How to grow Social Media Platforms

It’s been four months (and two weeks) since I started blogging. My, what a long and complicated road it has been full of learning curves, confusion and confidence building.

I’ve learnt to believe in myself and shrug off peoples opinions.

It turns out a lot of people out there don’t think blogging is a real job. Now I’m like, ‘hey I don’t care what your opinion is, I’m running my own business. I’m a boss lady.’

Read my post on blogging isn’t a real job here.

Anyway, as I’m now four months into my business, yesterday I did my first quarterly social media report.

Obviously when I started blogging, I set myself some goals, although now I realise how unrealistic they were, I think I wanted to achieve 10,000 followers on all platforms by the end of the year, (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter) never say never, but a couple of months ago I set myself some more realistic targets to hit by my first quarter.

The truth be told, when I started this blog I didn’t even know social media reports were a thing. I started my blog and found the multi social media platforms and sharing content, and gaining followers and managing multiple sites so complicated…

So I decided to start a Social Media Marketing course with the Shaw Academy, who are awesome. They offer online training, on all sorts of topics, they fit around your work life and it has just been super helpful.

Read my post about Shaw Academy here.

Anyway, now that I know what I’m doing, (I got a distinction in Social Media Marketing) I thought I’d share a little social media update, things that have worked, things that have not and things I have learnt about each platform so far.

Pinterest

I’ve got 274.2 K monthly views today, which is the highest It’s ever been in the 8 years I’ve had my Pinterest account.

I’ve had my Pinterest account for such a long time, because I enjoy the platform, for the aesthetics, inspiration and just as general hobby. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Pinterest. But I was wrong.

I started my blog and started sourcing images to attach my blog posts to, I started making random ones on Canva. Then I started attaching every single image I made to a blog post.

I got lazy and started attaching multiple images to the same blog post, I’m saving time, right? Nope, I was so very wrong.

My stats plummet, my blog views plummet. I’m in December at this point, my stats go from 1000 viewers to 200…. I thought I’d cracked it but I had not.

Things I’ve learnt about Pinterest…

1. Don’t post everything on there to do with you. In the end I got marked as spam because every image was connected to the same post. I ended up having to change my website URL, delete all my blog boards and start again.
2. Have a board for your photography, for your blog posts and solely post your content on there a few times a day.
3. Add your content to other boards. For example I have one on 60’s make up and I regularly post images of myself with 60’s style makeup on. People might not click on your board post, but they might click on that.
4. Followers aren’t important on Pinterest.
5. Pick a design and create all your board posts with this design. Monitor your stats for a couple of months, if people aren’t clicking on them change your design, but keep everything consistent, it looks professional.
6. Respond to all your followers and comments within 24 hrs.
7. Set up a group board, be sure to like the content they post and comment on it. At the moment I have a vegan board with a few people that post on it.
8. Post everyday, add fresh content and pin other peoples stuff too. Don’t just post anything, be a bit fussy. Make sure all the images are high quality.
9. Pin up to 30 times a day, time consuming I know but it’s possible. If you want to grow fast, this is the way. Don’t forget to hashtag your content also.
10. Join group boards, and contribute to them. They’re hard to find but not impossible. Each one has it’s own set of rules, sometimes you have to message them and ask to join, sometimes they invite you (if you’re lucky).

To find group board go to the search bar and type in the topic you want to find. On the right hand side click on all pins and scroll down to boards. From their click on the board of your choice and message them and ask if you can join them.

TIP : I started my own board and then was invited to join one, so you could try this… you might get lucky like me.

Instagram

So my aim was to get to 500 followers by the end of Feb. I didn’t quite hit it but I was so close. Instagram is really difficult to grow on, there’s no exact recipe for success.

I think you just have to be yourself. The weirder I am the more people like it and it’s helped me feel more confident too. Having said that what worked for me might not work for you…. the trick is not to copy others, be authentic.

I have a post on Instagram Tips here.

As a photographer I love this platform, although I spend very little time browsing other peoples content. I like the odd photograph here and there but I mainly spend my time planning content based on the colour wheel and thinking of long captions to go with my content.

Anyway the upshot is, is that I am growing daily, albeit it slowly and I am allowing myself to a have creative freedom when it comes to content and influence.

Things I have learnt about Instagram…

1. Photography quality and filters are the most important thing. Don’t add poor quality images.
2. Stop caring about what people think, cute selfie? Post it. I was so worried about what my audience would think at first it stopped me from up loading some of my best content.
3. Use Instagram to inform your audience about blog posts and things that are happening in your business and make it friendly. Don’t be afraid to message your audience, get to know them, they want to know you.
4. There are no shortcuts. Instagram rewards consistent posting, stick to your schedule and post, over time you will be rewarded.
5. Use reels. Use the reels feature and make videos, I’ve had 1000’s of views on my reels. They can be about anything, just make sure you film in good light and use catchy music.
6. Use the right hashtags #basic
7. Have a clear bio that explains who you are, break up the writing with emojis and look professional.
8. Use the best profile photo you have and stick with it. I’ve had a few followers that I lost when I made silly errors like loading bad content, spelling mistakes etc, a few months later they added me again. My guess, they recognised my profile pic and gave me another chance.
9. Think outside the box. I like to look at photography Ideas on Pinterest.
10. Focus on you, what’s your brand, what do you want to achieve, what are your goals.

Twitter

My aim for Twitter was 1000 followers, again I didn’t reach it but hey I wasn’t far off. I’m happy with my efforts.

The first piece of work I got was from twitter, don’t underestimate how good this platform is for bloggers. It’s a great place to self promote posts, connect with other bloggers and get paid work so it’s worth building up.

I recommend adding accounts like the cosy bloggers club and joining threads and sharing your content on them. Make sure you follow the rules and read other people content too. I also hunt for PR blog managers for blog promotion work and other bloggers who’s content I like too.

Things I’ve learnt about Twitter…

1. Don’t just self promote and comment back on every comment you receive.
2. Use images and Gif’s to attract attention.
3. People like sass, don’t be afraid of commenting on something and being a little cheeky. You could share a news story and say something cheeky about it, it doesn’t have to be direct.
4. People like funny, so be witty and respond quickly. Twitter is a fast platform.
5. Ask people questions, get them to engage with you.
6. Re-tweet content, especially stuff with a lot of engagement.
7. Share posts from other bloggers and talk about why you like them.
8. Use the platform at least once a day, whether it’s for self promotion, something funny or retweeting something interesting or helpful for your audience. It takes two minutes, there’s no excuse not to!
9. Use a catchy image in the banner, your logo and write a unique, heartfelt bio. There’s a lot of fake accounts on twitter so be authentic.
10. Monitor your analytics and self promote (a lot). Out of all the platforms I post the most about my content on this platform and it gets me paid work so utilise it.

Linkedin, Facebook and Soundcloud

These are all in the infant stages, I started these accounts later than the others, so my aim this quarter is to build these platforms like I have with the first three. We’ve all got to start somewhere, the trick is to not give up.

If you’ve liked my content today, follow me on my social media platforms and show your support.

Thank you so much,

Soph.