6 Creative Ways to Promote a Blog Post
Editor’s note: This post was written by Monique Craig, a passionate blogger and marketing specialist who works for Oneflare, an online marketplace which connects customers with local service providers. Find her on Twitter and Google+.
Even if your blog post is an exceptional and highly valuable piece of content, you’ll still need to do your best to promote it and help it reach a wider audience. Going for the obvious, you might forget that there are many alternative ways of promoting your blog post that often prove more efficient than popular methods. Here’s a list of top 6 creative ways to help your share count skyrocket in no time.
- Niche social media
Instead of sharing your post on sites like Facebook, Google+, LikendIn and Twitter, or posting a relevant picture on Pinterest and Instagram, consider niche social networks. Because of their popularity, Facebook and the likes will attract your competition and so your posts might gain a lot less attention than in small social networks. In niche social media, the competition is lower and audience is more focused and active.
One of the most vibrant user communities is located on Quora, a question/answer based website with lots of active users. Another interesting social media to consider is Empire Avenue, which uses gamification to help its users share content across other social media platforms. Its audience is mainly composed of marketers, bloggers, social media specialists and small businesses.
Another great option for sharing is Tumblr, a micro-blogging website perfect for linking to inspiring visuals and other related content. If you’re targeting young, cool, artistically-inclined people, you’ll find them on Tumblr rather than Facebook or Twitter.
- A Yappie message
Another interesting way to create some buzz around your blog post is to enrich your link with some interesting media. That’s where Yappie comes in.
Yappie is essentially an app for iOS and Android, which allows to create a recording of your voice and share it with Yappie community through your phone. You can record up to 60 seconds, use a voice filter, choose a cover image to make the content even more attractive, add your URL and you’re done!
- Blogger communities
Another great place for promotion are blogger communities – they provide a wealth of interesting opportunities to connect with people actively writing about a similar topic or niche. Bloggers can help each other spread the word about their content by forming alliances or engaging each other with their blog posts.
Viral Content Buzz is one great place to go. The platform was founded by Ann Smarty of MyBlogGuest.com and it’s based on a point system. Sharing content written by other bloggers, you earn points and then can add your own content to be in turn shared by others. Smart, isn’t it?
Another interesting blogger community is Social Buzz Club.
- A Vine video
Vine is a brilliant iOS app that allows you to create 6-second looping videos – if used right, they can serve as a teaser to your blog post. You can then share your video in the Vine community, but also on Facebook and Twitter – for the latter, you’ll be automatically provided with relevant hashtags (Vine is actually owned by Twitter).
- Bookmarking sites
A different option for promotion is sharing your blog post on bookmarking sites, which can help you target people looking for content in your topic range. Some of the most popular and efficient bookmarking sites are Reddit, Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon – all collecting and organizing various materials from around the web.
- Blog post in slides
Creating a SlideShare overview of your post might seem a strange idea, until you learn how many people are actually involved in this platform. Over 50 million monthly visitors make up for an active community, ready to hear what you’ve got to say in your blog post. Make sure to include a link back to your post in one of your slides and embed your SlideShare presentation on your blog
Reaching out to a niche audience is often much more rewarding than counting on social media giants – try these alternatives and creatively spread the word about your content.