By Brooke B. Sellas, {grow} Contributing Columnist
Content distribution has been a BIG topic here on {grow} and around the social sphere.
As Mark’s book, The Content Code
It seems we get stuck in that rut of spending all of our creative energy and time on creating our content, and then once we hit publish we forget that we MUST work on sharing that content.
It’s not going to share itself. I’m sure you’ve been slapped in the face lately by that cold, hard fact.
So let’s break it down, people.
Here are 28 tips on how to promote your content online.
Promote Your Content On Social Media
This is probably the first place we all go.
You hit publish and your automation tools push your post out on social. And then …?
And then you forget about it and run off to the next piece.
Nope.
There needs to be more planning here. CoShedule says that having a social sharing schedule will double your traffic.
Here’s what they suggest:
- On publish – Social message sent when blog post goes live
- Same day – Initial social messages trickle out to your accounts over the next 2-3 hours.
- Next day – Messages are shared again on the appropriate social channels.
- Next week – Another series of messages are pre-scheduled and sent the following week.
- Next month – Even more social messages are pre-scheduled for the following month.
- Next _____ – Additional messages can optionally be scheduled for the three-month mark or beyond.
Here’s what I do:
- On publish — Twitter: I schedule this through IFTTT to go out with #new, the title, and the featured image once the blog is live, it’s also pushed to Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and G+ the day it publishes
- Same day — Twitter: I’ll use the Click To Tweet quotes to send out a few times later the same day, but by using the quotes versus the title these have different leads and don’t seem like I’m pushing the same content over and over (I try to have at least one quote in each post)
- Next week — I’ll pre-schedule reoccurring tweets over the next few days, and over the next two months from my personal handle (if it’s evergreen)
- Next (2) months — Again, using prescheduled tweets with different leads and different images (if there are any), my posts are hitting my personal feed for a good two months
- Ongoing — From here I let Revive Old Post take over, which allows our evergreen content to “live forever”
Other tips:
- Changing your lede or lead helps the content stay fresh; try to come up with three different ways to pose one title.
- Ask questions. For instance, for this post, I could change my lead or pose a question (depending on the platform/if I had room) to say. “Are you doubling your content distribution efforts with a promo schedule?”
- Add hashtags to help searchers find your content.
- Tag people and ask them to weigh in (IF you have a good relationship; don’t spam peeps).
- Use pity quotes or stats from the article as a new lead.
- As mentioned, use Click To Tweet to create snackable, shareable bites.
- Reference your article — WHEN RELEVANT — in online conversations. Again, don’t be spammy.
Promote Your Content To Your List(s)
If you have a marketing list (and you should), USE IT!
Many people share weekly newsletters or several times a month. Use this as a vehicle to share your latest post(s).
Here’s what I do:
- We have a monthly newsletter with themes, so I only share a post from the past month if it fits with the theme we’re working with.
- We have a subscriber-only blog email that delivers our blog to straight to inboxes. This is a highly segmented and highly engaged list. How? We give subscriber-only gifts, such as templates, workflows, tips and other hacks, to our list that are an added bonus for the blog post’s theme. In this email we have two places with ready-to-tweet links.
Other tips:
- Have an RSS feed set up on your blog so subscribers can add it to their aggregators.
- If you decide to take it a step further like we did with our subscriber-only list, make sure those links a) tag your brand b) use any branded/relevant hashtags c) are trackable. We use Bitly and Click To Tweet’s link generator to make this happen.
Promote Your Content Through Syndication
Our posts are syndicated through a few platforms, like B2Community and SteamFeed.
All this means is that certain posts (nearly all) are republished on these sites with permission.
There are many sites out there that do this for free, and some that do it as a paid service (Outbrain).
Here’s what I do:
- Research well-trafficked sites offering syndication (B2Community) and ask to be a part of the program.
- Vet offers from sites asking to syndicate my content (SteamFeed and a few others — which are on a post-by-post basis). In some cases, I even get paid to let other sites use my contentI
Promote Your Content Through Advertising
I’ll admit that this is my weakest area. But as we ramp up with advertising efforts for our clients, I know it’s an area I need to beef up in 2016.
There are SO many ways to promote your content … here are some of the easiest/most common:
- Facebook ads
- Facebook custom audiences (show ads to your list(s)
- Facebook lookalike audiences (show ads to people similar to those people on your list(s)
- Remarketing ads (Facebook or Google — ads that “follow” users with cookies)
- Twitter ads
- Instagram ads
- Google AdWords
I’ve seen firsthand how little you have to spend on Facebook and Instagram to get results.
Now I’m going to go kick myself for procrastinating on this …
There you have it! Granted, these 28 tips are only a starting place, but a SOLID starting place if you ask me.
Did I leave anything out? Suggest something you just don’t think works? Let me know in the comments section below and let’s brainstorm new ways to tackle the New Year.
