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32 Experts Share Their Best Blog Post Promotion Tips

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In celebration of the launch of my first premium training course on how to promote your content, I asked some of the top blogging, content marketing, and online marketing experts to answer one important question.

What’s your most successful method of promoting a blog post or other single piece of content?

So without further ado, here are their answers!

1. Empower your readers with social sharing buttons.

mikestelznerEmpower readers to share your content as they consume it by placing the Digg Digg floating social share bar along the left side of your content as people scroll down the page. This enables them to easily promote your content to their favorite social channels. A good tip is to make sure it appears only after people have scrolled a bit down the page. See it implemented at Social Media Examiner.

~ Mike Stelzner is the founder of Social Media Examiner and host of the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

2. Link out to bloggers with large followings.

ramsaytaplinSo I’m assuming you don’t have a huge mailing list to share your latest post with. And I’m also assuming you don’t have a massive budget to run an advertising campaign. So how then does a blogger successfully promote a brand new blog post? Well, a lot of it is about contacts.

One tricky little thing I do is to write a massively useful post and in that post link out to bloggers/authors who have large followings on Google+ or Twitter. When the article goes live you shoot them a message letting them know that you mentioned them and nine times out of ten they will share your content. If you’ve mentioned them in a nice way with a high quality article you’ll often find yourself with new friends and contacts and a big new flood of traffic.

~ Ramsay Taplin has sold blogs for $20,000 and now helps people learn how to start a blog and work from the couch over at BlogTyrant.com.

3. Target content topics for the people you want to promote them.

carolticeThe post promotion that was my game-changer was taught to me by Jon Morrow of Boost Blog Traffic, to give credit. It’s to write a post on a topic that you know a particular top blogger would find interesting, and then to target it specifically to them on Twitter, at a time when you see they’re on there, with a reach-out like, “@bigblogger – your readers might enjoy [blog post title] [LINK].”

You can see the one I sent out being retweeted by my intended target, Darren Rowse of Problogger, below. This crashed my server it sent so much traffic over, and was really the start of my blog being discovered by a wider audience.

~ Carol Tice writes the Make a Living Writing blog, where subscribers receive the free 20-week e-course Marketing 101 for Freelance Writers.

4. Connect with influencers in your market.

andreavahlIn today’s world, content marketing is where it’s at. People are looking for valuable things to share with their followers and fans. If you have a valuable piece of content that you want shared more widely, make sure you have built up connections with other influencers in your niche. This doesn’t happen overnight. Start by sharing their content (be a giver before you ask for a favor) and connecting with them either live in person or through things like Skype or Google+ hangouts.

Once you have built up connections with other influencers, they may naturally share your great content but they might also miss it. You can do things like e-mail them and ask them to share it. Have a pre-written 140-character tweet that they can easily cut and paste to make it easy. Or tell them which article you want share and make sure your social buttons are easy to find for them to share it. I am part of a couple of groups that do this for each other such as The Best Keynote Speakers. Another way you can do this is through tools like Triberr or Social Media Buzz Club. Make sure you are sharing their content as well and only occasionally asking for shares to salesy content.

~ Andrea Vahl is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and co-founder of the Social Media Manager School.

5. Get influential people involved to spread the message.

russhenneberryThe best way to promote a blog post is to ensure that your content references influential people. Make it a part of your process to interview people, quote them in your content, link to their websites, etc. etc. Get influential people involved and they will help you spread the message. As a bonus, adding the perspective of influential people usually makes the content better. These people are influential for a reason. This very post is a great example of this method. All of the folks that answered this question are likely to spread it to their network. Brilliant job Kristi! 🙂

~ Russ Henneberry is a content marketing and analytics professional who helped grow the CrazyEgg blog from 0 to 100k visits per month.

6. Participate in link parties.

allisonboyer On my food blog, the absolute best method for getting the word out about a post has been link parties, which are weekly collections of links about a specific topic. If you blog in a visual niche (food, travel, DIY, etc.) you need to be doing link parties! Not only do you reach the audience of the blogger running the link party, but you get on the radar of other bloggers, since most of the people who participate in the link party will browse through the other submitted links as well. It’s a great way to start building relationships with others in your niche.

~ Allison Boyer works for New Media Expo (NMX) and runs the food blog The PinterTest Kitchen with her mom and sister.

7. Automate promotion with Twitterfeed.

RuanOosthuizenMy personal, most successful content promotion strategy is combining the two Social Media Networks Twitter and Facebook with an online application called Twitterfeed. I created a free account on the platform, then I set up feeds from the blog networks with relevant content that I follow and trust, connecting my Twitter account and Facebook page. So each time a specific blog publishes new content, it gets delivered to my Twitterfeed account through the blog’s feed that’s set up on it. The content then gets published to my Twitter account as well as Facebook page.

The nice thing about Twitterfeed is that you can set up pre- and post tweet content, which I typically use to mention the @user of the content to be shared. It’s also a “set-and-forget” type of operation as you set everything up once and see content spread and shared while you sleep. Of course I set up my own sites on this platform as well, which means all my social media sharing gets done automatically.

This strategy has seen my content being shared and retweeted all over the place from owners in my blog network. To give you an idea, this strategy has created over 3000 backlinks to my author site FreelanceBloggingLife.com and in only 6 months since its launch resulted in the site being rewarded with a Google Page Rank of 3. Form y new upcoming project Christian Book Blogger that launches on Sept 2nd, I have already accumulated 1800 Twitter followers, 115 Facebook page ‘likes’ and 70+ email subscribers, using this exact strategy.

~ Amongst many other online projects, Ruan Oosthuizen is a passionate entrepreneur and founder at VirtualPropertyIncome.com where he documents every step he takes as well as all the results he gets from all his efforts building niche websites that generate passive, residual income after an acceptable amount of time, resources and ground work are put into it.

8. Ask people to help you promote it.

patflynnMy favorite method of promoting a blog post is pretty old school – it’s asking people to share it. If you publish an amazing piece of content that you feel is share-worthy (which should be every piece of content that you write), then you have permission to ask those who consume it to share it. It’s totally okay to ask, and sometimes that’s all it takes to get people to take that extra effort to do so. Combine that with making it incredible easy to share, and you’ve got yourself a winning combination.

~ Pat Flynn is a beloved thought leader in the areas of online entrepreneurship, digital marketing, and lifestyle businesses on the Smart Passive Income blog.

9. Make your content more promotable.

nealschafferWe all know that sharing our blog posts in social media is one of the best ways to promote it. Our social media followers will see them when they’re online, and undoubtedly a portion of them will end up sharing them with their social networks.

The problem is that everyone else is doing the same thing, so how do you rise above the noise? To be honest with you, I find the best way to promote your content is to ensure that you create content that has one or a combination of the following things. These are the items that seem to be most shared in social media and thus bring in a lot of traffic in the short-term – and through the social signals and backlinks generated continue to bring in a lot of traffic from search engines in the long-term:

  • Include lists of people or company names as the main content in your blog post and tag/mention/etc. these entities when you promote your post on each of the social media channels. Most people and companies love the publicity and will more than often share the content with their network, assuming that the content is not actually a list per se and has meaningful content and analysis attached to it.
  • Include an infographic and indicate so in your title. I have only experimented with a few, but not only do people love to read – and share – infographics, Pinterest has given them a viral home where, assuming you are active on the platform, you can generate a lot of traffic back to your content from. In addition, graphics do show up more prominently in social media newsfeeds, so leveraging the visual is key.
  • Best or Top lists for your area of subject matter expertise are still evergreen content topics that generate a lot of traffic. The trick is to have enough (20 or 30 are better than 10) but to have enough meat in describing each item in your list that shows that your list is authentic and meaningful.
  • Focus on the negative: The mistakes that you’re making that no one knew. Everyone is afraid of doing something wrong, so focusing on the negative is always a great way to create a post that is easily promoted by others in social media.
  • Go to Google. Simply enter a keyword followed by a blank and look at the ten words that Google suggests. These are the words that people are searching information for. Have you written blog posts about all 10 of these topics? Are there timely topics that appear? Creating a blog post from a Google-recommended topic might make your content promotable because there are people actively looking for information on the topic.

Sure, promotion isn’t just about the content, and there are many things you can do that I’m sure others have written, but I would recommend first start by making your content more promotable.

~ Neal Schaffer is a social media strategy consultant and author of the new book Maximize Your Social.

10. Email your list.

ryandeissThis one’s easy…I mail my subscriber list and tell them I posted something new. 🙂

Some may accuse me of cheating, but to me it highlights the #1 job of any content marketer, which (in my humble opinion) is to build enough trust and wanting in your readers that they joyfully give you their email address in the HOPES that you’ll remind them when you have more great content.

And this isn’t as difficult as everyone makes it out to be…

If every bit of content you publish drives your readers to additional, premium content that they can only get if they subscribe, then you have a lead generation machine that literally feeds itself. It goes without saying (although I’ll say it anyway) that your content needs to be amazing, but assuming it is and assuming you give your readers a good reason to give you their email address, it isn’t hard to build an email list that can eventually spawn an entire business.

~ Ryan Deiss is a 10 year Internet Marketing Veteran, and at the age of 30 Ryan has become a widely followed and respected IM Guru releasing countless reports and courses on subjects ranging from social media to continuity programs and SEO.

11. Time your email delivery.

richbrooksMost successful web marketers and business owners will tell you that the power is in the list, and online that means your email list. Tweets, Facebook updates and other social media channels can offer the benefits of social proof and help reach a wider audience, but if I’m trying to drive traffic to a new blog post, email trumps all social media.

The new wrinkle is timing, however. Many of our readers check their email when they first wake up, almost always on a smart phone. If they’re reading your email on phone and it’s not optimized for mobile, studies show they’re most likely to just delete it. Even if it is optimized for mobile, I know that I use my phone to quickly delete most marketing messages, even when I sign up for them.

Better to plan your email to land in their inbox AFTER the morning rush (and purge!) Once they’ve gotten a few things done, they’ll be more likely to see and read your email, driving them back to your blog post.

~ Rich Brooks is president of flyte new media, a web marketing and design company that helps small businesses increase their visibility, drive qualified traffic to their website, and convert that traffic into leads and business.

12. Promote others.

anahoffmanPromoting others has always been my most successful way to promote Traffic Generation Café. That includes both acknowledging my readers for their incredible contributions to TGC growth: comments, mentions, social media sharing (like I do in my Weekly Marketing Skinnies), as well as generously linking out to relevant resources on other blogs in each and every one of my posts. “Give and you shall receive” goes a long way.

~ Ana Hoffman is the web traffic generation expert. That’s why I started TrafficGenerationCafe, focusing on various ways to increase website traffic like search engine traffic, social media traffic, networking, as well as how to convert that traffic into subscribers and buyers.

13. Have a relationship with your social connections.

heidicohen Leverage the power of other people’s networks by reaching out to influential colleagues and asking them to share your content. This works best if you have a relationship with the social connections, you’ve mentioned them in your post, and you’re not a pest.

~ Heidi Cohen is the President of Riverside Marketing Strategies and Chief Content Officer of HeidiCohen.com.

14. Take a contrarian approach to a hot topic.

tomewer I have a few thoughts on this topic but I’ll just give you the approach that has been the most successful for me. In fact, this approach wasn’t deliberate but it had a huge effect — driving the post in question to the front page of Hacker News and getting it 15,000+ page views in just one day.

It was a post on responsive design and my approach was simple — I explained why I don’t think responsive design is worth it under many circumstances. To put it another way, I took a contrarian approach to a hot topic. This generated an awful lot of debate (200+ comments) with people arguing for and against, often vehemently.

The post didn’t require any promotion — it hit the ground running. Of course, if I had promoted it I am sure that it would have been even more “popular” (if you want to put it that way ;-)). Controversy can take you a long way, but I will say that you should be only be controversial when you think that you have a good reason for being so. Being controversial for the sake of controversy is not something I would recommend.

~ Tom Ewer is a professional blogger and founder of Leaving Work Behind and Healthy Enough.

15. Include quotes and excerpts from personalities with your idea audience.

gregoryciotti One of my favorite ways to promote a post actually begins with how the post is created. Utilizing what I call The Drip Technique, any article you create can get the exposure of a “round-up post” without actually being a round-up post. How? You simply “drip” in features throughout the piece, grabbing quotes and excerpts from personalities with your ideal audience and putting them in where appropriate.

Check out how I put this in action in an article called The New 4Ps of Marketing. Under each subheading, I added a quote from a respectable entrepreneur/marketer on what they thought. When you feature people, they are likely to share it, but by ‘dripping’ in these features, you still control the flow of the content, and don’t have to rely on a pure round-up to get exposure.

~ Gregory Ciotti is the marketing strategist at Help Scout.

16. Recycle Facebook posts in different formats: links, images or just text.

leowidrichWhat we’ve found and what helped us to significantly increase our Facebook engagement on articles is to use different formats on the same type of content.

Especially since the shelf-life of a link being posted to Facebook is only three hours, there is no way that all your fans will see it. In fact, only a small fraction of them—around 10%—will ever see your post.

The way we go about this is to tear up the article into different, smaller stories and post them individually to Facebook:

First, we post the actual link:

Then we go and post only one image to explain part of the post:

This way you can get double or even triple the amount of engagement by highlighting different elements of the post with each picture.

~ Leo Widrich is the co-founder of the popular Buffer social scheduling app.

17. Make your content amazing.

jasonfalls Make sure the blog post or piece of content is amazing in the first place.

~ Jason Falls is a digital strategist, author, speaker, and founder of Social Media Explorer.

18. Email people you mention in your posts and ask them to tweet.

neilpatel My single most successful strategy in promoting a blog post is to link out to other sites. Let me explain…

If I wanted to write a resource on the 50 best marketing blog posts of 2013, I would search all over the web for great posts. Once I compiled a list, I would turn it into a blog post. And then once I publish it I would then email each blog that I mentioned to let them know. I wouldn’t ask them to blog about it, but instead I would ask them to tweet about the post.

You should be able to get at least 10% if not 15% of the people you email to tweet out your post.

~ Neil Patel is an entrepreneur, investor, advisor and blogger at QuickSprout.

19. Find people who share links to similar content.

jasonacidre The key to have an effective and scalable content promotion strategy (for every piece of content you publish) is to make sure that it gets straight to those who are really interested about the topic.

I have 2 methods which I strongly recommend – that have also worked very well for me:

  • Connect, build relationships and earn the respect of other content publishers/influencers in your industry by providing content that’s proven to be of high value to them as well as to their followers. This can almost semi-automate your content promotion, especially when your peers are regularly updated whenever you have a new content published.
  • Identify and reach out to people who are genuinely interested in the subjects you have covered (your existing content assets). You can easily do this by tracking the sites/people who have linked to or shared your competitors’ similar content (using Topsy, Open Site Explorer and Ahrefs). I wrote a comprehensive guide on implementing this type of outreach for content promotion that you can also check out.

~ Jason Acidre is the Co-founder and CEO of Xight Interactive, and the author of Kaiserthesage – an online marketing blog.

20. Share it on social media a few times with different variations.

brianhonigmanI’ve found that one of the most successful methods of promoting a blog post is by sharing it on social media a few times with different variations of images and text. Visuals resonate with people far more than other types of content shared across social media. According to Zabisco, 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text. Therefore, including an interesting and relevant photo with your text and a link to your content will help it get more exposure across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+.

It is bad practice to post the same exact update to a social channel because it is repetitive and provides little value, however if you alter the visual and/or text used in a post it can help drive further traffic to content you’ve previously posted about in the past.

For example, I wrote an article on 50 Fascinating Content Marketing Statistics and Figures from 2013 that I choose to promote via Twitter. First, I tweeted a link to the article with the headline as text and an image from the post. Later on, I tweeted about the article again but this time without a photo and referencing a specific statistic from the article with a link.

Each tweet was different from one another, minus the fact that each included a link and information from the same article. Look to vary the images and text used on your social channels to help promote your content to a wider audience.

~ Brian Honigman is a freelance writer, content marketer and social media consultant.

21. Challenge or agree with influencers to get their attention.

demianfarnworth My most successful way to promote a blog post is to get an influencers attention — inside the blog post. Challenge or agree with an idea close to them. Craft a compelling, original argument … one they can respect (and share) whether they agree with you or not. They may respond by sharing on the social web or, if you are lucky, in an actual blog post. I’ve received responses like that from Brian Clark (before I worked for him), Mike Elgan, and Seth Godin using this method.

~ Demian Farnworth is the chief copywriter for Copyblogger Media. His main gig is writing clear, concise and compelling web copy that demands attention, creates desire and compels action.

22. Share posts with niche LinkedIn groups.

stephsammonsLinkedIn has been a great platform for blog post promotion as well as creating discussions around new posts for me. Each time I publish a new post, I share it as a LinkedIn status update on my personal profile and simultaneously share it with my own niche LinkedIn group as well as other industry LinkedIn groups.

When sharing to LinkedIn groups, I try to include some personalized commentary or ask for feedback along with a link to the post to engage other LinkedIn members. With regard to the niche LinkedIn Group that I’ve built, I am also able to send out a new post to my members using the messaging feature (the limit is one message per week).

Additionally, I share new posts to my LinkedIn company page. By keeping my company page active with new blog posts, I’m able to grow more followers there. For blog posts that get stronger engagement on LinkedIn, I repost them at a later date with a different spin. I think many bloggers neglect LinkedIn as a valid channel for generating qualified visibility, engagement, traffic and leads.

LinkedIn has over 200 million active and engaged members who visit the site frequently to gain insights about their business or industry, and to network with others. It’s the purest form of online business networking that exists and it has really been a winner for me with regard to content promotion.

~ Stephanie Sammons is recognized as an industry leader in digital “influence” marketing for financial and professional services firms. She’s been named one of the Top 30 Top Social Media Bloggers in the World and is founder/CEO at Wired Advisor.

23. Facilitate real social buzz for quality content with Viral Content Buzz.

geraldweberWell, this is actually an easy answer for me. Viral Content Buzz is my number one way to promote content. Viral Content Buzz (VCB) is a web-based platform that utilizes a crowdsourcing model to facilitate the generation of REAL “social buzz” on QUALITY content.

Since I cofounded Viral Content Buzz with my long-time friend and partner Ann Smarty, this may seem like a biased answer. But the reason it’s actually not is Ann and I specifically created the platform because we needed a better and more efficient way to promote our best content, our clients’ cream of the crop content and the awesome content produced by the MyBlogGuest community.

Quality really is what makes VCB different from other platforms. Starting in 2008, I got serious about promoting content. After hitting the wall in terms of what I could do by manually emailing and messaging my online network, I began looking for a more scalable option.

Long story short, I tried just about every promotion platform under the sun. Unfortunately, they all ended up having a problem with spam in one form or another. So when Ann and I decided to start from scratch and build our own platform, we focused on features like credits, identity verification and moderation to ensure that the content shared through VCB would always be of the highest quality.

Thanks to Ann’s talent and tireless work, we’ve been able to build a great community around Viral Content Buzz over the last year. I’m also very happy that it has literally become my primary method for promoting content for both my own projects and my clients.

We’re always working to make VCB even better, so I strongly encourage anyone who hasn’t tried it yet to give it a whirl!

~ Gerald Weber is the cofounder of Viral Content Buzz and owner of Search Engine Marketing Group.

24. Keep content looking fresh and relevant.

aaronleeA method that works for me is sharing a piece of content on multiple social media platforms (especially Twitter), for a number of times while spreading it out over different time zones.

At the beginning, I was worried that people would be annoyed of seeing it multiple times. However when I finally decided to do so, I quickly learned that many people didn’t notice and getting the word out was easier that I had thought.
The lesson that I had learned here was that most people are not online all of the time. So by sharing it multiple times, it increases the chances of them reading it hence increasing the exposure. That being said, nobody likes a repetitive post and it does take a little effort to fix that.

My little secret is to add personalized titles and descriptions to different social media platforms. That way, each content would be personalized to fit to that network and to a specific audience. My posts wouldn’t look automated, even if it “technically” is. That little extra effort has helped me in keeping my content fresh and relevant.

~ Aaron Lee is the social media manager at Binkd, a comprehensive social media promotion platform. Aaron is also a writer at AskAaronLee.

25. Build up a network of people who will be interested in your content.

bellebethcooper One of the best ways I’ve found of promoting content is to develop relationships with people before you publish. Building up a network of other people in your space and an audience of readers who are interested in your topic will mean a lot of the hard work of promotion is taken care of for you.

Justin Jackson wrote an excellent post about this recently, where he explained that the best way to draw a crowd is to simply help people. Give back before you ask for help, and you’ll be more likely to get the support you need later on.

~ Belle Beth Cooper is a Content Crafter at Buffer and Co-founder of Hello Code.

26. Diversify your promotion campaigns and have a plan.

arniekuennOur most successful method of promoting a piece of content has been a combination of techniques. Instead of focusing all of our efforts on one platform or method of promotion, we tend to diversify our promotion campaigns.

When determining which platforms or methods to use, we take into consideration the client’s current social media following, relationships they have in their industry, budget available and the subject of the content piece itself. What may work great as a promoted post on Facebook, might not do as well as a sidebar advertisement on Linkedin. Most importantly, it’s essential to have a content calendar and always plan out your promotion strategy before it goes live.

But if I had to give just one tip that works the vast majority of the time, it is reaching out to influencers in that specific industry and making them aware of the blog post or piece of content. If we can get several of them to share it, it greatly expands our reach.

~ Arnie Kuenn is the president of Vertical Measures and author of Accelerate!

27. Have a seed site to launch it off of.

rosshudgens The best way to get a piece of content working is have a “seed” site to launch it off of. If you have a built up audience, that’s hopefully your own account, company account, Facebook or Twitter. If you’re a business, that “seed” site should be someone/some site that is high traffic that you know you have a good relationship with/know how to get content to the top of, and then get it front of them by being a reputable/consistent source of offering them good content. For agencies, that can be social sharing sites where you might have a connection with the webmaster because you frequently send them good stuff. For businesses, that could be the press people who you consistently deliver great, newsworthy pieces that evoke trust.

~ Ross Hudgens is the founder of Siege Media, a content marketing agency. He is a frequent speaker on the internet marketing circuit and is also known for his blogging on SEO, content marketing and entrepreneurship.

28. Share influencer content without asking for anything in return.

joepulizzi Do you know where your customers are hanging out if they are not on your site? That is the audience for your blog posts, but they are probably engaging in other people’s content (OPC). What you want to is get people who engage in content on influencer’s sites to, at some point, engage in content on your channels. So the first step is to make sure to get your list of 10-15 influencers together before you execute your strategy. Tools like LittleBird, Klout, Google Alerts and listening to Twitter conversation and hashtags can all be used to put your list together.

As influencers, these people are fairly important to our industry. They generally have “real” jobs, and are also extremely active on social networks, spending their time sharing content and blogging. Getting on their radar is not easy, so to get their attention, leverage a social media 4-1-1 program.

Social Media 4-1-1: Originally coined by Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping, Social Media 4-1-1 is a sharing system that enables a company to get greater visibility with social influencers. Here’s how it works:

For every six pieces of content shared via social media (think Twitter for example):

  • Four should be pieces of content from your influencer target that are also relevant to your audience. This means that 67 percent of the time you are sharing content that is not yours, and calling attention to content from your influencer group.
  • One piece should be original, educational content that you have created.
  • One piece should be sales-related — like a coupon, product notice, press release, or some other piece of content that no one will likely pay attention to.

While the numbers don’t have to be exact, it’s the philosophy that makes this work. When you share influencer content, they notice. And you share this content without asking for anything in return (so that when you do need something someday, those influencers are more likely to say yes).

~ Joe Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute (which produces the largest in-person content marketing event, Content Marketing World) and is the author of Epic Content Marketing.

29. Co-created content has social promotion built in.

leeoddenContent quality, packaging and timing all play a pretty important role for the success of any content promotion effort. In other words, start with content that’s worth promoting in the first place and make sure it’s optimized for search and share. Who wants to share or link to content that’s useful but boring, helpful but out of date, accurate but overly self promotional?

Content types that typically do well for promotion are tactical how to’s, lists and especially co-created content. The great thing about co-created content is that participants have an incentive to help you promote the finished product (as long as the end product is awesome). Co-created content has social promotion built right into the creation process. That means picking participants based on their ability to promote as much as their influence and subject matter authority.

Make it easy for them to contribute and share the content to their networks. Also, keep in mind, it’s not just the first level network that you’re trying to reach. When you can get your network’s network excited about a blog post, eBook, infographic or video, then growth can get exponential. Complement participant promotion with multi-channel promotions through your own network, email, ads, pitching blogs and industry news sites and through repurposing the original content. Show participants how successful the content sharing is and they may promote it even more. Most people want to align with a winner and will try harder if they see “winning” is possible or happening.

~ Lee Odden is the author of Optimize, CEO at TopRankMarketing.com and editor at MarketingBlog.com.

30. The single activity with the highest impact is being shared by individuals with influence.

franciscorosales To me, the single activity with the highest impact in content promotion is being shared by individuals with a certain level of influence. Sure, we can talk about it from a numbers point of view, a Tweet can result in a number of retweets, or pageviews, but you also have to consider the weight this recommendation carries coming from that specific individual.

The method to get there then, is in building and nurturing those relationships.

~ Francisco Rosales is author of SocialMouths and co-founder/CMO at TabFoundry.

31. Create content with promotion in mind.

DannyIny The best way that I’ve found to promote a blog post or piece of content is to bake the promotion right into it. In other words, don’t create the content and then wonder “now how am I going to promote this?” – instead, when you first set out to create the content, think about who it will be attractive to, how you’re going to tell them about it, and what will make it easy to share. Our most successful campaigns, like Engagement from Scratch! (that Kristi and many others co-authored, and then of course was happy to promote), the Naked Marketing Manifesto, and the Online Marketing Scavenger Hunt had loads of promotion built right in.

~ Danny Iny is the proud founder of Firepole Marketing and author of the best-selling book Engagement from Scratch.

32. Be generous with authorities in your space, online and off.

jonmorrow
There are lots of tips and tricks for getting traffic, but in my experience, the most effective tactic over the long term is being generous with the other authorities in your space. Leave a comment with evidence supporting their points, write an astonishingly awesome guest post for their blog, set up chairs for them when they’re speaking at a conference, promote their products and services, share links to their posts, and in general, so overwhelm them with generosity they can’t help feeling like they owe you. Then, when you have a particularly great piece of content you’d like to push, start calling in favors.

~ Jon Morrow is the founder of BoostBlogTraffic.com, a blog where he teaches writers how to get the traffic they deserve.

Want to learn more?

Do you need help building your network, connecting with influencers, and diversifying your content promotional strategies? If so, be sure to register today for Content Promotion Plan, the upcoming premium training course on content promotion.

By Kristi Hines

Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and ghostwriter who specializes in business and marketing topics.