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 strategies you can start using today, starting with promoting your content on social media. These strategies will help you amplify your content marketing reach with every new piece of content you create.
Social media marketing
Social media is a great place to start promoting your content. Since most social networks have advertising options, they are ideal for reaching your current audience, as well as new target audiences.
1. Tag relevant social media users in your posts
It’s simple, but from what I’ve observed, very few people do it right. If you mentioned other people, businesses, products, services, or brands in your content, then tag them in at least one of your social media updates on each of the major platforms where your fans reside.
This approach will hopefully result in those other accounts sharing your content with their audiences too, greatly expanding your reach.
Related: What Kind of Social Media Strategy Does My Startup Need?
2. Experiment with branded hashtags
Social networks that allow you to use hashtags to categorize your content will also give you the chance to reach more people using those hashtags. Do a little research to see which hashtags best relate to your content, and use them wisely.
While you do want to use several hashtags to help your content reach new people, you don’t want to use too many if they distract people from clicking on the link to your content. That’s where a branded hashtag can come in handy and give you tons of extra attention on any social platform.
For example, Socialinsight.io uses the branded hashtag “#socialinsight” on their Instagram page:
Not only does it give them an edge and a unique tag to put on their content, but it encourages others to use the tag for a chance to get featured by the company. Not only that, but all of the extra posts people are uploading using the tag give Socialinsight.io more online exposure.
Craft your own branded hashtag and urge your customers to use it for a chance to be featured, and you’ll gain free publicity across any social media platform that you share the tag on. If you already know your brand’s value proposition and have a slogan or saying for a particular ad campaign, go ahead and use it as your company’s tag, like Coca-Cola does with #ShareACoke.
3. Find influencers who have shared similar content
Look for a piece of content that is similar to yours and has already received a lot of social shares. Next, find the people who shared that content and ask them (privately if possible) to share your content since their audience enjoyed the last piece.
To find the influencers who shared the similar content, go to each social network and search for the content by title. This should reveal the top updates about the content, along with the people who shared them.
4. Find questions your content can answer in groups and chats
Whether you’re targeting B2C customers or focused on a B2B content strategy, your piece of content likely answers at least one or more questions that customers will ask. Search for questions your content could potentially answer, provide a simple answer to those questions, and link to your post for more information. That should get you traffic from the person who originally asked the question, as well as anyone who may come across their question down the road.
Neil Patel does this right on his site with a question at the end of each post:
And it works. Readers are getting their questions answered.
On social media networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, groups are the best places to find questions. You can also find them during Twitter chats (group discussions on Twitter at a specific time using a specific hashtag).
5. Connect personally and meaningfully
Do you know some people who you would like to share your content, but you don’t think they’ve seen it yet? Send them a private message to let them know you published content they may like so that you can get their feedback. The worst case scenario? They ignore you or potentially unfollow you. That’s okay.The best case scenario? They love the content and share it with their audience.
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6. Juice up your profile
On social profiles that allow you to add more than one web link, be sure to add your newest content as a profile link, with a catchy call to action.
For example:
This promotion should get your content more traffic over a longer period of time as people visit your profile.
7. Advertise
Want to reach more potential customers? Sponsor your updates using advertising options on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on Pinterest and on Instagram. Paying for advertising content will allow you to define your target audience and reach new people who meet your criteria.
Conclusion
Great content is hard to come by, so when you create something excellent, don’t let it go to waste.
If you passively wait for others to find your content and pass it along, it may never get off the ground. If you want your content to excel, you’ll need to promote it strategically. Marketing your content on social media is the best place to start. There are near-effortless ways of promoting your posts that can yield big results for your startup.
Tune in next week as we continue this series by sharing four email marketing tactics to try with your next piece of content!
