Grow your ConvertKit Email List with the MiloTree Pop-Up

By Jillian Leslie | Blog , Email Marketing , Milotree

You can now grow your ConvertKit email list with the MiloTree pop-up!

If you use ConvertKit to send emails, using the MiloTree pop-up to grow your email list plus your social media followers has never been easier!

MiloTree is a smart pop-up you embed on your site using our easy WordPress plugin, or by adding a snippet of code to your site. (It works on virtually all platforms.)

The pop-up slides up when a visitor shows up on your site. It will ask that visitor to join your email list, follow you on Instagram, follow you on Pinterest, subscribe to your YouTube channel, or follow you on Facebook. One pop-up to do all that!

Each time a visitor arrives, he/she sees one of the pop-ups you’ve configured. When the visitor returns a few days later, he/she sees another one. It’s always one pop-up, but which one your visitor sees will vary based on how you configured your MiloTree.

Your visitor is never overwhelmed, but YOU get to grow exactly what you want!

Currently, MiloTree integrates with Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest, plus ConvertKit, MailChimp, Mad Mimi, Active Campaign, Constant Contact, MailerLite, InfusionSoft, AWeber, Campaign Monitor, and Go Daddy Email Marketing.

It’s so powerful, why not give it a try?

The Smart MiloTree Pop-up is Google-Friendly on Mobile

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree

Did you know that the smart MiloTree pop-up is Google-friendly on mobile? What does this mean?

Google announced in August 2016 that they were going to penalize mobile sites that used intrusive pop-ups or interstitials.

So we optimized MiloTree to be Google-compliant on mobile, and fit within the Google pop-up size requirements.

Since we can tell whether someone visits your site on mobile or desktop, we show the appropriately-sized pop-up to them without you having to do anything!

Now you can feel good about showing your MiloTree pop-up not just on desktop, but on mobile as well!

And since most of your traffic is probably coming from mobile, you don’t have to miss out on growing your business with those visitors.

SAMPLE MILOTREE DESKTOP POP-UPS

SAMPLE MILOTREE GOOGLE-COMPLIANT MOBILE POP-UPS

For growing your Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest accounts, your MiloTree pop-ups are automatically personalized with your posts, pins, and videos.

For growing your email list, MiloTree integrates with:

• Mailchimp
• AWeber
• ConvertKit
• ActiveCampaign
• Constant Contact
• Mad Mimi
• Infusionsoft
• MailerLite
• Campaign Monitor
• Go Daddy

If you haven’t joined MiloTree yet, you’re letting new followers and email signups slip away. Start growing your business with it now!

Google and Mobile Pop-Ups: What You Need to Know

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree , Mobile

What’s going on with Google and mobile pop-ups?

Google came out with news in late August, that starting in January of 2017, it would begin punishing mobile sites that use big, obtrusive pop-ups and interstitials.

Why is Google doing this? Because big, obtrusive pop-ups and interstitials on mobile annoy users. And Google wants to make sure that the search results it shows makes users happy.

So let’s cut to the chase. What does this mean for your MiloTree pop-up on mobile?

According to Google, smaller banners that use a “reasonable amount of screen space” are okay!

This image above comes from the Google announcement, and is an example of a banner that uses a “reasonable amount of screen space.”

So we’re in the process of redesigning our mobile pop-up to make sure it is Google-friendly. And we will be rolling it out in the next couple of weeks, way before the January 2016 deadline.

We’re in the same boat as you because we use our MiloTree pop-up to grow our social following on Catch My Party. So you better believe we take this stuff seriously.

We will send out an email and post on our blog as soon as our new mobile pop-up is live. So far, I’m loving the new design! Can’t wait to share it.

You can read Google’s announcement here.

If you haven’t yet installed the MiloTree pop-up on your site, click this button to get yours!

How to Create The Best Pinterest Boards

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree , Pinterest

If you want to learn how to create the best Pinterest boards, check out this podcast I did with Kate Ahl from Simple Pin Media.

I go into detail on why I think it’s important to create general boards and specific boards. I believe you need to get into the minds of the people searching on Pinterest. Do they want something specific or something general? Could people want both? If so, make different boards to cater them.

I also talk about how we organically grow new boards at Catch My Party. We watch and listen to what our visitors are telling us they like, and create boards around those topics.

I also discuss why everyone does not need a quotes board or a style board. My advice is to go narrow but deep, instead of wide but shallow.

I also think seasonal boards are a must on Pinterest and I will pin to them even in the off-season to keep those boards alive. Also about two months before the holiday or season, I will start getting active in those boards by creating new content.

And here are my recommendations if you’re just starting out on Pinterest:

• Start with just 5-10 boards
• Make sure your boards are targeting what you’re selling
• Start watching and listening to what your audience responds to, and build out from there

I believe your audience will tell you exactly what they like!

If you want to learn how to get more followers on Pinterest, listen my first conversation with Kate Ahl from Simple Pin Media. I share all the tips and tricks we use to grow our followers on Pinterest, including  our MiloTree pop-up.

Grow Your Email List Faster With MiloTree

By Jillian Leslie | Email Marketing , Milotree

We know you care a lot about your visitors’ experience on your site. And we also know you care about being able to reach your visitors via social and email after they leave.

So good news! You now you can grow both your social followers faster, and grow your email list faster, with your one MiloTree pop-up. Say goodbye to bothering your visitors with multiple pop-ups and forms.

If you use Mad Mimi, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, InfusionSoft, Campaign Monitor, Active Campaign, Mailer Lite or GoDaddy Email Marketing, you can easily connect your email account to MiloTree.

If you use a different email service, please email me at jillian(at)milotree(dot)com to make sure we have it on our list.

With MiloTree, you get to customize your pop-up exactly how you like, and grow what is most important to your business.

Also, if you need tips for how to grow your Instagram followers faster or how to grow your Pinterest followers faster, we have those, too.

How To Grow Your Pinterest Followers Faster!

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree , Pinterest

This is Part II in my series on How To Grow Your Social Media Followers. You can read Part I on growing Instagram here: How to Grow your Instagram Followers Faster.

If you can get your Pinterest account growing, there’s no better way to drive traffic to your blog. At Catch My Party, we get millions of pageviews per month from Pinterest.

Here are my 10 quick tips on growing Pinterest! If you do these, I promise, you’ll see your followers grow!

Tip 1

Sign up for the MiloTree pop-up on your blog! The MiloTree pop-up connects directly to your Pinterest account and asks your blog visitors to follow you on Pinterest. It really works!

This has been our secret weapon, and has helped us grow our Catch My Party following to close to 750k followers. There’s a WordPress plugin, for easy installation, and if you have trouble, email me at jillian(at)milotree(dot)com.

Tip 2

Look at what pins are doing well in your niche, and study why you think they’re working. (Are the pins beautiful? Do the pins show multiple steps? Is the text easy to read? Are the pins solving a problem people have?) Then make portrait-style pins inspired by what you see. Make sure to add text overlays on top of your photos so people know exactly what they’ll be getting if they click.

I have three favorite tools for making images.

• PicMonkey — great for collages
• Canva – They have a new app for mobile
• Snappa — I’m really liking this one and made the image for this post with it

Tip 3

Use keywords everywhere. Use them in:

• Your profile description
• Your board titles
• Your board descriptions
• Your pin descriptions

Think about what terms your audience is searching for, and use those exact words in all your descriptions.

Tip 4

Create 10 boards to start, and try pinning 10 pins in each one. Then each day, pin 10-20 pins. I recommend Tailwind as an easy-to-use scheduler. That’s what we use.

Tip 5

Confirm your Pinterest account so Pinterest knows your business is for real, and your account with get useful analytics. Also, enable Rich Pins on your site so your pins get more “juice” from Pinterest and your logo shows up on all your pins.

Tip 6

Follow a few power pinners every day to let Pinterest know you’re serious about the platform.

Tip 7

Every week, make a new boards and repin your best pins into them.

Tip 8

Use your analytics! Look at what’s performing best on your Pinterest account and make other content like it!

Tip 9

Add the “Save” button to your site so your blog visitors can easily pin from your site.

Tip 10

Be of service. Think about your Pinterest account as a way to help other people find what they’re looking for.

We pin:

• 50% of our own Catch My Party content
• 35% repins from awesome content on Pinterest
• 15% from blogs and other sites we love

Our goal is to be the best party resource on Pinterest regardless of where the content comes from.

BONUS TIP: 

Be patient. A pin can take months to gain traction. It’s a very different platform from Instagram or Facebook, where the feedback is immediate. Pin beautiful, relevant content, make it easy for people to find it, and you will see results.

Delay Your Pop-Up Until Your Visitor Scrolls

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree

Would you like a little more pop-up control? Great. We’re giving it to you!

You now have the ability to control how quickly your pop-up shows on your blog. 

Instead of your pop-up automatically sliding up as soon as a visitor lands on your blog, you can now delay your pop-up from showing until your visitor scrolls down your page.

This gives the visitors time to get to know you and your content before you ask them to follow you. If they like what they see, then chances are high they will follow you when you ask. 🙂

Also, you now have the ability to turn the pop-up off on mobile. 

 

How To Grow Your Instagram Followers Faster!

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree

I get asked all the time: How do I grow Instagram followers faster?! Well, here are my top 5 tips:

Tip 1

Install the free MiloTree pop-up on your blog! Your MiloTree pop-up connects directly to your Instagram account and asks your blog visitors to follow you on Instagram.

Because it’s personalized with your Instagram account, if people click on the pop-up, there is a high chance they will follow you because they like what they see.

If you want to grow your Instagram followers even faster, sign up for our Awesome Plan ($6/month) and get all the important customization and analytics tools you need to get more people clicking on your pop-up and following you!

Tip 2

Give your Instagram page a theme, and the narrower the theme the better.

I always say, if you post about chocolate desserts, I want to see beautiful photos of chocolate desserts, not photos of your kids at Disneyland (even though I’m sure you have adorable kids).

Be consistent in the type of photos you post. Also, be consistent in the times of day you post, so people know to expect great content from you.

Tip 3

Instagram give you up to 30 hashtags per post. Please use them. Hashtags are the only way to search on Instagram.

Try using a mix of very popular hashtags, hashtags that are specific to your content, and even a personalized hashtag for your business. Experiment to see which of your posts get found and which hashtags you used.

Tip 4

Make sure what you post is beautiful and compelling. As Instagram moves to a smartfeed, the quality of your posts will matter even more because they’ll start hiding your low performing posts.

I use an app called A Color Story to brighten up the colors of my photos so they really pop. I also try to make my text relatable because I want people to interact with my posts.

Tip 5

Be strategic about using your bio link. If you want to drive traffic to a blog post, put the link to the post in your bio link. If you are selling something, put the link in your bio to where people can purchase the item.

If you want people to sign up for your mailing list, put a link to a landing page where they can add their email address. It’s one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on your Instagram page, so use it wisely!

Tip 6

Interact!! Respond to comments on your page to let people know you’re a real person.

Use the “discover” feature and find new accounts to follow, then comment on their posts. Instagram is definitely a social platform, so the more social you are, the more followers you will attract!

BONUS TIP

Think about your overall strategy. What are you trying to accomplish with your Instagram page? It could be growing followers so brands want to work with you, extra blog traffic, sales. Keep your eye on that prize because that will push your business forward.

MiloTree Press from iBlog Magazine

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree

We launched MiloTree, our smart pop-up, in March 2016, and in a few months we got our first article written about us! Take a look at our first MiloTree press below or read it here.

Catch My Party just passed 515k followers on Pinterest, a large majority of those followers are from our MiloTree pop-up.

“With our pinning strategy in place, we needed to find a way to ask our Catch My Party visitors to follow us on Pinterest. Who better to champion you than your own audience?” In a nutshell, that’s why we built the MiloTree pop-up.

I can guarantee if you have traffic to your site or blog, MiloTree will grow your followers or email list. It’s that simple! It can grow your Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest followers, and even your email list!

The One Ask Rule To Grow Your Blog

By Jillian Leslie | Milotree

For the people who receive our MiloTree emails, they know that when someone visits your site, it’s like having them over for dinner. You want to impress them, you want them to have a good time, and you want them to want to come back.

So instead of asking your visitors to do a ton of stuff for you — like join your email list or follow you on Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram, I challenge you to ask them for one thing.

If you try to grow all channels at once, you’ll burn them. But by being intentional, and using the “one ask” rule, your chances of success will be much higher.

And that’s the philosophy we used when we first built MiloTree.

We wanted to ask our visitors to do one action when they came to our site (like us on Pinterest). Then when they came back, we asked them to do something different (like us on Instagram), but it was still one action. And it’s worked.

MiloTree is one pop-up that can show multiple social media accounts, but never at once. And that’s the beauty of it. We live and breathe the one ask rule.

And hearing from our early MiloTree subscribers, they are seeing it work for them, too!

When it comes to asking your visitors for a favor, the old adage “less is more,” couldn’t be more true!

 If you haven’t yet tried MiloTree to grow your email list and social media followers faster, click this button. It’s easy to install with our WordPress plugin or a simple line of code.