I Wanna Know...{Week 5}

I had a great response to my post a few weeks back.
I basically opened the floor and gave you guys a chance to ask me ANYTHING.When I say anything, I mean anything! Blogging, marriage, army, crafting, shopping...

I'd love for you to submit a question for me to answer & for you to be featured next week!!!Click Here

I have some amazing questions and answers for Week #5! I plan to answer a few questions a week and will try to include both blogging & personal questions.

Clara

Question #1: Is there a way to push out a blog post for a certain time without manually clicking "Publish"?

Hello Clara! This is a great question. If you've found yourself asking this before, then you'll probably be shocked to know that most bloggers rarely blog at the time their posts are going live. Truth be told, I've scheduled out posts as early as two weeks in advance. This can come in handy if you are taking a trip and you want your blog to still look active while you are gone.
To do this, after you write a blog post go into the right hand pane next to the post. Click where it says "Schedule". If you want it to post immediately, leave "Automatic" selected. If you want to choose the time it will post, click "Set Date and Time". Then you can choose the date and time when you want it to go live! Another random great tip is that you can get the link to your blog post before it goes live!! Just click "Permalink" and it will show you what the URL will be. This is great if you are trying to give someone the URL of the post or if you want to link up somewhere before it goes live.

Jana

Question #2: How do you start a successful linkup?

Hi lady! Well I have two link ups that I do on a regular basis:
The Cara Box Exchange & 30 Second Thursdays
The Cara Box just came out of my love for subscription boxes. I always look forward to my Birchbox every month, so I started trying to figure out a similar thing that I could offer on Wifessionals. I wanted it to focus on encouraging each other and meeting new bloggers! 30 Second Thursdays just started last week. I was talking to a couple of bloggers about vlogs. Girls love them but they are terrified to do them themselves. So I thought that a 30 second vlog link up where you are answering a specific question would be the perfect answer! So that's how I came up with that idea.
Basically, just think of something YOU would want to link up to! Plan your link up with at least 1-2 other bloggers. Then I would suggest getting a bigger blog to guest host your first few weeks to get the word out! If you ever want me to help spread the word, I'd be more than happy to! I have 3-4 blogs I'm co-hosting with this month for that exact purpose (:

Marci

Question #3: What are the best prizes for giveaways? The ones people enjoy the most/generate the most traffic/gain the most entries?

Hi Marci! Hands down, the best giveaway I ever did was the iPad Mini Giveaway. People went crazy over it and there were almost 15,000 entries!! Now, it probably helped that it was right before Christmas so people were dying to get their hands on one. The problem with that giveaway was that there were 28 ladies co-hosting it. From past experience I've learned that people don't always like having to follow 28 blogs or Twitter accounts in order to gain entries. I understand where the hosting bloggers are coming from...They are trying to get a HUGE prize so they ask a ton of girls to participate.
My advice for giveaways: come up with an awesome BIG prize and do it with as few other bloggers as possible. The iPad was so great because I hadn't seen anyone else giving one away. After mine went live I saw a few other ones go up, but think of an item that would be popular with your followers! An iPad Mini sounds a lot more enticing than a $300 gift card to Target. They are about the same in cost, however something about a giveaway for a specific LARGE item draws in a better crowd (: With the Wii U Giveaway I just had I cut the number of co-hosting blogs to 20. That made it a lot more manageable for me AND cut down on the amount of bloggers the readers had to follow and get to know in order to enter.

Question #4: What do you and your husband do to grow closer, both emotionally & spiritually?

This was an anonymous question. Well, I KNOW you guys saw my post last week on #ClubSexy!!! If you didn't, you can check it out here. I try to come up with fun and creative ideas like that to make sure we stay "in to each other". The best part of the #ClubSexy night was the dinner. We sat in candlelight, totally alone, and just got to talk to each other for over an hour. We even asked each other things about our childhoods or growing up that we've never talked about before. I also have been making a conscious effort to put my whole blogging life on hold when Ryan gets home from work each night. I've learned I need to focus completely on him and take a time out from the computer, phone and twitter (as hard as that may be sometimes). When I started doing this last week, Ryan immediately noticed! I now try to leave all electronics on our dining room table from the moment he comes home until the next morning.
Spiritually, we go to church together every Sunday. We usually talk about church on the way home or throughout the day on Sunday at some point. I think it's important for us also to grow in our faiths individually, so we both go to separate Bible studies during the week. I go to a women's study on Thursday morning and he goes to a men's study on Thursday night. We always talk after our individual studies and I think it's such an encouragement to each other to see how the other person is learning and growing on their own. By becoming close with Jesus individually, I think it creates a great foundation for us to grow in our faith and love together.

I hope you guys enjoyed seeing some of your questions answered! I'll be back next Tuesday with more!

I'd love for you to submit a question for me to answer & for you to be featured next week!!!Click Here


"Change can change your life. You'll never know unless you embrace it."
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