How to Effectively Promote Your Blog Posts on Social Media

Back in the day, you didn’t have nearly as many options when it came to sharing new blog posts. Mostly, you relied off of RSS subscribers to swing on by, email subscribers, or for people to discover your content through search engines. While all of those still ring true today, social media has given all of us the ability to more easily share our content with the world. There are no shortage of social networks to choose from, and it can be a daily struggle just to keep up with everything.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a massive following to do well. We so often get caught up in numbers, believing the bigger the number, the better. To be honest, having a big following is awesome, but you know what matters even more? A quality following, and people that are your biggest fans. Those are the people who will share your content on a consistent basis.

However, just posting your blog post’s headline and adding a link isn’t enough. You can of course stick to the way most people do it, or you can make some little changes that will get your content even more attention when shared.

Better Pique Interest

Thanks to social media, our attention spans have been spread very thin. Content is hitting us at every single direction, and it’s incredibly easy to skip over things without a second thought. Unless you write seriously good headlines, your followers are likely skipping over your posts.

Come up with different variants, including asking questions and maybe even throwing in a bit of humor. For example, say you have a post titled “How To Create Awesome Videos”. That headline in of itself is okay, but you can go even further. “12 Tips To Making The Best Videos Ever” or “Ever wanted your time back after watching a horrible video? Here’s how to ensure your videos don’t suffer the same fate: [Link]”.

Share At Optimal Times

Despite what some “studies” show, there are no truly universal optimal times to share content. Everyone’s audience is different, and what may work well for one person, may not work well for another. Now, the obvious route is to, over a consistent time frame, share your blog posts at different times. Eventually, you’ll pick up on certain patterns, helping you to gauge the best times to share.

Thankfully, with social media tools such as Buffer, that’s not totally necessary. Buffer is a great tool for sharing new content to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Although it allows you to set specific dates and times to share new posts, it can also take the guesswork out of the equation. By analyzing your accounts, it can automatically determine the optimal times for sharing new posts.

Use More Photos

Chances are, you share new blog posts through your Facebook profile or page. To display content in the News Feed, Facebook relies off of an algorithm called “EdgeRank”. It basically determines the “weight” of a post, and if it should be shown to a specific user. Unfortunately, sharing of links get less attention. To easily remedy this situation, share new blog posts while including a photo.

For example, go to write a new update as you normally would, and take into account better grabbing attention. Then, upload a relevant photo, and link your blog post at the end of the text. You’ll see that your posts get more attention, and EdgeRank also takes into consideration the amount of engagement on a post. Basically, the more likes or comments it receives, the more likelihood it will appear in the News Feeds of your friends or fans.

How important is social media for you in getting new content out there?

Photo credit: Jason Howie