Having a great social media presence can do wonders for your blog, so figuring out the best way to maintain that is one of my top blogging priorities. It’s not incredibly hard to do; I mean, you just have to post! But one decision I’ve struggled with since the beginning of my blogging days is whether I should separate my blog and personal social media accounts.
Related: Establishing A Consistent Social Media Presence
Initially, I created a separate account on almost every platform. I figured that would allow me to create a more professional presence, and I thought gaining followers would be pretty easy. Ha, that was definitely not the case. It was especially hard knowing my personal accounts already had hundreds of followers that I could be promoting to, while my new accounts had single digit followings. Eventually some grew faster than others, which led me to deleting the ones that became hard to maintain. I think I’ve finally settled on which accounts to keep separate, and I wanted to share about why I made those decisions for those struggling with the same issue!
I created my first Twitter years before I started a blog, meaning my original Twitter account was full of high school friends; basically, people who could care less about my new post on the Genesis Framework. I knew I wouldn’t get far with this crowd, so I created a separate account for my blog and I’ve stuck with that decision. I use this account to share my posts, share posts from other bloggers, and post organically to keep things from getting to promonition-y. By having this separate account, I’ve been able to grow a following of bloggers and blog-readers who are interested in my content, and are more likely to share it with their own followers. Overall, I would definitely suggest creating a separate account if you already have a personal one!
Related: 6 Tips For Growing Your Blog With Twitter
I’ve gone back and forth on this one, and for a while, having only one account wasn’t much of an issue. I almost never posted about my blog on Instagram because I didn’t see a reason to. You can’t easily link to your blog posts, and creating a graphic that blends well with your feed can take a lot of time. Recently though, I’ve been participating in sponsored campaigns and promoting my blog more often, and it was becoming more important that I maintain a certain style throughout my feed. Another issue was that my follower base mainly consisted of friends and family that don’t quite understand the concept of sponsored posts, or why I keep uploading pictures of tampons (I think I’ve gotten more than 20 questions about that one). So three days ago, I created a separate account, and it felt SO relieving! I can use this account to figure out my Instagram style, post freely about my blog, and create a following entirely comprised of bloggers and users that are interested in my content. I would absolutely suggest creating a separate account if you’re feeling awkward about certain posts, or held back from promoting your blog. It’s a little complicated to run two accounts (constantly logging in and out isn’t the most ideal situation), but I think it’ll be worth it in the long run.
p.s. I only have 22 followers on my new Instagram right now, so if you’re interested in seeing where I take it, I would love for you to help me grow that!
Related: Finding Your Instagram Style
I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone who created a separate Facebook account for their blog, so this one is pretty simple. The main decision is whether or not to create a Facebook page for your blog, and all I can say is, it won’t hurt! I hardly ever post to my Facebook page, simply because I don’t personally use Facebook very often.
This is the one account I’ve never duplicated, and I think that decision helped me grow it to my most popular social media account today. The great thing about Pinterest is that you can separate your blog life from your personal interests through boards, and your followers can choose which boards they want to keep up with. For example, my college friends might not care much about my blogging and business board, while my blogging friends might not want to follow my college board. Whether someone’s following one of your boards or all 34 (I know, I’ve narrowed down a bit) doesn’t really affect you or your numbers, so there’s really no need to have a separate account. One thing you can do to make this easier for your followers is make organized boards with concise names so they can decide which ones they’ll find interesting. Oh, and join group boards! They’re great places to get your posts out to new eyes, and gain more followers for your own similar boards.
Related: How To Use Group Pinterest Boards To Gain Blog Exposure
Tumblr
I’ve been using Tumblr for years, and hadn’t ever considered promoting my blog on it. I always thought of Tumblr as a place for reblogging funny text posts and cute puppy pictures, until I discovered a whole side of bloggers promoting their content successfully! That led me to create an account for my blog last week, and while I’ve found it to be much harder to gain followers on Tumblr than any other social media platform, I think this will be a fun account to keep up with anyway! If I find any success with this account, I’ll make a post about it for anyone interested.
Do you have separate accounts for your blog and personal life? Which way do you think is more ideal?
This is exactly my struggle right now. My very first personal Twitter profile doesn’t exist anymore, but in 2013 I created @alicegreenleaf just after joining the Middle-earth News team as Reporter. I always tweeted about Tolkien-related stuff and I gained 600+ followers there. Last year I started my blog where I like to talk about geeky stuff, but also blogging and social media marketing and those are things my fellow Tolkien fans don’t care about at all. I recently wrote a post about that, sharing my concernings about double social media accounts (if you’re interested, you can read it here: http://bit.ly/1LhhMF1). It was a big NO few weeks ago, but now I’m really thinking about to create another twitter profile for my blog, I’m just scared by starting from scratch when I already have 600+ followers on my personal one! How are you doing with 2 Twitter accounts?
I’ve always just used one account, my personal account, unless I have a project that where I constantly make new blog posts (like a news site). Otherwise, I just use 1 because it can be so hard to juggle multiple accounts, especially if you want to do more than just auto-publish to it.
I love this! This really answered questions I had about creating a separate instagram or twitter for my blog
I contemplate this all the time! I have deiceded to keep my personal and blog accounts as one. I realized that showcasing my daily life every so often was a great way for my readers to see that I’m a regular person, just like them! Sometimes the blogging world can seem so perfect, when really we are all running around trying to juggle many things.
PS- Your head shot photo is TOO CUTE. I just joined your Pinterest board and would love to connect. I’m going to follow your insta right now! <3
xoxo, Mindy
i definitely think it depends on the overall vibe/direction/goal of your blog. mine is very much a lifestyle blog and so the kind of “love it or leave it” aspect is kind of ME, you know? so i just want to be really transparent and honest. and maybe my instagram feed isn’t styled or anything, but it’s real.