If you’re interested in blogging, whether you write your own or just love reading them, you’ve probably heard of Bloglovin’. I check my feed every day, as I have since I opened my account back in 2014. But it wasn’t until recently that I realized how to use Bloglovin’ to organize my blog life.
Make Sure You’re Following Your Own Blog
Just because your profile and your blog accounts are linked on Bloglovin’ doesn’t mean you’re necessarily following your blog’s page.
Why should you follow your own blog’s profile? Not only do you show up as an additional follower on your blog, but you can also see how your blog posts appear to other followers. I discovered, for example, that Bloglovin’ doesn’t grab Featured Images in WordPress for the preview, so many of my blog posts had my signature’s thumbnail on the side. It didn’t tell them anything about the post, and it just didn’t look good. So I changed the way I set up my posts, and now they look consistent and beautiful!
Schedule Your Posts Early in the Day
One of the first things I do every day is check my Bloglovin’ feed. When I first started, I noticed my blog posts weren’t showing up until the afternoon, despite the fact that they were scheduled at 8 or 9 in the morning.
Then I changed the time they were scheduled to 3 a.m. And oh, what a difference it has made! They are ready for me (and the rest of my followers) as soon as I get up in the morning.
Save All Of Your Own Posts
Just like you might not have been following your own blog’s profile on Bloglovin’, some people may be following your personal profile, but not your blog’s profile. So, how do you make sure they still see your blog posts when they’re posted? Save them.
If you click on “Activity” on the sidebar of your feed, you’ll see a roundup of the posts that the people you’re following have saved. So, if you’re saving your own posts, they’ll show up here for your followers.
I personally created a category specifically for my posts titled, appropriately, My Posts. You could also save them in categories based on the topic, if you wish. Which brings me to my next point…
Utilize Categories
A few months ago, Bloglovin’ introduced categories for your profile. Think of them as boards on your Pinterest profile: ways to organize the links you’re saving.
I’ve got a lot of categories on my Bloglovin’ profile, but you can have as many or as few as you want. Here’s what my profile looks like:
They’re organized based on recent saves, which is the only thing I don’t like about them. I really like having things in a particular order, so it throws me off when they aren’t where I expect them to be.
You’ll notice I’ve got categories like Travel, Blog, Career, Style, etc. I keep everything separated so I know where to find a specific post when I want to go back to it. Plus, if someone’s curious what career posts I’ve saved, they can find them easily.
Here’s the nice thing about saving posts: you can save them to more than one category. That way, if a post is both about style and career, I could put them in each category. But there’s one way I use this feature the most…
Create a “To Share” Category
I try to share other people’s posts more than my own on my social media channels. Not only is it good for SEO, it’s also good at developing relationships with other bloggers.
When I tried doing this, though, I would go through recent posts I had saved on Bloglovin’ and couldn’t remember which ones I had already shared. So I came up with a brilliant idea: save a post in a specific “To Share” category, and unsave it when I’ve scheduled it to be shared.
Here’s what my To Share category looked like the other day. You can see under each post that there’s a red heart next to the word “Unsave.” So, once I put it into CoSchedule to be shared, I click the “Unsave” button so I don’t accidentally share it again.
But, so I don’t lose that post forever, I save it into another category as well, like DIY, Feminism, or Blog.
So, if you’re ever curious about what posts I’m going to be sharing soon, you can always get a sneak peak on my Bloglovin’ profile!
Comment on Every Post You Save
This is something I’ve been trying to do, but haven’t been sticking to as well depending on my schedule and motivation.
To develop good relationships with other bloggers, comment on every post you save. You must like it if you’re going through the trouble of saving it, so let the blogger know! I always love getting comments from readers, so it’s nice to repay the favor.
How do you use Bloglovin’ to stay organized? I’d love to find out in the comments!
What a great tips you have here! I really never knew that I should save my own posts in bloglovin too. I’m going to start doing it now 🙂
Yay! I’m so glad I can be of help! Especially since your posts are always so helpful, so I’m now returning the favor. 🙂
OOh.. good tip on following our own blog! I have to spend some time on Bloglovin to make it how I want it. I keep putting it off but seriously, it’s on my weekend to-do!
That’s awesome! It took me a little bit of time to arrange everything, but it’s SO convenient now! I hope it turns out how you want it! 🙂
These are AWESOME tips, Caitlin. I didn’t know you could create these individualized categories on Bloglovin’…definitely starting a “To Share” folder, because up until now, I’ve been emailing myself all of other people’s links that I wanted to share myself!
Coming Up Roses
Haha! Not necessarily a bad way to do it, but I hope you find Bloglovin’ is a little easier! Glad I could help 🙂
OMG! I love BlogLovin and had no idea that I could do so much!. I’m not only pinning, I’m printing to put in my blog resource binder!
Awesome! Glad I could be so much help, Cynthia! 🙂
Wow, I have NOT been utilizing Bloglovin’! I had no idea about pretty much any of this. Excellent tips. Now I have some MORE things to add to my blog to-do list 🙂
That list is ever-growing, isn’t it?!
So many pro-tips! Good job, lady. 🙂
I’ve never thought of a “To Share” save on my BL. That is a really great idea! I always save my posts just for the reason you said. Thanks for this!
Glad I could help, Dina! 🙂
I love all these tips! I need to start saving my own posts. I’m not really organized on this platform but this will help.
Mikayla | A Seersucker State of Mind.
Happy to help! Let me know if you have any questions as you get organized with it 🙂
Love this! Bloglovin has been a particular nightmare for me.. So it’s nice to see that it works for some people! lol. I don’t know how to get photos to appear on my posts at all?! I switched my hosting once and I could never correct it. So now I just try not to use it. 🙁
Ugh, that’s so frustrating! Are you putting them in as your featured image rather than within the actual body of the post? That was my problem for a while.
Wow. I’m definitely not using Bloglovin to its fullest potential. I actually just signed up not too long ago, so I have a lot to learn. Thank you for all of this information. I’m pinning it too. 🙂
Thanks, Shann! 🙂 If you have any questions while you’re setting it up, don’t hesitate to ask!
Holy smokes! I learned so much from this. I’ve been neglecting my bloglovin’ account because I don’t really know what I’m doing. These are great tips…I had no idea I should follow myself or save my own posts…Time to step up my game.
Glad I could help, Heather! Any questions, let me know 🙂
Great tips! Yours looks like Pinterest (which of course makes me very happy!). Just started using a few weeks and needed some sort of guide as it is very confusing :/
So true! It can be super frustrating at first. If you have any follow-up questions, let me know! 🙂
Brilliant ideas! I’m a bloglovin’ newbie so this is some seriously valuable info. Thank you!!!
You’re welcome! Happy to help! 🙂
Ugh, I literally have not done ANYTHING with my bloglovin account. I am definitely saving this post so that I can finally do something with it. I just wasn’t ever sure where to start.
If you need any help with it, don’t hesitate to ask! 🙂
Some great advice here! I always make sure to follow my blog on different platforms and try to remember to check in to make sure things are still looking good. I had no idea there were categories though and it never occurred to me to save my own blogs posts. Thanks for the tips 🙂
Thanks, Katie! 🙂
This is a great post, thank you for all the tips!
Thanks for stopping by, Stephanie!
I just thought I would come back and comment…I updated my bloglovin’ finally, thanks to you. I completely followed your post step by step! Thanks so much Caitlin!
Yay! That makes me so happy. I’m glad I could help!
Thanks for sharing these tips Caitlin 🙂 I’m still a newbie when it comes to Bloglovin’ but these tips have helped!
So glad I could help, Aubre! It takes a little bit of getting used to but I LOVE it now that I’ve got it figured out. 🙂
I love this and thank you for sharing it because I totally love the ideas you have!
So glad I could help! 🙂
LOVE THIS! Bloglovin is the next social media that I’m out to conquer (or at least not be completely inept at). 🙂
Awesome! I promise it’s not super intimidating! 🙂