You’ve written amazing content for your blog…but now what? It’s sitting there, all alone, with no one to admire or share it. You’re ready to throw in the towel on this whole content marketing thing.
But wait.
It’s a mistake to assume that simply writing the content is your only responsibility. It is, in fact, also your job to drive traffic to your content. So clearly, you’re slacking on your job. Let’s remedy that.
Start with the Technical Details
I hate to break it to you, but people are incredibly lazy. If they have to go to the trouble of copying your URL and pasting it into their social media account, they aren’t going to bother. So make it incredibly simple for them by installing a blog plugin that allows for easy sharing. Both AddToAny and ShareThis are worthy (and free!) options. These plugins simply provide a host of ways a reader can share a blog post: via social media, email, or blog reader.
Additionally, make sure you have a way for people to subscribe to your latest blog post. Feedburner is the go-to service for this, though there are others. This is important: in addition to making your blog available via RSS, make it also available via email. Some people prefer to get your content in their inbox, and not offering this as a service will automatically shut out some of your potential audience. Once you sign up for the service, simply put a widget on the sidebar of your blog so people can subscribe.
Share It Yourself
Another of your marketing duties should be to not only keep your social media accounts fresh and updated but also to grow your audience. The more people that follow you on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, the more people you can share your latest blog post with. And then more people will actually click to view it.
Sharing is caring, for sure.
Assume that only about 1% of your audience will click a link to your content. That tells you that you need mad high numbers of targeted followers to even make a splash. So keep growing your network and share your content. It will take time, but the effort will pay off.
There are automated tools to help you share a blog post as soon as it goes live, but you should also schedule manual shares every day for a week following it being published. Pull an interesting quote or fact from the post, or ask a question that will spur curiosity and get people to click. Over time, you can look at your social media analytics to see which sharing verbiage attracted the most clicks.
Start Stumbling
Another effective way to get eyeballs on your content is to get active on StumbleUpon. This is a content curating site where members vote on worthy content. Always stumble your own content and it’ll be thrown into the lineup that people can vote on. Work to gain followers by creating a well-developed profile, and by being active in the community.
Getting people to read and then share your content isn’t a given. You have to work for it. But once you put in the initial effort, it will get easier as you start to attract loyal readers over time.
Ready to start producing read-worthy content? Get a free trial of Media Shower to begin!