Blog writing is a great way to promote your brand. When you provide engaging, informative content to your readers, you build trust and establish yourself as a thought leader while bringing more traffic to your web site.
To get the most out of blogging, you will want to share your articles on your social media platforms. This will get them maximum visibility among your following and they may even be shared by readers to increase exposure.
There is no doubt that sharing blogs on social media will get you optimal reach, but there are strategies that will make your sharing even more effective and convenient. Read on for useful tips and tricks that will help you get the most out of your blogging efforts.
Social Media Sites To Share Your Blog Posts On
There are so many social media sites to share on, it can be hard to find the right ones.
One tried and true method is to figure out where your target audience is likely to be found. For instance, Facebook tends to attract a crowd that is in their 30’s or above while Instagram is for younger people. Linked in is great for B2B.
Once you determine the platforms your target audience is likely to be on, concentrate your efforts on those platforms.
Here are some platforms that are great for posting as well as some posting tips that will get you the most reach.
Facebook allows you to share links to blog posts on your personal wall, on your business page wall and in groups. The links will typically show the article’s featured image which is great for drawing attention to the post.
However, if it is not formatting correctly, you may consider uploading your own image and adding the link in the text field.
In addition to sharing the link, you will also be given the option of adding text to the post. In doing so, you will be limited to 480 characters. Make sure the text you use sends the message clearly and concisely and really hits home.
Twitter is a news-oriented blog which is great for B2B and B2C promotions. It is the first social media platform to use hashtags to make content more searchable. Including at least four relevant hashtags will give your posts maximum exposure.
In addition to allowing you to share a link to your blog and hashtag it, it will also allow you to add a tweet of up to 140 characters. As with Facebook, tweets should be kept to the point. Add a call to action if there is room remaining.
Linked In
Linked In is ideal for B2B promotion. It will allow you to post links to your blog on your profile, on company and showcase pages and in groups. You can also republish blogs on LinkedIn Pulse or SlideShare.
When posting on your company page, you will have the option of including a heading of 600 characters; all other wording will be truncated.
It is best to share blogs on Linked In by posting and image or link. How to and listicle formats tend to get the most engagement on the site.
Pinterest is a social media platform that has a large audience of young and middle-aged women. It focuses on images but it also gives you a 500-character text field to describe the image. However, descriptions between 150-300 words will be best for holding readers’ interest.
The platform also allows you to create collections of images that are relevant to one another.
For best results, pin pictures along with links to your blog. Add relevant hashtags and a call to action.
Instagram is a platform that mainly caters to younger people. It is image oriented and shows images in a single stream format. It allows up to 2200 characters of text, however, it will only show the first few lines of text in the news feed. Therefore, it is best to keep captions short and sweet.
Hashtags can be used to increase user reach.
Instagram will not allow you to add live links directly in the text field. However, you can add them in your bio. A good strategy is to add text in your caption guiding readers to your bio so they can click on the link to your blog.
Automating Sharing Of Your Blog Posts On Social Media
With so many social media platforms out there, it can take a lot of time and effort to share your blogs on each one. Fortunately, there are several tools that make the process easier. Here are a few that you may want to check out.
WordPress
WordPress is a popular blogging platform that makes sharing easy with the JetPack for WordPress plugin. To access this plug in, you must take the following steps:
- Go to your WordPress dashboard
- Hover over settings on the left-hand navigation and select ‘Sharing’
- It will give you the option to connect the blog to your social media profiles
Once you have set up your Jetpack you will see the sharing setting at the top right. Make sure these are checked off for all the platforms you want to share to.
When you publish your blog, it will automatically share to these platforms. You can also edit the message on each post to make them specially customized for the site you’re posting on.
Buffer
Buffer is a tool that allows you to post blog links on a variety of social media sites. The free version will let you schedule the posting of up to 10 blogs which can then be shared on a handful of platforms over the course of five days at specific times of your choosing.
One thing we haven’t touched on yet, is that it is best to post on social media when the maximum number of people are online. These times can vary depending on the platform.
The nice thing is, you can use Buffer along with a tool called Followerwonk which tells you to the time of day most of your followers are browsing social media.
For each day you schedule your blog to be posted, Buffer will post it once every other hour. To get the maximum reach out of your blogs, create new titles for the article each time it posts.
For instance, if the original title is Fashion Trends for the New Year, you can alternate with titles like the Hottest Fashions for 2021, How to Update Your Wardrobe for the Coming Year and so on. This will make the post look unique for your audience each time it posts. It will also help you determine which title is working best for your followers.
If you don’t have enough content to fill Buffer’s requirements, you can also share other people’s content…giving the proper credit of course. It’s likely they will return the favor and share yours at some point as well.
When posting content on Buffer, you should use relevant hashtags. These will be effective on sites like Instagram and Twitter.
If you like using Buffer, you may decide to switch to the premium service. This will allow you to schedule even more blogs to be posted and it will give you access to share on more platforms.
Dlivr.It
Dlvr.It is another tool that will let you automatically share blogs to your social media pages. You will need to set this up by using the RSS feed on your blog.
If you use the Dlvr.It free service, you will get to schedule five feeds that can be shared on three social media platforms. The five feeds can include original content as well as content from complementary blogs. Sharing content from other blogs can be terrific for networking.
Other Social Media Blogging Tips
Now you know a bit about the tools you can use to get your blogs out there, but there are other strategies you can use to get your blogs noticed. Here are some valuable tips.
Repurpose Old Content
One of the most difficult things about blogging is coming up with new content all the time. Well guess what? You can give your brain a rest by re-purposing old content.
Start by going through your old blogs looking for ones that were most successful. Now work on updating some information and maybe even change the title. Then set it out into the world.
Chances are the people who are seeing your blog now have never seen it before and the few that may have seen it may not remember it.
Another way to repurpose content is to change the format. For instance, if you posted a blog article about how to tend your garden that did really well, why not create a video with similar content?
You can also take snippets from your blog and turn them into short social media posts or transform them into infographics, podcasts, slideshares or newsletters.
Engage with Your Target Audience
It’s not enough to write an engaging blog. You must also engage with your audience in other ways.
If readers are leaving comments on your blog, respond to keep the conversation going.
You can also engage across a variety of platforms. Quora, for instance, is a good platform for dropping links that will guide people back to your web site. Just find a relevant conversation and pick up the discussion while including a link to your latest blog.
When posting on Quora and other forums, make sure to follow the guidelines to ensure your comment (and link) does not get erased.
Network with Influencers
Influencers are people that have used social media to build a following. Their followers turn to them for guidance and opinions and are likely to follow their advice and use the products they are using.
In order to get an influencer on your side, start engaging with them in a natural way. Comment on their posts and be active in their conversations.
Next start integrating them in your blogs. Share their content, making sure to give them the proper credit or link to their content in your articles.
Once you have gotten their attention, ask them if they would be wiling to post on your blog. If they post and share the content, they will give you access to a whole new audience.
Join a Community
Many social media platforms have groups or communities you can be a part of. Find ones that are relevant to your blogs. In doing so, make sure they are still active. Some groups go dead due to lack of activity and joining and posting in them will be a waste of time.
The point of joining a group is to share your content with likeminded people, but you don’t want the relationships to be one sided. You should be liking and commenting on their content as well.
You can also ask people in the group to share your blog posts and links but offer to return the favor.
Avoid Spamming
Every site has a certain lifespan for its posts. For instance, if you post on Facebook, you will continue getting feedback for up to approximately 24 hours. Twitter posts, on the other hand, usually have a lifespan of about 18 minutes.
Because Twitter posts don’t last very long, you can get away with posting several times a day while, with Facebook, more than once a day can be excessive.
The point is, you don’t want to post again until your last post has died out. Posting more than that will seem excessive and it will turn off your audience.
You also want to make sure your blogs are engaging and valuable to your readers. Posting a bunch of fluff will also put you in an unfavorable light.
Now that you know how to promote your blog, what tools and strategies will you be using to maintain high visibility?