You’re a blogger?

SkinnyScoop is your new best friend.

Check out this quick rundown for three simple & fun ways that you can use SkinnyScoop to share your passions, drive traffic to your website and keep visitors longer!

1) Ask And You Shall Receive (an answer!)

Whether you have a burning question to ask, want some decision making advice or are contemplating a purchase, you can get the response you want and use a question to make your post pop, involve readers or generate valuable linkbacks. Use existing polls as inspiration or create a brand new one anytime the urge strikes!

TIP: We like to embed our polls in the middle of a post with text around it for a professional looking presentation and maximum impact. It looks pretty sleek.

Reasons To Love The Question Polls:

• Find inspiration from thousands of user-generated polls – or ask a new question!
• Customizable size makes it easy to stick your question anywhere
• A simple embed code means all you have to do is copy & paste
• All activity remains on your site – visitors will stay longer and feel more engaged
• Let us know where you’ve put your content so we can send everyone over to check it out!

How To:

1. Head over to SkinnyScoop or use our search box to see existing questions
2. If nothing inspires you, go to www.skinnyscoop.com/craft to ask your own question
3. Click on the orange “Embed on Blog” link at the top of your poll page
4. Cut and paste the Polling Widget code into your blog*
5. Get in touch with Claudia so we can share your new poll!

2) Feeling Un-Original? That’s OK – Try the Trending Topics!

Let’s face it; not all of us are list or question maker extraordinaires – and that’s OK! Our Trending Topics widget is a great solution for those of you who would rather admire great content than create your own. The Trending Topics widget is fun because it showcases the most popular questions on SkinnyScoop, which means you’ll always have something fresh on your page. What’s not to love about that? We feature all blogs with the Trending Topics widget as a way to allow you to further interact with our community.

Reasons to Love Trending Topics:

• Select from 20 categories that complement your blog’s focus
• The widget rotates through top trending question polls from SkinnyScoop
• Customizable size makes it easy to integrate almost anywhere
• A simple embed code makes it as easy as copy & paste
• All activity takes place on the widget – visitors can vote right on your page!

How To

1. Go to www.skinnyscoop.com/getwidget
2. Select your Trending Topics widget size and whatever categories you’d like questions to come from
3. Copy and paste the resulting embed code into your site *
4. Email Claudia if you’d like us to feature your blog and showcase your use of the widget!

3) Unleash Your “Inner Oprah” With a List!

Our latest love – lists - are an awesome way to really showcase your expertise or share the things you love. Celebrities and designers aren’t the only ones who can profile their top picks or broadcast their knowledge…so what are you waiting for?

We’ll warn you now – making lists can be slightly addictive.  Our team is admittedly obsessed, and we love seeing new ways that members get creative with how they’re using them. You can do everything from run a contest, create step-by-step instructions or plan amazing travel itinerary with the list feature – and then share in e-mail, on Facebook or Twitter.

The Skinny on Lists:

• Create a new list about anything or add something to an existing list that you like
• Customize the size of your list so you can neatly embed it into a blog post or on your blog sidebar
• Embedding a list is as simple as copying, pasting and saving.  We promise!
• All activity remains on your site

How To

1. Go to www.skinnyscoop.com/list/create
2. Create and publish your list including links to your blog or posts if desired
3. Click on the orange “Embed” link at the top of your list *
4. Cut and paste the List Widget into your post or sidebar

A Few Fun Ways You Might Use Lists in Your Sidebar:

Foodies: Profile recently visited restaurants or recipes you’ve tried – no updates necessary, just keep adding to your list!
Music lovers: A sidebar list of favorite songs or albums is a great way to give readers a taste of your personality and something you’ll want to update regularly!
Fashionistas: What are you coveting? Lists can be used to universally collect and showcase lust-worthy picks.
Bloggers & Journalists: Use a sidebar lists for your bookmarks like Tommy Smythe of HGTV did, or keep a running tab of articles and newsworthy stories that catch your eye.
Companies & Causes: It’s easy to create a list of upcoming events to display in your sidebar, which allow readers to comment, vote and engage on your page. The United Way of The Bay Area did a great job with theirs!
Other ideas: Use a list to profile important content you want to keep in one place for a long period of time – or create new lists frequently and change them as a weekly, monthly or seasonal feature.  The possibilities are endless!

*We’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but WordPress-hosted blogs are unable to host widgets of any kind. This is not specific to SkinnyScoop, but is a restriction that WordPress has imposed. We’re working on a solution.