Social media, affiliate programs, and writing...oh my!

bytropics67

521 followers

12 years ago

(Two month update)

Phew, I made it through Level 4 of the certification training!

I'm slowly, but surely, adding good content to my site. I'm trying to not be too tough on myself for not being able to crank out content faster.

I made a rookie mistake and applied to TripAdvisor's affiliate program too soon (before having good content, traffic and rankings) and was rejected :( Hopefully I can re-apply later when I have improved these things. I think I could really make a money-making machine around that program. I've been researching other affiliate programs and will apply to those when I have improved my traffic, etc.

I was feeling a little overwhelmed by trying to tackle all of the social media platforms. But I now have sites in place for:

Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/ruralattraction/

Twitter @RuralAttraction (note no "s" at the end--annoying that I couldn't add the "s"!)

Google+ Faith's McClure business page for Rural Attractions: https://plus.google.com/b/106047300477989487229/106047300477989487229/posts

And I have some sort of social media plan in place. I'm skipping FB for now (as I said, I'm a little overwhelmed). I'm using Pinterest to play up the visually appealing aspects of my site (because I always include nice pics in my posts) to try to draw in people who visit farms. I'm using Twitter to post/tweet relevant current topics to establish myself as an expert in the area of agritourism--it's more focused on farmers and people involved with agritourism. I'm trying to add people to Google+ to help my Google rankings and get more engagement that way. Of course I'm also adding all of my posts to these sites, but each platform has a slightly different angle.I'm thankful for all of the WA people who have comments/followed, but I'm also excited to start building an "organic" following (as slow as it is). What do you think about my overall approach to social media?

Here's my latest post on my site: (please feel free to leave relevant comments on the site and/or give constructive feedback here)

http://ruralattractions.com/in-search-of-an-amish-farm-stay