How to keep your social media accounts active even when you're on holiday

When it comes to social media marketing you need to have new content posted to your accounts on a regular basis. This doesn't mean you can't take some time off and enjoy the holidays though. In fact it's a good idea to take a break every once in a while and recharge your batteries.

Pre-holiday actions to take:
  • Tie up any conversations your currently involved in. It's not good etiquette to leave people hanging.
  • Decide if you'll be checking your accounts at all whilst you're away. Will you be checking in once or twice a day or will it be a total blackout until you return. This will have an effect on the type of posts you schedule for when your away. If you're not going to be checking in at all make sure you share content that doesn't need a follow up. Don't ask questions or evoke conversations.
Here's a quick guide to what you need to do in order to make sure you have fresh content posted regularly whilst you're away.

Your Blog
  • Prepare blog posts in advance and schedule them for posting at a later date. Take some time to create some posts that you can program to publish to your blog whilst your away. Most blogging platforms have the options of scheduling posts without the need to be there in real-time to post them (blogger ad wordpress definitely do).
  • Accept guest posts. Have other people write posts for your blog. Again these can be programmed to post on certain days and you also get the advantages of the guest blogger bringing new readers to your site.
  • Set up your social media accounts to automatically share your new blog posts on publication. There are numerous applications and tools you can use to do this. An example of one I use is NetworkedBlogs.
Twitter, Facebook etc...
  • Use a dashboard like HootSuite, Tweetdeck, Timely or SocialOomph to schedule status updates for when you're away. Although you don't need to post the same number of updates as you would normally, this will enable you to maintain an active presence even when your far away from your computer.
  • Facebook now allows you to schedule posts directly from your page so you can easily set it up to share photo's, updates and other content for while you're on holiday without the need for third party sites.
These tips will help you maintain your online presence even when you're not actually present.

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4 Comments

  1. Richa Jha30 November 2012 at 12:01

    Found these tips useful, Jo! In fact, I have a long break coming up later this month, and I'll now sit and get a schedule in place for all the posts which would otherwise have had to wait until my return. Thanks for this post!

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    Replies
    1. Jo Linsdell1 December 2012 at 10:39

      Glad it was helpful. It's a good idea to schedule a few posts ahead of time even when you don't have a holiday coming up. That way if you fall ill or something else pops up that means you have less time for your blog you still have content ready to publish. It gives you a safety net for the unexpected.

      Delete
  2. Unknown20 December 2012 at 17:23

    Thanks for the great tips jo!

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