So You Want To Start A Blog - Social Media

In case you have not been here for very long here are the other three posts in the series.

Week 1 - Before You Write A Word
Week 2  - Basic Blog Design
Week 3 - Content



 

This week I am going to keep it short and sweet cause occasionally my real life job, the one that supports my blogging addiction, gets really busy and I need to work from home for an evening.

If you are starting a blog or have had a blog for a while here are my tips to make yourself known to the world.  Anyone can start a blog, but it takes a ton of self promotion.  One of the best ways to grow your blog and get readers is to be active on social media.

If you are a secret blogger I guess you should make new social media accounts.  I personally like it when people in my real life know about my blog and talk about it.  I spend so much time blogging that it would seem strange to not be able to have that conversation with people.

With everything social media related there is a fine line between being informative and being annoying.  It takes time to figure out the balance and it might even change from day to day.  My go to for promoting posts is this 4 tweets in a day, 1 Facebook post, 3 Instagram specific posts, and as many pins as I can muster a week.  This is a loose guideline and it changes daily.

Email 
I think that you should make an email for your blog. I used my personal email for my blog and it was just confusing and too much.

Bloglovin'
I personally love bloglovin.  It is by far the site that generates the most traffic to my little blog. One of the strangest things that I have seen is blogs that are looking for followers but do not have a link to bloglovin'.  If you do not have Bloglovin' I am pretty sure you do not care if I follow your blog.

Twitter
Next up is my twitter account.  I think it is probably the most used social media site for the bloggers of the world.  If you are going to give a shout out to someone, it will probably be on Twitter.  If you want to say "Hey I like your blog and if we met in real life we would be best friends #notcreepy"

Pinterest
If you have some extra time I highly recommend you make your images in your post "pinable."  For this series I pin the main image and I have actually generated a lot of traffic from Pinterest once a week.  I am not a graphic designer and I do not have a ton of time to spend making things look Pinterest Perfect, but once our twice a week I take a little extra time to do this one thing to help my blog grow.

Facebook
I guess people still use Facebook.  I might have a different take on Facebook than other people, but I sometimes feel like it is a waste of time.  I will say that when I first started blogging Facebook was my favorite way to promote my blog. I would post it on my personal Facebook page and my mom and family would read a few of my posts.  After a few months I started a blog page and only people who follow that page can see my posts.  Create one if you want to, update it with your posts, and move on.

Instagram 
I think Instagram is my favorite form of social media.  I love that I have a more personal connection with some followers and I can see what they are up to.  I do not think it brings people directly to my blog, because you can not put links in your photo captions.  I really love Instagram though and I think it helps readers get a more complete picture elf you as a person.

Google+
So I do not really get Google+ but I will use it.  I post all my posts on Google+ because I think it helps them get higher in search engines when you google.  It makes sense right, Google+, Google same thing man!

So what do you think?  Is there any social media that I missed that you would recommend to a blogger? What is your recommendation for self promotion across social media.

My Super Important Life Goals

I have been thinking a lot about goals lately and where I would like to be in five months, a year, five years, and that is it, thinking beyond five years is too much for me to handle.  While I have very serious goals in my life for my future and my career and such I do not always share them out loud.  I get afraid that they are too lofty and they will sound ridiculous and I will be too sad if I do not achieve them and too many people know that.

So instead of sharing the goals that are totally meaningful today I want to share some goals that are less meaningful but just as serious.

Have a blue verified button on my Twitter

In case you are wondering being verified on Twitter happens when you are famous or have been on Dancing With The Stars.  It is the little blue circle with the whit check mark on the users Twitter account.   Let's look at The White House twitter account.  They have the check mark, you can rest assured that the tweets from this account actually come from The White House, not President Obama, but the house itself.  How cool is that?

 

Side note - One of my kidding, but secretly for real dreams is to be the First Lady one day. I know I could say I want to be President, but have you seen what that job has done to Barak Obama's hair?  No thank you.  I really think it would be amazing to be First Lady though.

You have no idea how much I want this.  I am pretty sure that my plan of being on The Bachelor will get me there though.  Come on ABC what's a girl gotta do?

Start a hashtag movement

I really really want to be the person behind a hashtag phenomenon.  If only I fought of #throwbackthursday

So here are some hashtags I am attempting to make happen and you should join in and help me take over instagram.

#SeriouslySaturday

Seriously Saturday can be a lot of things. You can take a serious picture the one below:

Or you can take a picture of something that is seriously _________________________.

 

This looks like a good point to tell you to follow me on instagram.  I promise I try to post things other then Penny.

Have a successful Link Up!

I had a feature on my blog before Christmas time called Sunday Funday, which you should read about.  Essential I had an Essie nail polish which is the perfect shade of pink orange.



I liked the name and then decided to make a post out of it.  Sunday Funday is a quick post on a Sunday linking to a video, website, meme, e-card, vlog, funny story, other blog post, etc. that makes you laugh or makes your day a little brighter.

I would love to open this up to anyone who is interested in sharing what makes them laugh over the weekend.  So this Sunday please feel free to link your Sunday Funday post here.  All you should do is follow me,  add your link so I can follow you back, and slap this button on your post so others can join the fun.

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.ericajacquline.com" title="Erica Jacquline"><img src="http://i1356.photobucket.com/albums/q738/ericajt/6b67a7f3-dde7-40e8-a010-3ed926c1720f_zpsd0e87c0a.png?t=1391056407" alt="Erica Jacquline" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

I would love to open this up to co-host options as well.  If you are interested in co-hosting Sunday Funday in the near future please send me an email, ericajacquline@gmail.com or comment below and we can get it going.

Have a billion followers

Just kidding, but how cool would that be man!  In case you really want to take that one on you can find all my social media links below.

Thanks for putting up with my delusions of grandeur for today.  Do you have any fun/ridiculous dreams when it comes to social media?

Bloglovin - Twitter - Instagram - Facebook - Pinterest