So you’re convinced that content marketing is here to stay. You’ve decided to blog and create valuable content for your website. You do your research and start writing what you believe is killer content. After a couple of months of writing several blog posts a week, you look at your website statistics and you feel deflated because it appears that no one is visiting your site. It turns out that the popular adage “if you build it they will come” does not apply to blogs. Well, your job isn’t done after you’ve hit the publish button.
The next step is to promote your content. But before you start, do yourself a favour and get organized. Let’s say you plan on publishing a post every week. Make sure that on the day you post, you set aside time to promote your post. Without a strategy, this activity can take up a lot of time and effort, so here’s a shortlist of where you can promote so you do get those website visits.
The simplest way to share a post is by telling your network through email. We suggest developing an email list of people interested in hearing from you or your business. To simplify your life, consider using an email campaign management system like MailChimp or Constant Contact. Both services are in the cloud. Both have great tools to manage your email database.
The number 1 social network cannot be ignored. A couple of options: provide a link to your blog post from your personal buy antibiotics page or within your business page. Ensure that your Facebook update has an appropriate picture. Visuals are a must because they help capture attention and increase engagement. If you’d like to learn more about Facebook marketing strategies, we’ve covered it here.
This visual social media site is second only to Facebook when it comes to referral traffic. Globally, Pinterest’s user base is over 80% women. If your product or service is one purchased primarily by women, then this site should be at the top of your list for sharing your posts. Since this is a visual medium, you will need to be creative and create a picture or infographic of your post.
Slideshare
SlideShare allows users to freely share their presentations. Founded in 2006, then acquired by LinkedIn in 2012, it is an incredible site for business information shared in PDFs, videos, infographics, and webinars. To take full advantage, re-purpose your post and create a slide or document out of it and share with the world.
While not normally thought of as a social network to share your blog posts, it nevertheless provides an opportunity for its users to share one. Instagram is a photo sharing social network and has over 300 million users. We would not recommend re-posting a blog article itself here. Instead, post a picture relevant to your blog, a relevant excerpt and provide a link back to your blog post.
There are many other places to share your post, but that should get you started. Happy sharing!
Photo courtesy: Nicola.
