Why I think these Blog Posts are Popular..

Here is a list of some of the "all time" most popular "1000 Beautiful Bracelets" Blog posts to date and a brief reason why (although I could be wrong, have your say in the comment section if you have another point of view):

It seems the Money Show Challenge aspect of BeautifulBracelets continues to draw a great deal of interest and attention, and certain of the weekly reports get a lot of attention (I gave a report-back for each of the 6 weeks of the Challenge). I am not sure why certain weeks got more attention than others. Here are links to the most popular of those:

• Money Show Challenge Report Back: Week 3
• Money Show Challenge Report Back: Week 5

Then I feel the next two Posts are popular because these give practical advice on social media and on aspects of getting products marketed:

• The Day After.. and Selling on Twitter
• How To Get Your Products into Retail

Lastly, these three Posts I believe are popular because we all need a bit of inspiration:

• Anything is Possible
• How to Get an Idea for a New Business
• 5 Things Every Happy Person Does

The reason I continue to keep up with this Blog is to bring hope, inspiration and practical help to people working on their own micro business idea. It is worth it if just one person receives that encouragement.

Twitter Tips to Promote Your Startup Business

Before the Radio 702 Money Show Challenge on 1 October 2012, although I had a personal Twitter account, like so many others: I never used it. So I had to become an expert on Twitter (and many other things) in a hurry since starting Beautiful Bracelets! I have a few tips for those who, like me, are fairly new to Twitter. I could probably do some of these things a bit better myself, I’m still learning! I am including some things that put me off Twitter so I hope I am not offending anyone by mentioning it here. Feel free to leave a comment or a tip, I am quite happy to consider other points of view or ideas. I’m still growing, learning and changing to become better at this each day:

• Don’t spam your Followers by sending out too much info in a rapid succession of Tweets. Rather use something like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck and schedule the information in say, 5 short Tweets over the period of a week or so.
• It is better not to have your Facebook/Twitter accounts linked, I noticed very quickly that people don’t like it. It feels too much like Spam.
• No graphic details. Don’t tell me what you ate for breakfast, lunch or supper unless you’re a restaurant. Maybe I’m squeamish.
• Reach out to your Audience in a friendly way and tell them things that may be of interest to them. The kind of things that others “retweet” will give you an idea of what people like to hear about. Tailor this to yourself and your tweeting.
• Be Retweetable! Add Tweet buttons to your website and Blog. Make it easier for others to retweet you. Keep your Tweets to under 120 characters or less if you want to allow commentary.
• Tweet to Inspire or Inform: Some of my best viewed content was as a result of the following Tweets: “Anything is Possible”, “How to GetYour Products into Retail Stores”, “Have a Vision for Your Business”. In each case, I quoted the link to the related Blog Post on the “1000 Beautiful Bracelets” Blog.
• Track your success. Google Analytics is a great tool for this. What is the point of using Social Media or Blogs if you don’t track everything and keep yourself up to date with what’s of interest to your audience? 
• Be relationship-focused and keep the human-interest angle top of mind.

Finally, please Retweet this Post!

Twitter Tips to Promote Your Startup Business1000beautifulbracelets.blogspot.com/2012/11/twitte…
— Beautiful Bracelets (@1000bracelets) November 26, 2012

The Day After... (and selling on Twitter)

Valerie Pole, Tracey Webster, Warren Ingram, Pavlo Phitidis, Belinda te Riele, Bruce Whitfield, Paul Theron and Tsego Modisane

I salute Pavlo Phitidis and his phenomenal coup of a profit of  just over R65,000 in 6 weeks from a start-up of  R1000 and I look forward to the in-depth analysis of how he did it (Thursday 14 Nov Money Show, Radio 702 / Cape Talk). The biggest winner of all is the Children of the Starfish Foundation and I'm thrilled to have been a small part of helping them.

You can download the Podcast of the Show here Money Show R1000 Challenge Grand Finale

And watch a short video overview here Money Show R1000 Challenge Video Clip

The Grand Finale last night was spectacular fun, and the profits of each contestant were only revealed at the last moment it seemed. So I kept selling Beautiful Bracelets from the moment I walked into the Entertainment Studio and then whilst the Money Show was in progress, continued to sell Beautiful Bracelets via Twitter to anybody in the room who would buy.. here is how it unfolded on Twitter:

 Although this didn't result in a winning total profit it certainly added to the joyful spirit of the evening!