- As of 2014, Americans spend 25% of their time on social media. No matter your product or service, your customers are on social.
- Publishing great content isn’t enough – you also need to promote it using social media.
- As markets fragment, reaching audiences organically on social media is getting harder.
- The key is getting creative and using everything in your social arsenal.
Digital marketers know better than anyone how important it is to create content that is engaging, relatable, and readable. Of course, when all those boxes are checked, it helps to optimize that readable content for SEO. If all goes well, you’ll be shooting to the top of those SERPs in no time. Right?
Kind of… In today’s climate, creating great content is only half the battle. To make sure that content reaches your target audience, you’ll also need to promote it. Luckily, social media is pretty much built for just that.
Why promote content on social media?
Content that doesn’t create engagement isn’t a worthwhile investment – and content doesn’t sell itself. But there are plenty of other reasons social media is the perfect tool for marketing your marketing. Here are just a few:
- It’s designed for sharing. Not using it for content promotion is like putting together a physical photo album of your amazing Bali wedding, then stuffing it in a bottle and sending it out to sea. You just won’t get the exposure, precision, or speed you want.
- It’s where your audience is. A 2014 study reported that Americans already spent a quarter of their total time on social media, doubling their sharing activity on mobile devices that same year. Social isn’t going away.
- It’s optimized for more targeted campaigns. That means it doesn’t just help you reach audiences, but it helps you reach the right audience. This is crucial when you consider today’s fragmented markets.
How to use social media for content promotion
Consider user trends
Current user trends can provide navigational stars for digital marketers looking to boost their content promotion on social.
2019 is looking especially ripe for micro- and local influencers, ephemeral content (e.g. SnapChat and Instagram stories), and Facebook groups. It’s a smart move to incorporate these tools into your content promotion campaign.
Use media wisely
If the above trend toward ephemeral content is any indication, varying your use of media can make your content more engaging at first sight. Marketers have experimented with using both Facebook Live and static Facebook videos – often decked out with special or branded graphics and calls-to-action – to entice readers to click through to new articles or blog posts.
Optimize promotion by platform
Social media platforms vary widely in terms of what content works well where. Instagram isn’t great for links, for example. Facebook is more forgiving with long-form snippets than Twitter is. Consider your platform (you’ll probably be promoting the same content across channels) and craft optimized posts for each.
Some general social media optimization tips to consider:
- Make sure all your social profiles are fully filled out. Not only does it create a more cohesive and professional presence, but it also establishes authority and trust with your audiences.
- Use relevant hashtags, branded icons, and/or shoppable tags in your posts.
- For long form-friendly platforms like Facebook, mention your sources, and consider investing upfront time to gather influencer quotes.
- Craft an arsenal of varied snippets – Neil Patel suggests 20 or more – to include in different posts of the same content, to be shared throughout a day or extended period. (This can be on the same platform, preferably one friendly to blurbs, like FB.)
Engage before, during, and after
This doesn’t just mean with influencers or sources before sharing content. You should also be reaching out to your influencer, writer, resource, or marketing networks to ask others to share your content.
It can even mean re-posting, re-tweeting, and commenting back when audiences engage with the content you’ve already published. Reciprocity on your part deepens your brand presence in a community, ensuring your content will keep being seen by the people who most need to see it.
Promote better content with RMG
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by today’s fast-paced social media trends, we don’t blame you. The team at Redefine Marketing Group have years of experience in the digital marketing trenches, and we’re happy to share that hard-earned wisdom. Get in contact today with any content marketing questions keeping you up at night. We’ll try our best to help you sleep better…
