You spend hours crafting a powerful post. After scouring the web for resources, studies, statistics, and images, you’ve finally put the finishing touches on it.
You hit publish.
You’d love if that was all you had to do to get eyes on your work. But experience has taught you that you can build it all day – that doesn’t mean they’ll come. Instead, you’ve got to get out there and promote the content you’ve created.
Promoting your content can seem like an overwhelming, complicated task, which is why many business owners choose not to do it.
Maybe you’ll post it once on social media, but that is likely as much time as you’re willing to invest given how long the creation process took in the first place.
Well, I’m here to tell you that content promotion doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, sharing your company’s branded content has never been easier:
1. Email Your List Immediately
Every time you publish a new post, share it with your email list. People who love your blog will appreciate a nice, warm email that explains why they should continue reading.
I’ve found that it’s pretty easy to template these emails based on information pulled directly from the blog. It should include:
- A basic introduction
- The title of your post with a link
- Your post’s excerpt
- An ending call-to-action
Here’s an example using my latest post:
2. Include Recent Posts in Your Newsletter
If you post more than once a week, you need to create a weekly summary email as well. While some users will enjoy immediate emails, others would rather avoid a crowded inbox and receive a summary of that week’s content instead.
Letting users choose based on their preferences will lead to higher customer happiness (and that’s always a good thing!). Plus, there are many tools out there that will let you completely automate your post round-up emails, making this an incredibly easy way to share your content.
3. Put a Link in Your Email Signature
You could do this the old-fashioned way by manually updating your signature each week. But who has time for that? I’d recommend using a service like Wisestamp.
The RSS feature automatically pulls your latest blog post into your signature. Every time you send a new email, this signature gets attached to the bottom. Even better? You can use Wisestamp for free!
4. Include a Link in Your Social Profiles
If you’ve created a piece of content that you’re especially proud of, share a link to it in your social media bios. Leveraging your profiles is a great way to get social media traffic in addition to the sharing and promoting you already do.
A few places you can include a link include:
- Portfolio Links on LinkedIn
- Your Cover Photo on Facebook
- Your bio on Twitter
You may not want to do this every time you post content. But if you have something special to share, it’s a simple way to boost your reach.
5. Get Involved on Reddit
If you’re actively involved in the Reddit community, this can be a great place to share content, get feedback, and drive traffic. Start by finding subreddits related to your topic.
That said, it’s important to remember that Reddit is one of the most tight-knit communities on the web. They’re not fans of people selfishly self-promoting. You’ve got to give back.
Get involved by voting, commenting, and sharing other’s content long before you throw that right hook.
6. Write Multiple Social Media Posts
You don’t want to just share the same update over and over. That would get boring. Instead, create at least 20+ snippets you can pull out to craft a social media post. These snippets could include:
- Title variations
- Short quips from the content
- Quotes from influencers you used
- Any statistics or studies
7. Know Peak Sharing Times
Tools like Tweriod, studies that others have conducted, and you own personal data collection can reveal your peak times to post. Essentially, you’re looking for the times that will earn you the most shares, likes, re-tweets and clicks.
Create a social sharing calendar based around these times. Then, use a tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your updates to increase your chances of hitting your users while they’re active.
8. Use a Tool Like CoSchedule
Most social updating tools make sharing content a pain. You’ve got to go find the old post, grab the URL, and then head over to the tool – and you haven’t even created your update yet!
CoSchedule makes sharing your company’s branded content easier than ever. Start by connecting your blog directly to the tool. Then, when you want to share a piece of content – whether new or old – just click the blog in your editorial calendar and CoSchedule will create your update automatically.
9. Invest in StumbleUpon Paid Discovery
If you’re willing to spend a bit of money, try StumbleUpon’s paid discovery service to get immediate eyes on your content.
That said, if you’re going to go this route, understand that StumbleUpon users make very quick decisions about your content. Make sure to optimize your blog with all of the following before investing:
- A professional, modern blog and/or website design
- An engaging image that captures attention
- An interesting and compelling headline
- A strong hook that keeps people reading
10. Give Content Discovery Platforms a Try
Outbrain is another paid discovery platform. Have you ever seen the promoted stories at the bottom of popular blogs and media outlets? This often comes from platforms like Outbrain.
Sites like these use a cost-per-click model, and you can get started with as little as $10 per day. If you’ve got the budget, this is an easy way to share your content with thousands of new readers.
11. Drive Traffic With Curated Content
Sniply uses content curation to drive targeted traffic back to your website. It’s pretty simple:
- Find a piece of content related to the content you created.
- Enter a message and call-to-action.
- Link to the content you want to promote.
The tool then uses your message to create a post on your social media profile. Once someone clicks through, they’re taken to that related content. On that page, though, the person will see a call to action with a link back to your content.
12. Get Your Content on Scoop.it
Scoop.it is another content curation platform that can drive loads of traffic. And, as an added bonus, many of the site’s pages have a high page rank, making it a decent strategy for building backlinks as well.
To use this tool, start by finding pages that are related to the type of content you create. You want to look for people who have a high number of pageviews and an active Twitter account. Follow these people.
Then, once you’ve created your content, it’s time to promote. Go to the relevant Scoop.it pages and “suggest” content for them to scoop. Your suggestion will alert the owner and they’ll decide if they want to add your content.
Many scoopers also share the content on Twitter, making the tool that much more powerful.
13. Promote Recent Posts on Your Blog
Social media marketing and SEO efforts might point people to older blog posts on your site. When that happens, you want a way for people to easily find related and recent posts.
Optimize the bottom of your post links to more content using a related posts plugin, like the one pictured below:
You can also use a popular posts sidebar tool:
14. Repurpose the Content
Repurposing your content refers to the act of tweaking your content for a new website or medium. You’ll find numerous ways to repurpose your content around the web to get your creative juices flowing.
Of course, this tactic takes a bit more time than the others. But since you’ve already drafted the core content, it’s not like you’re reinventing the wheel.
15. Set Up a Portfolio at Contently
Writers, journalists, and authors can set up a free portfolio over at Contently, which is a great place to get your content seen by a new audience.
Once created, anyone can access your portfolio. It’s an easy way to share, showcase, and distribute your content – helping you to get the most out of the branded pieces you’ve created.
So there you have it! That’s 15 easy ways to share your company’s branded content in order to get the most mileage out of your work.
Have another idea to add to this list? Share your suggestions by adding a comment below!
Image Credits
Featured Image: alphaspirit via Shutterstock
All screenshots taken May 2015
Disclosure: I am a paid customer of some of these products, but have no other affiliations with the companies mentioned in this article.
