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6 Actionable Content Promotion Strategies You Can Use Today

Posted By Guest Blogger 8th of October 2015 Blog Promotion, General 0 Comments

This is a guest contribution from Adam Connell of Blogging Wizard.

Have you ever published a piece of content and watched it flat-line?

Putting all of your effort into content which can help others, but you just can’t seem to drive enough traffic to it.

We’ve all been there.

So what’s the solution?

It all comes down to effective content promotion and in this post you’ll find some highly actionable tips that you can use to promote any piece of content more effectively.

Let’s dive in!

Identify hot topics in your niche

Content promotion starts right at the beginning, when you’re planning your piece of content.

This ensures that when your content is published, it has a solid foundation.

The reality is that there are certain topics that people just aren’t interested in, and others that are hot button topics that spark engagement, sharing and all of the traffic that follows.

So how can you identify these hot topics?

1) Identify which content people are sharing the most

Start off by making a list of your biggest competitors, then use BuzzSumo to find which of their blog posts are being shared the most.

content-promotion-strategies-buzzsumo

Now pull out a small list of the most shared topics from your different competitors and you’ll have a good idea of which top level topics to cover.

2) Identify which content people are linking to the most

Looking at the most shared content is one avenue, but the one most people forget is figuring out which pieces of content are being linked to the most.

This is a significant indicator of topics popularity, providing your competitors are not engaging in any shady link building practices.

To do this, you’ll need to use a backlink analyser. I prefer to use Ahrefs, it is a paid tool but you can still get some actionable data from their free version.

content-promotion-strategies-ahrefs

Just type in the website in question, click “Top Content” on the left hand side and then click the “RD” column and you’ll find a list of the websites pages/posts ranked in order of which has the most referring domains.

Once you’ve collected the topics which are being linked to most, you can combine them with the list of most shared topics to create a more detailed list of ideas for your content plan.

Invite influencers to contribute to your content

There are people who have influence over your target audience.

You can put together a strategy to build relationships with these key influencers. And in time, that relationship will help you to expand your readership.

But, the key here is to focus on building mutually beneficial relationships – helping is essential to creating good will.

So how can you get started?

  • Identify who you want to build a relationship with – You may have a good idea who to connect with already, if you don’t tools like Inkybee and Ninja Outreach can help you (they’ll also help you throughout the process).
  • Connect with them – Follow them on Twitter, share their content, comment on their blog or even send them an email without asking them to do anything for you (hint: It works even better if you help them out with something).
  • Ask them for a quote or answer to a question – This will give your content some added social proof and the influencer will be far more likely to share your post with their audience as they’ve contributed to it directly.
  • Let them know when the post is live – If they don’t know the post is live, they probably won’t share it. So let them know and make it easy for them to share but don’t hassle them to share (that’s a sure-fire way to burn a relationship before it’s had chance to develop).

When you put the time and effort into creating a smart strategy to leverage the influence of others, you can see some impressive results. Groove used a similar approach to get 1,000+ subscribers from a single blog post in 24 hours.

Leverage online communities in your niche

The holy grail of content promotion is finding exactly where your target audience hangs out in large groups.

But, the idea isn’t that you find a great online community and start dropping your links everywhere – that’ll do more harm than good.

Instead, focus on becoming part of the community. Help others by sharing their content and answering their questions.

Focus on networking with others in that community and then you can start thinking about promotion (just without dropping links to your content all over the place).

This works best when the people you’ve built relationships with share your content without you having to ask – help enough people and publish the right content and this will happen.

How to get started with online communities

The web is full of online communities, which includes everything from Facebook and Google+ groups to online forums.

Below are a few to get you started:

  • org – Marketing
  • com – Growth Hacking
  • com – Business
  • com – Films
  • com – Gaming

Share to social networks at the right time

Sharing your content to social networks should be done no matter what, but aside from growing your followers on a network like Twitter, how can you get more traction from the following you have right now?

Here’s the answer:

Share to your followers at the right times.

So how can you do this?

First of all, forget about every infographic that you’ve seen which tells you when the best time to share is.

Why?

It’s someone else’s data – not yours.

If you want to figure out the best time to share on social networks, you need to use the right tools to help you.

This will ensure that your data is used instead of someone else’s.

The great news is that there are some free tools which can help you here such as Timing+ for Google+ and Tweriod for Twitter.

Repurpose your content for a different audience

We all have different preferences when it comes to content consumption.

Some people prefer written content, some like videos and others prefer podcasts.

If you’re just publishing one type of content, you can easily expand your audience by repurposing your existing content into something else.

Let’s say you’re publishing blog posts, you could turn a blog post into an infographic.

For example, last year I published a group interview which was detailed and while it performed extremely well (it got over 2K social shares), the information was difficult to consume as it took so long to read.

With the help of 24Slides and TweakYourBiz, we published an infographic which featured trimmed down responses from each expert.

content-promotion-strategies-repurposing

What about the results?

Just by repurposing an existing post, we were able to expose it to 30,000+ more people. Not bad right?

Here are a few other content types you could use:

  • Slideshare presentation
  • Audio/Podcast
  • Video
  • Instructographic
  • Emails
  • Ebooks
  • Courses

The possibilities are endless.

Use paid traffic to give your content a boost

“Free traffic” does not exist.

This is because even if you aren’t investing money, you’re investing your time.

And that’s valuable!

There’s only so much time you have to spare so more often than not, buying cheap (but targeted) traffic can be a great way of seeding your content and driving more eye-balls to your blog.

If you only have time to invest then you might want to avoid paid traffic for a while.

However, when you have some budget to play with, it’s an option worth considering.

Especially when you can use the likes of Outbrain and StumbleUpon to get highly targeted traffic without breaking the bank.

It requires testing and you might find traffic prices change from one niche to another, but don’t discount it because it can be immensely effective.

Putting it all together

We’ve talked through some specific content promotion strategies and all of them can have a significant impact on the success of your next piece of content.

The key is to take one strategy, try it out and see how well it works for you.

The truth is that certain strategies will work better in different niches but it’s essential that if one doesn’t work for you, you ask yourself the important question – WHY doesn’t it work?

Most people quickly try out something and give up too soon.

It may be that you need to approach the strategy in a different way or give it more time to reap the rewards.

So, now I have a question for you – which content promotion strategies have been most successful for you?

Adam Connell is the Founder of Blogging Wizard. He helps bloggers get started and take their blog’s to the next level. If you want to blog smarter and not harder, click here to find out how you can get free access to the Blogging Wizard resource library with guides and checklists to grow your blog by 425%+.

 

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Comments
  1. Hi Adam,

    This post comes at the perfect time because I’m focused on writing pillar style posts every 1-2 weeks, then I’m promoting the heck out of these suckers through a variety of networks. Awesome stuff here.

    I vibe with seeing what works, then, doing that. Case in point; my last 2 posts have generated some serious pop because I chose to post what generated some serious pop in the past. My biggest blogging mistake recently was trying to post more often, when I should have posted stuff that worked, less frequently. I focused on publishing 3 posts weekly; each was solid, yet, I could just knock 1 post out of the park, promote that sucker for 7 to 10 days, and see more returns from working less and less. Isn’t that the point? Do something super helpful, then promote it to reach a huge audience.

    I’m in the promoting phase of my eBooks now so your tips vibe with me big time. I am promoting my content through many channels, reaching out, spreading the word, and doing what one can do to reach into new, targeted, intrigued audiences. Last week’s post was a free giveaway of 7 Blogging from Paradise eBooks. This week’s post is 13 tips to increase blog traffic. Such titles worked well in the past, and they work well now, too. Instead of forcing myself to publish 1 post every 2 or 3 days I am promoting these successful posts for 7 to 10 days, spreading the word, because when I have something that works I figure, promote it freely, and when I feel like writing a pillar style post again, I’ll write it.

    As for networks, I am using these sites to spread the word:

    G Plus Communities focused on blogging tips
    Facebook Groups focused on blogging tips
    Tweets (with hashtags #bloggingtips)
    Pinterest blogging tips boards
    StumbleUpon
    My Facebook profile, page, and my G plus profile, and page
    LinkedIn
    Digg
    Biz Sugar
    Viral Content Buzz
    Scoop It

    I have a few more that I may be forgetting but this is a good start.

    I also share a video on Youtube pointing toward my blog post. Fab way to use interactive media in my favor.

    I did the podcast bit for a while but it was a losing proposition. I am sharing blogging tips and giving my eBooks away for free, or for 99 cents, now. I have no time to do podcasts right. I’ll just fulfill interview requests to be on the other side of the microphone.

    As for your tips, all are dead on. I’d advise that folks pay attention to blog posts which are working for other bloggers, or, what’s worked for them. Double figure, practical tips laden blog posts, with my personal experiences mixed in, do really well for me. I spotted how such posts do awesome for you, too. Bingo. Stick with them. Instead of rushing to publish another post, I promote the hell out of these posts, then publish another in 7 or 10 or 14 days.

    My Secret Strategy

    OK, it’s not so secret because I published a few eBooks on the topic: blog commenting.

    I promote my posts by writing in depth comments on sites like:

    this one
    Blogging Tips Dot Com
    Positively Positive

    I added Pos Pos because I have written and published some 30 eBooks covering inspirational, self help and LOA topics. May as well show off my wares in a guest post sized comment, to create value, to build friendships and to drive traffic. That’s the secret; treat blog comments as guest posts. Don’t think about the back link. Set aside 10 to 20 minutes to write something epic. Then, you can post only 1 to 2 or 3 comments daily, on top blogs from your niche, and each comment will yield you a bunch of targeted traffic, some clout, and some power broker relationships. That’s the great secret: write a mini guest post. Show off your knowledge. Be transparent.

    I love relaying my practical tips – see the networks I shared above – to pay it forward, to add value to blog posts and to save reader’s time and energy. Other bloggers did it for me. I can do the same through my blog and through blog comments on authority sites, as a blog comment is simply another medium through which I can share value and help people.

    Fabulous post Adam. You keep knocking your Blogging Wizard posts and guest posts out of the park.

    Thanks for sharing your insight with us.

    Ryan

    • Hi Ryan,

      Wow – what a comment! This is a perfect example of your point about promoting your blog through leaving valuable comments.

      I can definitely relate to the pitfalls of publishing too often. I tried the 3 posts a week thing last year and while traffic did increase, enjoyment went down and each post got way less in the way of shares.

      Spot on – pull back on posting too often and focus on publishing more in depth and helpful stuff. Then promote with the time you’ve freed up.

      Awesome! And you’ve got so many books to promote, each one of those is a great asset.

      I like your selection of networks that you’re using for promotion, there is a lot of scope there to get the word out to a lot of people. Great use of YouTube too.

      Doing podcasts is a great way to tap into another group of readers who prefer different content types, but it sounds like a good move – it’s very easy to spread ourselves too thinly.

      Treating blog comments as guest posts is a great idea, and I’m with you on not going for the backlink – it’s all about the relationship!

      Thanks for the kind words, Ryan – I really appreciate it!

      Incredible comment!

      Talk soon,
      Adam

    • I like your comments Ryan. Thanks for it

  2. Danie Botha says: 10/09/2015 at 1:48 pm

    Excellent information , Adam.
    I’m in the process of putting a blogging site together.
    I linked to you BloggingWizard. Great stuff there as well – especially for beginners. e’g. worthwhile plugins.
    Thanks, Darren Great guest post by Allen.

  3. Hi Adam!
    Great post! I am bookmarking this as well. Some things I’m doing and that you’ve told me, but some new ideas as well. I may have read them with your articles, but info overload and all. I am going to work step-wise down this article slowly. Glad I ran up on this piece off of twitter from a new follower! Thanks, Elaine

    • Adam Connell says: 10/12/2015 at 11:58 pm

      Hi Elaine, great to see you here!

      Working through this step by step is the way to go – take your time and see how each one works out for you.

      Talk soon,
      Adam

  4. Superb info, Adam.
    I’m along the way associated with placing the running a blog website collectively.
    We associated with a person BloggingWizard. Excellent things presently there too – specifically for newbies. e’g. useful plug ins.

  5. I am looking for a new and unique idea to write an article , you punched me in a new world. I have got a useful tips from your topic , you are awesome.provide for us a great knowledge and tricks to establish blog at the peak of success

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