How to Return to Blogging After A Break

Happy New Year!!! And what a year it has been! I don't know about all of you but this little break of mine was just wonderful! And very needed. However, now that I've taken the break, I have to readjust to getting back into the groove. Today I want to talk about just that and how I am returning after mu month long break here on the EAE.

Having a break now and again can be a good thing, and I have shared before how you can plan ahead and prepare for any type or length of break you may need. But just how do I get back into my blogging groove after such a deliciously relaxing period of away-ness?

Primarily by planning ahead.

True story. When I decided to take all of December off, for several reasons, I knew that if I did not use at least some of that time, I wouldn't get squat done and prepped for the new year. So I had to make a plan.

Planning for me is fun. It both relaxes and centers me because I feel like a plan in place means goals being reached. So I took a little time the first week of my blogging vacation to map out some goals and plans for this here little site (more on that in a future post - wink!) and to really think about the direction I was going.

Then I started mapping out my social media strategy and my editorial calendar. Both of these things are probably the most important elements of blog planning. Why? Because without them you have zero direction. Seriously. If you don't know WHAT to post on social media you won't have anything at all TO post on social media. Same with your blog. An editorial keeps the focus where it should be: content creation. Knowing this, I needed to create a plan.

And Buy Some Planners!

I lived by Sugar Paper Planners last year (post coming soon!) and this year I wanted to take things up a notch so three planners were going to be required. I needed a social media planner, a blog post planner and a main, daily planner. Sugar Paper makes my life easier and so I was more than happy to choose them a second time around. I am also using Jenny Collier's Daily Docket Download (sign up for her newsletter and get access to all her great printables. They're seriously amazing!)

Now that I had a planning system, I had to get started filling it up.

Having spent a bunch of time researching, I decided to make the switch to Buffer (I used HooteSuite for a long time however they were not fitting my needs anymore. I still can't recommend them enough to anyone who needs a social media manager) as my business needs were growing rapidly. I'm using the 410/month plan so I can also schedule my daily Pins and I will handle IG manually.

I wound up choosing two scheduled posts a day for each of my blogs on Facebook, Google + and Twitter as well as my post for each blog on Pinterest daily. I am also going to start using Buffer for my two Facebook groups (the UBC and my Thirty-One Independent Consultant page)

Thank you Pinterest!

Settling on a schedule was easy. Now I needed content. And that is where Pinterest came in to play. Not only did my research lead me to some of the best posting times and the best platforms to share what on but I was also able to pull all sorts of shareable content and get all my posts scheduled out for each social platform in less than three days. And yes, that's WITH mega family activities, working as a VA and trying to get all my shopping done!

Scheduling out social media is one of the hardest parts of being a blogger. My content here on my blogs is 100% my own and it's easy enough to keep it coming fresh. But you can't over promote yourself on social media and expect people to like you. So finding great content from other bloggers that you can share correctly can be difficult. Well, getting the content is easy enough. It's making sure you're not repeating yourself daily that can be tough ;) Who's with me? Eh?

Fill 'er up!

By which I mean, start filling up those planners kids!

Before I even began to schedule a single thing I filled up every January Day in both my Social Media and Blog Post planners. This way I had an easy reference guide and I would literally just go each day at a time. Which is exactly what I did. A day at a time I was able to get 200+ social media posts planned and scheduled along with 20 blog posts for January, complete with graphics, necessary photos and SEO.

Did it take forever? Not since I was able to bust it all out at my own pace, a little at a time. That definitely made life easier. And just like having everything run smoothly on a Monday, each year I like to have a smoothly run January to set the tone for the year.

Now It's Your Turn!

Start the Discussion:

What do you do to prep your blog for a return after a break?
How do you prep your blog for a good new year?
What's your favorite way to get yourself ahead on your scheduling and planning?