social media Archives - The Blogging Brew

7 Resources For Tracking Your Social Media Presence

February 13, 2015 • No Comments

When I think about social media, I like to imagine little messengers going out and telling everyone about my new post. Every time someone finds out about it, they share it with someone else, who then share’s it with another person, and so on. Social media seems so simple, but it’s kind of crazy to think about how many eyes could end up on your content just by posting about it outside of your blog. Take Pinterest for example. A few people initially pin your post, then their friends see it and pin it as well, and then their friends see it and pin it too, and if you’re lucky, that process will continue for a long time. Soon enough, you’ve got yourself a viral pin that will bring in readers for years to come. But how do you know which techniques are working, and benefitting your blog in the long run?

As my following has grown, it’s become a lot easier to keep track of my social media presence. More posts means more sharing, which means more data to go off of. I’ve also bookmarked my fair share of resources that are really helpful in this process, and today I want to share those with you!

ShareTally

I heard about this website a few weeks ago, and I can’t believe I hadn’t found it before. You input a url to a specific post, and it scans all the shares that post has gotten on 21 different social media platforms. It’s super specific too, getting down to the number of likes vs. shares vs. comments on Facebook. I love using this website to see the long term popularity of a post. I check it every once in a while and compare the number to see if an old post is still getting shared around, which is always a good thing!

Twitter Analytics

Twitter tracks a lot about the tweets you make, so why not take advantage of that! The engagement rate (the number of users who engaged with your tweet divided by the number of users who saw it) is a great way to see which tweets capture your audience’s attention the best. You might begin to see a trend between high engagement rates and a certain aspect of your tweets, like an added picture or the use of hashtags. The graph is also an awesome visual tool for seeing which days your tweets do the best.

Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest also came out with an analytics tool, and it’s probably one of my favorite resources. They track traditional data like profile views and repins, but they also include a section tailored to tracking pins from your website (if you have that hooked up to your Pinterest account). I LOVE this feature, because I can see which posts are doing the best, which images may need improving, and which pins are staying popular in the long term. Without this tool, I never would’ve known that my college shopping list post from last year got over 100 repins! That might not be a lot in the big blogging world, but anything over like, 10, is a huge accomplishment for me.

Pin Plugin

This tool isn’t as detailed as Pinterest analytics, but it gives you a quick look at how well a post did on Pinterest by gathering the total number of pins made from a specific post. If you don’t feel like digging through the traditional analytics system, this tool is perfect for you!

Iconosquare

This is my central hub for Instagram statistics. Along with its beautiful interface, it has all the stats you could possibly want to know about your Instagram. You can even track your follower count, which could be really helpful during giveaway times if you added your Instagram URL to one!

Bitly

Most people see this solely as a way to create short URL’s, but it has a great statistics tool too! If you create an account, you’ll get a feed of all the links you create and some data about their performance. You can see how many total clicks the link got, as well as the number of clicks made on each social media platform. This might help you rethink your link placement strategies if one platform isn’t doing as well as others.

Pinterest Source Page

I know, lots of Pinterest, but this platform has proven to be the most helpful for my blog, so I track it the most! I had no idea this page existed, but it’s pretty fantastic. It compiles all of the pins made from your website, making it a great visual representation of how popular a post is. Just add your blog’s URL to the end of it so you can see pins from your website.

p.s. : 6 Tips For Growing Your Blog With Twitter + Using Pinterest Boards To Organize Your Life

6 Tips For Growing Your Blog With Twitter

February 4, 2015 • No Comments

I’d say Twitter was the last social network I really got into, and I still don’t use it very often. I kept seeing posts from other bloggers about their success with it though, so a few weeks ago I decided to start investing more time into promoting my content through it. I won’t say I’m entirely in love yet, but that’s mainly because I’m super impatient when it comes to waiting for results. I just want to get a thousand new followers and 50 retweets and have people tagging me and all that jazz, and I think a lot of bloggers can relate to that feeling! I have picked up a few pointers along the way though, and I can definitely tell that they’re making a difference in my Twitter stats.

USE IMAGES

This is something I didn’t pick up on at all until, well, yesterday (see it here). I’m not sure why it took me so long, considering this is something I tell every blogger when it comes to making a great post. It’s been shown that tweets with images receive more interactions (like retweets and favorites), which of course is what we’re going for! The minimum size to have your full image shown is 440 x 220 pixels, but I made my image slightly larger (880 x 440 pixels). Just be sure to keep the main content at the center so it shows up correctly!

ENGAGE

Like any form of social media, engagement plays a huge factor in becoming a well-known user. By engagement, I mean tweeting at other members, tagging them in tweets (#FollowFriday?), retweeting their content, and just interacting with others in general. I love retweeting my blog friends when the tweet about a new post, because it gets their content in front of more eyes and connects them to new people. Engaging also gets your name around to more users, which could lead to more followers for you!

SHARE CONTENT FROM OTHER BLOGGERS

This goes along with engagement, but rather than just retweeting what another blogger already said, try being more organic and tweet about their content yourself! It can make someone’s day if they see a tweet about a positive reaction to their post. If I find a post I absolutely love, I’ll grab the link for it and tweet about what I liked in the content. Don’t forget to tag the author—extra engagement points!

JOIN GROUP CHATS

The first group chat I participated in was with @FireworkPeople. It was so energetic and positive and I met a ton of new people! Group chats are basically scheduled times when the host will tweet about something, or ask questions to their followers, and anyone that’s available at that time can just join in on the conversation! They’re super casual, and oftentimes everyone will follow each other afterwards.

SCHEDULE YOUR TWEETS

I know there are quite a few tweet schedulers out there, but I’ve been using Buffer for a while now and I don’t think I’ll be switching anytime soon! Most schedulers work about the same though. You make tweets beforehand (hours or days) and schedule the exact time for them to be posted. When I make a new post, I schedule 3 or 4 tweets about it for the next day scattered between 7am and 7pm. Then I don’t have to worry about forgetting till after dinner!

TWEET FOR YOURSELF

While scheduling is fantastic for the busy blogger, you should avoid using it for everything you tweet. If your dash is filled with links to your blog posts and that’s it, people will get annoyed and unfollow you. No one likes over advertisement, especially on their Twitter feed! Do include those scattered scheduled tweets, but tweet organically throughout the day as well. Your followers want to get to know you, not just your blog!

Btw, you should definitely follow me on Twitter.

p.s. grab your freebies and check out these fantastic apps

Blogging Essentials: A Series

December 18, 2014 • No Comments

Note: This post has become the base of The Collection, a page full of every blog related post I’ve made! That means this post will no longer be updated, so head over here for some blogging goodies!

After launching my new design yesterday, I’m super pumped about getting this blog going again! One of the things I realized while redesigning for the past few weeks and looking through my old blog was that I really enjoy blogging aboug blogging. I have a passion for coding, designing, and teaching, and that all came together into one big plan: make a blogging series about blogging! So today, I’m introducing a big addition to my blog that I hope will bring in new readers eager to learn, and give my current readers something else to come back for!

While I am calling this a series, it by no means has an end. I plan on this being an ongoing thing that I constantly add to, because there seems to be an infinite amount of useful tips out there! To get things going though, here’s a list of past posts I’ve made that have gotten a great response so far:

I want this series to grow into a master list of blogging tips for any blogger to find useful. That said, I would love for y’all to let me know about anything you would like to learn about! Have you seen something on another blog that you want to try? Are you having trouble growing your blog? Let me know in the comments, or <a href=”https://twitter.com/JessSlaughter_>tweet at me with your response! My goal is to make this list as convenient for my readers as possible, so I’m putting y’all at the heart of it!

USE IMAGES

ENGAGE

SHARE CONTENT FROM OTHER BLOGGERS

JOIN GROUP CHATS

SCHEDULE YOUR TWEETS

TWEET FOR YOURSELF

CSS/HTML

BLOG GROWTH

YOU + BLOGGING

DESIGN