Pinterest is one of my top website referrals.

With nearly 1 million monthly viewers, 30,000+ followers, and 100,000+ website visits from Pinterest each year, you might be surprised that I don’t put any effort into the platform.

You might also be surprised to learn that my Pinterest strategy doesn’t even involve Pinterest.

So how do I reap the benefits of Pinterest without putting in the work? Better yet, how can you reap the benefits of Pinterest without putting in the work?

Here’s my secret.

While pretty photos and curated feeds are helpful for catching the eye of potential customers, great content is the key to generating engagement and reaching a larger audience on Instagram.

But coming up with high-quality posts on a regular basis is no easy task.

So I rounded up 50 engaging ideas for your Instagram feed (along with examples) that will benefit your followers, drive traffic to your website, and keep people interested in your online business.

As creative entrepreneurs, we understand the importance of visuals on making a great first impression on potential clients and customers.

So naturally, we tend to put a lot of emphasis on curating our social media feeds and making sure all of our photos look styled, branded, and professional.

But social media is changing.

It isn’t enough to have a beautiful feed anymore. Your potential clients and customers (and apps like Instagram and Facebook, themselves) are becoming less interested in pretty photos and more interested in one specific thing.

What is it and how can you implement it? Keep reading.

I don't know about you, but when Instagram stories launched several months ago, I was both excited and overwhelmed.

I was excited at the idea of a new way to connect with my followers. 

But overwhelmed by the though of having to create more content on top of regular Instagram posts, Facebook, Twitter, blog posts, and all the other content that I create week after week for Elle & Company.

So I kind of sat on it and put it off until I could put my own unique spin on it, until I could figure out how I could really use Instagram stories to benefit my business, and how I could use Instagram stories realistically. I didn't want to start off with a bang, with all these bright ideas and then not have the time to actually follow through with them all.     

I sat on it for a while and then started coming up with a list of clever content ideas.

So today I'm going to share 15 clever content ideas to use Instgaram stories to promote your business.

Pinterest has been one of the most helpful free marketing tools for driving traffic to the Elle & Company website.

In fact, 20% of my overall blog traffic and 78% of my overall social media traffic to my blog comes directly from Pinterest. 

Not only is Pinterest visual (which is especially helpful for creative business owners), but pins have a longer lifespan than other social media posts like tweets and Facebook shares. An image that was pinned months ago will continue to show up in other people’s feeds for months and drive traffic to your website.

But as with any social media platform, it takes time to keep up with Pinterest. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time in my busy work week to devote hours and hours to pinning.

This is problematic because we know a few things about Pinterest:

1. Pinterest works in your favor when you pin a lot
2. Pinterest likes it when you post other people’s content, not just your own
3. You’ll see more consistent traffic if you pin over a period of time instead of all at once with weeks in between

Enter Board Booster. 

You know those inconvenient tasks that always seem to creep up on you? 

Maybe it’s an email reply you always find yourself sending or a URL you often visit but can never remember.

In instances like these, it’s beneficial to keep that information in a helpful place, create a template or bookmark it so you can easily refer back to it later and save yourself a headache. 

That’s why I wrote this blog post.

It seems I’m constantly trying to track down image sizes for social media, both for Elle & Company graphics and client design projects.

And surely you’ve found yourself hunting down image sizes for your social media accounts, too. 

So I decided to make it easier on all of us by rounding up ideal image sizes for blog posts and social media and creating an infographic. 

Feel free to bookmark this post or pin it to Pinterest for future reference!

Imagine this. 

It’s 8pm on a Sunday evening. Tomorrow is Monday, which means the craziness of juggling clients, projects and business tasks is about to crank back up. And the thought just occurred to you that you haven’t yet scheduled posts for each of your social media platforms for the coming week.

So you pull out your laptop and spend the last 2 hours of your Sunday brainstorming about what the heck you’re going to post on social media.

You browse through old blog posts and choose a few at random to feature for the upcoming week. You spend forever digging through your Bloglovin’ and Twitter feeds to find articles to highlight from other industry peers. You save images to your desktop until you can no longer see your screensaver and you have a field day shortening links with bit.ly.

Finally, 10:30pm rolls around and your Buffer queue is filled for the week…until next Sunday, that is.

What if I told you the rat race of social media scheduling could finally end? What if you never had to schedule social media again? 

I’ve started using a tool that takes those questions out of the hypothetical and makes them a reality. 

You know Instagram is working for your creative business when:

• You’ve found a way to stand out in an oversaturated industry when everyone else seems to be doing the same thing.
• You’re attracting the right kind of followers who are not only interested your products and services, but they’re actually purchasing them.
• Your following is consistently growing.
• Your Instagram followers turn into clients and customers.

The good news is that you can do all of the above without being pushy or salesy. 

In fact, Instagram is a fantastic way to unobtrusively market your business on Instagram without being salesy.

Instagram seems to be the social media platform of choice for creative business owners. 

It’s visual, business accounts easily blend in with personal accounts, and - unlike Facebook - posts show up in chronological order.

Well, they used to show up in chronological order. 

On March 15th, Instagram announced that posts would “soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.” 

In other words, they’re following Facebook’s footsteps and displaying posts in your feed according to engagement. Posts will no longer appear in chronological order. Business owners aren’t guaranteed that their posts will appear in the feeds of their followers. 

So it’s no surprise that this recent announcement has caused widespread panic in the creative community. 

However, I saw this one coming. I predicted it would happen several months ago in this post. 

While these recent changes might change the way we approach our Instagram marketing strategies, they shouldn’t be causing business owners to freak out. 

Here’s why they don’t scare me (and certainly shouldn’t scare you).

The benefits of using social media for business are obvious. 

Social media platforms allow you to reach your target audience in the places where they hang out the most. They help you network with others in your industry (and stay up to date/keep an eye on what they’re up to). They give your audience the opportunity to follow along with you and it give you the opportunity to engage and communicate with them. 

And, oh yeah, social media accounts are free. 

But despite all of these excellent benefits, there’s one glaring issue with using social media for business. 

There are several roles involved in running a business - boss, administrative assistant, social media strategist, marketing director, accountant, copywriter… the list goes on. Most days I find myself doing a strange, frantic dance, running around trying to keep every plate spinning. 

If you, too, are in the throws of entrepreneurship, I’m sure you can relate. It’s tough juggling everything, wearing 20 hats, and keeping up with all the important details and deadlines. 

That’s where this post comes in.

Twitter chats seem to be a popular trend nowadays, especially among creative businesses and blogs. And for good reason; they’re a great way to build community, network with others in your industry, and gain some helpful tips and insights in the process.

But for those who are first-time chatters or new to the Twitter scene, these hashtags and conversations may seem a little foreign and often intimidating.

That’s where today’s post comes in. I’m going all-in to give you a simple overview of what a Twitter chat is, how it functions, and why it’s worth participating in. 

For those of you who are familiar with Twitter chats and are considering hosting your own chat, keep scrolling - I share some tips for hosting a Twitter chat at the bottom of this post!

We’re all visual people to some extent, so it’s no wonder that Instagram is all the hype these days. The social media platform is addictive, free, and fun to use, which has great implications for creative businesses; it allows you to showcase your work/products in an unobtrusive, attractive, and personable way. 

As a designer, Instagram has been especially helpful for my business. Several of my past, present, and upcoming design clients have found me through Instagram, and the larger my following becomes on the platform, the greater chance I have of drawing in clientele and blog readers. 

This time last year I was close to reaching 1,000 followers, and today I’m somewhere around 11k. I’ve received several inquiries from readers lately who’ve asked me how I’ve grown my Instagram following, and although I’ve shared a couple posts in the past about Instagram landing pages and how to create the quintessential Instagram feed, I’m going in a little more detail today to share 6 things that I attribute to my organic increase in followers.

Instagram is currently the fastest growing social media platform. It started as a simple photo-sharing app among friends, and it has since grown into a community of over 300 million brands and consumers. For business owners and bloggers, it's silly not to be engaging with followers on Instagram through likes, follows and comments; an active audience is right at your fingertips. 

Since Instagram is all about visuals, it's important to have a professional, branded feed. We all appreciate those accounts with the seamless, gorgeous images, but we may not know exactly how to get our own feed looking cohesive and one-of-a-kind. Today I'm sharing a few fundamental tips to get you started in the right direction.

Curating images is a crucial part of branding that’s always noticed but not often considered (and by curating, I’m referring to exercising intention in the way images are laid out and organized within a group, like a Pinterest board, Instagram account, or even a blog archive). All of your images are a reflection of your brand as a whole, and putting thoughtful consideration into how these images are grouped and displayed can go a long way in making your blog or business appear professional and legitimate, especially across your social media accounts.

We’re all very visual, and we appreciate well-curated groups of images. But the trouble isn’t recognizing streamlined accounts and brands; it’s figuring out how to take our accounts to the next level and curate our images to reflect well on our blog or business. 

And that’s where today’s post comes in.

As a blogger and business owner, I strive to be strategic and purposeful with my social media accounts. I have a slightly different audience on each account, which means that my approach to each one is slightly different. On Instagram, my audience is a wide mix of blog followers, design admirers, and friends and family, and as a result, it’s my most personal account. I share a variety of behind-the-scenes looks at my day to day, new projects, and occasionally a photo or two of my fur-child, Heidi. My audience on Facebook is slightly less varied and consists mainly of bloggers and business owners. I primarily share blog posts and announcements with the occasional quote, feature, or #ellechat reminder. 

But until a few months ago, I didn’t have a strategy - and as a result, an audience - for Twitter other than pressing that “Share on Twitter” option within Instagram. I didn’t understand Twitter, and I definitely didn’t comprehend what an excellent opportunity I was missing out on to reach other creative entrepreneurs and bloggers. So I came up with a plan, and I shared it on the blog for accountability (and a hope that I might encourage others to get on board with Twitter, too). 

It’s been 3 months, and I’m checking back in with a look at how this new strategy has panned out and paid off. 

It’s easy to equate someone’s success with their number of Instagram followers. We all do it, even if we’re unaware, when we click on a profile and see that someone has 30,000 followers. They must be pretty important and successful, right? But the longer I’m in business, the more I understand that thousands of Instagram followers amount to nothing if they aren’t engaged, rarely visit my website, and never book my services. It’s much better to have 100 loyal followers who show interest in what you’re doing than it is to have 10,000 followers who could care less. 

And while it’s not a bad thing to grow your audience and expand your reach, I think more of an emphasis needs to be placed on content and strategically sharing posts that drive traffic to your blog and website. There’s a way to do this authentically - I don’t believe you have to put a sleazy sales pitch in every photo and description -  but if your Instagram account is connected to your business, it would be silly not to use it point people back to your home base: your blog and website. 

Many creative entrepreneurs overlook how valuable Pinterest can be for their business and blog. These past 5 months I've seen Pinterest climb to the top of my site referrals in my analytics, and I've started to realize its potential for generating traffic and reaching a larger audience. Not only that, but I've had 3 design clients find my work through Pinterest, follow it to my site, and book my services. The power of this free social media platform is huge. 

In an effort to help you grow your audience, drive traffic to your site, book clients, and generate sales, I'm focusing on the benefits of Pinterest today as well as sharing 7 ways that you can utilize Pinterest for blogging and business. 

Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform at the moment. In fact, Instagram has now surpassed Twitter in its number of users and accounts (source). If you're a business owner or blogger who hasn't joined in on the Instagram trend, you're missing out on a fantastic opportunity to increase your brand's awareness and reach your ideal audience.

Well, sort of. Instagram is helpful for growing your following and reaching more potential readers and customers, but there are some serious issues with tracking Instagram's referral traffic. So today Jake is explaining how this problem might affect you as well as sharing some creative ways to track conversions from Instagram.

Engagement is the key to a successful blog. It comes about in many ways - comments, shares, purchases, bookings - but it's something that every blogger strives for; we all want to initiate a response in our readers. While building engagement looks different for each blogger and largely depends on your ideal audience, I recently stumbled upon an unexpected way to foster community around Elle & Company: hosting a Twitter chat. 

What is a Twitter chat, how does it work, and why should you host one? I'm giving you all the details in today's post.

Have you ever wondered why some social media posts get more engagement than others? Studies show that certain days and times of the week affect the number of people who like, share, favorite, and retweet your posts. Most of you are fully aware that 3:00am on a Wednesday morning isn't the most optimal time to post an image on Instagram and expect engagement, but it's helpful to know specific days and times that your audience is most active. Today we've rounded up the data to help you gain more engagement with your followers over social media. 

Twitter used to be my least favorite social media outlet. Recently I realized the benefits of the platform and began to rethink my strategy for using it. This change in perspective has made quite the difference in how I market Elle & Company and connect with my followers, and while Twitter still doesn't come as naturally to me as it does for others, this new approach has me excited. Do you need some motivation and excitement in your Twitter life? This post might spark a change in your perspective.

Say hello to my little friend, Bloglovin'. This blogging tool has been a key factor in the growth of Elle & Company readership, especially this past month when one of my posts gained popularity on the platform and almost doubled my page views... overnight. If you're a blogger and you haven't taken the time to understand and utilize Bloglovin', you're missing out on a great free marketing tool and a crazy number of new readers. So what's so great about this site and how can you take advantage of this social tool? Keep reading.

Social media. It's the cheapest, easiest form of marketing out there. If you're a business owner, a blogger, or both, you've probably been taking full advantage of several platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+, to name a few. And why would't you? It's an easy way to reach your followers without paying a dime. 

But you may have noticed a slight shift in these platforms lately, especially Facebook. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I do have some thoughts and opinions on the future of social media.