You may not be a superstar with a giant audience. So how can a person with a relatively small following generate big buzz over a new post? Follow these five tips.
1. Choose links carefully
While you’re adding value to your post, why not choose links that boost your reach? Look for quality posts about related subjects written by people who are likely to share your post. Excellent link choices:
- Are written by active promoters or hosted on sites with active social media teams
- Add value to your post
- Are hosted on high-quality blogs with related focus to your host blog
How does this help extend your reach? Promoters promote. Let people and sites know you have mentioned them in your post, and they will amplify your content marketing (you don’t even have to ask). You can add their reach to your own. It’s a win-win for everybody.
Quote and photo courtesy of @robinsonwriters, president of Posts by Ghost
Start-ups and small-business blogs are often full of great information your readers want to see and they love the publicity.
2. Use competitive intelligence to choose topics
As marketers, you probably use competitive intelligence to improve your marketing efforts. The same concepts translate easily to blogging and audience building.
With a competitor analysis tool, you can find out what topics and keywords are trending for other bloggers in your industry, what topics are most evergreen (old posts still attracting significant traffic), and who is most engaged with other bloggers. Research can help you find an irresistible headline.
Find new angles for the topics that interest the largest number of people and draw the most comments, and reach out to industry influencers on their favorite social networks. If they are interested enough to share your competitor’s posts, they might be interested enough to interact with you.
Quote and photo courtesy of @BrittMichaelian, founder of Mass Amplify
3. Work your groups
You can’t just be part of a group. You have to be active and engaged. Join (or start) hashtag chats and professional groups related to the industry about which you’re writing and nurture those relationships. If you’re writing blog posts based on FAQs, the friends you’ve made will discuss the same subjects – and you’ll have perfect opportunities to mention your posts.
You may even have the opportunity to market in advance. “Can I quote you? I’m writing a post about that right now. It’s going to be published in a couple of weeks on ContentMarketingInstitute.com.” And now the whole group wants to read your upcoming article.
A note of caution: Use this tactic judiciously and only if it fits the conversation. If your only purpose in the group is to self-promote, you’ll be ignored … or worse, mocked. Always give more than you ask for. Offer to tweet, introduce friends, proofread, encourage, and bring the bacon. Always bring the bacon.
4. Ask influential people for quotes
No matter who they are, people love to share their wisdom and tell stories. Here’s a great quote and an even better story from Yael Kochman, marketing manager at Roojoom, that perfectly illustrates my point:
A few months ago I set my mind on interviewing Product Hunt’s community manager for the Roojoom blog. I simply reached out to her via Twitter and asked her for the interview. She accepted, and not only did the post turn into a great success, but a few weeks later she mentioned our blog as one of eight marketing blogs to follow in an article she wrote for HubSpot. She wouldn’t have discovered us if I hadn’t reached out to her. It’s all about building relationships and putting yourself out there.
Quote and photo courtesy of Yael Kochman
5. Create original graphic pull quotes
Why settle for just quoting someone when you can make shareable images in minutes? Canvais free if you use your own images and easy enough to make you look like an expert in minutes.
Creating relevant graphics with quotes from your post encourages more people to share. In addition to the people featured in your graphics, you’ll pull in their fans, people who like the nature of the quote, and even people who appreciate a beautiful graphic.
To really give your post legs, use a WordPress plug-in such as Tweet This to emphasize points from your post. Developer John Morris recently improved the code to make it easier to include graphics. It’s still a manual process, but you won’t regret the effort. Readers will be able to send custom tweets and accompanying graphics from anywhere in your post with just a click.
Always bear in mind that you’re not just promoting a post. You’re building a brand – establishing your reputation as an authority, starting a conversation. Make sure your voice and tone are in line with the brand image and work it. Don’t get discouraged. If you do your homework and write content your audience seeks, your audience will grow.
If there are any other ways I've missed please mention them in the comments below.
Cover image by Nicolai Bernsten, Unsplash, via pixabay.com
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