15 Places To Promote Your Blog Post

Some people think that traffic just pours in after publishing a blog post. In reality, you have to spend just as much time (sometimes longer) promoting the piece on various websites. The purpose of content promotion is to have your article read from as many places as possible, but also in the right places where people would be looking for your services or answers.

Preparing your Content Promotion Strategy

Your reading audience and your customers are your number one priority. While you may increase your views by posting on as many websites and social networks as possible, it may take more effort with little return.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Where is your audience most likely to be found?
• What challenges are they experiencing in their daily routines or work?
• How can your service or business help solve that problem?

The answer to the question, “Which websites should I post my content on” depends on what you offer and who you’re trying to reach. We published an infographic last year from our social media guide that shows the best content and times to post on each platform.

In this guide, we’ll run through the best and most popular places to promote your blog post, along with some tips to get the best results.

 

15 Places To Promote Your Blog Post On

 

Initial Resources

1. Email

If you don’t have a newsletter already, consider creating one for your audience who can sign up on a mailing list. Emailing interested customers is one of the most effective ways to get your blog post opened.

• Try out MailChimp. MailChimp lets you send beautiful, easily customizable emails. The free version gives you up to 2000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month. This is more than enough for any small or medium-sized business.
• Think about your frequency. Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly? The answer depends on how frequently you can pump out content.
• If you’re comfortable with the content, share it with your coworkers and friends! Sometimes the best feedback is from those close to you rather than an internet stranger.

2. Canva

Canva isn’t exactly a place to post your blog, it’s a place that helps you make infographics, event invitations, posters, and other blog or social media graphics. It’s free, although there is a paid upgrade for team features and a greater template selection, and it’s super easy to use.

• Make images for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These are the highest engaging, most visual platforms.

3. Pingler

The first thing you should do is ping various search engines, crawlers, indexers, and servers to notify them of your new blog post or page. This helps index and rank your page much faster than if you were to wait for the crawler to reach your website organically.
This service is free and a must-use for any blog post.

 

Social Media

4. Twitter

The first place to actually share your blog is on Twitter. The social media network has changed a lot since its early days, and the way people have used it has also changed. But it remains a place about news and the most current, highest trending topics or stories. It’s great for announcements and event updates, news and pop culture stories, and blogger/writer networking.

• Be concise. The 140-character limit is in effect.
• Use Bitly to shorten your links and make them tidier.
• Try including a fact from your blog, or the main topics of your article.
• Write a second tweet later in the week with a reminder to read the blog again, and finally the third tweet a week later for anyone who missed it.
• Don’t forget to include a hashtag if you have space for it. It’s great for helping with the Twitter search.
• Twitter runs on influencer marketing more than most other social networks. Consider teaming up with an influencer or thought leader in your space who you can engage with and have retweeted your content.

5. Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social network in the world, and at this point needs no introduction. From a content marketing perspective, Facebook gives you greater audience targeting and market research than any other website, besides Google.

• Use Canva, as mentioned above, to design some graphics. You can add an image that doesn’t show up on your blog page, which may increase engagement if you make the image more personal and less commercial.
• Similar to Twitter, use a quote or fact to share from the article. These usually get higher shares.
• Ease up on the ad copy. People on Facebook tend to be more intimate and personal, so be careful about trying to sound too sales-y. Ask genuine questions and foster healthy dialogue and debate.

6. Google+

Brands tend to ignore Google Plus fairly often, but it still serves as a great place to share and find content. On top of that, there seems to be research that points towards a ranking benefit from posting your content on Google+, as long as people are engaging with it.

• Make sure to connect with at least a dozen other people on the platform whose content you would genuinely like, while still being related to your business somehow.
• Have your connections and your team like the content so that it helps rank faster.

7. Instagram

Instagram is like the cooler, younger brother of Facebook. It may not have all the same features as Facebook, but Instagram has become really popular with celebrities and younger audiences. It’s focused on visuals that can be scrolled through on smartphones. Because of this, quotes, food, selfies, and picturesque scenes such as concerts or mountain hikes, are the most popular content.

• Use Canva to create a quote or an infographic statistic you can share.
• Make sure to like and comment on other people’s similar content. Instagram is definitely a social network where engaging with others always finds a way of coming back around.

8. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is known as a professional network, so there are a lot of businesses and startup entrepreneurs. The advertising and corporate noise can be dizzying, so some people feel overwhelmed by posting. But if you provide value for readers, and build genuine relationships and partnerships in your LinkedIn network, it becomes a lot easier.

• Keep it professional. LinkedIn is about a business mentality, so think twice about how humorous you want to be in your copy.
• Full posts aren’t necessary unless you are attempting to establish a LinkedIn reputation for writing.
• Share your content on LinkedIn Groups. There’s a group for almost anything, from colleges to engineering teams. Just be mindful about which one you join and when the best time to post is. Don’t just publish your blog on there, but get to know other people and engage with their content too.

9. Pinterest

Pinterest emphasizes visuals, just like Instagram. The majority of Pinterest is female and like to shop online. This makes Pinterest great for DIY or cooking-related posts, as well as product-based marketing.

• Infographics are extremely popular on Pinterest.
• Pin an image from the article. If you use their official Browser Button you can do this straight from Chrome.
• Re-pin to multiple boards. Some of your audience may only be subscribed to one of your boards. Re-pin for max exposure.

10. Reddit

Reddit calls itself the “front page of the Internet” and it’s not too far off. Unlike most social networks, Reddit relies on a voting system that makes popular content (links or text posts with the most “upvotes”) rise to the top, while spam falls to the bottom. In addition, Reddit capitalizes on various “subreddits” which are communities complete with moderators and themes dedicated to a particular topic, such as gaming, EDM production, or funny gifs. There’s a subreddit for everything.

• Post on a specific and relevant subreddit. If the content you’re sharing is a recipe for baking cookies, don’t just share it in /r/food (a subreddit for food), try sharing in /r/baking. You may find more genuinely interested readers.
• Reddit’s users are usually sceptical, so spam and advertising are always stigmatized and downvoted. Make sure your content actually provides some resource or help.
• Engage with the users. Reddit is ultimately about comments and curiosity.
• Ask questions and provide answers as much as you can. You don’t have to make a post, you could private message or just comment in a relevant thread.

 

Sharing Platforms and Communities

11. Inbound

Inbound.org is a marketing and entrepreneurship community that helps you find relevant articles from SEO, social, content, blogging, and entrepreneurship, and lets you post your own. It’s almost like LinkedIn- it’s a professional, business-oriented platform, so you need to be cordial without sending the wrong signal.

• Although it’s free, don’t expect to get any return just by signing up. It requires engaging with the community on a genuine level.
• Use inviting copy, that includes an explanation of the blog’s intent and a snippet from one of the paragraphs. Give people a reason to click on another page. Promote your blog post without sounding like your explicitly promoting it.

12. Growth Hackers

Similar to Inbound, Growth Hackers is another marketing and entrepreneurship community with a voting system for each post. It costs extra to join Growth Hackers Projects, which is a more in-depth dashboard for your company’s testing and optimization purposes, but it’s free to post as long as you have a Facebook or Google account.

• Network with others just as you would on LinkedIn or Inbound. These are tight communities, and the only way to get real engagement is by engaging with others first.

13. Quora

Quora works a lot like Yahoo! Questions, where you ask a question and the most helpful answer is the response that appears right below. You need to set up your account by following some topics, upvoting some answers, and asking your first question, but after that, you’re free to post.

• Find a relevant question and answer it with your post. Use keywords found in your post to help SEO.
• Observe how others answer questions. Often it’s someone who speaks knowledgeably about a topic but also presents it concisely.
• It helps when you mention your credentials in your answer. If you’re answering a post about going to college, your answer seems more trustworthy if you’re a professor or a graduate.

14. Flipboard

Flipboard is a popular news aggregator and curator, and just about anyone can make their own magazine. It’s especially popular among mobile users and provides a visually pleasing way to continue sharing interesting articles.

• Build out a good profile. Follow some magazines relevant to your business, including an image and a brief description of what you do.
• Start your own magazine, and begin curating the content. This is how users will read your magazine.
• Comment. It’s not done enough by other users but can really get you additional views.
• Post your own articles but make sure you post others’ articles too. People will only read your content if it doesn’t look like shameless self-promotion.

15. Medium

Medium has become a powerful network of writers and readers from all industries. Like a social network, Medium has its own curation algorithm, based on several factors, such as whether the reader follows the author, whether the reader follows the publication containing the story, and whether the reader follows one of the story’s tags.

• Leveraging a publication or getting a sponsorship from a brand can boost your organic distribution. But blogs published by individuals get a qualitative boost.
• Use tags. Pick broad and popular tags rather than specific ones.
• Get your team involved in your content. Find people with similar interests and engage with them. Whenever someone highlights your content, your story or blog is shared with their followers.
• Since people like to read on Medium, consider writing the whole blog on Medium. It’ll get more engagement that way.

Reuse and Repurpose

Once you feel you’ve exhausted all your possible places of promotion, brainstorm some ways you can use your content again without actually sharing the same thing ad nauseum.

One way is to ask your audience what they thought of the piece, and what they want to hear more of. You can also continually update your post if it’s a comprehensive guide, by including new information and resources (and making note of the additions at the top).

Finally, consider reusing the exact same content in a different format, such as a webinar, an infographic, a podcast, or a downloadable PDF. There are many more options to try than what’s listed above.