*Update: As of April 2, 2019, Google+ no longer exists. Learn more.
With every blog post you publish, there are vast ways to promote it. In a perfectly SEO’d world, the search engines would always find your posts and place them on the top of their SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page), showing your blog posts off to the world. But, as you know, we live in a very social world, and getting your blog posts across the social networks should be a priority too.
Think of your blog as your content marketing hub. Now let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can repurpose your blog posts into social media content.
WordPress Blog– Your Content Hub
- Utilize and encourage use of social media sharing buttons
- Use one or more great images on each post (think Pinterest quality)
- Include links to other social media outlets for more information or to continue discussion
- Make blog posts educational, entertaining, or persuasive (more blog post inspiration here)
Flickr/Instagram
- Upload photos to be used in blog posts
- Link from blog post to Flickr if reader wants to view more images
- Link from photo description to blog post if relevant (more ways to utilize images here)
- Pin blog posts with engaging, eye-catching images
- Use keyword rich boards, descriptions, and hashtags (more Pinteresting ideas here)
YouTube/Vimeo
- Create a video related to your blog content and embed or link in post
- Create a video to follow-up on a popular blog post
- Share videos on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Linkedin (read YouTube optimizing tips here)
- Post your blogs on Facebook (Remember, you can change the title and description viewable in the newsfeed to be engaging to your audience)
- Combine posting your blog URL with an image for maximum effect (try combining an image with a text overlay for even more impact)
- Integrate tabs for other social media, such as Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter, and email sign up
- Ask questions, start discussions, and encourage comments about your blog post on Facebook (learn mistakes to avoid on Facebook here)
- Create unique and multiple tweets from blog content (include URL to blog post)
- Tweet images from Flickr, videos from YouTube, pins from Pinterest (in moderation)
- Ask questions, gather opinions, and create discussions around blog post (learn Twitter time savers here)
- Post new blog posts, images, videos to company profile (and/or personal profile) with status update
- Share discussion ideas with link to blog in groups when appropriate
- Share your content directly with individual connections if there is interest (start a Linkedin company listing too)
Google+
- Share content as you would on Facebook for a boost in SEO rankings
*Update: As of April 2, 2019, Google+ no longer exists. Learn more.
Email Marketing/Constant Contact
- Share excerpts of your best or most recent blog posts in an email newsletter with links back to your website/blog
- Share links/icons to all your social media sites on your email communications
- Encourage followers/fans to sign up for your email newsletters or RSS Feed
Bonus Tips
- Cross-promote within your social networks so fans can engage with you in multiple ways, if they choose
- Be keyword rich in all social media
- When needed, integrate some automation (on a limited basis) to share posts
- Blog posts can even be re-purposed into infographics, white papers, printed brochures, or used as an incentive to get people from direct mail or printed advertising to your website
- Make sure your blog posts are mobile friendly and can be easily read from a smart phone or tablet
Most businesses and organizations will not use all these social networks and tactics to promote their blogs – but you get the idea. Choose what works for your business, and stay in front of customers wherever they are – whether their favorite social network or inbox. Remember that each platform is different and avoid duplicating the exact same content on every social network, but tailor similar ideas in different ways for each audience.
