‍Have you ever wondered how you can spend less time and effort promoting your content to your audience?

Content promotion, done right, is all about putting yourself directly in front of engaged eyeballs. And the more clear steps you have in place, the better chances you have of that happening.

We work hard producing content, so why don’t we make sure it converts the best it can?

‍1) Assign someone responsible for content promotion to ensure results

If you want more people to see and engage with your content, then you need to promote your content in more ways than just the simple share button in the top right corner of a blog post.

Treat promoting your content as a job and assign someone to do the task. If you don’t have access to an employee, then consider hiring an agency or consultant who specialises in content promotion.

When you assign someone to the task of promoting your content, they’re more likely to do it well. For example, they’re more likely to think about distribution channels that you hadn’t considered or get creative by repurposing existing content into something new.

‍2) Spend at least as much time promoting content as you do creating it

Promoting your content is as important as creating it.

Think about it like this: If you spend five hours writing a blog post, how much time are you going to spend sharing that post? If you spend two hours shooting a video, how much time are you going to spend promoting it?

The answer to both of these questions is the same: As much time as you spent creating it.

If you only spend an hour promoting every five hours spent creating content, then all your hard work will be for nothing. At the end of the day, promotion is as important as creation.

‍3) Identify influencers and media sources that already have the attention of your audience and partner with them

Promoting your content can seem daunting. You want to make sure that it gets seen, but you also want to make sure that it doesn’t feel like spam.

The most effective way to do this is by partnering with other people in your industry who already have the attention of your audience. This is a great way to build relationships, network and find new opportunities for collaboration.

Whether it’s a guest post, a mention on someone’s podcast or a co-created piece of content, there are lots of opportunities to get involved and help promote each other’s work.

The main thing to remember is that a good partnership isn’t one where you’re forced to ‘sell’ or ‘pitch’ your own work, but an opportunity for you to help promote the work of someone else. If you’re interested in promoting something that someone else has created, then this post will show you how to do it in a way that might actually get their attention.

‍4) Use paid advertising on popular sites that target your ideal audience.

Promote your content on social media, it’s free right?

While it is free, there are some major drawbacks to relying on social media for promotion. With the rise of social media algorithms, organic reach has dropped significantly for many businesses. Facebook and Instagram have both recently updated their algorithm to make organic reach hard to achieve.

While social media is a great way to stay in touch with your target audience and potential customers, it’s not always the best platform for promoting your content.

Instead, you should use paid advertising on popular sites that target your ideal audience. While everyone likes the idea of content going viral for free – it doesn’t happen often.

The reality is that without smart paid promotion, you’ll rarely reach your ideal audience.

Smart use of paid traffic to amplify your content can help you significantly improve the value of your content. Research using paid ads Facebook & Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and programmatic to help connect your ideal audience with your content.

‍6) Leverage partnerships with complementary businesses to cross-promote their content and yours

When you’re promoting your content, partnerships with complementary businesses can be a great way to get it in front of the right people. By leveraging partnerships with complementary businesses to cross-promote their content and yours, you can reach an even larger audience – and generate more interest in your business.

A few things to keep in mind:

1. Always respect the partnership by delivering on the promises you make to your partner. This is one of those situations where keeping your word means everything. If you say you’ll send them traffic, do it. If you say you’ll review their product on your blog, do it.

2. Be transparent about the upsides for both parties involved in the partnership and understand that there are always going to be upsides and downsides no matter what kind of deal you make. What’s important is that both parties feel like they’re getting a good deal out of the partnership.

3. Understand that this needs to be a win-win situation for both parties or it won’t work out in the long run. Don’t enter into a partnership unless you believe wholeheartedly that the benefits for both parties will outweigh any potential drawbacks or negative outcomes.

‍7) Create an ongoing “resharing schedule” 

The right promotion can keep your content relevant and in front of your audience. Even if they don’t click through to read the article, they may remember it later when they’re looking for information and return to read the full article.

There are a lot of things you can do to promote your content, but it’s important to know that not all of your audience see and click on your content the first time it’s shared.

The first time you share your content, it might get 10-20% of your audience. The second time you share it, it might get another 20%. The third time, another 10%.

Share your content initially, ideally at the optimum time, then share again at a regular interval that makes sense – maybe once more that day, twice more the next day, once a week for the next month, etc. Continue to share until you’re confident that there’s been enough time for your audience to have had a chance to see it and engage with it.

‍In Summary

Promoting content is as much an art as it is a science. The mathematical approach to content promotion, while useful, will never be enough to guarantee results.

You need people who are passionate and knowledgeable about your business, brand and product helping to promote content. You need a clearly defined process and plan in place for promoting content that enables you to test different methods over time.

And you need a willingness to throw out the rulebook when something isn’t working, and rethink your approach. The more ways you have at your disposal for sharing your content, and the better each of them are optimized for sharing via that particular channel, the more likely it is that people will check it out and share with their own communities.

Here at Eloquent we have a rigorous and methodical approach to help maximise the impact of your content marketing. Reach out for a confidential discussion about how we can help take your content marketing to the next leve.

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