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
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”
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.
@sbhsbh
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Nice tips. Will try to add more reshare buttons to my blog
Thanks for stopping by Ezekiel. Yes, clear and easy to find share buttons are definitely a part of the equation.
You're so right, Steven. We sometimes publish & forget. This is great advice for increasing your reach and improving chances that your labour of creativity is enjoyed by more than just your Mom :-).
I think sometimes people have nothing left in the tank to promote after completing and publishing a post. It can be exhausting at times, but the promotion is well worth the effort as you know.
God lesson here Steve, nice post. We need to create the spark to get our posts out.
Build and they will come does not work in most cases.
I just started using Triberr last month and I am a huge fan of the platform. If you produce quality content and become a recognized authority you can sure bet your posts will be amplified and the mentions will pour in. You can also create your own Tribe of bloggers who share your passion for whatever niche you have.
Thanks for the tip on Google Plus, I totally spaced that it supports hashtags!
Thanks Jacob. Triberr definitely gives most bloggers a nice boost. Having been on for 1+ years has definitely been helpful for traffic and interaction. Loving Google + lately, I wish more did…
Very complete post Steven, I use all that you mention. I think one that people forget but I feel is a big help is SU. I have to agree it is the "Rodney Dangerfield" of the platform world…
Hi Gerry, yes SU is its own playground and underutilized by many. As mentioned, SU is a network where you need to start it yourself for your own posts. You can't wait for some else to do that…Thanks Gerry…
Since I came across and shared this post via Viral "Content Buzz, wouldn't it make sense to have that on the list also? hehe ;-)
Thanks for the comment Gerald…I didn't put that one in because I had only tried once, but yes "Viral Content Buzz" is a tool to take a look at…Thanks for the reminder :)
Great! Where is the best place to put those share buttons?
I suggest having in two spots. So left sidebar as displayed here, then either top or bottom. I'm a bigger fan of the top, but most go with bottom (end of article).
Thanks for the information. It should come in handy in the near future. Twitter and Triberr are keeping me so busy that I can't seem to find time for other social networks. My next step will be Google Plus. I have tried SU once or twice, but haven't really seen any traffic to talk about from there. Is it really worth the effort?
Hi Churchill,
You definitely want to get over to G+ and spend some time there. It definitely has SEO implications, and it's a good place to build rapport with others. I would definitely use SU on every post. It's painless, and it while most posts will have few views, the chance of hitting thousand of views on a post exists.