Looking for tips and tools to promote your blog post?
I’m sharing here this to-do list of 10 things you can do to promote your blog post, after hitting the publish button. 10 things sound too much work to do for every new post you publish? Don’t worry, I also show you tools you can use to help you with your work in no time and how you can tick off your checklist as quickly and as easily as possible. And, you will see that promoting your post can have a tremendous impact on the performance of your post. Once you’ve written and polished your blog post for readability and search engines, the real work only just begins. Even, if your content is top-of-the-rocks outstanding, it won’t promote itself. To get readers and fans for your post, the promotional work is the most important part of blogging. Promoting your post using social media, content syndication and networking with influencers can be highly effective to build up a continuous flow of targeted readers to your blog post and increase your blog traffic.
#1 Email your subscribers
A lot of bloggers simply forget, they already have blog subscribers or a newsletter list. Your email subscribers are the first ones who should get to know about your new post. They have signed up to get news and updates from you and they should be the first to know about your post. Subscribers are your most loyal visitors and the most likely to like and share your post. Don’t forget to ask your subscribers for their opinion, because they are the most likely to comment on your post and start a discussion.
Tools to use, to make it easy to share your blog post with your email subscribers: Tip; If you don’t have an email newsletter yet,
- Try the Email Subscribers plugin from Icegram. The plugin automatically informs your list, whenever you publish a new post.
- Try MailChimp or MailerLite to set up your newsletter list for free.
#2 Make it easy for your blog visitors to share and promote your blog posts and images
Placing social media share buttons at the top and at the bottom of each post will encourage your readers to share your post. Also, encourage your readers to share your images. If you have an infographic, invite your readers to share them or embed them on their blogs by displaying embed code. Always use strong call-to-action like “please share” to nudge them into action.
Tools to use to make it easy for your visitors to share and promote your blog posts
- Use the Better Click to Tweet plugin for your blog. The plugin adds ready-to-use Twitter boxes to your posts or pages. (free & premium)
- Try the Simple Share Buttons Adder or the Social Warfare plugin for your blog to add social media buttons to your post. There are multiple design options to choose from more networks, designs and analytics options. (premium)
- Get the Pinterest Hover Pin It Button plugin for your blog to make your blog post images pinnable (free)
- Use the WWM Social Share On Image Hover for your blog, if you want to offer your readers more options to share your images on social media. The plugin adds 6 social media icons on your blog post images: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Tumblr. It will show the social media icons automatically on hover the post images on your site. (free & premium)
#3 Cross-promote your blog post on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
Start by sharing your blog post on your social media channels. Social media are very powerful sources to get more outreach for your content and to drive traffic to your blog. Twitter and Facebook are obvious choices for most bloggers. However, has over 3 billion registered users, and 4-6 million being quite active. However, each social network offers different options for promoting your blog post:
- Each network has a different character limit and different image size requirements.
- In some networks, you can join current discussions by adding popular hashtags. Hashtags also turn your posts into searchable content.
- Some networks activate @ handles to reach out to specific users.
- Or, you can add emojis to personalize your posts with emotions.
Each network is used for different purposes and at different times when communities are most active. And, the communities react differently to post formats. Hashtags work fine for Twitter and Instagram, but they perform less on Facebook and LinkedIn. On Facebook short comments perform better. You may also need to address your LinkedIn business contacts differently than your Facebook friends. To effectively cross-promote your blog post, don’t just cross-post the same message on every social network. Tailor the message for your posts to fit each social media platform and audience.
How to cross-promote your blog post on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
- Share your post on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn (if your content is business-related)
- If you have a product or business page on Facebook, LinkedIn, share your posts on your pages as well but at different times and days.
- Also, share your blog post to relevant groups and communities on Facebook and LinkedIn, but share them on different days and times and use different messages tailored for each group.
- Schedule your post multiple times on Twitter and on your LinkedIn timeline, but be more selective with Facebook.
- Schedule your posts at the best times for each network and spread over several days, weeks and months to extend the lifespan of your posts. Re-share and re-schedule your evergreen posts from time to time, to revive them.
Tip: Use social media tools and plugins to help you with cross-promoting, sharing and scheduling your posts. But lookout for tools that let you tailor your messages for each network. Cross-promote your content to meet the characteristics of each platform and community! Check out our free guide and checklist to promote your blog and share your blog posts Tools to automatically cross-promote your blog post on social media networks
- Use the Blog2Social plugin to share and cross-promote your blog posts automatically to your social media channels, directly from the WordPress dashboard. The plugin allows you to auto-post and to customize your posts individually for each network. You can also schedule your posts to be shared at the best times to post on each network. The plugin auto-posts your blog posts to Facebook (profiles, pages), Twitter, LinkedIn (profiles, pages), XING (profiles, pages, groups), Diigo, and Reddit, to Tumblr, Medium, Tutorial for re-publishing your post, as well as your images on Instagram, Flickr, and Pinterest. You may also re-post old posts and pre-schedule your scheduled post for auto-posting.
#4 Share your images to promote your blog post
The proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words” has taken on a special significance in the age of social media. People are more likely to click on posts with images, than on posts with plain text. And, people love to search for images and videos online. There are many sites and search engines just for image and video search, not to forget Google image and video search which is directly displayed in the regular search index. Visual content such as photos, infographics, and videos can have a tremendous impact on the attention you get for your blog post from all these sources as well as from social media. Whenever you share your blog post on social media as a regular link post, only your featured image will be shared. But most blog posts have more than just one image. Images you can use to re-share your post or to use for highlighting different aspects of your blog content.
How to best promote your blog post images on social media:
- Share your post on Pinterest, Instagram, and Flickr, using your focus image with your introduction, hashtags and a link to your post.
- If you have multiple images in your blog post, share them all, but share them on different days and at different times, stressing a different focus of your topic.
- You can also share your post with selected images as image post format on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to re-share your posts with different visual anchors.
- Note: Image post formats will automatically upload your images to your media gallery on Twitter and Facebook. Your images don’t disappear in your timeline, but can be accessed by your followers anytime they browse your gallery. So don’t forget to add a link to your post in the comment of your image post to make your blog post accessible as well.
# 5 Promote your blog post in blogger communities
Blogger communities like Reddit, Triberr or Quora are communities to find bloggers in your niche and promote your content. Specific categories to give your content a wider outreach and connect with people specifically interested in your topics. By networking with bloggers with similar interests you will be more likely to find people willing to share your content. Most communities work on a ‘give and take’ principle. You leave comments on other blogger posts, and they will leave on yours.
- Share your blog post in special interest communities on Reddit, Bloglovin’ or Triberr
- Also look for other blog submission networks to share your latest posts, such as:
- Look for communities and discussions on your topic to comment and share your post
- Always stick to the community rules, when sharing your content.
#6 Link your post on social bookmark sites
Social bookmarking websites allow users to store and share links as bookmarks. Such sites typically offer their users various organizational tools, such as categories, collections or tags, to organize their bookmark links combined with social networking features, such as sharing, liking and commenting on links or link collections. The positive effects of social bookmarking for promoting blog posts is not to be underestimated. Social bookmarking can introduce sites to others with similar interests and drive traffic as well as set valuable backlinks to your blog.
- Share a link to every blog post on sites such as Diigo, Digg or StumbleUpon
- Look for users and collections sharing similar links and connect.
#7 Syndicate your content
There are several websites, blogs and social sites with large communities and high authority, where you should consider syndicating or re-publish your content. Exposure to these audiences benefits your visibility and outreach. You can syndicate your content as a complete copy of the content on your site, or only a part of it.
Where to syndicate your blog post
- Medium
- Tumblr
- Bloglovin
- Torial, if it is relevant for journalists
- LinkedIn Pulse, if your blog post is business-related.
- Quora
- Buzzfeed
General tips for re-publishing your post
- Always re-publish your blog posts with 5-7 days delay to your original post, for letting Google index your original blog post first.
- Vary your headlines and your copy a bit, to address a more specific audience.
- Always include a link to your original post or related posts to drive readers to your blog or website.
Tools to use for re-publishing your content automatically on social media networks
- You can use the Medium plugin to automatically re-publish your blog post on Medium.
- You can use the Tumblr Crosspostr to automatically re-blog your post on Tumblr.
- Use the Blog2Social plugin to re-publish your blog post to Tumblr, Medium, Torial or Bloglovin’ automatically. The plugin provides a full Rich Text Editor for these networks, so you can optionally edit your title and copy or even change your image if needed. And, most importantly, you can schedule your post to get them re-published on different days and times.
#8 Re-purpose your Content
Once you have put so much effort in creating a valuable blog post, you should make the most of your content and re-purpose the content as much as possible. There are several other media formats you can make use of and easily create a multimedia portfolio for your content. Each single media format can then again be cross-promoted on social media to catch as many eyeballs as possible for a single piece of content. You can use every single piece of content with a link to your post to promote your original blog post.
How to turn your blog post content into multiple media formats
- Turn your key facts and images into a slideshow and share it on networks like Slideshare, Scribd
- Screencast your slideshow into a short video clip with a link to your blog post and share it on YouTube, Vine & Co.
- Add voice to your post and turn your blog post into a podcast. Add it to your blog post for readers who prefer to listen rather than to read and share it on sites such as iTunes, Google Play Music, Stitcher, PocketCast.
- Turn long posts into a white paper or ebook as a takeaway for your blog and to share it on Slideshare, Scribd, Issue, & Co.
- Write a checklist for your post as take away and share the checklist.
- Create an infographic for your post and share the infographic.
Use these repurposed content media also to re-share your post on your social media channels.
Tools to use for repurposing your content in other media formats
- Use Powerpoint or Google Slides to create a simple presentation of your blog post. You can create an mp4 or .wmv file to use them as video.
- Use Prezi to create vivid and animated slides
- Create a screencast with Camtasia if you need more options and editing.
- Use Audacity for creating a simple podcast
#9 Write guest posts on your topics
Writing guest posts for other sites helps you to build up authority, reputation, and valuable backlinks for your blog. You can reuse your content, but you have to re-write your post because most sites inviting guest posts request unique content. However, some sites allow links to link to your site or to added value content for your post, i.g. checklist or a whitepaper. To promote your blog post as a guest post, re-write your blog posts into unique content articles and submit them as guest posts to high authority sites and niche sites or blogs on your topics.
- Look out for sites such as:
- Always stick to the guidelines for guest post submission each site provides
#10 Reach out to influencers to promote your blog post
Reaching out to influencers is most important to build up your network to get more outreach for your blog post. Start with fellow bloggers you know and invite them to comment on your blog post, ask for their opinion. Or, start with the sites you use for your external links. Reach out to the bloggers and tell them you referred to them. Look up your keywords in the search engines and Comment on other topic-related blog posts and link to your post to generate valuable backlinks. But, do so only if your post really adds value to what it said.
Search Hook is a full digital marketing agency crafted for the new & now!
Let’s face it! It is a lot of work and you may want to value your time, and yes, you can do it but, as new marketing trends and do’s flying in like seasonal ducks in the lake of marketing, is hard no just to keep up, is a profession and the reason we are on business, contact us, we can help you! We are at your service!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.