Ok- consider my blogging slump officially over. Last night, I went to support Dani at a blogger Q&A hosted by the DC chapter of The Blogger Union. I got to catch up with some of my Bubbles + Bloggers pals and make some new connections with bloggers I’ve never met. I was so proud of Dani- she did an amazing job answering questions about how social media works for her as a blogger. It was super inspiring and I decided that I wanted to share some of my favorite resources for both monetizing my blog and social media.
Turning Dreams into Empires Takes Hustle and Heart
Social media helpers:
Since the theme of the night was really social media, I’ll start off with that.
I use Hootsuite for all of my scheduling for Facebook + Twitter. My ideal formula is to have three of my own blog posts and three affiliate links (more on that later) a day per social media. I’ve been slacking on this, and blogging in general, since getting my new job but I want to get into a better routine, especially since Hootsuite makes it to easy. Admittedly, I don’t really schedule my Instagram posts- I just post on my Instagram and the Bubbles & Bloggers Instagram in the morning on the bus. Hootsuite takes the guesswork out of when it it best to post as well as shortens the links to make them more visually appealing to the reader.
Linktree is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. You know how it’s super annoying that you can’t link in Instagram? No more is that a problem! You can add multiple links to one main place in your Instagram bio. For example, you can have your blog linked, a post you’re especially proud of, your Poshmark closet, and an upcoming event you want to share- all in one tidy place in your Instagram bio!
I mostly use Crowdfire for the Bubbles & Bloggers twitter at this point. It’s a great tool for growing your twitter network plus it helps find great, relevant content to share. The way it works is that it sets up daily “prescriptions” letting you know what would be great to share, who would it make sense to follow, etc. It also lets you know if you have any inactive followers and reminds you to show your followers love on their posts. Twitter is honestly my favorite social media, so I tweet pretty organically from my own account, but it has been totally instrumental in growing the B&B account.
Tools to monetize your blog:
The first way I ever monetized my blog was through ShareASale. When you sign up for ShareASale, you decided which of their merchants fit into your blog brand, and you apply to be an affiliate with the individual brands. Once approved, you can essentially “make” your own links that, if used to make a purchase, you will earn money for those purchases. There are a lot of smaller brands as merchants through ShareASale, but the ones that do the best for me are ModCloth and Stella & Dot! It’s great because if I feature a necklace that I love from Stella & Dot, I can link that necklace directly using my own personal link using Create Custom Link and if someone buys it from my link, I earn money on it.
Where ShareASale pays me per purchase, Shopstyle Collective pays me per click and there are thousands upon thousands of items to link to. It took me some playing around to get to the level of comfort I have with it now, but Shopstyle Collective is a great tool. (It’s also how I make my nifty widgets). I think my favorite way to use it is in my outfit posts. Let’s say I do an outfit post with a navy sweater, but I bought that sweater a couple years ago and can’t link it for my readers to buy. I can easily search “navy blue sweater” in Shopstyle and find something similar to share with my readers.
I’m a huge Amazon fan, so Amazon Associates (in theory) is awesome because it lets me share my Amazon purchases with custom links so that if my readers purchase using those links, I get a percentage (just like ShareASale). I do have to say though, I do not understand one bit when I do and do not get paid or how much. That could just be me not getting it, but it seems a bit inconsistent.
One last thing…
I make all of my collages on PicMonkey! You do have to pay to use it, but it’s way less expensive than buying Photoshop in one lump sum. I know I don’t have that in my budget right now and PicMonkey is serving me just fine! PicMonkey offers two plans — Premium and Supremium. The Premium plan costs $7.99 if billed monthly, and $5.99 per month if billed annually. The Supremium plan is available only for annual billing and costs $8.99 per month.
I feel like I just threw a lot of information out there, and I hope at least some of it was useful to bloggers who are just getting started and need a few hacks. Please, as I told many ladies last night, do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions about the above tools, social media, blog monetization, or blogging in general. It’s all one big learning curve and I’m always happy to share ideas or even just chat. Feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email at thecarolove@gmail.com.
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