✌️ 3 easy moves to shake off vacation mode

Metricooler, time to get back to the grind, because the final stretch of the year is here.

It flew by, didn't it? One minute you were sighing "finally, vacation," and now we're almost halfway through September.

Getting back to routine means that, after a few months of out-of-office replies and a slower pace, the most exciting stretch of the year is here, and the one with the most opportunities.

In this newsletter, I've put together 3 moves to get your social media in shape so back to school feels like a breeze.

Just like a shop window, your profile is where people look when they come across your content. And two things worth keeping up to date are your pinned posts and your bio link.

Pinned posts

They're the first posts anyone sees when they land on your profile. They're your introduction, and they keep your main message from getting buried under everything you've posted lately. The perfect spot for your most popular posts, the ones that bring in the most leads, or anything time-sensitive you want front and center.

How do brands make the most of it?

Logitech greets you with 3 pinned posts, 2 of them about its newest product: a portable mouse that folds. Make it easy for people.

Brightland, the olive oil and condiments brand, has pinned an illustrated guide to seasonal fruit and veg. It works because it's direct, it connects with the season that's coming, and it places you in a second: you're here to drool.

Your bio link

It's the other blind spot that usually gets forgotten. It's the only clickable link on your whole Instagram profile, so make it count and don't just point it at your homepage.

The idea here is to get to the point and send whoever visits your profile to a specific product page, your restaurant's menu, or the latest YouTube video you posted.

In this SmartLinks ebook, we walk you through 6 real examples of how to build yours. Get your free copy and start turning followers into customers.

The final stretch of the year is when the most key social media dates pile up. Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas…

But does leaning into these dates pay off?

As always, the data has the answer. While digging around for Halloween content, we came across a tattoo artist's account with some very fun content.

Using Metricool's competitor feature, we can see at a glance that their Halloween post (published in August) is their best post of the year, behind only two Lord of the Rings tattoo reels.

So yes, key dates work, and it pays to start creating content weeks or even months ahead.

Need inspiration for this fall? This gallery has dozens of ideas for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday.

➜ Get free ideas

And so you don't miss a single date, activate the social calendar in your planner.

Getting back to routine shouldn't mean opening your laptop and, bam, straight to posting. Looking back at how your year has gone so far and taking stock of your content strategy can help a lot.

What worked? What didn't? What needs a rethink?

The sweet spot is 3 to 5 set themes that make up your content pillars, something you can always come back to, instead of jumping from trend to trend until your content and your brand lose their shape.

We just used this prompt in Metricool Studio:

And in a minute, it hands you what's hard to spot on your own:

With that, you stop posting on gut instinct and know which pillar to lean on depending on what you're after: attracting new people, sparking conversation, or keeping them around.

Now that your shop window is fresh, your calendar is marked, and your audit is done, you've got everything you need to crush this new term.