Best Social Media Platforms for New Bloggers

Social Media is an essential component of any blog, not just new ones. I’m sure you are already familiar with the most social of all mediums, Facebook has over 1.7 billion active users as of this year!

That’s a lot of eyeballs. Instagram has over 500 million users and growing.

Social media interaction is practically unavoidable. What does this mean to the new blogger? Let’s examine some great platforms for your blog.

How social should your blog be?

Along with setting up your fantastic blog, and of course writing your blog posts, you should take time to consider how and what social media platforms are a good fit for you.

The sheer number of available platforms is overwhelming to put it mildly.  If your blog is strictly a hobby, it might be unnecessary to use social media.

If your plan is to brand and monetize your blog at some future date, it is a good idea to start while the blog is still in its infancy and avoid playing catch-up in the future.

You will hear conflicting opinions on which ones you should use from every “blog expert” out there. The truth is that one size does not fit all.

What is important is to find the one that works best for you. I’ve been guilty of trying to have a presence on all forms and not accomplishing much. We will examine the big ones that you might want to consider.

Popular Social Media Platforms and Tips

Facebook:

This is the biggest one as l said previously. Your first order of business is to make a FB page for your blog. It has actually become much more simplified.

If you already have a personal profile, just go to the triangle tab at the top of your page and pick the option to “create a page” and follow the guide.

You can use this page to post your blog post links and try to grow your audience for the blog. You also have the option of creating a group.

This is something that requires a lot of time, dedication and monitoring so unless you have the time, l would not recommend that off the bat.

For engagement, there is Facebook Live video, much like Snapchat and Periscope.

Tips:

• Connect like a friend, not like a business
• Don’t sell all the time, mix it up a bit
• Share relevant articles in your niche
• Pay to boost your most important posts
• Don’t forget to check your page insights
• Fill out your page information and don’t forget to link to your site

Twitter (now X)

Depending on who your audience is, X can be a good platform to be on. Just go to the twitter aka X website and sign up with your email address.

You’ll be good to go as soon as you confirm your email. Twitter does limit your tweets to 140 characters, which l think actually forces you to come up with clever titles for your tweets. I think this is a great platform for bloggers and marketers especially.

Tips:

• Add Hashtags, for instance #computer or whatever topic.
• Tweet often. I try for at least 3 times daily
• Try and tweet at popular times when more people are online (lunchtime etc)
• Make sure to check your twitter analytics for insight
• Keep it professional

Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual search engine. Think of it as Google with pictures instead of words. Pinterest allows you to share your content, anything from blog posts to video.

All these get “pinned” to boards for others to discover and share. Right off the bat, you should join as a business. This gives you access to your analytics, which will break down the activities of your boards and the blog traffic.

If you already have a personal profile, you can convert it easily under your account settings. I think this platform works incredibly well for food and fashion bloggers especially.

Tips:

• Vertical images do best with getting repins. The minimum dimensions should be 735×1102. I have my template set to 750×1150
• Have your blog name at the bottom of your pins
• Use Keywords for your pins in the “alt text” description. The pin name for this blog post will “social media new bloggers savvyproblogger pinterest”
• Use a description on the pin too so people will know what your post is about.
• Make a pin for each of your blog post, and ask people to share. Like I’m going to ask you to do for this post.
• Make sure your images are good quality. No one is going to pin a blurry picture on their nice, visually appealing board
• Have a board just for your blog posts. Repin from there onto other boards
• Join some group boards in your niche that are active. You can use PinGroupie to search for relevant ones. Check out the boards and if they are accepting pinners, the board description will let you know how to join.
• Leave at full size or large on your posts as Pinterest usually grabs it in a smaller size.

Instagram

I think this is a great platform to get exposure for fashion, and visually oriented blogs like food. It is also a good platform to connect with brands.

As for blog traffic for other kinds of blogs, I do think it’s negligible. We use IG for our travel blog and get some traffic, but for this blog, I am going to skip it unless l can figure out how to drive the traffic here.

Now that it’s owned by Facebook, it’ll be interesting to see how it all works out.

Tips:

• Use hashtags. You can use up to 30 per image, make them count
• Have quality images
• Try and post at optimal times. Mine happens to be about 5PM
• You can do video with the Instastories, similar to Facebook Live
• Add the location of where the photo was taken and use the hashtag

Conclusion

All these platforms are easy to connect to your blog via the Jetpack  or Shareaholic plugins. All you need is to add your handles, and of course encourage people to share your posts.

You should definitely try and keep the same username across all social media. You can find me Savvyproblogger on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google plus. It helps with your branding.

I also us the website IFFFT. You can make a “recipe” to schedule your posts. For instance l have a recipe that automatically posts my Instagram pictures to my Twitter feed. Try it.

The rule of thumb for social media is anywhere from 20/80 to 30/70. That means you

Share 20-30% of your own posts or pins and

Share 70-80% of other peoples posts and pins

Remember, it is “social media”. You need to be social, and interact. There are tons more platforms, finding one that works best for you is the goal.

I would focus on maybe three at the most to get you started. Make time to schedule your post on social media, new and old posts for maximum exposure.

Are there any social media platforms that stand out to you as a must have? Please share so others can benefit from your knowledge.Save