63 Top Tactics to Promote Your Blog Posts
Imagine if the most beautiful painting ever created to inspire others was hanging in an art gallery with no roads leading to the location, no doors for visitors to enter and no lights to see the masterpiece… just a dark, desolate gallery.
When you create a blog post without a promotion strategy, you’re denying access to visitors who will benefit from your content… you’ve created a desolate gallery for your blog masterpiece.
To reach your audience, you must plan and implement multiple promotional tactics to boost your reach. In this training, you’ll learn 63 tactics to promote your blog posts after you publish them. Then, you can pick and implement the best tactics that match your resources, skills, and schedule.
6 BENEFITS OF BLOG PROMOTION
Why should you invest your time promoting your blog posts? Here are the top 6 benefits for using your resources to promote a blog post:
- Improve Website Traffic: Blogs are amazing sources of organic traffic to your website by visitors searching for your keywords and phrases.
- Increase Brand Awareness: When blog posts are discovered because they contain keywords and topics searched by your target audience, you reach new prospects in your omnichannel marketing efforts.
- Grow Your Email List: When you promote your posts to reach new prospects, you build trust with the high-quality blog content so visitors are more likely to join your email list to learn about future posts.
- Increase Lead Generation and Sales: Your promoted blog content can help build long-term relationships with visitors, which results in more qualified leads and future sales.
- Build Your Reputation as a Thought Leader: By promoting high-quality information on your blog that helps solve the problems of your target audiences, you’ll gain the reputation as an influencer and thought leader in your field.
- Achieve Your Content Marketing Goals: I teach my digital marketing students how to create a Content Marketing Plan, which includes how to create your goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. One key part of the strategic plan is that you must actively promote your content to achieve your goals.
BLOG PROMOTION PREPARATION STRATEGY
Before starting your blog promotion tactics, several best practices should be implemented first in your preparation strategy:
- Document and prioritize your keywords that should be included in any promotional copy.
- Document and prioritize your hashtags for social media posts.
- Write a primary short blurb for brief social media posts.
- Write 2-4 secondary short blurbs about post highlights, which will provide variety in promotions over the life of the post.
- Write a primary long description for detailed social media posts plus promotion websites and tools.
- Write 2-3 secondary long descriptions that can be posted to provide variety over the life of the post.
- If possible, write a customized post for each social network based on that network audiences’ preferences.
- Create a horizontal image for Facebook and Twitter.
- Create a square or vertical image for networks with vertical layouts like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.
- Copy the blog post URL to your notes, or open the URL in a separate browser tab for each access to paste into posts.
- Research social networks analytics for the best date/time to post on social media for your unique audience.
- Plan whether you’ll post natively on each social network or schedule the post using a third-party service, like Hootsuite or Buffer.
- Setup UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters using Google’s Campaign URL Builder, which improve your Google Analytics tracking abilities to discover your most effective tactics.
- Setup social sharing buttons on your blog so visitors can easily share your post with their peers.
- Confirm your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is set up, working and the newly published blog post was added.
- Setup a tool such as Click To Tweet in your blog for easily sharing your best quotes in a post.
What other preparation tasks would you recommend to your peers? Please leave a Comment at the end of this training article.
63 TACTICS TO PROMOTE YOUR BLOG POSTS
After publishing your blog post, you’ll need to implement multiple tactics to amplify your reach to your target audiences. Experts believe you should spend the majority of your time on promotion rather than creation activities. From Social Triggers, “It’s smarter to find another 10,000 people to consume what you’ve already created as opposed to creating more. Or, in other words, create content 20% of the time. Spend the other 80% of the time promoting what you created.”
When it comes to marketing your content, my recommendation is to breakdown your tactics into 10 Content Promotion Categories:
- Social Media Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Community Content Marketing
- Blogger Outreach
- Influencer Outreach
- Syndication
- Blog Commenting Strategy
- Internal Marketing
- Repurpose Content
- Paid Advertising and Retargeting
Next, you’ll learn 63 tactics within the content promotion categories. If you’d like to skip ahead to a section, click its hyperlink above to jump to it.
A. Social Media Marketing (Organic)
Some of greatest benefits of using social media to promote your blog posts are the one-to-one relationship that you can build with a follower, the ability to go viral with social sharing, and using social proof when followers like and comment on your post. For those reasons, try as many of these tactics as possible.
- Facebook: Post on the fan page
- Facebook: Facebook Live on the fan page
- Facebook: Create a Story on the fan page
- Facebook: Share the fan page post on your personal news feed
- Facebook: Send a message in Messenger
- Twitter: Post a short blurb and the blog link + hashtags
- Twitter: Post a video with the blog link
- Twitter: Post the link in a poll question with choices from the blog post
- Instagram: Change your profile link to the blog or recent post URL
- Instagram: Create a text post + hashtags with images from the post
- Instagram: Create a video post
- Instagram: Share on Instagram Stories
- Instagram: Create an IGTV video
- LinkedIn: Post a status update with or without a short video as the business
- LinkedIn: Post a status update from your personal account
- Pinterest: Post a blog image and link to an appropriate board by topic
- Pinterest: Post a blog image and link to a board dedicated to your blog posts
- Snapchat: Create a story with a customized photo related to the post
- Snapchat: Create a video about the post
- Snapchat: Create an image referencing the blog post
Each social network that you add to your marketing mix has its own etiquette and unwritten rules, so the best practice is to customize your posts for the unique audiences’ expectations on each network. These community norms involve the length of a post, how many hashtags are acceptable, how often to post, and if reposting is acceptable.
In the infographic below, we provide a Blog Post Launch Schedule with recommendations on when to make your posts on each social network.
–Article continues after the infographic–
Embed code to share image on your site
As shown in the Blog Post Launch Schedule infographic, we recommend the following schedule:
- On all social networks where Live Video or video uploads are available, use that option for announcing a new blog post on its launch day. One benefit of first using video is later you can use a text post with a link to the blog post and it’s considered fresh content by your audience instead of a repost.
- On Facebook, the social norms are not to use hashtags but rather be entertaining, inspirational or informative with only a couple posts spread out throughout the day. We recommend posting a live video on launch day, a text post with a link to the blog post the following day, a third post a month later, a fourth post a few months later, and if it’s “evergreen content” that’s still timely and valid then schedule it every 3 months.
- On Twitter, where frequent posts with multiple hashtags are acceptable, we recommend posting a video on launch day then another post at every interval on the chart.
- On Instagram, duplicate content isn’t widely accepted but multiple hashtags are! Therefore, our recommendation is posting a video with an announcement about the new blog post on launch day then an update the following week with any images from the blog post.
- On LinkedIn, business professionals prefer shorter posts with minimal or no hashtags. Hence, our strategic recommendations are to post a video announcement on launch day, a text update the next month, then future posts every 3 months if the blog post content is evergreen and still timely.
- On Pinterest, it’s filled with “repins” of duplicate content, so fresh content is golden. Thus, we recommend “pinning” a vertical or square image related to the blog post on an appropriate board along with the link to the blog post to drive traffic.
- For other social networks both new and old, research their acceptable community standards and schedule your posts accordingly.
B. Email Marketing
One of the best one-to-one relationship tools available in your promotional arsenal is still good old email. Here are six ideas for using email marketing to reach your audiences.
- Email Blast: Send a short email to your subscribers or appropriate segments with an announcement about the new blog post.
- Email Newsletter: Include a short blurb and link to the new post.
- Contacts: Send an email your business contacts, either will all of them in the BCC field or individual customized emails if possible.
- Friends: Email your friends from your personal account with information about the benefits of the new blog post.
- Peers: Email at least 3 peers in your field to request sharing the post with their network.
- Email Signature: In your business email system, update your signature with the title to the new blog post and a hyperlink to the post.
C. Community Content Marketing
Across the internet are popular and niche communities on the major social networks or much smaller ones. Invest some time to research which online communities are used by your target audience to hold discussions related to their problems and challenges. Then, join those groups. The key is to participate in the discussions with value-added comments, not promotional messages! Your objective should be to gain trust and credibility as a thought leader with insights and storytelling while using your blog post and its link as a reference.
- Facebook Groups: Join Groups that are related to the blog topic.
- LinkedIn Groups: Join Groups related to the blog topic and highlights.
- Reddit: Find and comment in “subreddits” similar to the blog topic then be genuine with your comments.
- Quora: Search for questions related to the blog post then provide helpful answers and a link to the post as a reference.
- Slideshare: Create a slideshow, images, or video that can be shared to help community members searching for the blog post’s keywords.
- BlogPostVoteUp: Community for bloggers to link to their current blog posts and find new and interesting blog posts to vote up.
- Digg: The legendary bookmarking site is still a source for submitting your blog post’s URL to its community of readers and curators.
- Flipboard: A distribution platform for brands or publishers for sharing your content with their readers.
- Mix (formerly StumbleUpon): Platform that allows you to share your blog post so it can be found and curated by its users.
- Tailwind Tribes (for Pinterest): Submit your blog post image(s) as pins that can be discovered by their communities called “tribes”.
- Triberr: This site imports your blog content into “tribal streams” for members to share to their audience.
- Viral Content Bee: This platform allows you to add your blog post’s URL, title and description as a “project”, which its community members can then share.
D. Blogger Outreach
Connect with fellow bloggers in your industry by building long-term relationships with them. The foundation of those relationships is trust. To build trust, first research them and their site then read several of their blog posts before you try these tactics…
- Social: Follow the blogger on all of their social networks. Be genuine and comment on any social posts where you can add value to their discussion.
- Subscribe: Sign up for their email list. Reply to an email with a positive comment and compliment.
- Intro Email: Send a personalized email introducing yourself and what you can offer them in terms of your skills, experience, insights and network connections.
- Share: Contact the blogger with an offer to either share links or form another type of partnership opportunity.
- Guest Post: Offer to write a guest post on the blogger’s site that would provide value to their audience and meet their standards.
For more advice, check out this Blogger Outreach Guide from Backlinko.
Bonus Tactic: Find the blogger’s best article that relates to your content, mention it and link to it in one of your future blog posts, then contact the blogger and let them know about the backlink when your post is published.
E. Influencer Outreach
Although bloggers can be influential, this category focuses on people who are influencers based on their career, experience, knowledge, lifestyle, or connections. To keep it simple, three common categories of influencers are mega influencers (reach over 1 million people), macro influencers (reach 10K to 1M people) and micro influencers (reach up to 10K people). Here are some tactics to try to help promote your blog posts…
- Invite: Make an offer to an influencer to post on your blog.
- Collaborate: Ask the influencer to collaborate on a blog post topic.
- Gifts: Provide the influencer with free samples or products in exchange for a mention.
- Contests: Run a contest with a high-perceived value prize and ask the influencer to share the contest with their audience.
- Affiliates: Offer a unique discount code that the influencer can share with their audience and receive compensation for each successful transaction.
Here’s a pro tip: When someone calling themselves an “influencer” contacts you asking for free products but they’re not a perfect fit for your strategy, give them this offer:
- They can BUY your product.
- They will receive a unique discount code to share.
- If they generate 5 or more sales that use the code, then you’ll credit them back 100% of their purchase.
For more information and ideas, check out the Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing by Alexa.
F. Syndication
Our definition of syndication is using methods to repost your blog article on sites that have massive audiences. The key to reposting your original article on their site is making it SEO-friendly with a canonical link to the original post that you created earlier. Here are a few recommended sites for syndication:
- Medium: If you’re looking for a free self-publishing solution, start with Medium because of their large audience and great tools.
- LinkedIn Publishing Platform: In addition to making short updates, learn more about LinkedIn Publishing in Agora Pulse’s article.
Discover four effective syndication strategies in Larry Kim’s article.
G. Blog Commenting Strategy
To establish yourself as a thought leader and build backlinks to the blog post, I recommend finding websites with high domain authority where your target audience likes to have discussions in the comments. Then, read the article, formulate a response that adds value to the discussion and post your comment. Since not all comments sections allow hyperlinks, here are the tactics:
- Comment without a Link: Leave a value-added comment and reference your blog and/or blog title that they can search.
- Comment with a Link: Leave a value-added comment plus a hyperlink to the blog as a reference for the readers.
For more tips, visit Search Engine Journal’s Guide to Link Building via Blog Comments.
H. Internal Marketing
In addition to promoting your blog post to people outside your organization, don’t forget the power of Internal Marketing to your employees. I recommend including these tactics:
- Employees: Send an all-staff message about the new blog post, its benefits, and highlights, then request that they forward the email, share the post, and like any social media updates.
- Top Management: Ask your CEO and top management to share the blog post since they are influencers based on their position of power.
- Internal Newsletter: Request that your internal communication team adds a reference to the blog post in the next newsletter.
I. Repurpose Content
After the original blog post is published, you have the opportunity to create backlinks to the post by repurposing the content. The backlinks will help promote your content with every new piece of content that you generate from the original source. Here are some tactics:
- Snippets: Use highlights from the blog post to create smaller pieces of content for social media or shorter blog posts, all of which reference the first post.
- Slideshow: Convert the blog post into a slideshow by splitting the content in organized slides, then upload it to Slideshare with a link back to the blog post, or use any of the alternatives.
- Video: Transform the blog post to a video with Lumen5, which converts text to a video marketing asset.
- Graphic: Use the highlights from the blog post to create an amazing infographic then post it on an infographic hosting site like Visual.ly, which lets you create a link back to your site.
- Audio: Many of your audience members prefer to consume content on the go–exercising, commuting, doing chores, etc.–so you should provide an audio medium such as a podcast. In the podcast episode related to your blog post, you can reference the blog post or include a backlink in the show notes.
J. Paid Advertising and Retargeting
During my career helping run a major newspaper’s website in the 2000s, we experienced downsizing due to Craigslist reducing our Classifieds revenue. Therefore, we had to do more with less and first turned to free solutions like the first 60 tactics. But, some paid solutions provide great returns so I recommend you investigate these paid tactics as well.
- Facebook Ads: For my clients, I typically only recommend boosting posts and using Facebook Ads Manager for posts that eventually lead to lead generation and sales. But you know your audience, budget, and marketing goals the best, so you must decide if this is a viable tactic for all or some of your blog posts. Make sure you’re using the Facebook Pixel for retargeting opportunities!
- Google Ads: When a blog post is part of a marketing campaign to generate leads or sales, I recommend using your keyword strategy to create a Google Ads campaign to drive traffic to your blog post.
- Outbrain: If you have the budget for paying for a targeted audience, explore Outbrain to help with the syndication of your blog post.
For more options, explore the article on SingleGrain called “Paid Content Promotions” which compares 8 platforms.
RELATED RESOURCES
Our list is by no means comprehensive since the tools and tactics are always changing. To provide you with more information, here are a few more resources that I’ve curated to help you with blog promotion:
A. 41 Content Promotion Tools by OptIn Monster
B. 70+ Blog Promotion Sites by khrisdigital
C. 40+ Blog Promotion Tactics by Robbie Richards
D. 12 Elements of a Meticulous Content Marketing Plan (free eBook) by DMarketingU: “Content Publishing and Promotion” is Element #10 of 12 in the eBook.
CONCLUSION
Content creation is only 20% of the equation to a blogging strategy while content promotion is the 80% that will help you achieve your goals. To reach your audience, you must create a strategic plan using several of the 63 tactics from 10 different blog promotion categories. Definitely include as many free tactics from our list as possible and paid methods if it fits your budget.
What other tactics, tools or websites would you recommend to help your peers promote their blogs? Please leave your advice in the Comments & Discussion section below.
NEXT STEP
This helpful Blog Post Promotion Strategy with these 63 tactics is just one of piece of the puzzle for an entire Content Marketing Strategy to provide guidance for your organization. If you need a Content Marketing Strategic Plan template and the training to learn how to write it, your next step is our online course “How to Create a Content Marketing Plan: 12-Step System to Success“.