It’s always in the back of our mind, “I should be surveying my audience”. We all think it and wish we were doing it. And then some of us actually do it (which makes the rest of us start thinking about it again).

But when have you seen the results of a survey? I’m not talking about the graph or chart that shows how many people picked A on Question 2. I’m talking about a change in direction. When have you seen someone take action because of the answers to a survey?

Most likely. . . never . . . or it was something tiny.

That’s because there aren’t too many people teaching surveys. So today, let’s do just that.

Getting Started

In an ideal world you could publish a 100 question survey that didn’t box people into choosing A, B or C. You could ask questions that open up entire realms you hadn’t considered. Then you could put together a team to analyze the answers, devise an action plan, implement it and track if it worked.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. It’s pretty hard to get people to fill out one survey, let alone answer 100 questions. And then to find the time to analyze 1,000 different answers. . . I could only dream of having that kind of fun with my audience.

Nope. Time and purpose are linked and thus we must be more deliberate with our time.

The Action Plan: Survey Questions

A smart survey has a point to it. That point is action. If you’re going to ‘bother’ your audience to garner information, make sure it is information you can take action upon.

To make sure you’re doing this, you need to spend time writing an action plan based on the replies you could get back. For instance if you ask “Are you a stay-at-home parent?”, then you need a plan that says

• “If only 10% indicate they stay home, I will refocus my content this way”.
• “If it is 50/50, I will change x, y, and z”.
• “If the respondents are 75% stay-at-home, I will stop doing m, n and p”.

If you can’t think of a single change you would make or action you would take, then don’t ask that question. Maybe none of the demographic questions would alter your strategy – if that’s the case then skip them all.

You really want to narrow down the # of questions to as few as possible. Narrow, narrow, narrow the focus and your readers will feel they are more valuable to you and part of the solution.

And remember Google Analytics can tell you a lot about your site and how people navigate it. Don’t ask questions of your audience if you already have the answer somewhere else. Figure out the holes in your analytics – and ask those questions.

The Right Survey Software

It’s important to have a robust survey package. You need one that will allow you to branch out after each question. For instance if the first actionable question is the stay at home question, then you will want to ask the people who said “yes” different questions about the future of your blog content than the people who said “no”.

If you serve parents and you spend a good deal of time talking about child care options, separating the opinions of the stay-at-home parents from the employee parents will help you decide how to frame future content to improve reader engagement.

(Think about this, if I told you that the only people who have signed up on your email list are stay-at-home parents, and told you that conversely 75% of your readers are employee parents, what would you do?)

So make sure you use software that can ask separate questions depending on how you answered the previous one. By the way, I recommend SurveyMonkey – it does that. (See what Carrie Isaac says about using Google Docs.)

The Survey Funnel

If one of your questions is “Do you own any of my ebooks?”, then the ensuing questions would be much different for the people who do than the people who don’t. Imagine 50 people saying “no” and 50 people saying “yes” and having the next question say “Was it helpful?”. (Now 50 people are annoyed)

Before you write the survey, build a funnel on paper and ask yourself at each step, “what would I do if learned this from my audience today?” And what do I want to know of the people who say yes vs no? Hold their hand as you walk them down a path learning what you need to learn to take action and improve your site.

It should really only take 4 or 5 questions to learn good, meaningful information. But first you must plan it out – along with the actions you will take depending on the answers.

What type of Questions

In a package like Survey Monkey, the multiple choice answers dictate which questions they answer next. So ask multiple choice questions, but always include a space to leave comments. You don’t want to box people in if they have something to say.

Once your survey has divided your audience into the groups you feel you can learn from, ask them a final essay question to really learn what action you need to take. In the photo (see above) you can see that there are a total of 20 questions, but no one has to answer more than 5 to get to the end.

Sometimes it is appropriate to ask everyone the same essay question at the end. Then you can compare the answers from one group to the next, which can really supercharge your action plan, can narrow your target market and can increase your income.

Finally, when they’ve answered the last question make sure you take them to a “thank you” page. You can use that page to give away your ebook, have them sign up for your newsletter or give them a link to an article that will make their day brighter. Don’t miss that opportunity to do something nice for them. They just finished doing something nice for you.

Dan R Morris is the founder of LettersFromDan.com, a website dedicated to improving your revenue stream from online efforts. Dan is an infomercial producer, niche website owner, product developer, author and Mastermind leader. Dan actively encourages marketers to take that extra step so that “Hope” doesn’t become the marketing plan.

Here are the top 10 posts about blogging and social media I’ve stumbled upon this week:

101 Different Blogging Goals to Help Grow Your Blog

Creating and monitoring various goals for your blog is one of the most effective, efficient, and interesting ways of improving your blog.

12 blogging mistakes to avoid at all costs

When you look around at successful blogs — in any industry, on any topic — there are several undeniable bases to success. And it starts with blog posts that kill it rather than blog posts that get killed.

The Secret Stats Your Follower Numbers Hide

Statistics and their interpretation is often a popular topic on ProBlogger…. His point was to focus on what you can influence and not get hung up on, or weighed down by, the rest. Good advice.

Twitter Etiquette: 24 Guidelines to Tweet By

Twitter etiquette is a lot like the advice your mother gave you when you were young. Be nice and treat people well and they’ll respond in kind.

How to Create Fail-Proof Blog Posts – 15 Must-Have Factors

While every blogger will have a relatively weak post once in a while, if you’re phoning it in your readers will know. Therefore, each post has to include every critical element.And, just because you write one amazing post, don’t assume your next one will be equally strong. What in your opinion is a strong post may not resonate with your readers.

10 Benefits of Networking with Other Bloggers

I’m really passionate about networking with other bloggers.  I love to find ways to do it in a casual way, as well as in more formal ways.  In particular, I have a group of bloggers that I consider my people.  I love them so much, and they have made blogging different for me than it ever was before I had that group.

25 Blogging Tips for Newbies and Veterans

We’ve all seen them. The same old, tired lists of regurgitated tips on how to blog better. They’re so common, you could probably name most of them in your sleep. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of them. I want to know what really works.

Top 10 Points from Cultivating Online Community

What is Community? Websters: a unified body of individuals, an interacting population of various kinds of individuals – in a common location. Community is about a place and interaction – not about numbers!

Infographic: 12 things to do after you write a blog post

You did it. You wrote the best blog post ever. That’s great. But what do you do now? No one knows your post exists. You have to promote it and, lucky for you, Divvy HQ made a handy infographic checklist filled with ways you can plug your newly minted blog post.

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The weekly round-up posts are brought to you by Ashley Pichea.

With the rise of Pinterest, has also come the rise in spam on Pinterest. Despite their best efforts with “invites,” the spammers are making their mark on Pinterest.

And quite frankly, it’s annoying!

You’ll see pins that say “real link” or “original link,” so when you’re searching for a particular idea (last week it was Lego birthday party games for me!), then you’ll know that’s the one to click on or pin. It will save you time clicking through to all the wrong sites as your search for the real post.

Let’s take a quick look at the image above so you can better spot spam and then report it!

1. There is no image in the profile box, so the “person” is probably not a person.
2. The link displayed is a bit.ly link. Immediate spam warning. Other links to watch out for… pinterestguccibags.com, pinterests.com, or other links that don’t make sense as being the original to that pin.
3. In the description below the image, it has a jumbled word. Another big clue that pin is a spammed pin.

How to report spam: Click on the image so the pin pops out into its own box. On the right, click the “report pin” and go from there.

You are not alone.

There is a great infographic on Mashable that talks about email, when to send it, how much time we spend on it, how to master it, and much more.

I’m pretty good at the second and third graphic, but I seem to have difficulty making a decision quickly. I definitely need to improve on that one!

We’ve shared many email tips here on Savvy Blogging so if you need email help check them out.

• How to Set Up Your Domain Email with Google Apps
• Send Email From One Account as Another Account
• Google Calendar Tip: Creating Tasks from an Email
• Going to the Previous/Next Email in Gmail
• Creating a Gmail Email Signature for Multiple Accounts
• 5 Email Notifications That Are Wasting Your Time
• Why You Need to Get Control of Your Inbox
• Finding Unread Emails in Gmail
• How to Create and Use Canned Responses in Gmail

Here are the top 10 posts about blogging and social media I’ve stumbled upon this week:

What Nobody Ever Tells You About Blogging

First of all, writing is hard work (just like any other job). Some days, you can’t type words fast enough, and other days, you’ll just sit there staring at a blank screen. Still, you’ll have to motivate yourself to show up and publish every day, or risk losing your audience.

Do Not Stop Creating (Just Because It Isn’t Good Yet)

One of the top and most simple strategies for you, as a writer, blogger, and publisher, is to just create content, day after day after day.

Don’t Let Hackers Crash Your Blogging Party

If you rely on income from blogging to support your family you need to secure your WordPress installations immediately. Here are five actionable steps you can take today to ensure hackers won’t disrupt the income stream you’ve worked so hard to build from blogging.

5 Guest Blogging Considerations (Beyond Link Building)

Guest blogging is growing more and more popular as a means of obtaining links for SEO purposes. As link building techniques go, it’s personally one of my favorites (done properly and ethically): you’re helping someone out with good content, they’re helping you with a good link – it’s win-win all around and what good, honest SEO is all about. But it’s not all about the link, or at least it’s not all about SEO…

Where Should You Put Your Content?

I’ve been asked by subscribers of my personal newsletter how I decide what goes on my blog and what goes into my newsletter. I think the answer differs depending on your strategy, but I’m more than happy to tell you how I view it. I put information that sells on my blog, and information that nurtures in my newsletter.

Making The Most of Online Relationships

In addition to making great friends through your online business – people who truly get you, and can relate to your passion and goals – there are ways you can really benefit from those relationships…

Unearthing Your Blog’s Money Pages

If you’re trying to figure out how to turn some money into more money without creating new products, campaigns, or deals, you need to unearth the pages on your site that are going to give you the greatest return from an improvement in conversion.

Why Bloggers Need to Build a Subscriber List

If you have been blogging for any length of time, you have no doubt heard the phrase list building or building a list of subscribers. But what does building a list of subscribers have to do with blogging you may be wondering…

Essential SEO Settings for Every New WordPress Blog

In order to provide you with some solid groundwork, the blog needs to be made SEO-friendly from day one. Here’s how.

Do You End Your Posts Well?

Think of the last paragraph or sentence of your post as your opportunity to guide your reader to the door of a next step (this is called a “call to action”). You can’t control whether or not they will actually walk through the door you are leading them to, but that’s the hope.

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The weekly round-up posts are brought to you by Ashley Pichea.

If you’re using Keynote on Mac for your presentations (Apple’s version of “Powerpoint”), there’s a handy little app that you can download to your iPhone to control your presentations. It costs $.99, and is well worth the investment if you plan to be doing regular presenting. It’s called “Keynote Remote.”

Benefits of the Keynote Remote App:

1. The ability to go back and forth between slides simply by sliding your finger on your iPhone.
2. Easy way to avoid buying an expensive powerpoint/keynote clicker.
3. Simple set up. I downloaded the app and was accessing my slides from my phone in under a minute.
4. See the notes underneath the image of the slide on right on your phone.

Drawbacks:

1. You will need to connect both your computer and your phone to a wi-fi network in order to be able to use this.
2. Your phone is bulky to hold, and it may look odd for you to be looking at your phone while presenting.
3. Not everyone has both an iPhone and a Mac, so this is just for those of you that do.

Conclusion:

I love using this app, but I went ahead and bought a clicker as a back-up. Unless I have a wireless hot-spot, I’m not always guaranteed functioning Wi-Fi during my presentations. But I do love this app, and plan to use it in circumstances where I’d like to see my notes on my phone along with my slides.

Do you use any special apps for your speaking engagements and presentations?

I’ve been working on becoming a power pinner on Pinterest for a few months (in our industry, who isn’t eh?). I define a power pinner as someone who’s efforts have resulted in a vast number of followers. Fortunately, I did find a formula that seems to be working. To illustrate that I thought we would talk about two of Pinterest’s most prolific power pinners and how they achieved it. You’ll be surprised at their completely different paths and the one thing that makes them similar. Let’s start with:

Sherry Petersik

There is no way Sherry thought about becoming a power pinner on Pinterest when she started her blog YoungHouseLove.com. In fact, there’s a good chance she didn’t plan on making the blog as big a success as it is. But what her and her husband have built is nothing less than an internet Juggernaut.

Sherry and her husband started YoungHouseLove on October 5, 2009 on a part-time basis. Through unbelievable content and dedication to their craft they grew the blog into a full-time gig now receiving more than 70,000 visitors per day. Today’s blog post, for instance, has 332 comments already, yesterday’s 7,102 and 2 days ago 236. You don’t get that kind of love without working for it for sure.

They’ve built their Pinterest following by leveraging their web traffic. In the last couple years they’ve featured their own “Pinterest Project Challenge” on their blog asking readers to undertake a new “Pinterest-worthy” challenge, blog about it, pin it and then upload that pin to their site. I looked at one of the challenges and 688 readers had shared their project. What are you going to bet they followed Sherry’s Pinterest account as well? They merely had to share their love of Pinterest with their community to grow in on Pinterest as well.

And they didn’t have to pin 10,000 things to get to the top. Nope. As of today, they’ve only pinned 574.

Some would call that the iceberg syndrome. What’s visible above the surface doesn’t come close to describing the work that went into it behind the scenes. As bloggers yourselves, I’m sure you can relate to the amount of work they put into their site. That community is the bottom half of the iceberg.

Erin Dollar

Erin took a different route to becoming a power pinner on Pinterest, though it’s not apparent from the surface whether she fully intended to do so. Erin is an artist who sells her wares on Etsy.com and last year finished making fake silly beards on IMadeYouABeard.com.

Unlike Sherry, Erin hasn’t amassed an enormous 70,000/day following – in fact she just has a respectable 500 or so followers on Twitter. But like the rest of us, she’s started to build a “raving fan base” on etsy and her site, she just hadn’t hit super stardom prior to Pinterest.

An early adopter of Pinterest Erin started paving the way for Pinners yet to come. Because her boards were edgy, purposeful and smart, they often got noticed. In fact on August 26th, 2010 (2010? Hmmm. . . she’s been at this a while, eh?) Erin was interviewed by Pinterest on the Pinterest Blog. She didn’t get that honor by knowing the “higher-ups” at Pinterest. Nope. Someone liked her board and recommended to Pinterest that they interview her about it.

That same attention to great boards is what made her the winner of the Pantone Color of the Year Contest held on ChronicleBooks.com, a site that gets 50,000 visitors per day by itself. Similar to the Pinterest interview, she won that not by knowing someone who knew someone, but by creating a quality and engaging board called Tangerine Tango.

Constantly sharing her love of Pinterest with others (back before it was big) landed her interviews or mentions on sites like mademoisellecrankypants.com, juliacantor.com and PinterestPower’s “most followed pinners” board. And all of those interviews centered on her love of Pinterest.

The bottom line is Erin rose to the top because of her taste and dedication to creating engaging and quality pin boards. These mentions, interviews and contests got her in front of thousands of people she didn’t have access to alone. But there is a similarity between Erin and Sherry as both have about 500,000 Pinterest followers and both were early adopters.

For them becoming a power pinner on Pinterest meant not giving up, creating great quality pin boards, and having faith that their readership would grow over time.

Which brings me back to my goal of becoming a power pinner on Pinterest.  I’m still interested in the viral approach that I wrote about in my recent article “How to make your photos go viral on Pinterest”. But I think quality, patience and hard work, exhibited by Erin and Sherry, are a much stronger community building strategy to get there than viral is for anyone.

Dan R Morris is the founder of LettersFromDan.com, a website dedicated to improving your revenue stream from online efforts. Dan is an infomercial producer, niche website owner, product developer, author and Mastermind leader. Dan actively encourages marketers to take that extra step so that “Hope” doesn’t become the marketing plan.

Photo

I’ve been working online for over a decade. In those years I’ve been through a lot of transitions and also worn many hats. First I owned an online website that sold private label pet products. I quickly learned to dislike dealing with customers so I sold my inventory and made the site a pet resource/affiliate site. After taking a long break from working on my business, recently, I’m back and trying to figure out my path. These days I consider myself a blogger and freelance writer above all else. Below are some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Passion

If you aren’t passionate about the topic you are blogging about, you will quickly become bored. Without fresh, unique, regularly updated content, you are setting yourself up to fail.

Forums & Blogs

Search out popular forums and blogs in your niche and utilize them. Register and genuinely join the conversation. Don’t blatantly self-promote your site or services, it instantly turns people off. But instead, find questions that you can answer and share your knowledge on. That will go far more toward building relationships. One of my very favorite blogs, Clicknewz.com is run by Lynn Terry and full of helpful information.

Business Travel

I’m sure we’ve all said it at some point – “I can’t travel to a conference, it costs too much money.” Surely, we are collectively struggling to get by these days, but it is doable. You can easily find cheap flights, a roommate to share the hotel bill so you can attend a conference. In years past I focused on Webmaster conferences. And, while my heart will always love affiliate marketing, I’m now leaning more toward conferences that focus on blogging such as Savvy Blogging Summit; which is in October by the way!

Networking

If you can’t travel, you can still join forums and blogs as mentioned above. But, in truth, there is nothing as valuable as networking and connecting with people in person. My relationships go back a decade with people that I met online but then had the pleasure to meet in person as well.

Skype can be utilized so that you can stay in touch with people that you might not otherwise see. It took me a while to get used too, I’m late to the game but I love Skype now. As a freelancer, it’s my best friend because it allows my contractors to see my face and know who they are dealing with.

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned as a blogger or freelance writer?

Chrissie Cole is a freelance writer for various blogs, including Speedy Incorporation, which helps new small business owners incorporate online as well as offering advice and information about running their business successfully via their small business blog.

It’s happened to all of us. We write, we share, we help, and then we get that email or comment that makes us want to quit.

Anyone who has been blogging for more than a few months knows that eventually the hate mail will arrive. Whether it is a personal attack, spam, or just people trolling and stirring up trouble the negative feedback hurts.

The problem is, many of us are ruled by the 1%. Even though 99% of the feedback we receive is positive, we are constantly trying to please and placate that 1%.

Stop. 

Don’t let the 1% dictate who you are on the internet.

Don’t let the 1% keep you from helping the other 99%.

Don’t let that 1% get under your skin and change your voice. 

Be authentic and don’t be ruled by the 1%.

John Acuff has great advice on dealing with haters on his site, click over to read.

Here are the top 10 posts about blogging and social media I’ve stumbled upon this week:

The Most Important Skill for Long-term Blogging Success

In the early stages of blogging, content is definitely king, but if you hope to be in it long-term, creativity must rule the day. It’s easy to think of new ideas when you’ve only been blogging a few months, but what will you write about next year? How will you offer new ideas—or the same ideas from a fresh perspective?

How To Develop a Routine to Manage Social Media

When it comes to your social media routine keep it simple. There is too much information floating around out there on social media to consider it all. Bottom line, if how you’re using social media isn’t helping you meet your goals, DON’T DO IT!

The #1 WordPress SEO Tactic Every Blogger Should Implement

When you write content, make each one of your articles target one specific keyword… after you write blog reader focused content, make sure you have a “dream keyword” that you’d like to rank for on your new article.

The Secret Stats Your Follower Numbers Hide

Focus on what you can influence and not get hung up on, or weighed down by, the rest. Good advice.

Putting the Social Back into Social Media: 40 Ways to Build a Loyal Audience

Is your blog a lonely place? Maybe no one is visiting. Or, if they visit, maybe they don’t comment.

Free WordPress Plugin to Grow Your List

The Optincrusher plugin is compatible with Aweber, iContact, Constant Contact, FeedBlitz, GetResponse and MailChimp. It is VERY easy to install and set-up. You literally do not need to know code or graphics programs to get this operating on your WordPress blog in a matter of minutes!

Easy Content Ideas for Difficult Niches

If your chosen niche gives you instant writer’s block when you sit down with the intention of creating content for it, utilize these general content framework rules in order to better visualize the many types of less obvious but equally appealing content that you can develop for your website.

10 Tips How You Can Keep Your Blog Visitors A Bit Longer On Your Blog

When a person goes to a blog or website, they only stay on the website if they can find the information that they are looking for and also if the blog or website is entertaining.

Networking with Other Bloggers

Networking with other bloggers takes what we share to a wider audience.  Our combined efforts mean more people get the information, more people get the encouragement, and more people laugh and cry and learn right along with us!

Importance of NoFollow Links In Driving Traffic

Many think that nofollow links are useless and some think they are useful. But really do they have any importance to them? The common places where we find no follow links are blog comments and forum signatures. They cannot provide value towards your Google pagerank, but they are not useless at all. They can help in fulfilling the main motive of driving traffic to your site.

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The weekly round-up posts are brought to you by Ashley Pichea.