I had a great time connecting face to face with many of my favorite bloggers! This was my second time attending (you can read my recap from last year here), but this time I was asked to speak on a panel about social media. Public speaking isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but I jumped at the chance to collaborate with these three fabulous bloggers!
Courtney, Cassie, Megan and I worked for months leading up to the conference to put our presentation together. Our overall goal was to encourage, inspire and hopefully share some new, helpful information about how to effectively use social media to grow your blog and establish your brand. While we worked as a team, each of us took one of the 4 main social media outlets as our own. Unfortunately, Megan was unable to attend the conference, but today we’re all sharing a few highlights from our given topic.
*(To my non-blogging readers – I know your eyes are glazing over, and I promise to be back to regular programming tomorrow.)
I had the opportunity to cover Twitter, which if I’m being totally honest, isn’t my favorite form of social media. That being said, I do use it and have found it to be an effective social media tool in terms of branding and networking.
There are a number of people in our niche (home/diy/design) that feel that Twitter is sort of a dead bird. I mean, we are a very visual people – hello – this is why Pinterest is such a huge hit right? We home decor enthusiasts, diy lovers, crafters, we love us some pretty pictures don’t we? And Twitter really doesn’t provide us with the visual eye candy we so adore; it’s just words.
Pretty much every company/brand/magazine you could ever hope to collaborate with is on Twitter.
In addition, Twitter boasts a huge audience, affording you the opportunity to get your message out and widen your reach.
It isn’t always about interaction. Twitter can often be a one way street in terms of communication, so it’s important to know…….
…………lots of people have Twitter accounts purely to follow along.
I think for our niche in particular Twitter is best used and most effective when linked with other social media outlets, like Instagram and Pinterest which do provide the visual eye candy our peeps love so much.
Plus linking your other social media accounts makes using Twitter almost effortless. In addition to linking, be sure to mention brands and other bloggers when tweeting as well. If you’ve used a particular product for a project, tweet that company to let them know – or better yet, post a pic to Instagram mentioning that brand/company and tweet. Often times you’ll be retweeted/regrammed, or this could help you establish a relationship with a brand you’re interested in working with in the future.
It’s impossible to do it all when it comes to social media. Fortunately there are a number of time saving tricks you can employ in order to maximize your Twitter efforts.
I’m a big believer in scheduling! I use Networked Blogs, which automatically tweets a link to every new blog post. And it will post to Facebook too! All I do is hit “publish post” and networked blogs takes care of tweeting a link and posting to Facebook – which makes my blogging life super easy. I also use HootSuite to schedule tweets, but there are a number of other platforms that do the same thing.
The most important thing is to have fun and just be yourself! Social media is just that – social – it’s not supposed to be work, so just have fun with it. Brands care more about your engagement/clout with your followers than the actual number of followers you have! Don’t ever compare your numbers to another blogger’s numbers; instead focus on creating your own community.
What is your favorite form of social media? I personally really love Instagram! Thanks to everyone who came to our session at Haven. I’m sorry if I spoke too fast. I have a tendency to do that when I’m nervous. 😉
Definitely going to have to check out Networked Blogs! Sounds like a great tool!
I agree that our non-blogging friends are like huh?!
I so don't like twitter and only use it because it's linked to my other accounts. I feel exactly like you said: Not visual enough! But will check out Networked Blogs and HootSuite. Thanks 🙂
Yes I'm a big Instagram lover too – but I still am on Facebook more (and trying to be on Twitter more too) I was sad that I didn't get to attend your session at Haven – there were just SO many good sessions!! Thanks for sharing it here :o)
You are so right! I love the way photos are there forever, with their provenance (I started pinning because there were photos of my driftwood headboard all over the internet and people obviously didn't know where they were from. Hey ladies, it's my bed!)
It is the easiest way to collate all the things which interest you – Pin away and suddenly realise you have a theme, so create a new board. Also I now have an inside track on people who share my love of Japanese boro, so I'm collecting lovely images from them, and sharing my own. Pictures from my website are up there too, I can let people know where they came from and keep Rough Linen images under my watchful eye. I can even see what grabs people's imagination – market research! RP
Best of all, it is pleasurable. We Love Pinterest!
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Definitely going to have to check out Networked Blogs! Sounds like a great tool!