Social networks are leading sources for blog traffic. However, every social network follows its own rules. And, it can be tricky and time-consuming to promote your post across all social channels, address different audiences and hit the rush hour of each network. This may sound like a lot of work, but with the right strategy and tool, it only takes a few clicks.
The Right Mix of Auto-Posting and Customizing Social Media Posts
Customizing posts and manually sharing them on each and every social network is a tedious and time-consuming task for bloggers. Automation tools can help. However, simply pushing out the same message across all networks, does not make a post top of the game. Successful social media communication thrives with active, personal engagement. It is the human touch that leads to likes and shares.
Every network provides very specific options to promote your post, with various numbers of characters, image sizes and hidden rules for what works for posts, comments, hashtags or visuals. Every community reacts differently to various formats. Also, the right timing and frequency of posting can affect visibility and engagement.
The WordPress plugin Blog2Social combines auto-posting, customizing and scheduling functions and provides the user with multiple options to custom settings for optimizing social media posts. As soon as a blog post is published on WordPress, the plugin can immediately share it on social media or schedule it for one-time or recurrent publication. Additionally, placing posts in a wider context or addressing other active influencers can make a commercial post appear more natural and highlight its practical value.
Blog2Social automatically offers #hashtags, @handles and comments, customized to each networks’ specification. All pre-filled text fields can be edited or refined on a one-page preview editor for all networks. The plugin even offers to select custom posting formats for image posts or link posts for Facebook, Twitter and other networks.
Scheduling Social Media Posts at the Best Times for Maximum Visibility and Engagement
Sharing your posts at the right time on each networks can be crucial for a post to be noticed or go down in the endless stream of social media noise. Every network and community is different and every network has its own rush hour. Blog2Social provides a ready to use Best Time Scheduler with predefined “best times” for each network or, alternatively, offers to define individual time settings. This way, blog posts can be scheduled and customized for each audience and posted at the right times for maximum engagement.
Advanced Scheduling of Social Media Posts: Re-Posting of Evergreen-Content, Posting Once or Recurrently
Re-sharing a blog post will increase visibility and outreach on social media. However, re-sharing should be done wisely. There are different rules for every network, how many posts will increase engagement or annoy your followers. While on 3-4 posts on Twitter will increase attention, a similar frequency on Facebook could easily drive away followers.
These specifications can be taken into account when using Blog2Social.
For this purpose Blog2Social provides a range of different scheduling options to reach as many followers as possible. Dates and times of the scheduling can be edited retrospectively or canceled entirely with only one click. Moreover, it offers to pre-schedule posts up to one year in advance. That’s good news for every blogger, as the plugin makes it easy to stay up to date with the editorial plan, manage campaigns effectively, re-post evergreen content and pre-schedule annual holiday greetings.
Blog2Social Saves Time With Smart Social Media Scheduling and Cross-Promotion
Authorizing social media accounts with Blog2Social is easy, even for technical amateurs. The plugin uses the OAuth protocol for network authentication and enables users to connect social media profiles, pages and groups with only a few clicks. Different network profiles can be individually and flexibly selected and changed at any time.
The plugin provides powerful features for bloggers, social media managers and social media agencies to manage their blog and social media marketing across multiple social channels:
Cross-posting and cross-promoting on: Twitter, Facebook (profiles, pages and groups), Google+ (profiles, pages and groups) LinkedIn (profiles, pages), XING (profiles, pages and groups) Diigo, Delicious, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest, Tumblr, Medium, Torial and Reddit
Social media auto-poster: shares blog posts to social media either immediately when they are published on WordPress or scheduled to the best times
Auto-formatting: Social media posts are automatically converted into an adapted format for each network with pre-filled excerpts of posts
Custom sharing: Enables individual texts, comments, #hashtags and @handles for each post
Custom posting format: choose from two different display types of the social media posts on Facebook, either focusing on the link or image
One-step workflow: One page preview for all selected networks for editing posts in one single step
Custom scheduling: One-time, recurrent or repeat posting of evergreen-content up to one year in advance as well as flexible editing and canceling of already scheduled posts
Best times scheduler: Predefined best times for each network for maximum reach
Multiple profiles, pages and groups per network to connect and post to
Multiple users on one or multiple WordPress blogs
Reporting with links to social media posts
With Blog2Social Free it is possible to cross-post or customize and cross-share blog posts on social media. The upgrade to Blog2Social Premium offers more powerful features for auto-posting, cross-posting and scheduling to multiple networks as well as licenses for multi blogs, multi users or agencies.
The Blog2Social Plugin can be downloaded from WordPress.org:
A comprehensive how-to guide can be found on the plugin’s website:
