The blogosphere is crowded. Every minute of the day, 347 WordPress users publish a new blog post—and that’s not taking into account the usage from any other blog platform. For bloggers, this means it’s becoming harder and harder to stand out from the crowd and showcase your unique viewpoint.

One thing that can help you be noticed by your current and future fans is to develop a personal brand. Like a company, you can develop a brand to set you apart from your “competitors”. Through your tone, your interactions with fellow bloggers, the content you create on your blog and the content you share on social media, you can separate yourself from the pack of other bloggers out there. Though it is essential to being successful blogging, creating a personal brand for your blog actually requires a ton of upkeep.

Luckily, we’re here to help. Use Shareaholic Channels to discover the latest and greatest in our network of 200,000 websites and blogs in almost every category you can think of instead of searching through the internet jungle and hoping to find an awesome blog to follow. Use that content to fuel your own blog post creation or share it on social media as an extension of your brand with the Shareaholic Browser Extension.

I personally browse Channels first thing in the morning then use Buffer in my Shareaholic Chrome Extension to schedule out my favorite posts of the day—that way I’m still sharing great content throughout the day without having to manually tweet every post I like.

Whether you want to be the next Martha Stewart or land a social media gig with your blog, you should think about building your personal brand—just make sure you’re using the right tools to save yourself time!

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s tip coming at you on Tuesday. Better yet, subscribe below so you never miss a post from us.

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Though everyone may blog differently (whether it be topics, niches, formats, communities) we all need one thing to become a successful blogger: solid blogging goals. Blogging willy-nilly is like going on a road trip without a destination or map to help you get there—ultimately, you’ll just end up wasting your time driving around lost. While you can still find your way to someplace by aimlessly driving or blogging, you may not always end up where you wanted to end up, and it can take you much longer to get to your final destination.

Whether you’re a newbie blogger or a longtime pro, you need to form goals for your blog. And not just any goals—you want to have realistic yet aggressive goals that give you reality check whenever you’re trying to do something on your blog. Should you be spending more time on Pinterest? How about writing longer-form posts? Look back at your goals—if the new activity won’t help you accomplish them, don’t do it.

Ultimately, having solid blogging goals will help you be more productive and successful by helping you figure out what to spend time on. To determine your own blogging goals, follow these five steps:

1. Analyze what’s worked

We’ve said this many times before, but it’s so important I’ll repeat it again: always always look at your metrics before jumping head first into something new on your blog—whether you’re doing something strategic like establishing new goals or tactical like jumping on another social network. While you may feel that your intuition may suffice, often metrics can prove your intuition wrong.

When setting goals, looking at your metrics first is crucial. For example, if you’re thinking of setting a goal around increasing comments on your blog, you want to first look and see how many comments you are already getting. This will help you establish a benchmark to measure your success down the road.

If you’re not measuring the success of your content yet, get on it! Not all measurement tools are as complex as Google Analytics—we offer a simple, one-sheet dashboard for Shareaholic publishers called Shareaholic Analytics. Once you have your measurement platform of choice up and working, we’ll even walk you through understanding the most important metrics on your blog.

2. Figure out where you want to be

Though you should base your goals off of your metrics, it should not be the only thing you use to make your blogging goals. In order to grow as a blogger, you can’t just rely on doing exactly what’s worked for you before—use data to help make your decisions, but don’t be afraid of taking educated chances to grow your blog.

After you look at your metrics, think about what you ultimately want to accomplish on your blog. Are you trying to establish a business? Are you trying to write a book? Are trying to become an ambassador for a brand?

Once you have a general sense of what you want out of your blog, go find people who have successfully accomplished those goals already. See what they are doing and even send them an email to get into the nitty-gritty. Not only will you learn more about how to get to your final goal, but you’ll also start to expand your blogger network. Use their experiences to establish a long-term vision for your blog.

3. Connect the dots with SMART goals

So now you have your starting point and your end point…but how do you get from point A to point B? It’s simple: use SMART goals. No, this doesn’t mean intelligent goals. SMART goals are:

• Specific: There’s no room for being vague when making goals. Try to answer the 5 W’s when creating a SMART goal: What do you want to accomplish? Specifically why do you want to accomplish it? Who else is involved in this goal? Where are you accomplishing this goal? What are some things that could hold you back from getting this goal?
• Measurable: If you’re going to be spending a ton of time working toward a goal, you want to make sure you can measure your success when you look back on your efforts, just like you did in step 1. For example, if you want to become the #1 food blogger in the US, you need to figure out what #1 means and how you will know when you become it. Does it mean you’re ranked #1 on a magazine’s roundup list of your industry? Or does it mean that you’re getting more traffic than a fellow food blogger? Getting nit-picky about what you’re going to measure will help you tremendously when you evaluate your progress down the road.
• Attainable: One of the hardest parts of setting a goal is to make sure it’s aggressive enough to inspire you while also being realistic enough achieve. Take a second to be honest with yourself—is the goal you’re setting something you really can accomplish? How much time and effort do you realistically think you can put into making this happen?
• Relevant: Even if your goals are specific, measurable and timely, they won’t always be relevant. Make sure that your goal relates to your ultimate vision for your blog. An irrelevant goal for example, would be making a goal to partner with brands if your ultimate vision for your blog is for it to be a hobby for you. While partnering may be beneficial to you, that goal isn’t aligned with the ultimate purpose of your blog and you would be wasting your time.
• Time-bound: Don’t leave your goals open-ended. Give yourself a solid deadline to accomplish them—not only will you be more motivated to get them done, but a deadline also will help you stay focused when other projects crop up.

By establishing SMART goals, you’ll lay out a solid plan to get from point A (your current metrics) to point B (where you want to be).

4. Stay inspired

Once you’ve figured out your SMART goals, it’s time to get to work. But that isn’t always so easy—fears or other obligations start to creep in and you may get off track from accomplishing your goals. Here are a few ways to stay focused on rocking your goal:

• Give yourself a reward: While accomplishing the goal itself is a reward, sometimes we need a little extra motivation to stay the course. For the fashion blogger, maybe it’s buying that dream outfit that you’ve been envying on your fellow bloggers’ posts. For the food blogger, maybe it’s investing in some new kitchen equipment or a nifty new camera. Whatever your niche, try finding a reward that will keep you engaged and focused on achieving your goal.
• Make a vision board: A big shout out to our friends at the IFB for this tip. Whether you prefer a tangible corkboard or just a dedicated Pinterest, you should gather some inspirational images, quotes or items that will help motivate you when you’re feeling a little lost. Sometimes you just need a little visual pick-me-up to keep on keepin’ on.

5. Check back in and evaluate

After the time you set in step 3 has run out, it’s time to measure your success. Congrats! You’ve come full circle in the blogging goal process.

This is the easiest step of all: look back at your SMART goals and see if you’ve accomplished them. Either way, celebrate—whether you’ve accomplished your goals or not, you’ve learned something about yourself and your blog and you will always need to improve and grow.

If you missed your SMART goals, ask yourself why and then figure out how to fix it next time (and don’t try to beat yourself up too much). If you achieved them, still ask yourself why and then figure out how to replicate that success again.

Throughout your entire blogging experience, you will be creating goals for yourself and then working to achieve them, so this process will keep repeating itself forever. So go on and get started on your blog!

How do you create blogging goals for yourself and stay motivated to achieve them? Share your thoughts with us below!

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This week’s quick tip may seem like an unnecessary piece of housekeeping. “Branding my Tweets? Who has time for that?” But the results can be extremely helpful to growing your blog.

When your Twitter handle is highlighted in each of your Twitter shares, you will drive attention to your Twitter account and increase your following. Including your Twitter handle in your blog’s social shares can help you gain new followers and brand recognition whenever a post is shared–a passive and easy way to build your blog’s audience.

If you’re using Sexy Bookmarks in the Shareaholic WordPress plugin, simply go into your settings and scroll down to Twitter Options. There, you can change your Twitter shares to point to your Twitter handle and include any message that you want. For example, you can make all Twitter shares say “by @Twitterhandle” vs. “via @Twitterhandle” depending on your preference.

So don’t hesitate – make sure to brand your social shares and grow your Twitter following with this simple step. You could be missing out on engaging with some amazing new readers!

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s tip coming at you on Tuesday. Better yet, subscribe below so you never miss a post from us.

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From managing the brands you work with to responding to tweets from your blog, there are tons of “honey do’s” to take care of as a professional blogger–not to mention simply creating your blog content in the first place! When taking care of the day-to-day tasks of blogging, it is tough to remember to take care of some larger housekeeping items that will keep your blog in top shape.

The key to productivity is ensuring that each task you take on is a building block toward the ultimate goal you have for your blog. Depending on the type of content that you create or the focus of your blog, you may think of some different things that will make the biggest impact for your site. That being said, there are some general housekeeping items that every blogger should try to check off their to-do list. Let’s take a look at them!

1. Update Your Media Kit

Like we discussed in our previous post on media kits, it is crucial that you have a media kit if you plan to work with brands. Your media kit shows vital stats about what you can offer a brand such as your pageviews, a description of your audience, your Twitter followers and more.

If you’re working hard (and we know you are) those numbers are likely to change over time. Don’t undersell yourself to brands by reporting old numbers in your media kits! Strut your stuff and always be sure to keep your media kit updated with the latest numbers that show how far your reach has grown.

2. Refresh Your Bio

Like a well-kept media kit, your online bio should constantly be updated. If you’re hustling to make a name for yourself in the blogosphere, you don’t want to miss out on opportunities because you haven’t communicated your successes. Be sure to keep a detailed bio on your “about” page and across all of your social media profiles–that’s the first thing that brands look at when figuring out if they might want to work with you.

3. Update Your Plugins

As creators of a WordPress plugin, you can take it from us: Outdated plugins just aren’t doing you any favors. First, an outdated plugin may not be compatibile with the latest version of WordPress, and that could mean a significant loss of functionality. Second, outdated plugins can pose as a security risk. Some plugins interface with databases in your WordPress website that contain sensitive customer contact and financial information, and an outdated plugin could give a hacker access to any of this information. Third, you may be missing out on some fantastic new features offered in the latest version of a plugin!

When updates for your plugins are available, you’ll see a number appear next to the “Plugins” label in  your WordPress dashboard’s sidebar. To update your plugins, click on the “Plugins” label, then click the link under each plugin that you want to update. That’s it!

4. Freshen Up Old Posts

You likely have some great evergreen content that is continuing to send you traffic over and over again. A post you wrote six months ago could still be a top traffic driver for your blog. But is the content on that post expressing current facts and up-to-date information on the topic? Make sure it is.

First, use Shareaholic Analytics and refer to your top content report to identify a few evergreen posts that sent you traffic in the past month or so. Give them a double-check to ensure that they include the latest information available on the topic. It may even be a topic worth re-visiting with a follow up post that you can link to from the original one if a major update has happened.

5. Fix Broken Links

Though evergreen content can be a great way to grow your blog, maintaining it takes a ton of work. Broken links may slip under the radar because they aren’t appearing in your top posts. Even though the content might be old, think like your readers: there’s nothing more frustrating than going to an old post hoping for a timeless resource, only to find out that the links don’t lead anywhere.

To make sure your links are still working, you can try manually double checking old posts (maybe 5 per day) or if you’re on WordPress, using the Broken Link Checker plugin. Either way, you should always make sure your links are up-to-date so your evergreen posts can be used to grow your blog.

6. Edit Your RSS Reader

(Or whatever else you use to keep track of the blogs you follow.)

The reality is that you need to consume awesome content in order to create awesome content. Oftentimes, content-hungry bloggers with the best intentions fill up their RSS readers with subscriptions to dozens and dozens of blogs – only to find themselves so overwhelmed by the feeds that they don’t keep up with any of the blogs at all.

Edit the number of blogs you subscribe to so that you can focus on the ones that truly teach you something on a regular basis. (And if you haven’t found a blog that does that yet, use Shareaholic Channels to find one that does.)

Think of it this way: Just because you’re unsubscribing right now doesn’t mean you’ll never read that blog again. If someone publishes a post that is truly awesome, it’ll come across your Twitter feed because your network will share it. You won’t miss it.

7. Clean Out Your Idea Bank

Whether you keep a leather moleskin or a note in Evernote for your idea bank, you should regularly organize your blog post ideas. Keeping your thoughts organized will help you when you’re strapped for content–you know that the ideas in your post bank are vetted and ready to go before you sit down to write.

First, go through and delete old post ideas that you’ve already written about–no use keeping them in there if you don’t intend to work on them later. Second, update or delete ideas that you haven’t written yet but need some work before becoming a solid blog post topic. If you are a packrat (like me) and hate to delete anything, just move those idea to another section of your notebook.

8. Tweak Your Sidebar

Your blog’s sidebar is prime real estate–be sure you’re making the most of it. Every month or so, take a look at your sidebar and see how you can improve it. Are you social networks all up-to-date? Are you really getting click throughs on your Twitter stream? Is your blogroll up to date with your newest blogging buddies’ sites? How are the click-through rates of your sidebar ads performing well? Take a look at your analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t in the sidebar. Since the sidebar is always visible to your readers, you want to make sure you’re making the most of it!

Got any other housekeeping must-dos for your blog? Share your thoughts with us below in the comments!

Like pearls, cashmere and your top posts – some things simply never go out of style. Thanks to organic search, you likely have some SEO-optimized posts that continue to send you traffic month over month, even though you published that content months or maybe even years ago.

But unlike your favorite timeless fashion pieces, evergreen content needs updating to stay relevant. Stay on top of the current trends, events and news happening in the space you blog about with our topic-based content discovery engine, Shareaholic Channels. With Channels, you can browse the latest and most popular posts from a variety of categories, including Fitness, Family, Food and more.

Use Shareaholic Channels to find the latest information related to your blogging niche. With Shareaholic Analytics, keep tabs on your top-performing evergreen posts, and keep them regularly updated with the latest facts and information that you discover through the content you find in Shareaholic Channels.

For an extra bonus, ensure that each post you publish has something fresh to offer with related content. Shareaholic Recommendations suggests relevant content at the bottom of each post. So all that evergreen content will have fresh content suggestions at the bottom of every post, keeping your blog relevant no matter what post your reader finds herself on.

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s tip coming at you on Tuesday. Better yet, subscribe below so you never miss a post from us.

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Bloggers block is a real dilemma, one that can be detrimental with all of the blog and guest blog posts that we need to write to keep our blog active and exposed to new traffic.

I can’t quantify how many “uh oh” moments I’ve had when I notice that my blog hasn’t had a new post in a week or my Google calendar tells me that I promised someone a guest post today, but I haven’t written a word and the words just won’t come…

And then there is the fact that millions of blog posts go up a day and mine needs to stand out. My post needs to say something in a way that’s never been done before. No pressure, right?

I have a sticky note on my computer that says, “If you don’t have anything epic to say, don’t say anything at all.” This is great advice but let’s face it, the well of creative juices runs dry sometimes. Pulling from my conversations with fellow bloggers, one of the biggest frustrations with blogging is that sometimes we become overwhelmed with the feeling that everything has been said and there isn’t anything new left for us to say.

Of course, feeling like there’s nothing left to say isn’t the only reason why we have bloggers block. I’ve lost plenty of moments staring at my taunting cursor because of lack of sleep, the loss of the ability to concentrate or midafternoon restlessness. Because simply not blogging isn’t an option, I came up with these ways to fight bloggers block, threw together this little infographic, and hung it on my wall. It has honestly helped me through some pretty tough spells of bloggers block, so I wanted to share it with you!

Here are the top 11 ways to fight writer’s block:

1. Read a post on a topic irrelevant to the one you’re writing about

Simply deviating your mind from the problem can reset your ideas. Allow yourself to be consumed by an intriguing piece of content and completely forget about your predicament. For me, I usually read a travel blog, picture myself on an adventure, and come back to reality feeling refreshed.

2. Do 10 jumping jacks and one back bend

In the event your creative juices are drying up because of a lack of blood flow, get that blood flowing. Since I can’t usually leave and go do a yoga class, when in the office, I sneak away to the bathroom and do jumping jacks and back bends. I was told one good back bend gives you as much energy as a cup of coffee….

3. Ask someone irrelevant to your blog for an idea

Looking elsewhere for ideas has always been a surprising solution for bloggers block. If you blog for a company, use your sales or customer service colleagues for input since they are the ones talking to a big part of your audience. If you blog on your own, ask your friends, family or mailman for an idea—the fact that they are removed from your writing makes them come to the situation with brand new ideas.

4. Find a new environment

Sometimes stale or distracting surroundings can be a culprit for causing bloggers block. As much as I want to work from home, I find that I can’t. Dogs, roommates and dishes in the sink can be quite distracting. Moving to a cozy coffee shop has always made me the most productive.

5. Read a post from a blog who is an authority on your topic

Another blogger might have a cool twist on a topic. I don’t mean plagarism, just allow yourself to be inspired. If you don’t know where to start, browse your favorite topic in Shareaholic Channels to discover awesome blogs in your interest area.

6. Use your social media followers, they’ll feel honored

Every few months I like to tweet and post this question: “What topics would you like me to cover for you?” Your followers will be honored to be involved in your creation process and love to feel heard.

7. Reach out to bloggers and ask if they want to do some collaborative posting

Try collaborative posting with your blogging buddies by exchanging guest posts or writing a post together. Either way, the two of you are exposing new audiences to your words.

If you reach out to bloggers often, whether it be for marketing reasons or for collaboration within your own blogosphere, I recommend testing out my company’s blogger outreach tool, GroupHigh.

8. Go outside and take a break in nature

When my brain starts to feel “mushy,” I get up from my computer and take a “sunshine break.” Soaking in some nature always leaves me feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

9. Pick an alternative story form

Check out this SlideShare presentation on alternative story forms, basically taking text-heavy posts and turning them into a visually driven story. The goal is to give your readers a visually appealing way to take in information, something they may not always get on your blog. Sometimes when you pick an image driven way to share your idea, the content flows easier.

10. Create a resource post

Put together a list of your favorite articles that shed light on different aspects of your blog’s niche. Don’t forget to hyperlink!

11. Drink a latte and eat a brownie

Chocolate and caffeine are known to stimulate the mind and even release a few endorphins. These two ingredients have really gotten the wheels turning in the creative part of my mind before.

Remember, you’ve worked hard to get your reader’s attention—so don’t lose them by never posting. Because it’s crucial to hang on to your audience, I recommend eliciting the help of a guest post author. As long as they are writing content that fits in with our audience, your readers will be pleased to get another point of view.

Check out the infographic below to see these steps in action.

Do you have any unique tactics that you use to fight bloggers block?

Kristen Matthews is the Marketing and Community Manager at GroupHigh. She loves collaboration so feel free to contact her anytime at Kristen@GroupHigh.com or follow her on Twitter @KristenWords.

Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle – the idea that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the effects?

That’s how your blog traffic works. Most of it comes from a highly engaged, re-occuring audience who loves your posts and shares it to their social networks on a regular basis. The key to your blogging success is identifying these advocates early on and reigning them in close to you. Thank them for sharing your posts and linking to you. Learn more about the other kinds of content they like to read and share and let that intelligence drive your editorial calendar planning.

Using Shareaholic Analytics, you can identify your most engaged readers using the Top Sharers report.

This report shows you the readers that share your content the most, and includes links to their social profiles so you can connect with them directly.

To learn more about your audience, you’ll also want to keep track of those linking to your posts – featuring them in their “Friday Links Roundups” for example – in the Top Incoming Links report.

For example, one of our awesome Shareaholic publishers Lindsay from The Lean Green Bean regularly features us in her Bean Bytes roundup. As you can see here, that link drives traffic to our blog and increases our visits by having her as a member of our community. (Thank you for your support, Lindsay!)

Now it’s your turn. Connect with your most engaged readers using Shareaholic Analytics and watch your blog’s traffic and engagement grow.

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s tip coming at you on Tuesday. Better yet, subscribe below so you never miss a post from us.

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Yesterday, we addressed how better to understand blogging voice beginning with a look at video blogging. By using examples within others’ writings, voice becomes more apparent. In the first part to this series, there was a quick exercise to get a baseline of your own blogging efforts. Today, we’ll further our quest for blogging voice with several exercises to identify and develop a strengthened voice on your blog.

So, here’s a quick review:

• Determine the type of voice you want to portray and write with
• Observe others’ styles of voice and begin to emulate that approach to a degree
• Use the exercises yesterday and today to strengthen your purpose and “sound”
• Develop your voice with consistent writing and get comfortable

Step 1: Know Which Factors Contribute To Voice

There are several key factors that remain the same across for all bloggers interested in finding voice. If you write with snark or in a friendly manner, all the elements below are critical to let your voice shine in your writing.

Five Key Factors of Blogging Voice

1. Passion for what you write and the excitement or positivity you show. If you want to create community, you have to bring them with your passion. Remember what was mentioned yesterday — passion begets a connection with your audience.
2. Confidence with yourself and your personal esteem to show you should be believed, you are credible, and you deserve attention.
3. Authority and command for your topic are critical. If you inject your writings with “I think, I’m not sure, perhaps, could be true,” then readers will be unsure, too.
4. Personality has to come forth; are you naturally an extrovert, introvert, cracking jokes all the time, snarky, happy? Each of these characteristics contribute to word choice, exclamations, and personalization that make you, you.
5. Consistency is critical to success of voice. When you post 3-4 times weekly, you’re writing A LOT. You’re always thinking of topics to write next and hopefully, you’re putting them in draft on your blog or tablet. When you keep writing, you eventually find a comfort and flow in how those words appear. You’ll stumble every now and again, but making mistakes for all to see is human and important. Writing more than twice weekly is important for voice because all of the above weaves in harmony.

But how do you develop these factors?

Exercise 1: How to Build Confidence and Authority

I’m of the opinion that confidence in what you write is the first success factor before anything else. With confidence comes voice. Here’s an example of a tried-and-true blogging method I use frequently to build confidence and authority:

1. When you read and something strikes you, jot a note, tear the page and keep it, bookmark it, or sit down to write.
2. Tell about that news event or story you read to bring your readers to the same page as you. (Tell it briefly and provide a link to the story.)
3. At bottom, interject with your own opinion.

Better yet, add your opinion and then add five tips you’d offer to your audience.

You’re building connection, being authoritative, and showing your intelligence. With this healthy pairing of a news event with a few tips alongside your opinion, there’s no better way to showcase confidence.

As an example of what I mean, the Lance Armstrong crisis provided much blog fodder. I elected to wait until well after the interviews with Oprah to write this blog post, “Did Anyone Media Train Lance Armstrong?”

In the post, I referenced Advertising Age and its story with three experts answering that very question. I shared the story and what the experts said, and then I gave five of my own professional tips at the bottom of the piece. This formula is a good model because people can see your expertise and creativity shine.

Exercise 2: Showcase Personality and Verve

• The streets of Santa Monica were really busy with a lot of people who were attending the farmers’ market.
• The sights and sounds of Santa Monica during the Saturday morning farmer’s market always delight with the chatter of vendors hawking their wares, and families and cyclists zigging and zagging through passersby while ogling the incredible array of fruits and vegetables. 

It’s obvious; you can feel, sense, visualize, and imagine the scene in Santa Monica at the Saturday morning farmers’ market after reading the second example.

When you write a blog, it’s important to draw readers in with some of that kind of voice. You have to communicate what’s in your head on screen to make your audience want more!

• Pick out something you’ve written in the past.
• Read it out loud.
• Is it dry and a bit boring, or do your words have personality and verve?

A blog is not a feature story, but it is certainly featuristic and demands your attention to word choice and the personality you inject.

Step 2: Add Style to Your Blogging Voice Foundation

Ever hit a blog and the comment section is a graveyard? Even if you want to comment, there’s really nothing to say or contribute. Sometimes the blogger is just spewing content with no real connection to a reader; voice is stilted and boring.

To make sure your comment section isn’t a graveyard, try channeling one of these styles in your writing:

• Snark. There are only a few people I know who write well with snark. Their voice is abrupt, littered with cuss words, appealing to a special audience, and it may be a way they build confidence with an “I-don’t-care-what-you-think mentality. Warning: Snark does not work for everyone! Be careful when trying this approach to voice; it can fail easily.
• Genre-istic. When you land on a blogger who is a daddy or mommy blogger, they’re writing with purpose — to build community and authority for a specific target audience and perhaps the corporations who need them to market their wares. There are also many tech bloggers who review products and devices; they, too, are trying to appeal to that gear-type audience. The voice is highly authoritative (or should be) with confidence that they know their subject matter. If they’re selling product, they’ll have a strong sales voice to encourage calls to action. With the goal of blogging in a category, you can become an authority when you believe in your product and your mission. This is a perfect example of why you need to establish goals and a purpose for your writings.
• Friendly, Casual. There are many bloggers who just write because. They are blogging as a hobby and use quotes, jokes, storytelling, self-deprecation, book reviews, and more. The tone could be friendly, dry humor, funny, and addressed to a community the blogger knows really well. There may be a finite number of folks who are part of that community who also contribute to the banter. Those who write in a casual way often are hobby bloggers or finding their way. Voice comes, yet purpose is elusive.
• Corporate Business. Company blogs have an automatic professional voice and tone, but they don’t always have to. When someone’s voice is so stilted and painful to read, it sends readers running. When a company decides to launch a corporate blog to push authority and products, it’s imperative they find someone to write who can inject some personality to the writings. No one wants to read a dry, unfriendly business blog; in fact, it’s the first ingredient for disaster.
• Verve, Personality. If you want to write a personal blog where you let down your hair and invite the riff-raff in to judge you, then develop a thick skin. You will get spammers and anonymous commenters who will have a hay day with your content. If you’re blogging for therapy and to heal, your community will come out in droves to support you. There are many people who take solace in these types of support blogs, and it’s highly therapeutic. The blogger’s voice has to be soothing, conversational, friendly, soft, and respectful of readers. Most often, that blogger has to be willing to share personal stories that connect with readers interested in sharing something similar.
• Healthy Mix. Probably the best blogs deliver a healthy mix of all of the above. Depends on the mood of the day, right? If you’re a professional blogger, then mixing up the topics, while maintaining a healthy voice, shows confidence to let your community get to know you better. After all, behind every blog is a person, humans love to connect, and bloggers have that opportunity to make that connection.

There really is no tried-and-true method of teaching voice; it is elusive. The examples above merely provide a brighter light about the factors that contribute to blogging voice. In the end, it’s totally up to you to relax already and get comfy with your topics while zesting it up with a little of this and little of that. Try cooking without a recipe; that’s the ultimate in creativity, and that’s how blogging voice gets baked, too.

This post is part two of a two part series about developing your blogging voice. Check out yesterday’s post on figuring out what a blogging voice is. 

Jayme Soulati is author of Soulati-’TUDE! which is a professional blog oriented to social media, marketing, PR, business strategy, and more. She is president of Soulati Media, Inc. and is an award-winning blogger and public relations practitioner. She is a past president of the Publicity Club of Chicago.

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Just how does one find blogging voice?

The answer is…elusive! Not sure there is a solid answer, but at the bottom of this article we ought to have a much better understanding of what the hoopla is about a vlogger’s voice.

Omgosh.

When I typed “blogger” in the last sentence, it came up “vlogger,” and I am so grateful that happened whilst sitting in the middle seat in a full airplane cabin pecking letters one by one because the batteries died in my iPad keyboard.

So, instead of using merely a blogger to understand voice, let’s first explore the world of vlogging as it relates to that. Video blogging is so much more visual which makes it easier to illustrate the concept of voice.

What is Voice? Examining Voice and Vlogging

What is your impression watching peeps on camera?

It’s pretty painful sometimes, right? When a vlogger has to look at the camera without furtive eyes or naturally down-turned mouth (without a smile), it is difficult to make great video.

Now think of the words delivered during a video blog. Are you following along and listening? Is that blogger making a connection with you? Are they droning on and on without coming quickly to a point? Did they tick off an agenda or a bulleted list of items they’d cover in their piece?

How about tone? When someone speaks, it’s normal to listen for inflection and excitement and authority. Is the tone of that vlogger credible? Do they take command of their subject matter and do you believe what you hear?

Exercise 1: How to Identify Others’ Voice on Video

Run and get a video blog you recently watched; I’ll wait.

Spend two minutes only re-watching the vlog and pay careful attention; no multi-tasking!

In your head, jot down your impression of clarity, confidence, body language, tone, personality, credibility. Don’t worry, you’ll notice these automagically now that you’re looking and listening more closely.

In a recent vlog I saw, unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to the end and here’s why:

• The person was forced and lacked personality.
• S/he was cracking jokes that were not funny, and the content was subpar.
• It was a sorry attempt at connecting with community using a medium that appeared uncomfortable for him/her.

Let’s revisit some of the factors that make a video blog successful (or not):

• Tone
• Facial expression
• Personality
• Connection with audience
• Command of authority
• Believability

When you add all of the above together with high marks, what you get is a masterful vlogger. Yet, it takes time and practice! No one can master being on camera unless they are trained broadcasters (who daily practice news delivery prior to going on camera).

Think of Anderson Cooper next to David Letterman. That provides an awesome dichotomy, doesn’t it? The two can’t be farther apart in personality and tone yet they command respect, authority and attention.

Understanding Your Own Blogging Voice

Are you starting to get the picture of how we’re going to segue into blogging voice?

Many bloggers experience months and months of blogging only to feel a lack of connection with HOW they write.  When you read a blogger using English as a second language, the content is often stilted and word choice is sometimes stark. There isn’t naturalness to the flow of the article, and it takes the reader more time to connect with the writer.

This is not a criticism in the least, it’s merely an observation about how those words jump from the screen and in what tone and fashion. It’s how the reader connects with the writer that makes voice come alive.

Blogging voice is extremely different than journalistic voice or that of an author of romance novels. When bloggers write, there is more usage of the first person. Some new bloggers feel compelled to thread the word “I” throughout writings thinking perhaps that writing in the first person is more personable. In one opinion, it’s more egocentric and boorish.

Bloggers who have “found their voice” seem to fit right into an easy presence and comfort in their blogging skin without too much toil.

Here’s how you get to find your voice:

• Establish Goals. When you start blogging, you need to set goals for yourself and the blog. Do you want to build community and subscribers? Do you wish to be an influencer or thought leader? How about being the leading blogger in a genre or category like a parent blogger?

The goals you set drive how you write and thus your voice. If your goal is to sell diapers to moms, then you will need to command authority and then add a sales bent to that voice. Right?

Example of a Mommy Blogger Selling Diapers

Yesterday, I tried the new brand of diaper, called Baby Undies, on my infant daughter and learned the hard way that pretty packaging doesn’t mean better-quality diapers! (I think I’m going to stick to my favorite brand, Diaper G, instead!)

Tone: Personable and friendly

Credible: She experienced a negative event and is warning other moms not to buy that brand

Soft sell: She’s sharing a factual event and encouraging her community to follow her advice

• Be Consistent. It takes 12 months of posting about three times a week to find comfort with your online presence. If blogging is your profession, in that 12- month timeframe you most likely have accomplished a few goals and have already switched it up a few times. If blogging is your hobby, then 12 months may be when you see a few milestones happen, and you grow from there.
• Know Your Audience. Who is reading your blog? Better yet, who do you want to read your blog? If you are an online educator for home-school kids in fifth grade, your voice will be friendly, informal, conversational, yet authoritative and credible. Your audience is also the home-school parents who duel as teachers.

If you’re the pastor of a community church, blogging voice is going to be oriented to inspiring families to volunteer, tithe and attend church. That pastor blogger will walk a fine line between creating community, encouragement and being a leader.

Understanding your audience who is or may be reading your blog is critical to finding your voice. You will write more powerfully instead of in a meandering way. You will connect with them to attain your goals each time you write. You’ll think of what they want to hear and write with that purpose.

• Think About Buyer Persona. Have you ever heard of a buyer persona? At first, I thought it silly, but after really thinking hard about who buys my services, I could picture that person reading my blog. My blog articles began to take on a more professional tone to address some common marketing issues in companies. My voice amplified confidence in my subject matter, and I felt a connection to the person I’d like to have visiting my blog. This has contributed to a good feeling about my writing, defined my blogging purpose, which ultimately contributes to my voice.

Exercise 2: Start to Identify Your Own Voice

How and where you find blogging inspiration for writing fodder is a topic for another day. For the purpose of this exercise, select a topic you’d like to write about. Perhaps you’re a master gardener with a blogging goal to enroll people in your master gardening classes so they can earn their certificate and join your ranks. (Can you recognize the blogging goals in that last sentence?)

How will you write? With purpose!

Your words need to be visual and help the reader connect with your passion about gardening. Do you sense the personalization that has to come across in blogging? Your passion must be apparent; if you write with dryness you will not connect with your audience. Passion for our topic begets connection with your audience.

Ever read the children’s books Fancy Nancy? Certainly, the illustrator made those books but she had to have the words as inspiration.  It was a team effort, for sure. Your words need to inspire anyone with the hint of a green thumb that they can become a master gardener just like you.

Your plot of land becomes your canvas to create a breezy, flowy, rainbow garden that brings a gasp of visual pleasure with butterfly wings a flutter.

How did that sentence grab you? I hope it created a bit of a visual…don’t butterflies always do that?  Notice the word choices that are lighter and more creative with visual appeal. Try to put more of these types of words in your writings and loosen up. Quit being so stilted. A blogger with voice is comfortable with self first and that confidence helps portray authority.

This post is part one of a two part series about developing your blogging voice. Now that you know what blogging voice is, stay tuned for tomorrow for more on developing your blogging voice.

Jayme Soulati is author of Soulati-’TUDE!, a professional blog oriented to social media, marketing, PR, business strategy, and more. She is president of Soulati Media, Inc. and is an award-winning blogger and public relations practitioner. She is a past president of the Publicity Club of Chicago.

In any career, it’s important to have a network of people who’ve got your back. When you’re blogging, this network could be blogging buddies who’ll happily share every single one of your posts, attend events with you, keep an eye out for brand partnerships up your alley, help you with any technical issues, or even look over a controversial post before it goes live. Without your network to support you, you’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities to grow your blog, not to mention that your experience typing up posts in the dead of night will be a lot lonelier.

But how do you go about finding these awesome blogging buddies?

Expand your network with Shareaholic Channels.

Featuring content from almost 1,000 blogs across 21 different topics, Shareaholic Channels makes it easy to discover awesome bloggers to connect with in your niche. If you’re browsing Channels and find content you want to check out later, click our Read Later button—the post will be saved in your Shareaholic Dashboard to check out later. Whether you take an hour today to discover and engage with as many blogs as you can or use the Read Later button to bookmark your favorite bloggers, it’s easy to grow your network through Shareaholic Channels.

Once you’ve found awesome bloggers to connect with, be sure to show them some love by leaving a genuine comment (not just a quick introduction with a link back to your site) or by sharing their posts on social media. After all, sharing is caring! :)

So what are you waiting for? Find you next blogging buddy through Shareaholic Channels.

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s tip coming at you on Tuesday. Better yet, subscribe below so you never miss a post from us.

But if you’re looking to grow your blog beyond a random side project and begin working with brands, you need to have a media kit easily available on your blog. To help you get on your way to blogging fame, we’ve compiled a guide to creating your own media kit from start to finish:

What is a media kit?

First things first—what is a media kit? Before blogs were around, newspapers and magazines used media kits to outline their target audience and advertising options to potential buyers. They haven’t changed much: a media kit is basically a resume for your blog. It includes important information about your blogging focus, traffic numbers, services available to clients and contact information.

Why do you need a media kit?

Media kits are absolutely essential to growing your blog from a side project into a possible revenue source. Whether you’re looking to have banner ads, sponsored posts or giveaways, you will need to have a media kit to present to potential clients. It doesn’t matter if you have 100 or 1 million visitors—you still need to have a media kit available if you want to monetize your blog.

Potential clients need them to help make the decisions to work with you. At previous companies, I did a lot of blogger outreach and having a media kit available made it much easier to sell my boss (the decision maker) on working with you. By giving me a media kit up front, you’ve just saved me a lot of time compiling your stats on my own and potentially pushed yourself to the top of the pile. While it does take time for you to create a quality media kit, it will give you a huge advantage against those who don’t when try to land brand partnerships.

What should you include in a media kit?

If you’re creating your first media kit, it’s best to keep your media kit simple. Here is a quick list of what you should include:

• One page of information. Like a resume, a media kit should be a jumping-off point for your conversation with brands, not necessarily a self-biography. You want to strike that balance of giving enough information away to help the client make a decision, but also have them come back for more to ask questions.
• A quick introduction. Describe who you are and what you blog about. Be direct, specific and honest about yourself and your blog. What is your background? What topics do you write about? This is a chance to celebrate the individuality of your blog, not recite the latest blogging buzzwords.
• Your relationship history. Have you already worked with fabulous brands? List it loud and proud. Potential clients will want to know if your past relationships align with their brand or if you’ve previously worked with a competitor.
• Your blog traffic. Though it may feel like you’re streaking across a football field in front of the world, you should be sure to include traffic numbers like pageviews, time on site, and unique visitors. Tip for those without a ton of traffic: include the percentage of returning users to show how engaged your community is. Community engagement outweighs raw pageviews in the business world because your readers will be much more likely to act on your post (which is the client’s ultimate goal).
• Your social media followers. Don’t make potential clients hunt for your social media numbers–put them all in one place. Be sure to include only the networks you are active on to put your best foot forward. For example, if you set up a Pinterest account but never use it, don’t put it in your media kit.
• Types of services you offer. Are you only looking for banner ads or giveaway posts? Are you not able to travel to events outside of your state? Be upfront with what you can do and both you and the client will be much happier. As far as putting individual rates for your services on your media kit, it’s up to you—it could mean that you’re not considered because of cause, but it also could mean you weed out those who wouldn’t be a good match for you anyway. (I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments!)
• A print-friendly design. Not every client will be comfortable viewing your media kit on his or her computer. At previous positions, I had to print out media kits to put them in a binder for the office. There was nothing worse than having a gorgeous media kit look great online only for it to print as one smudgy blob on paper. Again, something like this could be a deal breaker to some clients.
• A final version available in a PDF. Often, Word documents lose formatting on others’ computers. Make sure that the design and layout you’ve worked hard to create looks the same no matter which computer it’s viewed on. 

How should I make one?

Now that you know what needs to be included in a media kit, let’s get cracking on making one of your own! Here’s how:

• Get your analytics straight. One of the biggest selling points of your media kit is the traffic and community you’ve worked so hard to build. If you don’t feel like jumping into a data jungle, Shareaholic Analytics can help you grab most of the numbers.
• Design your own media kit with PowerPoint. PowerPoint is SUPER easy to use for design purposes, especially if you don’t have Adobe products on hand, and it’s easy to export to a PDF. (We even created our latest ebook with it!) If you’re not good at design, make sure you get another pair of eyeballs on it before putting it up on your blog to help you cross all of your t’s and dotted your i’s. Or… you could just get our free template below and have the design component already finished!
• Create a landing page for your blog. I’m a fan of keeping media kits out in the open and easy to download (as that’s made my job MUCH easier in the past), but if you’re not comfortable having your stats public, make sure it’s easy for people to contact you to ask you for one. No captchas or hoops to jump through—either provide an email address or a contact form directly on the page describing the media kit.

Once you’ve gotten the media kit together and up on the blog, don’t forget to keep it updated! Like your resume, media kits are always works in progress, so be sure to check back once a month to update your growing traffic numbers and client roster.

If you’re looking to learn more about media kits, please take a look at one of our fabulous featured publishers, Katy Widrick. She is the Queen of Media Kits and a fantastic person to learn from. She even gave us a few pointers for this post! Check out her media kit guides here. Thanks Katy!

Have you ever made a media kit before? What are some things you would include in your media kit?

Free Media Kit Template

I know not everyone’s a designer by nature, so I’ve gone ahead and created a free media kit template for you! Go on and download our media kit here:

It seems like every day there is a new social platform – Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin… Pinterest… what’s next? I’m about to recommend something very un-Shareaholic: You don’t have to participate in every single social network to promote your blog. Doing so only stands to dilute your efforts. Rather than doing that, focus your energy on the ones where your readers are actually engaging.

With Shareaholic Analytics, you can get a sense for where your readers already are with the “Views from Social” report. This shows you the social networks that are already sending you a lot of visits.

Use this intelligence to prioritize which social platforms you include in your share buttons set and which social media platforms you spend time engaging in. You don’t have to boil the ocean – you just need to engage where it counts.

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s “Quick Tip” coming at you on Tuesday. Better yet, never miss a post from us when you subscribe below.

Photo Credit: Sendgrid Blog

These days, there’s such an emphasis on gaining new audiences for your blog through social sharing that it’s easy to forget about how to continue to engage the readers you already have. It goes without saying that creating consistent, high quality content is the most important way to keep your readers around, but you also need to get it in front of them in a way that’s memorable. How do you get your readers to come back day after day? How do you make sure that your readers never miss a piece of content and start to truly understand you? How do you convert a reader from a once-in-a-while speed dater to a madly obsessed raving lover?

Valentine’s Day metaphors aside, this is all to say one thing: as you’re trying to build new audiences for your blog, don’t forget about the ones you already have.

Photo Credit: Rahxy via Compfight CC

Driving people to follow you on your social channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest is one way to do this, but when people have thousands of followers on each service and a barrage of never-ending content streams, it’s easy to get lost in the mix.

The answer to our problem lies in the unsung hero of the social sharing world: email newsletters. Call me old fashioned, but the fact of the matter is that people still spend over 50% of their day on email. Knowing that, don’t you think it only makes sense to reach them where they already are?

If you leave this post with only one thing, let it be this: starting an email newsletter for your blog is one of the most effective ways to deepen engagement with your existing readers and convert passive visitors into active visitors. Let’s dig a little deeper to see why.

Did you know that most of your visitors are passive?

As you dive in and try to understand your blog’s analytics and traffic sources, it’s easy to get lost in the nitty gritty. So let’s take a step back. At the end of the day, I like to divide my readers into two categories: passive and active.

1. Active visitors are the holy grail of blog followers. They come to your blog without asking and without prompting. You’re one of their first stops when they turn on the computer. They rave about you to their friends, actively engage with comments, and share regularly. In your analytics, the only source that can truly be called active are Direct visitors.

2. Passive visitors are finnicky. They may be new or returning readers but typically require some sort of “prompt” to visit your blog. They may stumble across your blog through a Google search or perhaps follow you on a social channel. They might see a new post pop up here and there and occasionally click on something. They may come back…or they may not. It’s all about chance. In your analytics, this is everyone else except Direct.

If we look at the comprehensive data from Shareaholic’s October 2012 Traffic Sources report, only about 20% of visitors to publisher websites are coming directly to their sites.

This means that the majority of your visitors are passive! So wait, you’re telling me that I’m spending most of my time promoting to people who may not even come back?

Unfortunately, yes.

So let’s fix things. If active visitors are the most valuable type of reader but we have significantly more passive visitors coming into the top of the funnel, we need to figure out a way to convert our visitors from passive to active.

There are a lot of way to do this, but an email newsletter is the hidden gem in your toolkit to engage passive visitors.

Why Email Works

With Facebook and Twitter feeds moving at the speed of sound, it’s easy for one of your followers to miss a post. Email bypasses this problem by taking all of the chance out of the game. Whether at work, at home, or on the go, most people are checking their email frequently throughout the day. By putting your content in your reader’s inbox, you ensure they never miss a thing.

They don’t have to log in anywhere else. They don’t have to remember to visit another website. They don’t even have to be thinking about you. It all comes to them without having to lift a finger.

Over time, however, you can build this relationship into something much more. Your emails, whether daily, weekly, or somewhere in between, become a small (but constant) reminder that you exist. It’s like that little birdie whispering into their ear saying, “hey, remember me?” The once casual relationship turns into something more serious as your email readers start getting exposed to more of your content over time. You start to cut through all of the noise and become a trusted, go-to source in your niche. You become the one they remember.

You become reliable. They become active.

Photo Credit: ZakVTA via Compfight CC

Sound a little like dating? That’s because it is! It’s all about developing a relationship with your reader, and email, above all other channels, gives you the most direct line to do that.

But with an invitation to someone’s inbox also comes great responsibility. For many people, their inbox is a sacred place and as publishers, we need to respect that. Here’s how.

4 Ways to Creatively Use an Email Newsletter

Once you’ve set-up your email newsletter and figured out how to grow your list, it’s time to decide what to do with it. Here are a couple of ideas and examples (please excuse the fact that they’re mostly food blogs – that’s what I do!):

1.  The most basic use of an email newsletter for a blog is to convert your RSS feed into an email. There are a number of ways to do this, but the basic idea is that every time you publish a new post, it triggers an email to your readers like this one from Shareaholic publisher Kristen from Dine & Dish. Depending on what service you use, you can have the email sent automatically or you can manually format it yourself. Kristen does it manually so she can control the content on the sidebar.

2. A weekly digest email, like this one from Food52, is a great way to remind your readers of everything they missed over the past week or to highlight certain posts. This requires a bit more manual work, but with a good template, you can crank it out quickly every week.

3. If you have a product, like a new e-book, you can use your email list to promote and sell it! Kevin from Closet Cooking occasionally (and I repeat, occasionally) will intersperse his auto-triggered emails with something a bit more promotional. If done thoughtfully, this is a great way to get your convert your now active readers into revenue!

4. Looking for feedback? Asking your email list to take a survey (like Bonobos did) every few months is a great way to get their thoughts on what you’re doing. Looking at analytics is great and all, but hearing feedback from the horse’s mouth is far and beyond the best way to know if you’re on the right track. Consider asking about the frequency of posts, the types of posts they want more of, and what they love. Do this, and you’ll discover your blogging niche in no time.

At the end of the day, setting up, growing, and running an email newsletter is another item on your to-do list, but I hope that I’ve been able to prove to you that it’s worth your time! With a some up-front work and a little creativity, an email newsletter can quickly become one of the most valuable tools in making your blog even more successful. Grow your readership then convert those passive visitors into active, raving fans. After all, email is for lovers.

Vijay Nathan is the Co-founder of NoshOn.It, a curated content network and daily email newsletter that brings hand-picked recipes and expert cooking tips from the world’s best bloggers and chefs straight to your inbox. To talk about email newsletters, food blogging, or content networks, you can contact Vijay on Twitter at @VijayRNathan or via email at vijay@noshon.it.

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As a blogger, you have a lot to think about. Between what thinking up post to write next, promoting your content on social media, responding to comments from readers and running giveaways, you have enough to think about. Managing a ton of tools, trinkets and widgets shouldn’t be yet another thing that flusters you.

Less is more. Don’t overwhelm your readers with choices of actions to take – various kinds of share buttons or overloading your sidebar with badges and more.

Look for multi-functional blogging features, like WordPress plugins that make it easy to maintain several different features all within settings screen. With Shareaholic for WordPress, you get:

• Share Buttons –  increase traffic and engagement to your content.
• Recommendations related content – makes the most of your best content with relevant recommendations of your own posts at the bottom of every article you publish.
• Analytics – discover your blogging sweet spot through a simple and elegant one-page metrics dashboard that shows you your best-performing posts.
• Channels – the opportunity to syndicate your content to a targeted audience on Shareaholic’s content discovery engine, Shareaholic Channels, just by being a Shareaholic publisher.

The bonus? Since all of these features work in sync with each other, you get the best possible performance and prevent your site from slowing down with additionally code.

So if you’re a WordPress blogger, don’t hesitate. Be sure to check out all of the features that the Shareaholic WordPress plugin has to offer.

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s Quick Tip coming at you on Tuesday. Or better yet, never miss a blog post when you subscribe to the Shareaholic blog below.

Today we are thrilled to announce that we’ve partnered with our friends at Rafflecopter - who create products to help you run awesome giveaways – to add more content to Shareaholic Channels. Whether you’re a reader looking for your next great recipe to cook or a blogger hoping to find inspiration for your next post, you’re going to fall in love more than 500 new bloggers and eight new categories we’ve added to Channels.

Here are the new categories you can now explore on Channels:

• Sports
• Technology
• Design
• Careers
• Entertainment
• Education
• Books, Music & Film
• Reviews & Giveaways

Like what you see? Be sure to give the new featured publishers a warm welcome by clicking that “favorite” button (the little heart) on a post you really like on Shareaholic Channels.

To help you get acquainted with some of the new publishers, we wanted to introduce some of them personally to you. Here are 10 new featured publishers giving some of the best blogging tips they’ve got – how to run a great giveaway.

Beth Campbell, Campbell Duke Personal Branding

“Currently, I’m using Rafflecopter to encourage people to complete a short market survey on my blog. It’s very important to me to reach people beyond my current readership, as I’m trying also to increase traffic to my site. Every giveaway needs to reward people for sharing the link with their friends. If your chances of winning decrease when you get others to enter, you’re less likely to share. Rafflecopter is set up to help you reward people for sharing the news of your giveaway… and it keeps track of things for you, making it effective and easy to use.”

Check out Beth’s blog on the Shareaholic Careers Channel.

Tiffany, Life of a Lost Muse

“I think there are a few very important things to remember when hosting a giveaway.  You need to have a good relationship with the sponsor and have in writing (email) what they are going to give away.  I’ve read about bloggers who’ve had sponsors agree to a giveaway, but not define ‘what’ they’re giving away – and when it came time to distribute prizes, the sponsor says “well, we never ‘confirmed’ the giveaway”.  Basically – make sure you protect yourself.  A lost prize means an angry winner which could mean a LOT of bad publicity.  As a blogger, your reputation depends on what your readers think of you.  Word of mouth goes a long way.

It’s also very important to confirm your entries.  There are dishonest people in the world and some of them might find your giveaway.  You need to manually check your entries to make sure the participant actually did the tasks.  You wouldn’t want to give the prize to someone who didn’t actually DO anything, would you?  It feels unfair to the people who actually did the tasks.  Rafflecopter makes entering a contest easy, there is no need for people to cheat just to win.

Most importantly – remember to have fun with your giveaways.  Promote them on social media, list them on giveaway sites.  Watching the entry numbers go up is a thrill for me.  When I think about how many people are coming to see my little blog, it’s both thrilling and humbling.  I feel blessed to reach that many people with my words. ”

Check out Tiffany’s blog on the Shareaholic Fashion and Beauty Channel.

Jeanette Nyberg, Artchoo

“When I run giveaways, I make sure I go above and beyond what they client is expecting. To do this, I treat the brand like a client. I’ll communicate as much as I can with them about my timing and expectations for the giveaway, I put extra time into my post of their product, and I promote it extensively through social media.

I write my giveaway posts as much in the style of my other posts as possible, because my readers come to my blog for my voice and style, and they don’t want to see some awkward post that sounds like an ad. The brands appreciate this as well, because they love to see their products woven into relatable stories.

During the giveaway, I use the Rafflecopter feature where entrants can gain extra entries for liking the brand’s Facebook page or following them on Twitter, but I try to not go too crazy with offering them more than a few options for extra entries.”

Check out Jeanette’s blog on the Shareaholic Design Channel.

Aimee “Mimi” Beltran, Irresistible Pets

These are Aimee’s tips for running a successful giveaway:

• I always use Rafflecopter to manage all of my giveaways. It’s so simple to set up and keeps track of all my participants so I can spend more time writing content and building relationships (and playing with Chuy!)
• Keep open communication with brands before, during and after your giveaway. This will eliminate any miscommunication and builds a lasting relationship.
• When working with brands, request that they ship the prize direct to the winner to save you time and money.
• Provide brands with a traffic report after the giveaway to show them the success of working with your blog.
• Only have one requirement for participants to enter your giveaway. You can create “bonus” entries but make it as simple as possible.
• Don’t forget to market your giveaway on ALL your social media channels! Don’t lose the momentum! You can even have participants tweet about your giveaway to earn “bonus” entries.
•  Make it fun and visually appealing by creating graphics for your giveaways.

Check out Aimee’s blog on the Shareaholic Animals Channel.

Amanda Brandenberg, Ninth Street Notions

“I’ve found that the most important thing to do is keep it simple. Spell out prizes, deadlines, and directions in clear and easy to understand terms. Don’t get caught up in feeling that you need a million ways to enter your giveaway. If you do, people visiting get confused and/or turned off. They don’t want to enter complicated giveaways. They simply want to begin a relationship with the brand you’re promoting. Really, that’s what the brand is hoping for, too. If you’re going to do your job right as well as make the process smoother and easier for you, just maintain simplicity.”

Check out Amanda’s blog on the Shareaholic DIY Channel.

Barb Webb, Comic Book Mom

“Simplicity is key to running a successful giveaway that enhances the reader’s experience, satisfies the vendor’s needs and keeps me (the blogger) from going batty!  In the online world, the majority of readers skim text, so complex entries will convolute the process and sometimes turn readers away from entering. My ultimate goal is always to offer a pleasant and rewarding experience for all parties involved.  It’s a delight to be able to offer readers a terrific prize package, I certainly don’t want to taint the experience and have them not enter!

When I run a giveaway I make it as easy as possible to enter by either having a simple “click here to enter” or “leave a comment” as the main requirement. If I require a comment, I also make certain my blog is very comment friendly, not requiring text verification or other hoops to jump through.

I used to shy away from the “extra entries” as it complicated the process, but since I discovered Rafflecopter, I now regularly add additional entry options.  Again, I keep them very simple, straight-forward, and limited in number so that the entrant can easily complete what suits them without being overwhelmed by too many options.”

Check out Barb’s blog on the Shareaholic Family Channel.

Heather Lloyd, Pigskin N’ Pearls

“I run a girly football site called Pigskin ‘N Pearls. I have been successfully blogging since last May and was reluctant to venture into the world of contests and giveaways because it seemed complicated. I’m glad I got over my fear, because a giveaway is great publicity and relatively simple…if you go about it the right way.
Here’s what I’ve learned:

1) Know your readers. I was approached for my first giveaway by an upscale ladies line of fan wear. It appealed to me and I knew my readers would feel the same way. Don’t try to sell something on your readers that doesn’t fit or that you’re not passionate about. They’ll see through it and you’ll look like a sell out.

2) Build a relationship. I built a solid relationship with the vendor I mentioned and as a result, I am currently doing my second promotion with them. I held up my end of the bargain, delivered on my promises, and so did they.

3) Have the right tools. I used Rafflecopter for my latest giveaway and will continue to do so. I didn’t realize Facebook had so many rules regarding contests, but the app takes care of all of that. It also adds the necessary legal disclosures.

4) Promote, promote, promote!

5) Engage your audience in a fun and playful way. It’s a contest…who doesn’t like free stuff?

6) Don’t wait. Just try. And you’ll figure it out along the way!”

Check out Heather’s blog on the Shareaholic Sports Channel.

David Murphy, Food N’ Service

“One of the biggest and most important thing about doing a giveaway is audience engagement. You have to keep your audience actively engaged in participating and sharing the giveaway. Make a meme! One of the hottest trends. There’s nothing better than making someone smile while entering a giveaway. ”

Check out David’s blog on the Shareaholic Food Channel.

Clara Beyer, That Girl Mag

“My trick to running giveaways is knowing how to promote them. If I have a giveaway running, I probably mention it on twitter every day — using the hashtag #giveaway, of course. (You can schedule all those tweets in advance with TweetDeck or HootSuite, by the way.) Sending too many of the same promotional tweet gets boring though, and your followers definitely notice. I tend to try to sneak a mention of the giveaway into some other interesting tweet. It’s a tiny bit more work, but totally worth it.

Once the giveaway is over, your work isn’t finished. I like to send a note or a couple cool extras (for some reason stickers keep coming to mind, even though my audience is mostly in their 20s) to the winner. It feels like a nice thing to do, and people will remember you for it. And then they might tell all their friends how great you are. Just saying.”

Check out Clara’s blog on the Shareaholic Entertainment Channel.

Jenny Hwang, Geek in Heels

“Although I am a strong advocate of the “content is king” blogging mantra, I am also a strong believer in using giveaways and contests as a way to draw new readers, in addition to retaining and engaging your current audience. (After all, who doesn’t love free stuff?) I run at least one giveaway a month and my readers can’t get enough of them! Here are my top three tips on running successful giveaways:

• Give away a product or service that YOU would be excited to win. Your enthusiasm will make the giveaway that much more exciting and enticing to your readers!
• Have a link to the giveaway prominently posted on all areas of your blog. A good percentage of my traffic comes from search engines and other sources that do not always lead visitors to my giveaway post. So when I began to run a special announcements section at the top of blog which links to giveaways whenever one is running, traffic and participation increased tremendously.
• Tell your friends about your giveaways. It seems obvious, but so many bloggers I know fail to do this! Word-of-mouth advertising still works wonders when it comes to the world wide web, and it’s always a treat to see a friend, or a friend of a friend win a giveaway.”

Check out Jenny’s blog on the Shareaholic Social Media Marketing Channel.

Like what you see? Be sure to explore what these bloggers have to offer and so much more on Shareaholic Channels today!

According to our data based on 200,000 publishers that reach 300 million people each month, nearly 34% of traffic to publisher sites is social media referral traffic. Many of those folks are new visitors who probably discovered your content through a social share.

With all of these new visitors coming to your site, it means that first impressions are everything. You’ve got to capture the interest of your new visitors from the beginning. What better what to put your best foot forward than by making it easier than ever for them to discover your best content?

Shareaholic Recommendations suggests your best posts at the bottom of each article you publish. By tapping into the context of your articles, we make relevant content suggestions to your readers so they stay on your site longer and reader more and more of your content per visit – increasing the change that they will become a subscriber.

The results speak for themselves. In our free guide, The Definitive Guide to Related Content, you can learn more about the results Recommendations has for other bloggers just like you – increasing pageviews up to 29% in some cases!

Recommendations are easy to install, with just a few lines of code or the simple click of a button in the Shareaholic WordPress plugin. You can customize the theme of your Recommendations so they look extra great with the rest of your site, making an even better first impression on all those new visitors.

Note: We’re still perfecting Recommendations for Blogger. We’ll let you know when it’s available.

Consider giving related content a try today with Recommendations.

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Tune in next Tuesday when we’ll share our next “Quick Tip.” Better yet, subscribe below so you never miss a post from us.

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When I first started blogging, I was pretty clueless–I didn’t even choose my own platform. Knowing that I was becoming interested in social media and blogging, my boyfriend created a Blogger blog for me for Valentine’s Day. It was a great option for me. Blogger was a super easy-to-use platform and to be honest, I had no idea that other options existed. As I started to better understand the other available choices, I hopped around from platform to platform—Tumblr, WordPress.com and finally self-hosted WordPress.org.

And what did I end up with? Four or five stagnant blogs on different platforms that I rarely updated and the most confusing Google search imaginable. No one could find my real blog because there were so many other blogs cluttering my search results.

Picking the right platform for your content is essential to you establishing yourself as a blogger. While it’s fine to make a transfer one time, you shouldn’t really be jumping around from platform to platform like I did. You’ll end up having a very fragmented web presence, which will be hard to overcome with even the best SEO efforts.

Instead, learn from my mistakes. There are a ton of blogging platforms out there to choose from, but you need to find one that will work for you and the content you are creating right when you’re starting to blog.

To help set you on the right path, here’s a rundown of the pros and cons of the most popular blogging platforms:

WordPress.com

Price: Free with costs to upgrade

You’ve heard of WordPress before—it is the most popular blogging platform in the world. WordPress offers two different blogging platforms: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The main difference between the two is that the WordPress.com sites are hosted on WordPress’ server while WordPress.org sites are hosted on an external server.

If you’re not interested in a ton of customization options, WordPress.com is the way to go. You won’t be able to add plugins, install custom themes or edit your HTML, but you will get a basic blogging platform that’s free and easy to use. If you ever want those options, it’s also very easy to switch over to WordPress.org. If you want to dive deep into the differences between the two, WP Beginner has an awesome infographic to break it down for you.

I’d suggest using this platform if you are just testing the blogging waters and aren’t ready to commit to investing time and money into a website.

Blogger

Price: Free

Even though it was my first blogging platform, I’m not a huge fan of Blogger. The site is deceiving at first. It’s easy to navigate and I love that it’s integrated with all my Google Apps, but if you want to customize your site, you have to be okay with tweaking HTML. As a beginner blogger, I was not prepared to do that (if you want to start learning HTML, we’ve got a handy guide here). Blogger does have widgets available to keep you from touching code, but it is mostly centered on adding Google products to your blog.

Ultimately, if you want a very simple set-up, Blogger could work for you. It’s easy to edit and publish posts and it has a ton of tools built it. Be warned though, as you grow your blog, other blogging platforms will have more options available to make your life easier.

Tumblr

Price: Free

Like the previous few platforms, Tumblr is really easy to get set up and start blogging. As far as specific blogging customization options, it doesn’t have much over Blogger or WordPress.com, but one of its top selling points is its culture and community.

Tumblr blogs usually contain images, gifs or videos—not necessarily long form text. The Tumblr community is also very comfortable with reposting other people’s content because of Tumblr’s “reblog” function. While other platforms do have some of those capabilities, that type of culture and community is what makes Tumblr special. If this seems like your style, definitely check it out!

WordPress.org

Price: Platform is free, ~$5 per month and up for hosting costs

I’m going to go ahead and admit it—I love WordPress.org. Not only do we use it here at Shareaholic, but I also use it for my personal blog. Though there is a bit of a learning curve initially, it’s one of the most flexible blogging platforms out there. If you’re dying to delve into your blog’s code, you can. If you’re not, you can use plugins and themes that make sure you hardly ever have to touch a piece of code. It’s also a well-loved platform by the developer community, which means there will always be fresh tools and themes available for you to use.

I do want to emphasize that getting started on WordPress can be a challenge, especially if you don’t have some technical knowledge already. You’ll have to worry about downloading an FTP client and grabbing a web host right off the bat (we have a guide that can help choose one). This can be intimidating for a newbie blogger. Still, if you bite the technical bullet and go with WordPress, it’s well worth the investment!

Squarespace

Price: $8-$16 per month

I’ll be honest—I’ve never hosted my blog on Squarespace. That being said, after taking it for a spin I am VERY tempted to jump ship from WordPress. (Kidding! No more switching for me.) It is a terrific option for those of us who want to customize a blog but don’t have the coding chops yet. It’s intuitive to use with built in analytics and drag and drop page templates.

This is also a great platform for those of us who eventually want to expand our blogs into a business. Whether you want to launch a simple landing page or an ecommerce website, it would be incredibly easy to do it all through Squarespace.

Though it is super easy to use, it doesn’t have all the plugin and theme support that WordPress does—you’ll have to manually insert code in your blog to get the same tools.

Typepad

Price: $9-$30 per month

If you think that WordPress.com is too simple and WordPress.org is too complex, Typepad is the perfect compromise. Like WordPress.com, Typepad blogs are all hosted on their server, but you have a lot of customization options available. It’s still fairly hard to edit their code, but it offers more extensive themes and blog plugins than WordPress.com. If you’re looking for a semi-robust platform that’s a middle step between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, Typepad might be a good option for you.

Weebly

Price: Free to start, upgrade available (~$5 a month for additional features and $35 a year for a custom domain)

Weebly is a very easy-to-use tool to create websites and blogs. It’s one of the easiest in the bunch to navigate with excellent SEO capabilities wired in, but it didn’t strike me as the best blogging platform. It was much harder for me to put together a post compared to the previous options. It might be a good option if you have a main website and happen to blog as well, but if you’re a full-time blogger, it is probably overkill.

I also really liked its drag-and-drop features, but be warned that editing the HTML and CSS of your site is pretty tricky. Since it’s not particularly cheaper or better designed than any of the previous options, I’m a little lukewarm on Weebly.

Drupal

Price: Free, then $12 – $80 per month

Drupal is more of a content management system than a blogging platform. While you can use it to create a blog, it’s also made to create things like corporate websites, forums and ecommerce sites, so it’s not that intuitive to use as a blogger. Like with WordPress, you’ll need to get your own host to use Drupal, but the actual software is pretty difficult to navigate.

That being said, there are some tools out there like Drupal Gardens that make it much less intense to use. Drupal Gardens creates an interface that makes it easy to create and publish your content. Even with Drupal Gardens in your holster, I’d recommend using a simpler platform for your blog unless you are a technology-savvy pro blogger with solid plans to create a business.

Joomla

Price: Free for a month, then prices go up from $20-$100 for premium plans

Like Drupal, Joomla is a content management system aimed at corporate websites rather than the average blogger. When playing around with it, I thought it was a very robust platform that really helps you create any website you’d ever want. For most bloggers though, it’s probably overkill. It’s also more expensive than any of the other platforms listed here, which may be a deal breaker if you’re just starting out. If you’re looking to learn more about Joomla or Drupal, here’s a great article to read.

Ultimately, picking a blogging platform is a personal decision—what works for someone else may not work for you. If you’ve already picked your blogging platform, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Which platform are you using? What do you love or hate about it?

The smart folks at Shopify – who help you make Ecommerce sites – have a great post with Important Shopping Dates for 2013 that is right on point. We loved the idea of planning ahead and taking advantage of trends, seasonality and popular search terms to make the most of your content. So we wanted to this with our Shareaholic bloggers plus give some tips on how this can help you efficiently plan your content in 2013.

On Tuesday we recommended that you checked out your Shareaholic Analytics to identify your top performing blog posts, and identify your strengths. Depending on the type of blog you have, some of your more seasonal posts may show up in that report, proving that the topic could be worth a fresh visit in 2013 if it was successful in 2012. You clearly already know when the important calendar dates such as holidays are, but it’s important to keep in mind that your readers begin preparing for them weeks or sometimes even months in advance. A quick search in Google Trends will show you when interest spikes for a particular topic.

Let’s take pumpkin pie recipes for example. They are certainly more popular around Thanksgiving, but Google Trends shows us that search volume for them begins to pick up as soon as late August.

Bloggers have an opportunity to share their best pumpkin pie recipes earlier in the fall and beat the crowd. Be the first one to be pinned, shared and linked to.

Clearly the pumpkin pie recipe applies best to food bloggers, but any kind of blogger can prepare themselves to take advantage of these seasonal opportunities. To keep important dates top of mind for you, take a look at Shopify’s calendar.

You’ll notice that these are pretty universal dates. You know your niche best, but based on some great posts we’ve seen around the publisher network here are other dates we recommend you track:

• Any conferences you’re looking forward to.
• Your blog anniversary. (See this nice post from Shareaholic publisher Dollops of Diane commemorating hers!) It’s a perfect opportunity to thank your readers and celebrate your accomplishments!
• Fitness bloggers – any particular races you’re excited about. (We’re in Boston and the Boston Marathon is an actual holiday around here :D)
• Food bloggers – there is a national food holiday in every month of the year. Check out this list.
• Fashion and beauty bloggers – Fashion Week, Awards season key ceremonies
• Personal finance bloggers – Tax season

Are you tracking any holidays, trends or seasons to plan for your content? What else would you add to the calendar? Let us know in the comments!

Chart Icon by Iconify.it

There are more and more blogs created each day – in fact there are 50 million blogs on Tumblr alone! What does that mean for you? It means that there are more and more people creating the same kinds of content you are creating, so you have to go above and beyond in order to stand out. There’s no better way to do that than by carving out your own unique niche and producing content that best emphasizes your strengths.

Using Shareaholic Analytics, with your Top Content report you can identify your best-performing blog posts – the ones that send you traffic again and again.

Also in Shareaholic Analytics is your Top Sharers report, which shows you the most influential and engaged readers on your site.

With links to their social profiles, you can connect directly with your influencers on Twitter and learn even more about this core group of readers. See what other kinds of content they read. If they have a blog as well, see what topics they blog about to learn about their interests. Use this intelligence to drive the focus of your content planning and accentuate your content’s strengths.

Like “Quick Tips” like this? Stay tuned for next week’s tip coming at you on Tuesday. Better yet, subscribe below so you never miss a post from us.

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We’ve all been there. You’ve slaved over a post—researching, writing, editing, working in links to sites you admire, and sharing it through all the proper social media channels. And then it happens.

Rejection.

Whether it crops up in your comments section, someone else’s blog post or in social media, negative feedback can hurt, especially when your blog is based off your experience and opinions.

Welcome to the internet: a magical place where you can put your thoughts on display, but also a place where anyone else can air theirs. In this place, you’ve got to be prepared with the worst of the worst trolls while still being open to getting feedback from your readers. If you want to make your blog even better, you’ll need to figure out how to deal with negative feedback and to use it to make your blog even better.

So how do you do it? Here are a few tips to help:

1. If it’s on your blog, don’t delete the comment!

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You obviously can’t control what other people say on social media or their own blogs, but you can control what appears on your blog. Save that control for the spammers and trolls—not for the negative commenters.

Remember, if you leave the comment up and then respectfully respond, everyone else can follow the discussion and see both sides to the story. Then, they can chime in to defend you or add some other constructive criticism. Either way, you and your blog will be better off hearing from both sides of the discussion.

2. Separate your work from yourself.

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This is probably the most wide-spread problem with bloggers and writers in general (I’m guilty of it too!). After you spend a ton of time creating something, it’s really hard to disconnect your feelings from the post from feelings about yourself. Then when someone gives you feedback about the post, it feels directed at you.

So when you get negative feedback, recognize that you may do this and try to keep in mind that the negative feedback isn’t about you. You could be the most amazing person in the world, but write with tons of typos. If someone were to call you out on that, it wouldn’t be a reflection of how awesome you are! It would just mean that you need to work on your spelling…ASAP. ;)

If people are making the criticism about you, as a person, you need to recognize that they are either a troll, trying to get you all riled up, or someone with irrelevant criticism.

Which leads me to my next point…

3. Dissect the comment for relevant criticism.

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When people comment, they aren’t always going to be clear on things you need to do improve. Usually, negative feedback is laced with other things besides the feedback itself, so it’s crucial that you know how to distinguish between them all.

In this awesome Fast Company article, Mark Murphy offers an acronym to help you analyze what people are actually saying in their criticism: FIRE. Here’s what each letter means:

• Facts: What actually happened.
  • Ex: In your blog post, you had severe spelling errors all over the place.
• Interpretations: How the other person views the facts.
  • Ex: He or she notices all of the errors in your post and believes only lazy people don’t proofread.
• Reactions: How they emotionally react to the situation.
  • Ex: He or she hates lazy people and thinks you need to be put in your place.
• Ends: How they act or say, based on the previous three bullet points.
  • Ex: He or she decides to leave a nasty comment, calling out your laziness and poor spelling errors.

To help pull out the criticism from the emotion in the comment, use the FIRE method. In this example, you could use it to realize that at the core, the commenter was trying to tell you that you need to proofread, not that you’re a lazy bum. Realize that people aren’t giving you completely factual feedback—often, emotions play a huge part in how they react to you.

By separating the actual criticism from the emotions, you probably won’t feel as attacked and you’ll have clear feedback to improve on.

4. Gut check with friends.

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It always helps to have a blogging buddy, but it’s especially helpful to have one in this situation. After you’ve dissected the true criticism from the feedback, forward the criticism to your buddy and ask them if they are getting the same takeaways from the feedback that you are.

I wouldn’t suggest doing this for EVERY negative comment, especially if you feel confident answering it yourself, but for the ones that really hit home, the gut check will help you feel more confident responding to the feedback.

5. Respond quickly, positively, and strongly.

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Though you do want to take the time to dissect their criticism and potentially ask a friend for help, you should try to respond a quickly as possible to the comment. Don’t leave the commenter hanging for long. You don’t want your other readers to think you are ignoring negative feedback (especially if you always welcome comments).

You also want to keep a positive tone when responding to the negative feedback—this will help ease the tension and can even forge a connection between you and the commenter. No name calling, even if they started it.

And remember, while you do want to be open to negative feedback when responding, it’s also okay to stand up for yourself. Again, a delicate balance—don’t be groveling for forgiveness with every negative comment, but also don’t be too hard-headed to make the most of advice. You’ll know when the right time is if you use FIRE—if there aren’t any facts to back up their complaint, stand by your original opinion.

6. Fix the issue and move on.

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Once you respond to the negative feedback and you’ve decided to take the advice to heart, you should make a plan to act on it. In the plan, set measurable goals to guide you going forward and gauge your progress.

Then, move on. Don’t dwell on the fact that you got negative feedback and let it weigh you down. Remember that that feedback is going to help you become a better blogger. Negative feedback isn’t the end of the world—it’s an opportunity to learn and grow.

Have you ever gotten negative feedback on your blog? How did you handle it? Share your stories with us in the comments.