Recipe for Social Media Success

How do you know what social media channels to focus on when you’re first starting out with your blog and trying to build an audience? For someone who is a beginner, branching out from the blog posts can feel overwhelming and quite honestly frightening. But it doesn’t have to be. Let’s look at how you can create your own recipe for social media success.

Where’s your blog?

First, build the blog. Yes, it matters to have this as sort of a landing page for when you post the social media material and want your audience to come back for more. That’s the goal, right? Getting the traffic, the comments, the interaction, the people!

Build the blog with content that is real and that is interesting. Worried you don’t have material to do that? I’m going to venture a guess that you absolutely have plenty of material to share. It just takes some thinking it through and getting ideas on paper!

Facebook

Facebook is where many people begin their social shares. The reason for this is that it’s a saturated platform where most adults spend their time (if they do the social media thing). Teenagers aren’t really there, so if your audience is teens, keep reading. But moms, dads, grandparents, working folks, and more are on Facebook.

Video has recently taken over as king, but it doesn’t always have to be a video. Consider what you like to do when you visit Facebook. Are you reading every last post? Or are you skimming and scrolling? Most likely, the latter is what you’re doing. So, what can you make from one of your most recent blog posts that would catch the attention of those you’d like to catch?

Maybe in your blog post, you have a funny one-liner or a golden nugget of truth. Turn that in to a graphic (Canva is a great spot to do this!) and see what happens!

Instagram

Younger folks and those annoyed with the ups and downs of political and silly posts on Facebook often find themselves on Instagram.

Instagram is known for its visual content and the lack of links within a post. To get to someone’s link, you need to head to their bio and click there. This is another reason why having a landing page (like a blog) is a good idea. This way, your audience or intended audience can find you in other locations.

On Instagram, you can absolutely use memes, quotes, videos and other images that draw attention. The key on the IG, though, is to use hashtags.

Hashtags help to categorize your post. If someone is searching for cats, for instance, they may try to find posts using the simple hashtag of #cats or the popular #catsofinstagram. If you have your post tagged in this way, you’re more likely to be seen.

Twitter

Once upon a time, I listened to a social media expert refer to Twitter as comparable to happy hour. No one sits on Twitter for a very long time, and the space moves especially quickly. Twitter limits your space for words in your tweet, but they have recently loosened the reigns.

If you post a link (which can take audiences directly wherever you’d like and is allowed in a single tweet), it doesn’t count against your word count. Similarly, hashtags don’t count against you, either.

The difference between Twitter and Instagram is that Instagram relies heavily on the hashtag. For Twitter, be careful to limit your hashtags to the most relevant.

Pinterest

Do you already have a Pinterest account? If so, consider making an additional board that will be a spot for your blog posts. If nothing else, this helps get audience eyes on your posts! Or, if you have a variety of content categories, you might want to separate your posts to those relevant board categories.

For instance, I have a Pinterest board for crafty items. Every now and again, I post about crafty items on my personal mommy blog. So, when I post those, I will share that link on Pinterest. If nothing else, I’m at least getting my post some exposure and hopefully driving traffic back to my site.

What’s your recipe?

Regardless of the social media channels you choose to use, make it simple for yourself. Just as in anything, don’t try too much all at one time.

If you’re used to Facebook but haven’t yet tried it for your blog posts, start there. Similarly, if you’re already a regular flyer on Instagram, try posting there to practice.

There’s really no wrong answer except, maybe, to not try anything. If you’re looking for traffic and building an audience, you’re going to want to do more than simply write on the blog.

What will you try first?