I started blogging in late 2008. At the time, Twitter was pretty new. Lots of bloggers and other writers were joining Twitter and we all quickly found that if you shared a link to your blog post that it would get a fair amount of traffic.
So Twitter became a place to promote your blogging. But just a couple years later, and possibly not even that long, things started to change. More people joined Twitter. More content was being posted. It was more difficult for a blog title and link to stand out.
And as the 2010s have gone on just about all of the social media platforms have reorganized their feeds to show native content. Content meant to be consumed on the platform. They want to keep their users. And who can blame them?
You can still use social media to promote your blog. But one of the core things to remember with blogging is that promotion channels will always change. Your blog needs to remain a great resource of education and entertainment. If you do that you can attract readers even as the promotion opportunities change.
So it’s a good exercise to consider eliminating social media from your blogging efforts. It can help you in the future as channels change.
Here are a few steps to consider…
1. Publishing Consistency
Several years ago the band, the Eagles, released a documentary of their entire career. In it, Glenn Frey talks about how he leaved about songwriting. He lived in a small house where he lived upstairs and Jackson Browne had a room in the basement. Every morning Glenn would hear Jackson wake up, make a cup of tea and then work on a song for hours. Then he would take a break, make another cup of tea, and continue working on the song for a few more hours.
Every. Day.
The key to creating content, including blog content, is a consistent schedule. Not every blog post you write will be a winner. Not every song Jackson Browne wrote was a winner. But in order to get winners you have to put in the work on a consistent schedule. You can’t wait for inspiration to strike.
Once a week. Three times a week. Every day. You choose the schedule, but stick with it.
Consistent publishing leads to good content. And with good content you can find it much easier to promote. Sometimes you don’t even have to work that hard.
2. 5-10% Testing
I like to leave about 5-10% of the blogging I do for experimenting. This might mean veering from the main topics I write about to write about something entirely different. Maybe a little philosophical or something like that. Who knows.
What I’ve found is that by doing this you learn about new things. You bring a unique take to the industry that you’re in. You stand out. And if you miss the mark it’s not really a big deal. You just move on. But if you hit big on one of these experiments you can invest more energy into it.
This is how you discover new topics to write about or new formats to use.
3. Guesting & Co-Creating
For decades, whenever a movie would be set for release on Friday, the main actors would appear throughout the preceding week on the morning, afternoon and late night talk shows. They would share a few funny stories and then talk about the upcoming movie.
Today, authors will appear on podcasts to share insight and also talk about their latest books. They usually do this for a month or so around the time the book is released.
Guesting is a way to reach new people to bring attention to what you’re doing. It works best when all three parties involved get value. So the audience learns something new or is entertained. The host gets great content for their audience. The guest gets attention and possibly some new customers or fans.
Guest writing is a great way to promote your blog. So is regular guesting on podcasts and video channels.
4. Channel Testing
There are always new channels entering the social media and media world. Even existing channels can make a few tweaks and become bigger players. I would say in recent years that LinkedIn, which has been around for awhile, has become much more important in the social media world.
It’s important to pay attention to new channels. Many won’t have potential for promoting your blog, but if you keep an eye out you can find one or two once in awhile that really move the needle.
Podcasting would be an example. That seemingly came out of nowhere five years ago and if you were testing with your own or as a guest you would have been an early adopter and would have helped to build your own brand as well as attention for your blog.
5. Paid Promotion
A final option for promoting your blog posts is paid promotion. I heard someone very smart recently say that paid promotion has really taken off in recent years. As social media shifted into a more mature state, their advertising platforms became very valuable.
The thing is, you can’t get as much free promotion anymore, but you can still get cheap promotion via their advertising. So you can create content, such as a blog post, and use the ad platforms of Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. to promote the content.
It’s a win for the social channel, the audience and for you…if you can find a cheap way to do it. And the opportunity is there if you’re willing to test a little.
And it’s not just social media. I think of Squarespace with the early advertising they did on podcasting. That turned out to be a relatively cheap way to build their brand and user base.
Conclusion
Blogging promotion is important. But don’t overlook the basics. You have to build consistency into your content creation. This is how you create the type of content worth promoting. From there you can look for the opportunities to promote what you create. But always think about the quantity/quality first.