Interview with Online Entrepreneur and Social Media Aficionado Shana Albert

Today at MyTropicalEscape I am fortunate to have online entrepreneur and top “Stumbler” Shana Albert. For most people who want to “escape the cube” or pursue personal freedom you still have to generate an income. Well, Shana has been quite successful with ABC Home Preschool and she runs a slew of other sites that help her to create passive income. I was quite interested to find out how participating in social media communities helps her to promote her various projects.

1. How have you been able to create your well known online profile in such a relatively short period of time?

Well known? That always blows me away when I hear that. I don’t really understand how my profile became so well known. For me the only answer I can easily come up with is that it must be because I love everything Social Media….. that I put my heart and sole into it.

It’s true… I absolutely love Social Media. I truly believe that I have been successful at it because I love it. There are a few Social Networking sites that I frequent and I spend most of my time at. I don’t try to use them all… if I did I don’t think I would be as successful at it. I offer something to each of the Online Communities I am a member of. I love being a member of these communities and I’m sure the other community members can sense that. I am totally genuine in all that I do as an online community member. I love Social Media and I believe that my profile is well known because my genuine love for it.

2. What is your favorite social media application? Why?

StumbleUpon. I love it…. I really do. I spend a lot of time on StumbleUpon. I have discovered so many websites and blogs in the 6 – 7 months that I have been a member. These web pages are pages that I wouldn’t have normally come across without the help of StumbleUpon. I’ve met amazing people within the StumbleUpon community that I truly consider my friends. Plus, as a Webmaster when StumbleUpon is used correctly it can help drive a lot of traffic to a website. I just can’t find anything I don’t like about StumbleUpon…. Well, except the fact that I am only allowed to have 200 friends. I hate that. I have 655 fans as of the date of this Interview, but I am only able to make 200 of them my friends.

3. Do you derive income from your social media activities? If the readers are interested, what is the best way to go about getting paid to use social media?

Yes, I do, but not directly. There were a few things that I did using Social Media that caused me to increase my income.

• I started adding blogs to each of my static websites a while back. And, still have a few more to do.
• These blogs bring in more visitors to my static websites and cause more conversions.
• Commenting on other blogs has brought more visitors to my blogs and static websites and these comments also increased incoming links which moved my sites up in the search engines.
• Being an important part of online communities has brought my sites incoming links, blog feed subscribers and my posts being stumbled and submitted.

So, yes I make money via Social Media activities, but the income is not directly from social media itself. But, from participating in Social Media activities has caused my businesses to thrive… Which has caused an increase in my profits.

4. Who are your favorite bloggers at the moment? How many hours a day do you spend online?

Tamar, Tim Nash, ProBlogger, everyone at SearchEnginePeople, Glen Allsopp, Maki, AimClear, Shaun Anderson, Tad, Brian Wallace, David Harry, the girls of SEO-Chicks, and Jennifer Laycock… There are so many more. This is just a bit of what I read every day. You have to understand that every time I read one of these blogs I learn so much. These blogs and many of the others I read daily are written by super stars in the industry and I’m still totally star struck by them!! These bloggers are amazing and I’m learning from them every time I read one of their posts. There are others that I read and I know that the ones I forgotten to mention will be coming after me with pitchforks. Sorry to those I forgot to mention.

I only sleep around 4 hours a night. I’m online most of my time awake. I would say I’m online probably between 18 and 20 hours a day.

5. How do you decide which posts you are going to Stumble or DIGG?

For me, it’s a post that makes me go, “Oh, WOW!!” Or, a post that teaches me something as well as makes me laugh. If you have me smiling or laughing while reading a post I will keep on reading. If I feel bored…I’m gone. I love to feel and emotions keep me reading. Get me to feel and you have my attention…Teach me something too and I’m a happy girl.

6. What is the significance of your moniker “TheNanny612?”

I get that question a lot. I am TheNanny612 not for the reasons people think. I’m not a Nanny and never was. In the 90’s there was a pretty popular television show called, “The Nanny”. My friends and family thought I looked a lot like Fran Dresher in the show (she was the main character) and they started called me The Nanny. When I opened my first email account I tried to get one for TheNanny@____, but it was taken already, so I had to add my birthday behind it. My first email address became TheNanny612@_____.

7. Do you have an editorial calendar, or posting schedule for socialdesire.com?

No, I don’t have a posting schedule for SocialDesire.com at all. I like to post at least once a week, but sometimes it goes closer to 9 days between posts. I know that isn’t as often as other bloggers post, but I just can’t post more often that I do. I am part of Collective-Thoughts, I run a bunch of other websites and blogs, plus I run a very busy eCommerce site where I sell Preschool Curriculum that I have designed myself. So, as much as I would like to write posts more often for Social Desire there is just no way that I could do that and have the posts be very good.

8. How will social media be evolving in the near future?

Oh my goodness… I’m not exactly sure. But, I promise I will be there and adapting in any way my business and I need to. I love Social Media. I can’t imagine being online or running my business without Social Media. I ran my business successfully prior to allowing Social Media to enter my world, but my since my business evolved to accept Social Media I’ve seen increased success. I look forward to seeing what direction Social Media goes next and seeing what that means exactly for me personally and professionally.

9. What is the best way for lesser-known bloggers to approach a top Stumbler or Digger to make a pitch to get their post submitted or Stumbled by them?

I don’t think it is about making a pitch to get their post submitted or stumbled. For me, it’s about building relationships, so that other members of the community will give my work the time of day.

Once you have built a relationship with a member of the community they are more apt to read your work and submit or stumble it… and you would do the same for others you have relationships with in the community. It is not about pitching for votes… it is about being a valuable member of an online community. And, just as in relationships in reality, relationships are give and take. You can keep taking from a relationship without giving anything to it, but who would put up with that for very long? And, online communities are no different. Provide something beneficial to the community and members will start giving you the time of day.

10. Where is your online journey heading for 2008? What are your goals?

My goals for 2008 have changed so many times already and it is only March. Usually my goals are pretty straightforward. They have to be with running a business and being successful at it. But, since I started adding social media activities to my life none of my days are ever the same. I need structure in my busy life…. I always have. For 2008, I am hoping for continued success in my professional life, but to add more structure to it. I’m not exactly sure how to do this yet, but I’m working on it.

Thank you for the interview Shana! If you are interested in learning more about social media or online entrepreneurship then consider signing up for Shana’s RSS feed.