Blog promotion matters. Creating a high quality blog is one thing but getting it in front of your readers is another. Creating a high quality piece and sitting around hoping that people will (somehow) find it is as good as not creating one.
To build audience to your post, you need to actively share it on social media channels. Sharing the post on Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest, Linkedin, and Facebook can help create a buzz around your content.
Blog post promotion will not only help drive traffic to your blog post but also give you an opportunity to grow your blog audience (by creating a subscribers list). Sharing the post with your followers can boost its search engine rankings (social media signals affect your rankings).
To help you leverage the power of social media, these blogging tips are worth noting:
1. Feed your blog post to your social media accounts
First things first; create profiles on popular social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Tumblr.
After publishing a post, share it with your audience on all your social media profiles. You can either do this automatically using a service like IFTTT (If This Then That), Twitterfeed, HootSuite etc or manually. Manual posting lets you have complete control over the headline and the text accompanying the post link.
2. Make your content easy to share
Content goes viral when your circles share with their circles and their circles share with their own circles. To let your website visitors share your content with their circles, make sure it is easy to share.
Include social share buttons at the beginning and end of the post. If possible, add a floating social toolbar on your blog’s sidebar. The presence of social share buttons makes sharing easy.
NB: You can also shamelessly request your visitors to share the post with their circles. It is totally okay to ask.
3. Play well with influencers in your niche
As the old saying goes – “No man is an island”. To succeed on your social media campaigns, you need to connect with other bloggers in your niche. Most social media influencers are bloggers.
To get the attention of these influencers, mention them in a post and link to their websites or social media profile. After publishing the post, contact the influencers to let them know that they were mentioned in your post.
When mentioned in a post, 8 out of 10 influencers will share the post with their circles.
4. Promote others
As the old adage goes – “Give and you shall receive”. One of the most effective ways to promote your blog is to promote others.
Connect with influencers in your niche, share their posts, comment on their blogs and 6 out of 10 will return the favor. Don’t do this mechanically, try to create a personal relationship with these influencers.
5. Recycle social media posts in different formats
To get a clear idea of what works and what doesn’t, re-share the post with a different headline, text or image. This is where you need to unleash your creativity.
Craft a number of attention grabbing headlines (not necessarily SEO optimized), craft several pieces of social media posts (attention grabbing) and find images that can go with the post. Recycle social media posts in different formats on your social networks. A reminder, we can assist with crafting social media tweets and posts to leverage your content further on social media.