10 Social Media tips for bloggers – how to grow your Social Media followers

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In this post, I’d like to tell you my top 10 Social Media tips for bloggers, so you’ll find out how to grow your Social Media followers. This post is suitable for any bloggers, but I will mainly focus on Travel Bloggers since I’m one of them. So let’s get started.

First, I would like to tell you a bit about myself (so you don’t feel like “who’s this person and why is she giving me advice?”). Well, my name’s Liza, I’m 24 y.o. travel addict. I founded this blog together with my boyfriend Pepe in January 2016 and since that time I managed to get more than 41K followers on all my Social Media channels (as of April 2017).

My main channel is Instagram with more than 28.5K followers (want more tips about Instagram? Check this post!), followed by Twitter (10K) and Pinterest (1.5K). I also have Facebook Page and YouTube channel, but I haven’t invested enough time in them to tell you about the impressive results I got (there are no significant results yet).

I used to work as a Digital Marketing Manager and then as a Social Media Manager (so well, I really know some tricks, believe me). However, corporate Social Media is very different from your own or your blog’s Social Media, so in this post, I’ll focus more on personal accounts.

10 Social Media tips for bloggers - how to grow your Social Media followers

Why Social Media is important?

For a blogger, it’s crucial to be present on the main Social Media. Even for your Media Kit, you will need some essential Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. Pinterest is optional, but if you’re a fashion blogger or a foodie blogger, you need to include it in your media kit too. Besides Pinterest is the fastest and the most painless way to bring traffic to your blog.

What’s a Media Kit? Well, it’s a file, mostly pdf, or an infographic, presenting your blogging success to the advertisers, so they choose to work with you. We also have a basic media kit and you can find it on the work with us page.

The bigger Social Media following you have, the more chances, that you will be chosen by an advertiser (of course if you want to earn money blogging at all and if you have a good engagement, too. Buying followers isn’t an option, believe me)- and with a big social media following you can easily get offers in the various Influencer networks. Wanna know more about them? Read this post. 

So what are my 10 Social Media tips for bloggers:

1. Choose the most appropriate Social Media channels that work for YOU.

There are so many social media networks out there and it’s just impossible to be present and active everywhere. I’ve tried that and I failed. You will either get tired or burned out, but there are only a few people who generally enjoy posting to 10+ social media 24/7. Because you also need to work/study/write for your blog/do house chores/travel/meet friends. And that all is not possible if you’re trying to be active on all the social media. Instead, just try to focus on 2-3 main social media for you.

Example. You’re a DIY blogger and you want to choose, which Social Media networks to use. In case you already use Google Analytics for your blog, just check your demographic details. Who are you readers (male/female), how old are they? In the case of DIY, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube are probably the best.

In you are a budget travel blogger, check your Google Analytics for more details. I would recommend you to use Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. Even though Instagram doesn’t drive so much traffic to the blog (that does Pinterest), it is essential for travel blogging. You can also score some great collaborations with hotels and tourism boards just because of your amazing Instagram! As for Twitter, well, in some countries like Germany, Twitter is DEAD. In case, you’re living in the States or in the UK, maybe Australia and Canada too and you have some active friends on Twitter, this will work for you too. However, I know many people, who just don’t enjoy posting stuff on Twitter. Pinterest, on the contrary, works pretty much for everybody!

 

2. Share your own thoughts and ideas, don’t copy-paste

In case you want to use Social Media just as an extension to your blog, it won’t work well enough. People who follow you on Social Media want to read your thoughts, see your stories and not just be updated with links to your blog posts. Facebook is one of the most difficult channels because you really need to work hard on it to make it work for you. If you just keep posting your blog links, no one will be engaged with it. You should treat all the social media channels as separate channels (that refers to the first point, choosing the most appropriate media). In other words, if you want to do something, do it properly! If you have a Twitter and you want to make it work for you, well, go on, schedule your posts, write your own thoughts and upload your photos. Go on trips, go to restaurants, post a lot, use the most popular hashtags. And it will work for you!

 

3. Post consistently

Don’t forget to post to your Social Media for weeks or months, or I would say, even days. You need to upload photos to Instagram at least once a day, though many popular bloggers and photographers usually upload photos twice a day. They claim that this way the audience grows faster. Don’t post too often though: you need to feel the difference between too much content and just the perfect amount of posting. That’s hard to understand in the beginning, but that also comes with the experience. On Youtube, try to post at least once a week and preferably on the same day, so your followers get used to the fact, that every Monday, for example, there will be a new video from you!

 

4. Follow the others and engage with some other accounts

It’s highly unlikely that someone will spot you with your 3 followers and suddenly 1000 followers will arrive at your channel. You can’t imagine how many bloggers there are right now, but that’s not a reason to give up. If you believe in yourself and think that your content is great and deserved to be seen and appreciated by the other, go ahead, make them notice you. It will be a boring and long way to go, but in the end, you will get real results. On Instagram, follow people and in case they don’t follow you back, unfollow them too. Most people hate that strategy, but it works and I honestly don’t see anything bad here. You are just making others noticing you. You don’t force them to follow you at all, but if they do, that means they are interested in your account. Don’t forget to comment something meaningful, too. And always reply to the comments people leave on your Instagram. Ask questions, interact, be active. And you’ll make it.

Pretty much the same works for Twitter and Pinterest.

Youtube is a different thing, but you can do much with commenting, too. Also, you will need to invest some time in SEO for Youtube, because Youtube is a search engine, just like Google.

 

10 Social Media tips for bloggers - how to grow your Social Media followers

 

5. Participate in so-called pods or possees.

Even though it’s time-consuming, it’s worth it. Participating in Facebook or Instagram pods can boost your reach a lot. Both Instagram and Facebook use the same algorithm, which spots higher activity on your post and shows it to more people. Less activity – fewer impressions. Very easy.

 

6. Tag accounts that repost photos on your media on Twitter and Instagram

It takes the time to research appropriate accounts that are likely to repost your content, but it’s definitely worth it. One day @topportugalphoto reposted my picture of Lisbon, and I got 40 new followers is a day. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but imagine getting reposts like this every 3 days. Already better, right? Same goes with Twitter.

 

7. Participate in daily repost, repin and comment threads

This is a really time-consuming activity, which could seem useless for you, but you need to participate there for a while to get some results. The threads are especially useful for Pinterest: you’re repinning others’ content, they repin yours and Pinterest increases the chances of your pins to be visible to more people. Also, more people follow you on Pinterest, which is always good for your Media Kit (and traffic).

 

8. Sign up for the software that automates your daily routine

Some people are geniuses! They created something that could save you from hours of tedious work. For example, Tailwind or Board Booster let you Pin your Pins to the group boards. You can simply schedule your pins to be pinned every hour – instead of going to Pinterest every single hour and doing it yourself. Unfortunately, nothing is free these days – so if you really treat your blog as a business, then it’s worth investing in this kind of software.

There’s also famous Mass Planner, that helped so many Instagrammers to get that many followers. There’s Instragress. However, both programs became a bit dangerous after the recent change of Instagram API policy in terms of following and unfollowing. So I wouldn’t recommend you using them anymore. Try Archie instead. The results might be not as impressive, but at least it’s not illegal! Besides, there’s free trial!

9. Make sure that your feed looks nice and professional

This is probably one of the most important things on Social Media. Your profiles must look really nice and professional, so people are likely to follow you. Sometimes it even means putting your personality aside and uploading what you HAVE to upload, instead of what you want to upload. Yes, Instagramers are sacrificing many things these days, everything to make their feeds simple and beautiful. Some even create other accounts to upload their “real pictures”. However, you don’t need to be like that. Editing your pictures and making them look nice together is everything you need to do when you’re a beginner.

10. Use appropriate hashtags.

Finally, there are hashtags. Hashtags are really important for Twitter and Instagram – that’s how your photos and posts get noticed by someone, who is not your follower. There’s a variety of websites telling you which hashtags are popular right now in a certain niche. However, don’t use too popular hashtags like travel or wanderlust, focus on some less used hashtags like, for example, #fodorsonthego – you’ll also get a chance to be featured by Fodor’s Magazine. Not bad, huh?

So, this was it for today with Social Media tips for bloggers. I hope these Social Media tips for bloggers were useful for you and I will definitely create more detailed and specific guides for Twitter, Pinterest and, of course, my favourite Instagram.

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10 Social Media tips for bloggers - how to grow your Social Media followers

4 thoughts on “10 Social Media tips for bloggers – how to grow your Social Media followers”

  1. Great tips! That’s an impressive social media following!
    I have made it my goal this year to double my social media following from 12,700 but 5 months in and I’ve only managed 1000!!
    Will give these tips a go.
    Thank you

    Reply

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