Summer officially starts next week with Memorial Day and if you’re going on vacation, you deserve to take a break from blogging while you’re away. Who wants to feel tied to their laptop or smartphone while you’re on the beach with your family? Here are some simple ways to keep your blog and social media profiles looking fresh while you’re on vacation. You can also use these steps when you’re on a press tour or attending a blogging conference.
Write and schedule new content. This takes some planning and preparation, but you can do it in a day or two. Create at least five new posts if you’re traveling for a week. WordPress and Blogger allow you to schedule new posts. Consider creating a series like recipes, packing tips or time management advice, then link each post together so your audience follows the series all week. They’ll never now that you’re scuba diving off of the Cayman Islands while your new blog post is recommending apps to save them money this summer.
Seek guest contributors. Call in the reinforcements! Fellow bloggers love to write for a new audience, so welcome their guest posts while you’re on vacation. These guest posts can also be scheduled to automatically post on assigned dates and times. Another benefit of guest contributors is they’ll promote the post while you’re away.
Refresh and republish old content. Look back at some of your most popular posts. Update them with new photographs. Add additional tips, advice or links to resources. Create an Instagram or YouTube video that relates to the post. Come up with a new blog post title and republish your old content that has a facelift.
Use private label rights content or PLR. Purchase PLR articles and you have the right to republish them as your own. Most bloggers don’t republish PLR, as is. Add your tone or point of view. Create new photographs or infographics to complement the PLR post. Consider buying PLR that’s instructional or useful for your audience. For example, if you’re a craft blogger you can purchase how-to PLR articles.
Hire a virtual assistant or VA. A virtual assistant can handle a variety of blogging and social media tasks while you’re on vacation. A VA can also respond to comments on your blog, reply to tweets and Facebook comments and be a “ghost writer” for you. VA’s typically work on an hourly or per project basis.
Schedule social media updates. Schedule old posts and tweets with Hootsuite (*you can use your affiliate link here*). Use a plugin to tweet old posts, like Evergreen Post Tweeter or Tweet Old Post. For Pinterest, Ahahology is a popular scheduling tool. Even brands are using it!
Don’t ignore your inbox. Set an autoreply away message on your e-mail account so your contacts, public relations representatives and clients know know that you’re away and when to expect a reply from you. You can also re-direct e-mails to your virtual assistant so they can reply for you.
Comment below: How do you keep your blog and social media profiles up-to-date while you’re away on vacation or attending a conference?
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