Every visitor that you get to your site is an opportunity for conversion. And content marketing is a great conversion tactic.
Not only does it help you engage and inform your audience, but it also helps you build strong relationships through relevant and valuable content.
But no matter how interesting or well-researched your content is, it’s only valuable if you are able to get it in front of your audience.
This is where content promotion comes in.
By promoting your content online, you are able to expand your brand’s reach and get your content in front of more people.
The more people who read and engage with your content, the more opportunities you have to turn a visitor into a customer.
The top 3 goals of content promotion are building awareness, acquiring new leads, and engaging leads.
But content promotion is no easy task! In fact, content marketers have to work just as hard to promote their content as they do creating it.
To help get you started, we’ve put together a list of the top ways that you can implement content promotion to improve your brand’s reach online:
14 Content Promotion Ideas to Increase Your Brand’s Reach
Sharing your content across your social media channels is one of the most popular ways to promote your content and increase your brand’s reach.
Depending on how many fans and followers you have on each channel, sharing your content on your social media accounts allows you to reach hundreds and even thousands of people.
Here are some clever ways to intertwine your content promotion ideas across multiple channels.
In order for this content promotion tactic to be successful, you need to have a significant following on your social media accounts.
Building a following takes time, but it’s well worth the effort.
Try connecting with your current customers first.
Then, take advantage of every opportunity to invite new leads and contacts to follow you on social media in person, through email, and on your website.
Just sharing it on your social media accounts once is not enough. The nature of social media is a bit fleeting, especially on channels like Twitter.
Not to mention, organic reach has declined on many of these platforms in favor of paid ads.
Organic content promotion has declined and paid ads have increased, thus increasing Facebook’s value.
If you want to make sure that the largest group of people is able to see your content, you’ll need to share it more than once.
It’s important to note that you aren’t aiming to just share the content with your followers. You also want to reach their followers.
And if you want to do this, you’ve got to get them to share your content.
The best way to get your fans to share your content on their own social media page is to ensure that…
…you’ve created a piece of content that is engaging, valuable, and relevant.
2. Start guest posting on a relevant blog or online publication.
Guest posting is another great way to get your content in front of your target audience.
Guest posting involves writing a blog post for a relevant industry or community blog.
The content is then shared on this blog, giving you the opportunity to reach a whole new group of people that you may not have had access to before.
The first step in guest blogging is finding blogs that you want to write for. Look beyond just the number of readers.
A smaller, niche publication with less readers.
These readers can actually be more valuable for your company if they are more relevant to your target market than a bigger blog with broader appeal.
Once you’ve found a site you’d like to guest blog for, look up the requirements for writing a post and start pitching topics.
When done correctly, guest blogging is an effective way to reach a new audience with content promotion.
Once the post is published, your content will now be visible to a whole new audience within your target market.
There’s a good chance that the publication will share this article with their audience on their website.
Through social media, and even in their email marketing.
To get the most out of this content, make sure that you share it with your readers as well.
When it comes to content promotion, the easier it is to share your content, the more likely readers will be to do it.
You can make it simple for readers to share your message by strategically adding social media buttons to your content.
Here are a few ways that you can make it easier for others to share your content:
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Click to Tweet – Take memorable quotes and snippets from your content and…
…include them as tweetable content right within the piece.
This allows readers to share on their own accounts in just one click.
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Pin It – Another way that you can make it easy for readers to share your content is with a Pin It button.
This enables readers to share visuals and infographics with others by pinning it to one of their Pinterest boards.
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Image Sharer – This is similar to Pin It button and you can find one these in SumoMe.
They have this add on wherein it creates social share button overlay onto your images when hovered.
It allows you to pick the social media networks to add such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and even Buffer.
Also, it lets you choose where you want the buttons to appear on the image once a user hovers over it.
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Social Share Buttons – You can also take the simple route of including social share buttons within your content.
This allows readers to share the entire story with their friends, family, and colleagues on their social channels.
4. Send new content pieces to your email subscribers.
One of the easiest and most effective ways to promote your content online is through email marketing.
When you write new pieces of content, consider how they might fit into your email marketing campaigns.
Whether you send out an email newsletter that contains updates from your brand and new blog posts or…
…you create a piece of content specifically for a targeted email campaign, email is a great way to promote your new content.
The greatest benefit of sharing your content through email marketing is the response rate.
Emails tend to have higher click-through and response rates than other types of digital marketing.
This is because people are often checking their email several times a day, with many consumers getting emails straight to their phone.
By sharing your content with your email subscribers, you’re making sure that your new pieces are being seen by the right audience.
5. Send targeted outreach emails to your sources.
When you create a new piece of content and link to certain sources or interview experts for the article.
You have the opportunity to gain even more exposure online.
The companies and individuals that you use as sources have their own unique audiences that probably include people who fall into your target market.
Why not leverage these connections?
Getting your sources to share your content with their audience is as easy as sending an email.
Though they may not agree to it every time, it’s worth trying as most companies and individuals want to share content that mentions them or their work.
Draft a simple outreach email that is targeted to the individual, letting them know that you have mentioned them in your content.
The best part is, you don’t even have to directly ask them to share the content.
There’s a good chance that they will want to post it to their own social media pages as a way to promote their products or services.
Simply let them know that you’ve mentioned them or used their content as a source for your own piece, and the rest is history!
Perhaps one of the most unique content promotion tactics is reaching out to influencers who might be interested in sharing your content.
Since most influencers don’t need your help getting new audience members, you’ve got to make sure that there is something in it for them.
Just sending them a message and asking them to share your blog post or whitepaper is not going to cut it.
One way that you can grab their attention and encourage them to promote your article is to use them as a source for your piece.
Reach out to the influencer on LinkedIn or through email and ask if they would be willing to give you some insight on the topic.
You may also want to use a quote from them in a piece that’s already published. Or use information that they’ve posted on their own blog.
When you use the influencer as a source in your piece, the person will be more inclined to take interest in your content.
Though it’s not a guarantee that they will share it on their own channels, it does help you get a foot in the door.
If the influencer does share the piece with their own community, your brand then has the potential to gain new audience members.
You can’t expect your audience to just come to you.
Sometimes you’ve got to do a little research and a lot of work reaching out to and building relationships with the right people.
By connecting with people on social media that are interested in your industry or brands like yours.
You can work to build your following and promote your content in the places that matter most.
Connect with others on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter that often share content that’s similar or relevant to the type of content your company produces.
For instance, there are Twitter users out there who constantly share industry articles and news with their followers.
These are not necessarily influencers who create their own content. But simply professionals who are interested in sharing the latest industry trends.
Many of these accounts have a significant amount of followers who trust these sources to provide quality relevant content.
By connecting with these users and sharing your content with them, you have the potential to tap into their followers and build your audience even further.
If you want to build your audience and expand your reach, it’s important that your business and those who run it are active in…
…industry communities and relevant professional organizations online.
This is one of the best ways to meet new people who are part of your target audience and get your name out there.
Joining these communities also enables you to promote your content and share it with others who may find it valuable.
Once you have connected with others in your industry online and joined relevant industry groups.
You will find opportunities to share your content with these communities.
For instance, let’s say that someone posts a question that’s relevant to your industry in a LinkedIn group.
You can then leave a brief comment on the post and share a link to your blog or whitepaper that answers this question.Make sure that the content you share in the comments is relevant to the original post.
You want to avoid appearing spammy when sharing your content in the comments section.
For this reason, you should only share content when it is directly relevant to the comment or question posted.
Similarly, you shouldn’t share your content in communities that you don’t actively participate in just for the sake of sharing.
People are more likely to click on and engage with your content if they are familiar with you as a community member.
9. Submit your top performing posts to other blogs and online publications.
Guest posting isn’t the only way to get your content on similar or relevant industry sites.
You can also share your content and find a new audience through content syndication.
This involves posting your blog articles on other sites that take outside submissions.
There are many news sites, blogs, and other online publications that are desperate for content.
Many of these are open to taking articles that have already been published and re-sharing them on their site.
This type of content syndication differs from a guest blog post as you aren’t writing the content for the specific publication.
Instead, you’re taking a piece of content that you’ve already published on your own site and allowing another site to publish the same content.
We recommend pitching your highest performing pieces to other sites as you already have some leverage in showing…
…how many people have already found the content valuable.
10. Add links to new content from popular archived content.
Yet another way to promote certain pieces of content and increase your brand reach is by linking to these pieces of content across your website.
Linking to new content from popular archived content not only helps you build your internal linking, which improves SEO.
But it also ensures that those who land on these popular pages initially will also have the opportunity to read more relevant content from your brand.
When choosing which pieces of content to link from, pick your most popular blog posts.
Once you’ve identified what those are, you can then look at the rest of your content to find the articles that are most relevant to the initial topic.
Go back to the original posts and link to these new pieces of content in areas that make sense for the article.
Now, any one who lands on the popular piece of content will also be exposed to the new articles and have the opportunity to click on them and read them.
Plan out your internal linking strategy ahead of time to get the most out of links.
Internal linking is not only a great way to provide more value for your visitors, but it also helps keep them on your site.
The longer they stay on your site, the better this is for SEO.
Not to mention, the longer that the visitor spends reading content on your site.
The more likely they will be to remember your brand, engage with your company in the future, and maybe even convert!
11. Create short, “snackable” video introductions to your content.
Our favorite content promotion idea involves turning your pieces of written content into short, “snackable” videos.
Turning your written content into videos is a great way to repurpose this content and make it engaging for a new audience.
While some people enjoy reading blogs, others would rather watch a video.
Why not make it easier for these people to enjoy your content by turning it into a video?
Not only is turning your blog post into a video a way that you can repurpose this content.
But it can also be used as a tool to direct more traffic back to your site.
For example, you can make a short video that offers a summary of your blog post.
Then, at the end of the video, you can include a call-to-action that invites viewers to read your blog for more information.
This video summarizes our Instagram hashtag blog and gives the viewer a call to action to check us out on Instagram.
Not to mention, video content provides yet another opportunity for boosting your SEO.
By placing your videos on YouTube, you are increasing your reach by exposing your brand to a new audience.
Your YouTube videos can also be optimized for the search engines by using keywords in the titles and descriptions.
Not only will your audience be able to find you on YouTube.
But there is also a chance that these videos will appear in the video results page of the search engine results.
12. Create slide decks out of your content to appeal to a new audience.
Much like tip #11, this content promotion idea is another way that you can repurpose your content to attract a new audience.
Slide decks have become a popular way for brands to break down information into digestible chunks, complete with visual guides.
In fact, SlideShare has one of the largest audiences on the Internet with tens of millions of unique visitors each month.
One of the greatest benefits of transforming your content into a slide deck and publishing it on SlideShare is that it can help you boost SEO.
SlideShare will transcribe the deck for you, making it easy for search engines like Google to crawl your content.
You can also work to optimize your title and description with SEO keywords, making it easy for individuals to find you.
Much like repurposing your content into a video, turning your content into a slide deck presentation allows you to reach new audiences.
By placing your content on yet another online platform, you increase the number of places that people can find you online.
By changing up the format of your content, you are able to reach an even wider audience by…
…appealing to individuals who might now have found or engaged with your content in its original form.
13. Repurpose the content on LinkedIn.
Yet another way to repurpose your content and increase brand reach through promotion is by publishing your content to LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a popular platform for all professionals and companies, not just those who are B2B.
There’s a good chance that no matter who your target audience is, you can find them on LinkedIn.
Posting an article to LinkedIn is easy!
LinkedIn has its own publishing platform that users utilize to share their thoughts and insights about different industry topics.
By repurposing your content for this platform, you get the opportunity to expand your reach even further.
You can write original content pieces for your LinkedIn page or just re-write some of your most popular blogs for LinkedIn.
Either way, everyone in your network will have the opportunity to read your thoughts and share them with their own audience.
14. Use targeted paid ads to get the word out about new pieces of content.
Though there are plenty of organic content promotion options, it’s important not to forget about the paid tactics that you have at your disposal as well.
Investing in social media advertising or pay-per-click ads on search engines like Google are a great way to get the word out about your content.
If you decide to spend part of your budget on social media or PPC ads for content promotion, you’ll want to keep a few things in mind.
First, you should only spend money on content that you know will bring more traffic to your website.
You may want to start by identifying your top-performing content pieces and building a paid ad campaign around these pieces.
Next, you’ll want to decide whether or not this content will be gated.
Shorter pieces like blogs or videos are often not gated as they don’t provide quite enough value to…
…encourage someone to hand over their contact information.
However, longer, more informative content assets like ebooks, webinars, or whitepapers that provide significant value to readers can be gated.
This gives you the opportunity to collect lead information for later follow-up, allowing you to get the most out of your investment.
If you do decide to gate your content, create a targeted landing page where you can collect visitor contact information.
Only include the required contact field like name and email address.
Make sure that the content is delivered immediately, either right on the page or through email.
If you decide not to gate the content, you’ll want to make sure that you use UTM parameters to accurately track where your readers are coming from.
Get Started with Content Promotion
Remember, no matter how great your content is, it’s only valuable if your target audience is able to find and read it.
The content marketing tips above are just a few content promotion ideas that you can use to start generating a larger audience for your brand’s content.
Experiment with a few of these to see which works best for your business.
If you find that you need some help along the way, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at LYFE Marketing.
Our digital marketing experts know just what it takes to help you create great content and promote it to increase your brand’s reach.
Contact us today to get started.