Social Media and Blogging

Welcome to my very first #Bloglife post where I aim to a helping hand to any newbie bloggers out there. This post is all about which social media platforms I use to promote my blog posts. You can read what this series will be be about here.

I would say it is very hard if not almost impossible to get by in blogging without using social media. It is a great platform to get your blog "out there". It's how yo engage with people/companies and how they ultimately, find you! There isn't a single blogger I have found who doesn't use at least two forms of social media. In future posts I will explain how I use social media more thoroughly, this post is just to give you an idea of what I'm doing so far.

So, which ones do I use?

Twitter:
When I first created a Twitter account I had no idea how to use it. It seems too much to take in. As everyone does, I started with zero followers back in July 2016 when I first started blogging. I now have 2800 followers. My analytics tell me most of my traffic comes from facebook but that is mainly friends reading my posts. I firmly believe that without Twitter I wouldn't have my blog viewed as much. I have spoken to many great people on Twitter and made some good connections with people. We read each others posts and share each others content. You can find my twitter page here

Facebook:

According to my blogger analytics most of my traffic comes from facebook, I share on my personal page and on my blog page. Creating a page is very simple, gaining followers is the hard part. I will aim to do an experiment on gaining facebook likes in the coming weeks. I will blog about my experience doing this and we can see whether it worked or not. I do advise everyone to share their posts on their own facebook page. Don't be shy, ask people to share your posts. You don't ask, you don't get. A facebook page should be a mixture of post promotion, photos/videos and general chit chat to keep your followers engaged. You can visit my facebook page here

Instagram:

Instagram is purely for sharing photos, I enjoy using Instagram but I know I could use it more. As I work full time I find it hard to take enough photos. It is something that I want to do more. I have improved my Instagramming over the last 6 months as I have gone from 2 likes per photo to averaging 30 likes. It's not a massive number but is a good increase for now. I will do a more detailed post on Instagram alongside my other in-depth social media posts. You can find my Instagram page here.

Pinterest:

I am aware that Pinterest can bring a high volume of views to your blog. I barely get any views from Pinterest currently and am in the process of researching how to make Pinterest work for me. I recently read a post from Nicola at Mummy to Dex on how to grow your blog using Pinterest. You can read her post here, it has been a great help already to me. Thanks, Nicola. 

If you wish to follow me on Pinterest then you can click the link here

Other:

You can also use Google + to share your posts. I don't find I get much traffic at all from this but it is just another place to get your writing out there. Stumbleupon is another social media format that can bring in big views. It is very frustrating. I have read a post on it somewhere (i cant remember who it was) which tells you how best to use StumbleUpon, I still follow these instructions but don't seem to get much traffic. I do know some bloggers though that get quite a lot so it is worth a try. The only problem with StumbleUpon is that it can affect your bounce rate quite a lot. 

Thanks for reading, as mentioned I will create more detailed posts on how I use social media in the coming weeks. If anyone knows of a post on how to make StumbleUpon work properly please feel free to leave the link in the comments section for others to see.

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