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How to Build an Efficient Social Media Workflow to Increase your Traffic

Posted By Darren Rowse 11th of February 2015 Blog Promotion 0 Comments

Recently I shared a video on my Facebook page about how I structure social media updates each week.

I have been asked frequently about how much content to share, what times to share, and what I do personally for each of my sites. I take a pretty proactive approach on the Digital Photography School Facebook and Twitter feeds, ensuring there’s a broad range of new and old content across timeslots that work for our audience.

It’s solid advice I think would be useful in any niche – especially because there is the tendency to be overwhelmed with having to keep up with different social media sites, all the while trying to be relevant and interesting. I always tell people to choose the sites that work for your blog and your audience, and to focus on doing them well.

In this video, I share my (very simple Google Doc) editorial calendar, and how I find content to fill it. I also go through the process I use to share each article with our audience, from choosing the image, to describing it in a way that will interest people. I also go through how I look through the archives for relevant articles that haven’t been shared in a while.

Do you have a social media workflow? Do you find using a third-party scheduling app useful? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

 

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. I have also a lot of questions about how to build a social media workflow.
    Thanks Darren it helps me. And help others too
    well done
    Darren
    10 out of 10

  2. Darren I’m moving so much away from social these days; I spend a bit on twitter and FB but like you, my focus is on getting the most bang for my buck – at least time-wise over here – to attract my ideal readers. Focus your energy on 1-2 networks tops, learn them well and keep most of your creating to your blog since you own that real estate.

    Thanks for the share Darren!

    Ryan

  3. First one has to understand the ‘social’ aspect of social media so that when you come up with a workflow it doesn’t look as spamming using scheduling apps will depend on what you are posting your messages should be interactive and most importantly providing solutions to your followers as this builds your reputation in social media.hope this helps nice article.

  4. Thanks a lot Darren! It is very nice you share your tools with all of us. I have a question… when you retrieve already published articles to post, it seems you do it in a quite random manner (leaving room for them to ‘breathe’) Haven’t you been in the temptation of picking the same post pretty close in the calendar? For instance, the snow flakes post seems to be an excelent candidate for the whole winter. In this case, do you control this in any specific way?
    Thanks again! I appreciate pretty much probloger! (this blog was the very, very first one that took me to open mine in the past. Thank you for that :-)

  5. Which is better to use: HootSuite or Buffer?

    Anyone?

    • i had the same question but since i found that hootsuite “premium plan” starts from $8.99 and Buffer starts with $50.. i believe it’s matter of budget at the first place than which one is better especially if you are running on a small budget like me ;)

    • I like Hootsuite, but really, its the one that fits your style, and budget. Again I like hootsuite, but buffer must be doing something right…and like Ahmed says its a lot hootsuite is a lot cheaper so hey, that might be something that will work for you. Or see if Buffer offers a free trial…then you can experience buffer for yourself.

  6. If you are just getting started, then the free version of Hootsuite is the way to go, in my opinion. If you don’t mind paying, then Hootsuite Pro is a great way to schedule posts in FB groups, on top of the other stuff Hootsuite does well. I’ve never used Buffer, so I don’t know what it is like. When I first started, Hootsuite was the better value.

    I have also been using Meet Edgar to automatically recycle old posts. It basically automates the social media spreadsheet that most people use. Just load it up with your best content and add a picture. It even uses Bitly to automatically shorten links, so I can use a custom shortlink without paying the $50 that Hootsuite charges. You can use it to test different headlines and pictures for the same post. I still use Hootsuite for scheduling time sensitive posts and replying, but Edgar is a real time saver.

  7. This is wonderful. Affiliate marketers and bloggers are always seeking unique ways to build organic traffic from search engines and social networks. This is definitely something that’ll give marketers alot to think about.

  8. This is wonderful. Affiliate marketers and bloggers are always seeking unique ways to build organic traffic from search engines and social networks. This is definitely something that’ll give marketers alot to think about.

  9. Darren i use tumbler and pinterest for sharing but it is not up to the expected, so suggest me some good platforms

  10. Thanks Darren for this awesome information, I have a question that has been a pain in my ash for while.
    Well unfortunately in Egypt we don’t know the meaning of intellectual property, we don’t have laws to protect it, and recently i’m planning to start a blog about fashion in English and monetizing it through Adsense, my question is How to handle photos that i will post in my blog and also photos that i will post on social media that should bring fans and followers, i don’t want to do something against the law even outside of Egypt but also if i’m going to purchase every image, I going to get bankrupt very soon!
    Thanks in advance, have a great day.
    Ahmed

    • Hey Ahmed there are very few laws governing the subject you want to blog about fashion is just a way of expressing oneself which is very diverse but it should not be nudity. you also mentioned that that you will at some point monetize with adsense you will realize adsense have strict rules with there policy and one is plagiarism you can’t use other peoples material without giving credits so my advice is you just have to create a budget and purchase photos or buy or rent a good digital camera attend fashion events and take your own photos hope this helps

  11. Great video Darren, I has really helped me as I was looking for info on social media.

    thanks

  12. Great article. I try increase traffic on my websites through social media as well, and I find that out of all the third party apps I have tried, Buffer works best.

  13. Rebecca says: 02/12/2015 at 10:41 am

    Do you have a recommended rule of thumb for how often to post based on your number of followers? My website has been around for 1 month and I have 66 followers on Facebook and 9 on Twitter. I noticed my Facebook “reach” for my weekly post is significantly less than 66. Going from 1x/week to 6x/day is a big increase and I don’t want to risk people getting sick of seeing my posts, but it does seem like only 15-30 are seeing it anyways.

  14. Thanks for sharing, Darren. This is helpful.

  15. Thanks for sharing this video , I really wanted this information of making social media workflow.
    I do started using pinterest , and other social media sites to generate traffic but i am not getting satisfying result, if anyone can help me with this ..???

  16. Great video Darren, I use a google doc system for scheduling my social media posts.

    In terms of recycling your evergreen content, have you ever considered using an app to recycle that content in your schedule rather than manually do it?

    Assuming that you have a list of the evergreen posts this could be very helpful in saving your scheduling time.

    I’d do it, but my budget doesn’t let me!

  17. Hey Darren,

    You are becoming a mentor for people like me. However, I have been thinking lately (like what Ryan Biddulph said on one of the comments above) of getting away from social media like Facebook. Although I can’t deny that it has a lot of potentials to drive traffic. But what if all of a sudden, these mediums like Facebook is gone. Then we’re back to square one. I think we also need to work on ranking in SERP. Don’t you agree?

  18. Hi Darren !

    Social media can be great ways to drive maximum website traffic at ease but only if you have a strong presence over any of these. However building a strong presence on various social medias too is not a tough job if you follow an effective social media marketing strategy.

    Doing proper SEO always helps in long run but again social signals are very crucial factors that search engines consider while ranking any post. So social media sharing becomes inevitable. But make sue you have choose highly productive places to share your blog post for maximum exposure to your latest blog post otherwise you’ll end up wasting your precious time.

    Thank you for sharing !

  19. Man I am glad you shared this. Working all day and then coming home to try and update things on Facebook or even trying to do so on my phone through the day is just a pain. I have set this up and it is so much easier and I notice a lot more interaction as well. I noticed before I was always posting things either to late or to early in the morning so I was not getting anyone engaged in the content that I was trying to put out. I have also changed my mentality…I used to be so dead set on just getting likes when 9 times out of 10 those people that liked my paged never interacted…now I am noticing a much better following than I once did. Awesome post…thanks!

  20. Great video Darren. I always love your stuff, they are not only focused on money earning, but they give huge inspiration.

    I think social media is becoming the new SEO. And if you want to succeed in online, you need to learn to build engaging fans on social media.

  21. Ruth La Sure says: 03/01/2015 at 6:58 am

    I had been following your FaceBook blog posts occasionally. This post was exceptionally informative for me as I had begun to advertise my photography by posting every two or three days on Facebook with good reactions. I am becoming aware that some time slots are better on there and on my Instagram account. Your blog solidified that as well as making me aware of the value of Twitter. Next I need a website. 😀

  22. Hi Darren and others
    I use buffer because my flow is that when I find an article of interest to share with others, I can set the post up then and there, so no double handling. But thanks for your great reminder to also make more use of my own old, successful posts. Nicely put together. thank you.

  23. Hey Darren.

    Thanks for sharing this. To be honest, I can’t believe you spend so much time doing this when there are tools out there that can do most of this for you! Or you could pretty easily hire a VA to do the same stuff.

    Someone earlier mentioned Edgar. This is a brilliant tool for recycling all your older posts. Basically you build a library of all your posts and tell it what time slots to schedule and it just keeps recycling them according to your settings.

    I also like CoSchedule which makes scheduling social media so easy when you create posts. And what about Buffer and Hootsuite? I’m not familiar with Sprout, but it seems like you could avoid so much of the time this takes with some cleverly chosen tools :)

    All the best,
    Tim.

  24. Hey Darren,
    Thanks for this Amazing Post I Just Loved It

  25. i hope it will help me too..

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