Social Media Tips + Tricks I Learned from Minnesota Bloggers

Saturday I had the absolute pleasure of meeting with some of the lovely ladies in the Minnesota Bloggers Facebook group. This was the first time I had ever met with this group of ladies and I’m so glad I did! Not only were they fun to hang out with, but I learned a whole lot of social media tips and tricks from the session that was held before we hit the town of Stillwater.

I was so excited to learn this new information so I thought I’d better share it all before I forgot!

Blogging 101: Social Media Tips and Tricks

I will admit, I tend to feel like I generally know a lot about blogging and social media seems to be one of those things that is just fairly intuitive. Or at least something that I should be well versed on having been in the “business” for 3+ years. I went into Saturday hoping to meet some new friends but not realizing that the social media session might benefit me. Seriously, sometimes I can be an annoying know-it-all. The truth is, there is always room for us to grow and learn, right?

Small disclaimer: this may be more like Blogging 102….as in you should know the basics of these 3 sites before you can do anything with these tips, but you can always bookmark this for later!

Social Media Tips About Facebook:

Facebook has been so annoying to me lately because I just can’t figure it out. It’s hard to tell why some people see a certain post more than another post and I know I’m not the only one that has put this particular social media site on the back burner. I found out a few things that I know I can put into practice to change the amount of followers that actually see posts and to better engage with my audience.

–Facebook tends to be a place for conversation more so than any other social media account, so ask questions, share funny stories or post things that people will want to comment on.

–Share pictures of things that are in-process such as a bowl of cookie dough you are stirring. For some reason people don’t like to see the glamorous images that you would see on Pinterest or Instagram on Facebook  but a more relateable photo. (Which works for me since my pictures aren’t so glamorous. 😉 )

–Facebook likes itself (as do many social media sites), so anything you auto-share or schedule to post from a different source (such as Bufferapp), it won’t let as many viewers see it. Not fair, right? Who has time to sit on Facebook and post all day? Well, Facebook does have a scheduler which I used to use before I discovered Bufferapp. You type out your post but instead of hitting post, you hit the button that looks like a clock which allows you to pick a time for it to post. This way instead of posting 10 things at once, you can spread it out a bit.

 

–If you are a fan of a page, you may want to do something to ensure you get all of the page’s updates. For example, (I can teach this AND get more engagement on FB from you..right??) head to Diary of a Semi-Health Nut‘s Facebook page, and because you have already liked it (right? right??), you can click the arrow next to it and click “get notifications.” A little check box will show up next to it so that you can get notifications in your regular Facebook feed.

 

Social Media Tips About Pinterest:

This one excited me the most since working on my photos and Pinterest has been a huge goal of mine this year. PLUS we had a speaker Chrissy from The Taylor House who has about 20k followers on Pinterest alone. Basically, she knows what she is talking about when it comes to getting Pinterest followers. Granted, blogs who have a larger following will get more followers on social media and amazing images will get more pins, likes and follows, but there are a few more things we as bloggers can do to increase the number of eyeballs that see our pins.

–The length of your pin. Pinterest controls the width of each pin, but we can control to a large degree the length of the pin. The longer it is, the more it will be likely to grab a viewer’s attention.

–Join as many group boards as possible. I only recently became aware that there was such a thing as group boards. I am still slightly mystified as to how to join them when there are no instructions, but many of them have an e-mail address to which you can send your request. When I asked what to do about the ones without an e-mail address, Chrissy told me to just comment on one of the pins. You can also find a whole list of sorted Pinterest boards at pingroupie.com.

–You can schedule your pins. I know, right?? I thought Pinterest was one of the social media sites that didn’t allow scheduling of pins, but apparently if you sign up with the right services, you can! She recommended applying at ahology.com where once accepted, you can schedule out 25 pins per day.

 

Social Media Tips About Google +:

I am already signed up for the Healthy Living Summit’s session Google + Marketing 101, but I’m excited I got a bit of a head start. Google + is one of those social media sites that has always baffled me. Why do Google + when I have Facebook? It seemed like pretty much the same thing. Well…not quite.

–Google loves itself. (Social media is pretty selfish like that, huh?) Google is the number one search engine and I didn’t even look up that stat…I’m just assuming based on the fact that I’ve never heard someone say “Bing It” or “Yahoo it.” Nope. You “Google” things to find the information you need (or the cute kitten pictures you can lol at). Since it loves itself, any time you put a link or comment in Google +, it’s more likely to show up in the google search engine.

Mind = blown. You think I’m kidding, but the light-bulb went off and I finally realized the value of Google +. 

–The more you Google+, the more likely each individual post you share on Google+ will show up in Google’s search engine. This basically goes along with the first bullet, but I wanted to emphasize it all the same. Connect with me on Google+ and we can learn more together!

 

Many more tips were shared, like how Twitter is apparently run by men (um..what?), not to share pictures of feet on Instagram (again…what?) but these are all tips that I got excited enough to want to run straight home and play with social media for 10 hours straight. (No, I didn’t do that…I played in Stillwater for a good long time on Saturday.)

 

I found this infographic awhile back and decided to finally put it to use in my social media scheduling. ‘Cuz if you’re gonna schedule your social media, you might as well do it during the peak hours!

 

Thanks to the lovely “Nellie and Bellie” for hosting the get-together and getting my social media juices flowing! 

 [Tweet “Social media tips and tricks shared at the #mnblogmeet! “]

I got so excited but simultaneously overwhelmed by all of the information and things to do that I actually went into my Google calendar today and scheduled times to go on particular social media sites during the week.

I scheduled only a couple of times with 4 social media sites: Pinterest, Google+, Facebook and Twitter. I am also focusing on Instagram, but that tends to be my go-to social media account so I don’t feel the need to schedule time for it…I will likely be on it on a daily basis anyhow. I’m interested to see how my numbers grow since I do track them once a month with this new information! 

Man do I enjoy my scheduling and planning. The actual doing part is where I get stuck sometimes. Am I the only one?

 

 

Tell me….

Do you have any fun tips to share with me?

What is your favorite social media outlet for either personal or blog/business? Instagram is my favorite right now since it seems more intimate AND I can post on-the-go!

 

PS I’m all about Pinterest this year, so I would LOVE IT if you could pin one (or two!) of these images. Use the handy dandy buttons at the bottom and top of each post to display the whole list of pins. If there is a link below the image, make sure to use that link to pin.

Also follow me so I can check out YOUR Pinterest account! 🙂
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