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How to Get Insanely Productive with Social Media Updates to Scale Your Referral Traffic

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Get Insanely Productive with Social Media Updates

Life can get crazy… Holidays, trips, family and personal life: There are lots of things that may stand in your way to being consistent with your (and your business) social media presence.

Therefore making some sort of social media editorial calendar to keep yourself accountable is a great idea.

Like with any productivity hacks, the most important thing to keep in mind here: Keep it very simple. I’ve seen editorial calendars that actually take more time to create than to implement – I think this is counter-productive.

Weekly Social Media Editorial Calendar

I keep it simple and thus insanely productive: I know exactly what I do every set day of the week and when. I am not looking at my calendar any more because it’s very easy to memorize.

Here’s a sample social media editorial calendar you can steal:

Pre-Scheduling

I schedule social media updates for a few reasons:

  • This way I know my (business) social media accounts get regularly updated no matter how busy I am
  • Sometimes I have so much to share within such a short period of time that posting that all at once would over-whelm my followers. So I have to spread out
  • This way I won’t forget to update my followers of some important news (See the part about re-sharing the same article a few times on Twitter).

So here’s my social media scheduling calendar:

Weekly task (Sunday): Schedule some important tweets one week ahead.

(Let’s say you are promoting your content, giveaway, digital book, etc. It’s a good idea to schedule tweets mentioning it one week ahead to be sure you won’t forget)

Tools I use for weekly scheduling:

  • Agorapulse for Facebook and Linkedin scheduling of business page updates*
  • Manage Flitter: This tool lets you easily schedule one social media update (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin) for each day of the week to go live at your “best time” (Time when this software deems most efficient in terms of your following activity). Somehow this tool has the best interface and it makes scheduling very productive (something I’d love to say about Hootsuite but I can’t as it takes much more time to schedule updates using Hootsuite). Unlike Hootsuite, Manage Flitter is free and its free version only supports scheduling for once a day and allows to connect only one Facebook page, so I use both.

https://www.manageflitter.com/

Weekly tasks (Friday)

Friday is one of the easier, more relaxed days for me. I use it to catch up with my content brainstorming dashboards to get inspired as well as check if I missed any conversations involving brand names and hashtags I am monitoring.

Tool: I use Cyfe for both (collecting content ideas and social media monitoring). I have set up several dashboards there to monitor all sorts of data (hashtags, Twitter chats, etc.)

Friday is also my day to catch up with my other social media accounts when I am not as active yet (hey, I only have 24 hours a day!)

Tip: I am using a separate bookmark folder where I store links to my *other* social media accounts to access them quickly using “Open all in Tabs” option.

Daily tasks (Mornings)

Morning is my time to read all the emails and go through my favorite communities and blogs. Both tasks give me LOTS of things to tweet (mostly) and sometimes share on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Posting that all at once would be over-whelming and non-effective (most of the updates would be lost in the clutter), so I am “buffering” everything I have to say throughout the current day.

Tools:

  • Buffer App is (obviously) what I use to buffer my morning reading list to Twitter (Especially through their browser integration (I am using their FireFox plugin that lets me buffer my tweets right from the “Tweet this” pop-up)
  • Viral Content Bee lets me keep my Twitter active as well (and it’s my major content discovery platform too). Plus it keeps my other social media accounts (Pinterest and StumbleUpon) active as well.

Viral Content Bee

There are also several AI-powered content creation tools to play with. I haven’t got around to testing those but they are supposed to be great. Text Optimizer will help you come up with effective content for your updates. The tool gives you access to popular questions on any topic:

textoptimizer questions

As-it-happens tasks

There’s no way around it. That’s how social media works: There will always be tasks you’d better do immediately and better keep them in mind.

Interacting on social media is something you can’t really plan put or schedule. Without instant spontaneous replies, retweets, comments and likes your social media accounts will lack the most important component: Authenticity.

Tools:

  • I use Tweetdeck to be on top of Twitter interactions (here’s my detailed article on that) without feeling overwhelmed. Tweetdeck keeps me very productive.
  • For other social media platforms, I use their native iPhone apps to keep up using “push notifications” (especially during lunch and coffee breaks).

Social Media Posting: Advanced Tips

Now that we hopefully got a bit more organized and productive, let’s not forget about being creative! Keep these quick tips in mind to make your social media activity both varied and efficient:

Re-share the same content a few times on Twitter

Tweets have an extremely short lifetime. They are seen for just a few minutes and after that they will mostly be lost. Therefore re-sharing your (important) content on Twitter using different forms and at different time of the day makes so much sense.

Here’s a quick list of all different ways you can re-share your contest on twitter multiple times (including retweeting someone who shared it, making some use of visual tweets, tweeting quotes, etc)

Re-share your content as a photo on Facebook

Here’s one social media sharing trick: You can share anything as a photo (using “Upload photo” option versus letting Facebook generate the image thumbnail). Image updates get much more visibility in social media streams (Both social media platforms are believed to be giving photos higher rankings in the feeds). Plus these kinds of updates add variety to your feeds.

Agorapulse supports photo updates (but I don’t really like the output).

For more variety in your social media streams, try content re-packaging tactic I explained earlier. Content re-packaging is a great way to share the same content again and again while providing new content to your followers each time.

Tag people in social media updates

You can tag people on all three social media networks using:

  • @username on Twitter
  • @name on Facebook (You need to select the person from the drop down for the tag to work)

In all cases, the person you are getting will most likely be notified by an email (depending on his/her personal settings). These notifications work well for driving more attention to your social media updates.

Never tag irrelevant people though. I only tag people who I mentioned in the article I am sharing (or who I am quoting).

*This deck explains the process in more detail:

Monitor, Analyze, Adapt

Social media updates are only as good as their engagement: You need people to talk back to you and – more importantly – click to visit your site. Finteza is a great tool to analyze your social media traffic and identify the most effective sources:

 

finteza-instagram

Let’s face it, more often than not we use social media to promote our websites, so monitor your social media traffic!

It is a good idea to play with several social media engagement tools to come up with more ways to convert that traffic. Those methods include push notifications and chatbots to name a few.

Social media productivity is no longer an option: You have to find ways to get productive if you want to be on top of many things.

Have you developed any social media productivity tricks of your own? Please share them in the comments!

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How to Get Insanely Productive with Social Media Updates to

I am the owner of this blog as well as Brand and Community Manager at Internet Marketing Ninjas and Founder of MyBlogGuest, MyBlogU and ViralContentBee.com

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Google Updating Cryptocurrency Advertising Policy For 2024

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Google Updating Cryptocurrency Advertising Policy For 2024

Google published an announcement of upcoming changes to their cryptocurrency advertising policies and advises advertisers to make themselves aware of the changes and prepare to be in compliance with the new requirements.

The upcoming updates are to Google’s Cryptocurrencies and related products policy for the advertisement of Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts. The changes are set to take effect on January 29th, 2024.

Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts are financial products that enable investors to trade shares in trusts holding substantial amounts of digital currency. These trusts provide investors with equity in cryptocurrencies without having direct ownership. They are also an option for creating a more diversified portfolio.

The policy updates by Google that are coming in 2024 aim to describe the scope and requirements for the advertisement of Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts. Advertisers targeting the United States will be able to promote these products and services as long as they abide by specific policies outlined in the updated requirements and that they also obtain certification from Google.

The updated policy changes are not limited to the United States. They will apply globally to all accounts advertising Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts.

Google’s announcement also reminded advertisers of their obligation for compliance to local laws in the areas where the ads are targeted.

Google’s approach for violations of the new policy will be to first give a warning before imposing an account suspension.

Advertisers that fail to comply with the updated policy will receive a warning at least seven days before a potential account suspension. This time period provides advertisers with an opportunity to fix non-compliance issues and to get back into compliance with the revised guidelines.

Advertisers are encouraged to refer to Google’s documentation on “About restricted financial products certification.”

The deadline for the change in policy is January 29th, 2024. Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts advertisers will need to pay close attention to the updated policies in order to ensure compliance.

Read Google’s announcement:

Updates to Cryptocurrencies and related products policy (December 2023)

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SEO Trends You Can’t Ignore In 2024

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SEO Trends You Can’t Ignore In 2024

Most SEO trends fade quickly. But some of them stick and deserve your attention.

Let’s explore what those are and how to take advantage of them.

If you give ChatGPT a title and ask it to write a blog post, it will—in seconds.

This is super impressive, but there are a couple of issues:

  • Everyone else using ChatGPT is creating the same content. It’s the same for users of other GPT-powered AI writing tools, too—which is basically all of them.
  • The content is extremely dull. Sure, you can ask ChatGPT to “make it more entertaining,” but it usually overcompensates and hands back a cringe version of the same boring content.

In the words of Gael Breton:

How to take advantage of this SEO trend

Don’t use AI to write entire articles. They’ll be boring as heck. Instead, use it as a creative sparring partner to help you write better content and automate monotonous tasks.

For example, you can ask ChatGPT To write an outline from a working title and a list of keywords (which you can pull from Ahrefs)—and it does a pretty decent job.

Prompt:

Create an outline for a post entitled “[working title]” based on these keywords: [list]

Result:

ChatGPT's outline for a blog post. Pretty good!ChatGPT's outline for a blog post. Pretty good!

When you’ve written your draft, you can ask to polish it in seconds by asking ChatGPT to proofread it.

ChatGPT proofreading my content and making it betterChatGPT proofreading my content and making it better

Then you can automate the boring stuff, like creating more enticing title tags…

ChatGPT writing enticing title tagsChatGPT writing enticing title tags

… and writing a meta description:

ChatGPT writing a meta descriptionChatGPT writing a meta description

If you notice a few months down the line that your content ranks well but hasn’t won the featured snippet, ChatGPT can help with that, too.

For example, Ahrefs tells us we rank in position 3 for “affiliate marketing” but don’t own the snippet.

Ahrefs showing featured snippets that we don't own, despite ranking in the top 3Ahrefs showing featured snippets that we don't own, despite ranking in the top 3

If we check Google, the snippet is a definition. Asking ChatGPT to simplify our definition may solve this problem.

ChatGPT rewriting a definition and making it betterChatGPT rewriting a definition and making it better

In short, there are a near-infinite number of ways to use ChatGPT (and other AI writing tools) to create better content. And all of them buck the trend of asking it to write boring, boilerplate articles from scratch.

Programmatic SEO refers to the creation of keyword-targeted pages in an automatic (or near automatic) way.

Nomadlist’s location pages are a perfect example:

Example of a page from NomadListExample of a page from NomadList

Each page focuses on a specific city and shares the same core information—internet speeds, cost, temperature, etc. All of this information is pulled programmatically from a database and the site gets an estimated 46k monthly search visits in total.

Estimated monthly search traffic to NomadListEstimated monthly search traffic to NomadList

Programmatic SEO is nothing new. It’s been around forever. It’s just the hot thing right now because AI tools like ChatGPT make it easier and more accessible than ever before.

The problem? As John Mueller pointed out on Twitter X, much of it is spam:

How to take advantage of this SEO trend

Don’t use programmatic SEO to publish insane amounts of spam that’ll probably get hit in the next Google update. Use it to scale valuable content that will stand the test of time.

For example, Wise’s currency conversion pages currently get an estimated 31.7M monthly search visits:

Estimated monthly search traffic to Wise's currently conversion pages (insane!)Estimated monthly search traffic to Wise's currently conversion pages (insane!)

This is because the content is actually useful. Each page features an interactive tool showing the live exchange rate for any amount…

The interactive currently conversion tool on Wise's pagesThe interactive currently conversion tool on Wise's pages

… the exchange rate over time…

The exchange rate over time graph on Wise's pagesThe exchange rate over time graph on Wise's pages

… a handy email notification option when the exchange rates exceed a certain amount…

The email notification option on Wise's pagesThe email notification option on Wise's pages

… handy conversion charts for popular amounts…

The handy conversion charts on Wise's pagesThe handy conversion charts on Wise's pages

… and a comparison of the cheapest ways to send money abroad in your chosen currency:

The useful comparison table on Wise's pagesThe useful comparison table on Wise's pages

It doesn’t matter that all of these pages use the same template. The data is exactly what you want to see when you search [currency 1] to [currency 2].

That’s probably why Wise ranks in the top 10 for over 66,000 of these keywords:

Wise's keyword rankings for currency conversion pagesWise's keyword rankings for currency conversion pages

Looking to take advantage of programmatic content in 2024 like Wise? Check out the guide below.

People love ChatGPT because it answers questions fast and succinctly, so it’s no surprise that generative AI is already making its way into search.

For example, if you ask Bing for a definition or how to do something basic, AI will generate an answer on the fly right there in the search results.

Bing's search results for "definition of mental health"Bing's search results for "definition of mental health"
Bing's search results for "how to add drop down list in google sheets"Bing's search results for "how to add drop down list in google sheets"

In other words, thanks to AI, users no longer have to click on a search result for answers to simple questions. It’s like featured snippets on steroids.

This might not be a huge deal right now, but when Google’s version of this (Search Generative Experience) comes out of beta, many websites will see clicks fall off a cliff.

How to take advantage of this SEO trend

Don’t invest too much in topics that generative AI can easily answer. You’ll only lose clicks like crazy to AI in the long run. Instead, start prioritizing topics that AI will struggle to answer.

How do you know which topics it will struggle to answer? Try asking ChatGPT. If it gives a good and concise answer, it’s clearly an easy question.

For example, there are hundreds of searches for how to calculate a percentage in Google Sheets every month in the US:

Estimated monthly search volume for "google sheets percentage formula" via Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerEstimated monthly search volume for "google sheets percentage formula" via Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

If you ask ChatGPT for the solution, it gives you a perfect answer in about fifty words.

ChatGPT's answer to the Google Sheets percentage calculation formulaChatGPT's answer to the Google Sheets percentage calculation formula

This is the perfect example of a topic where generative AI will remove the need to click on a search result for many.

That’s probably not going to be the case for a topic like this:

Example of a topic that AI shouldn't impact too muchExample of a topic that AI shouldn't impact too much

Sure. Generative AI might be able to tell you how to create a template—but it can’t make one for you. And even if it can in the future, it will never be a personal finance expert with experience. You’ll always have to click on a search result for a template created by that person.

These are the kinds of topics to prioritize in 2024 and beyond.

Sidenote.

None of this means you should stop targeting “simple” topics altogether. You’ll always be able to get some traffic from them. My point is not to be obsessed with ranking for keywords whose days are numbered. Prioritize topics with long-term value instead.

Bonus: 3 SEO trends to ignore in 2024

Not all SEO trends move the needle. Here are just a few of those trends and why you should ignore them.

People are using voice search more than ever

In 2014, Google revealed that 41% of Americans use voice search daily. According to research by UpCity, that number was up to 50% as of 2022. I haven’t seen any data for 2023 yet, but I’d imagine it’s above 50%.

Why you should ignore this SEO trend

75% of voice search results come from a page ranking in the top 3, and 40.7% come from a featured snippet. If you’re already optimizing for those things, there’s not much more you can do.

People are using visual search for shopping more than ever

In 2022, Insider Intelligence reported that 22% of US adults have shopped with visual search (Google Lens, Bing Visual Search, etc.). That number is up from just 15% in 2021.

Why you should ignore this SEO trend

Much like voice search, there’s no real way to optimize for visual search. Sure, it helps to have good quality product images, optimized filenames and alt text, and product schema markup on your pages—but you should be doing this stuff anyway as it’s been a best practice since forever.

People are using Bing more than ever before

Bing’s Yusuf Mehdi announced in March 2023 that the search engine had surpassed 100M daily active users for the first time ever. This came just one month after the launch of AI-powered Bing.

Why you should ignore this SEO trend

Bing might be more popular than ever, but its market share still only stands at around ~3% according to estimates by Statcounter. Google’s market share stands at roughly 92%, so that’s the one you should be optimizing for.

Plus, it’s often the case that if you rank in Google, you also rank in Bing—so it really doesn’t deserve any focus.

Final thoughts

Keeping your finger on the pulse and taking advantage of trends makes sense, but don’t let them distract you from the boring stuff that’s always worked: find what people are searching for > create content about it > build backlinks > repeat.

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter X.



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Mozilla VPN Security Risks Discovered

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Mozilla VPN Security Risks Discovered

Mozilla published the results of a recent third-party security audit of its VPN services as part of it’s commitment to user privacy and security. The survey revealed security issues which were presented to Mozilla to be addressed with fixes to ensure user privacy and security.

Many search marketers use VPNs during the course of their business especially when using a Wi-Fi connection in order to protect sensitive data, so the  trustworthiness of a VNP is essential.

Mozilla VPN

A Virtual Private Network (VPN), is a service that hides (encrypts) a user’s Internet traffic so that no third party (like an ISP) can snoop and see what sites a user is visiting.

VPNs also add a layer of security from malicious activities such as session hijacking which can give an attacker full access to the websites a user is visiting.

There is a high expectation from users that the VPN will protect their privacy when they are browsing on the Internet.

Mozilla thus employs the services of a third party to conduct a security audit to make sure their VPN is thoroughly locked down.

Security Risks Discovered

The audit revealed vulnerabilities of medium or higher severity, ranging from Denial of Service (DoS). risks to keychain access leaks (related to encryption) and the lack of access controls.

Cure53, the third party security firm, discovered and addressed several risks. Among the issues were potential VPN leaks to the vulnerability of a rogue extension that disabled the VPN.

The scope of the audit encompassed the following products:

  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for macOS
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Linux
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Windows
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for iOS
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Androi

These are the risks identified by the security audit:

  • FVP-03-003: DoS via serialized intent
  • FVP-03-008: Keychain access level leaks WG private key to iCloud
  • VP-03-010: VPN leak via captive portal detection
  • FVP-03-011: Lack of local TCP server access controls
  • FVP-03-012: Rogue extension can disable VPN using mozillavpnnp (High)

The rogue extension issue was rated as high severity. Each risk was subsequently addressed by Mozilla.

Mozilla presented the results of the security audit as part of their commitment to transparency and to maintain the trust and security of their users. Conducting a third party security audit is a best practice for a VPN provider that helps assure that the VPN is trustworthy and reliable.

Read Mozilla’s announcement:
Mozilla VPN Security Audit 2023

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Meilun

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