How to Promote Your Blog Posts Effectively

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It is great that you are blogging for business. However, it is not enough to merely write your blogs. You need to promote your blog posts as well so that you get the most mileage out of them and so that you are able to leverage them effectively.

Building in the desert

Undoubtedly, it is critical that you write a top-quality blog. However, it is not enough if you don’t share it with the appropriate target audience in the most effective ways possible. After all, you not only want your target audience to read your blog posts but you also want them to share it with other people they know and trust. Promoting your blog posts properly will require some time and effort on your part. However, it is definitely worth the effort.

Writing a great blog post without promoting it properly is like building a casino in the desert. It may be the most wonderful, exciting, fun casino on earth. However, you won’t get any visitors because nobody goes there. In other words, you need to place your blog post where other (appropriate) people will be inclined to read it. Of course, there are several different ways in which you can go about promoting your blog posts. You will find that some are more effective than others and you will just have to experiment with them to determine which ones work best for you.

Promoting your blogs on the various social media channels

It is critical that you to understand how important it is to promote your blog posts on your chosen social media channels. The various social media channels will make or break your professional success online. You should consider the following:

Twitter: The first thing that you should do on Twitter is to post the actual blog article. After that, you will want to set up a schedule of tweets that are connected to the blog post throughout the course of the week. The next week, you will repeat the process. You should do that for as many blog posts (and at whichever frequency) you choose. A great way to hold your followers’ interest is by either changing the title of your blog post or turning the title into a question. People love to answer questions.

Google+: First and foremost, Google+ is a wonderful social media channel for posting your blog articles. It is effective when it comes to search engine optimization and it will enable you to form relationships with new people online. The more you interact with other people, the more willing (and excited) they will be to share your blog posts with others.

Pinterest: Pinterest is really hot right now. The graphic aspect of content is so important and it generally attracts a large volume of people for the simple reason that many people are visual. They respond much better to content that at least has a graphic (visual) aspect to it. There are several tips that may work for you if you include Pinterest images in your blog posts.

  • Stay away from human faces.
  • Use images that have a plain white background.
  • Try to make sure that the color red is somewhere in the image.
  • Use “portrait” rather than “landscape.”

It is very important that you carefully scrutinize your graphic images for maximum effect. You would be surprised to learn how and why your target audience members react to what they find in your graphic images.

Facebook: Facebook can be an extremely effective social media channel for your blog posts. It is a good idea for you to post your blog article and them inform all of your professional Facebook connections through a profile status update. This is also your opportunity to put in backlinks.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is at the top of the list of most effective professional social media channels. With that in mind, it is an excellent opportunity to share your professional knowledge through your articles. Of course, if you are going to post your articles in LinkedIn groups, make sure that you are well aware of the group rules first. That is very important.

YouTube: Videos are a great way to share your content (or videos embedded in your written content). You can do a “how to” video that is connected to your blog post. People generally love that. The video should be brief (15-30 seconds). You can then lead your viewers to your website so that you can get to know each other better.

Instagram: Instagram is a wonderfully effective way to promote your blog posts. You can post an image with some sort of caption, ask a question, leave a comment, or make a provocative statement that people are bound to respond to positively.

Conclusion

Your blog posts are a very important part of your social media marketing strategy and you should make sure that you use them to your fullest potential. There are many effective ways that you can do that. It is a good idea to do your homework so that you have a clear understanding of what is available and what works best for you and your business. The bottom line is that you need to do whatever it takes to get people to notice that your blog posts are valuable and enticing. Remember to share your blog posts with your social media communities at every possible opportunity (whenever appropriate).

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Author

  • Carolyn Cohn

    Carolyn Cohn is the Co-Founder & Chief Creative Services of CompuKol Communications. Carolyn manages CompuKol’s creative and editorial department, which consists of writers and editors. Her weekly blogs are syndicated globally. She has decades of editorial experience in online editing, and editing books, journal articles, abstracts, and promotional and educational materials. Carolyn earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

9 Responses

  1. Lynn Black says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: PeopleCount Social Media
    Discussion: How Do You Promote Your Blog?

    Great read. We advise all clients to promote through social media on the platforms appropriate. We work closely with many Vacation Rentals and Real Estate companies so we suggest the big 5 constantly.
    By Lynn Black

  2. Mitko Ivanov says:

    For some businesses there are certain places that could bring you a lot of targeted traffic and you could test different sources in 2 week periods. Pick 10 big social sites, then try to establish your presence there (always be helpful, try to answer people’s questions and avoid direct self promotion; at the end the goal is to build yourself as an authority in the niche). Then at the end of week 2 log in your analytic traffic tool and check the referral traffic – which are the winners, and which doesn’t delivered much. Leave the sources that didn’t performed very well and replace them with 2 new ones.

    Continue until the moment you discover the real winners and then focus your efforts there. It may be FB, it may be Linkedin or why not Reddit – you should always be testing with this.

  3. Lisa Olson says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Business Owner’s Toolkit
    Discussion: How Do You Promote Your Blog?

    Thanks for sharing this post. I agree with you that you need to be writing content and share that content. What I am seeing in the marketplace is that business owners know they need to be sharing their blog posts through social media, however figuring out the strategy and execution has been cumbersome. Have you seen that as well?
    By Lisa Olson

  4. Mark Harai says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Small Business & Independent Consultant Network
    Discussion: How Do You Promote Your Blog?

    In addition to this your blog post must talk about your client not your business or you. Great read! thank you for sharing.
    By Mark Harai

  5. Joan Stewart says:

    I do something few people do. It’s the #1 most effective strategy for driving traffic to my blog.

    My Pinterest board “50 Tips for Free Publicity” includes “how to” tips excerpted from blog posts. Each links back to a blog post. And each blog post links back to the Pinterest board. The board has 2,400+ followers and ***beats my own website*** on Google search.

    In fact, it has ranked #1 on Google for several months for the keyword phrase “free publicity.” I created a short YouTube video that explains how I do it:

  6. Kristen McLain says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Business Writers of America
    Discussion: How Do You Promote Your Blog?

    Start with one area and move to the next. Social media options are plentiful but to try them all at once–while writing the blog and scheduling it into your routine–will drive one crazy fast. Start small. Get comfortable with a particular social media channel and then add another. You may prefer one over another, but you’ll soon find out what works.

    I also send out my blog in a quick newsletter. A catchy headline, the first paragraph (grab a reader’s attention) and a link to your blog is a easy way to share your blog.
    By Kristen McLain

  7. Harshana Jayanetti says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Small Business Accelerator
    Discussion: How Do You Promote Your Blog?

    Our blog is designed on wordpress and we have incorporated the suit of social sharing tabs such as twitter, g+, pinterest, tumblr, FB, etc etc. The blog is then shared and synchronized. We find this one of the best ways of promoting the blob.
    By Harshana Jayanetti

  8. Greg Dahlberg says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: B2B Technology Marketing Community
    Discussion: How Do You Promote Your Blog?

    Separate personal and professional blogs by the CMO (or any executive) help boost credibility and thought leadership. Like any asset, content that is valuable to the reader and the blog’s cross promotion across all channels is critical to increase readership and conversions.
    By Greg Dahlberg

  9. Bennet Bayer says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: B2B Technology Marketing Community
    Discussion: How Do You Promote Your Blog?

    Interesting, I see a balance between “thought leadership” and making “forward looking statements” being a bit of a challenge as many CMO’s (sorry, but I discount overuse of the title in a smaller organization) I suspect are associated with public organizations. Great discussion, thank you!
    By Bennet Bayer