Socialise // 8 Weeks to Improve Your Blog

Welcome to 8 weeks to #ImproveYourBlog, week 7. During this 8 week course, we’ll be focusing on one thing per week. Every Tuesday, they’ll be a…

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Welcome to 8 weeks to #ImproveYourBlog, week 7.

During this 8 week course, we’ll be focusing on one thing per week. Every Tuesday, they’ll be a new post for you to read, go away and do some tasks that will hopefully enable you to improve your blog.

If you want to see what’s coming up in future posts, then check out the introduction post where I go through each weeks topic.

If you want to get this post sent to you via e-mail, then sign up to the newsletter either in the sidebar or below the post. Alternatively, you can keep up to date with me on Bloglovin‘, Twitter or Pinterest.

Today we’ll be looking at how to use comments and social media to get involved in the community and grow your traffic and social proof.

The previous weeks:

If you’ve missed the previous weeks, check them out here:

  • Week 1: Check Yourself an audit of your blog and social media accounts to make sure everything is up to date and ready for the new year.
  • Week 2: Learning From Othersanalysing other peoples blogs to see how you can improve your own.
  • Week 3: Figuring Out What You Wantbeing clear about your blog goals and what actions you need to take to achieve them.
  • Week 4: Improve Your Images how to improve your blog images, use props, make graphics and where to grab free stock photos. 
  • Week 5: Improve Your Contenttips and tricks on how to improve your writing.
  • Week 6: Blog Consistentlycreating a schedule that works for you and sticking to it.

seven

Socialise.

While the phrase ‘content is king’ is echoed around the blogging community, but just creating content isn’t enough.

While it’s important to have great content, you also need spend a bit of time building relationships with people that will essentially lead to them coming to your blog to read your posts – and to hopefully stick around.

Here’s how you can do that:

Comments.

For me, comments are one of the best tools you can use to help grow your blog.

I’ve built most of mine from reading peoples blog posts and commenting.

Though not everyone will pay attention to your comment, a lot of people will reply and maybe even come over to your blog and return the favour.

But whether they do this or not probably depends a lot on the comment you leave. If you leave a generic ‘great post’ comment, they’re probably not going to give a shit about your blog link and ignore you.

If you write something valuable that shows you’ve read the blog post, then you’re in there.

I have a whole post on how to leave great blog comments, so rather than just repeat myself, I’ll just leave you the link and let you have a nosey if you please:

7 ways to leave great blog comments

create a blogging community

Social Media. 

Social media is probably the most powerful tool you can use for your blog. Most people use at least one form of social and it’s a great place to reach other bloggers and other people who might be interested in your blog.

The 4 biggest social media sites out there are Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

If you are trying to juggle them all at once, it can get a bit overwhelming. The trick is to find one or two that really work for you, that you enjoy and are getting results from and be great at them.

Twitter.

Twitter can seem confusing at a first glance. If you’ve never used it before, then you’ll probably feel a little lost at first.

When you know how to use Twitter properly, you’ll start getting some great results.

If you sign up, get an account and just start Tweeting and sharing the link to your blog, you probably won’t get far. When you need to do is find other bloggers and people who like your content.

Twitter is my biggest traffic referral, this is because most of the people that follow me are bloggers with similar interests. This isn’t an accident, I’ve made the effort to find people I know will love my blog and talk to them.

If you’re new to Twitter, here’s what I advice you to do:

Find hashtags relevant to your niche, such as #lblogger for lifestyle blogger, #hblogger for health blogger. These are the hash tags you want to use when promoting your posts.

You can also use these hashtags to find other bloggers and follow them. Aim to follow a hundred or so and then your feed will be full of people to interact with. You’ll find some will follow you back, some won’t. Don’t worry about that – what you want to focus on is talking to people in your feed. Reply to their Tweets, Retweet their posts if you like them and just get talking to them. You’ll find most that don’t follow you will do after a conversation with them, you’ll find that they start checking out your blog and even ReTweet some of your posts, too!

The more active you are on Twitter, the quicker you’ll gain followers. You’ll also start to see your referrals from Twitter to your blog increase.

Now you’ve got off to a great start, there are two more things you can do to grow your Twitter followers and your blog followings/traffic.

Twitter chats.

There’s a new Twitter chat sprouting up every day, it seems! These are a great way of networking.

Twitter chats are basically when you use a certain hashtag to follow along a conversation. They’ll be a host that will generally ask questions on a certain topic and then you’ll follow along, answer the questions and reply to other peoples answers. By doing this, you will get to know more bloggers or people of similar interest.

I host my own Twitter chat called #socialbloggers every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

Schedule Tweets.

Another great way of using Twitter is to schedule Tweets. There is no correct answer to how often you should send a Tweet out. I’d recommend you start of with 4 times a day and go from there. I use a website called Buffer to schedule my Tweets, but you can use others, such as Twuffer, Tweetdeck, Hootsuit or more.

Pinterest.

Pinterest can be a great way to both learn more, find inspiration and get traffic to your site! It’s a little slower to get started and you’re not going to see instant result like on Twitter, but it’s worth it long term.

Here’s what you’re going to want to do:

Create at least 10 boards of different interests and edit their descriptions to include keywords to help your boards and pins appear in searches. For example, you might want a board that has blog tips, one that has inspirational quotes, one that has dresses, one that has healthy recipes.

Follow other bloggers, see who they follow and follow them. Like Twitter, this is going to get some content in your feed and this is what you’re going to want to start repining to your own boards.

Pin your own blog posts using long, vertical images with bold text.

Remember that you shouldn’t just Pin your own content – I pin about 90% other peoples content and 10% of my own.

You’ll start to see that they more you Pin, the more followers you’ll get. People still start to repin your pins and maybe even repin your own content – which is when you’ll start to see that increase in traffic.

Instagram.

Instagram is a great app and can really compliment your blog. The best way to start finding accounts and getting followers is by following instagram accounts of the blogs your read and the people you follow on Twitter. You can also use hashtags much like Twitter.

There are many ways to use Instagram along side your blog, you can use it to post an image from your new blog post to promote it, or you can just use it for a daily update so your followers can see what you’re up to – or both.

I personally use my own instagram account to keep myself accountable fitness wise. I often post about my workouts, my food and sometimes what I’ve been up to if I’m being social!

Instagram isn’t great for getting traffic, but is still a great way to compliment your blog.

Facebook.

Almost everyone has a Facebook. Even your aunts dog has a Facebook. So getting yourself a fan page can be great.

Facebook did change their algorithm so your posts are less likely to show up in your fans feed unless you pay for them to be boosted – but it can still be useful if you have an engaged audience.

If one of your fans regularly click, comment and engage with your page, they’re more likely to continue to see your posts.

Though Facebook isn’t something I focus a lot of my time on, I’ve seen some bloggers do great things with it. As well as posting the link to their posts, they ask questions, they share photos, they are active and reply to comments which can go down really will for some bloggers! It’s something you need to test out and see what works for you.

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How do you socialise with the community?

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37 comments

  1. These are great tips! Thank you for sharing! I use Twitter the most and it pulls in the most traffic! I really struggle with Pinterest though I just don’t get it! I would love to see a full post on how you use Pinterest etc.

  2. I comment on other blogs but social media is something I really need to use more! I’d love to take part in more Twitter chats, just need to get on and do it!
    Amy xx

  3. I’ve got out of the habit of including hashtags on Twitter posts so should probably start doing that again.

  4. You did it again great information that help increase traffic and followers. I like when someone who leaves a comment is about the blog because they read it. I agree with you great post two or one word comment will show that you were not interesting just stopping by to get a visitor on to your blog. I do get some people to visit my blog from IG an do enjoy Pinterest for inspiration.

  5. Another great post in this series, I definitely need to up my pinterest game so thanks for your comments on that. I also would like to say thank you for creating this series, I’ve been reading religiously and have put some of your tips into practice and as a result, my blog views doubled last month!! I seriously can’t thank you enough for sharing these tips 🙂 xx

  6. I feel like social media has been my referral when it comes to views and followers and over all, people I consider friends nowadays. It’s what makes this such a great community and what makes blogging work. Without it, we wouldn’t be here nowadays, right?

    When I first started blogging, I remember I found your blog and read something about replying to comments but showing people we read and we care – and that’s the best piece of advice, bloggging wise, that stuck with me. Not that I didn’t do it before, but because when I get comments, I like knowing people read what I wrote, and they cared enough to comment on it and leave their opinion, and so, why wouldn’t I do it in return for other people? Having people show they care is what keeps bloggers going I feel like.

    Twitter has been amazing to me. It’s where I’ve found brilliant bloggers, and just human beings, that I’m obsessed with. The content is amazing and it makes things much easier. Even yesterday I was tweeting around saying it’d be useless to ask for anyone’s number when I reply more often on twitter than by text. And it’s true (I’m one of those people – but I’m getting better). I know it’s hard to keep up with everything and sometimes do all at once, but it’s doable and if we can’t do it everyday, then atleast every other day. It’s great to connect with people who understand.

    These are honestly great tips, as are all of your other posts – I wish these series could go on forever and ever and ever.

    Ella x

  7. Great tips. I would love to have more time to socialize, it’s so important and one of the best things about blogging. x

  8. This is super!! I still need to join in a twitter chat sometime, soon I will. I always forget though. Hope your week is going well so far xx

  9. Great tips! I would like to use more Pinterest but I don’t know if I use it the correct way. Do you have more tips about Pinterest?

  10. I love to be social, but sometimes it slips by the wayside a bit what with work, distracting fun things, actually creating posts! But it’s definitely mega important – at the moment I’m working on getting Instagram engagement up, as it’s a platform I’m quite enjoying right now.

    Some great food for thought in this post. (Argh. Food. Hungry now…)

  11. I absolutely L O V E this series you’ve been posting I’m going to be so sad when it ends 🙁

    I’ve really been trying to improve my blog with the help of this series and I have seen such a vast improvement over the past 6 weeks. It is quite overwhelming how much actually goes into blogging and I do have to remind myself that I can’t do absolutely everything much every little counts!

    Annie x

  12. Being social is important, it is something I am lacking of. It is really hard to focus on all these things, I’ve been planning to join socialbloggers chat for so long, yet I either forget it or have no time. Let’s see what happens this week 🙂 x

  13. Love this series! Most of my traffic comes from blog comments, but I’ve just started scheduling Tweets and am interested to see if that brings in more blog traffic.

  14. I love your tips. I am going to check out your previous posts. I am new to blogging and am not sure about what I am doing. If you ever get a chance or have the time, I would love any advice or feedback of how to specifically improve my blog.

  15. I slowly started to get active last year but one of my goals this year was to be way more social online! I’m glad I did I’ve found so many new bloggers! I now love commenting essays on people blogs haha and starting a discussion is always a plus. Twitter is my main communication tool, it being twitter chats, sharing posts, or just chatting to people and making friends I get the most benefits out of twitter!

    I mainly only use my Facebook page so my IRL friends can find my posts. I wish I could also use pinterest more often but find myself forgetting every now and then plus I still need to learn more about it I think to use it correctly haha

    Rai | utterardour.blogspot.com

  16. Sometimes i don’t feel like I have enough time for social media but I definitely recognize the importance of getting out there for the sake of my blog. Instagram has sucked my attention away form Pinterest but I have to get back into it again.

  17. A really helpful post! I find Twitter is always in my top 3 for referrals to my blog. I’m also loving Instagram & get a few people come over to my blog from there. I’ve been making a conciliatory effort with Pinterest recently as I’ve seen a number of bloggers saying it can be great for traffic. I’ve not noticed anything yet, but I’m still building on my following there, so it’s a work in progress. I’ve set up a Facebook page, but this seems to be very hot & miss as to how many impressions each post gets, so I’m still playing around with it. I want to try & create a little community atmosphere, but I need a plan to really make that work. Xx

    Tania | When Tania Talks

  18. These tips are amazing! I just started my blog and I think using them would be a big help in getting more integrated with the blogging community and building relationships with other bloggers. Thanks!

  19. So helpful! I’ve just got Twitter & so these tips are really useful. I’ve not joined a Twitter chat before so I will definitely try that! Can you just use the hashtag and join in?xx

    bethmay75.blogspot.co.uk

  20. I only started my blog a few months ago and didn’t actually realise how hard it would be to get people to read it and stay up to date through social media. This has been really helpful though so thank you so much for writing this post 🙂

  21. This was really useful, thank you. I’m trying to grow my blog at the minute and have mainly focussed my social media attention on Facebook. I didn’t realise they’d changed the algorithm, although I did wonder why there was so much emphasis on boosting my posts!

  22. Love this post. I’m just restarting a new blog and be been hitting Twitter hard but in a concious and real way. There’s so much inspiration to be had and relationships to be forged. In fact, I found this post from a tweet from someone on there. The feeling when someone leaves a genuinely well thought out comment or, even better, a thoughtful comment on a long archived blog makes you feel appreciated. Perhaps a modern equivalent to a handwritten letter through the post. Will be following for more tips! Xxx

  23. I literally feel like I’m stalking you lately as I keep coming back to your blog for more! There’s just so much amazing info on here. Thank you 🙂 xx

  24. Great tips Corinne! I know I’ve always felt nervous approaching other bloggers, whether that be in person or online and it’s certainly something I want to try more of. I’m going to go through this series again! x

  25. Great tips! Social media is amazing when it comes to blogging- my favourite has to be doing Twitter chats as you meet some lovely bloggers through it as well as getting yourself out there!

    Gabija| everylittlethingblog.weebly.com

  26. I didn’t realise that about Pinterest in terms of what is pinned. I mostly share my own, and recently I got tonnes more traffic to two posts in particular that I edited to include an eye catching, long image for Pinterest. Perhaps I’ll start pinning more content from elsewhere.. I really didn’t know, so thanks for the tip. I try talking to and tweeting other bloggers but I get ignored many times, which is a tad disheartening. I used to host a chat but couldn’t commit the time. So these days I just chat away to any replies on my platforms xx

  27. I struggle to join Twitter chats because I work so many hours but 6pm on Sat for your group sounds feasible. Would you be able to remind me? I would love to join your chat xx
    I am finding it hard to get to the 1 K mark on Twitter. I am following people every day and tweeting but my following is going up very slowly.

    1. I struggle to join Twitter chats because I work so many hours but 6pm on Sat for your group sounds feasible. Would you be able to remind me? I would love to join your chat xx
      I am finding it hard to get to the 1 K mark on Twitter. I am following people every day and tweeting but my following is going up very slowly.
      http://www.fadedspring.co.uk

  28. This was such an informative post. Recently I realised that Twitter works the best for me. Especially with my participation in blog chats. But I have been putting the most grind on Instagram. It really is about choosing what best works for you.

  29. Love this post! Three of my goals for 2017 are to 1) comment on more blogs, 2) take part in more Twitter chats, and 3) meet some of my blogging pals IRL. I’m also trying to grow my Twitter following this year, as it’s where the majority of my blog traffic comes from. Definitely need to look into using some other social media platforms too though – especially Pinterest. I’ve heard great things about it, but I just can’t seem to get into it.

    Liv

  30. Thank you for the tips. I find Pinterest really hard to work with and can’t seem to get to grips with it. Your advice for twitter has been very useful as that is my most comfortable form of social media. I will be joining you next blog chat as they are so fun to take part in x x

  31. Thanks for the great tips. It’s a struggle breaking to the blogging sphere, but I’m slowing getting traffic from Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. We are all in this together, so love the idea of supporting each other through the blogging challenges.

  32. This is such a helpful post, thank you. I really struggle to socialise in general not just with other bloggers but the twitter chats I can say from experience are great! xx

    Sinead

  33. This is so helpful, thank you! I really need to work out what I’m doing with Pinterest haha xx

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