© bloomua

I wasn’t a fan of scheduling social media updates for a long time. I used to connect my blog updates to a tweet scheduling tool years ago when I wasn’t at all active on Twitter. I completely forgot that I’ve done it until I started using Twitter again and realised that most tweets that came from me back then were simply tweets about blog updates. There weren’t any personal updates, chats with fellow tweeple or any other form of engagement. In short, my tweets back then were boring as arse.

Things changed when I started using social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) a lot more frequently. I’ve stopped automatically sending blog updates to Twitter and Facebook only because I’m particular about the times different blog posts are to be tweeted about on certain days. I’m pedantic that way.

Today, I’m not going to only talk about how to post and schedule blog updates on social media platforms. I’m also going to talk about how to find content to share with your followers and schedule them effectively for maximum engagement.

I find that if I’m only talking about my blog posts on Twitter or Facebook, it’s boring. Who would want to follow people who only talks about themselves and have nothing else to share? In a world that’s all about ME, ME and ME, sharing other people’s work that is relevant to your followers not only helps the content creator spread the word about their work, it also proves that you’re someone to go to for good content. Whether it’s yours or not.

Something interesting I’ve also noticed with sharing content on Twitter or Facebook is how much it drives engagement to my social media platforms. It’s not just about me talking about how my day is, ranting about Myki, showing off my dog and so on. It’s also about providing valuable information to my followers. When engagement on my social media platforms increases, my blog’s readership increases too.

Here are a few websites I stumbled upon a few months ago and after using them consistently for over a month, I’ve seen how much they’ve driven engagement for me, especially on Twitter. It’s not a significant jump in numbers, mind you, but I’ve seen a vast improvement when I compare my stats to previous months.

Buffer and Klout aren’t new tools in the market. Buffer is an online tool you can use to schedule your tweets and updates on Facebook. I prefer this to Hootsuite as I’ve gotten more scheduling errors with Hootsuite than I have with Buffer. Klout is a website that measures the clout of your online presence. Some brands see their measurement and Klout figures as a big thing. Me, I’m not so sure. I’m still on the fence about how accurately they measure clout from my social media platforms. Tweriod is also an online tool that measures the online Twitter activity of your followers. Sounds a bit stalkerish, I know, but you’ll only find out the times your followers are most active on Twitter. No other funny business.

Anyway, their basic measuring tools aren’t what I wanted to share with you about. Klout has revamped their website and instead of showing you your engagement stats on the dashboard, it allows you to create content to increase your engagement. This is what I wanted to talk to you about. The same thing goes with Buffer.

Okay let’s get down to the nitty gritty and how these websites can help you in scheduling your social media updates and increase engagement.

Klout

• First of all, you’ll need to have a Klout account. This tutorial assumes that you already do.
• Go to Create (it’s on the left sidebar).
• At the top of the page, add in keywords that most suit your blog and what you think your readers are most interested in. In my case, I put in “FASHION, MAKEUP, BLOGGING, DIY”.
• Klout will use those keywords and automatically create a list of related topics for you that you can share with your audience.
• As you scroll down the list, you’ll notice that there are certain posts that says “Hot off the press” (this means that the content was very recently published) or “On Target” (hover your mouse over this and it will tell you the percentage of followers on Facebook or Twitter that are interested in the topic).
• Select a post to share with your audience by clicking on Share.
• You have the option of sharing the post right now or scheduling it to be posted later.
• Klout will also measure when your audience is most active and will give you a list of the best times to share that content.
• I find this such an interesting tool and I’ll admit, it’s pretty addictive.
• I’ve noticed that my engagement increases significantly when I share interesting topics that Klout picked for me and even more when I share them at specific times.

Buffer

• I use this tool mostly to schedule my tweets for blog post updates.
• A recent feature of Buffer is the suggested content to share.
• Now, you don’t get to add in keywords to Buffer. Most of the suggested content I get from them are related to blogging, social media, online marketing and so on. You’ll also get an inspirational quote with those content.
• Most suggested content is unrelated to what I do but some can be very interesting so I would still suggest you to check it out.
• You can also monitor the activity of the shared link (e.g. how many times it’s been clicked, what the reach was, etc).
• Go to the Dashboard and you’ll see a box that says “Daily content suggestions available for the next x hours“. Click on View Suggestions. Click on any of the 5 suggested titles to add to your schedule queue.

Tweriod

• Unlike Klout and Buffer, this website doesn’t suggest content for you.
• What it does is it analyses your Twitter stats and tell you the time and days of the week that your followers are most active on Twitter. It allows you to schedule your tweets (sharing your own or other people’s content) effectively so that they reach most of your followers. It gives you the best times to tweet.
• This tool is free to use but it will only give you the most active times based on your first 1000 followers. If you have less than 1000 followers, then this tool is perfect for you because it will be most accurate. My Twitter followers’ most active times are only based on my first 1000 followers. If I want more, I’ll have to pay for premium analysis.
• This tool is great to use when you’re scheduling tweets to promote your blog content.
• Just sign up with your Twitter details and follow the instructions.

The combination of these 3 websites have helped me tremendously in growing my social media engagement. The number of retweets has increased. Even when people aren’t retweeting, they join in the conversation I’ve started. It gets people talking.

I’m not saying that this is guaranteed to drive a significant amount of traffic to your social media platforms and ultimately your blog but in my experience, it has helped increase engagement and conversations with my followers. Why not give them a try and see how they work for you? You never know; you may stumble upon some great content yourself too! 🙂