How to Promote Content Efficiently and Effectively

“Build It and They Will Come” Doesn’t Work

So, you have a blog, podcast, video channel, or some other content channel, right? That’s great. But, letting it sit there and hoping that people will just happen to land on it in droves isn’t going to get you anywhere. Let’s face it, your content doesn’t matter if people don’t consume it. So, now, we need to talk about ways you can get your content in front of the right audience. 

Before I start, I want to mention that I assume you have already created your content with your ideal client in mind. That means you know your ideal audience and are focusing your marketing to attract them specifically

Now, let’s look at some practical things you can do to promote your content. 

SEO

I talked about this last week, so I won’t go into too much detail here. You want to be mindful of SEO during the creation of your content. You also want to think about the descriptions of your content on the various platforms you use. If you have a YouTube channel, make sure you drop in the keywords you want to rank for when people search on YouTube. 

Share Content on Social Media

What I like about social media is that the people who are following you have basically signed up to receive posts from you, so they are a relatively warm audience. I strongly recommend that you share all your content (whether a blog article, podcast, or video) to whatever social networks you have. But, be prepared, because social media is not without its difficulties. 

Here’s the basic problem: People tend to follow a whole slew of pages and they only have so much time to spend on their favored platform each day. That means they are likely to miss content from you if they aren’t paying attention. 

This is where platform algorithms come in. Let’s look at Facebook as an popular example. I know, everybody complains about the Facebook algorithm and how it doesn’t push business information out to their audiences regularly. But, that very problem with the algorithm is actually to your advantage. 

Here’s the trick: Create posts for Facebook that trigger engagement. When people engage with your posts, they signal to Facebook that they like what you offer. That leads Facebook to push more of your posts in front of them. When you create relevant posts that drive engagement, you move yourself to the head of the social pack when it comes to getting eyes on your page. And when you are getting eyes on your page, you can slip in posts for your content, thus getting more than your fair share of views. 

Encourage Consumers to Share Your Content on Social Media

Whenever you can convince others to spontaneously share your content to their social networks, that’s far more powerful than if you shared it yourself. After all, people are more willing to trust their friends than they are a business that has a vested interest in promoting their wares. 

Add social sharing buttons to your content. If you have a WordPress site, you can do this through various plug-ins. When it comes to blog content promotion, one of my favorites is Click-to-Tweet. I like the way it integrates with the text on your blog and highlights key statements. It makes your blog more attractive and effective while offering the option to promote your article.

Leverage Popular Hosting Services

Let’s look at podcasts as an example here. If you add your podcast to your website, you then need to work to get it in front of your audience with various promotions or an RSS feed. However, if you host your podcast on an established platform (such as Spotify, Podbean, Apple Podcast, or Google Podcast, for example), then you have a built-in audience. People who hang out there are hungry for podcasts, and they can subscribe to have yours pushed in front of them when there is a new episode. 

Isn’t that much easier than trying to do it yourself? 

And here’s the big bonus: Your personal promotions to your own audience add to the effect of getting in front of the platform’s audience. It’s two for the price of one!

Leverage Your Other Platforms

When you compose a blog article, it’s a good idea to crosslink to other blog articles that are relevant. One reason is because of SEO (Google likes this). Another reason is that it points people to more of your content, which you want them to read. 

You can do basically the same thing across platforms. If you have a podcast, you might mention, “I wrote a blog article about this very thing a couple of weeks ago.” Then, you can link to that article in the show notes. There’s serious marketing power in driving potential clients from external platforms to your website. After all, that is where you make your main sales pitches for your products and services. 

Email List Promotion

When it comes to promotion, your email list is your best friend. It works a lot like social media in that you have a warmer audience. But, it’s better than social media because you “own” the contacts. Social media platforms can make any changes they want with regard to who sees your content and who doesn’t. And they don’t have to ask your permission. But you can send it to your entire email list whenever you want. 

Here’s a bonus tip for blog emails…

When you send out your blog article to your audience, consider placing an offer at the end of the email. People who read your blog just might be interested in buying something right now. Don’t make them wait!

Guest Blogging

Let’s get in front of influencer audiences. Find someone with a strong audience who is related to your niche. Ask them if you can write a blog article for them. If they say “yes,” get ready to mine for gold.

At the end of your article, you will have a bio with a link to drive traffic to your website. That will move their audience to your website, which gives you the opportunity to get them into your sales funnel. (If you don’t already have a marketing strategy that includes a sales funnel, I recommend you check out Heather’s free Get Leads & Clients Masterclass.)

Alternatively, you could invite an influencer to write a blog article for you. More than likely, they are going to tell their audiences about their article and send traffic to your blog. Then, they can check out your other articles while they’re there.

Interview an Influencer on Your Podcast

As you are surely aware, podcasts are hot right now. Leveraging the power of the podcast guest is a lot like guest blogging. Your goal is to tap into the audience of an influencer.

When you invite an influencer to your podcast for an interview, you know they bring with them an audience who wants to hear what they have to say. And, as that audience hears your voice interact with your guest. they may want to know more about your podcast content and check it out.

If you don’t have a podcast yourself, but you find yourself on someone else’s podcast, you can slip in subtle blog article promotions. As they listen to the two of you discuss a topic, you might mention “I wrote an article on that very thing a while back and it’s on my blog”. A little teaser like that can go a long way.

Paid Promotion

Everything I’ve mentioned up to this point is free. That doesn’t mean that paid promotion isn’t powerful. In fact, I’m a huge fan of advertising on Facebook. When it comes to getting the most bang for your buck, you can’t beat it. 

I strongly recommend that you add the Facebook pixel to your site. When people on Facebook go to your website, they get “pixeled,” which means they trigger a tracking pixel related to their Facebook account. This enables you to target people through Facebook Ads who have already shown an interest in your website, which is important because they are a warmer audience.

Let’s Help Streamline All This

I realize that’s a lot in a short amount of space. And, truth be told, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. It’s easy to forget things and miss opportunities when promoting your content because there are so many moving parts…and they just don’t seem to slow down. 

What can help is a solid organizational system. I recommend that you create your own promotion calendar. That means you will need spaces for overall planning, identification of themes and topics, SEO opportunities, content scheduling, and specific promotion dates and times for your content promotions. 

I realize that means a lot of work on your end up front. But I also believe that it’s important to have everything all in one place. 

If you would like to get some help with content creation (as well as connect with others who are creating content for their own businesses), check out Planner Genius. It will help fast-track content creation and organization so you can spend your valuable time doing what you love most.