Just focusing on writing great content and expecting people to find it come it is a bit like baking a mouth-wateringly tempting Christmas cake and leaving it in a tin in the cupboard under the stairs!
With over 2 million blog posts published to the web each day, it’s getting harder to get noticed, and creation is only half the battle. Follow our 7 steps for sharing out your content to gain notice:
1. Serve up just enough, at the right time.
Simply Tweeting a few times daily can cause your messages to get lost among other brands, and posting around the clock can put your followers off. Posting between 5-10 Tweets, and 2-4 Facebook posts daily should do the trick. Do some research to find out what times work best for your brand’s content promotion and spread your posts/tweets out.
2. Keep the “menu” interesting
Don’t just share titles to promote your content on social media, use an interesting excerpt instead of the full title to increase re-tweets and shares; this could be a quotation or a statistic. This offers your followers a self-contained message which has value in itself and makes for better content promotion.
3. Try Really Niche Networks
We all know about Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and how you can use them for business, but there are hundreds of other, niche online social networks. If your target audience is participating in any of them, it could be a potential goldmine for targeted content promotion. Carry out some research to see if your target audience is participating in any of these niche sites, sign up and start posting!
4. Use Communities
The goal of your blogging strategy may be to increase traffic and leads for your company, but it shouldn’t look like that’s what you’re trying to do. The best way to market your business blog is to become a part of the online conversations in your industry.
For both LinkedIn and Google+ group promotion, take time to find groups that best fit your niche. Join the community, and carefully read guidelines to determine any rules about content promotion. Spark engagement by asking questions and inviting people to participate in the discussion. Focus on being a community member and not a marketer.
5. Your customers are your best promoters
In this digital age, it’s easy to forget about the impact of word-of-mouth marketing and other, traditional marketing tactics. Your current customer base and other contacts are likely to be the best promoters of your content, so make sure that everyone you’re already doing business with is aware of your blog.
Add the URL of your blog to your business cards and other printed material and include it in your email signature too.
6. Use Email Marketing
When used correctly, email marketing can help you convert your blog subscribers into customers, and your customers into blog subscribers. Set up a MailChimp account and send a monthly email newsletter to your lists, focusing on delivering value through the very best of your content marketing. Track what is happening to learn how to improve your efforts.
7. Be honest
Don’t overload your content marketing with self-promotional language and brand-speak. To encourage engagement with your content, the tone of your content marketing must be honest believable and interesting. Using a hard-lined sales approach is more likely to turn customers off then drive them to your blog.
So, with Christmas almost upon us, it’s time to make the final preparations: make sure everything is just right, that your content is top notch and looking great. Then share it out to an appreciative audience, sit back and enjoy a great big slice of cake yourself.
