The Ultimate List of Social Media Hacks

There are so many different pins out there like “How To Grow Your Blog in 30 Days” or “Learn How I Doubled My Instagram Following”. I know this, because I click on them every damn time! Today, I’ve compiled a list of all my favorite tips hoping to help out anyone looking for some ideas (that work) and to see if there’s any tried and true hacks that YOU love. Okay, let’s get this party started! Today I’m dishing what works for me on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for The Ultimate List of Social Media Hacks.

 Pinterest Tips

1. People are always like, how can you tell what has been pinned from your site onto Pinterest? Easy! Type “www.pinterest.com/source/YOURWEBSITE”. For example, mine is “https://www.pinterest.com/source/”

It will pull up a whole page of pins that have been pinned from your site, who pinned them and how many times they’ve been re-pinned.

2. Join & utilize group boards. Some of my favorite pins are found using group boards and that is what helps to promote your pins to a larger audience. My favorites can be found here, here & here.

3. Set up rich pins. What are rich pins? They are pins that include details right on the pin itself — where it came from, a preview of the web page, etc.

4. Freshen up your Pinterest page. Depending on the time of the year, I will re-order my Pinterest boards based on season, holiday or event. Springtime? Weddings. Summer? Cocktails. Fall? Thanksgiving/Christmas. You see where this is going! At first I thought it was kind of an annoying task, but I noticed an uptick in board analytics as soon as I began taking the time to do this.

5. Use automated services like Tailwind or BoardBooster to take care of pinning for you. They say that 30 pins per day is the magical number to shoot for, so if you don’t have time to manually pin that many, automate it!

1. Pre-tweets. Using a scheduling program (I like Hootsuite), set up your promotional tweets for the week for your blog posts. This saves me a ton of time during the day without having to reach for my phone, grab the blog link, head to Twitter, think of some text and promote myself. I typically plan and write my posts on the weekends, head to Hootsuite to write my promotional tweets and bada-boom — DONE!

2. Share personal photos. As much as it’s great to self promote, sometimes people want a deeper insight into your life. Share photos of your outfit, what you’re eating, a new place you’re visiting — whatever! I like to switch things up and post certain photos to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. so that each audience feels like they’re getting something unique. Hint: this also means that people will want to follow you on all platforms to feel like they’re getting it all!

3. Search hashtags. When I have time, I will search relevant-to-me hashtags and engage in conversation. It’s a great way to expose yourself to a new audience.

4. Follow community leaders. This seems pretty self-explanatory, but I’m mentioning it for good reason. Some people are so afraid to GIVE when it comes to social media. But the reality is that you GET what you GIVE. If you never follow people or follow them back, they are less inclined to follow you.

1. Develop a theme. This one seems obvious, too, but if you’re all over the place — it might be hard to get and retain followers/build a community. When I decide to follow someone, my first impression is their top row of 3 photos. Do I see a consistent theme? Everyone looks for something different, but I like to see crisp photos, lots of color and a good caption. My Instagram theme is bright, tropical colors.

2. Identify your audience is. The above mentioned theme is useless if you are a food blogger with an audience of fashion bloggers. That’s probably a terrible example, but you know what I mean. What does your audience want and when do they want it? There are some great tools out there to use for this, but I like Iconosquare.

3. Hashtags. USE THEM. Instagram’s latest update puts you in a tough spot time wise, so have the relevant hashtags you like to use at the ready when you post your photo. Yes, hashtags put your photo in front of a larger audience, but they only do so based on the time that the photo was posted. So, if you post a photo at 1PM and wait until 2PM to add/utilize hashtags — your window of opportunity has pretty much closed.

4. Engage. Comment on photos, answer questions, respond to commenters. This all seems pretty obvious, but how guilty are you of just breezing through your feed and throwing everyone a heart? I’m raising my hand, because I do this, too! I notice that when I take the time to comment and interact, my numbers reap the benefits.

1. Ads. I love using Facebook ads and promoted posts. When I think I’ve written a post more than just my usual audience will enjoy, I promote it. When I have a giveaway going on or something fun to share, I will promote my page. I’ve seen some substantial growth using these methods. Just be sure to ask yourself — is this post/giveaway worth X dollars?

2. What is trending? Have you seen an article you love on a topic that is currently breaking/being talked about? Re-post it! Is there an article relevant to your brand? Share it! I have found that sharing at least one relevant article per day garners likes, shares and even great commentary!

3. Don’t over-do it! For awhile, I was posting all the time on my blog page and then I realized — I’m one of THOSE PEOPLE. Like take a chill pill, Kait, no one cares to see 450 updates from you per day. I try to post no more than 3 times spread out throughout the day — one inspirational/funny meme, a promo for my current blog post and a shared article. Sometimes I’ll link my latest Instagram post to my page if I think it would be enjoyed!

What are your favorite social media hacks?