Content is king, right? Very True! But a lot of well-crafted and amazing content is not ‘kinging’ as it should be, Why?
Because they are either not being promoted or they are being promoted wrongly.
It’s not just enough to create amazing content, content promotion is also very key because all content serves one purpose which is to connect with your audience. So how do you connect to your audience with your content if your content is not promoted?
Content creation is the foundation of all modern digital marketing efforts. It is defined as the process of conducting research, generating strategic ideas, crafting those ideas into high-value collateral, and then promoting those pieces to a target audience. The digital content creation process is incomplete without promotion.
Therefore, successful content promotion usually depends on two things: the content itself and the content promotion strategy. This is because your content is the fuel for your sales engine. And content promotion is the IGNITION switch!
If you want your content to serve its purpose and drive marketing goals, you need to promote your content. There are a few great ways to promote your content and extend your reach and this is what I will be showing you in this article. Before we get into the content promotion strategies, I would like us to look at the channels of content promotion.
When looking at Content promotion, It’s important to look at the channels through which these contents are being promoted.
Mainly, there are three types of channels to get exposure after you create your content, They include:
- Owned media – This refers to the platforms that you own – they give the initial exposure to your content such as your website, social accounts, etc.
- Earned media – Once you put out your content on owned channels, people engage with it on social media and other platforms. It leads to more organic exposure for your content. In other words, this type of publicity is on websites that are not owned by you and are gained organically via promotion efforts that are not paid.
- Paid media – In the current social media landscape, your updates get seen by a minor percentage of your followers. To get extra exposure, you need to pay for advertisements such as paid social advertisements, content distribution networks, etc.
Furthermore, content promotion strategies fall into three categories:
- On-site promotion Strategies
- Off-site promotion strategies
- Social promotion strategies
Without further ado, let’s get into the discussion of six proven content promotion strategies that will help boost your marketing campaign and they include:
Strategy 1:Optimize Your Content for Organic Traffic
It’s not enough to produce great content and hope that people find it – you have to be proactive. One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to optimize your content for organic traffic.
Organic traffic simply refers to those visitors that land on your website from unpaid sources, aka essentially free traffic. Organic traffic put simply is traffic that comes from Google and other search engines’ search engine results pages (SERPs). The brand of digital marketing that focuses on improving organic traffic is called Search Engine Optimization(SEO).
With SEO you can get traffic for free 24/7 but it’s not instant. It takes time for SEO to work and generate results.
Why is organic traffic important?
Organic traffic is the most important form of traffic you can get to your website. It is so because the traffic is targeted.
Users typing a query in a search engine have a very specific intent and if you can provide them with a solution or answer to their question, you will more likely gain a new customer, email subscriber, or follower.
What Are The Best Ways to Increase Organic Search traffic?
The best way to increase organic traffic and get more visits from search engines is to follow proven SEO practices which include:
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- Publish content that users want to read: One of the characteristics of users using a search engine to look for information is that they have a very specific intent. Your job is to satisfy their intent by providing them with the right kind of information.
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- Include relevant keywords/search terms in your page title: The page title is one of the most critical SEO factors. The title is used by search engines to get an idea of what a page is all about and it is also shown in the search results.A good page title includes search terms users can recognize and is interesting to encourage users to click on it and visit your website.
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- Get links from other websites: Backlinks from other relevant websites act as ‘votes of trust’ and this improves the organic rankings of a website.
To get the best from organic traffic, ensure to follow the SEO practices stated above.
Strategy 2:Social Media
The strategy of social media can not be neglected in the topic of content promotion. With over 4.2 billion active social media users worldwide, If you don’t use social media in your digital marketing strategy, you are missing a fast, cheap and effective way to reach nearly half of the world’s population.
Social media allows marketers to connect and engage potential customers where they are at LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and even some of the younger platforms like TikTok. With a strong social media strategy and the ability to create engaging content, marketers can engage their audience.
In addition to your website, social media is like a vehicle on the internet that helps drive content to the right destination. Just take a closer look at the entire social network. You will realize that there are many reliable platforms that can be used. That means you will not be driving your content on a single street.
It is important to note these social media platforms have their differences. What this implies is that there are peculiarities regarding posting your content to promote your business.
What are some of the things you can do to utilize the social media space in content promotion?
1. Social media groups
Facebook and LinkedIn groups are great opportunities to dig deeper into a social platform and target your niche audience. Join groups that your content is relevant to, join the conversation, and suggest your content naturally. You can also join and contribute to specific boards on Pinterest.
2. Keep Your Audience in Mind
Before ever creating or sharing content, think about your audience: ask yourself if it’s something they would like to see and share with their friends. Once you have some ideas, you can even poll your audience to generate comments and perhaps initiate debate. This not only creates engagement but gives you special insight into what they want.
3. Publishing Your Social Media Posts at the Best Times
In the same way, there are best times to send emails for better open and click-through rates, there are best times to publish social media posts. Publish your social media posts during optimal times to get people clicking on your content.
- Generate Social Shares with Buttons & Widgets
Social sharing buttons are definitely the “must-have elements” of content promotion. If you want your audience to post your blog posts or even social media posts to their favorite social sites, you better provide this option with your social sharing buttons.
- Boost Facebook posts and use targeting:
To generate more reach and make your content go the extra mile, you could use Facebook’s Boost Post feature. Boosting your posts makes it easier to reach your target audience along with being able to target your current followers and their friends.
Boosting your Facebook post means spending your ad budget on increasing the reach of your post to reach a particular audience.
What Do You Need to Boost Your post?
Boosting a Facebook post is quite easy – you only need to have a business page on Facebook, business manager access, and a native post on the Page. You’ll also need an ad account since boosted posts require a budget.
Why Should you boost your Facebook posts?
- Helps you control who sees your post
- Expands your reach
- Increases engagement
- Increases your post’s and brand’s visibility.
You would have utilized and maximized the Social media tool if you apply all that has been discussed above.
Strategy 3: Connect with Influential Authorities/Influencers
Influencers have a powerful impact and can help you increase reach while also allowing for more targeted distribution. They’re the folks who have already nurtured large audiences and have the megaphones to reach those audiences.
Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers–individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche.
It works because of the high amount of trust that social influencers have built up with their following, and recommendations from them serve as a form of social proof to your brand’s potential customers.
It is one of the fastest ways to build authenticity with your target audience and instantly put your brand in front of the best prospects. Influencer marketing is also one of the quickest ways to generate new leads for your brand, and according to Forbes, it is growing faster than any other form of digital advertising.
One of the best things about influencer marketing is that you are connecting with potential leads that have already shown interest in a product or service similar to what you are promoting. This creates a win-win situation for you to attract high-quality traffic to your website quickly and for the influencer to make some extra money by promoting brands to their followers or subscribers.
Getting The Right Influencer For Your Brand.
Despite its apparent advantages, influencer marketing is a wasted investment if you are not working with the right ones.
Here are five things to look for when identifying online influencers for your brand.
- Relevance-The Ideal influencer should be relevant to your brand. This means that either you share the same audience or similar Audiences. It is important to look at how aligned an Influencer’s messaging is to your brand.
- Reach-While there are other metrics to consider, reach is certainly a valid consideration. Traffic and followers are only meaningful to the extent that the influencer is reaching your brand’s target audience. For instance, if you are a hotel chain or car seat manufacturer, a travel blogger with a small reach is more influential than a food blogger with 100,000 unique monthly visitors.
- Social Media Platforms-It is also important to consider what social media platforms your customers visit. If you are a food or fashion brand, someone with a large following on Pinterest or Instagram might be more valuable than someone on Facebook with a large fan base.
- Technical Skills-Influencing is much more than likes, engagement, and communication to market a brand. It’s a big bonus when they’re skilled in crisis management in their campaigns.
- Authenticity-Personal stories that include genuine use or mention of a product, service, or brand are more trusted than straight product reviews. Reports have shown that those who have a smaller ratio of sponsored content tend to be more trusted and appear more authentic. Whatever your niche, you can engage with influencers that create quality, authentic content for their audience while associating your brand with that content.
Strategy 4:Create An Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective channels for content promotion. It is the cornerstone of online marketing. From a marketing standpoint, email converts at a higher rate than nearly any other channel.
Email marketing allows you to nurture relationships with potential buyers over time. It allows you to place visitors who aren’t ready to buy into a funnel that keeps them connected with your business instead of having them forget about you.
Emails do not exist without content, this makes it a very effective channel for content promotion. Sending personalized email campaigns to your subscribers is the most popular form of marketing because it allows marketers to analyze how subscribers are engaging with their brand and send tailored content to them based on their unique interests.
Strategy 5:Employ The Use Visual Content
Keeping content visual is very important. There is a lot of information out there, So using visual content serves as an attention-grabbing strategy. Studies have shown that Content with relevant images gets 94 percent more views than content without. Articles with an image once every 75 to 100 words get double the amount of shares.
The bottom line is that images increase engagement and readability.
If you’re on a budget, use tools like Canva in combination with free stock photo sites like Unsplash and Pixabay to create professional images in under a minute.
It’s also important to state that when using visuals, endeavor to use clean, premium, and optimized visuals.
Strategy 6:Advertise
Paid search, social media advertising, and display advertising are all excellent ways of promoting your content, building your brand, and getting your site in front of people. Adjust your paid strategies to suit your goals – do you just want more traffic, or are you looking to increase conversions, too? Each paid channel has its pros and cons, so think
Why Is Advertising Important?
- Advertising is a crucial part of marketing
- Advertising lets you target specific customers
- Advertising helps businesses stand out
- Advertising affects a brand’s reputation
- Advertising affects sales
- Advertising transcends its campaigns
Conclusion
Ultimately, there is no single guaranteed winning strategy for promoting your content. It’s a game of combining different strategies to see which one works best for your brand.
At the end of the day, good content will not sell itself, you need to apply proven content promotion strategies which when applied appropriately will do wonders to your social marketing campaign.
With smart content promotion strategies in place, you will get more traffic, leads, and engagement from every single piece of content you create.
