Welcome to another blogging tips post everyone! I think quite a few of you have been looking forward to this one, because yet again I am writing about social media. I have learnt SO MUCH since my last post and have completely changed how I approach social media on all platforms. In this post, I’ll share Pinterest and Instagram tips for all you travel bloggers out there.
Pinterest for travel bloggers
I really want to start by sharing some tips for Pinterest, because I had only just started to post there last time I wrote about social media and a lot has changed since then. I had heard that Pinterest is THE place to be if you’re a blogger, and I’ve now discovered that this is 100% true! This month, I have had more visitors to my site from Pinterest than any other platform. To date, over 130 people have clicked on my pins to read my blog posts. How cool!
Pinterest pins
Since my last post about social media, I have actually scrapped that pin design I was so proud of because I’ve found ones I like better! I’m still using Canva to make up my designs, though. I have since learnt that you should have two to three pins for each blog post that you write. This is because different people will engage better with different designs. Makes sense to me – there’s pins I like, and pins I don’t like.
I’ve included an example of my three designs below. I modelled these off pins I liked myself and designs I saw appearing frequently in my feed from travel bloggers. If you’re looking for more inspiration and you’ve saved other people’s pins, you can look at which designs perform the best. I had a pin that kept being re-saved from one of my boards so I decided to use it as inspiration for my own new design (the one in the middle below).
The 90-day rule
Something else that you often here is that your pins reach their peak performance after 90 days. This depends on the pin, in my opinion. Some of my pins do well early on, but others do take the full 90 days or longer. I definitely found I started getting traffic to my blog more regularly 90 days after starting my Pinterest account. This must be the time it takes for your profile to get set up and noticed in people’s feeds. I hear older accounts perform better on Pinterest because of their history. So if you have an existing account you can convert for your blog, you should do it!
Secret boards
Following on from above, if you have an old account that you want to convert, but you don’t want to lose all your old boards, you can make them secret! I have numerous secret boards on my account that I don’t want you all to see because they aren’t travel related at all! Turns out I love to use Pinterest to find enrichment ideas for animals, so I have a guinea pigs board, a reptiles board, and a general zoo stuff board.
Adding save buttons to all the pictures in your blog
Something I noticed pretty early on after joining Pinterest that I was missing was save buttons on all my pictures. Everyone says this is really easy to set up but I had a few issues.
In theory, it is really easy. All you have to do is head over to the Pinterest widgit builder then choose what kind of button you want. Most people suggest the large image hover, but not the round button. This is because the round button only has the Pinterest logo, which not everyone may be familiar with. After you’ve chosen, simply copy the code and paste it at the end of your page footer file.
This is where I ran into some issues. I couldn’t find the theme editor tab anywhere! Turns out is was because of my security settings. If you have the iThemes Security plugin, you’ll need to head into security settings: WordPress tweaks and untick the file editor box. This will allow you to directly edit your WordPress files, including adding the Pinterest code to your footer file. If you’re worried about security, you can change back this setting after adding the code.
Just beware that if your WordPress updates, this change may be removed. Every time my theme updates, it removes the save button. It’s super annoying to change it all the time but I tried some plugins and I think they look super ugly so I’m sticking with it for now!
Instagram for travel bloggers
Instagram remains my least favourite social media platform. It’s honestly a surprise I haven’t deleted my blog account yet. You can read all about that in my post about why I nearly deleted Instagram if you missed it. I won’t go on about it again. As much as I don’t like Instagram, I know a lot of travel bloggers do. So below, I have included a couple of tips for Instagram that I have learnt since last time I posted.
What should I put as the link in my bio?
No doubt you’re aware that Instagram only allows you to put one link on your profile at a time. You’ve probably also seen bloggers using programs like Linktree. The benefit of using one of these programs is that you can link to several different pages from one place, as opposed to just changing your link every time you share a new post. For example, you could have a link to your most recent blog posts, your about me page, your YouTube and all your social media accounts in one place!
This really came on my radar when one of my blogger friends (go check her out at The L Axis!) joined up with a company called Taplink. I’d only ever heard of Linktree so I was interested to see that there were other options. I was especially interested because Taplink was much prettier than Linktree. When I looked into what the difference between the two hosts was, I found a whole slew of other options you could choose from! I must admit, I was a little overwhelmed. Regardless of which option you choose, there seems to be a free version with limited features, and a paid version with more features. Since I’m not yet at the point where I’m earning money from this blog, I don’t want to pay more than necessary. So when I read this article about an option that’s free forever, I was definitely interested.
Forget Linktree or whatever. Make your own landing page!
If you already have a blog set up, you can really easily create your own landing page! Not only is it completely free, you can also put as many links as you like and make them look however you want! I absolutely love my landing page. You can check it out by clicking here (for best results, check it out on mobile!). It took me about half an hour to get it looking right but I think it’s totally worth it. I chose to include the link to my latest blog post (which obviously changes every week!), my latest YouTube videos, a page full of all my top posts, my resource library for subscribers, and my about me page. I’ve also got buttons for my social media and of course my subscription form!
If you’re using WordPress and want to make a page like mine, I recommend using the media + text block for your main links and the buttons block to link your social media accounts. I also used the odd spacer or separator block to make all the spaces look even.
Editing photos: I’ve been converted to Lightroom
Something I’ve heard from everyone (and I really mean EVERYONE) is that I should use Lightroom to edit my photos. They told me, the mobile app is free and you can use presets to make your photos look beautiful! My response was “sounds great but I like editing my photos. And I have no space on my phone.” Also, I was a little put off because, no offence, I don’t really like how most people edit their Lightroom photos. The sky is always pale blue when it could be bright. I love your feeds, but it’s not for me!
However, I’ve been converted. Cue everyone saying “I told you so”!
Why I was converted
Recently, I got a new phone which has FOUR TIMES as much space as my old phone, so with one of my excuses gone, it was time to try Lightroom. I had already realised that I was editing all of my pictures in a very similar manner, so I decided I’d try to make my own presets instead of using someone else’s. Problem number two solved. So I went ahead and edited one of my photos, thought it looked nice so saved that as my preset for “blue photos”. Downloaded a few rubbish-quality pictures from my Facebook to test out the preset. Got my mind BLOWN by the results! I’m just going to include the picture I edited below. You can see for yourself why I now love Lightroom.
Over the last few months since getting Lightroom, I’ve had to make a few more presets. The blue one was much to warm for grey photos so I made a separate preset for that. Of course, I still have to edit each photo individually a little bit to make sure it’s not too bright or orange or blurry. But it’s definitely producing incredible results!
Best settings to play with
For most of my pictures, I simply edit the colours and brightness a bit to make it look nicer. In particular, I like to increase the contrast and sometimes the exposure, as well as increasing the temp and vibrance. If you need to edit the lighting a bit more, you can play with the shadows and highlights. I also love the ‘dehaze’ feature. This one is great for photos I’ve taken through enclosure glass at the sanctuary or on a cloudy, overcast day. Essentially it just clears up the haze or glare in your photos. I’ll include an example below of a photo that I used the dehaze feature on.
That’s all the Instagram and Pinterest tips I have for you today. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments, or get in touch via social media! Starting a travel blog and want some more helpful tips? You can find the rest of my posts from this series here.
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