Quick and Easy Ways to Re-package Your Content into a Viral Image by sagar ganatra

5 *Quick and Easy* Ways to Re-package Your Content into a Viral Image

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This is not the first time I am doing a post on content re-packaging in different forms and types. Thus, I have already shared why giving your great articles a new life is so effective for content marketing:
✔ It brings traffic to your old content (and reanimates your old linkbait);
✔ It lets you share your guest post at your own site creatively;
✔ It brings links to both old content and its re-packaged version (which means at least twice as many links);
✔ It spurs your creativity and lets you test different types of content link bait (without the need to create new content and conduct any additional research).
This post looks at one type of content re-packaging: turning your old content into an image (and thus allowing it for download and easier spreading). 

The Evolution of Three Home Pages: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

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I haven’t watched MySpace or Digg evolve, however I can proudly say that I’ve witnessed the three other giants develop: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – and moreover, I’ve been an early adopter.
It’s fun to look back one day and remember how it has started and unfolded. It’s impossible to remember and describe everything that has happened in one post but at least we can watch their designs evolve. The three sites have much in common:

• At the beginning, the home page had to explain the concept;
• The sites are total mysteries for the outsiders (unregistered users);
• They are all user-generated and have been growing (in terms of features and options) together with the user base.

I have got nostalgic and collected the screenshots of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn home page designs through the years and compiled them into short presentations. Enjoy!

Update: Looks like Slideshare decreased the quality of the screenshots (they are a bit blurred in full-screen view), so please preview there and download the original presentations here: Facebook evolution, Twitter evolution and LinkedIn evolution (all .pptx files)

Free Formatting Checklist for Guest Authors and Paid Contributors (Download)

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One thing I have clearly realized while being a full-time guest post editor at SEJ is that most (guest) contributors (no matter how much we love them) are terrible at formatting.
It very seldom happens that a guest blogger will browse your blog for a few minutes and copy your obvious formatting preferences to his own post. Or even that he tries to make the article formatting web-friendly at all.
While your guest post style guide is up to you (by “style guide”, I mean the required article length, preferred topics, writing manner, good article samples, etc), formatting is usually similar across the blogs: we need clear code, readable paragraphs, working links, etc.
A properly written formatting guide won’t let you fire your editor: most contributors will still fail to follow all the steps properly, but you’ll be amazed at how easier your editor’s (or your own) work will become.
A good formatting checklist should be:

• As short as possible (The longer it is, the more chances there are that none of your contributors will follow all the steps);
• As concise as possible (Avoid explaining the reason why you want it to be formatted that way. The more you explain, the less obvious your point becomes. Just list your requirements)
• As easy to understand as possible (Add a few screenshots, bold most important points, etc).

Now, here’s my formatting checklist for guest bloggers and paid contributors. Feel free to download it, edit minor details (like the preferred width of images) and use it to edit your blog. It will be suitable and (hopefully) useful for:

• Guest-contributor-driven blog;
• A blog network with multiple co-authors;
• A business managing multiple paid contributors;
• A business owner outsourcing content to ghost writers, etc.

Attention: This guide requires that your blog contributor has a wp-admin (Contributor) access to your blog. Otherwise, you may ask to send you the articles in HTML.

*Download the formatting guidelines here. Read some explanations below*

 

Special Symbols (Wingdings) for Social Media Branding (Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus)

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When I click through the email notifications of my recent Twitter followers, I can’t help noticing one trend: people have widely started using special symbols – Wingdings – to grab viewer’s instant attention.

Wingdings are a series of dingbat fonts which render letters as a variety of symbols.

That being said, a “winding” is a tiny image symbol that looks exactly the same in the source code of the page and in the front end.
While, essentially, there’s nothing new in using them, when it comes to social media profile branding, it appears you could achieve some positive results (there’s no substantial testing behind this assumption, by the way. I only rely on my own impressions).

1. How to Insert Wingdings on Your Social Media Profile

Here are a few noteworthy examples of Wingdings which can be used both in your “Name” and “Description” fields of your social media profile (we’ll see the actual examples of that below).
**** To use any of them in your Twitter description or LinkedIn display name, just copy-paste:

Hands	☚ ☛ ☜ ☝ ☞ ☟
Music	♪ ♫ ♩ ♬ ♭ ♮ ♯
Arrows	← ↑ → ↓ ↔ ↕ ↖ ↗ ↘ ↙ ⇐ ⇑ ⇒ ⇓ ⇔ ⇕ ⇦ ⇧ ⇨ ⇩ ⇽ ⇾ ⇿
Stars	✡ ۞ ★ ☆ ⋆ ✩ ✮ ✯ ✰ ☆
Writing	✉ ✍ ✎ ✏ ✐ ✑ ✒ ⌨
Check	✓ ✔ ☐ ☑ ☒
Smilies	☺ ☹ ☻
Zodiac Signs	♃ ♄ ♅ ♆ ♇ ♈ ♉ ♊ ♋ ♌ ♍ ♎ ♏ ♐ ♑ ♒ ♓
Cards & chess	♔ ♕ ♖ ♗ ♘ ♙ ♚ ♛ ♜ ♝ ♞ ♟ ♠ ♡ ♢ ♣ ♤ ♥ ♦ ♧
Contact! (phone / email)	✆ ☎ ☏ / ✉

Here’s a huge list of them together with their Unicode equivalents. Read on: Special Symbols (Wingdings) for Social Media Branding (Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus)

Do You Optimize Your Title Tags for Twitter?

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I know, I know, that sounds so awfully familiar. But this post is *not* about using your keywords in title tags. We’ve talked enough about title tag SEO (and most of those old tips still apply btw!)
Today’s post is about making your title tags retweet-friendly, about encouraging Twitter comments and making it to Twitter trends.

1. Simple Mathematics

This one is pretty simple and obvious: be short, be catchy.
We only have as many as 140 characters to fit the title + URL + your credit to the twit without it to be stripped. And the more character are left, the more flexibility your promoters have! Read on: Do You Optimize Your Title Tags for Twitter?

The *Working* Guide to Reaching out to Influencers Using Social Media

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I am back.
There are a lot of things going on in my professional and personal life: the main thing, I have resigned from editing SEJ to focus on my own personal projects. I am now a full-time solo entrepreneur!
In the middle of it, I have managed to have an unforgettable time in Paris, contribute to Search Marketing Standard and grow the team of MyBlogGuest.
I am full of inspiration and have plenty of plans – and I am back with my blogging here with my short (but hopefully actionable and useful) pieces of advice.

You may know that I do business from far away, I have no way to meet my business partners and contacts in the real world, but despite that I am fairly well-connected.
So here’s my recipe to building connections online: reaching out to niche influencers through social media.
Whether you are trying to pitch a guest post idea, get a review of your book or discuss a potential partnership, here’s the most efficient way to start a working relationship with your niche influencers: Read on: The *Working* Guide to Reaching out to Influencers Using Social Media

How Blocking Users on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus Works

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I am sure you have noticed that you have an option to block anyone on your favorite social media network.
Have you been wondering how blocking actually works?
Have you ever wanted to know what the person you blocked sees on your profile? Which of your information can he still access?
I’ve been wondering about that too. So I’ve been playing around making some tests and managed to make it more or less clear.