How to Promote Your Blog Like a Pro
If you’ve just started blogging, or even if you’ve been blogging for a while, you might not realize how many ways there are to promote your own post. These ideas are divided into beginning and advanced ideas. If you’re more advanced in the ways of social media promotion, you can skip to the more “Pro” ideas.
Pinning your blog post (you did create a board for your own blog posts, right?) is something everyone can do, and is a fairly simple way to get more traffic to a post. You could have your own blog board, where you pin all your posts. If you need a beginner’s guide, you might read my Top Ten Tasks for Pinterest.
Invite Others to Your Group Blog Board on Pinterest
Pro
- Repin that post, especially if the first time you pinned it, it didn’t get any repins. Delete the old post and pin it again.
- Create a group board for your blog posts, like the example below, and invite lots of people to pin. You can invite anyone who follows your board. You could invite other bloggers who aren’t on Pinterest, too, and they might be motivated to be on Pinterest more often.
- Repin the blog post using a different picture and onto a different board. For instance, my post about Introverts and Social Media could be repinned on a Social Media board, my blog board, my Pinterest board, etc. But I’d space them out, time wise.
Post your wonderful writing on Facebook, with a good call to action and a big picture or two.
Schedule Your Facebook Post When Your Fans Are Online
To find your Facebook analytics, go to your business page==>Insights (at the top of the page). Examine when your fans are online and use the native Facebook scheduler. For instance, my analytics show that most of my fans are online at 8:30 am pst. Another good time would be around 2:00 pm.
Note: my top three posts above were all boosted.
Pro
- Promote your post for as little as $5 per post. You can choose who sees it and get more eyes on your post that way. Most people can afford $20/month for promotion.
- Tag people who might be interested in seeing your words of wisdom (but do this carefully–nobody likes to be tagged too many times).
- To see what your post will look like, schedule it 10 minutes or more in the future, so you can edit it if you need to.
- Check your business page’s analytics to see when the best time is to post.
Can You Schedule Like a Pro?
Of course you’ll want to tweet about your newest creation. And you can schedule it one or more times. Guy Kawasaki retweets his posts about four times a day, but you may want to wait days between posts! Of course, use a scheduler like HootSuite to get the word out.
Pro
- Pin your tweet to the top of your Twitter feed. Upload a picture (tweets with images are much more likely to be retweeted), as in the image below.
- Repeat your tweet, but use a different picture and headline.
- Ask for a retweet (again, don’t ask very often unless you’ve been giving to others as well). Tag others who might be interested.
- If you mention others in your blog post, call them out in your tweet.
Pin Your Tweet to the Top of Your Twitter Feed
Post your wonderful writing after you’ve created it on your blog. You can upload a picture, too.
Pro
- Don’t just post your writing, but republish it. LinkedIn’s new publisher is called Pulse, and anyone can now be a publisher on LinkedIn.
- Focus on entertaining, motivating, or educating people. As Jeff Haden suggests, write your piece as though you’re writing to one person.
Get Syndicated!
If you’re a regular blogger, you might consider getting syndicated. My blog posts are syndicated at Business 2 Community. There are lots of reasons to be syndicated; here are a few.
Are You a Blogger?
Try a few of these ideas and let me know how they work for you!
Pinterest: 6 Steps to Going Viral
Pinterest: 6 Steps to Going Viral
You’ve been on Pinterest for awhile now, pinning like a crazy person. Your pins, or those for your new startup, get liked and occasionally repinned, but nothing has ever gotten very popular, or achieved the success you’d really like. What can you do to increase your odds of a pin going viral, being repinned, liked, and commented upon? As an example, I’d like to use a pin from my Tiny Homes board. (If you click on the picture above, you’ll see the original article).
Disclaimer: Nothing can ensure a pin going viral. Sometimes the dumbest things catch on, while your carefully crafted posts die a sad, lonely death with nary a like. This article may only increase your chances. If you really want to go viral, send $10 million in unmarked bills and I’ll see what I can do.
Click Through
If you’re repinning from someone else’s account, make sure that the pin goes somewhere. That is to say, click enough times to see where the pin leads. Make sure that the pin does not lead to a Google search, or a website where there’s no more information, or **gasp** a 404 page. My pin goes to a fabulous site with an article about downsizing for a tiny home.
Read the Article at the Pin’s Origin
For pins that include an article, read the article all the way through before you repin it. Take note of a few things about the article. The point of this is so that you have something interesting to put in the caption. For instance, is the article funny? Is it thorough? Is it peculiar? Do you like the writing style?
Recap What You Liked
In my tiny homes pin, the writer uses an example of a clown car which cracks me up. So in my caption, under the pin, I write my own mini-review of the article, telling people why they might want to read the article. And be sure to give credit where credit is due–to the original author.
Post At a Good Time
Now that’s a tiny house!
If you find an extremely good item to pin, save it for a good time. According to Social Media Examiner, pinning at different times of the night and day will help your pins be seen by local and global audiences. I like to pin on Sundays because that’s a very popular time in the U.S.; pinning at various times I’ve noticed that different people are online depending upon when I pin.
Comment on Your Own Pin and Respond to Comments
People love comments! And few people comment. So you can add comments to your own pin. And be sure to respond to any comments about the pin to keep the conversation going! This raises the popularity of the pin.
Repin Later
If your pin doesn’t catch on, you can repin the pin to the top of the board or even make it the cover pin. If there are no “likes” or repins at all, you could delete it completely and repin it at a later time. You can add more text to the caption, too (think about how you might search for such a pin yourself). You want people to be able to find your pin!
Have Your Pins Gone Viral?
Do you have any “pins gone wild,” which been repinned hundreds or thousands of times? Was that a complete surprise, or were you sure that they would be popular? One of my pins has been repinned 25 billion times! Ok, one of the previous sentences might be a slight exaggeration. Can you guess which one? As usual, leave your comments below!