Laura’s Blog

Note: This article is Part 3 of a series. To get caught up, read:

Part 1: The ideal length for a blog post

Part 2: How often SHOULD you blog? Really?

By Lisa Michaels
Guest Contributor

Savvy marketers realize that “gaming” Google no longer counts as an effective marketing strategy. These days (and it’s been this way for a while) content is truly king.

The reality is that if you aren’t generating new content weekly, you’re not serious about making a dent online with your brand.

But with the internet packed with practitioners of the ‘more content’ mantra, you should also take a step back to analyze whether you’re getting a return on your investment. In other words, is your content getting the exposure it needs?

According to statistics, 50 percent of articles get less than eight shares. If your content is not reaching your audience, you need to take a closer look at your promotion strategies.

Here are five simple and effective ways you can promote your content.

1. Share Your Content Multiple Times

The most obvious thing when it comes to promoting your content would be to share it on social media. However, sharing your content on social media is not a one and done process. The fact is that some people won’t see it until the second or third time it goes out.

Services like Buffer allow you to schedule posts across all your social media accounts through one dashboard. There are no hard and fast rules about when to promote your content but you could consider the moment it goes live on your website, a few days later, and, finally, a week later.

A note on cyber etiquette, though – consider NOT publishing the same post more than three times due to the concept of diminishing returns. At that point, you’re risk annoying the ones who have seen it and risk getting bumped from their feed altogether.

2. Syndicate Your Content

Though originally a construct of the print industry, syndication has nicely survived the transformation to online audiences. In essence, it involves providing your content for others to use on their website(s).

It’s best if you syndicate content that has been on your website for a while already, and only send out your very best stuff. If it’s good enough, you may eventually draw the attention of, and be able to form partnerships with, media organizations, which could give you access to a much broader audience. Don’t forget that LinkedIn offers some nice syndication opportunities, as well.

3. Tap in to the Power of Email Marketing

Building an email list is the most effective way to share your content. Social media? Not even close. You are more likely to get a click-thru from an email subscriber than through a tweet.

And it makes perfect sense. People on your list are there because they want to be. You probably offered them something valuable at one point and they trusted you enough to give you their email.

If you’re not doing something wrong with email marketing, your subscribers are most likely eager to hear from you and take action. Your first move after posting a new piece of content should be to email its link to the people on your list and ask them if they wouldn’t mind sharing it across their various platforms.

Once again, if you’ve been doing email marketing right, your subscribers will be most kindly disposed to talk nicely about your new content.

4. Reach Out to Influencers

Every industry has influencers. When these people post, others pay attention. Some have online audiences that number in the millions.

It should come as no surprise that if you can get an influencer to provide a quote for your article, give you a mention in one of theirs, or, better still, allow you to guest post on their website, you’re golden. It’s far easier to piggyback your content visibility on the popularity of someone who offers the potential for hundreds of thousands of views than to try to reach that level of exposure on your own.

If you aren’t that lucky to get a quote from an influencer for your article, mentioning them as a source of credible information should do the trick. Once you publish the article, reach out to the influencer and ask them if they would be so kind to share it with their audience.

If your content is interesting and provides value, the influencer you reached out to will most likely gladly share it.

5. Contact People Who Share or Link to Similar Content

In addition to going after influencers, it makes sense to try to get the attention of those, be they influencers or not, who have shared similar content on their social media accounts.

These days, it’s not difficult to track these people down. Services like BuzzSumo are an excellent way to locate anyone already sharing content similar to yours.

Once you find people who are likely to share your content, send them an email or a direct message bringing the existence of your article to their attention. Be short, sweet, and polite. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be open to either sharing or linking to your content.

Another resource are those people who have shared past articles you’ve posted. They’ve already proven to like at least one piece of content. There’s a good chance they’ll like another one, so why not just ask?

Chime In

These simple processes can go a long way towards having your posts read by a wider audience.

Have you tried any of these tactics?

What’s one thing you will do to promote your content this week?

About the Author

Lisa Michaels is a freelance writer, editor and a striving content marketing consultant from Portland. Being self-employed, she does her best to stay on top of the current trends in the business world. Connect with her on Twitter @LisaBMichaels.