You’ve completed the content writing process after countless hours of research, analyzing, writing, and proofing to end up with a conversion generating masterpiece, but now how do you start driving traffic to your content, outside of organic search? The answer is social!
The promotion of each post on your social network is just as important as organic search. To help you get more from each social media post, here are some quick tips for promoting content on social media.
Draft a social media promotional schedule using all relevant channels
Using social post scheduling tools like the drag and drop scheduling calendar emfluence Marketing Platform has to offer, create a social media plan to promote new content that can be easily used for all content on your website.
Once you’ve picked out your tool, you’ll need to map out all of the social channels your business uses. Make sure to start scheduling with the channels that are most relevant with your audience base and to line up the assets you’ll need for each one. If you’re posting to Instagram, for example, you will want to create something with unique visual impact. For greater reach, be sure you have the social media handles of the person who authored your content handy—tagging them as the post author can expand the organic reach of your social posts. Since they may not have a social profile on each channel, plan accordingly.
Remember that pushing content is not just a one-time push. As you’re mapping out your schedule, here are a few things to consider:
- Once the content goes live, automatically push content to social channels
- Share content throughout the next 2-3 hours
- Share content again the following day in the appropriate channels
- Repeat the following week, but change out the times
- For evergreen content, or those that are relevant, share again the following month.
- Consider resharing at the three-month mark
- Review performance of the content using Google Analytics to see if the content gained traction
- Share whenever content is relevant past the 6-month mark
If you’re using the emfluence Marketing Platform or a tool like it, you can also create automated reports to send to your internal team, which can encourage them to engage with and share your company posts.
Sharing content with intent
“These days, we don’t necessarily need more content, but rather, we need to get more return out of the content we are already creating.” – Garrett Moon, Convince & Convert
Mapping is complete – great! Now it’s time to fill in the details.
While most of the automated solutions only allow you to share the headline and link of a blog post, tools like the emfluence Marketing Platform allow for additional content to be included to introduce your promotional piece.
Scheduling multiple social posts for one single piece of content while creating unique messaging to promote each one may seem daunting, but there’s one thing to keep in mind: creating a unique post for each social media channel has its own set of rules. What works on one channel may not work on another. You can see the full list of rules here.
For all social channels
- Respond to all comments in a timely manner.
- Don’t use too many hashtags (but do research which ones are most relevant for your audience/industry)
- Follow the 80/20 rule. 80% educational, 20% sales
- Use first person plural when talking about your company brand (We, Us)
- Base the tone of your post on the channel you’re promoting on
- Don’t buy followers or ask for Likes, Comments or Shares
- Don’t stuff your posts with keywords
- Avoid replicating content across channels—instead, modify your posts so they don’t read the same on each place you post
When introducing content consider the following:
- Engage with your audience by asking a question related to the post
- Grab their attention by citing facts
- Share a tweetable quote
- Add intrigue by showing a bit of mystery, if the content allows
- Use alternate headlines based on your audience and channel in which you’re promoting content
- Use Google Analytics for keyword inspiration
- When you can, tag the social profile of the content’s author
In short: Plan, divide and conquer
You are now ready to kick-start promotion of your new content. Remember to be intentional, know your audience, don’t overdo it, and stay conscious of social norms. You’ve put a lot of time into writing your content, so make sure it gets portrayed in the way you want to promote it on social.
