One of the most popular strategies of marketing in today’s world is blogging. Initially, blogs started out as an online journal where people would share instances and interesting happenings over the course of their daily lives. This took a turn when entrepreneurs started realizing the potential of blogging as an effective marketing strategy. Today, blogging is used to promote new ideas, innovations, and in creating awareness.
Blogging becomes highly effective once your blog posts reach the right audience. Soon after you publish a blog post, the next thing in your agenda should be to promote the posts so that they are viewed and shared as many times as possible and gains maximum exposure. Here are 7 strategies to promote your blog posts.
Share your posts on social media
Social media is an excellent way to promote your blog posts as it will make sure that your posts reach the right audience. Build an effective social media posting strategy to drive traffic to your blog.
- When posting on social media, strategically include links that direct back to your website in your posts. Strategically placed links are effective in increasing the traffic to your blogs. For instance, you can include link in the description box. Another strategy when posting educational articles is to follow the format below:
Introduce content briefly (2-3 lines)
Learn how to [content headline] at [link]
The brief introduction builds up your readers’ curiosity and propels them to click on the link.
- Timing is an important factor to consider before posting on social media. You want your posts to reach the audience when they are likely to be online otherwise your post may simply get lost in a flood of other posts. There is a catch here. How is it possible to post in such a way that it reaches users around the globe? After all, peak time for the readers in your country may be night time for the citizens of another country.
- Studies show that Facebook and Twitter posts drive the most engagement during the weekends at these 3 time slots: 9 A.M., 1 P.M., and 3 P.M. for Facebook and these 4 time slots for Twitter: 12 P.M., 3 P.M., 5 P.M., and 6 P.M.
- Social media management tools are extremely handy when it comes to scheduling your posts. This means you can schedule your posts in advance, and the tool will post your content right on schedule across different social media platforms even if you are sleeping, sick, or busy.
- For instance, DrumUp is a social media management tool that allows you to set a specific time and date on which you want your posts to be published.
Create an e-mailing list
Once you publish your list, create an e-mailing list of all your subscribers and contacts who may possibly be interested in your blog. This can be done by adding a subscription pop-up to your website. These are essentially sign-up forms which collect names and e-mail addresses of those who visit your website. E-mails play a crucial role in driving traffic and getting your posts shared.
- Include links that direct to your website in your blogs. This will be your e-mail signature and will get the audience to visit your blog.
- Categorize your e-mails such that they reach a specific group of people depending on location, interests, and who is more likely to read what. MailChimp is a popular automated e-mailing software that allows you to create e-mailing lists based on different factors. The software even allows you to send personalized e-mails.
Guest posting
Publishing your posts in popular blogs is a great way to build your credibility and establish yourself as an expert in any particular niche. Guest blogging will also help you to expand your audience and is a great way to build backlinks.
- Find popular blogs that share content specific to your niche. Make sure these blogs have active followers who engage with posts by sharing, commenting, and voting. Use Google searches to your advantage. For instance, using keywords such as “guest posts”, “popular guest blogs”, and so on will give you a long list of popular blogging sites
- Form a network with other bloggers from your niche and stay connected. Find communities where you can post blogs, connect with other bloggers, and promote your blog. For instance, MyBlogGuest is a website that allows you to search for popular bloggers. You can set a category, a country, and tags of your preference and based on this data, you will be provided with a list of blogs and bloggers. It is a great platform for your guest-blogging activities.
Visual content
The human mind is tuned to resonate with visual content. Studies show that tweets with visuals receive 18% more engagement than text-only posts. Mindjet, a software company implemented a visual content strategy that used infographics. The result? A 420% increase in blog traffic. \
- Infographics are pictorial representations of relevant facts and statistics. Information is presented concisely and gives a better understanding to the audience. This means your audience engages more with your posts. For instance, if you want your audience to understand the concept of ‘viral content marketing’ you can do a better job at it by using infographics rather than elaborating through lines and lines of text.
- Videos are another great visual tactic. Users prefer to watch and learn. A common example is how-to videos. Studies show that 65% of millennials learn to master a skill faster if they have access to a video of the same. Posting a video of how a dish is made is bound to drive more engagement than simply posting a recipe.
Fresh, captivating content
An important part of blogging is to curate content that is in line with the current trends. Write about what’s new and exciting. Update your posts frequently.
- If your niche is something like digital marketing, it is essential that you come up with content that gives your audience new knowledge every day. There are quite a number of blogs relating to such topics and publishing updated content is key to staying competitive.
- Curating fresh content can be difficult at times. You may find that your busy schedule does not always allow you to spend that much time in researching. Here again, social media management tools come to your rescue. For instance, DrumUp digs deep into the field of your choice to come up with fresh, exciting content. Simply key in your choice of keywords and leave the rest to it.
- Numbers. Readers love headlines with numbers because they automatically strike the subconscious as something important. For instance, a post with a headline that says “7 tips to improve your social media presence” will engage your audience more than a headline such as “Guide to improve social media presence”.
Bookmarking sites
Social bookmarking is another excellent way to promote your blog posts. They help users to discover interesting content and save, share, vote, and comment within the site itself.
- Posting content on social bookmarking sites increase their value in search engines especially since such sites are highly valued by search engines. This will in turn help to drive traffic to your website.
- LinkedIn is a social bookmarking site that caters to professionals. A person with a properly structured profile that contains keywords in high traffic fields such as ‘Professional Headline’, ‘Skills’, and ‘Summary’ rank better in search results.
- Social bookmarking sites are niche oriented. They cater to people with very specific interests. This means your posts will be discovered by exactly the right kind of people and this in turn will increase the popularity of your blog and even lead to profitable conversions in the long run. Pinterest is a popular social bookmarking site that uses only image content.
Author bio: Ronia Reji is a freelance writer with Godot Media.