Promoting Your Content

This seems like common sense, but even sophisticated marketers get so focused on the content that they forget about the promotion. They often have a sense that "The search engines will find it," or "If we build it, they will come." They forget the Internet has over 4.5 billion Web pages: your content is a drop in the ocean.

For this reason, a promotion plan should be baked into every piece of content (as it is at Media Shower). Here is an extremely brief overview of the most successful promotion techniques, from easiest to most difficult:

1. Email newsletters. If your company doesn't have an email newsletter, make it a priority. Email is still the most effective way of staying in front of customers, since email is one of our most addictive habits. Promote your website content within the newsletter, which doubles the value of the content you're creating.
2. Social media. Promoting all your content across your social networks shows that you're actively investing in good content, and keeps your brand top of mind. Even better, promote your content from your personal social media accounts to show that you really stand behind it.
3. Industry influencers. Reach out to industry experts to collaborate on content for your website (interviews, roundtables, guest blog posts), then ask them to promote that content to their audience. You'll get great content from industry thought leaders: they'll get increased exposure. Win/win.
4. Journalist outreach. Reach out to specific industry journalists and bloggers with your biggest content pieces. You'll be more effective if you a) write the story angle for them, b) tie it into an upcoming holiday or event, and c) include a press release. Expect a very low response rate, but a high potential payoff.

The important thing is to build a system or process for promoting your content: something that you can do over and over again. Don't think "publicity stunts," think "publicity systems." Slow and steady wins the race.

Next: The five-minute summary!