Blogging and social media go hand in hand, so if you’re going to have a blog, you need to have social media associated with your blog. If you’re going to do it well, it’s a lot of work, I’m not going to lie. That’s why I’m talking about the best social media for bloggers, including how to manage your social media.
This is an updated version of a post from 2021.
This post contains affiliate links.
Best Social Media for Bloggers
Let’s start with the most important information: what social media accounts should you have?
If you only have 2, they should be Instagram and Pinterest. These are the best for building a community (Instagram) and getting traffic (Pinterest).
Beyond that, other key accounts you should have are Twitter, a Facebook page, and/or TikTok.
Twitter and Facebook are good for promoting your blog posts, and TikTok is good for building community.
Best Social Media for Bloggers: How To Manage Your Social Media
Let’s start by defining “manage social media.”
I’m talking about having a social media strategy, scheduling posts, spending time focusing on social media even when it’s not directly related to my blog, etc. This can be broken into 2 buckets: promoting blog posts on social media and building community on social media.
If you have a blog, you have to have social media accounts for it. And your blog and social media will be most successful if you build a brand that is evident across all of your accounts.
Think about it this way: if you show one thing or personality on Instagram, but it’s different from what you show on your blog which is also different from what you should on your Twitter, why would people follow you across platforms?
I’m not saying you should post exactly the same thing, or even the same thing but in different formats. I’m saying the version of yourself that you should one place should be evident in other places.
You want people to want to follow you in other locations.
Additionally, it takes time and energy to keep your social media going. In this post, I’m going to help you improve what you’re already doing, learn what you should be doing, and find tips for doing it all without getting too overwhelmed or frustrated.
Ready?
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Best Social Media for Bloggers: Promoting Blog Posts
I’m not going to go super in-depth on promoting blog posts in this post because I’ve written an entire post about how I do it, but I do want to cover some of the ways I use social media for blog posts. You can also get that (and more) information in my $5 ebook about promoting blog posts.
When I have a new post, I schedule social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest to promote the new post on that day and over the course of the next few weeks.
I’m also a member of multiple Facebook groups for bloggers, in which I promote my new posts as appropriate. My preferred blogger Facebook groups are ones that have designated threads for sharing your posts or networks. Those are the ones where I’ve found the most tangible results, especially when it comes to social media follows and blog shares.
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I also schedule social media posts promoting older blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. When it comes to Twitter and Facebook, every few months I sit down and schedule 1 social media post promoting 1 different blog post every day for 2ish months. This brings attention to older posts that might get lost, especially as I have over 1,000 blog posts.
While I use automated tools – which I’ll cover next – doing this manually helps me highlight seasonal posts, skip unseasonable posts, and remember some of the many posts I’ve written.
Again, over 1,000 blog posts.
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I also use the Revive Old Posts plugin, which is a “WordPress plugin that helps you to keeps your old posts alive by sharing them and driving more traffic to them from twitter/facebook [sic] or linkedin [sic]. It also helps you to promote your content. You can set time and no of posts to share to drive more traffic.” This plugin is connected to my Twitter and Facebook.
The above post is an example, and these posts are indicated by “{throwback post}” so if people are wondering why a Christmas post is shared in April, that explains it.
I like doing this because it’s an easy way to promote posts, and they don’t take up space in my Buffer queue. When I installed the plugin, I set up what networks it should post to, when a post is old enough to be shared (after 30 days), how frequently the plugin should post, and more.
I also make new pins to promote blog posts.
I do this because Pinterest likes it when you publish new content and, again, I’ve posted over 1,000 blog posts. I make new pins in Tailwind Create and with Canva. The pins I make with Tailwind go directly into my Tailwind queue, while the pins I make with Canva are saved to my desktop and then scheduled to Pinterest via Pinterest’s own scheduler.
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Best Social Media for Bloggers: Building Community
Social media is a great way to get blog traffic, but that’s really only true if you have a following already. That means that I work to grow my social media networks and build a community as a part of my blogging strategy.
But I have a job and multiple chronic illnesses (which are a job in themselves), so I can’t spend all day on social media. That’s why I spend a few hours over the weekend scheduling a week’s worth of social media posts. While these include blog post promotions, many of those aren’t, and this entire process is also known as a social media editorial calendar.
Editorial calendars are when you intentionally plan your social media posts for a chunk of time. I do this for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. I keep track of it all in a Google Sheet (1 per month) with one tab per social media network, and then I schedule out my social media in Buffer and Tailwind. (More about those later.)
I schedule posts that aren’t about my blog posts in between ones that are. Being intentional like this – and writing content ahead of time – is what makes it editorial.
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On Twitter, I daily share someone else’s blog post, a question, an inspirational quote, and one of my blog posts (7 posts).
On Facebook, I daily share one of my blog posts (4 posts) and I alternate sharing other people’s blog posts, a question, and an inspirational quote (with an image for it).
Having an image makes a big difference on Facebook compared to “just” text, which is not necessarily true for Twitter.
Here’s what those images look like:
This plan helps me create a cohesive social media presence.
For example, as this is primarily a health blog, I focus more on sharing other people’s posts that are health-related.
The reason why I share other people’s posts is to help build community by engaging with other health bloggers, especially as I tag them (if they have a listed account on their blog) when I share their post.
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I share inspirational quotes so others interact with my content and so I’m not only sharing links to my posts. I include images when possible because a) this means that the images I post aren’t only for my blog posts and b) posts with images often get more attention than those without.
I ask questions to build community, as well as to inspire others to interact with my content and so I’m not solely sharing links to my posts. (No one wants to follow someone who only ever posts about their own content.) I also use questions to get input from my readers, and at least once a week I ask for blog post suggestions. Sometimes no one responds, but sometimes I get incredible ideas!
I now also use my editorial calendars to track whether or not I’ve made new pins for older blog posts, and every time I promote an older post, I make 1-2 new pins for it. I’ll share a quick and easy way to make new pins in the next section.
Like I’ve said, Pinterest likes when you share new content, but that includes images that have been made recently, not just images linking to new posts. Pinterest is a visual search engine, and making new content linking to existing posts tells it that those posts are relevant.
Finally, all of this helps build relationships with other bloggers and people following me. Those relationships are what is most important for bloggers int he long run.
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Google Docs
I use Google Sheets for creating and tracking my social media editorial calendar. I use 1 tab for Twitter, 1 for Facebook, and 1 for miscellaneous posts. Over the course of a week, I write the content, and once a week, I batch schedule it in Buffer.
I use 1 column each for the category, date, post text, post link, the name an image is saved as on my computer (if applicable), and notes on what time of the day it will go up.
I also use Google Docs to write my blog posts and newsletters,
I use Google Drive in general to create (and store) my free downloads.
These are all free with a gmail account, and there’s a tremendous amount of storage.
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Buffer
I use Buffer to schedule Twitter and Facebook posts. With the subscription that I have, I can schedule up to 100 posts on each network (aka 300 posts total, not 100 across the 3).
One thing I really like about Buffer is you can look at your scheduled posts in a list or in a calendar format, which is very helpful when trying to figure out if a time is already being used for one post.
Unfortunately for you guys, I’m grandfathered into my Buffer plan, as it doesn’t exist anymore. Here’s a quick overview of the current plans:
- Free – 3 channels, 10 posts a month, 1 user
- Essentials – Unlimited channels, $5 a month per channel; 2,000 posts per channel; 1 user
- Team – Unlimited channels, $10 a month per channel; 2,000 posts per channel; unlimited users
- Agency – Unlimited channels; $100 a month total for the first 10 channels, and then an additional $60 a month per additional channel; 2,000 posts per channel; unlimited users
In addition to Twitter and Facebook, the possible networks you could connect to Buffer include Facebook groups, Instagram business accounts (it does NOT automatically post for you), LinkedIn pages, LinkedIn profiles, Pinterest accounts, TikTok business profiles, Google business profiles, Shopify stores, and more.
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Tailwind for Pinterest
I use Tailwind to schedule my Pinterest posts and I LOVE it!
Basically, I schedule 95% of my Pinterest traffic in advance. I schedule Pinterest promotions of my blog posts through Tailwind, both for new posts and for new pins for old(er) posts. What I love about that feature is that I can schedule posts to multiple boards and schedule the posts to be spread out over time, and there’s a button to schedule the posts at the best time for your posts.
I pay $119.88 per year for Tailwind for Pinterest. This is money extremely well spent, and if you were to join only 1 of the tools in this post, I suggest it be Tailwind.
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Tailwind Create
This is Tailwind’s smart tool for making new images. You add a link to a post, the title, choose some photos (including from stock images they have), and it makes a bunch of images. You choose with ones you like and download or schedule them!
There are a couple of Tailwind Create powerups you can add to your regular Tailwind Plus plan. A Tailwind Plus plan (which I think is just once you pay and aren’t in a free trial), you get 15 pins per month. The next level is $12 more per month ($149 annually), and you’ll get 30 pins per month, along with 1 million free stock photos and more. If you want to spend $24 more per month ($299 annually), you’ll get 300 pins per month as well as 10 million free stock photos, and so much more.
I use all of my Tailwind Create pins a month (30) and love not having to think too much about creating new designs. I also love that, after I select a design, it goes directly to my Tailwind queue and I don’t have to download and reupload (although I could if I wanted to).
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Tailwind for Instagram
For years, I used apps that would send me a notification so I could automatically copy a picture and a caption to Instagram and then post them. However, I can’t usually be on Instagram during the day because I’m busy with my “day job”. As far as I know, Tailwind for Instagram is the only app that enables you to post directly to your Instagram while you’re not on your phone.
There’s one exception: if you want to schedule a post to your stories, you have to use a notification post. Otherwise, it can auto-post to Instagram while you’re not even on your phone.
Like with Tailwind for Pinterest, Tailwind will tell you what the most ideal times are to post to Instagram for you. Like with many Instagram schedulers, you can save hashtag lists so you’re not always using the same ones.
Learn more about my $10 ebook for health bloggers.
It also gives you the option to post your hashtags in a separate comment, and you can schedule your Instagram post to go to your Facebook page or Pinterest profile if you want. Tailwind also helps you figure out what hashtags are the best ones to use. And for what it’s worth, it’s no longer valuable to use all 30 hashtags in your Instagram posts. I’ve been using closer to 20 – which requires me to be intentional about what hashtags I’m using – and I’ve seen a positive impact since I started using fewer hashtags.
The Tailwind for Instagram plan I have is $119.88 annually, but since I work and rely on Tailwind to post for me when I’m working, it’s absolutely worth it to me. If you’re on the fence, I really suggest trying a free trial. See how it impacts your Instagram! When I started my current job, I used a different app, which was all notification posting and no automatic posting. Switching to Tailwind made a huge difference for me and my Instagram account.
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Pinterest Scheduling on Pinterest
You might wonder why I use Tailwind and Pinterest’s own scheduling tool. The answer is that many social media platforms allow people to use third-party apps to post on them, but they give precedence to people who post directly on their site. Pinterest is one of them.
6 days a week, I have 2-3 new pins for old(er) blog posts scheduled to post directly on Pinterest all at the same time.
Scheduling several pins to go live directly on Pinterest mostly daily is a great way to boost your blog traffic and make Pinterest like you. I schedule these pins to my Kate the (Almost) GreatⓇ board, and then I add them to my Tailwind queue for all other boards.
The one downside to scheduling pins on Pinterest is that you can’t schedule farther than 2 weeks into the future. While that might seem reasonable, it’s worth noting that on Tailwind, I generally have pins scheduled over 2 months into the future.
I create these new pins in Canva.
Canva has a wealth of free templates, pictures, and elements that you can use without paying. But if you want to use it for more, you can get a paid membership and gain even more access to it. Get 30 days of free Canva Pro here.
I’ve also used Canva to build free downloads for my readers and, more importantly, my ebooks for chronic illness bloggers.
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Like this post? Share it! Then check out:
How To Write a Blog Post in 10 Easy Steps + Free Blog Post Template, The Blog Tools I Use and Love, Your Guide to Making and Using a Media Kit as a Blogger, 12 Tips for New Health Bloggers
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
Great post!
This is great info! Thanks for sharing!
I personally like using crowdfire and hellowoofy
You should have Twitter and Facebook first, before Pinterest, especially if you’re not in the lifestyle or personal type blogs. For a blogger like myself, I have a Pinterest account, but I’ve found for my business where I teach what I do in blogging and WordPress, I don’t use it as it was useless for my needs. Great share!