A new social media network for dog owners, Where My Dogs At is currently being beta tested. You can download the app for free for iOS or Android at the Apple App Store or Google Play online. According to a May 19, 2013 report in the Los Angeles Times, This could be the new Facebook or “Yelp for dogs.”

“This may sound like satire, but it isn’t. Animal lovers are a huge market, and many people like to share pictures of their pets — especially on social networks.”

The app helps dog owners find great businesses and services for their dogs in their local area or wherever they may curently be located. Instead of “Checking-in” with your dog you simply “mark your territory”. User ratings are known as a “paw of approval”. You can follow both owners and dogs. You can also send messages, share photos, and post status updates to your news feed ike Facebook.

Where My Dogs At was founded by Jonathan Kolker and Gareth Wilson in 2011. This startup is located in Los Angeles rather than San Francisco or Silicon Valley. They were grad students at USC in the same program. They recieved funding to start their app from them and then later seed funding from StartEngine.

What’s your take on the Social Media network for dog owners: Where My Dogs At? Share your comments below.

Yahoo to buy Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash says a source close to the deal according to The New York Times. It was reported on May 19, 2013, that the deal is expected to be announced soon.

This would be Marissa Mayer’s biggest acquisition so far as Yahoo’s CEO. Yahoo may have missed out so far on the social media revolution and it could be seen as an important shortcoming that can be fixed.

“Buying Tumblr is intended to help address that shortfall. The six-year-old company is one of the most popular blogging services, with over 108 million blogs. Buying the company could provide a wealth of user-generated content.”

Tumblr reportedly has also been of interest to Yahoo rival Google, Facebook, and Microsoft but firm offers were not made.

Headquartered in New York City, Tumblr is far from San Francisco and Silicon Valley which is home to most of the top social media networks. It was launched in February of 2007 and has more than 108 million blogs and over 50 billion posts to date.

User-generated content when paired with advertising seems to be a very popular and lucrative business model in use today by some of the top sites on the Internet. Millions if not billions of potential profits are at stake here. This deal could make a lot of sense.

What’s your take on Yahoo to buy Tumblr? Share your comments below.

Soon nearly all of the top social media networks will be using hashtags.  It all started with Twitter about 5 years ago. Then Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and even LinkedIn joined the fray.  Now we are hearing reports that the biggest social network of them all, Facebook, is quietly testing out hashtags.

Hashtags are a great way for you to make your content searchable when used appropriately.  For example, if you send out a tweet about the latest trends in social networking, and then add the hashtag “#socialmedia” or “#sm”, it will show up when people search or filter twitter for those tags.  Hashtags are very popular in the marketing for political events like #RNC2012 and tv shows such as #MadMen.  They also work well for Tweet chats like #GetRealChat and #Toolschat.

Hashtags have been in use for sometime on Instagram, Pinterest, and now Google+.  In February 2013 LinkedIn began allowing users to add hashtags to their content.  It is time for Facebook to join in.  By making hashtags a prominent feature of social networks the customer benefits if they are standardized.  As long as the social networks and users alike agree on usage and meaning, hashtags will be very successful.  The way posts are ordered when filtering via hashtags works a little differently between networks as well.  For example, Twitter filters in chronological order where Pinterest returns pinned content ranked in order of traffic popularity.

Instagram, now owned by Facebook, has been using hashtags for years.  As Facebook further integrates Instagram, more and more hashtags are showing up on your wall and news feed.  It seems almost inevitable that Facebook will officially flip the switch for all users and allow you to use hashtags in your posts.  I have been tracking the Top 100 hashtags on Instagram for the past few months.  Check out the most up to date list of the top 100 hashtags on Instagram.

I think that hashtags will enhance your experience on Facebook when they are fully implemented.  If you can type a hashtag such as “#chicagofire” into the Facebook search bar to bring up related content that is properly tagged, this will be useful and an improvement over the current functionality.

Share your favorite hashtags below.

Instagram Photo Contest Winner Announced #grfeb2013 today!  We have a winner.

Congratulations!  @hannahlenzwillett You are the WINNER of the 1st PeterTrapasso.com Photo Contest. Once again – congratulations! #grfeb2013

About 1 month ago on February 1st, 2013 I launched the 1st PeterTrapasso.com Photo Contest right here.

After pouring over all the entries we finally decided upon one winner today.

You can view the winning photo in all of it’s glory here: http://statigr.am/viewer.php#/detail/402132508925248400_14437063

A big thank you goes out to all the entrants!

Do you enter Instagram photo contests?  Tell us all about it in the comments below.

Hi!  

Welcome to Part 5 of my Follow Me as I build my Social Networks and Revenue Streams blog post series.  Here you can read Part 4 here.

My social networks are still growing!

Bookmark this blog, subscribe to the RSS feed, and do follow me on all my social networks.

Highlights

*Over 29,000 Twitter followers – 30k here I come!

*My Alexa ranking has improved by 79,328 globally and 133,529 in the US!

My Social Networks

Twitter

29,257 Twitter Followers (+5298 Followers) that are 100% REAL, engaged people too!

I am the #66 (+1) Most Followed in San Francisco, CA and #206,647 globally.

My 2013 GOAL: 100,000 Followers AND Top 25,000 Globally.

Follow Me on Twitter

Facebook

1,954 Facebook Friends (+29 Friendss

My 2013 GOAL: 5,000 Friends (Account Max)

Friend Me on Facebook 

Pinterest

3,586 Pinterest Followers (+103 Followers)

My 2013 GOAL: 10,000 Followers

Follow Me on Pinterest

Instagram

2,425 Instagram Followers  (- Followers)

My 2013 GOAL: 7500 Followers

FOLLOW Me On Instagram NOW!

Google+

1,552 have me in Google+ Circles (+106 added me to their Circles)

My 2013 GOAL: Get Added to 20,000 Circles

Join Me on Google+ Today!

LinkedIn

741 LinkedIn Contacts (+22 Connections)

My 2013 GOAL: 5000+ Followers

Link in to me now!

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=2753173

Foursquare

616 Foursquare Friends (+56 Friends)

My 2013 GOAL: 1,000 Friends

Are We Foursquare Friends?

Empire Avenue

Share Price 257.21e (+7e)

Dividends/Share 1.60e

My 2013 GOAL: 400e Share Price

FOLLOW ME on Empire Avenue Today!

Yelp

127 Yelp Friends (+7 Friends)

My 2013 GOAL: 1,000 Friends

Are We Yelp Friends?

My Social Scores

Klout 

My klout score is now 77 (+0). I am a Thought Leader and Klout Influencer!

Follow Me on Klout

http://klout.com/#/petertrapasso

Kred

My Influence is 796 (+3) with an Outreach Level of 8.  I am a Top 1% Kred Social Media VIP!

Follow Me on Kred

http://kred.com/petertrapasso

My blog Stats

Blog traffic for PeterTrapasso.com:

My blog traffic is steady since last month!

My 2013 GOAL: 100,000 Unique Visitors per month

Alexa Ranking

My Alexa ranking has improved by 79,328 globally and 133,529 in the US!

Global 793,689 (+79,328)

United States  217,531 (+133,529)

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/petertrapasso.com

My Revenue Streams

1.  Fiverr

I have scaled back my Fiverr efforts.

Order my social media product and service Gigs on Fiverr here:

http://fiverr.com/jazzyjeff99

2.  Freelance Writing

Contact me with your Freelance Writing needs here.:

http://petertrapasso.com/contact-us/

3.  e-books

Update:  Finishing up my Instagram eBook and it will be available on the Kindle store soon.

4.  Ads

*My blog is available for private ads.  Contact me here.:

http://petertrapasso.com/contact-us/

Want to learn more?  Bookmark this blog, Subscribe to the RSS Feed, and Submit your Email to get on my list for updates!

Behold, my latest list of apps to use with Instagram for February 2013. I hope you enjoy my choices this month. Check out Flipagram, Pixlromatic, Pictacular, InstaRepost, and TagsForLikes. This is part 3 in my ongoing monthly series where I bring you the top Instagram apps from this month.

Top 5 Instagram Apps

1. Flipagram (iOS) Free

What a great way to make a video from your Instagram photos. Start by logging in with your Instagram account. Next pick the images to use in your video. Sort them out into some kind of order. Refine your vie with a title, speed, optional audio, and other title settings. Click Finish and your video is now ready to share! Now you can email, save to your iPhone camera roll, share on Facebook, or even YouTube.

Flipagram (Free)

2. Pixlromatic (web app, Facebook app, iOS, or Android) Free

Pixlromatic is a fast, fun way to get a bunch of cool effects on your images. Chose a photo. Add 3 types of effects: Film stock, overlays, and borders. Pick a film stock. Layer an effect. Add a cool border. Even go random if you cannot decide. Crop for Instagram now or later. If you want more effects you can buy them for .99 per pack as an in-app purchase.

Pixlromatic (Free)

3. Pictacular (used to be Pinstagram) (web app and iOS for iPad) Free

Pictacular the app formerly known as Pinstagram is better than before. It simply re-skins Instagram with a very Pinterest-ing interface. Cool stuff and a nice user experience too. Check it out.

Pictacular (Free)

4. InstaRepost (iOS and Android)

Remember Repost app from last month? Here is another alternative for you to try out, InstaRepost (no relation). Choose photos from your own stream or others organized by category. Easy to use, but not as slick or fully featured as Repost though. But hey, it’s free so give it a try!

InstaRepost (Free)

5. TagsForLikes (iOS) Free

Too busy to manually type in all of the top Instagram tags for each of your photo uploads? Grab a copy of TagsForLikes then. 1st, 2nd, 3rd most popular tags in groups of 30 cover most of the Top 100 hashtags. Click once to choose and copy. Past into the caption or comments section of your Instagram uploads. Need more horsepower? Then try TagsForLikes Pro for .99, it is ad free and allows 15 custom category slots too.

TagsForLikes (Free)

That does it for this month. Come back in March for even more apps to use with Instagram.

What apps would you like us to review next? Tell us which ones and share your own favorites below.

Welcome to the February 2013 installment of the best Instagram hashtags.  I will be updating the top 10 and top 100 lists monthly and share them here with you.  Do bookmark PeterTrapasso.com so you can always get the latest and best Instagram hashtags for your photo captions.  Here are the best hashtags Instagram has to offer ranked for you.

My e-book on Instagram is coming soon!

Changes to the Top 10 hashtags on Instagram this month

#picoftheday dropped to 9th place  and #iphonesia (13th) fell out of the Top 10 altogether!  And #girl is now a proud new member of the Top 10.

Top 100 Instagram hashtags for February 2013

Top 10 Instagram hashtags for February 2013

1.  #love

2.  #instagood

3.  #me

4.  #tbt

5.  #cute

6.  #photooftheday

7.  #instamood

8.  #beautiful

9.  #picoftheday

10.  #girl

Changes to the Top 11-50 popular hashtags for instagram

#happy switches places with #tweegram for the only change in 11-20.  #fashion swaps with #igdaily this time around and #followme leapt to #23!  #webstagram and #nofilter fell to #25 and #26 respectively.  #fun and #jj traded spots.  #like and #smile switched out and #food jumped to #32.  #pretty and #sun to #33 and #34.  #lol and #instagramers traded places too.  #swag and #cool switched it up.  #tagsforlikes rockets 10 spots up to #44 this time around, bumping #onedirection to #47.  #nature was dropped to #48 and knocked #christmas out of the top 50.

Top 11- 50 Instagram Hashtags for February 2013

11.  #igers

12.  #instadaily

13.  #iphonesia

14.  #follow

15.  #happy

16.  #tweegram

17.  #summer

18.  #instagramhub

19.  #bestoftheday

20.  #iphoneonly

21.  #fashion

22.  #igdaily

23.  #followme

24.  #picstich

25.  #webstagram

26.  #nofilter

27.  #sky

28.  #fun

29.  #jj

30.  #like

31.  #smile

32.  #food

33.  #pretty

34.  #sun

35.  #friends

36.  #lol

37.  #instagramers

38.  #hair

39.  #bored

40.  #cool

41.  #swag

42.  #funny

43.  #life

44.  #tagsforlikes

45.  #my

46.  #family

47.  #onedirection

48.  #nature

49.  #blue

50.  #pink

Onward to the next 25 popular Instagram hashtags.:

#art, #photo, and #beach all moved up to #52-#55.  #likeforlike up from #70 to #61.  #awesome and #baby are up to #62 and #63.  #black and #music are up to #65 and #66.  #instalove up to #67 and #instahub at #68 now.  #night up to #69 and #sunset down to #70.  #followback up #72 and #statigram down bumping #versagram.  #whit is up to #75 and #throwbackthursday drops rounding out the top 75.

Top 51- 75 Instagram Hashtags for February 2013

51.  #dog

52.  #art

53.  #photo

54.  #hot

55.  #beach

56.  #christmas

57.  #repost

58.  #amazing

59.  #girls

60.  #party

61.  #likeforlike

62.  #awesome

63.  #baby

64.  #red

65.  #black

66.  #music

67.  #instalove

68.  #instahub

69.   #night

70.  #sunset

71.  #cat

72.  #followback

73. #statigram

74.  #versagram

75.  #white

And the bottom 25

#likeforlike up to #76 and #bestfriend to #77 respectively.  #78 is the new address for #throwbackthursday.  The #eyes have it up to #80 knocking down #yum by one.  #clouds, #uyum, and #school all dropping this month.  #i jumps to #84, bringing up #sweet but displacing #green.  #style, #instacollege, and #beauty on the rise.  #textgram down and #tflers enters at #91.  #igaddict and #all_shots down this month.  #nice up, #l4l enters this month at #95 knocking off #harrystyles!  #instago and #jjforum are gone from the Top 100 in February.

Top 76 – 100 Instagram Hashtags for February 2013

76.  #like4like

77.  #bestfriend

78.  #throwbackthursday

79.  #yummy

80.  #eyes

81.  #clouds

82.  #yum

83.  #school

84.  #i

85.  #sweet

86.  #green

87.  #style

88.  #instacollage

89.  #beauty

90.  #textgram

91.  #tflers

92.  #igaddict

93.  #all_shots

94.  #nice

95.  #l4l

96.  #harrystyles

97.  #best

98.  #2012

99.  #foodporn

100.  #boy

Sources of the Top 100 Instagram hashtags

http://web.stagram.com/hot

Tip: 

Did you know that you can get a list of the Top 20,000 Instagram hashtags?  Here you go.: http://top-hashtags.com/

Bonus: Top 10 Instagram Filters in Popular Photos

1.  Normal

2.  Earlybird

3.  X-Pro II

4.  Rise

5.  Valencia

6.  Amaro

7.  Hefe

8.  Brannan

9.  Hudson

10.  Nashville

That does it for this month’s Top Instagram hashtags.  I hope you enjoyed the bonus too. Stay tuned and bookmark PeterTrapasso.com for monthly updates.

My e-book on Instagram is coming soon!

Which tags work best for you?

Tell us all about it in the comments below.

Interested in finding out how I increased my blog traffic by over 700%?  It took hard work and I can show you how too.   Very importantly this gain was not due to traffic spikes, but a steady, sustainable rise.  There are a number of techniques that you can use to consistently raise the number of unique visitors to your site.  Today I will show you some of the best ones here.

From November 2012 through January 2013 I increased my blog traffic by over 700%.

I even did a press release announcing, “PeterTrapasso.com Announces an Increase of Over 700% in Web Traffic.”

Here are 5 ways that worked for me which you can use too.

Top 5 ways to increase your blog traffic

1.  Regular blog post schedule

As an army of one leverage your time by publishing multiple part series of posts (“Top 5 Instagram Apps” http://petertrapasso.com/top-5-instagram-apps/ for example).  Also consider taking on guest bloggers to help you generate more content.  Use an editorial calendar to schedule and track all of your blogging efforts too.

2.  Promote your content on social media networks

Build up large networks and share your content with them often.  Develop followings on all of the majors: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest.  This one will take some time and daily effort to build up.  Share often from the start and you will get some dedicated followers engaging with you regularly.  Some automation and account linking is ok when sharing your new content to maximize your time.

3.  Syndicate your blog posts

Make a list and contact all of the websites that syndicate content in your niche.  Some sites like Business2Community have an application and approval process.  If you get approved, each post still needs to pass an editor review before it get syndicated.  Other syndication opportunities will appear as your best content gets noticed.  So far the traffic percentage has been great for me.

4.   Guest blogging on other blogs in your niche

Guest blogging has been very rewarding for me.  I have a gig as a monthly writer at LeadersWest.com plus some one time posts elsewhere.  Make a list of the top 10 blogs in your niche and contact each one.  Offer to write a guest blogger post just for them and see what happens.  Pitching great ideas like this will get you noticed by some of the top bloggers in your space.

5.  Use SEO appropriately

I use some free and paid tools to check for high traffic keyword phrases to use in my blog posts.  Similar to the way that tags help make your content more easily searchable by people, keyword phrases help the search engines to properly index your pages.  After choosing your blog post topic to write about, pick a primary keyword phrase and 3 or 4 related supporting phrases.  Carefully choose a primary keyword phrase that your blog post is about for the title and url.  Use the primary phrase in your metadata and supporting phrases for your subheadings too.

Bonus:  Study your analytics to find out where your traffic is coming from

I look at my Google Analytics data daily for my blogs.  Look at Traffic Sources > Sources > All Traffic and show 100 rows or so an choose about a 1 month date range to study.  Here you will see many of your traffic sources ranked by visits.  When testing new methods of traffic generation the best ones will show up here in rank order.  Focus on the top visit generators and do more of that to continue to increase your traffic.

I had a press release created and distributed as this is certainly newsworthy and serves as an inspiration to other bloggers.

Press Release

PeterTrapasso.com Announces an Increase of Over 700% in Web Traffic

https://www.prbuzz.com/business-entrepreneur/94727-web-traffic-.html

So now you have 5 ways to increase your blog traffic that work great for me.  It seems like you need a combination of social media marketing and seo to get your content ranked and read these days.  I recommend all of them and will continue to use each myself regularly this year.

What techniques do you use to generate traffic for your blog?  Tell us all about it in the comments below.

The Statigram web viewer is a truly amazing app for your Instagram account.  It is loaded with features that both extend and enhance Instagram.  And did I mention it is free?

Statigram was started in 2011 in France and 1 week after launch they had 20,000 users.  As of last August (2012) Statigram had 1 million users.  Simply sign in with your Instagram account to get started if haven’t already joined the party.

Top 5 Features of Statigram

1.  Statigram Viewer tab

The Viewer tab provides a number of great features which go beyond what you get in the Instagram app in its sub tabs.  The Feed sub tab allows you view the latest photos uploaded by everyone you are following.  You can go into the “My Followings” sub tab and create groups of people which can be used in the Feed to filter out all but those you which to see.  Under the My Photos sub tab you can see all of your photos and organize them into albums.  You have 5 viewing modes: grid, list one at a time with full details (hashtags, likes, comments, and captions), slideshow, number of comments or likes mode.  The Print sub tab lets you order prints and stickers made from your photos.  My Likes sub tab lets you view all of the photos you have liked in chronological order.  You have 3 viewing modes: grid, list, or slideshow mode.  My Followings shows each person you are following by order of when followed in a grid pattern.  Click on the circle icon in the lower right of the image of someone you are following to add them to a group.  The Populars sub tab shows you the most popular photos on Instagram in a grid pattern.

2.  Statigram Statistics tab

Under Statistics you can see your number of Followers and Followings trends and Followers growth over time.  You can also get scores such as “Love Rate” (number of Likes) and “Talk Rate” (number of Comments) which shows the score of your last posted photo and the previous 15.

And Snapshots are cool, shareable, metrics that you can get too.  My personal favorites are the Instagram activity view and Top Photos.

3.  Statigram Management tab

The Management tab contains a couple of sub tabs, Comments tracker and Private message.  The Comments tracker makes it easy to read and respond to each comment received on your photos.  You can also private message other Statigram users too.  This feature is currently missing from Instagram and would definitely be nice to have.

4.  Statigram Promote tab

The Promote tab provides a selection of links, feeds, and buttons that you can use to share your Statigram profile with the world.  Your Statigram URL makes it easy for people to find your profile.  My Statigram profile URL is http://statigr.am/petertrapasso for you to access me.  The feed tab and profile cover image are a great way to promote your Instagram images on Facebook.  You can add a gallery widget, RSS feed, or follow buttons to your blog as well.

5.  Use Statigram for your Photo Contests

Statigram is great for managing your Instagram photo contests.  Here is an example of my photo contest on Statigram:  http://statigr.am/viewer.php#/detail/381792009622405762_14437063  Tags, likes, and comments are all viewable on a single page.  And it is each to share it using the “Repost this” button located at the bottom right of your image.

Statigram is tremendous and I think you will agree after using it.  Beyond just statistics the extended functionality of these app makes it a worthy alternative to just using the Instagram web viewer.  Use this handy rundown of the features and get started today.

Are you using Statigram yet?  Tell us all about it in the comments below.

Enter the 1st PeterTrapasso.com photo contest on Instagram! Join this Instagram photo contest to win a $25 GiftRocket online gift card.

Please do the following to enter the contest:

*open to US residents only!

1. Share your best Instagram photo between 2/1/13 and 2/28/13 (Photo must be yours)

2. Tag it with the hashtag #grfeb2013

3. Follow me on Instagram -

@petertrapasso http://instagram.com/petertrapasso

Do this before the end of the month.

One winner will be selected and notified March 1, 2013.

Looking forward to seeing your best shots!