Social media is a powerful tool. When used correctly, it can connect us with thousands of individuals and bring visitors to our blogs, resulting in new followers and connections.
However, social media is a ravenous beast. Before you realise it, it’ll consume all your time while scattering you far and wide without delivering results. It’ll take everything from you and give little back.
One of the first pieces of advice I received from another blogger was to join as many social media platforms as possible to attract visitors. It turned out to be one of the worst pieces of advice I followed, as it wasn’t long before I found myself spending too much time on numerous platforms.
I realised that spreading myself too thinly on social media was not the solution, so I reduced the number of accounts I managed. This freed up significant time, allowing me to engage more on those platforms. Before long, I noticed increased visitors coming to my blog from various social media sites. Social media was finally paying me back for the time I was investing in it.
Since starting my blog in 2014, I’ve tried most social media platforms. Today, I will discuss five of them and explain why they have worked or not for me.
BlueSky 🦋
Profile Name: @hughsviewsandnews.com
I joined BlueSky in November 2024. It’s one of the new kids on the block. When this post was written, it had gone past the 27 million milestone of the number of users. That number is rising fast.
Not only have I found BlueSky a friendly place to engage with other users, but it’s simple to use, running a similar platform to X. Like any social media platform, the more you engage with other BlueSky users, the better the results.
I’ll write more about BlueSky in an upcoming post, but early indications are that it’s a rising social media platform that all authors, writers and bloggers should seriously consider joining.
I’ve also found a lot of photographers on BlueSky. If you have a photography blog or host a photography challenge, ensure you join BlueSky.
Don’t forget to add the BlueSky sharing button to the sharing buttons on your blog posts so visitors can share your posts to BlueSky.
Profile Name: Hugh W Roberts
I joined Flipboard in 2019. It has brought incredible amounts of traffic to my blog and has an excellent customer service team that reaches out whenever problems occur.
Users add information to magazines, so, as in blogging, setting up categories is essential. My most popular magazines are Blogging Tips, Entertaining (short) Stories You’ll Enjoy, LGBTQI, and Writing Tips.
Mastodon
Profile Name: @HughWRoberts
Mastodon is a big part of the Fediverse, which WordPress promotes heavily. The Fediverse is a global, open social network of independent servers that communicate with each other using a common protocol.
Users create posts in much the same way as on X and BlueSky. Posts appear on the timelines of those who follow the person who created and published the post, but other users can also see them.
I’ve had a steady flow of traffic from Mastodon to my blog, although out of the three social media accounts I use, it’s the one I use the least.
X/Twitter
After 14 years, I deleted my X account on December 31st, 2024, for reasons I won’t go into. This means that I will no longer share my blog posts or other bloggers’ posts on X.
Given that I had over nine thousand followers on X, I hope those who followed me there will now follow me on BlueSky. Some already have, but given that this post is my first mention of joining BlueSky, many will not know I am now active there.
Join me on BlueSky at @hughwroberts05.bsky.social
I recently gave Instagram another chance. I did my best to boost engagement, but I struggled significantly. While some people interacted with my posts, it was difficult to stand out amidst all the self-promotion on the platform.
There is nothing wrong with self-promoting your own books and blogs, but I find it too overwhelming when it’s every post. I only saw a little of others promoting the posts of others.
Maybe I was following the wrong accounts?
Instagram wasn’t for me. I deleted my account in December 2024.
Avoid following the accounts of those who only promote their own work and who give nothing back to others.
Other Social Media Platforms
There are many other social media platforms that I have not mentioned, and other bloggers, writers, and authors use them successfully. But how?
I would love to know which social media platforms you use and which ones have been the most successful. In the comments section, feel free to share which platforms you use and your username so that anyone reading the comments can follow and connect with you.
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Another insightful post, Hugh. I might consider joining BlueSky in the future, but, right now, I have my hands full with my existing media platforms, which are my blog on WordPress and two Facebook pages, namely Liesbet Collaert for friends and family and my more popular and fun page, Roaming About, where I post daily anecdotes and photo galleries of our adventures.
I used to be on Instagram and Twitter at some point, but deleted those accounts years ago. Instagram, because adding hashtags became too cumbersome and spam comments appeared more than genuine comments and Twitter, because of the hate messages I received there, because I couldn’t moderate or delete comments posted to my tweets, and because of other reasons which might be similar to yours.
Glad you found it helpful, Liesbet.
If you’re happy with the number of social media platforms you manage, stick to them. I deleted Twitter to free up more time to spend on BlueSky, and my decision has already paid off. I can’t tell you how happy I am since deleting my Twitter account. Good riddance to it.
This is a really helpful post, I’ve recently started my blog and I’ve just started looking at the different ways of reaching out to people. Struggling with Instagram at the moment. I will definitely look into the others mentioned here though!
Instagram is a social media platform I departed from, as I was not seeing results, and I found that too many users were focused on self-promotion instead of sharing one another’s posts. I would recommend giving BlueSky a thorough look.
Good to hear I’m not the only one having issues with it haha, I will definitely have to give BlueSky a look, thanks for the advice!
Blue-sky sounds interesting. I think I found myself deleting some social media apps in the future like you’ve mentioned, Hugh.🤭
Deleting social media accounts (when you’re spreading too thinly on them) certainly helps, Hazel.
If you join BlueSky, let us know your account details so we can follow you there. It’s just passed 28 million users.
I’ve just created it after I read your article.
This is my bluesky account:
@kindhazel.bsky.social
Thank you so much for the following in advance. Stay so kind!
Hi Hazel, I found you on BlueSky and will add you to my upcoming Bloggers sharing pack there.
I hope you enjoy the BlueSky experience as much as I have. It’s a friendly, engaging place with lots of users who want to connect.
Hi, Hugh. Okay, it sounds good.
I haven’t explored Bluesky yet. I’ll have to give time for it.
I’m excited to join the group. Thank you, Hugh. Have a lovely day as you are!
Thank you for this. I am on Bluesky @transparencyworkshop.com, but the platform is very, very political at the moment. Instagram is useless, I have found, given the amount of self-promotion. I will try Flipboard and possibly Tumblr.
Hi Barry, I have followed you on BlueSky.
I agree that BlueSky is quite political, but I skip past most of it. My timeline has lots of other great stuff on it, and I’ve connected with some great new friends there. Along with other things, I’m participating in photography and music challenges on BliueSky. It’s all good fun.
Great post Hugh. I had never even heard of Bluesky. I’m on Instagram but I agree it’s a difficult one with post promotions. It worked well for me in the beginning but I don’t think people on Instagram were really that bothered with my blogs, it’s like two completely different social groups.
That’s what I found with Instagram, Wayne. I also found many people promoting their books. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when that’s all they do, I don’t see the point. I’m already getting traffic to my blog from BlueSky. Not a lot, but it’s the start. I’ve not promoted many of my blog posts there yet, but I intend to do so more as time passes.
People on BlueSky are very friendly, although there are bots and scammers, so beware of them if you join. But the engagement there is fantastic and certainly helps build your numbers, providing you spend some time engaging.
Great to hear Hugh, thanks for the heads up. I will certainly look into it.
Thanks for sharing what works and doesn’t for you Hugh. It’s a big time suck and we surely can’t be babysitting every social site. We eventually learn which sites work best for us, best engagement and traffic, so I get it. I never spend time on Twitter. I send posts there, and respond to shares. I stopped using my author page on fakebook a few years ago because they make it too many steps to post. I post to Linkedin, and I believe I still have pages on various other platforms I no longer visit. Last month I joined Bluesky, and I agree, it’s pleasureable, easy to use, although I haven’t spent a lot of time on it yet. :)
I love what you refer to FB as, Debby.
I’ve seen you on BlueSky. I only joined in November but have already decided it’s the best Social Media site I’ve ever joined. There are many friendly people there, and the engagement is fantastic. It’s like a breath of fresh air in the world of social media. I’m impressed with it.
You are so right Hugh. That’s what I said to someone else, it’s like a breath of fresh air, lol. :) See you there! x
Phew! That seems a lot of platforms to handle! If anyone can do it and do it well, it is our Hugh.
I only have three social media accounts. I could not cope with running any more of them. They suck all your time. Before you know it, it’s bedtime again; all you have done is scroll.
Hi again, Hugh. Here is my Blue Sky Social handle, @marshaingrao.bsky.social. Pretty original, huh?
About as original as mine, Marsha, but it’s good to see you on BlueSky.
Thanks, Hugh!
Thanks for connecting on Bluesky, Hugh. I belong to most social media sites, and use X, Bluesky, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn, PInterest and Tumblr for blog post promotions. Trying to follow the 50/50 rule when it comes to sharing on the first four, but primarily my own material on the last three. Believe it or not, most of my traffic comes from Facebook (where I have two main pages, in addition to a personal public profile). Instagram is excellent for showcasing photography, which is my primary objective there, but also some blog promotion. Although I have a Mastodon account, I rarely use it, but posts are shared there automatically via dlvr.it It does get to be too much, at times. I might be a little addicted. 😄
Debbie, I also get a lot of traffic from Facebook, yet I don’t have an account there. Other Facebook users must be sharing my posts there. I used to have an account there, but deleted many years ago.
WordPress shares posts automatically to Mastodon and BlueSky, but the user must set up the process for it to work. It’s easy to do, though. It saves time having to share those posts yourself on those platforms. It used to be the same for X, but the connection was cut after the takeover.
I don’t know how you manage so many Social Media accounts. Spreading myself too thinly on social media has never worked for me. As soon as I reduced to three accounts, I saw a big difference. Good to hear it’s working for you, though.
I tried the WordPress sharing function before and didn’t like the way it looked. I use dlvr.it for automated sharing, but it’s not as good as it used to be and X cut them off as well. I find sharing manually works best, that way I can add the proper user names, hashtags, descriptions, etc.
I’m trying Blue Sky again, Hugh but all the choices are quite overwhelming and would be very time consuming too.
I recommend managing no more than three social media accounts, Cathy. Spreading yourself too thinly across many platforms doesn’t work. I also limit my social media time to 30 minutes a day so it doesn’t take over my day.
It’s good to see you on BlueSky. I’ve followed you back and added you to the Bloggers starters pack I’m creating.
Thanks so much, Hugh. I’m still using X at the moment as well as BlueSky, Instagram and Threads have taken a back seat.
Thank you.
Agree with you regarding limiting time with the platforms one is committed. Otherwise it eats out the precious time mercilessly.
Thank you Hugh. An interesting article and so much to know and learn. Bluesky seems to be interesting. I opened the account @philo-s.bsky.social, and let me see how things are going to be. At present I just have a WP account and I am not having any other social media account.
Thank you for following me on BlueSky. I’ve followed you back.
Like blogging, engaging with other users is key to making social media work. I limited my time to just 30 minutes a day on social media. Otherwise, it would take up more time than I want to allow.
I haven’t liked how X has been going, so I was delighted to learn about BlueSky. Thank you for the recommendation and for following me on this platform, Hugh. I’m looking forward to learning how to use and interact with this new social media!
You’re welcome, June.
I plan to write posts about how to use BlueSky. In terms of how to use it, it’s similar to X, but it does have some features that X does not have.
That would be very helpful, Hugh.
Thank you for following me on BlueSky. I just set up there recently after months of wondering how to replace Twitter/X when there seemed to be so many contenders. BlueSky does now seem to me to be pulling away from the pack. I admire your cold turkey approach but I’m not sure I can bring myself to delete my Twitter account just yet! I need to find more of my old friends on BlueSky and deal with all the bookmarks where I’ve saved information “that might come in handy someday”. As you do. There are still so many lovely accounts there, I can avoid the horrible stuff, but in principle I need to leave because of the ownership. Slowly weaning myself off …
You’re welcome, Anabel.
It took me some time to finally delete my X account. At first, I wanted to stay and told myself to just skip past all the horrible hate tweets, but it was difficult, especially with what its owner was doing away from the site. It took me some time to finally click the delete button, but I’m glad I did.
I’m gradually assembling a starter pack for bloggers on BlueSky, where I’m compiling a list of bloggers. I’ve included your name in it. I plan to publish it on my BlueSky account within the next few weeks. It will feature as many bloggers as I can find, allowing users to follow all of them with just one click.
That will be useful. Thanks Hugh.
This is a great idea, Hugh. I’m going through your list of comments and doing it manually, and going through a lot of my other 13 followers as well. LOL This will be time-consuming. Your Beginner pack will be a big help. When I looked at all your followers, I didn’t know a bunch of them – you already have so many. Do you join people blindly.
No, I check out anyone who follows me and block (and sometimes report) the bots and females who want to marry me (there have been quite a few). The most important thing is to engage with other genuine users. Not everyone will reply, but many do. It’s the same in the blogging world.
I love BlueSky and am so pleased that I ditched X for BlueSky.
You’ve certainly built up your following quickly. :)
It’s all about the engagement, Marsha. So many bloggers drop their links and run, and their follower figures haven’t changed. Most are probably running too many social media accounts, thus spreading themselves too thinly. They’re just wasting precious time.
Thank about the Reddit, Mastodon comparison. For Reddit I only follow a couple of friendly topics. I didn’t realize promoting your own blog on Reddit was a faux pax. Goes to show how hard I’m selling myself. 😆
I visited a long time ago, and I remember how angry people got whenever someone shared their own work. It may have changed since then, Kevin, but those people certainly frightened me off.
Thank for this, Hugh. I’ll look at setting up a BlueSky account. I have an X account but haven’t paid much attention to since it’s new ownership. I should close it. My Facebook is ok. I use messenger for family chats and groups for specific interests. Linked In I almost never look at since retiring from everyday work.
I have Reddit account I use regularly. I also have a Mastodon account I haven’t done much with. I think Mastodon and Reddit are similar?
Hi Kevin, I heard you cannot promote your blogs on Reddit. You can promote other people’s blogs, but if you promote your own, users get very angry. It’s been many years since I visited Reddit, but I always remember it as an angry place. It may have changed since then. However, I do get traffic to my blog from it.
I wouldn’t say Mastodon and Reddit are similar unless Reddit has changed a lot since I last visited. I see Mastodon more like BlueSky.
I’ve not heard of Flipboard.
I mainly use my blog and Facebook, although I’m on Instagram, Bluesky, Linkedin and Pinterest.
My publisher set up a Pinterest account for me, and the other writers, but I rarely use it. I did read somewhere, though, that many authors found it useful.
I deleted my Twitter account long before Musk took it over. I couldn’t get on with it. I had an invitation to join Bluesky when it was in its beta form, so I joined. I’ll follow you when I get on my pc. (I can’t remember my password, so can’t do it from my tablet.) What a stupid name, though, X!
I might investigate Mastodon. My blog posts are automatically shared on Bluesky and Linkedin.
Thanks for the info about the other platforms.
Thank you for sharing those details with us.
WordPress automatically shares posts with BlueSky and Mastodon, although a user has to set it up. However, I wasn’t aware that they also share posts directly with LinkedIn.
I hope you’ll remember your BlueSky password. I’m sure they have a password reminder link.
I just followed you on Bluesky, Hugh. I’m @aspholessaria.bsky.social
Thank you. I followed back.
I hope you’ll use BlueSky more. It’s fast becoming very popular. Let’s hope it does not go the same way as X.
Hugh, I am following you on Bluesky, which I just joined a few days ago and still learning how it works. I am also on LinkedIn, Mastodon, Tumblr, X, and Instagram.
Though LinkedIn doesn’t bring any traffic to my blog, I’ve been there for 12 years and use it to keep in touch with people I used to work with. I use Instagram only to follow others and have no real presence there.
Tumblr, owned by Automattic Inc., the company behind WordPress.com, I enjoy because it is unique and filled with a lot of photography.
Thank you for following me on BlueSky, Eugi. I have followed you back and will also add you to the Bloggers’ start pack I am creating, which I will share on BlueSky over the coming weeks.
I thought WordPress had a connection to Tumblr. Thank you for confirming this. I get a lot of traffic from Tumblr to my blog, but I don’t have an account there. So, bloggers who have Tumblr accounts are sharing my posts. My thanks to all of them.
Thank you for the follow on Bluesky, Hugh, and adding me to your Bloggers’ start pack you are creating. I am enjoying Bluesky as I become more involved.
Interesting to read of your experiences on the different platforms, so thanks for sharing them. I hadn’t heard of Flipboard. The number of social media sites feels a bit dizzying. The second paragraph of your post does a great job of describing the downside of attempting to use several sites. I couldn’t handle lots of sites, so I’m mainly on WordPress, and some occasional visits to YouTube.
There are so many social media sites to choose from, Dave. It’s all about finding the ones you enjoy using the most and then limiting your choices to one, two, or, at most, three.
I have a YouTube account and have used some of my videos in blog posts. One of my videos there has received a significant number of views. I was rather shocked by the figures, but I do not seem to attract any traffic to my blog from YouTube.
I don’t promote my blog on any social media platforms, and I like it like that. I never had a Twitter account but I was tempted to open one so I could delete it (JK). I set up a Bluesky account but, much like Facebook, I don’t post much or at all. It’s probably the introvert in me. I prefer to read what others post. I’ll follow you… my fingers are also crossed that it stays friendly. @hep6.bsky.social. Who knows, some day I might get brave and post something :)
Thank you for sharing your BlueSky details, Janis.
I would recommend at least posting a brief bio on your BlueSky account so that visitors know a bit about you. I’ve found that BlueSky accounts with no posts can often be perceived as BOTS or scammers by many BlueSky users.
And there is nothing wrong with not using social media to promote your blog posts. Many bloggers do the same.