Are you crafting amazing pieces of content? You know, that legendary 10x content everyone keeps talking about? If so, that’s a great start. But what good is incredible content if no one sees it? All of the precious time you spent creating that perfect post won’t yield any results if you don’t promote it properly. No matter how great, your content simply won’t circulate around the web on its own. You need to craft a solid content promotion strategy to ensure that your content gets the most reach, engagement and value for your business.
Here, I’m going to share with you a checklist of the top content promotion, sharing and repurposing strategies you can start using today. These strategies will help you amplify your content marketing reach with every new piece of content you create.
Blogger outreach marketing
One great way to get more exposure, traffic and backlinks to your content is by reaching out to other bloggers within your niche and asking them to link to it. Fortunately, a lot of bloggers are happy to link to quality content that they feel is beneficial to their audience. You can also incentive bloggers to send dofollow links, as well as monetized affiliate links if you have one of the top paying affiliate programs in your niche.
Here are some tactful ways you can reach out to other bloggers for a link to your content.
Find blog posts that link to outdated pieces of content similar to yours
If you found similar pieces of popular content earlier when looking for social media influencers to share your content, then you’ll likely be able to find blog posts that link to those similar pieces of content as well. Backlink checking tools like Moz Open Site Explorer and content popularity tools like BuzzSumo will show you backlinks to popular content.
They’ll give you a list of blogs you can reach out to in order to see if they’d be willing to link to your content in addition to (or in place of) the other post.
Find blog posts that list resources
Unless you catch one of these within a week of when the author publishes it, this tactic may be more for SEO value than traffic value. Nonetheless, if you can find a themed resource list that your post would be a good fit for, then it can be valuable.
To find resource lists in your niche, try Google searches using the following queries:
- intitle:”resources” keyword
- intitle:”best posts” keyword
- intitle:”top posts” keyword
If you notice the same author is writing lists in your niche, be sure to get on their radar. You can also try contacting them directly to see if they would add your post to their list. Similar to contacting about a roundup, personalize your request and give a quick but solid case as to why your post should be in their resource list.
Find bloggers that publish recap posts
Depending on your niche, you may discover lots of great roundups posts. These are daily, weekly, or monthly posts where the blogger goes out and finds the best content during a specified timeframe.
This works well for writers who are just starting a blog, as these roundup posts are a great way to gain wider exposure by recommending others. To find roundups in your niche, try Google searches using the following queries.
- intitle:roundup keyword
- intitle:mashup keyword
- intitle:wrapup keyword
- intitle:weekly keyword
- intitle:stories keyword
The key to getting onto one of these roundups is to get on the roundup blogger’s radar. If they follow you and like your posts, you might start seeing your posts pop up in their roundups.
The alternative is to contact these bloggers directly with cold email outreach, letting them know you enjoy their daily/weekly/monthly roundups, and offering your post as a suggestion for their next one. As always, personalize your request by addressing the author by name and providing a quick (but solid) case as to why your post should be in their next roundup.
Related: 4 Email Marketing Promotion Tactics to Boost Your Next Piece of Content
Discussion marketing
Finding relevant discussions beyond social media can be a great way to bring new traffic to your content. Simply find discussions boards to share your content on using the following tactics.
Find questions your content can answer in Q&A networks
Networks like Quora, Stack Exchange and Reddit are good places to search for questions that your content can answer. Quora, in particular, will even track the number of views your answers (along with your content link) receive in the community. And answering questions on Reddit allows you to share your content link on Reddit without getting marked as a spammer. However, this won’t help you if the question specifically says “no linking.”
You can also look into content upvoting communities such as LeadFuze, Hacker News, Manage WP, Designer News, SaaS Community and Growth Hackers.
Find questions your content can answer in forums
If you are an active participant in a forum online, then you can promote your content in a few ways. Be sure to read each forum’s rules before using any of these approaches. Different moderators vary on the number of links you can share, where you can share them period, and when you can share them. Some will suspend or ban you from the forum if you break their rules or, at the very least, delete your responses.
Also, remember that every time you comment on a forum, you should provide something of value. If someone asks a question, don’t just say “read my post to get the answer.” Answer their question, then offer your post (if applicable) as a supplement.
In addition to answering questions in forums, you can add a link to your content in your forum signature. This form of forum marketing will allow you to effectively post your content link in multiple threads across the board without explicitly sharing them in your forum post.
Find questions left in blog comments that your content can answer
Go out to blogs in your niche or industry to see if posts related to yours have questions that you might be able to answer with a link to your content. If you do this in a valuable way, you’ll get a link to your content without looking like a comment spammer. Plus, if you provide enough valuable comments on the blog, the blog owner might link to your content in their main posts.
Repurpose marketing
If you want to get more mileage out of your content, transform it into other mediums. By doing this, you can tap into a whole new audience and drive them back to your original content.
Repurpose your content to publish on additional channels
Content comes in a variety of formats. Take your content in one format and repurpose it into another.
Here are different ways you can promote your original piece of content by repurposing it elsewhere:
- Repurpose your video or audio content into text-based formats including shorter/longer blog posts, whitepapers and e-books Publish unique blog posts to other WordPress blogs and your social media pages. Publish whitepapers and e-books on networks that distribute PDFs.
- Repurpose your written content into a helpful webinar or video format (or shorter/longer videos) and publish on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and other social networks.
- Repurpose your video content content into audio (or shorter/longer MP3s), choose a choose a podcast hosting site and publish it as a podcast episode on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and other podcast networks.
Repurposing will allow your consumers to consume your content in various formats. This is a strategy one snowboard company used to drive a million dollar in sales.
First, they produced blog posts:
Then, they turned that written content into demo video scripts to produce video content:
By catering to different target markets and segments, even slightly changing the tone of your messaging can help you repurpose content across segments. Repurposing is a win for all, which can easily lead to a win for your content’s traffic generation and conversion goals.
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Conclusion
Great content is hard to come by. So when you create something excellent, don’t let it go to waste. In the digital world where blogs and forums abound, use your existing blogs and discussions to promote your content. Others are bound to be writing on your topic and asking related questions.
Take advantage of the traction others have already created on your topic using the methods outlined above. When all else fails, repurpose your content to appeal to different audiences. Some people like to learn through reading, while others prefer audio, video or images. Convert your top-notch content into different mediums to reach as many people possible.
Be proactive. Use these methods to help your precious content gain the following it deserves.
