{"id":25627,"date":"2013-05-21T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/?p=25627"},"modified":"2014-09-15T15:11:42","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T22:11:42","slug":"social-media-maintenance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/social-media-maintenance\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips for Blog and Social Media Maintenance While on Vacation? Get Out of Town!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blog and social media maintenance can’t fall through the cracks when you go on vacation. Let the plants die and newspapers stack up if you must, but\u00a0make sure you don’t neglect your blog and social media platforms<\/em><\/strong>; they need to continue providing the quality content that your clients\/customers\/fans have (hopefully) come to expect.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Keep that notebook shut! A best practice for vacationing is to write your blog ahead of time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Have a Blog in the Bag<\/h2>\n

A successful blog keeps readers engaged and ever-hungry for more content. Readers should be so excited for your posts that they check your blog regularly for content, but that will only happen if you’re a consistent and frequent poster.<\/p>\n

As a point of reference, we post four times a week on the Bruce Clay blog. If you don’t have the resources for such frequent posting, however, you should \u2014 at least \u2014 be updating your blog once a week, and each post should be a minimum of 400 words.<\/p>\n

Just because you’re going on vacation doesn’t mean your blog can go on hiatus<\/strong>. Your readers expect your posts and you can’t disappoint them. Therefore, it is essential that you find the time to prepare and schedule a blog post ahead of time. Another option (which will also theoretically save you time and boost engagement) is to invite a trusted colleague or peer to guest post on your blog. If you go that route, however, make sure the deadline for their post is before <\/em>you vacate, so that you can do whatever editing you need to do beforehand.<\/p>\n

Prep and Optimize Social Media! #necessary #simple @Tweriod @BufferApp<\/h2>\n

You don’t want your brand voice to fall silent while you’re away, so set aside some to time to craft and schedule social media posts before you vacate. Tweets, Facebook posts and LinkedIn posts should be distributed throughout each day. Follow these steps to optimal social media posting (which can be used <\/em>even when you’re not on vacation).<\/p>\n

1. Strategize your share times with Tweriod<\/a>. Tweriod is a free service that analyzes your Twitter following to determine what the optimal times of the day are for you to tweet. After it gives you the times for your Twitter account, click on “Send to Buffer.”<\/p>\n

\"tweriod\"<\/a>
Tweriod designated these four times as the daily optimal tweet times for @KristiKellogg; Tweriod comes up with these times by establishing when my unique followers are using Twitter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2. Log into Buffer<\/a>. Buffer is an amazing dashboard that automatically pulls the data from Tweriod and knows the times you should be tweeting (see right). Buffer will then present you with a list of suggested times for you post social media. Buffer allows you to connect with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

3. Create your posts in Buffer. So for example, if I were going to be out of the office Monday through Wednesday and wanted to send out four social media postings per day on Twitter, I would simply stick with the schedule Tweriod designated — which Buffer also defaults to, conveniently.<\/p>\n

Now, I would just have to come up with 12 tweets in total. Stumped for what to tweet about? Consider these types of tweets when planning:<\/p>\n

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