There have been so many changes to the social media landscape across the years, in fact an incredible amount of changes just in the last 12 months.
Where Twitter and forums used to reign supreme, you’ll find today’s bloggers fatigued with Facebook, confused about Snapchat, and getting their heads around the same capabilities, only over on Instagram.
With each blogger comes a specific set of circumstances and needs, and therefore successful social strategies will look different from person to person.
With ProBlogger, for example, Facebook and Twitter still appear to be the most popular ways of sharing and engaging with our content (the new ProBlogger Challenge Facebook Group is also growing). With my own lifestyle blog, it’s definitely Facebook (both a group and a page), and Instagram, with Snapchat bringing up the rear (I miss you, Twitter!).
Two different blogs, two different places to spend our time both promoting posts and interacting with readers. And success can depend on the time of day too, per platform.
With all the changes cycling through so fast we thought it would be fun to open up a discussion and informally poll our readers – where do you hang out online? What kind of blog do you have and what social platforms are the most successful for you? Is your audience on the platform you want to be on, or would you prefer to interact elsewhere? What works on your social channels?
Leave your comments below and let’s get chatting!
Historically article/content sites worked for me, for article syndication. That was when I was a f/time employee and doing Internet marketing in my few spare hours, so only have about 500 published articles.
Now my strategy is to research the channels that are actively occupied by the niche (online info business) market I’m looking to help. For example if there’s no one in my niche spending time on Pinterest, then why would I spend any time there?
On the other hand, dedicated blogs like this one will always provide a perfect platform for businesses like yours and mine. Now of course the integration of social media channels grows by the day and there is x-fertilization and x-linking throughout.
Yes it can be a bit of a minefield! do you find any social media platforms work better for you than others these days?
I have a blog that focuses on frequent flyer miles and points, but it’s geared toward regular family that doesn’t fly very often! :) And that’s part of the problem. My target audience (moms) is on Facebook, but Twitter is the king of social media in my particular industry. So, it’s a bit of a challenge knowing what channel to focus on. I do find most of my engagement happening on Twitter. But maybe it’s because that’s where I currently devote most of my promotional efforts: Correlation, and not causation.
Overall, I find this whole aspect of blogging to be a bit overwhelming. Being a mom to two small kids, I have very little time to create content, much less to promote it. I know the latter is extremely important, so hopefully, one of these days, I’ll find the right balance. That said, I have no plans to do Snapchat and currently update my Instagram account once in a blue moon. Facebook and Twitter is all I can handle….barely.
I know, it can be an absolute hamster wheel! I find scheduling programs save my bacon (as I’m home with small kids also!) we use CoSchedule and Edgar here, and they’ve been an absolute godsend.
I know what you mean about your audience being on two different platforms, it can really make it hard to choose one to focus on. I’d go where my readers are, and focus less on what my industry does.
I spend most of my time on facebook, and it’s thanks to facebook that I found this post, but I alo like twitter. I have just created a blog so I don’t have any readers yet but I think I will focus on fb twitter and google plus more to drive more people to visit and interract with me.
Regards
Yes I would find out what would be the most useful platform and start there!
I run two blogs and they both have different platforms. Even though Twitter is my biggest audience it has the least engagement. I had great engagement in Twitter up until a few months ago then it all went rather strange.
My favourite is Instagram, I engage more there, followed by Facebook. I suspect Instagram will change soon due to the new ‘business’ pages and the company wanting people to pay to promote their posts. Although I’m not visiting Pinterest as much as I should, I do share my posts there and it does drive traffic to the blog.
Yes I’ve been wondering what will happen to Instagram with the new business accounts and algorithm, though they do maintain nothing will change. We’ll see!
I’ve also noticed the Twitter engagement drop off over the years – I’m still surprised when someone replies to my tweets!
I wonder what will happen to Pinterest, or if it’s even as big of a traffic driver as it used to be.
Hi Stacey,
That’s a good discussion topic. According to me, the social media platform that brings most traffic to your website, depends on the type of content. If you are a travel/photography blogger, obviously instagram or twitter will bring you more visitors. On the other hand, if you are a talking about current trends in the industry or writing personal stories, facebook or twitter seems more relevant platform. If you are a video blogger, Snapchat might prove useful to you. In my other blog, Letsgeek.net, being a technology blog, content aggregator sites such as reddit, stumbleupon proved useful in bringing traffic.
All you gotta do is try different avenues and see which one is working the most for you.
Yep I totally agree, the only way to find out is to experiment!
HI Stacey
This is a good question you pose. There really are so many SM platforms these days. For my personal branding, I have found Twitter to be the most effective. Being consistent with my interactions and what I tweet has helped me build a following fairly quickly since I’ve concentrated on it.
For my blog, I am going to invest time in Pinterest. I hear a lot from bloggers who are seeing traffic and share increase by putting time on to the platform. I guess what I’m attracted to is the autopilot of the resharing. I’ve set up my boardbooster account to do most of the auto-pinning for me. I know many have used tailwind, but I am very much in the bootstrapping phase.
I think you should go with whatever works! Tailwind is awesome, but I actually use Ahalogy – I think it has cool features for its users but not everyone gets the perks.
Being consistent with interactions is the best thing you can do though, that makes the most difference across all platforms.
Hi Stacey,
I love Twitter for my blogging tips blog.
So much engagement and it works so well with automating freely too. I vibe with that mix, whereas on FB automation works only if done sparingly. But FB rocks too for me.
Engagement makes Twitter go. People love blogging tips share thru the platform but vibe mainly with live bodies. I pop in 1-2 times daily for 20 minutes to respond to individual RTers and chatters. Naturally, because I engage a bunch folks RT my stuff, engage me, and I drive steady – and increasing – traffic through the platform.
So many bloggers who don’t get results out of Twitter just don’t put in the time to engage. That’s where the magic happens.
Thanks for sharing :)
Ryan
so true, I do think many people pass over Twitter as its not for them or they don’t engage on it enough. But I also think it works better for blogging/online/tech types of blogs as opposed to more personal or lifestyle topics. I could be wrong though!
Hi Stacy!
I’m regular user of Facebook and twitter as well. but if I talk about business, twitter is my favorite. and I think people like to share on twitter than any other.
Thanks
Brad
Thanks Brad! I still love Twitter :)
Though I love twitter, I tend to work better with facebook. This might be because of the nature of blogs I run but all my experiments with twitter have not been as successful.
However, I have also noticed that there are guys, with similar sites that have successfully used Pinterest, instagram and also twitter. My conclusion; you should try to work with the platform you love most, but if it fails to click try something different
yeah I think if you can get the sweet spot of the platform you love the most that the bulk of your audience is also on, that would be perfect!!
We blog on retirement lifestyles and find Facebook by far the most effective for our demographic (Sensis data backs up our informal analysis). I have a good Instagram following but that doesn’t translate to the blog, Pinterest and Twitter have not been good for us.
I think that’s fairly common for lifestyle type blogs – although some are really driving the traffic with their Instagram. I’ve tried with Pinterest too but definitely haven’t seen the success that other people have.
Facebook and Google+ work best for me. I already have a lot of Facebook likes on one of my Facebook page and the outreach is quite great though it isn’t as great as before. Google+ is the second in-line and the reason is the tonnes of pages with a considerable amount of members so when I post, some people must response. That’s it!
I was wondering about Google plus! I don’t often see a lot of traction over there.
The best social media platform for me has definitely been Pinterest. On there all of the infographics I post get thousands of shares. Including one post which reached over 65K people and was posted on Buzzfeed.
This is a good question you pose. There really are so many SM platforms these days. For my personal branding, I have found Twitter to be the most effective. Being consistent with my interactions and what I tweet has helped me build a following fairly quickly since I’ve concentrated on it.
I have a blog that focuses on frequent flyer miles and points, but it’s geared toward regular family that doesn’t fly very often! :) And that’s part of the problem. My target audience (moms) is on Facebook, but Twitter is the king of social media in my particular industry. So, it’s a bit of a challenge knowing what channel to focus on. I do find most of my engagement happening on Twitter. But maybe it’s because that’s where I currently devote most of my promotional efforts: Correlation, and not causation.
I acti on Facebook, likedin, Twritter is main, another as google plus, instagram, pinteres, asocial media big… I see all very good, get to community, very kind.