Tips Tuesday – TikTok Success, Web3 Primers, NFT Movies, Blogging Productivity

Hello Happy Site Owners and Webmasters!

Tips this week include:

• Links SEO workshop is this week
• TikTok success story
• WordPress 5.9.1 bug fixes
• New Gutenberg Ninja tutorials are coming
• More UpdraftPlus updates, and why
• Tips for recording faceless videos that work great
• A huge NFT movie release that will shape things to come
• How content creators and coaches are using NFTs for special access to them
• 70+ Web3 terms for content creators
• 4 Web3 primers
• What’s in the new Some.Place metaverse
• Why companies are holding metaverse job fairs – and who they are hiring
• How to maximize your blogging productivity
• How to make the most of your content business time

Listen to the Podcast

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Spill the Beans Livestream tonight

Do join us live tonight at 8pm ET / 5pm PT on the BlogAid LIVE YouTube channel. This is a sister to the regular BlogAid YouTube channel. So, be sure to subscribe to BlogAid LIVE so you get notifications on live events. We spill the beans on this week’s news, breaking stories for the day too, and special info just for those who watch. And the replay is available here on this Tips Tuesday post later too. But the live party is so much more fun.

Replay

Who I Help

All BlogAid posts and tutorials are intended to assist business-minded, hands-on bloggers and webmaster designers who are serious about making money and who want to stay up-to-date with site changes. And our BB Hub is a private member site and Facebook group for my site audit clients that has lots of extra perks and support.

BlogAid Happenings

It’s okay to feel what you feel

I know most of us have a jumbled mess of mixed feelings about all that’s happening in the world. We have moved from crisis to crisis for 2 years now.

I must say that it feels a bit uncertain to me to project a happy tone with some of the site related news in this week’s roundup.

So here’s what I’d like to preface this Tips Tuesday with.

It’s okay to feel however you feel and for that to be in flux.

I’ve been sending messages to my BB Hubbers with ways to ensure their sites stay safe through whatever cyber attacks and other internet disruptions may hit.

I’ve also sent an extra message to my BlogAid News subscribers too.

I hope this has given you a bit of reassurance and helps you stay calm.

And maybe this podcast and post will give you a little respite from what else is going on and help you focus on your business for just a bit and give you some inspiration this week. 

Tips Tuesday LIVE glitch last week

I apologize to those who showed up for the livestream on the BlogAid LIVE YouTube channel last week. I was there with you, but apparently not broadcasting.

It did go live for a few seconds and then quit and I didn’t notice that it stopped, as I had my eyes on all the other stuff I have to monitor during a livestream.

So, we’ll definitely try it again tonight!! 

And I appreciate your patience with whatever caused that glitch last time.

Site Services Update

My work schedule got pretty jumbled last week due to the internet being a little flaky with the cyber attacks. And I believe my own ISP was being a little flaky too.

I let all of my clients with open projects know that I would be working at my discretion for when things seemed stable enough to be active with techie type changes to their site and hosting and such.

So, we’re running just a wee bit behind, but not by much.

And I’ll be onboarding more clients who were scheduled for the end of Feb as soon as I can.

My waitlist is currently about 4-6 weeks, and I’m delighted to be back to that norm, instead of a 4-6 month waitlist like I had for all of 2021!!!

So, if you’re due for an audit checkup in March or April, or you want to get your site all spiffy for spring, now is the time to put in your request. And you’ll want to fill out the audit or migration/audit request form for that.

Links SEO Workshop this week

In this Thursday’s DIY SEO workshop we’ll be discussing all kinds of links, including internal, external, backlinks, and more.

Links are the backbone of SEO and getting them right is so important to your ranking.

TikTok Is Going Great

I’ve been posting regularly to the BlogAid TikTok channel now for 2 weeks with an average of 4 videos a week. 

The views on this new platform have totally eclipsed my average views on my established, original BlogAid YouTube channel.

Right off the bat most of my videos get over 200 views. I think the lowest view count is in the 90s.

At last look I was approaching 40 followers, with most of them being folks I don’t know, and most not likely bots, but real folks. I take out the ones that are obviously bots.

By contrast, those same Shorts on YouTube are getting like 10-15 views – and this is with 1300+ subscribers, and in a format that YouTube is promoting. Now, my longer videos for things like What’s New in WP 5.9 got over 200 views, but I think that’s mainly because the post it was embedded in is syndicated, as are all BlogAid posts, and that drew in a larger audience. Even so, those YouTube videos are only getting 2-10 likes and I’m getting that on TikTok with far fewer views, so the ratio is way higher.

So, in my mind, TikTok is the best place to get eyeballs.

I’ve also made friends with a couple of TikTokers that have large followings and one of them even recommended me in a comment to one of her peeps.

And in the very first week I made a course sale to a new follower too.

So, I’m calling this a win and I most definitely plan to keep it a prime focus.

Culture and Engagement are Key

I will also reiterate that TikTok is NOT a broadcast platform. You can’t just post to it and never interact with it. The whole thing revolves around culture and engagement, and that means you have to be on there engaging with more than just your own fan base too. And I’m really enjoying doing that on all 4 of my TikTok accounts.

Diving Deep Into Memberships

As I told you in my new year podcast, I had a plan for the first quarter of 2022 and I’m on target.

For the whole month of March I’ll be diving deep into member sites.

I’m grateful that I will be able to take that info easily and quickly, as I run my own member sites, and used to have a lot of clients for it years ago. 

But, cheap, 3rd party offerings like Teachable came along and the clients went that way. I tried Teachable when the Gutenberg Ninja course first opened, but it did not take me long to see the limitations of it compared to running it on my own site. But, some of the other 3rd party platforms offer a lot more, they just cost a lot more too.

Plus, LMSs have changed. Those are Learning Management Systems, like LearnDash. I haven’t looked at those in years, so I need to get up to speed with what they offer now.

Plus, there’s a lot more gamification in member sites now too.

So, I’ll be learning and building and testing these things for the entire month.

And then I’ll be promoting my services for consults, training, and turn-key setups on them, just like I used to do years ago.

But this time I’ll likely be offering 3 levels of membership tech, including:

• The least expensive on-site and/or 3rd party solution for folks who have just one, small product or course.
• The full-blown on-site solution, like what I use.
• The full-blown 3rd party solution, like Kajabi.

New Web3 Client

I also want to share another bit of happy news.

I got my first Web3 client last week.

I can’t give you details on it yet, but I do want to share with my site owner clients and my webmasters that hybrid Web2/3 sites are most definitely a thing, and there are folks ready to make that happen.

Adapt and Thrive

I’m thrilled to be on the ground floor of helping more site owners make this transition too!!

I will also say that all of this is normalizing a lot faster than any of us thought it would.

By the end of this year, you will no longer be an early adopter.

Now is the time to dig into whatever research you need to do to get up to speed with it so you can see and prepare for the opportunities that will take your online business into this brave new world.

The ones who get in early, all the way around, will make bank.

That’s all the happenings around here. Let’s jump into this week’s tips.

WordPress Tips

WP 5.9.1 Bug Fixes

A patch for WP 5.9 rolled out last Tuesday.

The 5.9.1 update should have automatically installed for you.

There were 85 bug fixes including:

• 33 fixes to the core code, which were mainly for FSE (Full Site Editing)
• 52 fixes for the block editor

Keep in mind that they didn’t even get all they wanted into this release because they were concerned too much of it had not been tested enough.

So, we expect a pretty big 6.0 release with the rest of those things later this year.

And I’ll keep you updated on what to expect.

Gutenberg Ninja Tutorials Coming

I had planned to make a couple of new tutorials for the Gutenberg Ninja course on a few things I’ve found that changed in WP 5.9 that I didn’t see written about anywhere as making it into the final cut.

So, I hope to get those into my schedule for this week and I’ll be sending an email to members of the course when they post.

And I did post one of those new Gutenberg features on TikTok that I had planned to make a longer tutorial on for the course, so I’m a little out of sync on releasing those together. But I’ll get caught up here soon.

Plugin Tips

UpdraftPlus Ongoing Updates

This past week I was seeing a minor update come through just about every day with UpdraftPlus.

I’m guessing they had to make a major coding change to close that security hole I reported on recently, and now that has disturbed other code that needs a tweak too.

It’s sort of like changing a picture on the wall to something that has totally different colors, and now all of your other accent pieces need to be converted to match.

So, don’t be bothered by it or lose faith. Be thankful that they got the patch out before there were any exploits in the wild, and grateful that they are rolling out all the other updates that need to match that coding change in little chunks so they can get them implemented faster.

Don’t misinterpret all this activity as a bad thing. It’s a good thing.

Video Tips

Record Faceless Videos 

Foodie and craft bloggers, you’re going to love this YouTube tutorial on how to make a video that has nothing more of you in it than your voice.

This is the one of the methods I use for my woodworking videos on Heartwood Art.

I think it works very well for foodie and craft bloggers too. 

But of course you will be taking your own video footage instead of grabbing some online, as the tutorial shows.

You can use a similar method for making TikTok videos to document short clips of the process while you’re at it. And those can be just the video clip with background music and text on the screen with no voiceover required.

FYI, I teach the storyboard script part he mentioned in my Video SEO Booster course. 

It REALLY speeds up video production and helps you plan all of the shots and text for the different places you will post.

Web3 Tips

NFT Movie Stars Anthony Hopkins

Recently I shared with you what I’m really excited about with NFTs. It’s not the art; it’s the utility aspect.

And here’s a good example of it.

The new movie ‘Zero Contact’ starring Anthony Hopkins is being offered as an NFT stream. It has grossed 6 figures already too.

Folks, this will totally change the distribution model for the film industry. And it’s going to shake up services like Netflix and such too.

Plus, it gives a central location for fan engagement, which is huge.

The streaming platform is called Vuele, which is pronounced vwo-lay and is Spanish for “to make fly”.

I’m betting we’re all going to hear more about this company from now on as this type of NFT streaming becomes the norm.

Using NFTs for Access

I’m looking for this NFT streaming service to shake up YouTube in some way too, and here’s why.

On Social Media Examiner, Micheal Stelzner has a post on using NFTs as an access pass to you.

The folks over at The Tilt use their own crypto coin for the same thing.

And this is the way more brands are going. In fact, this is the sort of hybrid site I’ll be building this year. It may be for clients first, but I’ll be looking into how I want to use for BlogAid.

But, here’s the obstacle that Michael says you may face in moving this direction.

“You’ll want to start building the community before launching your NFTs. Just as if you were launching an event, book, or course, if you launch an NFT before you have an audience built for it, there’s no one in line ready to buy the NFT once it’s available.

But, at least for the foreseeable future, building your audience is going to require you to take on the added struggle of teaching that audience about NFTs. You’ll need to educate your audience on what NFTs are, how they work, how to set up their MetaMask wallet or join Coinbase, how to get things linked up into their bank accounts, and what the primary differences are between purchasing an NFT with cryptocurrency versus purchasing a ticket with their credit card.”

Gain New Audiences the Easy Way

I’m doing that same sort of education with you here on Tips Tuesday, at least with getting you familiar with the Web3 world.

But, I’ve found an easier way to do it.

It’s to start establishing yourself on platforms where this is already normal.

And that’s exactly why I’m putting so much time into TikTok, and I will be putting more time into Twitter too.

The bulk of the progressive audience is not on Facebook or Pinterest.

Doing these new things is how I landed a new Web3 client so quickly too. I put myself in a place where they could find me.

It’s why Michael reached out to me to ask who I knew in this space and why he started his new Crypto Business podcast and why Social Media Examiner is talking about Web3 stuff so much.

He’s preparing his current audience for the new norm while doing new things to reach new audiences who are already on board that train.

The wonderful Ms. Ileane Smith reached out to me asking how she can make a crypto donation to support my podcast.

Read and Stay Safe

Trust me. I’m going full bore into this as fast as I can, while doing the due diligence necessary to keep us safe in this space because the security in some of it is seriously lacking, and the scams are rampant.

So, that’s the educational component I want to stress. Learn about how to be safe in this brave new world. And don’t wait on me to deliver a course at your feet before you do, either. I have zero intentions on creating one due to the liability and the fast pace of change.

DYOR – Do Your Own Research.

70+ Web3 Terms for Content Creators

I hear a lot of you saying – I have no idea where to get started learning all this stuff.

Well, you can start with all the links I’ve shared in every Tips Tuesday this year.

And then there’s a little thing called Google to help you go deeper into topics that interest you.

Along the way you’ll start picking up all manner of new lingo that’s part of this space.

To help you with that, the nice folks at The Tilt have a post with over 70 Web3 terms that apply to content creators.

You might want to bookmark it for reference.

More Web3 Primers

Every vendor our sites connect to can read the writing on the wall with just how fast Web3 tech is gaining traction.

Even the domain registrar NameCheap has a series of primer posts to dip your toe in these waters.

• Web 3.0 and the dawn of the metaverse
• What are NFTs and why are they important?
• How is virtual reality changing business?
• The future of an immersive metaverse – YouTube video

Some.Place Metaverse

Reese Witherspoon has a new venture called Some Place. It’s a metaverse that was founded by women entrepreneurs and the goal is to “build a more equitable digital experience for all.”

Once you create your avatar, you can curate a space to show off your NFT artwork.

But more importantly, you can build your own community.

And let me tell you, there is a LOT of networking going on in metaverses like this. You can virtually meet folks you would never have access to IRL.

Now, this thing is in beta, and it does require purchasing their initial NFT offering, which will be airdropped later, and using the wallet connected to the FLOW blockchain they are using.

So, I’ll be looking into that and checking this place out later this spring. And it may be out of beta by then too, but I need to stay focused on what I already have on my plate to dive deep into this month. 

The main thing is knowing about it and putting it on my list of metaverses to become active in this summer.

Metaverse Job Fair

There’s a lot more than just game playing and networking going on in the metaverses.

Last week there was a metaverse job fair with 30 companies hiring and over 200 attendees applying for those jobs.

And I have no doubt that we’ll be seeing more of these, as they are so cost-effective to host and attend, especially in the new gig-economy where employees are scattered all over the globe.

Webmaster and Social Media Jobs Galore

A note to my webmasters who are seeing your design gigs waning a bit, seriously consider checking into Web3 related jobs and getting into DOAs. They need your skills.

And for my site owner peeps, you know WAY more about social media than most of the folks in DOAs now. 

For folks in the DIY SEO course, you’re miles ahead of most folks in DOAs.

So, do look into it as it might be a great side hustle for you.

Blogging Tips

Making the Time is Worth It

I can hear some of y’all groaning right now that you just don’t have the time to learn all this new stuff.

Well, let me remind you that you made the time to learn blogging.

And you made the time to learn Pinterest and other social media stuff.

And you made the time to learn SEO.

And many of you made the time to sign up for a site audit and get your ducks in a row with that, and keep it that way.

I personally think it comes down to motivation and you seeing how much money there is in getting onboard with the new stuff.

This Means You

I’ll tell you something else too.

I don’t know how folks think all of this does not apply to you. It does.

In recent site audit check ups I’ve had some pretty frank conversations with clients who have insisted on sticking with their old ways of doing stuff and me refuting every excuse they have come up with for not moving off those things and making room in their heads to even try the new things.

That talk was so frank that it got them in motion.

And they tried the new things.

And it’s working!!!

I was thrilled to see one of our BB Hubbers report in our Facebook group that she made her first TikTok after that chat, and after seeing last week’s Tips Tuesday to simply document what she does and to make a faceless, voiceless video with just music and hashtags.

She said it was fun and easy and now she’s hooked into how she can make more of them.

And if frank discussions help you get over the mindset hurdle with this, then I’ll have them with you, but I hope this helps you see that what I’m saying in Tips Tuesday and in our private Hubber Huddles applies to you.

And if you still think time is your excuse, then here are a couple of posts with great tips that will inspire you with ways to be way more productive.

How to Maximize Your Blogging Productivity

Staying focused – that’s the Achilles heel for most of us when it comes to sitting down for an extended blogging session.

Well, on Denise Wakeman’s Adventures in Visibility blog, Ann Smarty, who is an insanely prolific blogger, shares her top 7 tips for the things she does to help her stay focused and kick out those blogs like crazy.

How to Make the Most of Your Content Business Time

The nice folks over on The Tilt has tips, divided into 4 categories, to help you make the most of the time you have for running your content business.

When Do You Sleep?

That’s the #1 question I get asked because folks can’t fathom how I’m so productive.

I get so much done because I use tips just like the ones in these 2 posts.

So, do give them a read and pick at least 1-2 tips to start and implement them.

You’ll see results.

And then you’ll have the time you need to get into the new money-making, eyeball getting things I’ve been raving about too.

Wrap Up

That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday.

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Be sure to visit BlogAid.net for more tips and resources and I’ll see you online.