28 blogging tasks you can do from your phone

Do you spend more time near your smartphone than your computer? You can still get plenty of work done on your blog when you're on the go with these mobile-friendly tasks!

If you're anything like me — juggling paying work, parenting, home life, errands, fitness — you might find limited time to sit down at an actual desk to blog or work on your blog-related tasks. So here's a roundup of plenty of things you can do while you're on your smartphone or tablet.

A few of these links are affiliate links, but most are just free apps. I use what I recommend.

1. Draft a blogpost.

   If you're a minimalist blogger (mostly plain text), you might be able to post from your smartphone using one of the blogging apps (WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr on Android & iOS), using email uploads (Blogger, WordPress.com, self-hosted WordPress), or navigating to the site on mobile.
   
   For me, I find the apps and mobile experience inadequate for all the images and coding and customization I love to cram into my posts, so I prefer to finalize things on desktop. BUT, I can absolutely WRITE a blogpost draft while I'm out. I just prefer to do it in email. I use Gmail's Inbox app and like that it saves my drafts well. I just pop my own address into the to field, make the subject line my title, and then Swype away in the text field. I'm Swyping this right now, matter of fact. I'd like to experiment, once I figure out the best headset, with dictating blogposts while I walk, using Dragon Dictation, the native Google voice-recognition on my phone, or another speech-to-text capability. (Here's how one person does this via Evernote.)
   
    
   

2. Edit your drafts.

   If you have a blogpost draft you want to edit, email it to yourself or upload it to Google Docs and use the Google Drive app (Android & iOS) to access it. It has a nice autosave feature, and it will sync with your desktop version of course.
   
    
   

3. Check and reply to email.

   I find being on my phone actually makes this easier, because brevity feels right. Bam. Email done.
   
    
   

4. Read other blogs.

   I use Feedly for my subscriptions now, and I've learned the mobile gesture shortcuts to make the process easy. Save for later articles you want to read in depth or share, or just do it now if you have the concentration time.
   
    
   

Optimizing your blog images for Pinterest: 9 tips {Updated!}

Since things have changed so much since the last time I wrote about this topic, I figured an update was in order for the way Pinterest works with blog images now.

Many bloggers report amazing traffic from Pinterest if you leverage the platform just right, garnering viral repins and multiple clicks through to a blog. Here are ways to fine-tune your blog images to be Pinterest-friendly.

1. Include an image in every post.

   If you want to be pinned, this is a must. Technically, a pinner can skirt around this by uploading an image to use as a placeholder for your post, but how dedicated are your readers really? Even if you're a writer, a words person, not a graphics person (I get it — I do!), you need an image in your blogpost. And even if you're not on Pinterest yourself — even if you never set foot in the app or have an account — your blogposts could be gaining traction there as soon as someone pins them. So it's worth making your posts pinnable! The minimum size, by the way, is 100X200 pixels, which is teensy and not going to play well on Pinterest. Read on.
   
    
   

2. Use the standard Pinterest size for best results.

   The largest pin size is 735 pixels wide, and the longest pin that can be read in mobile without clicking on an "expand pin" button is 1102 pixels long. So there's your optimal pin size: 735x1102. (You can round it to 1100 if that's easier to remember, and it doesn't actually need to be exact.) That's the width that will pop up when you click on a pin on desktop. You can technically make your pins infinity long, so if you have more to include (such as in an infographic or a step-by-step pictorial tutorial), then go for it. The whole length will be shown on desktop, but be aware that the whole length won't show automatically on mobile without an extra click.
   
   Examples of how pins look on desktop & mobile:
   
   

   

   Pins can show as super long on desktop.

   
   

   

   Longer pins will be truncated on mobile.

   
    
   

Sunday Surf: Pinterest, moms writing, & book signing pressure

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

Validating for Rich Pins for Pinterest: Blogger Xpertise

Make your pins stand out.

Pinterest recently announced new functionality for “Rich Pins” for Pinterest for different types of pins (product, recipe, movie, or article).

Pinterest + iPad = Love (Photo credit: Bunches and Bits {Karina})

4 MONTHS AGO

Sunday Surf: About pages, Facebook marketing, and Adsense tips

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

The Essential Checklist for Submitting Your Novel to Agents | WritersDigest.com

6-item checklist to follow before sending off your first novel query!

1 WEEK AGO -  1

novel writing novels novel submissions agents Submissions query writing fiction writing 1 note

What Will You Find When You Download Your Twitter Archive? | BlogHer

You can download all your Tweets easily now!

My very first Tweets were RTs, so that’s boring, but my third Tweet ever made me laugh:

is once again searching for overdue library items.

— Lauren Wayne (@Hobo_Mama) May 6, 2009

Still true.

1 WEEK AGO

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12 Blogher conference tips that no one else will tell you

Big-sister tips for enjoying a blogging conference.

1 WEEK AGO

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CreateSpace: a Review | Freeman Ng

Helpful review of publishing a book with color interior pages at CreateSpace.

1 WEEK AGO

self-publishing publishing print on demand CreateSpace

Positioning your Adsense Ads III : @ProBlogger

Interesting info on AdSense locations: Be aware that AdSense fills the ads from the top down, so make sure your most prominent ad spot is being filled with the best ads first.

3 WEEKS AGO

advertising AdSense google blogging tutorials Finances monetizing

How to Write Your “About Me” Page : @ProBlogger

There are four main questions that readers want answered on your About Me page:

1. who you are…
2. your expertise and how it addresses…
3. their problem or goal, and how they can…
4. contact you

Includes sample “About” page.

3 WEEKS AGO -  1

blogging blogging tips about page marketing tutorials 1 note

Add an ‘About’ Page to Your Blog : @ProBlogger

Tips for what to include.

3 WEEKS AGO

blogging blogging tips tutorials about page marketing

How to Manage Your Facebook Marketing in 30 Minutes a Day | BlogHer

Feeling overwhelmed by your Facebook page upkeep? Here’s an easy system to have one simple but effective post a day.

3 WEEKS AGO

facebook facebook fan pages Social media blogging tutorials

Guest room: Three hacks to access your site’s Pinterest statistics « Birmingham Blogging Academy

Three ways to track pins from your site.

1 MONTH AGO

Pinterest Social media blogging blogging tips tutorials statistics

Blogger Beware: 3 Ways You Could Be Breaking Amazon's Affiliate Program Rules - I Can Teach My Child!

Verboten: Shortening links; including links in ebooks, emails, or PDFs; and buying through your own link. (For #3, you can always buy through another blogger’s link right here — and add your own link!)

1 MONTH AGO

amazon amazon associates affiliate marketing affiliates blogging

Surf with us:

We love following along with fellow Sunday Surfers. If you have your own post of reading links to share, please link up your post on Hobo Mama or on Authentic Parenting. The linky will go live every Sunday, and you can link up any day that week. You only need to add your post to one of the sites, and the linky will automatically show up on both sites.

You can get the Sunday Surf button by Jenna Designs and some code to add to your post from my Sunday Surf page.

Check out previous editions for good reading, and you can find more shared items during the week at my Tumblr blog, Hobo Mama's Shared Items.

Sunday Surf: Software, schedules, affiliates, and trolls

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Links to share, from Writing Tidbits:

(It's been awhile, so I'm breaking them into separate posts.)

» State of the Draft, January 2013 Domestic Chaos

Reviews of writing software for short stories, novels, and editing.

1 MONTH AGO

writing novels novel writing editing writing software software short stories reviews

Between Books: The End of Illness, Mr. Rogers, and my daily freelance-writer schedule | Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Cool sample daily schedule for writers.

(Source: thevariegatedlife.com)

1 MONTH AGO

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How to Convert Pinterest Visitors to Subscribers | Building Readership, Pinterest

Tips for optimizing your articles and sidebar to keep Pinterest visitors coming back to your blog.

2 MONTHS AGO

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10 More Amazon Associate Program Lessons I Learned on My Way to Six Figure Earnings : @ProBlogger

General helpful lessons for increasing your Amazon Associates affiliate earnings.

3 MONTHS AGO -  1

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Resizing Images for Amazon Associates, Squidoo, Zazzle – Squidbits – Greekgeek's Squidoo Blog

How to resize images based on the Amazon affiliate code.

I often want a bigger image, and it can be a pain trying to force it (or download the larger image and upload it yourself — blargh, I say). Here’s how to alter the code to pull up the bigger images Amazon is already storing on its servers.

3 MONTHS AGO

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Short Amazon affiliate links – a bookmarklet / Stoyan's phpied.com

Bookmarklet provides a short URL with “just the facts, ma’am” for your Amazon Associates linking. For instance, instead of having to travel to my Amazon Associates account to retrieve the bloated Amazon code, here’s the link for my book with the bookmarklet:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1453670645/?tag=laurenwayne-20

Easy, short, no bother.

3 MONTHS AGO -  1

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Dangerous Minds | FACEBOOK: I WANT MY FRIENDS BACK

On not getting eyes on your Facebook posts and the implications of paying to promote.

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On the sad lives of internet trolls.

Lindy West at Back Fence PDX (by Back Fence PDX)

4 MONTHS AGO

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How to increase Facebook Page Posts fan interaction.

Really helpful tips for what types of FB updates get the most fan views and how to keep FB from penalizing what you post!

(Source: themahoganyway.wordpress.com)

4 MONTHS AGO

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MomAgain@40: Poetry of a Hobo Mama - We are never alone

Happy for this review of my poetry book!

One of the most poignant life-altering changes that new parents have to cope with. “Mothers are never alone” But is also a reminder to me that mothers also share the same journey, and in that we are never alone!

6 MONTHS AGO

writing reviews book reviews poetry

3 easy ways to make your blog Pinterest-friendly

The pinners are everywhere, and they want to pin your post!

Here are my top three ways to get pinned and repinned on Pinterest!

1. You need an image in your post!

Preferably big and pretty. Pinterest is visual, and the people who use it tend to like their boards to look nice. If your post has no image (or just a video), Pinterest will refuse to let it be pinned. So, seriously: You need at least one photo or illustration in your post!