4 Social Media Mistakes That Are Killing Your Blogging Game

Social media: it’s the key to getting your blog posts out there, right? But what if I told you using social media could actually be hurting your blog traffic? Keep reading and you’ll see how social media mistakes can actually harm your traffic and income.

Is Social Media Killing Your Traffic and Income?

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times, social media is a must for promoting your blog posts. If you’re not on social media, you won’t see any traffic except from your grandmother.  Social media is a must with a capital M for bloggers.

While this is true, social media also has the potential to hurt your blog rather than help it.

Scary huh? How do you know if social media is helping or harming you?

Don’t worry! I’m here to help you identify social media mistakes that are hurting your blog AND determine how to take action to fix these mistakes.

Reasons Why Social Media is Hurting You

Social Media Mistake #1: Time Suck

The number one social media mistake that is hurting your blogging game is the time suck. It is super difficult to stay focused on social media, because it is designed to distract you.

You already know what I mean. You log on to Insta to upload a new pic and end up commenting on pictures of your cousins new baby. You switch over to Facebook to update your blog’s FB page and end up watching the newest viral video.

Getting distracted is almost inevitable.

Before you know it, the time you’ve carved out for blogging has been eaten up. That leaves no time for writing new posts, optimized for social media, creating opt-ins or working on your newsletters. Time is precious when you’re blogging and you need to make the most of the valuable time you’ve put aside.

Solution #1: Set a Timer

Whenever you go on social media (for blogging purposes), set a timer. Whether you’ll need 15 minutes to schedule out Instagram content for the week, 30 minutes to respond to follower questions, or even 5 minutes to do some quick re-pinning, a timer will keep you in line.

Even if you get off track and delve into the world of cat memes, you’ll be able to pull yourself out of the social media vortex when the timer goes off.

Social Media Mistake #2: Stretching Yourself Too Thin

The social media mistake is that even when you’re focused, social media takes a lot of time. You will need to create and curate content for your audience and promote your blog posts, engaged with your followers and reach out to potential followers. It still takes A LOT of time.

Solution #2: Be Selective

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the social media platforms out there. Each one has its own ins and outs and its own learning curve.

Trying to conquer too many platforms at the same time creates a big problem and can leave you feeling overwhelmed and inconsistent with each platform.

Instead, choose one (maybe two if you’re a social media junkie) platform and master it before adding another platform to your plate.

Now, you may have heard the advice to secure your username in the top four platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter) before you write a single blog post. That is definitely good advice, but there’s no need to start posting as soon as you create a profile.

So which platform to pick to master first? Think about your ROI (return on investment). Which platform has the potential to bring you more traffic? Each platform has its own demographic so consider who your audience is (e.g. Instagram skews younger than Facebook, Pinterest has a larger percentage of females compared to Twitter).

For me, Pinterest brings in a staggering amount of my traffic. I spend much more time on Pinterest than other social media platforms, because it has good ROI.

If you’re unsure on where your traffic is coming from, you can check on where you’re getting your traffic referrals from on Google Analytics.

You can also think about which social media platform you enjoy the most. Love taking gorgeous pictures? Try Instagram. Are you more about witty one-liners? Try out Twitter. Enjoy talking on video? Try Youtube or do some Facebook Live videos. You’ll likely have success with a platform you feel a natural affinity for.

Social Media Mistake #3: Facebook Groups

Another way social media is killing your blog is doing a hundred million ‘share threads’ on the many blogging Facebook groups out there. Share threads involve you agreeing to share the content of all other bloggers who are participating and they will share yours. This is a major social media mistake.

Here’s the problem: most of these share threads have mandatory reciprocation. That means you’ll obliged to share all the blog posts of others, so they will share yours.

This sounds like a pretty good deal, right? What an easy way to get your posts in front of new eyes!

But there’s a big problem: you will probably be required to share content that is A) not relevant to your audience, and B) potentially not well written or researched.

Promoting content you don’t believe in, or content that is irrelevant to your audience will turn off your readers. A big part of blogging is to gain loyal followers that rely on you to provide them with information. If you’re throwing them irrelevant or poorly crafted content, you will lose potential loyal followers.

For example, if your blog centers on feeding your family healthy meals and whole foods, sharing a post on a copy-cat Starbucks frappucccino recipe is probably not going to your audience and will likely turn off some readers.

Likewise, your mommy blog post is probably not going to be appealing to someone else’s audience of travel junkies. What are the chances you’ll gain new readers from that demographic?

Not only that, but share threads take up a lot of time. Again, this isn’t good ROI. You’re essentially wasting time you could be spending on gaining traffic or and earning money.

Solution #3: Be Selective With How You Spend Your Time

The best strategy by far is to spend your social media time curating great content to gain a loyal following, reaching out to potential subscribers and connecting with your loyal subscribers. THAT is a good ROI.

Take the time you’re spending in share threads and put the same effort into making connections with potential followers. Gary Vaynerchuk’s $1.80 Instagram strategy perfectly explains this theory. Check it out here.

If you are totally addicted to share threads, at least participate in those that require you to reciprocate on a given number (e.g. repin 10 threads vs. repin all). You could also try to find blogging groups that are niched down (e.g. parenting blogs, food blogs, etc.). At least then you can semi-currate your content to provide value to your readers.

Also remember that it’s about the numbers. If you participate in a couple of share threads and find content that will be valuable to your audience, it’s not going to affect your ROI. It’s when you spend all your blogging time re-sharing that it becomes a problem.

Social Media Mistake#4: The Comparison Game

The final social media mistake bloggers make on social media is the comparison game. It’s hard not to sneak a peek at another blogger’s Instagram followers, or get stuck reading a Facebook comment from a blogger lamenting that they got denied to Mediavine with 23K sessions when you’re stuggling to get 5K.

This can be very discouraging and land you in a funk, or worse, make you want to give up blogging altogether.

Solution #4: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

Everyone has their own journey to blogging success. Just because someone else is further down the road doesn’t mean it’s not possible for you to get there.

Plus, you don’t know that other bloggers’ story. Maybe they bought all their Instagram followers or have been using some ethically-questionable practices. Maybe they’re paying a ton in promoted posts to get that traffic.

Or maybe they’ve been killing themselves everyday for a year and are just starting to see the benefits of time and hard work.

You can’t know every other blogger’s background, so there’s no use in getting down on yourself.

As much as you can, keep your eyes on your own social media game, and stay laser focused on actions that will give you results.

Bonus Solution #5: Find Your Tribe

Social media IS a great place to connect with other like-minded bloggers. Being a blogger can be isolating, since your family and friends may not relate (heck, they may not even understand what a blogger IS).

There are plenty of Facebook support groups out there where you can connect with other bloggers. You can get great advice and form lasting friendships. Who knows, you might end up guest-posting on each others’ sites!

Don’t forget to help out those around you whose content you enjoy. Remember, a high tide raises all boats. Share good content you believe in and other bloggers may do the same for you.

There you have the top four social media mistakes that could be killing your blog AND five solutions to help you control social media so it doesn’t control you.

What are your biggest challenges on social media? Share you thoughts below!

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