Are you supporting your friends on social media? Nearly everyone has been suffering lately, it seems. Or maybe it’s just that that old saw “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is at play. Because of the economy and the Pandemic, many have lost their livelihoods. Some have lost their transportation, housing, or loved ones. So it’s more important than ever to be kind, and to have compassion toward others. It might sound corny, but helping others helps us, too. Here are some ways to support others–many of them don’t cost a cent, and are easy, too. By the way, I’ve written about friendships before, and you might like to read about that: Why Friendships are Absolutely the Best ROI of Social Media.

Give them shoutouts

A shoutout doesn’t cost you anything, except your time. Who do you know whose business could use a little boost? You could talk about that friend on social media, tell others about their products in a Yelp or Google review, or just give them a digital high five. How easy is that? Super easy! Another thing you can do with shoutouts is give those friends some backlinks! So not only tell everyone about your friend Randy Clark, but include a link to his book, How to Stay Ahead of Your Business Blog Forever on Amazon! (Yes, I’ve read it and refer to it often.) If you’ve read a friend’s book, give them a review on Amazon, too.

Support Your Friends While Supporting Yourself! | Image by Zigmars Berzins from Pixabay

Support your friends by buying their products and services

You might not need what your friends are selling yourself, but maybe you do need a gift for an upcoming birthday, wedding, or party. Why not buy something to give away? That helps you, your friend, and the person who receives the gift, too! Why not send someone a wonderful cutting board from Sandy at Creative WoodWorking of Windsor? You could buy some hand-painted cards from Maricar Jagger and give them away. As far as services, maybe you need some help with your website. You could hire someone like Justine Pretorious and then tell others about her.

Introduce them to others

This is my favorite way to support others. Do you have friends with the same interests and do they not know each other? For instance, friends Terri Nakamura and Stacy Garcia both have an interest in unusual architecture, so introducing them was easy. Others might make good podcast guests, so an intro to Inci and Rod Jones of Thought Row Podcast would be in order. Or if you know someone in the trades who needs help with their social media, how about an intro to friend Bridget Willard? She can provide training or you can do it yourself!

Lovely cutting boards from Creative Woodworking of Vermont

How do you help your friends?

Give me your ideas, friends! I’m all ears (it’s an ugly sight! lol). Seriously, let me know how you help your friends.

Here are ten items under $100 that I couldn’t live without. I’ve discussed online productivity before, and time management, too. Productivity and time management are intertwined, so it’s impossible to discuss one without the other. Here are some items that have helped me, and by the way, none of these are affiliate links. They’re just good tools. If you haven’t read this article about time management, you might like it: In a hurry? Time Management for the Busy Professional!

NokoTime

NokoTime is a great way to keep track of your time on social media, blogging, or anything else that requires you to know how much time you spend. I like putting the timer off to one side because often I promise myself I can quit doing an activity after 15 minutes of activity. At $19/month, it does quite a lot, including reports and invoices.

Google Drive

Google Drive is the best and easiest way to share files, photos, collaborate, etc. It’s easy and free (that counts as being under $100, right?). In case you didn’t know, Google Drive is a cloud-based storage solution that allows you to save files online and access them anywhere from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. My favorite way to use Google Drive is to collaborate with others.

Productivity: Ten Items under $100 That Make a Difference| Image Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

Schedulers

Once upon a time, I would’ve said Hootsuite was my favorite. But after they recently quintupled the price without any warning, I’d no longer recommend them. So if you have an alternative that you like, I’m all ears! I’ve heard good things about Buffer and Tweetdeck. Do you have a favorite?

A good notebook

Are you one of those people who needs to write things down in order to remember them? If you do, then you’ll appreciate a good notebook. I’ve tried probably hundreds of notebooks. The best ones are the ones I’ve used since high school, with ruled paper and plenty of space to write.

My favorite pen

At the moment, I’m enjoying a Pilot hi-tecpoint V5 grip pen. It’s super easy to write with, and makes my to-do list fun. I must say, though, that ever since that #DigiBlogChat where we talked about bullet journaling, I’ve been using Pentel Sparkle Pop pens, too.

Calendars

My giant at-a-glance calendar always comes in handy. So is the calendar on my iPhone.

3 x 5 cards

These are so easy to use and so useful! I write down goals for each account. It reminds me of high school chemistry, when our teacher told us we could have as many notes as would fit on a 3 x 5 card. The general idea is to have a few reminders of what your goals are.

Backups

I like having a backup on a separate hard drive, which I can grab in case anything goes wrong.

Social media apps

These are the social media apps you can get mostly for free from the app store! They live on my phone so I can check in whenever I want.

DashThis

Last but not least I’ve been using DashThis for reporting. You might like it, too. You can get it for as little as $33/month (less if you buy a yearly subscription.

What did I leave out?

Do you have any favorite helpers?

Do you need a guest blogger checklist? Recently, I wrote a post about how to avoid getting spammed by guest bloggers. You might want to take a look at it if you’re getting that kind of spam on your blog. The outcome of that post was that a few of us might need a guest blogger checklist! So here you go.

Who are you?

Check out the potential guest blogger’s credentials. Do a Google search on their name, company, and make sure their email matches up with what they say. You might want to talk on the phone with them, too, if possible. I receive a lot of requests where the email address looks spammy and there’s no real signature.

What topics do you want to write about?

If your topics don’t align with what your potential guest blogger wants to write about, that’s an immediate no in my book. But be creative and see if there’s a way. That’s if everything else about the writer looks legit!

Guest Blogger Checklist: Ten Things to Ask Your New Guest | Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

How many links do you need?

My formula is about two incoming and two outgoing links, maybe one more or less. That’s for a 500-word article. Not 50 links and certainly not 100 links! Also, I wouldn’t add links in silly places. One guest blogger wanted to put links in words like “the” and “an.” Um…no!

Where do you want the links to go?

If the links are spammy, that’s another immediate no. Links should go to legitimate websites, not to unrelated places that would simply anger your readers. Check all the links before publishing and make sure they’re adding value to your post.

Who provides the graphics?

Ensure that the graphics are really in the public domain or create or buy your own graphics for the article. A place like Pixabay has free graphics, but for a guest blog, you might want to go with Shutterstock or another subscription-based site. Also, you might want to take a screenshot (if you use a free graphic and store it somewhere safe in case the artist changes their mind about it being free. It happens all the time!).

Who writes the headline?

You don’t want a click-baity headline. I’ve written about headline writing before: What Happens When You Wtie 25 Headlines Before Choosing One? If your potential guest writes click bait, then they’re not for you. Sometimes I’ll write one for fun, but humor can be tricky.

How many drafts do you need?

I prefer two drafts myself, but maybe three if the subject matter is complicated and needs more research. Beware of anyone who doesn’t want to have their copy checked, researched, or edited. That’s a sign that you’re dealing with someone shady.

When can you write the article?

Is there a specific timeline? Does your guest blogger want fast turnaround? Do you? Spell it out–then tell your potential guest blogger!

How long will the writing take?

Will your potential guest need a week to review each draft? A day? Let the blogger know what to expect. And let them know what you expect, too. For me, the process could take a couple of weeks to review and send back and forth the drafts.

How long will the article be?

Do you have a minimum number of words that you like to publish on your blog? And is there a maximum number, too? Decide upon what you’d like the length of the article to be. Yoast recommends a minimum of 300 words for a blog post.

You have the final say

Remember: it’s your blog and your reputation on the line. Make sure the guest blogger knows that you have the right to change what appears on your blog! Did I leave anything out? Let me know!

Have you been considering restarting your social media? Everyone can have a lull in their creativity or ideas. Maybe you’ve had a death in the family or been feeling low. It’s to be expected, especially during Covid. If you’re thinking of restarting your social media, stick around. Here are a few ideas!

Decide where to start

Have all your accounts gone dormant? Why not start with whichever is the easiest one to restart? That might be LinkedIn for you, or it might be Facebook. Start wherever you think would be easiest. Then pick the second one and the third, and so on. If only one account has gone dormant, then you know where to start. You might also want to start at an slower time of the week (Friday, for instance) to ease back into the water. I’ve written about Fridays before here: Why Friday is the Worst Time to Publish a Blog Post.

Choose some topics

Maybe you’ll have five topics to write about. That could be one topic per day of the week. Say you’re beginning with Twitter and you have a brick-and-mortar women’s boutique. You sell dresses, skirts, pants, plus accessories. Maybe you’d do something like the following: Mondays = bright colors, Tuesdays = designers, Wednesdays = purses and wallets, Thursdays = throwbacks, Fridays = weekend sales. For other ideas on topics, check out 14 Talk-Worthy Social Media Topics. You can also look at what you competitors are doing and do something similar (just don’t copy them!).

How Restarting Your Social Media Can Revive Your Business| Image by 5688709 from Pixabay

Write four posts about each topic

If you do this, you’ll now have enough content for four weeks! Having some structure will help you decide what to post on your social media. It’s important to have some ideas before you really get started. I’ve written about writer’s block before, so this might help: What to do when writer’s block has got you down.

Too busy? Hire someone to do it for you!

If you do the above exercises, you will have some structure to show your newly hired gun. To find someone good, ask your friends in business who they use. And remember–they may not need to be local to you. It really depends upon your business. You might hire someone out of state or even out of the country! For instance, I’d hire my good friend (and have) Bridget Willard in a heartbeat. Read what she says about her Twitter Management Process.

Rinse and repeat to restart your social media

Measure your success rate with the content that you share. What kind of content does best? Try to repeat that success. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you can do it! Remember that each social media platform has its own analytics, so they’ve made it easy for you. Just Google analytics to get started.

Have you ever received guest blog spam? Recently I was rereading Randy Clark’s book, How to Stay Ahead of Your Business Blog Forever. In it, Randy explains how he gets many requests for guest blogs and he included one that was filled with terrible grammar. However, some requests are much tougher to discern as being possible spam.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed about these many guest blogging requests. Mostly, you can ignore these blogging requests.

They’re unsolicited.

If someone reaches out to you and you’ve never heard of them before, that’s a big clue that you’re dealing with spam. Read carefully if they say you’re the greatest, best, etc. Sometimes there may be a link to one of your blog posts, but often there isn’t. I’ve talked about spam before: Worst Social Media Practices (and how to avoid them)

There are no signature lines.

At the bottom of the email, where there should be a signature line, there’s no phone number, no website, no nothing. Who reaches out to someone with a business request and has no signature line? Spammers, that’s who!

Requests are filled with mistakes.

Does the request read like it was written by a third-grade student on a bad day? That’s another red flag. Do you want someone who doesn’t even edit their own work messing around with your website? NO!!! By the way, if you’ve never used an editor before, you might want to consider one yourself, at least for your important and/or lengthy articles. How a Good Editor Makes Your Writing Shine.

How to Avoid Guest Blog Spam Requests| Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Vet every request thoroughly.

As Randy says in his book, “Don’t let ego get in the way of common sense. It’s nice to be wanted, and some of these requests look impressive. Don’t bite without a complete search of the author and all links he or she represents.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Check out any links the guest blogger wants to include.

I generally only have 4-6 links in a blog post maximum. Recently a guest blogger wanted to included upwards of 30 links in a short blog post (under 500 words). You might want to decide how many you want. If someone is creating many many links, that’s a clue. And check where those links are going.

Create a checklist for future guest bloggers.

If you really want to include guest bloggers as part of your strategy, make a list of what those guest bloggers need to do. What is the minimum and maximum word count? How many links in and out? Who provides the images and how many? And don’t forget which topics you’d like your guest blogger to write about. If you have an audience of technophobes, then having a guest blogger write about a technical subject isn’t going to appeal to your audience. What else do you have on your checklist? Leave me a comment!

Why you need to use empathy in your marketing

Recently, I was on Bridget Willard’s podcast, Launch with Words. If you haven’t checked it out, you definitely should because Bridget is awesome! And my friends know that I don’t use the awesome word lightly. Honestly, Bridget is one of the hardest working marketers around and you should get to know her. Here’s the full podcast: Empathy is More Important Than Ever with Carol Stephen. And I want to go into a little more detail about why your marketing should encompass empathy.

Marketing and social media have changed

I’ve talked about this before: gone are the days when you can post a picture of an old lemon and have a hundred people like it. Now your competition is tougher, even if you jump to the newest social media platform. You’re going to have thousands of people posting about lemons, lemonade, recipes for lemon cake, and so on. You have to differentiate yourself, and in many cases, you need to pay. Even a small budget will help get more eyes on your posts.

Engagement counts

If you just post and go or constantly broadcast without any interaction, people will lose interest. That is, unless you’re a big fancy news outlet with millions of subscribers. But for a small or medium-sized business, you need to interact. In order to interact, your business needs to have a unique voice. So it’s a good idea to decide ahead of time what you’ll say, what you won’t say, and what kind of personality or voice you’ll have on social media. For more about engagement, you might like this: You Don’t Need Fairy Dust to Improve Your Social Media Engagement.

More empathy, less snark

Right now, people are hurting. Many are hurting a lot. Think about all we’ve been through recently. Climate change, the Pandemic, and now World War Three (at least many are calling it that). We’ve lost friends and family and haven’t been able to travel. Some of us couldn’t even visit our sick relatives in the hospital. Kids, in particular, are having a tough time with being on Zoom calls and not being able to see their friends. It’s a lot to handle right now. So erring on the side of empathy in your marketing is an especially good idea. Which reminds me of a recent article I read about the Culture of Caring and retaining talent. “Creating a culture of caring really starts also with the leadership team,” said Laura Brusca, senior vice president of corporate communications for Forbes. Leaders must show that they care, not just saying the words. That can be as simple as checking in with employees and making sure they’re taking vacation days.”

We’re tired

All of us are more than a little tired. But as marketers, we still need to be able to see things through our customers’ eyes. They’re tired, too, and engaging with them on an emotional level is a good idea. Sometimes just listening is a good idea. A lot of people could use a high five, a hug, or a big pile of cookies.

When social media breaks down, it’s back to basics!

We’ve all had those days when something doesn’t work, technologically speaking. Zooms don’t zoom, WiFi breaks down, or Facebook won’t let you post what you want. And in those moments, you might have to get back to basics with how you market yourself or your business. So what would you do if forced to market without social media? Here are some ideas.

Call people on the (gulp!) telephone

Now that our phones do everything except bake bread, we don’t use them for their original purpose anymore. We store thousands of photos, use it for complex math problems, or play games on it. But calling people? Nah! Who does that any more? But listen: if you really want to get the word out about your event, business, or new website, why not call people? So few people do this any more, that it just might work! I wrote about this a couple of years back: Yes-why not call your friends on the telephone? It’s fun to scare people with a phone call, after all! And I’m guessing the first thing they’re going to say? “What’s wrong?”

Send a postcard or letter

Another old-school technique that could work if nothing else does! If you remember how to use a pen, and you still have some cards or paper around, you could actually write a letter. Or, if you want to be funny, you could sketch some emojis and send that instead! Seriously, though, sometimes a letter or postcard campaign could be the way to go if no one else is doing it.

Use door hangers or flyers

Do you remember these relics of days gone by? Hotels still use door hangers so you can tell the cleaning staff whether you want your sheets changed or not. But you could use door hangers, especially if you have a brick-and-mortar business that’s looking for locals. I’ve heard they work well for car repair shops, in particular. Flyers are another one that people might not have seen for a while. If you don’t understand what flyers or door hangers are, maybe call your local museum. Or your local boomer friend.

Word of mouth

Word-of-mouth marketing is probably the best kind there is. And although the word of mouth might be facilitated by social media, it’s often just one neighbor telling another about a service that they like. It’s how I’ve found my CPA, plumber, and handyman, come to think of it. Nobody wants to try a service that’s untested by their friends and neighbors. Nobody wants to be that first penguin off the iceberg!

Go to their house!

No, no, no! I’m just kidding about this one. If you do this, you’ll probably get arrested for being a stalker. But one thing’s for sure, when social media breaks down, you need to get back to basics and use your creativity! Whether that’s getting outside or calling people is up to you.

Email marketing

Believe it or not, email marketing continues to be very popular. People will follow and read newsletters from those they know, like, and trust. Here are 11 Ways to Promote Your Product Without Using Social Media (and they list email marketing as one way to promote your product).

Recently, on our Tuesday#DigiBlogChat Larry Mount (@LazBlazter) and I spoke to Samir Al-Battran of @connexinet and @Tweepsmap about the brand new Toolbox recently rolled out by Twitter! And we discovered that there’s a lot to know and learn about the Toolbox!

The Twitter Toolbox, defined

What is the Twitter Toolbox, you might ask? As Samir Al-Battran explained, Twitter Toolbox is a hub (in beta phase) where people on Twitter will be able to easily discover, learn more about, and quickly sign-up to third-party developer tools to enhance their Twitter experience. Developers created these tools to make Twitter better and safer. And Twitter launched The Toolbox on February 1, 2022.

How to access the toolbox

Twitter Toolbox has its own website where you can find and get started with tools https://developer.twitter.com/en/community/toolbox…

The toolbox includes three sections: 1. Expression Tools, 2. Safety Tools, and 3. Measurement Tools. Twitter has listed Tweepsmap, an AI-driven Twitter analytics and publishing platform, under Measurement Tools, although you can actually do much more than measure with Tweepsmap.

The Twitter Toolbox: New Digital Tools| Image by endri yana yana from Pixabay

Where would you want to start with the Toolbox?

Personally, I’ve already used Thread Reader, Buffer and of course Tweepsmap! But I’d love to sit down and try all of the tools in the toolbox. Personally, I’d pick one of the three sections and then choose a single tool to start. Otherwise, you might be overwhelmed.

Why did Twitter launch the Toolbox?

Samir: “To help people on Twitter easily discover, learn more about, and quickly sign-up to third-party developer tools that will enhance their Twitter experience, and to support developers on promoting their tools and growing their audience.” Shruti Deshpande (@shruti12d) explained that Twitter launched the Toolbox to make the most of the Twitter analytics and tools that help content creation in order to maximize your Twitter marketing. THIAM MÉKÀ de GOGUENHEIM (@ThiamMeka2Gogue) added that Twitter launched the Toolbox to provide support to @Twitter‘s users in elevating their #Twitter experience.

Will Twitter add more tools to the Toolbox?

Samir: “Twitter Toolbox is currently in beta. Developers who are interested in having their tool considered for Twitter Toolbox in future can join the waiting list.” So that sounds like a definite yes, although we won’t know for certain until Twitter announces that there are more tools. 

What publishing capabilities can the tools in the Toolbox provide?

Once again, from Samir: “Expression tools on Twitter offer smarter ways to compose, organize, and manage Tweets. Check out the product features for each tool on the Toolbox website. With Tweepsmap, you can schedule threads/polls/posts and measure engagement analytics in one platform! ” And @JonWesselink added “Scheduling threads and polls, anyone? ;)”, along with the image above. 

What Safety Tools are available in the Toolbox?

Toolbox currently includes three safety tools: Bodyguard, Block Party, and Moderate. You can get details on all the safety tools (and other tools, too) if you go to the Toolbox.

Recently I watched one of my favorite YouTubers, Kellie Branciforte of But First, Coffee. She talked about becoming a more tidy person, and mentioned that she might be overentertained. And that got me to thinking. Are we all overentertained? Have we reached the point where we can no longer be bored and do nothing? I’d say yes (at least for me). Here are a few ways to see if you truly are overentertained.

You always need to be multitasking

Yes, I know, you’re going to tell me you can’t really multitask. (I’m thinking of you, Randy Clark!) But you know what I’m saying. You can’t do just one thing at a time. That’s not enough mental stimulation for you. By the way, you might like Randy Clark’s article about multitasking: How Multitasking is Killing Your Creativity and what to do about it. Randy writes: “We aren’t wired to multitask. At best, we task switch jumping back and forth between tasks. How efficient is that?”

You need your phone while standing in line

Do you ever look around for your phone while waiting your turn at the grocery store? I do that sometimes, too. You might want to check your Twitter, or watch part of a video, or look at TikTok, am I right? Meanwhile, everyone in front of you has moved up and you’re standing there with a ten-foot gap while people give you the stink eye. At least, that’s been my experience!

No time for boredom!

Like sleep, you believe that you can be bored (or sleep!) when you’re dead. But in reality, being bored means that your brain has time to rest. And your brain seriously needs some downtime. Why, if you asked your brain right now, I’ll bet your brain would say it needs a vacation! Go ahead–ask it. I’ll wait! I’ve talked about boredom before. You might like this article: Can the Simple Pursuit of Total Boredom Make You Smarter? If you had to guess, you probably already know where I’m going with this line of thought, right?

Five Clues that You’re Overentertained | Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

You fall asleep with the tv going and music blasting

If you need lots and lots of background noise to fall asleep, that could be a clue that you’re overentertained. Spotify plus Netflix plus TikTok plus whatever else is going on so it’s just one solid wall of noise. Sound familiar? Or is it just me?

Social media sites send notifications many times a day

If your social media sites send you tons of notifications all day long and you don’t notice how many there are any more, that could be a clue that you’re overentertained. Or you have so much Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) that it all melts into one blobby mess of notifications. Does this sound like you? If not, how have you managed to escape being overentertained? Maybe you revel in silence and boredom (at least sometimes).