For today’s The Business of Being Creative, I want to share some of my favorite resources that help me run my business smoothly on social media. I’m a firm believer in scheduling as much social media as possible so that I can live my life without constantly being connected. I feel like not very many bloggers talk about this because it means peeking behind the curtain and seeing that we aren’t actually posting in real time… but hey, we all have to unplug sometimes! I really cherish the time I spend living away from the internet and find that I come back to my job with totally fresh eyes. That being said, I’ve embraced and experimented with lots of tricks and tools for scheduling and planning my social media:
ps — We’re still working on a Q&A post with my lawyer to answer questions about contracts, negotiations, copyright and more… if you’ve got questions leave ’em below in the comments or email me!
Pinterest: this platform is by far my largest following with over 3.8 million followers. I spend a lot of time making sure my Pinterest page is inspirational, beautiful, and reflective of my aesthetic. Long ago, I converted my page to be a business account so that I am able to view analytics. This feature is especially helpful when I’m partnering with a brand so I can gauge how my audience is responding and adjust accordingly for longer term partnerships.
I also use Tailwind for countless things: scheduling pins, analytics, managing and responding to comments… and my favorite feature, tracking how my domain performs on Pinterest. I’m sort of a data nerd and LOVE to see how everything resonates with my followers, so Tailwind is hugely helpful.
For just a quick overview of what readers are loving, I like to look at the source page of my blog on Pinterest. To see what people are pinning from your site, you can access your site’s source page like so:
https://www.pinterest.com/source/XYZ.com
Simply replace XYZ with your site’s URL and you’ll see! I really love to keep track of what people are pinning from my site because it helps me create new content that feels timely and in line with what readers are already interested in. Also, it’s great for pulling posts from my archives to promote — just because the post was published last year does not mean it’s totally dead!
Instagram: Admittedly, I am a huge analytics nerd, so not only have I converted my Instagram account to a business page, but I also have a pro account on Iconosquare. Overall, understanding the analytics has helped me make my page more visually consistent, but also has given me an understanding of when my audience is most engaged. For example, I now post my photos at 7 am on Saturday because I know my followers are way more active during this time, meaning that I’ll get more likes and comments! With all the algorithm changes that we’ve seen on Instagram lately, I’ll take any boost I can get.
But how do I post at 7 am on Saturday consistently? Meet your new best friend, Schedugr.am. This app literally lets you schedule when your photos will post! You can also set it to post the first comment (aka alllll of those hashtags), too. This is how I post a photo while I’m camping in the mountains! I also use Schedugr.am to plan out what my feed looks like and to keep the visuals consistent. It has a feature that allows you to preview how your new post will look within your feed so that you know it’s not a total curveball for your audience. Just one more tool to make sure I maintain a curated feed.
Lastly, I set up IFTTT to automatically post each of my Instagram photos to a specific Pinterest board. You can read all about that here!
Facebook: I’m sort of boring on this front… I use Facebook’s embedded scheduler. I’ve found that more of my followers will see the post if I use their app versus a different scheduler. I’m planning a post about what it means to ‘boost’ a Facebook post and some tips for that, so be sure to stay tuned.
Twitter: I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Twitter. It’s the perfect platform for the funny little comments that pop into my head, but I’m such a visual person that this is definitely my least favorite. If anything, these days I post more of my off-the-cuff stuff to Snapchat.
That being said, I use TweetDeck to schedule tweets for my blog posts and sharing amazing content that I find while researching new post topics. When I’m on the go, I simply use the Twitter app and that seems to work just fine for me.
Do you use any other resources for managing your social media? I’d love hear all about them in the comments below!
photography by Meghan Klein.
Thanks for the Tailwind shoutout, Joanna! Great to see another data nerd :)
any time! you guys rock :)
This is such a hugely helpful post! I feel so technically challenged, so any info like this is HUGE! Thank you for being so transparent in your work!
Glad you like it!
Glad you like it!
Thanks so much for sharing these tips! While social media for businesses is powerful, it can be tasking when not scheduled properly. I use Planoly to schedule Instagram posts, which is an affordable option ($7/mo I believe?). Organization/scheduling makes all the difference! Xx.
ooooo I’ll have to look into that! Thanks for sharing :)
ooooo I’ll have to look into that! Thanks for sharing :)
Thanks so much for sharing these tips! While social media for businesses is powerful, it can be tasking when not scheduled properly. I use Planoly to schedule Instagram posts, which is an affordable option ($7/mo I believe?). Organization/scheduling makes all the difference! Xx.