Utilize Instagram and Pinterest to build your Blog
I started my blog 3 years ago, when my daughter had just turned 1. A lot has changed in this sphere, alongside social sites like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest and its only recently that for the first time I feel like I have a solid footing on how to manage and maintain my site and social media networks.
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Social media and blogging
I love this metaphor for social media;
I have always been aware that social media accounts should be acting to support the blog or website, instead of operating independently. Far to often these days we see Instagram accounts disappearing, being hacked, compromised by outside parties, or found violating terms and then deleted or held hostage. All the work that people put into their Instagram accounts only to see that work disappear in a matter of minutes. It’s heartbreaking. The grim reminders of these moments is that we truly don’t own these platforms. Our accounts with all these social sites are controlled not by us but by corporations. And those tech companies can be bought out, go under or completely change their platforms and in the process totally remove our content.
Instead of putting all your stock in social media, these accounts should instead serve your blog, brand or website. And your website, that you own, should be where you’re spending the majority of your time creating valuable content. When you create new content on your website, designing specific images and captions for your social media sites to promote it then becomes a necessity, and having a voice in those spaces becomes important.
Identify the purpose of your social media accounts
How many social media accounts do you have? I have 4: Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook page + group and a Youtube channel. I am most active on Instagram and Pinterest because I see a higher rate of engagement on these platforms and historically have seen more hits on my website from those two social sites. Maybe you have Twitter, that’s cool I’m not witty enough to be on twitter I can never think of something short and hilarious to say. But let’s take a closer look at what the purpose these social accounts are, keeping in mind they all should serve the ultimate purpose of driving people to your website.
Today I’m discussing Instagram and Pinterest
Since this platform is primarily visual I spend a lot of time on image based content and creating shorter captions. I primarily share images from my home, quick tips and generally building a community of people and engaging easily with my audience.
Great for:
Image based content
Community friendly - Easy to seek out and make contact with accounts that have similar interests and build a community
Showcasing your voice
Collaborations - Not something I personally do but I know the majority of influencer accounts on Instagram offer paid or unpaid collaborations or sponsorship.
Generate interest in your brand / blog/ service
Ability to add links in profile to help drive people to your website or affiliate pages
After reaching 10k followers you can add the swipe up feature on stories to drive traffic to your website.
Tools that I use for Instagram
Font Candy - A lot of people swear by Canva which is another great option, but I’ve been using Font Candy+ for a long time and find it easy to use. And I’m old so I’m stuck in my ways. Font candy allows you to add text to an image, edit images, create different sized images, save templates and many more tools. The app is super easy to use and I can get my images completed in about 10 minutes (I normally use Font candy for quotes)
Repost app - Connects directly to your instagram account. When you see an image on someone else’s account you want to repost (after asking them!!!) you simply click the three dots on the top right of the picture, select copy link, and then the open Repost app where you will find the image. This app is great because it will automatically add the account name to the picture, and allow you to copy the original caption.
Unsplash - I use Unsplash for all my images I use in stories. Unsplash is free stock images and has a massive selection to choose from. I keep a direct link to the website on my iphone so I can access it quickly.
Iphone camera editing - To edit my images for Instagram I just use my Iphone camera editor. I know there are quite a few options out there but I find my Iphone to be the quickest. I simply increase the exposure and brightness level. Easy. If you are looking for an editor Adobe Lightroom app is a great option.
Hashtags - Although I don’t use an app for creating hashtags I can’t stress the importance of using the 30 hashtag spots available to each instagram post. Hashtags will reach a large and varied audience, depending on what your posting about. Not sure what hashtags to use? Take a few minutes and check out the explore section in Instagram and search a hashtag close to your niche.
I used to find Pinterest incredibly daunting. I knew that it was a powerful tool in driving visitors to my website but every article I read on the subject seemed kind of insane and had a lot of buzzwords. I don’t really do buzzwords, they make me uncomfortable for some reason, however I digress. The bottom line is that Pinterest really likes it when people a) post often and b) share high quality pinnable images. The software gets super excited about it and started pushing your pins up in the explore section of the platform. Which means a higher impression count, audience count and engagement. Which ultimately means, hey, people are going to your website because of your pins. Fabulous, that’s what we want.
Great for:
Image based content
Sharing interests
Finding new ideas and resources for yourself and your followers
Driving traffic directly to your website through pins
Tools that I use for Pinterest:
Tailwind - Tailwind is a pinterest scheduling app. Basically since Pinterest really wants you to be on their platform all the time posting, Tailwind is like your personal assistant that will do that job for you. I spend about an hour each month saving pins to my tailwind account which then schedules those pins to be posted. Tailwind also has great analytics which can be helpful when researching what to write about. Easy peasy.
Adobe Illustrator - I use Illustrator to create all my pinterest images for blog posts. I’ve been using Illustrator for about 10 years and I can create these images fairly quickly once I created a template. Many people use Canva because it’s free and they have some amazing templates available. Whatever you decide to use, creating high quality pinnable images is CRUCIAL.
Unsplash and Pexels - Both free stock image websites that aren’t convoluted and have amazingly high content. You can use any pictures from these sites to create pinnable images, backgrounds, iphone displays, literally anything, with no copyright infringement.
Organic pinning - Although I have Tailwind scheduler doing an amazing job at repinning for me, jumping on to pinterest every day for even 10 minutes will push my account higher in the discovery feed.
Social media is always changing and evolving and I encourage you to spend some time and dive into these two platforms.
I will be sharing tips and tricks for blogs shortly, including how I utilize SEO, blog title analyzers, emotive analyzers and keywords. Stay tuneD!
Happy writing!
