One of the things I love and hate about blogging is that it’s constantly changing. That’s why I want to talk about how to use social media effectively for your blog – so much has changed in the last few months, let alone the last 11 years I’ve been blogging.
This is an updated version of posts from 2021 and 2023.
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Kate the Almost Great™️!
How To Use Social Media Effectively for Your Blog
As I generally do, I’ve broken this post into several categories. The overarching ones are about why you should do this, how to use social media analytics to make the most of it and help direct your energy, and blog marketing using social media.
Why You Need To Use Social Media Effectively for Your Blog
What this means
Every post should have a purpose, whether it be about generating traffic or building your audience.
Blogging has changed a lot since I started in 2013, and one aspect of it is that blogging isn’t as common for regular everyday people and the sheer number of social media content out there is exponentially larger. When I started in 2013, so many people were just writing a couple hundred words about their everyday life. Many more people read these blog posts from people they didn’t know.
That’s not the case anymore. Or, it is, but that content lives on social media instead of a website.
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Why you should do it
It takes a lot of time – and often money – to manage a blog. You shouldn’t waste either of those. You should use the exact right about of social media, which will obviously depend on your preferences, your skills, and your blog itself.
For example, I’ve stopped using Twitter to promote my blog because most of the audience I was getting from it aren’t there anymore. I also made the switch to Bluesky because that’s where most of them went and it’s the most similar to Twitter. Additionally, after the gesture its owner made at the inauguration, I can no longer justify using Twitter so much.
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Different accounts to have
This will depend a lot on whether your blog is your primary or secondary platform.
If your blog is your primary platform, at a minimum you should have Pinterest and Instagram. I would also recommend having a Facebook page or a text-based platform such as Twitter, Bluesky, or Threads where you regularly post. The point is to have an account where you can share new blog posts that makes it easy (and makes sense) for people to share your posts. While people might share your Instagram posts with others, especially on their Stories, it’s not as easy or common as it is on a text-based platform. Additionally, Pinterest is a visual search engine. Sure, people will likely save your pins to their account, but they’re a lot more likely to click through an image to your blog.
If your blog is a secondary platform – and your primary platform is Instagram or TikTok – then you probably don’t need Pinterest, and I would say having a text-based platform would depend on where your followers are and if you already use them.
Some of my readers found me on Instagram, but a lot of them are also actively on Twitter and Facebook, as that’s where they found me. Additionally, since I’ve been blogging for a long time, I already have a million social media accounts. If I were starting a blog today, I don’t think I would be active on Twitter, Threads, and Bluesky.
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I’ve talked about this a lot, but as a blogger, social media is both for driving traffic and building an audience.
And this is true whether your blog is your primary or secondary platform!
Your blog readers are often your most dedicated followers, closely followed by newsletter subscribers. This is because reading a post takes more time than looking at any social media site.
(Note: I use MailerLite for my newsletter because they have a great free plan in addition to their paid plans. I highly recommend it!)
Your blog is also where you can make the most passive income, as no one needs to buy anything to bring in advertising money.
But if you do use affiliate links, you can explain more why people should buy a product in a blog post than in a social media post. The one exception to this is, of course, if you create fashion content. Even beauty content requires some explanation to discuss how a product feels or lasts.
That being said, if your blog is your primary platform like it is for me, social media is an amazing way to show more of your personality and get new followers. This is especially true nowadays when blog posts are not published every single day. How do you keep an engaged audience if you only speak to the internet every week or month?
While a big reason I use social media is to get blog traffic, it’s important that I don’t share the exact same content everywhere. That gets boring real fast, and it doesn’t get people to follow my different accounts or build my audience.
This is one reason why I post things on Instagram that aren’t shared anywhere else. Another reason is that my Instagram is one of my accounts that introduces people to me and my content. Sure, that will happen on other sites, but Instagram is one of the big ways people are introduced to me and my blog.
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How To Use Social Media Analytics
Now that we’ve talked about why you need to use social media for your blog, I want to talk more in-depth about a specific benefit of using social media: analytics. Obviously you can use social media analytics for that specific network alone, but you can also use these analytics for your overall brand.
For understanding your audience
A lot of social media networks include demographics in their analytics. This includes everything from gender to age range, from location to language your audience uses. These are pretty standard across social media, so you can see how things differ from site to site. You can also generally see how many people engaged are current followers or not.
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For creating better content
Let’s talk about what “better content” means.
Better content means content that is higher quality as well as better-suited to the network. Sure, Instagram Reels and TikToks are pretty similar, but that doesn’t mean that what does best on each location is the same. The same is true for Twitter, Bluesky, and Threads.
Similarly, it’s not just about high quality – it’s also about what does best for your specific audience. This includes things like if funny content does better than informational content, if generalities are better than specifics, if peeks at your life do better than posts related to your niche, etc.
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For determining how to spend your time
This goes hand-in-hand with the previous point, but the gist is that you should spend your time on things that have at least 2 of these 3: you like doing it, doing it has high rewards, and doing it successfully furthers your goals.
If you really enjoy something and it has a high reward, then you should definitely keep doing it even if it doesn’t necessarily further your goals.
If it has a high reward and it helps further your goals, you should give it a try, even if you don’t always enjoy doing it.
If you enjoy doing it and it furthers your goals, you should do it even if it doesn’t has a high reward.
The rewards can be things like high engagement, making affiliate sales, getting more partnerships, driving traffic to your blog, etc.
The goals might be getting followers, posting more on a network you’re not as comfortable in, trying more types of content, etc.
All of this can be better directed by utilizing your social media analytics.
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How to actually do it
Okay, you’re convinced. Now how do you do it?
1. Pick the site that brings you the most traffic
2. Pick the site that you want to get traffic from
A lot of these sites include their own analytics, especially if you have a professional account, so you can look at those. And if you have an active Facebook page as well as an active Instagram account, you can look at both through Meta Business Suite.
Let’s start with my Instagram analytics.
This shows how many views I’ve gotten in the last 90 days, including what is from current followers and what is from non-followers. As you can see, it’s also broken into types of content. This is helpful but it reminds me that my Reels do a lot better than my other content, which isn’t surprising. But it’s helpful because it shows that while I do get views from non-followers, if I want to increase my follower count or how many of my followers are engaged, it is worth it.
Additionally, my analytics show which content specifically got views over the last 3 months. As you can see, most of these are Reels (again, not surprising). But what you can’t see from this is that all of those high-performing Reels are short ones. That is also helpful as it shows me that making more short Reels is worth it. Alternatively, if I want my longer Reels to perform better, this inspires me to be more creative.
The following are screenshots from the demographic analysis of my audience. (I do have to laugh, though, that Stetson is included because that’s my parents/my relatives/their neighbors.)
There are a couple key takeaways from that information, other than the fact that my parents look at my content. For one thing, it shows that I have a lot of engaged audience in my timezone. Another is that it shows the top age ranges of my audience. I’m not surprised that the top two ranges are within 10 years of my age, but I’m officially at the point where most of my audience is in their 30s.
Also unsurprisingly, most of my audience identifies as a woman. This isn’t surprising because a) I’m a woman and b) a higher number of women have chronic illnesses than men. But this is helpful information because if I was interested in increasing the amount of non-women who engage with my content, I need to know the starting point.
Note: while the official breakdown has women with significantly more chronic illnesses than men, I think that the difference is less than we think it is. This is because a) anecdotally I think more women ask for help than men do b) according to data, more men are believed when they ask for help than women are. Most of my illnesses are due to my RA not being treated for a long time. How many others have been in similar situations to me? Anyway, while estrogen is related to autoimmune diseases and therefore people with more estrogen will have a higher prevalence of autoimmune diseases, I do think that the gender gap in chronic illness is less than we think it is.
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Look at your blog’s analytics to see the best places to start
Okay, you’re convinced. What next?
Start with your blog’s analytics. Where are you getting a lot of traffic? Where do you want to get more traffic?
My Google Analytics says that the top social media networks that bring me traffic are Pinterest and, depending on the month, Twitter or Facebook. Since I’m not using Twitter really any more I’m hoping for Bluesky to pop up soon, but it might take a while, which is why I’m focusing more on building my Bluesky audience.
Looking at your blog’s analytics will help you identify where to start. Once you’ve identified the networks where you want to focus, look at their analytics. This will help you figure out what topics people want more of and what types of content people find interesting. Some topics can be addressed in a social media post, but some need more fleshing out, which is where blog posts come in.
Unsure if something is worth blogging about? Make another post on social media about it and see what the response is. Maybe your previous post did well because of the topic but maybe it did well because of the format of the post. It’s important to figure that out.
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Utilize SEO on these places
Just because we usually think about SEO as applying to blogs doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply it to social media. This is especially true if you’re trying to get new followers and readers and if you have social media advertising a blog post.
I don’t go as hard on SEO for social media as I do for my blog, but I generally try to use phrases that I think people will be searching for in their captions. This includes things like spelling out “rheumatoid arthritis” instead of using the abbreviation, using phrases like “TMJ arthritis” and not just TMJ, saying “Rituxan infusion,” saying “managing RA,” etc.
I’m even more explicit about SEO when it comes to Pinterest, as it’s a visual search engine more than it is a social media network.
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Blog Marketing Using Social Media
Advertising
You should use social media to get traffic to your blog, specifically the places where your audiences are.
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 signature $10 ebook for health bloggers.
When I have a new post, I schedule social media posts on Bluesky, Facebook, and Pinterest to promote the new post on that day and over the course of the next few weeks. I used to use Twitter instead of Bluesky, but I couldn’t make myself use Twitter as a primary network after Musk’s actions at the inauguration.
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 Facebook and Pinterest. I schedule promotions of an old post for every day on Facebook. This brings attention to those that might get lost, especially as I have over 1,000 blog posts.
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 Facebook.
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 use new-ish pins I made in 2020-2024 to promote old blog posts. These go directly into my Tailwind queue. I promote a blog post every single day, and I schedule the pins for these old posts.
For example, one day my social media promoted 52 Blog Post Ideas Health Bloggers Need. I scheduled a pin for that post to several Pinterest boards about blogging over the course of several days.
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Building your audience
Social media is a great way to get blog traffic, but that’s only true if you already have a following. That means you need to work to grow your networks and build a community as a part of your blog 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 schedule a week’s worth of social media posts. While these obviously include blog post promotions, that’s not all I post, and this entire process is also known as a social media editorial calendar, which I’ve mentioned earlier in this post.
Now it’s time to talk about them.
Editorial calendars are when you intentionally plan your posts for a specific chunk of time. I do this for Bluesky, 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.
I schedule content that isn’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.
On Bluesky, I share someone else’s blog post, a question, an inspirational quote, one of my blog posts (7 posts), and a promotion for my newsletter, a product I sell, or one of my other social media networks every single day. This is what I used to do on Twitter.
Every day on Facebook, I share one of my blog posts (4 posts), as well as a promotion for my newsletter, a product I sell, or one of my other social media networks. I alternate sharing other people’s blog posts, a question, an inspirational quote (with an image for it), and one of my older posts.
Posting an image makes a big difference on Facebook compared to just text.
This plan helps me create a cohesive social media presence.
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For example, as this is primarily a health blog, I focus more on sharing other’s posts that are health-related.
But the reason why I share other people’s posts at all is to 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.
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, even if they aren’t as necessary elsewhere as they are on Facebook.
I ask questions to build community as well to inspire others to interact with my content and so I’m not solely sharing links. (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 scheduled new pins for older blog posts, and every time I promote an older post, I post 1-2 pins for it.
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 in the long run.
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I also want to talk about how I use Instagram now.
Like with many parts of life, using Instagram has boomeranged back to how it was years ago.
When Instagram first got big, it was all about sharing parts of your life. Then, it became highly curated, which for some people included sharing parts of their lives, but it was mostly about curating an aesthetic and posting a lot.
We’ve moved back to posting more authentically, but it’s still curated, if less so than in the past few years.
In 2024, the way I used Instagram for the previous years stopped working. So I decided to try something new in 2025.
I’m now posting a weekly round-up of my life on Sundays, which includes everything from recovering from my infusion to making soup, from doctor’s office selfies to being stressed about the future, and beyond. Then, mid-week, I’m sharing a post about living with chronic illness against a dark teal background.
Basically, I was working really hard and stressing over creating content that people liked and engaged with, but the platform was changing to people appreciating more authentic stuff, so I figured I would try something new.
I’m still posting Reels often, as those are generally received better than in-feed posts, and I share in Stories.
This combination of being authentic and posting about chronic illness has been helping me grow a more engaged audience, especially as I post content on Instagram that I don’t share elsewhere. This engaged audience helps people find me, so in addition to growing my brand, I’m able to drive traffic to the blog and newsletter better.
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Resources mentioned
Like this post? Share it! Then check out:
What I Would Do If I Started a Blog Today, Starting a Chronic Illness Blog: Tips for Blogging with Fatigue and Pain, How To Write a Blog Post in 10 Easy Steps + Free Blog Post Template, 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.
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