In our “11 Steps To Blogging” webinar we received a lot of questions about promoting a blog and how it can be used to grow your reach in social media. Here’s a few ways to make your content visible while growing your social media presence.
Promoting
Share your blog articles through social media website you’re active in. If you’re not already in social media – get active! Use the network of people who have CHOSEN to connect with you in these areas to help spread your content to other professionals you haven’t met yet. Chances are the people you’re connected with have friends who also share a common interest.
HubSpot Tip: make sure you have your social media accounts hooked up to HubSpot and set your article to auto-publish on your social media sites. This way you don’t have to manually post each article and can immediately get each post indexed in search engines. You can find this feature in the HubSpot social media tool.
Sharing
Make it as easy as possible for your audience to share each article by adding social media sharing icons at the top of each post. Putting them at the top makes them instantly noticeable and gives readers a quick opportunity to tweet, post, or share the link.
Optimizing
Strategic optimization is another source of promotion. During our webinars we’ve stressed the importance of writing to rank for the long-tail. Make sure you’ve chosen a target keyword that you have a legitimate opportunity to rank for when writing each article.
HubSpot Tip: You can use the Difficulty Score inside of Keyword Grader to determine which keywords to target. Also, use the long-tail blogging worksheet to develop ideas and write the next post destined to get found by qualified visitors.
Connecting
Your blog is also a great place to grow your reach in social media. Invite your readers to follow your Twitter account, like your Facebook page, or connect in any other network you’re a part of by placing icons prominently on your blog’s sidebar. Try using a calls-to-action around these icons to encourage blog visitors to take the steps to connect with you. It’s best if you can use a short phrase that summarizes the value people will get from seeing your updates and conversing regularly. As an example, here at HubSpot we might say something like “Get Connected To See News and Opinions on Inbound Marketing!”.
HubSpot Tip: Add the “follow me” module to your blog and alter the default headline to create a compelling call-to-action.
What other ways do you promote your remarkable content and increase your social media presence?
