So you finally published that piece you’ve been working on. Congratulations! Finally getting your hard work out into the world is a fantastic feeling. However, your job isn’t quite done.
In fact, it’s not even close to being done! Now you need to promote your content. Content promotion is one of the most important parts of the publishing process, especially these days. Let’s face it, social media feeds are crowded. Everyone is promoting something and you’ve got to do whatever you can to catch the eyes (and attention spans) of your audience.
The biggest mistake content creators make is that they skimp on promoting. If you don’t promote your content enough, you get stuck in the content creation cycle where you feel like all you’re doing is pushing out new content without seeing the results you are aiming for.
Derek Halpern has long suggested an 80/20 split on content promotion vs content creation. According to Derek, the internet has exploded with content and creators can no longer afford to publish anything less than the absolute best. Researching, writing and publishing the absolute best content is time-consuming and most of us don’t have the time to create and publish that type of content daily or weekly.
The solution is often to spend more time creating the best content, publishing less often and promoting it more.
So what should you do to get the word out about your content? Here are a few promotion strategies we use for our blog posts that you can try the next time you hit publish.
1. Create at least 5 different social posts (want to be an overachiever? Try 10)
Social media is not an innovative tip. At this point, we all know we should be posting regularly to our social media pages but we know that many creators worry about being too promotional on their social media feeds so they don’t promote their content enough.
We’ve found that using a category based scheduling to organize your social media updates is the best way to vary your social media posts so you don’t sound overly promotional.
You absolutely have to share your content more than once. It’s no secret that organic social media posts have less reach than ever before. You’re only reaching a small fraction of your audience with every post. The more you promote, the more opportunities you’re giving yourself to reach more of your audience.
Creating variations of your social media posts also gives you the opportunity to test headlines, descriptions and images to see what works with your audience. Different phrases or headlines may attract different people in your audience to click so creating multiple posts ensures you’re maximizing the chances of reaching more of your audience.
2. Go live
Going live with your audience is one of the best ways to engage them. Facebook Lives result in 6x the amount of interactions and 10 times more comments than regular videos. You can also go live in your Instagram stories, on Twitter and LinkedIn has even debuted a live streaming option.
When you go live, you can let your audience know you’ve published a new piece of content and then chat a little bit about the piece or why you decided to create it. Give your audience some context or backstory so they’re more interested in reading the piece.
3. Email anyone you mentioned in the piece
This is a regular practice if you quote experts, mention a tool or reference another brand. The trick here though is that you shouldn’t just ask for a reshare! Instead, think of messaging the brand as a courtesy. Thank them for sharing their knowledge or being an awesome tool! They might not share (at first) but consider this as part of developing a relationship, instead of just getting a one-off post. If you are able to develop a relationship, then the brand or person will be more likely to consume and share your content in the future.
4. Submit the post to a content community
There are multiple aggregator sites, like GrowthHackers and Inbound.org, where you can submit a post and if accepted, they’ll repost with a link to your original site on their site. This tactic is best used sparingly. You only want to submit your absolute best content pieces to these sites.
These sites also aren’t looking for overly promotional content. Don’t submit content pieces that talk about you and your business too much. You want to be sharing value in these posts and showing how you’re an expert in your field.
Another good rule of thumb before you start submitting is to spend time engaging with the community on these sites. Read other people’s posts, leave comments and be an active part of the community. It can help your chances in getting your submissions accepted and read!
5. Post on Reddit
Reddit is another place where you can grow your community. It’s filled with sub-communities for almost every topic imaginable. The trick to succeeding with Reddit is don’t post and ghost! Much like every other social channel, you need to spend time engaging with the community before you start posting. Leave comments, ask questions, engage with other people’s posts and get to know the vibe of the community before you just start sharing links.
6. Syndicate your content
There are several bigger publications that will accept previously published articles for syndication, including Huffington Post, Social Media Today, Business Insider and many others. Syndication can massively increase your reach and social shares, which will strengthen your brand and can increase website traffic.
7. Link to newer content in your older pieces
Finally, a sneaky way to promote your content is by tapping into older pieces of content and linking to your new pieces. You don’t need to do this every time you hit publish but auditing your blog once a month. Identify your best performing posts and look for opportunities to link to newer posts from there. You can also add calls to actions at the end of the post to visit newer posts that are about similar topics. This is a really easy way to leverage what’s already working for you.
You spend a lot of time and energy creating content. Don’t let it go to waste by not promoting it!
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1 Comment
Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂