As a blogger, you often hear that you should create a blogging process for yourself so that you are not shuffling around trying to think of something to write at the last minute (which oftentimes leads to crap content). I totally agree with this. You should definitely plan out your posts, all photos that need to be taken, when you’re going to edit those photos, when you're going to type the post, etc. BUT, something that I don’t hear much about is what to do AFTER your post goes live. There is a process that needs to happen after that as well. Today I am going to discuss the POST post process, and give you some tips on how to streamline it.

So what happens after you click “Publish”? It doesn’t end there. If anything that's just the beginning! How do you plan to get that nice new post out to the masses to lay their eyes on it? People don’t magically come (well, unless you’re an SEO master). You have to drive them to that content. There are six areas that you need to cover after publishing your blog posts:

1 / Update your social links

Rather than using your home page as the link in your social profiles, why not link directly to your new blog post? This is a great way to accompany your Instagram posts since you can’t include clickable links in descriptions. This way, you can give your followers a call to action (example: click the link in my bio) and they will be redirected to your new post. But you know what...you can automate this process! I have automated this process for some time now and it has been AWESOME (it can be kind of a pain to manually update links for every social platform). You can do this by creating a dedicated page on your website for traffic from your social media accounts that includes your five or so most recent blog posts on them so that every time you publish a new one the list will be updated. As a result, there would be no reason to have to constantly change links. Need an example? Here’s the link that I use on my social media profiles www.ColorHug.com/hello

2 / Twitter

Twitter is the fastest moving social network, so you should be posting here multiple times a day to maximize your reach. To prepare for this, create 5-10 unique tweets for your new post then schedule them for automatic posting to Twitter using Buffer, Hootsuite or another app that posts tweets on your behalf (who has the time or memory to post them all in real time? I know I don’t). Make sure to include any relevant hashtags in your tweet for a greater reach, but be mindful of the character limit. You may only want to include the best 1 or 2 tags as a result.

3 / Instagram

Hopefully you already have an image set to post to Instagram promoting your new post. If not, it’s all good...just make sure that you start planning for this in advance so that you can promo on Instagram. The great thing about Instagram is that there is large character limit (2200), so definitely make sure to include various relevant hashtags to your posts. Add the hashtags as a comment rather than in the image description so that it doesn’t junk it up.

4 / Facebook

If you are still on the Facebook train, make sure that you are posting your new posts to your wall. Maybe you have a Facebook group? If so, post it to the wall so that your group members will be notified of new content. Perhaps you have a fan page? Same concept...let your fans know you have a new post up! Maybe you just have a personal page. That’s fine, too. Post to your wall there if you want to share your new posts with your friends and family. And hey, if you have all three, post to all of them. Again, maximize your reach.

Tip: It is a good practice to have two Facebook accounts, one for personal use (family/personal friends) and one as the face of your brand. By doing this, you can join Facebook groups related to your blog/biz, and if you add friends from these groups, they will not receive updates on your personal life.

5 / Pinterest

Pinterest is still quite a popular place to be, so as a result you should be pinning your new posts there. First, pin it to the board dedicated to all of your blog posts (I hope you have one of those...if not, make one today!), then pin it to any relevant group boards that you're a member of.

6 / Video content

If you’re into video content, promote your new post on IG stories, Facebook Live, Snapchat, Periscope, etc. You may want to give a teaser on IG stories or Snapchat by sharing one of the things that you talk about in your post then tell them to click your link for the rest of the tips. If you’re up for doing a live stream, you could even do an Instagram Live, Facebook Live or Periscope session where you go into more detail about the reason that you felt compelled to write the post and maybe you have a discussion about one of the points with the viewers. This is also a great way to increase engagement with your followers.

A great thing about the majority of these things is that they can be scheduled/automated using IFTTT and Zapier. If you’re not using automation in your blog/biz, you need to get in on it like yesterday!

Now that you know about the post-post process, it’s time to get your strategy together. I have created a free cheat sheet so that you can organize your process and never miss a step after publishing your blog posts again! Click below to get your free sheet.

Hello there! Hope your week is off to a great start. I've been putting the finishing touches on my new website and blog platform and am excited to launch! During this process, I had pictures taken for my profile page (I was overdue for new photos) and intended to use them for my social media profile pics as well. Just a tip...

...you should be using the same profile picture across all social media platforms to keep a consistent and recognizable presence. The thing about these platforms is that every time I want to change my profile pics or import a new header, I have to hunt down what the dimensions are for each site! You want to use the image dimensions that the site recommends because that is the size that your image will look its best on their platform. This can get time consuming when you're having to update 4+ social media accounts.

Multiple sites are involved when updating my profile and header photos to the latest and greatest. Here are a few:

1. Instagram profile pic

2. Twitter profile pic and header

3. Facebook profile and header

4. Pinterest profile pic

5. PayPal invoice

6. Stripe invoice

7. Blog profile pic (and header if necessary)

If you've ever found yourself scouring Google and other sites to hunt down social media dimensions, today is your lucky day! I have created a handy cheat sheet of social media dimensions for the most popular platforms. Gone are the days where you have to search for the optimal profile image size on each site; now you can keep this handy guide on your desk as a reference point when it's time to update those profiles!

Tip:

To save even more time, you can create the largest image first so that it can be used across various platforms. For example, twitter's profile image has larger dimensions than Facebook and is a square, so create the twitter file and use it for Facebook as well (the image will automatically be scaled down upon upload on Facebook). It's fine for an image to be scaled down, but NEVER try to scale a smaller image up; the results will be unfavorable (i.e. grainy, pixellated, etc.).

Click to gain access to this handy FREE Social Media Dimensions Cheat Sheet as well as other forms, checklists and guides for bloggers and creatives!

Heck Yeah!