On this week’s episode of The Manly Pinterest Tips Show, we meet Rachel Miller, the founder of the Facebook community, Quirky Momma. She loves building and participating in online communities.
Rachel, a former teacher who left the profession to become a stay at home mom, found herself craving something new to do, so her husband suggested that she make a website, little knowing what this would eventually lead to. What started as a way to combat boredom and to keep her husband company while he spent time on his computer completing online graduate courses blossomed into a thriving online community. And by “thriving” I mean that it can now boast nearly 1.5 million followers! Amazingly enough, this growth was accomplished with 100% organic traffic.
How did she do it? Rachel has a knack for knowing both what kind of person she wants to draw to her Facebook community and what kind of content is going to accomplish that. She offers tips on topics including finding and creating content, handling controversial topics (like blue food coloring and marshmallows-gasp!), and prioritizing – because to manage a community that large you have to know what’s important!
She also reveals the arrival of her second online “baby,” a new website called “One Crazy House” which takes a slightly different angle than Quirky Momma, offering life hacks for the busy family.
Offline, this quirky momma is mom to a van load of kids.
Here’s a list of questions we discussed:
- Tell me a little about your background and how you ended up getting online and social media and writing a blog and then starting this awesome Facebook community. (1:17)
- How did you come up with the name “Quirky Momma”? (2:53)
- Did you start it all at the same time, or did your blog come first and then you launched your Facebook page? (3:28)
- When you were first starting your blog, did you get significant traffic? (5:24)
- When you first started were you blogging every day? What was your schedule? (6:00)
- How would you define “online community”? (8:10)
- Is there a reason you chose Facebook? (8:55)
- How do you classify viral – that a post goes viral on Facebook? (10:04)
- Do your viral posts go up and drop real quick or do you see a lot of traffic kind of continue to go on? (10:20)
- What is the number one thing you like about your community on Facebook? What excites you about your community? (11:22)
- Do you share mostly your own stuff on your Facebook posts or do you share stuff you find around the internet that you think would be good for your audience? (12:02)
- Do you find a lot of content inside of Facebook? (12:27)
- Is it just you three doing it, or do you have guest bloggers? (13:50)
- What is the number one thing you dislike about Facebook? (14:19)
- If you’re a small business or blogger just starting out, do you think you need to wait to launch a Facebook community? (15:19)
- Do you have any other tips for people just starting out? (16:57)
- Do you recommend that people buy ads or sponsored posts to get started? (17:58)
- What kind of Facebook posts do you find work best for you? (19:35)
- Can you tell when you’re going to get a lot of engagement because it’s controversial? (20:47)
- If you had to pick one – education or entertainment – which one would you choose? Which type of post? (22:04)
- Is Facebook the biggest driver of traffic to your website? (24:30)
- Do you ever buy ads or purchase advertising for your own posts on Facebook or do you still just do it all organically on Quirky Momma? (24:55)
- For the ones you do for sponsors, do you have things you do to make sure you maximize the money? (25:35)
- Do you ever target competitors? (26:42)
- Is there any tools or third party apps that you use to grow or manage your community? (27:57)
- Do you use Trello or anything like that to task manage or do you do it all on Google spreadsheets? (29:07)
- Do you use any tools to help you find content? (30:09)
- How do you handle difficult members in your community? (31:59)
- Does your community self regulate? (33:25)
- Are there things you have to do with the regulatory commission for sponsored posts? (34:55)
- Do you do Facebook contests? (36:34)
- I know you have super fans. Do you do anything to encourage that? Do you acknowledge them? (38:46)
- How do you cross promote your Facebook page on other platforms? (40:20)
- Where can we find out more about you and your services? (41:38)
Find out more about Rachel Miller here:
Website: http://kidsactivitiesblog.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/4kidsactivities
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuirkyMomma
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/leviandrachel/
Thanks For Watching And Listening!
I really appreciate you joining me for this week’s episode. Have questions or comments? Leave a message in the comment section below!
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Thanks to Rachel for being such a great guest. See you for the next episode where we’ll be adding testosterone, one pin at a time!
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