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Blogging

What I’ve learnt about social media for blogging this year

Social media could be one of those things that you just gloss over. However for any business especially for bloggers it is so important. This year I’ve learnt a lot about social media whilst doing the Digital Mums course, and I’ve put a lot into practice. Social Media comes in all forms from text posts, to images, to videos and stories. It can become all consuming and leave you hooked to your phone your day. However it really is vital, albeit it time consuming, the more you put into it, the more it pays off for you and your blog. To follow on from my post about what I’ve learnt about blogging this year, here are my 10 top tips of what I’ve learnt this year about how social media across the different channels can help improve and benefit your blog.

TikTok

One of the latest trends is getting yourself signed up to TikTok and watching videos on the platform. It certainly has a growing appeal among the younger audience and a platform that more and more brands are wanting to get involved with. To help grow your own TikTok you can simply start by trying it out by signing up and seeing what it’s all about. In addition to this TokMatik TikTok likes is a powerful tool to help you grow your platform even further, and engaging with others will all help to boost your presence on this powerful platform.

Instagram Stories

I used to hate doing these, I felt really uncomfortable and nervous, and hated watching it back. However the more you do, the more confident and comfortable you get used to it. Doing Instagram Stories is a great way to grow your Instagram followers, people love watching them, and it may encourage brands to work with you to help promote their products.

Be specific

When posting to Instagram use hashtags that are tailored and relevant for your post and your audience who you want to find you account. You could use a tool like Nitreo to help you do this. Nitreo will help you to tailor your content and help you make improvements over time, which should in turn help you to increase your Instagram following.

Pinterest

I am right at the beginning of my Pinterest journey, yet I know that when used correctly it’s a great way to generate traffic to your blog. Download the Tailwind App and start adding content. That’s content that is not just yours. When other people see that you are repinning their content, they will hopefully do the same for you. This means that your pins are then seen by a much wider audience compared to your own. It’s always a good idea to repin influencers and those who have a larger following than you. Since I’ve been doing this I’ve seen a slow increase in traffic to my blog from Pinterest.

Remember the 20/80 rule

This is a tip I learnt from Aby at You Baby Me Mummy that you should spend 20% of your time writing content and 80% of your time promoting it. This is promoting it across all your channels, so Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. It is really important to work on the promotion of your content, as without it no one will find it, therefore no or little traffic. Try and schedule at least a few tweets a day to promote new blog posts, and continue to do that afterwards. I don’t always promote my blog posts on Instagram however I’ve just sharing on Instagram stories that a new blog post is now live. I’m not sure if it’s working yet, but it must be doing something.

Lady writing in a notebook

Schedule

Scheduling is a lifesaver. You just need to find a tool that works for you, set it up for the week and away you go. I’ve found using Hootsuite for my Digital Mums course to be really useful, especially using the bulk upload tool. The tool is currently free for scheduling 30 tweets, however if you want to schedule more than that there is Social Oomph. I’ve found Buffer to be really useful, and got into the habit of scheduling 10 tweets a day to be published at the most popular times for my Twitter feed. The tools are not only using for scheduling Tweets you can also schedule Facebook posts too. It’s best to have a play around with them all, see what works for you, and then if you want to you can choose to pay monthly for more features and often more posts.

Use your Facebook personal page

When I first launched my blog I kept it quiet. However now my blog is effectively my business and source of income I needed to use all means I could to get traffic. Promoting my posts on my personal Facebook page created a huge increase in traffic. People are nosy and want to see what you’re writing about, or what is going on in your life. It may seem a bit over the top or over sharing, however if you want traffic use your personal profile page, as well as your business page.

Twitter lists

These are a valuable source of information to help you condense down what you see in your Twitter feed, and allows you to see relevant content. Do you really want to see a full list of tweets from all your 2000 followers, probably not. Instead set up a Twitter list of who you want to see. These could be influencers or people you idolise. It’s then a great way for you to quickly reply to their tweets, or retweet their content, and hopefully they will do the same for you. Twitter lists don’t have to be public, so you could set up a list of useful PR contacts as they are often tweeting blogging opportunities, and this list is a quick reference guide for you.

Phone screen showing social media apps

Use hashtags to find opportunities

So many blogging opportunities are shared on Twitter. Simply spend a couple of minutes each day searching the hashtags #BloggersWanted #BloggersRequired #PRRequest #JournoRequest. You will probably find opportunities for reviews and guest posts, or brands wanting Sponsored Posts. I’ve picked up a few opportunities in the last couple of months via Twitter, so this exercise is always worth doing.

It’s not just about your followers

You could have thousands of followers and be a micro-influencer, but it’s not just about the number of followers. Yes we all dream of reaching that milestone, but actually it’s about engagement. When you post on Facebook and Instagram how many people engage with it, more and more brands are now looking for engagement rate. So remember the more you engage with other bloggers, then they should hopefully return the favour and engage with your posts.

Use social to shout about you

Be brave, just go for it. Social media is a brilliant way to shout about yourself and show off what you can do. Once you’ve created an About Us or Work With Us page, share it across your channels, and use the hashtags listed above so that brands and PRs can find you. Also use Twitter to promote a link to your Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest accounts, so that you’re not solely relying on people getting to your blog to find these channels. Your blog and social channels are all one big ecosystem, so see these all working together, rather than in separate silos.

Lady raising baby to sunlight

Algorithms

Lastly remember the algorithm which applies to Facebook and Instagram. The greater likes and comments a post has, the higher up it appears in the feed. So if you want likes and comments, remember to comment and like other peoples posts and hopefully they return the favour. Video is treated by Facebook with a greater preference, so if you’ve got video content use it, it’ll be seen by more people than a bog standard text and image post. For Instagram join comment pods, as these will also help to generate likes and comments on your posts, therefore boosting your post up the algorithm.

Those are my social media top tips that I’ve learnt this year that I’ve been and you can apply to your blog.

I hope you found this useful? What other top tips have you learnt this year about social media that you can apply to your blog. You can also read more social media tips from me that I learnt at #BML17 earlier this year.

Claire x

Top social media tips for bloggers

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