What Swag Do Influencers Actually Want?

March 9, 2016 by Larisha Campbell Leave a Comment

As an influencer, we attend conferences, events, luncheons and more frequently to grow and expand our business. It’s always great when receiving a little “swag” while in attendance meeting with brands. Typically, as a brand, your business name is on these little tokens of appreciation in hopes that we will use them in public, remember the brand when using them, or share photos of the items with our followers so that in turn more of that brands’ products are purchased.

As a brand, when you set up a table at a conference, a mall event, or even send things to influencers in your market, you should constantly be considering if your investment is worth it. Are you giving things to people that they will actually use? While pens, USB drives, t-shirts, and water bottles are great, we are overwhelmed with these things often. Unfortunately, many of them get donated to the Goodwill, tossed in the trash, or hidden in the bottom of our closet. As the millennial generation takes over most of the target audience that brands are seeking out, you have to be conscious that you have something to offer influencers in this space that’s unique. We are a generation that is conscious of plastics and waste.

Here’s 10 ideas to help you plan for your next event:

Giftcards and/or Free Coupons for products
- Especially if at a conference, these are the best because they don’t take up a ton of space in luggage but we can still use it to purchase your specific product(s)
Blankets
- An extremely soft blanket that our family can use over and over again is awesome
Kitchen utensils (measuring cups, wooden spoons, etc)
- Never underestimate the power that a unique kitchen utensil can provide
Snacks
- We’re always hungry while attending these events unless it’s a food conference, especially if it’s a multi-day event and we’re staying in a hotel
Travel size items
- A cute little bag packed with travel size items is always welcomed
Experiences (massages, manicures, shoe shining, headshots)
- We often attend these events sans kids, so getting pampered while not having someone screaming in the background is something we will always remember
Small Business Expenses (Planners, Card Holders, SD Cards, Notebooks)
- Things we always needs, but often forget ourselves
Notepads or Notecards
- Quality notepads that have cute sayings, pre-written notes to the teacher, funny cards to give to our significant others — get creative here!
Useful Personal Items (umbrellas, sunglasses, small tools, etc)
- simple things yet unique, that’s the key here
Something Personalized – While this may not also be possible for larger event, think of something like an iron on monogrammed letter or engraving that can be done on site.
- Who doesn’t love something personalized!? Have an event where only a handful of people were invited, customize each thing with a first or last name, something you know about them, a tagline they always use…these are the most appreciated things.

If you are committed to common things like reusable bags, pens, and t-shirts, make sure that they are quality items that will stand up over a few uses. All the ideas above are things that will give you a bigger bang for your marketing buck. The most important thing is that no matter what you choose to offer, that it be a quality item that even you would appreciate receiving. A little more money spent will go further here.

Unplugging Work to Keep Your Relationship Thriving

January 30, 2016 by Larisha Campbell 4 Comments

Affiliate Links Contained within this post.

It was about a year ago. I was busy typing away, and I noticed Andrew sort of pacing back and forth. I had noticed this a few times in the week or two prior to this time too. I asked him if everything was okay and he mumbled yeah. I could tell something was up. I closed my computer, left my phone beside it, and went into the kitchen. “What’s going on, babe”, I said. He replied, “you are alwayyyyysssss working.”

I immediately thought to myself “of course! I have so much to do! I just got the kid to bed (at the time I was still pregnant with our second) and I probably only have an hour or two before she wakes up and wants me to come lay with her until she feels back to sleep again. This stuff isn’t going to do itself.

He continued. “I’m happy that you have something that is bringing money in and that you love doing. But I feel like we don’t spend time together anymore. You always have your nose in your phone or you’re on your computer. I’d like to lay with you and watch a movie.“

It hit me like a brick.

While Andrew has always been very outspoken about his feelings, I completely missed cues that he had been giving me for weeks. Begging me to pay more attention to him and spend more quality time together. I completely blew him off and actually recounted a few times that I got mad at him for trying to tickle me or constantly interrupt me while I was focused on some task that could have waited until later.

As mothers, especially those of us running our own businesses, even more especially those of us that solely work from home, we feel the need to constantly “be on” all the time. Our children demand so much of our day time that when we finally get “down time” we try to rush to do all our work during that time. In the blogging world, there’s also FOMO (fear of missing out). Fear that we are going to miss an opportunity for money or not be first to apply for a new sponsored post.

But we have to stop. No matter your occupation, but especially those of us bloggers, we have to unplug to keep our relationship thriving. I promise you that if you do nothing but work and stop paying attention to your relationship, that it will suffer. It’s inevitable. It was hurting our family and our relationship and I had to stop. I had to start doing these three things:

#1 – Get into a mindset that you don’t always have to “be on”. If you do miss out on something, then it wasn’t meant to be. Something greater will come along. I promise, it always does.

#2 – Realize that 9.5 out of 10 times nothing needs to be immediately done. The e-mails can wait. The course that you are taking will still be there. The photos can wait until tomorrow.

#3 – Learn to time block. I’ve been doing this for years now but never knew what it was called until Amiyrah from 4 Hats and Frugal called it that. Make a list of everything you need/want to get done in a day. Set an allotted amount of time. When you have a few spare minutes, set a timer, and do that task. You have more time in your day than you realize, but you have to utilize it to work for you. Work the minutes to YOUR advantage.

So, how did I fix our relationship and get it thriving again? I say fix because I had really caused a strain in our communication and it did need fixing. A piece of having a partnership is that you have to recognize and fix what you’ve done to another person.

#1 – All electronics are off for at least an hour after he gets home. We chat about our days, tell a funny story that we may have heard, make a snack together, etc.

#2 – Date nights. Now, we have two very small children, we are on a strict budget, and we don’t have family nearby. So we are limited right? No! I came up with 26 at-home date night ideas and gave it to him as a Christmas gift. He was so excited. From finding a dessert together on Pinterest and making it, to watching a favorite movie of his that I’ve never seen, to making ice cream together, I came up with fun ideas that we would like doing that would make us be together without electronics involved.

#3 – During the weekends when he is home or days that he is off, I try to limit my phone time to only when the baby is nursing.

#4 – When we go on weekend trips or out of town, we don’t bring electronics. We do bring phones, but we rarely use them unless it’s just during a wind down period. We try to focus on each other, our time with our family, and the experience we are having. I encourage you to do this even for a family function, try leaving your phone in the car. You’ll be amazed at how much you don’t even need it.

We are in such a great place now and I’m so thrilled with it. I highly encourage you to listen and be aware if you are always plugged in to your work. Even if your significant other isn’t expressing it, they are yearning for your attention. Figure out how you can unplug while they are around and get (almost) everything done when they aren’t home. Unplugging work to keep your relationship thriving is vitally important to our families. Let’s make it happen.

5 Tips for Picking the Perfect Blog Name

April 11, 2015 by Larisha Campbell Leave a Comment

Most people I know, including myself, struggled with choosing a name for their child. Some people I know didn’t even have names until well after their children were born. We struggle with this decision because it’s something that will stay with our child for the rest of their lives (unless of course they decide to legally change their name later). It’s a HUGE decision. Picking a blog name should be no different. This is a name that will stick with you (unless of course you decide to rebrand) for the rest of your career. Even if you do decide to rebrand at some point, many people will still remember you by the first name for a long time.

When people ask me what the first step is in creating a blog, I tell them that deciding and finalizing a name should be the very first thing they do, but even then, there’s steps to take to make sure that it’s really perfect. Here I discuss 5 Tips for picking the perfect blog name.

1. Originality

The name you decide on should be 7 things – Short, Catchy, Memorable, Easy to Say, Easy to Spell, Easy to Pronounce, and most important ORIGINAL.
Start by brainstorming – write down a list of topics that you want to write about. Then use a thesaurus to figure out other words that mean the same thing are your topics. Add in verbs and nouns that describe the site and then work on creating the perfect combination of your brainstorming list.

2. But not TOO original

This falls in the easy to say and spell, but needs it’s own point. Don’t add weird characters like “MomZ Club” because someone already has Moms Club. The same goes for adding numbers and symbols into your name. You want something that’s easily memorable and anyone will be able to find it when searching. If someone has to remember that you added a 3 instead of B – like 3eautiful 3log – chances are you will never be found.

3. Decide if it can really grow with you

Sure – “Mom of 10 Boys” sounds like something a lot of people would be interested in, but if you aren’t done having kids and #11 happens to be a girl, your name because a little weird. Also, if you are creating something very specific make sure that that’s all you ever plan to write about. You may love to eat vegan and you may love to cook, but “Vegan Chef” limits you to what you can write about – if you suddenly weren’t vegan anymore you’d have to either consider selling or just not using the site anymore. Pick something that can really grow with you.

4. Your domain is available

You can do a simple and quick check on GoDaddy.com to see if your domain .COM name is available. Many people can have successful blogs with .Net, but ultimately you really want .COM. It’s easier and the most common way people search for things. You also want to make sure that someone isn’t already using the .Net or .Org version of your same name.
If you are thinking of creating a blog, do me a favor. Buy your domain BEFORE you start. Don’t fall into the “free” trap of yourblogname.blogspot.com or yourblogname.wordpress.com. Not only do these not look professional, but if you are serious about blogging, it makes you look like you are and saves you the hassle of switching later (and trust me, you will switch later if you stick with it). It’s a very small investment usually. Unless someone already owns the domain you want, you can typically buy your domain for under $20/year. That’s less than the cost of 5 Starbucks drinks. A small sacrifice.
If you do have the extra money, buy the .Net and .Org versions too to ensure no one else can
One more thing — THIS IS A BIG ONE — make sure that your name together doesn’t create any awkward phrases. There’s a local restaurant that a blogger I know goes too that’s named Han Dynasty. However – handynasty.com – isn’t exactly what I think they want people to see when they push the words together for a website or hashtag.

5. It fits and is available within social media parameters and e-mail limits

Hopefully, by now, you think you’ve discovered the perfect name. But there’s one more CRUCIAL step. You need to make sure the name is available on social media, as well as an e-mail. There’s actually a neat website that tells your if a name is taken across social media site, though I’m not sure how accurate it really is.
Twitter has a limit of 15 characters, Instagram is 30, Facebook is 50. You ideally want ALL of them to match exactly.

I, personally, made a lot of these mistakes, and I’m writing this to hope that you can learn from my mistake. My domain wasn’t available as just wereparents.com so now it’s wereparentsblog.com and I don’t really LOVE it. I also made the e-mail mistake and I have an awkward e-mail that’s hard to remember. Good luck in naming!

This post is part of our Blogger Tips, Tricks, and Resources series.

How to Make Money Online with a Blog

March 28, 2015 by Larisha Campbell 2 Comments

“Teach me how to make money blogging!” or “How do you make money blogging?” That’s the top two things I hear when I mention that I have a blog, I’m a digital influencer, or that I do marketing for brands. And I get it, I too wanted to know how to make money online from home when I left corporate America and was pregnant with our first child.

First, let me say that, Yes! You can absolutely make money online blogging, but like anything else there’s three very big factors.

#1 – you only get out of it what you put into it
#2 – you aren’t going to be making thousands of dollars a month starting out (or even a few years in).
#3 – money is sporadic, not guaranteed and greatly fluctuates depending on the time of year, your niche, and your stats

All that being said, with almost 3 years of blogging under my belt, I’ve worked with a lot of different companies, campaigns programs, and have successfully been able to supplement our families income with the money I make blogging. I’ve complied a list of programs and companies that I have personally worked with before. Some of the companies below include affiliate links where I make a small commission for enrolling new partners. Thank you for using my links while you learn how to make money online.

Amazon Affiliates
- I discuss affiliates in detail below, but Amazon is my most used affiliate program. Amazon gives you a unique code to use to promote any of their products on-line and you get a small commission for anything you sell within a 24 hour window. We have had good luck promoting Kindle Books and other deals
BlogHer Influencer Network
- BlogHer sends out campaigns to share 8 messages on social media (Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram). If selected, you are paid $50 at the completion of the campaign if you complete the tasks. BlogHer also has an ad program you can be paid for, but are very selective of acceptance.
Blog Meets Brand
Centerpoint Media
- Typically an affiliate program, but occasionally a sponsored post opportunity will be send
Child’s Play
Clever Girls
- Very selective campaign opportunities system.
Commission Junction
- Affiliate Program with companies like Living Social and Groupon – share links to specific deals and make a commission on your sales
Google Ads
- Place different sized ads on your site through Google. Google changes the images for each visitor to your site depending on their search history
iConnect Influence (formerly Double Duty Divas)
Influence Central (formally Mom Central)
- Formerly set up as a campaign opportunity system for moms, Influence Central now has programs for Moms, Dads, and Millennials, as well as Canadian specific system.
IZEA (formally Social Spark and Sponsored Tweets)
- Both sponsored post and sponsored social media opportunities. Must bid on each campaign individually. Free plan allows for 3 bids per month or pay $1/month for unlimited bids. Must meet a payout threshold depending on plan.
Lunchbox
- Sends you campaigns. I have only received one campaign from them in the past year.
Modern Mom
Mom it Forward
- Typically have very high Unique Monthly Pageview requirements
Moms Affiliate
Mom Select
- Products and Monetary Compensation Opportunities. DO NOT HAVE TO BE A BLOGGER for this!
MomTrends
Share-a-Sale
- Another affiliate program where you share links to companies and make a commission for sales. My best ones are Shutterfly and Kiwi Crate
She Is Media
- Both an affiliate system and a sponsored opportunity system
SheSpeaks
- Easy paid opportunities. E-mail you if you are a match, automatically approved for campaigns.
SITS Girls (also referred to as Massive Sway)
Social Fabric (also referred to as Collective Bias and SoFab)
- Very selective, high paying campaign opportunities
Social Moms
- Social Media campaigns sporadically sent
Tap Influence
Type-A Parent

Programs that I have yet to personally try, but have seen recommended –

Lastly, I also make money online blogging is through ambassadorships, other affiliate programs, and as a social media manager.

Ambassadorships- I’ve been hired directly from companies as an ambassador and get paid to write for them, share socially, and other tasks. This is much like a campaign, but usually last for months or years at a time. These ambassadorships often get offered to you once you have been blogging for a length of time, but you can always pitch companies and create an ambassadorship on your own as well.
Affiliate Programs- I’ve been a couple above that do well for me (Amazon and Share-A-Sale). With all affiliate programs, you make a small commission from sales that you refer by using a unique code. Some of these are set up through programs (like Share-A-Sale) and others through individual companies (like Pink Lemonade Shop).
Social Media Manager – I currently run social media for one company. I pitched the company when I realized they had very little social media presence and have been working with them for over a year now.

As with anything, when you are working from home to make money, you have to hustle yourself. If you aren’t putting in the work, you’re unlikely to see a return. With blogging, you have to constantly be looking for various sources of income and not rely on the same programs every month.

Hope this helps!

I will continue to add to this list as I try and test out new programs!

5 Tips for Work Home Balance When Working From Home

March 11, 2015 by Larisha Campbell Leave a Comment

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Clever Girls and their client. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Just over three years ago I left my job in corporate America. Just three weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. To say I was terrified is an understatement, but during my unemployment, I started this amazing blog as an outlet. Fast forward, and I now have a rewarding career, a beautiful toddler, and we are expecting baby #2. We’ve also moved during that time into our first home and Andrew has received a handful of promotions in his career. All sounds fabulous right? Wrong. Yes, most of the time it is. But being a stay-at-home mom and a work-at-home mom comes with very dynamic challenges and as my site grows and I decide to take on more social media clients, trying to balance the work home balance with a toddler is difficult. Not to mention that we plan to start homeschooling also and we will soon have a newborn.

What I quickly realized is that something had to happen and had to happen fast. I came up with these five tips for work home balance that I’ve implemented since the beginning of the year and since doing so, I feel so much happier.

Create Lists and Schedules
- I never thought I’d be the mom/person that did this, but it has seriously changed my life. I have specified tasks that get done throughout certain times during the day and it’s seriously made the biggest difference in the entire world. I’ve also heard of friends setting timers for 15 minutes and getting as much done as possible during that time.
Keep your main living areas clean.
- We spend a lot of time in our kitchen, living room, and bedroom. I noticed that when the kitchen was cleaned up at night, that I was much happier to do things the next morning. Since you are constantly in these areas, if they are clean you will feel like the rest of your life is going well. Just don’t think about that playroom that hasn’t been touched in 2 weeks.
Meal plan.
- Again. Game changer. I started planning one week at a time. I’m not up to two weeks at a time and it’s made the world of difference. Now, at night, I don’t have to rush around like a chicken with my head cut off. I know exactly what we are having for dinner. I know I have all the ingredients, and everyone will eat a healthy meal.
Delegate tasks.
- This is especially easier if you have older children, but even with our two year old, she cleans up her toys while I make dinner. Andrew is in charge of garbage, making the bed, and a few other things while he’s home. Skibbles helps me unload the dishwasher and do the laundry too. As she gets older, she’ll receive more responsibilities, but ultimately everyone in the house should be helping so you don’t feel overwhelmed.
Ask for help.
- This one was hard for me. It took a lot of time getting the courage to do so, but I’ve had too. If you have family around use them, but since we don’t, it’s just Andrew and I. Sometimes on the weekends, I need him to do more than I would normally ask as far as chores go, but the biggest change for me was once a week or every other week, slipping away for an hour to go to something alone with Skibbles. Whether that’s go grocery shopping, a pedicure, or lunch by myself, even just an hour makes a huge difference.

Everyone is actually happier and life is going great. Of course there’s days where things don’t go as planned or everything doesn’t get done. Sometimes it’s a few days in a row. I’ve started looking into more natural products when I’m having repeated bad days, and was excited to learn about RESCUE products. They are natural and homeopathic and help you stay less stressed and feel like you have more control. There are no side effects and they are non-habit forming. You can find RESUE products at CVS, Walgreens, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and other places you’d find natural products.

What do you do to manage your stress? Leave a comment letting me know!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Walk Away From Blogging

February 28, 2015 by Larisha Campbell Leave a Comment

Photo adapted from IdPinThat

Wait…Did you really just read a title that says Walk Away From Blogging?

Yes…Yes, you did. But why in the world would you want to do that? Is it even possible? What happens?

Life goes on. That’s what happens. The internet keeps spinning. You will likely keep getting some pageviews, albeit maybe a drop off depending on how long of a break you take. But most importantly, you have time to regroup and get your life back on track.

Let’s rewind. A little over two years ago, I started blogging for fun. It was new and exciting, and every single pageview that I received gave me a high. People were actually reading what I was writing (Who cares if it was probably just my mom, aunt, and sister’s cousin’s best friend). It was all just very fascinating to me. I kept writing. For some God awful reason, I read that I should be writing everyday and so I tried to do that–even after having my first child just 5 months after I started blogging. Some months I published over 50 posts. I was exhausted, not making a lot of money, and didn’t even feel like I was spending valuable time with my family.

So I walked away. For a week. And it was the best decision I ever made. Since then I’ve done it two other times. Most recently was last week. I didn’t plan to do this last week, but being pregnant with a toddler, after just moving my entire site from Blogger to WordPress, taking a on-line blog class, and overall life, I desperately needed a break.

I don’t even know if anyone notices when I do this. My pageviews seem to hold pretty steady at this point thanks to some viral posts I have lingering the internet. But what I do know is that even with just a week break, I come back refreshed, energized, and ready to work again.

I think it’s vitally important for your sanity, that whenever you are feeling burnt out, you just simply take a break. Don’t worry if pageviews drop for a few days, don’t worry if a few people notice, just worry about you. And your family. Focus on life and what makes you happy again and when you do decide to return, everyone will be much happier.

Have you ever taken a break? Was it helpful?

How to Use Keyword Planner in Google

February 7, 2015 by Larisha Campbell 1 Comment

When I started blogging a little over 2 years ago, I just wrote. I had no idea what keywords or SEO was, and I darn sure didn’t know what Google’s Keyword Planner was or how to use keyword planner to benefit my site. It took me almost a year to figure out that I should really be using a plethora of tools to optimize my site for more than just fun. I found Google Adwords by mistake and have been in love ever since.

Up until just a few weeks ago, I was still on the Blogger platform and Keyword Planner made it easy to figure out what keywords I should be using to optimize for SEO. Now that I’ve switched over to WordPress, the Yoast plugin significantly helps, but it’s still not 100% perfect.

For the purpose of this post, we’re going to use the keyword ‘bacon’. Who doesn’t love bacon? In Yoast, if I just type bacon, it gives some searches, and while you might think this is the order that most people search, the Keyword Planner gives a completely different view.

So let’s chat first about how you use Keyword Planner. When you go to Google Adwords (you may need to first log-in to your Google account), click on Tools, then Keyword Planner, then Search for New. Google Adwords is actually to set up ads for potential customers, but we are only talking about the Keyword Planner for SEO in posts here.

You will then wants to type in your search word(s) and check your filters. You may want to compare a specific date range, add a different language, or target country, depending on where your readers are located.

When the keyword planner first searches for your term(s) you will see two things. How many people searched for your term on an average monthly basis depending on your date range. For this particular keyword, you’ll see that for the past 12 months, on average, “bacon” is searched for 90,500 times a month. This is actually a lot lower than I expected for bacon. The search is loaded by Keyword (by relevance), but click on Avg. Monthly Searches to order the keywords by the number of times they are searched.

Once you click that, you will see that most people are searching for a variation of “bacon in the oven”. If you focus on “bacon”, you should absolutely have a post that covers this and use one or multiple of the top three variations within your post. There’s nothing that says that you can’t use more than one keyword, but try to use the main one as many times as naturally possible. You will also get other ideas on what people are searching for in order to do future posts. So maybe your first post is about how to cook bacon in the oven, but next week you also might want to do a post about bacon wrapped chicken, and make sure that again you using “bacon in the oven” within your post.

As you can see in the first image, if you are using Yoast “bacon wrapped dates” shows second, making you think that is more searched than others, but according to Google Adwords, it’s actually the 9th most searched terms relating to bacon. It’s important to look at both in my opinion when learning how to use keyword planner.

Lastly, play around with your date ranges. When I opened the date from 12 months to 24 months, you can see that most people are searching for “bacon” during November to January. You want to make sure that if you are using specific keywords for your site on a regular basis (which you should be), that you are using these optimal times to push both new and old content.

I know this was a basic overview of how to use Keyword Planner within Google Adwords, but I truly hope that it helped. Make sure that you have a specific set of keywords that you regularly use on your site and then for each post you should be using specific keywords to optimize your site to show up in Google search engines.

This post is part of our Blogger Tips, Tricks, and Resources series. You can learn more about this series, learn how you can submit a question to be answered, or learn about how you can submit a guest post to be included in this series by viewing our Introduction to Blogger Tips, Tricks, and Resources Post.

10 Blogger Mistakes That Could Be Illegal

January 31, 2015 by Larisha Campbell 12 Comments

*Disclosure: Affiliate links contained within this post. I am not a lawyer and my post herein are simply my thoughts and opinions based on research that I have done for myself. If you believe that you may be in legal trouble, we suggest contacting a lawyer.

Whether you’ve been a blogger for a week, a month, a year, or 10 years, there are chances that you may be making mistakes that you simply don’t know are wrong. Some things should, in all honesty, be common sense, but there are other topics, especially when it comes to social media’s every changing policies, that you just haven’t heard of yet. There are also cases where a blogger knows they’re doing something wrong, but simply don’t care…that’s a rant for a different day though. I’ve worked to gather some of the most common blogger mistakes that I see or hear happen on a frequent basis.

10. Plagiarism. This seems like a topic that I shouldn’t even have to discuss. I’m pretty sure that everyone learns that you shouldn’t plagiarize in elementary school, which is then only reinforced through high school and college. You should not be copying word for word (whether an entire post or even a paragraph from ANY press release, other website, or another blogger. Of course you can quote others, but you must do it properly. You can check out the Online Writing Lab at Perdue for tips.

photo shot captured from IZEA website Terms

9. Participating in “click my sponsored link” help threads. This one is actually new to me. Partly because I rarely participate in “pay-per-click” sponsored programs. However, if you are using programs such as IZEA, Linqia, and others, it’s actually written into your Terms Of Service that you cannot manipulate click data. By asking others to click on your links, which you in turn get paid for, is skewing that data. Remember, these programs are about driving organic traffic.

8. Hosting an illegal giveaway. Whether you’re a blogger that hosts a giveaway once a year or everyday, you really need to be up to date on giveaway rules and regulations. This topic is entirely to long to cover in this post, but some important considerations are:

Figure out whether you are running a giveaway or a lottery
Not creating rules
- All giveaways must have rules. The rules must include things like “no purchase necessary”, how a winner will be chosen, who the giveaway is open to, and what the exact prize is.
Not following the rules
- Once the contest starts, it’s illegal to change anything about the giveaway. This includes changing the day or time your giveaway ends
Ignoring laws for other countries if hosting a “Worldwide Giveaway”
- One example of this would be that most Canadians must take a “skill test” of some sort before entering a giveaway, like a math question. We won’t even get into Quebec’s laws.
Giving away something valued at more than $600 and not ensuring a 1099 form was sent to the winner
Not having a “FREE” entry. Everyone that wants to enter should have the ability to do so without any additional requirements.

7. Taking images from Google and others. I’ll admit it. When I first started blogging, I, for whatever reason, didn’t even consider this. I knew not to take images from other people, but I definitely thought it was okay to take images from Google. Isn’t this like a “common” marketplace? NO! It wasn’t until I learned that a blogger was sued for $8,000 for taking an image. Don’t worry if you’ve been doing this. Simply, go back through your old posts and fix them to include images that you can use. You should be:

using your own images as much as possible
photo credit: A Grande Life
finding places that do legitimately offer free stock photos
as a last resort, if you find a photo somewhere that you truly want to use, contact that person as ask them. You’d be surprised at how many people would allow you for linking back to their site

photo shot captured from FTC website

6. Selling or giving away e-mails. Whether you literally sell someone’s e-mail or your exchange an e-mail list to a brand after receiving a product and running a giveaway, you are doing so illegally. The CAN-SPAM Act fines violators of their terms up to $16,000 for EACH violation. Nothing is worth that. At the same time, you also cannot buy a list to use yourself and you must have an option to opt-out for people who legitimately signed up for your blogger e-mails.

5. DoFollow Links. This isn’t necessarily illegal; however, it is against Google’s Terms of Service. While I have no evidence, we’ve heard that Google will blacklist you from their search engine if you continuously allow dofollow links for paid posts. Nofollow links were started when spamming started becoming an issue and since is now applied to paid links. Whether you received products in exchange for a post or monetary compensation, any links within that post linking back to the person who paid you should be made nofollow. It’s easy in both Blogger and WordPress to just click nofollow to make your links correct.

4. Not following social media TOS. This also isn’t necessarily illegal, but by not following a social media platform’s Terms of Service (TOS) as a blogger you run the risk of that site shutting your page down. Imagine have 30,000 Facebook fans, and having your page shut down for not following something. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Facebook is the most strict with their terms, but all Social Media sites have their own Terms you should be following. Some of the most common violations I see are:

Hosting an Instagram giveaway without releasing Instagram from association. Same goes for almost all other platforms as well. You must have a “I release ‘said platform’ from liability…yadda ya”
Hosting a “Pin it to Win” It Contest
Asking someone to share something on their personal FB page OR sharing your OWN giveaway on your personal page.
Requiring that people Pin a specific pin
Asking someone to LIKE your Facebook page.
Asking someone to like you on Pinterest
Asking someone to TAG a friend in a post to enter a giveaway.

All social media platforms TOS can be found easily on their websites.

3. Using trademarked terms in advertising. This is a very slippery slope and I highly recommend that if you are going to be mentioning any brands within a post or image that you try to use generic terms instead of brand names. Understanding trademark vs generic is important and confusing because sometimes a trademarked term has become generic – Xerox is an example of this. If you must use a brand name it should alway include a ® or TM symbol after the term.

One of the most infamous of all trademarks involves not being able to say “The Super Bowl” in any advertising. Instead you’ll see people referring to “the big game” or “championship game”. The NFL is notorious for protecting it’s trademarks. On the same note “March Madness”, “Olympics”, and “World Cup” are all similarly trademarked and protected.

If you are truly set on using a specific brand within a post, I highly recommend reaching out to the permissions department or PR department and working with the company directly. Often, if you are running a positive piece, you will get permission to do so.

2. Not disclosing your partnerships. The FTC is VERY clear that you have to have disclosures wherever you are placing an ad. Whether you were paid to post something on social media or wrote a sponsored post after received monetary or product payment on your website- as a blogger you are responsible for making sure that you know these .com disclosures.

The big key points are:

On social media, you should be placing the term #ad or #sponsored at the beginning of your message or before ANY links
In a sponsored post on your website, you must disclosure BEFORE any links occur in your post AND at the end of your post because of the post length.

1. Not paying taxes. The is the bread and butter of the the biggest illegal mistake that a blogger could be making. I’ve heard so many people say, “Well, I didn’t make more than $600.” It doesn’t matter. If you make $5 or $500,000, you are legally required to pay taxes to the IRS. This topic is entirely to long to cover here but if you received any form of compensation whether cash, check, a Giftcard, or a product…YOU MUST pay your taxes.

While, this is not an exhaustive list of blogger mistakes that you may or may not be making that could be illegal, it’s a great place to start and evaluate how you are doing. Take the time to make sure that you and your site are free from liability down the road by protecting yourself as a blogger today.

Please weigh in below on what you think I missed or you had no idea about!

How to Use Pinterest to Grow Your Business

January 24, 2015 by Larisha Campbell 11 Comments

Pinterest when used properly can be one your website’s highest referrers for traffic. For many though, the phrase “when used properly” can be source of confusion – “Isn’t Pinterest just “pinning” website links and pictures?” Hardly!

Pinterest is optimized for SEO (search engine optimization) searches on their website, as well as showing up in Google. You want to make sure your Pinterest boards and pins are keyword rich to ensure your pins are the ones that come up in your follower’s searches.

Your Pinterest “About” section

Pinterest gives you 200 characters to succinctly describe who and what you are. Keep your website’s keywords the highlight of the overview. Not sure what your keywords are? Your Google Analytics on your website will tell you that information. What words and phrases are people searching for?

Be sure to include your website’s link for followers to easily click to your website. The check mark next to my website means Pinterest has verified my website and now allows me to include my social media links and add Pinterest widgets and buttons on my website.

You are losing potential future website readers if you do not have a “pin it button” on your website or photos on your website. By doing so, your readers are marketing for YOU by including a back-link to your website on their Pinterest account.

I’d suggest using your website’s logo as your profile picture. Keep your profile picture in line with your business and what you represent.

Your Pinterest Boards

When you first create your Pinterest account, Pinterest will give you suggestions on board names. They are very generic though and often not in line with your website’s SEO and keywords. Create your boards with this in mind. Each board allows you 500 characters to create a keyword rich description on what the board represents.

Your boards should be categorized by alphabetic order. Put a board dedicated to your website front and center. The second and third boards in your profile should be dedicated to anything seasonal, since this is what people are searching for at that given time. The first 5 boards are prime real estate.

Your Pinterest Pins

Unfortunately, Pinterest feels shortened links are spam, so always use a full link from your website. Each pin’s description should also be keyword rich.

Growing your Pinterest Followers

My advice on how to grow ANY of your social media network is always the same – ENGAGEMENT! In order to gain followers, you need to follow back! On a daily basis, I probably repin, like and comment on 50+ pins. When you organically share content, your followers will do the same for you. Also, think about this. When you repin content from another account, it is your account that is showing up to be followed. So, although you are referring traffic to another website by repinning, you are also helping yourself by putting your Pinterest account in front of them to be followed.

Not sure of an organized way to repin? I network with tribes on Facebook and am a member of several community boards on Pinterest.

When Pinterest was first released, I remember sitting for hours pinning anything and everything that looked like something I liked or a future version of me would like. Those days are long gone. When I realized the viral power that Pinterest had over my website, everything I pinned had a clear purpose and I took the time to make each pin appealing.

Something to think about:

According to the Tailwind App, content on Pinterest stays relevant for over a week versus less than 90 minutes on Facebook and less than a half hour on Twitter.

Your Pinterest Photos

Because Pinterest is such a visual space, you need to ensure your pictures are enticing enough for your reader to want to click on it and find out more. Think of your Pin as a “teaser”. The ultimate goal is for them to click trough to your website. If they getting everything they need from your pin’s picture, then they have no need to click through. Try using 735×1000 pixels for your Pinterest images.

What other tips and tricks for succeeding on Pinterest do you know?