Three million. That’s the approximate number of blog posts that are written every day. So, it goes without saying when sharing content that it’s hard, really hard, to get people to find and more importantly read your content.
Expert Tips on Sharing Content:
The mistake that a lot of people make when just starting out in content marketing is just posting your blog posts on your own website, when in reality there are hundreds of other places where lots more people will discover your content. Here are my top five:
Twitter:
There are three main ways in which you can use this platform to promote your content:
- using a twitter brand account
- using your personal twitter account
- using twitter chat rooms
When using a brand account, you are not going to post your whole blog post. The best way to promote your brand is to add a link to your content in the sharing list. This not only promotes your content but also makes your company look much more professional.
The biggest mistake when using your personal twitter account is posting too many quotes and links to your content. This will easily overwhelm your audience to the point when they end up ignoring your posts. By all means, keep sharing your articles, but instead spread out these shares.
Furthermore, twitter chats are one of the most powerful ways you can spread the word about your brand. Adding the hashtag of a popular industry-specific chat when sharing some of your best pieces can be really beneficial in order to attract a more targeted demographic. However, as above, use it sparingly, as again it will overwhelm your audience and annoy people in the chat.
Reddit:
When using Reddit, it is, once again, vital to not spam users. In this case it is because users are very aware of companies trying to overwhelm or “spam” their subreddits, so only allow a few employees to post intermittently, maybe once or twice per month.
Additionally, articles shared should present new, interesting opinions on topics, and not just be pointless drivel nobody actually cares about. Ensuring this, as well as keeping the account active, will enable you to build up a good reputation on Reddit.
Email:
Although email is often overlooked it can, and, in most businesses that use it, does successfully promote your brand. Studies have proved that pushing content out to email subscribers is much more beneficial than solely using a variety of social media. The reason for this is that these subscribers will be loyal to your brand and are likely to do some promoting for you. This will be done by sharing your content on different social media for you.
Furthermore, the fact that sending out emails can be automated using different software means every time new content appears on your website subscribers will be notified. This not only removes a huge amount of work for you and your employees, but also actively promotes your brand.
Medium:
Medium is a very helpful tool for sharing content that is, for the most part, underutilised by corporations. It is a very helpful tool that allows you to do two things:
- increase traffic to the original post
- republish your post
The first of these, although not directly offered by Medium, is done by posting small parts of a blog post and then directing users to your site by tempting them with more high-quality content. This strategy should occasionally be mixed with posting full posts to keep your readers engaged and enjoying your content.
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn can be a very useful tool as many users have already built a strong and loyal subscriber base. This is beneficial as users who are subscribed will automatically receive a notification when you publish new content.
Similarly, to Medium, LinkedIn allows a user to have links to posts on a website. This feature, along with the aforementioned fact that users are notified of new posts makes LinkedIn a very good platform for promoting your content.
In addition, content can always be shared in LinkedIn Groups related to your industry. However, like Twitter Chats, make sure to not over-use this tactic.
No matter which of the above you chose to use, people can tell if you don’t actually care about your potential customers. It is crucial to constantly engage with your readers and build relationships with your loyal followers, as this will give you a human side and people will then be willing to share your content and promote your brand.
