Organising Social Media - and a Giveaway!

The Giveaway is now CLOSED! Thanks to everyone who entered. The winner will be announced on Thursday 5^th July!

Hello and welcome to Day 2 of my Organisation Celebration! Did you catch all last night's posts? Head back to the start here and work your way through them if not, and keep reading this post for another giveaway!

I've been embracing more and more social media this year. When I first started hearing about Twitter and Instagram, I wondered if I really needed something else to be doing. But I've learned a few ways to keep it all organised, and not let it take over my life!

The social media I currently use are Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

I've been using Facebook personally for years, but I've only just this week created a fan page for Jennifer's Jumbles. I was worried before that I'd have to keep signing out of my personal account, and into my fan page, and vice versa. But I'm happy to discover it doesn't work like that - you can easily toggle between the personas you're publishing as at the top of your fan page, and your fans can't see your personal page. Clever!

Though I've only been on it a few days, I've already learned the way to keep organised with it is to use the Networked Blogs App to help publish my blog posts to my page. I used this tutorial to help me learn more about it. So far I've been using the 'Quick Publisher' option to publish my blog posts to my page, but I might syndicate them at some point, I'll see how much time it takes up! 

I started using Twitter after reading Julie Kirk's 'Tips for the Twitter Curious' series. I've found it to be a really useful tool for making connections and for hearing about the latest news / deals / opportunities. To organise the way I use it, I've been careful to only follow people I really want to hear from. Some people I started to follow because they followed me, or because they were funny, but I realised this just clogged up my Twitter feed and gave me too much to read all the time, so I cut back.

I don't tend to write many tweets myself, but I do have a set up via Twitterfeed, for my blog posts to automatically publish to Twitter and my Jennifer Grace Facebook Wall. It means I don't have to worry about announcing my latest blog post in these places, as it's all done automatically. Then I have more time to devote to writing interesting tweets when I can think of them!

Another way I use Twitter is to utilise the 'favourite' button. When I read a tweet that I want to follow up on, eg. if it's about a giveaway I want to enter, or a blog post I want to read in more depth, then I click to 'favourite' it, and I go back to it when I have more time. Sometimes I miss a deadline if I do this, but I try not to get upset about that, after all, I can't do everything! Hitting the favourite button means I have the option there though, so I don't have to spend ages on twitter at the time I see the tweet - I can come back to it later if I'm able to. It keeps me relaxed about it all!

I haven't used Google Plus or Instagram that much, I only joined these recently. So far for Google Plus I just 'share' my blog post when I'm prompted too (when I manually publish a post), and then browse it now and then. I feel like it's something I will use more as I get used to it, and find my way around! I was convinced to at least try it out after reading this post on CrafterMinds. 

I tried Instagram a little, last year, and decided I didn't need it right then. But I discovered that you could put a gadget in you blog sidebar via Snap Widget, showing your latest Instagram pics, and I thought it would be a cool way to keep the blog looking fresh, without me having to spend extra time loading photos. This was a great plan, until my baby boy dropped my Ipod Touch down the toilet this week. I'm now trying to convince hubby to let me download Instagram to his Ipod Touch!

The social media I use more than is probably good for me is Pinterest. I love browsing on here:

I think the best organisational tip for Pinterest is to make sure pins actually work when you are re-pinning them. It's so annoying and time consuming to try and find the correct link when you realise a pin doesn't work, or just sends you to an image instead of a blog post or website. 

And, though I think the boards are very organised on the computer, the only way I've taken them off into the real world is to print them onto random bits of paper, which get lost or stuck haphazardly on my study wall. But now I'm totally going to try this idea by Christina, to make an actual pin-board display from printed-out pins. So simple but so effective!

Now, do you want a giveaway to start the day? Okay!

One randomly selected winner will receive this Simple Stories 'Mix and Match' 6x8" album:

To enter this giveaway you need to follow me on Twitter, or 'like' my Facebook Fan page, and say 'Hi!' to me on either, so I know you're interested in winning! You can do both to get 2 entries into the draw. The giveaway is open to new and old Facebook or Twitter followers. 

Tweeters could copy this: '@_jennifergrace_ thanks for the chance to win a Simple Stories album! You could enter to win it too here: http://bit.ly/La3kVe'

A similar message on my Facebook Fan page would be fine!

The giveaway will close at 11.59pm on Monday 2nd of July {NOW CLOSED}, and it's open internationally. The winner will be announced on Thursday the 5th of July.

Also, don't forget that commenting on this post, or any post from this weekend, will enter you into the Grand Giveaway {NOW CLOSED}- but only if you've registered your interest in winning it here. 

See you in an hour! x

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