Monthly Income Report – June 2013

 

Yes, you are reading the photo above correctly!  For our Monthly Income Report – June 2013, I’m excited to share that we were paid $521.54 in the month of June!  Yes, we were paid!  If you’ve followed my earlier Monthly Income Reports, you will know that up until the last monthly report (May), I was reporting what we earned.  But since there is a lag time of 60 to 90 days from what we earn to when we are paid, I switched gears last month and on a go-forward will only report what we are paid, because remember:

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!” – Medieval Proverb

Here are links to the earlier Monthly Income Reports to catch you up:

• Monthly Income Report – May 2013
• Monthly Income Report – April 2013
• Monthly Income Report – March
• Monthly Income Report – February

It has been an unbelievable month for us on a couple of levels:

• We got paid!
• We got some Sponsored Posts opportunities!
• Our traffic has more than quadrupled!
• Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest!

We Got Paid!

For those of you interested in blogging, or creating a blog, etc., this information is for you.  You may be wondering the “hows” of receiving payments from affiliates and sponsorship opportunities.  Well, as an Amazon affiliate, they pay us via electronic funds transfer into a bank account.  When we started Toot Sweet 4 Two last year, we set up a business account and funded that business account with “contributions” from our own personal funds.  What does that mean?  Well, any new “start-up” business has to have capital to get up and running and Tiffany and I contributed money to our business to get it started.  I won’t go into the details in this post, since this post is about making money and not spending money, but in a future post, I’ll address “start-up” costs to operating a blog.  But, just know that we are farrrrr from breaking even!

Anyway, Amazon deposits funds directly into our bank account at the end of every month IF we have earned any commissions from affiliate sales.  How do we earn commission from Amazon affiliate sales?  Well, you can read our earlier Monthly Income Reports to learn more details, but the bottom line is that IF a reader comes to our site and clicks on one of the Amazon ads on our site or goes to our SHOP TOOT SWEET menu tab, AND the reader makes a purchase, we are paid a small commission by Amazon.

 

Amazon Affiliate Disclaimer:

If you decide to make a purchase through our link, Amazon will pay us a commission for it.  This does not cost you anything more.  These commissions help to keep the rest of our content free, so we thank you very much!

How do we receive money from Sponsored Posts opportunities?  So far, all of our Sponsored Posts opportunities have been funded to a PayPal account.  So, yes, we set up a PayPal account, too.  Once we meet the sponsors guidelines for a Sponsored Post opportunity, we are paid somewhere between 30 – 90 days later for that Sponsored Post.

We Got Some Sponsored Posts Opportunities!

So, what are Sponsored Posts?  Those are posts where we receive compensation either in money, products or services.  If we write a Sponsored Post, you will know because we announce that it is a Sponsored Post right in the title, plus we state that in the body of the post (a FTC requirement).  If you haven’t yet read any of our Sponsored Posts, here are some links:

• Bona:  A System to a Better Clean Floor {Sponsored Post}
• MommyJuice Wine {Sponsored Post}
• Samsung Smart Camera with Wi-Fi Direct…and you thought your phone was smart! {Sponsored Post}
• White Cloud Diapers {Sponsored Post} 

How do we get the opportunity to write Sponsored Posts?  Well, we have joined some social media agencies and blog marketing platforms that work directly with brands and bloggers to create these opportunities.  Some of the networks that work with brands include:

• Clever Girls Collective
• Collective Bias/Social Fabric
• Social Spark
• The SITS Girls

So, thanks to our social media agencies and blog marketing platforms, thanks to our sponsors and thanks to our readers for reading our Sponsored Posts!  BTW – we don’t accept sponsored post opportunities unless we believe in the product.  Our reviews are strictly our opinion and we are not swayed by our sponsors to write a good review.  But, our goal is to always write good reviews (we don’t want to be perceived as negative people), so when we get sponsored opportunities, we only accept them if we like the product!

Note:  there are many other ways to make money blogging.  But, since we have not yet made money in those other ways, I’ll save that information for future posts.

Our Traffic Quadrupled!

This is so exciting to both of us!  Tiffany and I have struggled with the fact that we are approaching our Blog-o-versary (the first anniversary of the start of our blog) and our traffic has been slow to gain traction.  So, to have our traffic take off suddenly is thrilling and a blessing!  Here’s the Google Analytics chart from our Monthly Income Report – May 2013:

 

And, here’s our Google Analytics chart for Monthly Income Report – June 2013:

 

OMG – what happened?

 

 

Pinterest, baby!  Which leads me to my next point:

Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest!

Some of our pins have caught fire!  We have joined some groups boards and began sharing our pins on our group boards and this is what happened:

 

 

Pinterest is now the major driver of traffic to our blog!  Between Pinterest and Pinterest Mobile (3,467 plus 73), Pinterest has pushed our blog to the next level!  Thank you Pinterest and thank you readers from Pinterest who are consciously landing on our blog!  Facebook used to be our number one driver of traffic to our blog and Pinterest has left Facebook in the dust!

Here’s a look at May’s Pinterest activity, just to give you a comparison of what has happened:

 

Now Facebook Fans:  please continue to read our blog using Facebook!  We love you, too!  In fact, if you haven’t already “Liked” us on Facebook, we would appreciate your support!

And, for those of you on Pinterest, you can follow us on Pinterest at all three of the Pinterest sites below:

• Toot Sweet 4 Two’s Pinterest Boards
• Carole’s Pinterest Boards
• Tiffany’s Pinterest Boards

 

 

What are people pinning on Pinterest that is driving traffic to our site?  Recipes!  Here are the Top 3 Recipes that brought Pinterest users to our site:

 

 

And, here are links to these posts:

• Charlie’s Layered Mexican Casserole
• Fresh Strawberry Pie
• Green Smoothie {Sponsored Post}

 

 

While we don’t have plans to transform Toot Sweet 4 Two strictly to a recipe blog, just note that you will probably see more recipe posts in the future!  Also of note, while the increased Pinterest traffic has reduced our “Average Site Duration” (the amount of time a reader is on our site) from May’s report of 11 minutes and 13 seconds, it’s still a phenomenal average for June at 7 minutes and 26 seconds!  Thank you, dear readers!

Tastespotting:  a big “shout out” to Tastespotting!  I submitted my Avocado Nut Sandwich to them (they are a “juried” site, so they don’t take just anybody plus they take selective photos and they haven’t, yet, accepted any others that I’ve submitted!) and this is what happened:

 

 

And, here’s the picture that Tastespotting accepted and on their site, which drove 31 people to visit our site:

 

A note of interest (maybe it’s just interesting to me, but in the spirit of “full disclosure”…):  all the pictures above, which are currently driving traffic to our site, were taken with my iPhone with the exception of the Green Smoothie, which was provided to us by The Dailey Method.  I got my fancy, dancy Nikon DSLR 3200 camera for Christmas from my husband (see Tiffany’s earlier post:  Christmas Surprise) and while I’m still learning the ropes, it’s interesting to me that photos taken with an iPhone CAN drive traffic to a website and/or blog!

Do you have any Pinterest stories or blog traffic stories you’d like to share?  We’d love to hear from you, so please leave a comment!

Anyway, 1500+ words later, I’ll close for now…

Tootles,

Related Posts:

(other Monthly Income Reports)

• Monthly Income Report – May 2013
• Monthly Income Report – April 2013
• Monthly Income Report – March 2013
• Monthly Income Report – February 2013

(recipes mentioned in this post)

• Avocado Nut Sandwich
• Charlie’s Layered Mexican Casserole
• Fresh Strawberry Pie
• Green Smoothie {Sponsored Post}

(Sponsored Posts mentioned in this post)

• Bona:  A System to a Better Clean Floor {Sponsored Post}
• MommyJuice Wine {Sponsored Post}
• Samsung Smart Camera with Wi-Fi Direct…and you thought your phone was smart! {Sponsored Post}
• White Cloud Diapers {Sponsored Post}