Great content is nothing without great promotion. There are many ways to get shares and active engagement on your content, from running Google Ads to sharing on social media. Check out this list for strategies you can employ to promote your content and build your brand.
1. Optimize for Readability and Shareability
Make your content digestible for internet users. Most people don’t have the attention span to consume a long article or video, even if they’re interested in the topic.
- First, write a specific, relevant headline. Without this, few people will read your post or watch your video.
- Learn to structure your blog posts and videos in a way that communicates rapid-fire, actionable information. Use concise sections, short paragraphs, and brief sentences.
- Start with the most important information. Then go into details.
You can also optimize your content’s sharability with colorful and creatively designed social media buttons. For instance, you can put share on Facebook buttons under an article headline or add a sticky share button fixed on the left side of the page for quick sharing.
2. Participate in Social Media Groups
Everyone shares their content on their official social media pages. But don’t just stop there.
Join a few social media groups as well on LinkedIn or Facebook. Groups are powerful opportunities to engage with people who have the same interests or challenges.
After you join a group, comment on people’s posts. When someone poses a question or shares a problem, comment with a potential solution or at least a relevant link they can check out to find an answer.
If you have the time and resources, consider starting your own social media group on Facebook or LinkedIn. Managing a group will give you and your brand substantial credibility.Invite people who are working in the same niche, and in related niches, to join your group.
Once you’ve created a social media group, you can attract brand ambassadors by engaging with them. Social media engagement activities include gamifying your content, such as holding a contest or challenging your followers to do something in exchange for cool prizes. For example, you can launch a selfie contest of people using your product or service. Posting poll questions, quotes, or trivia is a great way to engage with your social media followers.
3. Re-Share Content
Most people won’t see your content the first time it goes live. That’s because Facebook and LinkedIn only show a tiny selection of posts from any given page that a user follows.
To overcome this, it’s common to re-share posts on Facebook and LinkedIn periodically. If you’ve just released a new podcast episode, you could easily share it two or three times over the 6-week period after you release the episode.
You can introduce the episode with slightly different text so that your posts won’t feel repetitive to anyone who happened to see the first time you posted about the episode.
You can work with other content creators or influencers to re-share your content across their digital platforms. This strategy works if you have many online connections, such as close professional contacts on LinkedIn. If you’re outsourcing freelance writers or digital marketers, you can also ask for their help re-sharing your content.
Some media publications and outreach agencies can also help distribute your content for a fee. To boost your content promotion, you might want to consider social media publishing to broadly scale your reach and consistently engage your target audience.
4. Create Quote Images
Extract meaningful quotes or passages from your content and overlay these quotes onto emotional images. Of course, what makes an image emotional will vary. But generally, think about how an image’s subject, light, and color will make your audience feel. The ore emotive an image, the more likely someone will stop scrolling to read your quote. Once you’ve captured someone’s attention with your quote image, share a link to an article or video you created where you sourced the quote so that people can engage further.
Most companies stamp their quote images with their logo in the bottom right corner. This ensures that if someone reuses your content, anyone who sees your images will link them to your brand. If you aren’t in love with your current logo, try BrandCrowd’s logo maker.
5. Link to Your Old Content
Each time you publish a new article or piece of content, make sure to link to at least one other piece of content you’ve previously created. You can embed links within the body text of your article. You can also create links in a sidebar or footer.
6. Form Strategic Partnerships
Look for businesses that target the same market but who are not direct competitors. Suppose you have a clothing brand that imports goods from overseas. You can reach out and work with local visual artists to design an exclusive clothing line. Most legacy brands already do this, like Chanel collaborating with musician Pharrell Williams, who incorporated street art into the fashion house’s iconic CC and N°5 logos. Now your clothing brand has influential people who will be incentivized to share your new products.
You can also share posts from creators in similar fields with your audience. This fills up your content calendar, positions you as an expert, increases your followers’ reliance on your channels as a one-stop source for good information, and makes you friends online. Your new friends (the content creators whose work you shared) are now much more likely to share your work in return.
7. Co-Author Content
Collaborating with another person to create an article, video, podcast allows you to share someone else’s expertise that compliments your own and drive new people to discover your brand. Co-authored content drives new traffic to your website and social media pages due to the reach of your co-authors.
8. Advertise
Once you find a piece of content that resonates with users, consider paying to promote it. This will help you get new followers.
A good way to do this is through QR code marketing. Generate a QR code for your content and place it at strategic locations where people can scan the code. This works especially well for tutorials and instructional videos.
You can also create and advertise a lead magnet and require users to share their email address for access. Lead magnets are typically ebooks or webinars, but they can take on other forms.
9. Write an Expert Round-Up Article
Reach out to 20 or so experts in a field to ask their opinion on a popular topic. Depending on your popularity, you might expect to receive 3-10 answers. Use the answers you receive to craft an article. You could title your article something as simple as “3 Expert Opinions on…” to highlight the fact that your article is substantiated by expert opinions.
Once you publish, share the article with the experts you contacted. There’s a decent chance they’ll want to share it with their followers. They may also want to link back to the article from their website, which is excellent for your SEO.
10. Reach Out to Influencers
Influencers are people who have a legion of followers online. People follow influencers for entertainment and sometimes for sound advice. Influencers specialize in all kinds of topics from fashion to skincare to food.
If your request to an influencer provides inherent value to the influencer, they may be happy to work with you at no cost. An example of this might be offering to build an app to showcase the influencer’s work, which you monetize for a percentage of the app’s revenue.
If you’re not providing inherent value but you want to connect to an influencer’s audience, you can ask the influencer if they do any brand promotions or advertising. If you brand seems like a potential fit, the influencer may respond with information on how you could work together.
11. Comment on Blogs, Reddit and Quora
Look for similar blogs and post comments that contribute to the conversation started by the blogger. You can also search Reddit and Quora for questions about your area of expertise, and answer those questions. This is a fantastic way to build credibility online. Many people who find your answer helpful will research who you are and maybe decide to follow you.
When allowed, you can share a link to an article you wrote on the subject, which will help your website’s SEO.
Conclusion
Don’t attempt to do everything at once. You’ll almost definitely get overwhelmed. Instead, work on one or two tactics at a time.
You can still test multiple tactics. Try using one or two tactics for a month, then another set of tactics the next month. Observe your results and see which tactics give you the most traction. Then double down on what’s working.
If something doesn’t work initially, you may just need to build out your brand or your social following more before it will work for you. Set aside any tactics that aren’t working yet and consider revisiting them once you’re in a different position.