EVENT PHOTOS: Ft. Lauderdale Bloggers September 2016 Meetup

Soaking up the last of the summer sun, the FTL Bloggers held our latest meet-up at the gorgeous Shooters Waterfront. Right on the canal and not too far from the beach, we were basking in the warm sun and lounging in the beautiful decor of the venue. We had another great turnout and welcomed a lot of new faces.

Our speaker, Ryan Stewart, gave an amazing presentation on the importance of sponsored and paid promotion and touched a lot on how to use Facebook for your blog or business. He answered a ton of our questions and left us with valuable information.  He gave so many great pieces of advice and left us with a lot of valuable information to digest and work on.

Less SEO, More Social Media

Is it important for bloggers to focus on SEO? Not so much, according to Ryan Stewart, our September guest speaker, and owner of WEBris Media. “Your time is better spent on social media,” he said.

While he recommended the Yoast SEO plugin to help with posts, he suggests focusing on social posts, especially sponsored and paid posts to get more bang for your buck. This is because organic posts don’t get the reach they used to on certain platforms.

Here a few of Ryan’s tips:

• With the blogging space getting saturated, he focuses on creating more content for his YouTube channel, with related content on Facebook, Instagram, and SnapChat as well.
• Organic reach has dropped drastically on Facebook, so his goal for that network has shifted. He doesn’t use it to drive traffic as much. He considers it a branding play for the long term.
• To get exposure on Facebook, you really have to pay for advertising. The good news is ads are inexpensive.
• Ryan uses YouTube as a video blog since the videos rank well in search.  Short videos with educational info or even marketing or industry news can help your site. You can also post these videos on Facebook and boost them for paid views.
• Think of marketing channels as “value channels,” not monetization channels. You have to bring value to your readers and viewers.

We would like to thank Ryan for being our guest and sharing his valuable knowledge with us and Shooters Waterfront for letting us use their fantastic facilities and providing the delicious appetizers. We can’t wait to see you all in October for our amazing blogger panel! Stay tuned.