Since you started your blog, you’ve produced a ton of posts.
They’re all quality pieces addressing relevant topics.
What’s more, they’re everything blogs are supposed to be. They’re long-form, in-depth, and optimize low-competition keywords.
So, why aren’t your posts getting the engagement you expected?
It’s simple.
You’re missing out on powerful content promotion strategies proven to gain more attention even if you write less.
Does it sound amazing to write less but gain more attention?
It is!
Let’s look into why content promotion strategies are so important, the best strategies to add to your arsenal, and the insider tips that make them work fabulously for you.
The Importance of Content Promotion Strategies in Your Content Marketing Plan
Today, there’s a ton of advice telling you to churn up as much content as you can. According to this advice, Google will only notice you when you post fresh content on the web.
But think of it this way. Imagine yourself creating one beautiful, compelling piece of content. After it’s ready, you distribute it to a hundred people. If 20% of these people react to it, you’ll have 20 engagements.
So, what do you do next? Do you create another blog that’ll be seen by another 100 people? If you do and another 20% respond, you’ll end up with 40 engagements.
You can do that, OR you can take one piece of content and distribute it to a larger audience. Let’s say you distribute it to 1,000 people. If 20% respond, you get 200 engagements with just one piece of content.
This saves you time researching and writing, plus it gains you more blog traffic, leads, and prospects.
But how do you get your content in front of a larger group of people? Are there any content promotion strategies to help you achieve greater success?
Let’s look at four of them.
4 Content Promotion Strategies to Use for Greater Blog Traffic and Higher Engagements
The good news is you don’t need to incorporate 50 or even 20 content promotion strategies into your plan. All you need are these solid four.
1. Creating a Facebook Group
As content marketers, we know how social media is a powerful platform for marketing. For instance, 200 million people visit one business profile on Instagram every day. And that’s just Instagram!
But before you plunge in and start churning out a hundred posts per day, remember this: You can work your butt off producing disappointing posts that don’t gain many engagements. Or you can work smart and distribute your content to the right people.
One way to do this is through creating a Facebook group. With a Facebook group, you can:
- Reach a targeted niche market. People in the group requested to join, showing their interest in your group’s main passion and cause.
- Build trust. In a Facebook group, you can answer questions and provide value. Users can discuss relevant ideas with each other. You create a community with people, and this eventually builds loyalty for your brand.
- Receive feedback. Because people in your group are comfortable talking with you and each other, you’ll find valuable insights into their lives and needs. These can help you improve your brand to better serve them.
A. The Difference Between Posting on the Facebook News Feed and Posting in a Private Group
Posting on the news feed means you’ll put your content in front of all your Facebook friends. Of course, this is a good strategy as well. If your content is good, you friends will share it and it’ll be seen by their friends.
But if you want higher engagements, posting in a private group is the way to go. Let’s look at an example from my own posts.
Low engagement doesn’t mean you should stop posting on Facebook’s news feed. However, as you can see above, my public posts get less overall engagements.
On the other hand, take a look at this post inside my free Content Strategists Facebook group.
For this post, I got 85 reactions and 533 comments!
The key takeaway? Continue posting on your news feed, but don’t forget to put effort and passion into your Facebook group. It’s where the good stuff is.
B. How to Create a Facebook Group with Thousands of Members
Creating a Facebook group is one thing.
Compelling thousands of members to join your group is another.
Today, tons of marketers make the mistake of creating a group, posting a few times, and leaving the group to die. What you need to do is take an active strategy to keep your group thriving.
Here are five steps to follow.
1. Give Your Group a Creative and Compelling Flare
- Choose a profile photo that embodies your brand’s cause.
- Write a description of your group. Use power words to compel people to join.
- Add videos to your group. Social platforms favor videos. Look at this post that got 2 engagements…
Compared to this video with 161 engagements.
2. Skip the Friends Who Won’t Add Value to Your Group
The instant you create your group, your instinct is to add all your Facebook friends to join.
Right?
But stop yourself right there. You want to be sure every single member of the group adds value.
So, don’t add your former high school classmates who won’t ever be interested in your cause and passion.
Add people who love what you love.
Pro Tip: When you create your group, it’s a good idea to make it a closed group. This will help you restrict members to people who bring real value to other group members and your brand.
3. Promote Your Group on Social Media
Add a link to your group on Instagram, Twitter, even Pinterest! You can never tell who’s out there, looking for a community like yours.
4. Continue Posting Value-Rich Content on Your Group
It’s important to keep your group alive. Spark engagements by posting regularly.
5. Get Influencers to Mention Your Group
Find Facebook influencers on Twitter or LinkedIn and connect with them. Find a way to add value to their lives, and they will mention you and your group.
2. Reaching a Targeted Market through Emails
Emails are another huge channel to focus your content promotion strategies on. Here’s why:
- People who opt-in for your emails are already interested in your brand.
- Marketers enjoy the highest ROI from email – up to 760% for segmented campaigns!
- Emails don’t have to compete with the noise online and on social media.
So, what best practices should you follow when integrating email into your content promotion strategies?
A. Don’t Limit Your Emails to Selling
Remember the 3:1 rule. For each promotional email, send three other emails that educate, entertain, or inspire.
Here’s an example of an email from Great Escape Publishing that gives value to readers.
B. But Don’t be Afraid to Sell
As long as you know your readers are interested in your brand, don’t be afraid to offer discounts, promotional items, and paid membership to your club or group. Chances are your readers are just waiting for you to give them that extra nudge to pull their wallets out and buy.
Here’s an example of selling through email, also from Great Escape Publishing.
As you can see, the first email offers value and builds trust, while the second one promotes a program.
C. Segment Your Email Lists
Don’t send generic emails to every single person in your email list. Remember, these people are in different stages of the sales funnel. Some are in the awareness level, checking out your brand because of curiosity. Some are much further down and only need one small push before they buy. Sending a specific person a personalized email based on how close he is to buying will get you greater conversions.
3. Guest Posting
Guest posting is a powerful way to establish expertise in your niche. Also, it’s a great way to get your content into the hands of a ton of new readers.
Maybe your blog doesn’t have as many readers as you’d like right now. However, when you guest post, you can leave a link to your site so people can follow you if they like your content. If the blog you’re posting on has thousands of followers, this is a huge way to get exposure for your content!
That said, don’t post on just any blog. Pick the worthwhile ones. Here are three tips to follow when selecting where to pitch for a guest post:
- A blog with over 10,000 social followers
- A blog with high domain authority (over 50 is good)
- A blog that allows you to post your credentials and a link to your site
4. Posting a Link to Your Content on Reddit
With this one, proceed with care. You don’t want to spam people on Reddit with links to your content.
What you want to do is answer real questions. You want to give real value to people. If your content can do this, by all means, post it on subreddits of the same topic.
How to Win with Content Promotion Strategies
Content promotion isn’t about a long list of 50 best practices.
It’s not about spamming inboxes and social media threads.
What it boils down to in the end is putting your content in front of people who need it.
When you create valuable content and promote it to people whose lives will be changed by it, you’ll find yourself with higher traffic, more leads, and increased revenue.
If you want a comprehensive guide on content strategy, your first step is to enroll in The Content Strategy and Marketing Course. In just six weeks, you’ll have all the skills you’ll ever need for profitable content marketing.
