Glipho -The Trendy Social Blogging Platform.....Get Your Gliph On!!

                    

Hi Lovelies,

This is a special post for my fellow Blog loving ladies and gentlemen and to everyone who just likes to write either seriously or just for fun. I am pretty sure you may have come across Glipho, but if not, you are in the right place. Just like you, I had never heard about then until one of the members of the Glipho Team Maria left a comment on my Instagram page regarding an Iphoneography blog post(link here). So, I decided to check them out and see for myself. I was hooked and I have been on for a little more than two months so I think that's a fair amount of time to tell you guys about my experience.

                                   

What is Glipho?

Glipho is a new social blogging and media community and social publishing engine which marries both blogging and promoting social media into a seamless platform. Glipho connects blog posts and bloggers who sign up to various top social media including Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Linkedin to mention a few with a view to build an audience, grow traffic, interact with other bloggers and promote social media as well. Glipho was founded in Mid-2012 by the Founder Roger Planes who was born in Spain and had all his education there including his Masters in Computer Science before he moved to London, United Kingdom in 2012 to pursue his career. He started off as a software developer in London before he identified a gap in the blogging community- the difficulty for bloggers, among an estimate of over 200 million bloggers globally, to build an audience and traffic because there was no easy platform to do it. He took his time to develop Glipho in 2012 which would bridge this gap effectively, thus Glipho was born...

My Experience

I am afraid all I have to say about Glipho is positive things (this is NOT a sponsored post by the way...hahaha). It's just the truth. It has been a lovely and wonderful experience but I would break it down to the different reasons why I love Glipho.

                                  

What happened my first day on Glipho?

I started off by signing up which I was a little skeptical about because I had to sign up using either Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or Google. I was thinking "what happened to signing up with my email?". Just like many people,  I am a bit wary about allowing any third party apps into any of my social media. My fears were unfounded as Glipho is very safe and has no access to passwords or anything private on these sites. It is mainly to help promote your Gliphs or posts via these social media which you give access to. You also get a feed of whatever social media you signed up to on your profile so people can see and follow you if they want. I signed up using my twitter and I was set to go.Anyways, I signed up via my twitter account and I was ready to roll.

The Glipho Platform/Interface

I really like the interface/home page because it seemed really interactive. Here you have, your profile, your feed (mine was my twitter feed and a follow button), your desk (where you can publish posts) and insights where you can monitor how many followers you have, how many profile views you have, total Gliph views and individual view counts. Super!! I promptly created my profile, added a nice profile picture, a cheeky lil' bio page and a link to my Blog...Voila, I was ready to get my Gliph on. I forgot to say; on signing up, you had to follow at least one or two Gliphers. Next, you had to choose your interests such as beauty, fashion, lifestyle, society, etc. Your Gliph feed page could show either Gliphs from your interests or Gliphs from your favourite writers or you could browse through and this gives you the freedom to switch up your feed from one area to another. Amazeballs!!

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The Glipho Desk

This is the Blogging desktop or writer's desk if you wish. Here, you either write a Gliph or you could import a previous Blog post. To be honest, I was a little confused, but only a little,as I got a hang of it in a jiffy. Similar to Blogger, you had a title section, a description section and  the body of the post. For all you lazy Blog posters like me, don't think you can just randomly share a few words and post a Gliph, you need to write at least 150 words which made me a little annoyed because I just thought I could share my post and run away. However, it is for your own good as Glipho is more interactive than just another social media platform for sharing your posts so less than 150 words may not give your viewers the real gist of what you want to say. It's a close knit community which means you need to put in that little effort. On the left hand side of the desk, you'd see another mini page where you can add images via Flickr, Instagram, Picassa ot just upload from your computer. Of course, you have to grant permission to these social media as well.

 My default one is Flickr which I promptly linked. Once your title is ready, a mini description is added (don't worry you can skip this, Glipho would add the first few lines of your post), main tag and other tags are added, body of posts and links of your blog are added with images ( you can now add Youtube Videos to your Gliphs), your first Gliph is ready. Being OCD with publishing my posts, I opt for the preview option to see how it looks and then publish. You can choose to share on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Google. Easy Peasy. Once you do it the first time, I assure you, you'd get the hang and can do it with your eyes closed. You can also import older blog posts from your Blogging platform;  it works well on Wordpress and Blogger as far as I know; I am sure they are working on other platforms. There is a detailed description on your Glipho which could help guide you through the process so you have smooth journey. Of course, this does not affect your normal Blog or interfere with anything; it's just an easy way to promote your posts without any stress and share with a new budding community.

What happens to my Gliphs after publishing?

You have the option of re-sharing as much as you like or editing the Gliph if you find some blunders. The good thing with the Glipho team is how they help with building an audience. Remember how you had to follow at least one Glipher when you sign up, well, that's one of the ways you also get new followers which is really good. I am not sure how they do it but I don't think I have seen any Glipher without a follower. Glipho would promote you and your posts. I love how they rotate bloggers who are either trending writers or posts that are trending posts. It does not matter if you have only one gliph or one follower; your chances of being featured in the trending page is high. They are a growing social platform but they have already built an impressive amount of followers for themselves. Your Gliphs are retweeted almost the same time as you tweet it. Trust me, it's really fast and I am wondering if the system just automatically retweets it. What this means is at least a 1000 people can read your Gliph if they like it. The Glipho team also shares posts on their Facebook page and the other social media platforms like Google plus and Linkedin which means a wider array of audience for your Gliphs to reach and optimal interaction in different spheres. 

                                  

The Glipho Team

I think the Glipho team is a really close knit one. Although, I have never met anyone of them, I just feel they are really funny and nice people from their Instagram posts and tweets. They are really courteous to their Gliphers and are always ready to help. I have seen a few people ask some questions and they always promptly reply with helpful answers which I think is really commendable. Asides that, they try to make an effort with interacting with the Gliphers. They always have something exciting for the Gliphers to do or participate on Thursdays which is featured and published on their Blog on Fridays such as "favourite place to blog", "what no one knows about you", "take a crazy picture of yourself" and other exciting things. I think it is really lovely and keeps the community close. They also recently hosted a meet up which I sadly missed due to work commitments but I am sure it was a blast.

The Glipho Community

I think it is also a nice community because everyone seems nice and interactive; definitely not a place for trolls..hahaha. They are decent people on there who all share a common interest in one area or the other and are ready to encourage one another. I have not seen any negative comment yet (they may be) but I am yet to see one. Any criticism is given in a matured way and the writers take it on board really well which I think is brilliant.

                       

Is Glipho just for Bloggers?

Certainly Not. In fact, it is really good for writers who just want to have a diary-like blog or just want to write anything you fancy without the hassle of having a blog and designing it and all whatsits. Glipho already has a nice design which is universal to all users. No need to stress about that. Also, you don't need to start looking for ways to get people to view your posts or articles as there is already a budding community waiting to read about you and your posts. All you need to do is get a profile and you are ready to start Gliphing. If you are a blogger, this is a nice way of interacting with other bloggers and writers while also publishing your posts and learning new things everyday.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Techniques/Benefits
I think this is one of the most useful benefits with joining Glipho. Before joining Glipho, some of my popular blog posts ranked like first 10 or sometimes 15 in Google search. On joining Glipho, I have found that many of my blog posts which rank high on Google are from Glipho. I am not sure what and how they do it but it is really helpful for pulling traffic to your site. Also, Google Analytics and Blogger stats show a good number of my viewers are referred from Glipho and it is one of the top 5 high traffic source for my blog posts. Isn't it brilliant to have an additional social media platform that helps you build an audience, get traffic and meet other wonderful Gliphers without much ado..



Apps for Iphone and Android
The best part of it all is Glipho has gone mobile. It is available on the Glipho app for Android and Iphone (most recent) which is very useful for me because 70% of my blog posts are written on my Iphone usually when I am commuting to work either on the tube/bus/train. Having Glipho as an App on my Iphone was one of the best news I received a few weeks back. I actually squealed when I saw an announcement on their Instagram page and quickly went to download it. At the moment, you can't use the desktop features so you can't publish a post via the mobile app but you can do other things like see your profile, check out recent gliphs, interests and writers. I am pretty sure they are planning to improve it. They also have a similar App for their Android users.

Need for Improvement
Definitely, any viable business strives to always be better. I am sure there are working to build their followers and members of the Glipho community. It would be nice to allow some customization on the  Glipho profiles and  newer ways to share posts with other social media platforms. However,  I think for a new social publishing engine, they have done an amazing job and I know they can only get better.

So, what are you waiting for? Get your Gliph on...You can sign up to Glipho here...it is absolutely free and you can check out FashstyleLiv Glipho profile page here... Some of my favourite Gliphers; Mark Prime (Prose and Poems), Teddy (Fun Stuff) , Maria Nichol (Celebrity News), and of course, the Glipho Team check them out and say hi too :-)) If you are already on Glipho, leave me a comment and I would check you out on Glipho and if you are just joining, holla as well and I would check you as well....I hope you enjoyed this post...see you in my next post...toodles...xxx