Social Media Basics for Bloggers

Social Media Basics for Bloggers

• Thursday, January 08, 2015

Time for those social media basics, my blogger friends. When I shared with y'all that I work as a social media coordinator, one commenter suggested I create a social media guide. Sooo...that's what I did. These are the basics. Like the bare bones of social media. I could get into a million different things, but let's start simple. These are things I learned the hard way, after much work. Don't be me. Learn now.

Related reading: How I Earned $15,000 from Blogging in 2017

Title your photos - Keeping your photograph title as IMAGE_2342 is easier than naming it, but did you know photos have SEO value? Make sure you title your photos. For example, my photo title could be "SocialMediaBasicsforBloggers" or "SocialMediaTips" instead of  "IMAGE_5953." When people are searching online, they are more likely to find your post & it will rank higher. Always title your pictures.

Use hashtags - Seems like a cop out, right? All those annoying hashtags. Nope! It's absolutely essential. Use hashtags on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. You never know when or who is looking for certain hashtags. I use hashtags on my Twitter all the time. Last week, two brands reached out to me about products. Now I'm munching on some vegan jerky & some sort of sport drink. Now who's laughing? Hashtags will help you. 

Post regularly - This is what I did wrong for two years. I posted sporadically -- maybe once a week. My bad. You want your posts to rank higher in searches. Your post on how to style beanies from 2 weeks ago is irrelevant when someone posted about that yesterday. Keep up with fresh content. I recommend 2-3 times per week to start off. 

Post about relevant topics -  Be it the controversy about the Coachella 2015 lineup or the score of the latest football game, be relevant. This doesn't have to be for 100% of your posts, but chances are someone out there is looking for what you have to say. A couple months ago, I posted about my experience at Comedy Central's @midnight taping & someone found it, emailed me, & asked me questions about it because they were planning to go. 

Set up profiles on all platforms - So you want to be a travel blogger but you don't have an Instagram or Twitter? Why not? You need them all. Note of warning: not all social media platforms are created equal. LinkedIn may be better for small businesses trying to connect with other businesses, while Instagram is great for artistic folk who want to share their photos.

Don't buy followers - Throughout my time as a social media manager, I've tried various methods for different companies. Buying followers is lame! I do freelance work for a vegan raw superfood bar company & they have 80,000 Facebook fans, but only 2 people like any given post. This looks really bad. Really, really bad. It's better to just have true 198 fans than 5,000 nameless bought likes.

Use a call to action - A call to action is to entice your readers to focus on another course of action. Instead of "Bye. Thanks for reading my recipe," create a direct call to action at the end of your posts. Here's a better one: "Follow me on Twitter for more healthy recipes & fit tips." Obviously, gear the call to action to your readers & what you have to offer them.

Focus on engagement - Take notice of engagement & active users versus followers or page views. Many of those views are spam anyway. The referral link often ends up at some random irrelevant site. That's just to get you to their site. They succeeded. If your posts get 1,000 views but no comments, that's something to think about. Engagement is one the key factors of social media.


This social media basics series could go on forever because there's a million more segments & a million different ways to do things. If you're interested in more social media guides, let me know. Do you have any specific questions? The topic of social media is so vast, if you have a particular need you want addressed, that actually works better. :]

You may also want to read the DOs & DON'Ts of Leaving Blog Comments.

Which of these social media tips  & tricks is news to you? Do you know most of these already? :]

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