Prepping Blog and Social Media for PCT Thru-hike - Uphillhike
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Setting up Blog for PCT hike

Prepping Blog and Social Media for PCT Thru-hike

I’ve been working a great deal over the last 6 months to dress up my blog to make it ready for my PCT thru-hike. I’ve also practiced with Instagram and Snapchat so I can hit the ground running. I’m not interested in troubleshooting or implementing new blog features while on the trail, much less trying to learn how to use Instagram or Snapchat. In the end, I’m out there to hike and I’d like to minimize my time on social media and posting blogs. The best way is to have a good system in place in advance. I’ll need to be flexible also. If it gets to be too much, I’ll need to prioritize some. Number one priority is to keep up with daily blog posts. Easily said, but it takes a great deal of dedication to keep up with after a hard day on the trail.

I’ve just finished reading up on how to set up MailChimp to automatically email blog posts to a mailing list. In fact, this post is my first end to end test of my configuration. For anyone out there that wants to do the same with their blog, here is a great blog post on how to do it. How to use MailChimp to send WordPress blog posts by email .

To give you an idea of some of the social media and blogging prep activities I’ve been working on, here is a partial list.

  • Setup Google Map of PCT Trail as a widget in my blog sidebar. (My hope was that you could follow my live position on the Google map.)
  • Add countdown timer of PCT start date in sidebar of blog.
  • Learn how to use Instagram, including Instagram stories and Instagram Live.
  • Learn how to use Snapchat.
  • Add Snapchat and Instagram to sidebar of blog.
  • Create blog categories for PCT-Thru-hike. Also create subcategories for major states/sections of trail.
  • Add subscribe to blog through wordpress.com (Jetpack) as widget on sidebar of blog.
  • Spend an incredible amount of time analyzing and making changes to speed up my website using  Yoast SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to identify issues to correct.
  • Adding apps on Iphone and testing to figure out fastest offline process for keeping up with blog when there is no signal
  • WordPress.com Iphone App – Troubleshooting issues with Iphone WordPress.com app and making it work with hosting site. Fixed problem, but still not good for writing offline posts and uploading (photos can’t be saved in offline blog draft). (Which is what I really want to be able to do.) For now, my plan is to just type in notes and copy and paste once I have coverage.
  • Added app to compress photos for easier upload to blog and to keep website speedy.
  • Setting up MailChimp so I can add people to my email list to automatically receive blog posts.