Best Content Promotion Strategies

When it comes to leading people to your website, you don’t just create great content, then cross your fingers and hope it gets noticed. You want to do everything you can to help that content get attention. That means writing for SEO and practicing the best content promotion strategies.

Not sure what the best strategies to promote your content are? This post will help.

What is Content Promotion?

In case you’re unsure what I mean by content promotion, let me unpack the concept. Content promotion is when you take efforts to distribute and share your content, helping it reach a wider audience. 

Content promotion can help you get:

• Greater brand awareness
• More engagement
• Increased website traffic
• Authority in your industry
• Conversions

In other words, content promotion helps more people see your content, so you can accomplish the goals you set when you decided to create that piece.

Key Channels for Content Promotion

Now that you understand generally what content promotion is, how do you do it? What are the ways you can go from an “if we build it they will come” to a “check out this valuable information you need” approach?

Key channels for content promotion include:

• Social Media. More than 62% of the world’s population uses social media. The sheer size of this audience makes it a no-brainer to share your content there. Choose the platform or platforms where your audience already gathers and actively share and engage there.
• Email Marketing. 76% of consumers say they like receiving emails from brands they’re interested in. That means emails that are targeted to the right audience work to spread the word about your business. Also, don’t just rely on your email newsletter. Send drip campaigns for downloads or content united around a topic important to your audience. Share your most recent, popular, or relevant content in your email signature. Encourage your team to do the same.
• Paid Advertising. If you have a new topic or deal that you want people to respond to immediately, paid advertising can be an effective approach. However, remember that you will use paid methods strategically and not for all content promotion.
• Webinars and Video. Have some key information that applies to your audience? Don’t just put it in one format. Promote your content via a webinar or video to reach people who would rather view and listen than read. 

The Best Content Promotion Strategies

The best content promotion strategies depend a lot on your audience, where they’re gathered, and what they want or need from your brand. Below are some things to always consider related to content promotion.

Know Your Audience

The better you know your digital marketing target audience, the easier it will be to reach them. You’ll understand what messages they’re likely to engage with and where. Also, if you understand what they care about, you’ll know how to approach your messages in a way that resonates with them.

Don’t Limit Yourself

The best content promotion strategy is diverse. Limiting yourself to just one medium isn’t likely to be effective. It’s not even really a strategy because you aren’t making the most use of the tools at your disposal. 

Repurposing your content allows you to get the most from each written piece and capitalize on the information by sharing it in various formats across mediums. Have a blog post? Share it in your email newsletter, record tips from the post as video, or create graphics from them and share them on your social media. Take the advice you provided in the post and create a webinar. Record the webinar and put it on your YouTube channel. Also, write a follow-up post with a webinar transcript for your website. 

Your goal should be to get as much content as possible out of each piece you create. Your creativity really is the only limit.

Don’t Just Share

People want a relationship with you, not one-way communication. Don’t just share your content like you’re cramming it down their throats. Engage with them. Ask questions. Respond to their answers. Have discussions. This approach is critical on social media. It’s called social for a reason. You can’t just schedule posts and not show up to participate.

Use Internal Links

Most people probably don’t think of this one as content promotion, but it totally is. Use links to relevant content in your current content. It can give older pieces that are still helpful a new life by encouraging people to click on them for more information on a topic they’re interested in.

Internal linking has the added benefit of keeping people on your site and looking around, building a relationship and supporting conversion.

Practice Thought Leadership

I saw a comment on LinkedIn yesterday that really resonated with me. The person said, “A lot of people are having thoughts and forgetting the leadership.” 

Talk about mic drop!

Are you adding to or leading the conversation or just repeating what everyone else is saying? 

None of us need more noise. What we need is answers to our questions and guidance through our problems. Be an authority in your field by telling the stories, saying the things, and providing the advice that others aren’t willing to. You’ll become known for those things and people will be drawn to your content.

Share Repeatedly

Content promotion isn’t a one-and-done. You want to share the same posts repeatedly to ensure your audience actually sees what you’re sharing.

Let me give you an example as to why. Did you know the average tweet only stays in a person’s feed for about 20 minutes? It’s even less if they follow a lot of accounts. Think about how small that makes the window of opportunity for them to see something from you unless the algorithm serves it up to them.

These same types of limits apply on other social media platforms, which is why repeat sharing is important.

I’m not saying you should share the same post repeatedly on the same day. Instead, repeat sharing over time as long as the content is still relevant for your audience.

Mirror What You Enjoy

See someone who is just killing it with promotion? Watch them. Don’t copy their work or efforts, but learn to mirror what they’re doing that you think will serve your audience. 

Not sure what I mean? Let me give you an example.

I love this post from Maddy French on what her clients can expect when they work with her. So, I took a screenshot, sent it to our social media team, and asked if we could do something like this for our Content Journey clients.

Of course, we won’t use Maddy’s wording or design, but we’ll apply the concept in a way that benefits our audience.

Encourage Sharing

Your reach is only so wide. That’s why community is critical. Encourage people to pass along your content that they find valuable. Don’t assume that they’ll know that you want them to or that it will help you and your brand. 

Also, remember that all sharing doesn’t come from social media. Be sure to include social sharing buttons on your blog posts to make it easier for people to share content from your website.

Consider Timing

Did you know there’s a best time to share any type of content? It’s true. There are most popular days and times for sharing on every social media platform. There are best times and days to send newsletters. There are even ideal days and times to host webinars. 

Most of these “perfect” sharing times depend on your topic, audience, and who you’re trying to reach, but it’s worth researching them and trying them out.

When you’re just getting started with a platform, I’d also encourage sharing at random just to see what happens. You may find a time or day that works better for your audience.

Get Creative

Your creativity really is your only limit when it comes to content promotion. Sure, there are a certain number of platforms that you can use, but there are SO MANY ways you can use them. 

In the book Get Different, Mike Michalowicz tells readers that “marketing that can’t be ignored” happens when you get your ego out of the way. He writes:

“Be different so that people must take notice. Our own fear of standing out is the number one reason why we struggle to get noticed. You must overcome your fear of being judged, step outside the box, and get different.”

Don’t believe that getting creative (maybe even embarrassing yourself a little) could be the key to amazing promotion? Watch some early episodes of marieTV. Marie Forleo needed to stand out, and she made it happen through funny skits, dancing, and showing her personality. Now, she’s a New York Times bestselling author and has a worldwide audience for her online training. 

Include Others

When you include others in your content, be sure to share it with them so they know.

When you quote someone or promote their work, they’re likely to pass your content along. 

Also, giving strong examples that include real people gives your content more credibility and builds authority.

I want to be clear that I did not include Maddy, Mike, or Marie (How did all those Ms happen?) for this reason, but sometimes examples just write themselves.

Practice Trial and Error

I know you read this post’s title and came here for the keys to success, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Sure, there are some obvious places where you should share and promote your content, but how you do it depends somewhat on your audience. You have to try things and see if they work. Sometimes, it’s the effort you least expected that gets the most attention. That’s why it’s essential to monitor your analytics and see what’s working. Then, do more of that.

What Content Promotion (Probably) Won’t Do

I hope this post has ideas flowing for you. It certainly does for me. But before we go, I think it’s essential to drop a little reality on you. There are two important things that content promotion probably won’t do, no matter how hard you try.

First, content promotion probably won’t make your posts go viral. In fact, I’m not even sure what “go viral” means because what a lot of traffic is to one brand is a slow day for another. I say “probably” here because sometimes a promotion takes off and really surprises us, but there’s no magic formula for making that happen. Still, you show up and do what you can to help your content succeed.

Second, no matter how much content promotion you do, it probably won’t outweigh strong search engine optimization. This is our reality. More than half of website traffic comes from search, so you typically can expect most traffic that way. However, it doesn’t mean you don’t do your best to get your content noticed too.

Let Content Journey Write and Promote Your Content

At Content Journey, we’re experts in content marketing. That means we understand how to write and repurpose content to get the most from every piece. Whether it’s social media content promotion or email marketing you need, we can help. Book a call, and let’s talk about the best content promotion strategies for your business.