The blue pill tips

Another advantage of a robust social media plugin like Social Snap is the support for a wide range of networks. Social Snap, for example, supports over 30 social media networks and online apps. This includes Pinterest, which is an image-based social media network. With Social Snap’s “Pin It” button, readers can conveniently share your image on Pinterest without leaving your site. It can be an infographic, food close-up shots, or any high-quality image worth spreading. If you’re not ready to pay for Social Snap, you can settle for a free WordPress plugin instead. My recommendation would be a highly-rated plugin like jQuery Pin It Button for Images.

If you regularly drop facts, statistics, or plain words of wisdom in your posts, consider turning them into tweetable quotes. In a blog post, tweetable quotes are bits of text that can be shared on Twitter with one click. You can create tweetable quotes with the help of plugins like Social Snap. Here’s how it works. For Gutenberg editor users, simply add a block and look for the “[Social Snap] Click to Tweet” option. After this, just enter your tweetable quote straight into the block or the “Quote Content” field under the settings panel.

There’s one more way to use a social media listening tool to build your blogging brand. You can also use it to discover and connect with influencers who may be interested in your brand. Keep in mind that a far-reaching social media presence requires a lot of time, money, and effort. But with the help of influencers, you can bypass all those requirements and instantly boost your content’s reach. There are a lot of ways to discover relevant influencers that can promote a blog in your niche. The most reliable approach, however, is to use social media listening to your advantage. Another tool you may be interested in would be BuzzSumo — a content research tool. It includes influencer marketing features that help you find, connect, and build valuable relationships with influencers in your niche. Also, its core content research feature is pretty great for finding potential topic ideas for your blog. BuzzSumo makes it easy to find content ideas that are highly shareable and engaging. Important metrics such as Twitter shares, backlink count, and Facebook engagement are immediately displayed on the results page.

Listening to your audience should be easy. That is, if they only post directly on your social media pages. In the real world, people can talk about your brand from anywhere on social media. Someone could tweet about you, invite others to chip in their thoughts, and sparks a lengthy conversation. A social media management tool like Hootsuite lets you monitor the web for these online mentions. It comes with a social media listening tool that aggregates posts from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. What’s the advantage of having a social media listening tool over simply checking your social media notifications? Imagine having users who complain about your brand or products. Not all of those complaints will be posted directly on your official channels. Instead, users may be more comfortable posting them on their own social media feed or another page. Social media listening lets you find those posts with ease — enabling you to respond and set the record straight. There are also other benefits of using a social media listening tool, like:

• Reaching out to leads who may have questions about your brand posted elsewhere
• Clarifying misinformation being deliberately spread by dirty competitors
• Keep up with the latest trends in your niche
• Monitoring the marketing campaigns of your top competitors

Sometimes, a single comment is enough to inspire your next piece. Still, it’ll be more efficient to address the needs of many. By running polls on social media, you can leverage the collective voice of your audience to make smarter decisions. Facebook is undoubtedly the most effective platform for this objective. It lets you run a poll simply by entering the possible options and specifying its time frame. If you want more flexibility when it comes to the types of responses you can receive, use the free version of Google Forms. Respondents can then answer with checkboxes, multiple choices, drop-down list selection, and paragraphs. Not sure how exactly should you use a poll for your blog? A typical tactic is to let your audience decide what product or topic should you write about next. You may also run a poll to collect your audience’s feedback on a recent change in your blog. It could be a new theme, logo, content style, and so on.

Social media comments are great and all, but you shouldn’t ignore the insights and opinions posted on your blog. Modern CMS and blogging platforms have made it easier than ever to manage your blog’s comments. However, it’s in your best interest to manage how comments get approved on your blog. For WordPress users, this can be done by managing the “Discussion Settings” on your blog. You can set to manually approve comments every time, automatically approve previous commenters, require a sign-up, and so on. Whenever you get a legitimate, insightful comment from readers, be sure to acknowledge them and respond as needed. This will encourage more readers to tune in or add to the conversation. If, however, you’re still not getting comments despite days or weeks of publishing content, check out this guide. It covers actionable tips on how to get more comments flowing to your blog.

Interacting with your audience is an important aspect of social media marketing. You can’t just treat your social media pages as content distribution points. To make your audience feel more invested and involved in your brand, you should also lend them an ear. A great first step is to start paying attention to the comments that your audience leaves on your posts. This is surely something you can implement from day one. Just check your social media accounts often and answer the questions that your followers ask and acknowledge their feedback.

A blogger’s Facebook page has two roles. First, it serves as a platform that lets them engage and build relationships with their audience. Secondly, it is a powerful content distribution channel that can — at zero cost — amplify the reach of your content. Interested in the former? Don’t worry, I’ll share crumbs of advice on leveraging social media interactions with your audience in a bit. For now, let’s have a word about distributing content on social media. No — sharing your posts on your Facebook page isn’t enough to establish your presence on the site. You must also:

• Get the timing of your posts right — If you want your Facebook posts to reach the most people possible, share posts on Wednesdays from 11AM to 1PM. A study by Sprout Social revealed that this timeframe generates the most engagement for Facebook posts.
• Use social media automation tools — Automating your social media posts eliminates the risk of human error and is a huge time-saver in the long run. There are paid social media planners out there you can use, but there are also free plugins like Blog2Social.
• Create shareable custom graphics and use them as featured images — To increase the shareability of your posts, use a tool like Canva to create custom featured images. This will only take a few minutes — thanks to the pre-made templates provided by these tools.

I’ve already mentioned social media a handful of times in this post. However, I haven’t really delved into the specifics yet. With that said, let’s start with how you can promote your blog on Facebook — the largest social network to date. Building an official Facebook page for your brand is, of course, the first step. There are already tons of guides out there that discuss this in detail. To save you time, here are three of the most important takeaways you should remember:

• Use a recognizable profile picture — As the first thing Facebook users see, your page’s profile picture should be recognizable as well as eye-catching. Using a high-resolution version of your logo is a common practice, but you can also design something new specifically for Facebook.
• Set a custom and informative cover photo — Just like the profile picture, your page’s cover photo should be designed with the same vision and level of care. It must also have some branding elements like your blog’s value proposition, URL, and Twitter handle.
• Create a CTA Button — Facebook allows pages to have call-to-action or CTA buttons that can be configured to do all sorts of things. For bloggers, the usual route is to create a CTA button than brings users straight to their website. If you want a more comprehensive guide on how to create a memorable Facebook page for your blog, click here.

In the information age, forward-thinking companies will pay for every inch of online reach they could get. That includes the reach that bloggers can provide through their official social media channels. Depending on your niche, you can make money with sponsorships using your Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube account. For most niches, sending out sponsored tweets should be the most feasible. SponsoredTweets can act as the middleman between bloggers and the companies who want their message spread via Twitter. Just like PayPerPost, you need to create an account to be found by these companies. The only difference is, you’re signing up as an influencer specifically rather than as a creator.