investments

Blogging Courses

Blogging Books

Other Blog Investments

Head Shots

A Photographer

Blogging Conferences

Business Cards

Fashionable Clothing

What blog investments are you making?

Why Your Images Need to be Pinterest-Worthy

What Your Images Need to be Pinterest-Worthy

Pinterest-Worthy Images Are Vertical

Pinterest-Worthy Images Are Large

Pinterest-Worthy Images Are High Quality

Pinterest-Worthy Images Contain Words

How to Create Pinterest-Worthy Images

Step 1: Start with a Quality Image

Where to Find Quality Images

Step 2: You’ll Need an Image Editor

Step 3: Make Your Image Vertical

Resize the Photo

Crop the Photo

Step 4: Design Your Pinnable Image

Decide on a Style for Your Pinterest-Worthy Images

Optional: Add Other Elements to Make Your Pins Stand Out

Need Some Inspiration?

How Pinterest-worthy are your Images?

Set-Up Your Pinterest Profile

What Your Pinterest Profile Needs to be Great

A Branded Username

A Profile Picture

A Description

Your Location

Links to Other Social Media Sites

To edit your Pinterest Profile:

Confirm Your Website

Give Your Pinterest Profile & Boards a Good Feel or Flow

Upload a Branded Cover Photo to Each Board.

Pinners Who Rock the First Method

Pick a Theme for Your Cover Photos and Choose a Pin from Each Board that Fits it.

Pinners Who Rock the Second Method

How to Change Your Pinterest Board Covers

Beef Up Your Boards

The Number of Pinterest Boards You Should Have

Create a Board for Your Blog/Shop

Be Detailed in Pinterest Board Names, Categories, & Descriptions

How to Update Pinterest Board Names, Categories, & Descriptions

Pinterest Board Clean Up

To Select Pins on Bulk on Pinterest – Move Pins, Copy, or Delete Pins