I’ve already talked about choices, and the fact reaching goals is all about choice in my post a couple of weeks ago that talks about Setting Unrealistic Goals in Order to Achieve Unbelievable Outcomes.

Everyone knows Twitter is in the top 5 tools for boosting traffic, but scheduling tweets is another matter. I have tweets scheduled up to 6 months in advance. Yeah, really, and no, it’s not because I’m super organised. Once I write a post, I use a program to create template tweets and then schedule them for the next 6 months. It’s a pain at the time, but seriously, when you sit back on Monday’s, knowing you don’t have to tweet every 4 seconds you’ll be thanking me.

So how do you actually schedule tweets? And you know, add all the links and pretty pictures and stuff?! I’m going to tell you.

Like any social media anything, there are a plethora of tools you can use. Some are better than others, the three big ones that immediately spring to mind are:

• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• TwitterAds

They are a much of a muchness, although twitter ads requires you to put card details in, which it won’t charge unless you start a paid campaign to promote tweets. Buffer has slightly more social media options i.e. you can schedule tweets, pins and posts to more media outlets, however, you can only do it if you’re willing to pay.

That leaves us with hootsuite, and the program I use. You can pay a subscription, which actually, I am looking into, and that gives you more than the free version. But I have been using the free version for months and its been more than adequate.

Rather than write out a step by step instruction, I thought I would try something new. I have recorded a video of my computer screen whilst I scheduled a tweet for this post. I hope it works, and I haven’t raced off, I have a tendency to speak REALLY quick.

Here’s the video:

Finally, here are the top tips I have for scheduling tweets:

ONE

Schedule as far in advance as you can – I try for 6 months of tweets, then you don’t have to worry about anything other than RTs for months. Until you run out of course, and then you have to spend a whole evening doing it again! But still.

TWO

Remember you can schedule old posts too. I often have a little session scheduling old posts using the hashtags so that I drive more traffic to them. Just because they are old, doesn’t mean you can’t continue to share them.

THREE

Add photos to your tweets. Here’s 4 Easy Steps To Seriously Awesome Photos. I use the same photo for my blog as I do on twitter and Pinterest – it keeps the branding intact. The smaller the photo file the better – any photos you add will take up characters. But photos in tweets are shown to boost shares and RTs.

FOUR

Don’t forget hashtags and links. There are a plethora of hashtags out there, #MondayBlogs, #SundayBlogShare, #ArchiveDay, #wwwblogs and Rosie’s #TuesdayBookBlog are among my fave hashtags. Here’s a post highlighting 50 tricks to twitter.

FIVE

Save as draft so that you can use it repeatedly, and make sure you click ‘retain copy’ otherwise your template will disappear.

SIX

Schedule tweets around popular times of the day. Each social media outlet has its most popular times, which google can tell you. But, knowing when to tweet is difficult because you could be in one part of the world but your audience is from another part of the world. But go for the most logical times you can think of. I have most success at the following times:

8-10:30am  – people sitting down at work (especially Monday’s) and checking twitter before getting on with the day job.

11:45 – 13:30 lunchtimes (people on breaks at work)

16:45- 18:00 Post work – checks on route to the car, train/bus home

19:30 onwards – this is when most people look at blogs and social media – evening times.

SEVEN

If you have time, try to vary the wording of your tweets a tiny bit. I don’t always have time, but people can see it as spam if you just post the same wording continuously.

EIGHT

Use numbers in your tweets. Research shows that using numbers increases interaction. As does the word ‘YOU’. Finally, you don’t always have to just use the title of your post, use big emotion words and catchy marketing headlines. I know, I know, it feels like selling your soul using this type of phrasing. But is it really? I mean, do you want to boost your traffic or not? And if you are writing good material then it doesn’t matter if your twitter title is a bit showy offish? Be proud.

Jon Morrow – if you sign up to his website, has an awesome guide to creating headlines. Since I used his method, I can’t even quantify the increase in traffic. I really recommend the application of his method.

Examples for tweets I could schedule for this post are:

Want To Grow You Audience? Try These 6 Twitter Tricks

Need More Time? Boost Traffic Using This Method

Writers – Want a Bigger Audience? Try This Must Use Technique

You get the point.

***

Good Luck, and if you have any questions drop them in the comments.

What methods do you use to be more efficient? How do you get more time out of your already compressed life? What Twitter tricks do you have for growing your audience?

If you liked this post, subscribe here to get writing tips, tools and inspiration as well as information on the release of my books.

The post Grow Your Audience – 8 Tricks Efficient Writers Use On Twitter appeared first on Sacha Black.

Having scrutinised it, I have to say I highly recommend it as a design site. For those of you who don’t have photoshop and illustrator its the perfect substitute. It has a plethora of professional looking templates for everything from book covers, blog photos, infographics, flyers, posters, cover photos… anything you could want it has pre made templates which you can edit to your hearts desire.

If you want to increase your blog traffic next year I am certain this tool will help.

ONE – Templates Galore

Canva has templates with the optimised sizes and pixels for everything from:

Every type of social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. It has a variety of book cover templates with fully customisable functions, magazines, letters, presentation templates, infographics, album covers, cover photos for all social media, invitations, event designs and much more.

TWO – Infographics

The reason I find this such a useful tool is for its infographic capabilities. I have for a long time, searched for a tool with the mechanism to create infographics for free. With Canva, as long as you have your own photos or use their free ones – you can. Every image you create otherwise is the standard price of a dollar.

Infographics if you don’t know, are long thin images with standout facts and figures, or hints and tips,  this is one I created in just a few minutes.

I know infographics aren’t everyones cup of tea, but they are hugely popular on Pinterest, which drives an obscene amount of traffic to my site – if you want to up your traffic this is a no brainer, especially if you get them onto Pinterest.

THREE  – Attracting Traffic

Everyones knows photos attract people to your media, I wrote about how to create them in this post: 4 Easy Steps To Seriously Awesome Blog Post Photos. This is a catch all site that gives you the ability to create photos and media for all your sites in one quick go AND they are already set up in eye catching templates. Which means, traffic, traffic, traffic.

FOUR – Functionality

It’s functionality its intuitive. With a panel on the left for all the icons and an easy drag and drop system into the main panel for anything you want to pop into your graphics.

Fonts are changeable, text moveable and just about everything can be edited. If you can use wordpress, you can use Canva. Not because it looks and works the same, but because its as simple and intuitive as wordpress.

It also has a tutorial if you get stuck.

FIVE – Motivation & Inspiration

Have ever wanted to have a book cover before your book is finished? You know just to see? To play around and see what it would be like to have your name on a cover?

Maybe for motivational purposes to help you carry on but you can’t afford a designer incase your book changes and the cover needs to as well. Well Canva is your tool.

I made a pretend cover for Adultland, the second novel I am drafting as a result of this writespiration. Clearly this isn’t what I would put on the actual cover, firstly I’d get it designed professionally, I’d want a girl walking up the path anyway and it’s not right on a lot of levels. But, it is motivational. Plus not having published anything yet, it was kind of cool to see my name on a book. Definitely motivation to hurry the F up!!

Thoughts? Have you ever used Canva? Have you created a pretend cover to drive you on? What kind of graphics do you use? What do you think of infographics?

If you liked this post, subscribe here to get more FREE writing tips, tools and inspiration as well as information on the release of my books.

The post 5 Mind Boggling Reasons Canva is YOUR Blogging Design Heaven appeared first on Sacha Black.