Each month you spend a great deal of valuable time creating engaging and resourceful content for your blog. And although you’ve done your research, added amazing links, and optimized it for SEO, your blog just isn’t getting the attraction you want.
So, why not promote it on social media?
Nowadays, there’s only a handful of people who aren’t on social media. You might not be on all the social media platforms, but you’re probably committed to a platform of your choice. Whether it’s Instagram, for the visual lovers, or Twitter, for the short but sweet messages, there’s a place to suit us all.
In addition to simply posting it on your social profiles, there are other great ways to share your blog. Here, I’m going to share with you five other ways for you to generate engagement and increase reach with your content.
1. Timing is Everything
When you decide to post on social media can affect the reach and engagement rate of your post.
Although your target audience may be similar in interests across your social media platforms, they may not always be the same group of people. This means people who are engaging with your posts on Facebook may not be the same as those on Twitter.
If you want to promote your blog and articles on social, you need to find out when your followers and fans are going to engage with you the post. There are several infographics and guides published that have a general time social media users engage online. However, there are also several easy to use tools that can provide a tailored posting time for your audience.
If you’re looking to find out when your Facebook fans are going to be on Facebook, you can look directly into the Facebook Insight section of your business page. Once you’re in there, you can click on ‘Posts’ to find out when your fans are usually online.
For example, the fans for my company, TechWyse Internet Marketing, are the most active between 9:00 A.M. to noon. If we want to share our blog with our Facebook fans, it would be ideal to share it during those times to get the best engagement and reach.
Now, if you want to see when you should post on Twitter. Moz has a great tool called FollowerWonk. Unfortunately, you will need to have a Moz account in order to use this tool, but I recommend using FollowerWonk or a similar tool if you want a detailed report on your Twitter performance.
Better yet, if you have a Buffer account, Followerwonk allows you to sync these times to your Buffer account. This way, you’re publishing at the hours your followers are the most active.
2. Share Them in LinkedIn Groups and Google+ Communities
When promoting your blog on social media, how often do you share it in LinkedIn groups and Google+communities?
Sharing your blog in these two places allows you to promote your blog with like-minded people.
You want to find relevant groups that will be interested in your blog topic. If you’re writing an article on social media marketing, you would look into LinkedIn groups and Google+ communities that are interested in the topic. Simply search the topic or term that relates to your blog and join the group or community. There are lots of groups available, but choose the one most relevant to your business. I would choose a group or community that you can continue to come back and gain knowledge or share additional articles.
However, you want to be extra careful when you’re sharing things in the community. Before you share it, think about whether your blog will be valuable and relevant for the members. You don’t want to seem promotional or spammy in the group. Try to be useful and bring value to other members.
Not only will this generate more traffic and engagement for your blog, you’ll also establish an authority for either yourself or your business in that community.
3. Don’t Forget to Use #Hashtags
Not many people are using hashtags effectively and efficiently.
Hashtags are a perfect way to increase shares, followers, engagement, and link visit. If you want to promote your blog on social, then you should definitely use hashtags to increase the reach of your post.
However, some may think the more hashtags you include, the better your post will perform. This isn’t always the case.
A study from Statista shows that a Facebook post with over 10+ hashtags has a much lower interaction than those with only 1 to 2 hashtags. In fact, the engagement rate for posts with 6 to 10+ hashtags drop by nearly 50%. When you’re adding too many hashtags on your social media post, you’re going to affect its readability. In fact, people are more likely avoid your post if you’re using unnecessary, irrelevant hashtags.
When you’re choosing a hashtag for your post, you want to focus on the topic you’re concentrating on. You want to be specific when you use hashtags and stick to a specific theme or topic. The more specific you are, the more targeted the audience will be.
In addition, the hashtag you choose should be popular among your target audience. You can easily search the hashtag online to see how often people are using it. Of course, you would want to find one that is popular and relevant to your business. If the last post for your hashtag was several months ago, you may want to consider using a different one to reach a wider audience.
4. Use Twitter Chats
Twitter chats is one of my most favorite places to share information and learn from people with similar interests. Influencers in the industry, people who want to learn more about the topic, and other individuals who are interested in the topic will often participate in these.
The purpose of Twitter chats is to generate conversation with one another and share valuable tips and tricks. During a Twitter chat, the host often has a number of questions prepared for the topic they will be focusing on that day.
When you’re participating in a Twitter chat, you can share your insights with others and even share a relevant blog post that can strengthen your answer.
A few months ago, I was participating in a #SEMrush chat on SEO mistakes you should avoid through my company’s Twitter account. The first question asked was about common bad SEO habits. Then, I remembered that my company created an infographic on the 10 commandments of SEO. This generated conversation in that chat and was also linked to on the #SEMrush blog.
Not only did the blog get shared and viewed by participants in the Twitter chat, it was also linked in a chat summary on the SEMrush blog as well.
However, when you’re sharing posts in Twitter chats, you want to be mindful when you’re tweeting blogs into a Twitter chat. Unless the post is absolutely valuable for your readers, I would not recommend sharing it because you don’t want to seem promotional in a chat. You want to be helpful, not promotional.
5. Paid Campaigns
Finally, you can use paid campaigns to promote your blog! Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn all have paid options for you to increase the reach of your social media post with a couple of dollars.
What’s great about paid campaigns is that you can decide which post you want to promote on social media. In addition, you can target your blog post to specific individuals based on their demographics, events, behaviours, and interest. This way, you can target individuals that are the most relevant and interested in the post that you’re promoting.
When you’re deciding which post to spend your ad money on, you want to choose the one that will generate the most engagement and conversation.
If there is an old blog post that generates lots of traffic to your site, you can consider re-sharing it on social media. This way you can reintroduce old ideas to your new followers.
Conveniently, Facebook will notify you that one of your page post is performing really well and for you to consider promoting the post. If you want to find more information on your post engagement, you can also view the statistics in your Facebook Insights.
The same can be done for Twitter and LinkedIn as well. If there is a previous blog that is generating lots of engagement, you can consider sponsoring them to appear in front of more people.
There is more to promoting your blog on social media than just hitting the share button. Try these five ways to increase the engagement, shares, and clicks to your blog. If you have any additional tips, share them with me in the comments below.
Image Credits
Featured Image: Pixelkult/Pixabay.com
All screenshots by Cherry Kwan. Taken December 2015.
