Gina Luker

Algorithm changes are a scary thing. Like seriously. I’ve been the victim of one myself (going from 3 million hits a month to 700K in mere weeks!) But here’s the thing: There’s a simple way to never worry about them again.

No seriously, stop wringing your hands and crying every time you hear there’s new algorithm changes.

Regardless of any algorithm changes, if you engage with your people, algorithms don’t matter – the point of social media is to be social! When you are socializing and talking to your people, they are going to love you. This is a reciprocal relationship, so love on your people like crazy, and they will love you back. 

Let’s take a quick look at why algorithm changes happen: Social media outlets are kind of tricky to figure out, but with a little work almost anyone can do it. And that includes shady spammers who have zero care about the audience and just want to make the money. So they end up figuring out how to manipulate the system. But social media is supposed to be SOCIAL – not just spammed to make a quick buck. So platforms are constantly working on algorithm changes so that spammers don’t stay in business forever. Businesses like Facebook and Instagram have their users in mind first – so as long as you follow these tips, you’ll create social media profiles that last. 

Everyone wants human connection – your job is to engage and interact with them

Dropping a link and running isn’t going to cut it! You need to like and reply to their comments, make them feel like they have a connection to you. Your #1 job as an influencer is to stay in touch with your people. If they want to talk to you, you need to respond. If you have no intentions of talking to your people and being social, what is the point?

 

You should spend 10 times the amount of time engaging as you do to create content

For every minute you spend creating content for Facebook, you should spend 10 minutes interacting with your audience. The same thing applies for Instagram. I leave roughly 100 comments on Instagram per day replying to comments and commenting on other people’s feeds. This is time-consuming, I’m not going to lie. But here’s what you have to know: time, money, and energy are going to go into your brand if you want to make it successful.

Are you ready to invest those things? You gotta be, or you’re not going to get anywhere. 

Your Social Media should be about YOU

If you know me at all, you know that I am a crazy fangirl of Pete Wentz. He is a genius at music, but he is also a genius at business. I follow him because I absolutely love him. When I head to Pete’s pages, I’m there to see what he is up to, not what his friends are doing. People who are following you to see what YOU are doing. Use your page to grow YOUR influence, not somebody else’s. That means this: STOP sharing everyone else’s stuff. Don’t use that space to distract people from your brand – Oh, you DEFINITELY are a brand. If nobody told you, now you know. 

Look at it this way: 

I don’t go to Whole Foods to buy Oreos. I go to Whole Foods to buy high-quality organic vegetables and meat. I go for good quality nutrition. When I get to that store, I’m expecting them to give me what they’re known for. You need to give your audience the same. 

Don’t be afraid to lose followers who didn’t come for you

If you start only sharing your stuff and you lose followers, they weren’t beneficial to you anyway. If you want crazy raving fangirls and boys, you’re going to have to give them more. You’re going to have to give them emotions.  If you want to create a connection you’re going to have to build some authentic emotions. You can’t connect with emotions if you just drop a link and leave. When you take your time and get vulnerable and real with your audience, you will build a bond and they will know that they can trust you. If you want to create a connection you’re going to have to build some emotion. 

Do not overuse emotion.

You’re going to wear people out and push them away eventually. What does that mean? Well, while you want to be open and vulnerable, you don’t need to have a heart to heart confessional every time something doesn’t go well in your life. Some things need to be kept to just you. Make sure that in your vulnerability, you’re still using your experiences to give your audience some takeaway that is going to help them get through their own experiences. Remember, you’re blog is about helping them and what they need, not your personal space to vent ( you have friends for that). 

You don’t have to be afraid of an algorithm changes, your audience is going to love you. Take the time to get to know your people, show them the love they deserve and get down to the business of providing them with the content they need. Whenever you stop dropping the link and running, start interacting, and open up to your audience, you are creating a bond with them. They will trust you, and they will come back to you no matter what the algorithm has to say about it.

Your people will look for you wherever you go. 

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Trying to decide between ConvertKit vs MailChimp email services? Here’s what you need to know when choosing an email service for blogging.

Bloggers wear a bunch of hats – and one is the marketing hat where we have to decide which platforms work best for our business. I’m going to tell you that email is THE MOST IMPORTANT platform every single time someone asks, because it’s that important. 

I’ve talked about email marketing before, along with why and how to do it in The Complete Guide to Email Marketing for Bloggers – but today I want to dive into the biggest decision of all:

ConvertKit vs MailChimp: Which email service is the best for bloggers?

Before we dive too deep, I do want to tell you that these are the only two systems I’ve personally used (but I have done research on several others), so my opinions are based on my own knowledge of each service. 

Also, the links included are affiliate links, so I am compensated if you sign up.

Let’s start with the pros and cons of each service:

MailChimp

PROS

• Free up to 2,000 subscribers/12,000 emails a month
• User friendly with low learning curve
• Somewhat customizable

CONS

• Limited amount of emails per month on free plan
• Cannot use affiliate marketing (more on that in a sec)
• Each person on each list is counted individually
• Difficult to combine lists
• Can be throttled if sending too many emails to too many lists close together

ConvertKit

PROS

• Unlimited emails per month
• Affiliate Marketing is acceptable
• Tagging/Segmenting lists is easy (and can be highly customized)
• Each subscriber is only charged once, regardless of how many lists they are on
• More capabilities to customize (and it’s much easier)

CONS

• Steeper learning curve
• Cost starts at $29/mo for up to 1,000 subscribers
• You have to have your site approved before sending your first email

Since you know the pros and cons, let’s take a deeper look at why I choose ConvertKit vs Mailchimp

The number one reason I use ConvertKit vs MailChimp (or MailerLite or Madmimi) is the limitations on affiliate marketing. You CANNOT use affiliate marketing on MailChimp (read here) – but you CAN on ConvertKit. Game changer!

Most people don’t realize the difference, so let’s break it down:

• Affiliate links: When you simply mention a product in the context of an email, but it’s not the sole focus of the email. 
• Affiliate marketing: When the entire point of the email is to promote a product, service or any other affiliate related program.

So if you’re only dropping in a link to the sofa you bought, but the email is about a room makeover, that’s affiliate linking.

If the entire email is about how you bought a sofa that you love and why you chose that particular sofa and hope the reader will buy the sofa, too – that’s affiliate marketing.

You’ve probably already broken the TOU of your email service but didn’t even realize it!

Let’s move on to subscribers…

In MailChimp, the best way to segment subscribers is by putting them into different sign up forms to separate them out by subject matter. It gets difficult to merge those lists in different varieties. And if one person is signed up on 5 lists, you’re charged 5 times.

In ConvertKit, you can also separate by sign up form, but you can also tag them in a myriad of ways so you can super segment out your list (this is crucial for selling products!) I have people on as many as 10 different lists and tags, yet ConvertKit only charges me one time per person – not 10 times like MailChimp would. And bonus – you can mix and match tags and forms and whatever else you’d like to send an email in any combination to your subscribers.

Let’s talk about sending emails in ConvertKit vs MailChimp

MailChimp can (and does) throttle people who send out too many emails too close together. Mainly it’s because they don’t have set protocols in place to keep spammers from signing up in the first place.

ConvertKit, however, will not let you send the first email until your site is approved (it’s super easy and they are SO friendly!) This keeps spammers out of the system from the start, so you aren’t throttled as to how many emails and when you can send them out. 

Now that you know what I LOVE about ConvertKit, let’s talk about what I’m not so keen on…. the learning curve.

In their defense, the reason the learning curve is so high is because there are SO many capabilities. MailChimp makes it pretty easy, you pick a design, drag and drop in photos… add a bit of text and BAM. You’re ready to hit send. But if you want to set up a funnel that’s a whole different conversation that gets a bit more complex.

In ConvertKit, there’s a LOT of bells and whistles. It’s laid out a lot different… there are tons more options… you have lots more flexibility – yet it takes a minute to wrap your head around how it all works. Once you get the hang of it, it’s amazing! But you need to devote at least a day to making sure you understand the system. (But they have a TON of great free training on how to do every single thing.)

Once you get into that, then the funnels are really easy. Like easier than I could have ever imagined. And you can bulk update and save all on one screen (versus changing back and forth like on MC.)

Now it’s time for you to decide:

ConvertKit vs MailChimp

What’s going to work best for you? 

PS – if you decide to move to ConvertKit, they make it SUPER easy to do… they’ll help you do it free, all you have to do is ask!

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Looking for the best blogging resources around? These are the ones I use every day to help manage & grow my blog. They are each tested throughly and I highly suggest each and every one of them. We use these tools consistently to run this site & our business as a whole.

Running a multi-six-figure business isn’t always easy, but these tools take the overwhelming workload and stream line it to perfection.

 

*Some services included in these blogging resources are affiliate links – but each and every one of them are services I use and trust to keep my business running at full steam.*

I’ve used quite a few email services over the years, but ConvertKit is by far the best. I run multiple newsletters on it with no problem. It’s easy to use and has great features – as well as analytics to make running your business even better.

 

 

 

Need some great fonts or graphics? Creative Market is the go-to source for all of these and more. Digital files from creators all over the world use the site to sell their work – and you’ll find some of the best values on tools that can help your business stand out from the rest.

 

UpViral is a email growing platform that has made my list explode – I gained 21,000 new subscribers in 30 days. It works to use giveaways as email sign up incentives – then creates affiliate links for readers to share. 

 

Building your email list with popups isn’t a new concept, but PopupAlly makes it super simple. You can have as many different versions as you’d like, and run them specifically on pages directed towards the content on the page. It’s a great tool to grow your email list organically.

 

Looking for a reasonably priced host? Bluehost  starts at only $3.95 a month. It’s a great way to get started without a huge investment. 

 

Scheduling Pinterest couldn’t be easier than with Tailwind. It’s a system that lets you set up campaigns that run with your content to pin consistently for best results.

 

Finding the best keywords for SEO can be a bit tricky. KWFinder is a tool that helps you to optimize your keywords in common sense terms to help you get to the top of search engines with ease.

 

 

Need copyright free images? Pexels is the best source to get commercial use photos for free. No strings attached.

 

Another great free resource is Canva. While there is a paid version, which I use myself, the free side is jam packed with tons of useful tools to help you build social media graphics, ebooks, and more. It’s very user friendly and the possibilities are basically endless.

 

 

Thinking of selling something? Gumroad is my favorite platform. You can sell anything from books to videos to music – even physical products. Want affiliates? No problem. They even pay them for you. Just upload your products to sell, promote them, then you’ll get a weekly deposit of all your earnings. 

 

 

Asana is a productivity tool that helps you to keep track of all the moving parts of any project. You can assign different tasks to individuals, create due dates, add notes in relation to the tasks, as well as get notifications along the way. If you have multiple people working on a project – this is a great free resource to keep it all flowing smoothly.

 

 

Craving a connection to people who understand the crazy world of blogging? I get it! Explaining the intricacies of online business isn’t for everyone. But, if you need a community of people who get you, then you’re welcome to join my Facebook Community. I share my best tips & tricks on blogging every day with free live training.