blog promotion checklist

The Blog Promotion Checklist: What to Do After You Hit Publish

Carl Taylor | September 15, 2016

Content marketing can be a very powerful tool in your arsenal and remains one of the most effective ways to grow your blog. According to Hubspot, “Companies that blog 15 or more times per month get 5x more traffic than companies that don’t blog.”

But creating epic content is just the first step.

The most important element of your blogging strategy is the actual promotion of your content. If you haven’t spent any time promoting your content, there’s no need to get overwhelmed. Below we outline the exact channels you should be using to promote your content as soon as you press the publish button.

Engage With the Post

There’s nothing worse than a post with zero engagement. Even if your blog is brand new, there’s a few things you can do to give your recent post some life.

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1. Comment

If your blog is relatively new, then you probably won’t be receiving hundreds of comments. Still, it’s important to engage with those who do take the time to comment, even if the number is small.

Your earlier readers will be your biggest fans, so it’s important that you take the time to show them that they’re valued.

2. Promote via Email

Do you have an existing email list? If so, you’ll want to send out an email telling your readers a new post is published. This will help to get an initial boost of shares and comments.

Some business owners send the entire blog post in the email, while others prefer to include nothing more than a teaser and a link. This depends on your overall email marketing strategy.

We recommend getting a template created in your Email Marketing platform to make it easy after each post to simply swap out the content and click send.

If you use Ontraport, Infusionsoft or ActiveCampaign then this is something our Concierge Service can help you with.

Extend the Value of Your Content

Did you know you can get more life from your content, without having to do any extra work? There’s two main tactics for extending the life of content you’ve already created.

1. Content Syndication

The first is a little thing called content syndication. Basically, there are a ton of existing platforms that will post your created content, as is, and provide you with a link back to your site.

Some of the most common content syndication platforms are:

It’s also a good idea to submit your post to content aggregators like Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon. Traffic isn’t guaranteed here, but if your post goes viral on these platforms, let’s just hope your host can keep up.

2. Re-Format Your Work

The second involves transforming your existing content into different formats to reach new readers.

One of the best platforms for this is Slideshare. Essentially, you’ll be creating a PowerPoint presentation that uses your existing blog post as an outline. This might seem like a lot of work, but remember, a lot of presentations on this site have received massive traction.

Get Social

Social media is going to be one of your best friends when it comes to content promotion. If you have existing audiences on social media, then you’ll definitely want to share your content there.

If you don’t, there’s no need to worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are a few strategies for getting started with social media promotion:

1. Share More Than Once

To get the most traction from your content you should share it more than once. Chances are, every single one of your followers didn’t see your post the first time you posted it. By sharing your post again you increase the likelihood that more of your followers will see it.

2. Consider Groups

More than likely there are dozens of industry-related groups that will happily allow you to promote your content to their members. However, they usually don’t allow new members to start promoting their own stuff right away.

If you want the best chance of success, join the groups and interact before you start to share your own work.

Two of the best places to find relevant groups are Facebook and LinkedIn. A simple search on both platforms will give you dozens of relevant groups you can join.

facebook group
A quick Facebook group search for “digital marketing” nets a ton of groups like this.

3. Answer Questions on Quora

Quora is the new-school Yahoo Answers. Essentially, people will post various questions and seek out answers from the community. Search for questions that you might have answered in your post, and provide a thoughtful answer with a link back to your post.

If your answer gets upvoted in the community, it’ll increase the amount of eyeballs on your answer.

4. Which Platform Should I Choose?

Beyond those mentioned above, you’re probably curious about which platforms you’ll want to promote on. We showcase a few of the most common below.

  • Create a relevant image or quote, and promote it across your Instagram account.
  • Create a compelling sentence from the post and share it to your Twitter, with a link to the post.
  • Post and share to your Facebook page, but also promote the post to extend its reach.

Pin it to Pinterest with an eye-catching image and link to your post.

Promote, and Promote Some More

Once you’ve shared your post across all the above platforms, your next job is to do some manual outreach. That can take time, but it is very effective when done the right way.

1. Alert Influencers

In almost every space there’s a handful of influencers and bloggers who are covering similar topics.

To find these people do a Google search for “[your topic] + top blogs”. That will generally give you a list of 50 or so well-known and lesser known blogs you can reach out to, and inform about your recent post.

meditation blogs search

If it’s very well-written, there’s a good chance they’ll share it. At the very least you’ll be on their radar for the future.

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Extend the Value of Your Content

2. Find People Who Have Shared Similar Content

Now it’s time to take your post to people who’ve already shared similar content to your own.

For this purpose you can use a helpful tool called Buzzsumo. You will need a paid subscription to unlock all the features of this tool. However, there is a free trial that might give you enough time to get some initial traction.

Essentially, you can search for keywords related to your post, or if you input a competitor’s URL, you can see who linked to and shared that post.

buzzsumo

Then it’s just a matter of reaching out to each individual.

Hitting publish means your work is just beginning. Hopefully, the tips above will help bring new readers to your blog and get the most value from your content.

About the author 

Carl Taylor

Carl Taylor is the Founder & CEO of Automation Agency. For the past 10 years Carl has been building businesses and marketing them online through the use of Sales Funnels, Email Marketing Automation, Landing Pages, and Wordpress Websites. Carl is also a #1 author and highly sought after speaker and consultant whose work has impacted thousands of businesses across various industries worldwide.

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