The meta description and keywords are in place. The tags and featured image are all set. You’ve completed your post and hit publish. You’re all done, right? Wrong.
You’ve spent the time to research and write a post, but you’re not going to promote? Without promotion, your post will inevitably be stuck in mud. Too many people make this mistake. You can see it in the number of shares, or lack thereof. After publishing, it’s time for the icing. It’s time to promote your post.
Photo: Geekless Tech
Don’t be shy. Use these promotion methods to get the traffic you deserve. Be the first one to share your post to each social network. This is perfectly acceptable as long as it’s a small percentage of your overall messaging output. Make sure your share buttons are prominent and relative. Make it easy for your readers to share with their audience.
Twitter – This is arguably the most important method to promote your post. It’s the most common way to share. If you look at just about any post out there with share button counters you’ll find that Twitter generally leads the way. The other key reason to use Twitter is because you can continue to tweet your current and previous posts moving forward. You can’t do that with any other network. If you’re sending out 50 tweets a day, 5-8 tweets promoting your own post certainly works. That’s 35-56 a week, every week. Mix it up with 1-2 Hashtags. Find a level that you’re comfortable with and that makes sense.
Facebook: Personal and Fan Pages – You should share on both your personal and business Facebook Pages. Ask your friends and fans to share if they enjoy the post. It’s a small request, but it can go a long way over the course of a year. There are also sharing groups on Facebook where members share each other’s posts. Search for these groups on Facebook, and ask to be invited.
LinkedIn – You may need to be cautious with this one. Posting your personal blog, or another’s blog post might be dicey if it is not relative to your company’s business or vertical. Yes, it’s your LinkedIn account, but just use your head before posting. If you do post, you should additionally send to any relative groups. LinkedIn gives you that option when posting. This increases the chances of being viewed and shared.
Google Plus – The last of the Big Four. If you don’t have an account, get one today. Google Plus is important for many reasons. Share your post on Google Plus through your button and mix in 1-3 Hashtags as desired.
“Promotion”
Pinterest – A must share button for DIY blogs, cooking, shopping, fashion, etc. It’s probably not a bad idea to have this share button available to your readers no matter what your topic. This network has seen good traffic and interest.
StumbleUpon – SU is the no respect network. While the visit durations tend to be lower from SU visitors, you can see some nice pops from time to time. It is highly suggested to create the first share with StumbleUpon or it will likely remain at 0. It’s worth the two minutes.
Triberr – This isn’t a direct way to share from your post, but it’s a powerful network. Triberr is a community-building platform for bloggers . Bloggers form tribes and reciprocate sharing. While Twitter is the most popular network within Triberr, you can also share via Facebook and LinkedIn.
E-Mail – Sending out posts to your E-mail list subscribers. If you’re posting more than two times a week you should think about sending a summary highlighting multiple posts within one e-mail. You can either provide a portion of the blog with link that takes them to your site, or provide the entire blog in the e-mail with share buttons. Again, ask your readers to share the post if they find it interesting.
Honorable Mention: Reddit , Digg , Scoop.It , Empire Avenue , and Topsy
The amount time you spend in each of these networks communicating and building relationships will affect the success of your post. Most of the networks above also provide paid advertising if you’re looking for an additional traffic boost.
Please share the post if you found it to be interesting and helpful.
photo credit: partymonstrrrr via photopin cc