How I Created My New Blog’s Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest Accounts
1. FACEBOOK
I wanted a separate Facebook page for my new blog. But I had to learn about Facebook’s definitions, since I found out I couldn’t just create a fully separate page for my blog.
- Account – a person uses an account to log in and manage one profile and the account may have multiple pages.
- Profile – restricted to an individual, for non-commercial, non-business purposes. Privacy settings may be set to restrict who sees updates.
- Page – used for a business, brand, or organization (like a non-profit, or school PTA, work or recreation team). Pages offer extra features to help promote activity and visits. Anyone may ‘like’ a page to see updates. The page’s ‘admin’ may allow other people to have a role such as admin, editor, or moderator, of the page. You can even remove yourself as an admin, as long as someone else already has the role of an admin.
To summarize, a person has an account, and that account may have one profile and multiple pages. (Keep in mind that an individual having a second, separate account runs the risk of discovery and having that page shut down.)
To create a page, login to Facebook and in a new browser window, go to this link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/create. For my blog, I selected Company, then selected a category and a name.
Next, I wanted to upload images for my cover and profile pictures. I went straight to Canva, where I already have a free account, and clicked the Facebook Cover link. I spent a while looking through Canva’s free images, instead found a nice keyboard photo for $1, and then, because I’m not all that adept at using Canva, played around for quite a while, moving the image within the blank frame, and finally decided it was okay, and downloaded the image. Canva then requested my credit card info to pay for the image I bought.
Then, I just had to go to my Facebook page and upload that image. And then I uploaded an image for my profile photo, except I didn’t make a new profile photo, I just used the same Favicon 512×512 logo image I created recently. Here’s the post explaining how I made the Favicon image.
I still need to add keywords and descriptions to the ‘About’ section of my blog’s Facebook page.
How my Facebook page looks so far:
Facebook for business resources I used:
Bryan Fleming, in his post Facebook Keeping Personal and Business Separate, on Building Social Proof, does a great job describing the difference between a profile and a page, and goes on to show, with screenshots, how to keep them separate, and how to assign page-managing duties to other people.
Ken Morico, in his post How to: Separate Personal and Business with Facebook Pages, on his website, goes into greater detail about the benefits of page features. He also uses screenshots to explain profiles and pages, how to take advantage of the analytics in building a follower base, and how to use other tools to manage Facebook activity.
2. TWITTER
Moving on to Twitter, I assumed it would also offer a separate business feature. It doesn’t. More on that in a bit.
If you don’t already have a Twitter account, just follow the easy setup steps to create a new one at this Twitter sign up link: https://support.twitter.com/articles/100990.
I did that, but then got stuck at the phone verification box, with no apparent way to bypass or request another way to finish the verification step. Apparently, any person or business may have multiple Twitter accounts, however, every Twitter account must have a separate email address, and, a separate phone number to receive a verification text. My problem was that my regular land-line home phone cannot receive a text, and my cell phone number is already tied to another twitter account I have. (The separate email address for my second Twitter account was not a problem, since I had created multiple email addresses with my own domain through my blog’s hosting provider.)
Naturally, I turned to Google to inquire about the separate phone number receiving a text problem.
Thankfully, Brian Jackson, an internet marketing expert, posted How to Bypass the Twitter Phone Verification for New Account. I kept his article open in one browser window and in another browser window, followed his handy step-by-step instructions to use a gmail account to get a Google Voice number, and set it to forward to my cell phone, and then plug in the Google Voice number to acquire my blog’s Twitter account. Thank you, Brian! There were a lot of steps, but it worked!
Now I was able to finish setting up the Twitter account, insert the link to my blog, and upload the same Facebook Cover and Profile photos for my Twitter’s ‘Header’ and Profile images. I also matched the Twitter theme color to one of the colors of my blog.
How my Twitter page looks so far:
Twitter for business resources I used:
Avin Kline, in his post Should I Use a Business or Personal Account for Twitter, on Intentionally Digital, explains the parts of a Twitter name, which is really two parts, a username and a handle. He outlines the pros and cons of using a personal name or not.
Alicia Orre, in her post 7 Steps to Setting Up Your Twitter Account, outlines what to consider about selecting a user name and handle, and suggests using a personal photo instead of a logo, so people connect on a personal level.
2. PINTEREST
Creating a Pinterest page for a new blog is easy. I just clicked this link: https://business.pinterest.com/en, and followed the instruction links to Set Up Your Business Account, then Create a Business Account, then filled in the boxes.
To prove that I am my blog’s owner, Pinterest provided a validator code. Since I have Yoast SEO on my WordPress site, I went to SEO in my WordPress left-side menu, then Social, then Pinterest and entered the code there. For those who don’t have Yoast, enter the code provided by Pinterest in your site’s Theme Settings, in the Header Script box. If you don’t have WordPress, you’ll need to manually enter the code to your website’s code area.
In the Edit Profile area of Pinterest, I uploaded my same logo Favicon image by clicking Change Picture. I still need to add keywords and descriptions to my profile.
Then, I applied for Rich Pins on Pinterest. That means any pin from your blog, whether pinned by you or anyone else to their Pinterest board, will include the title in bold and its full SEO description. Click here to apply for Rich Pins: https://help.pinterest.com/en/articles/enable-rich-pins-your-site. I opted for the ‘article’ type of pin. The choices are recipe, movie, article, product, or place, and depends on the subject matter of your blog or website.
Since I do use Yoast SEO, then I could skip the #1 step on the ‘Enable Rich Pins for your site’ instructions. I did not need to “Prep your website” because Yoast SEO provides the meta tags that Pinterest Rich Pins will use. I submitted one of my URLs to the Rich Pin application process, and within a couple days I heard back, by email, that my site had been approved. I advise that you refrain from pinning any of your own blog posts to your Pinterest page until you’re approved for Rich Pins. That way, those pinned links will definitely include the keywords and full description. Some of my early pins don’t include the Rich Pins data, and I still need to figure out how to fix that.
How my Pinterest page looks so far:
Pinterest for business resources I used:
Melyssa Griffin, in her post The Easy Way to Set Up “Rich Pins” on Pinterest, on The Nectar Collective, walks through the steps to apply for Rich Pins, and also suggests using Yoast SEO.
Michelle Phillips, in her post Set Up Pinterest Article Rich Pins with Yoast SEO Plugin, on codefetti, also walks through the steps and also suggests using Yoast SEO. She provides screenshots of the Yoast ‘Add Open Graph meta tag’ box to fill in, and shows exactly what a Rich Pin looks like.
Carrie, in her post How to Enable Pinterest Rich Pins on Your Blog, on Carrie Loves, also recommends Yoast SEO, and details how to get your site validated with the code. She adds how-to for Blogger or Blogspot blogs, too.