7 Content Promotion Strategies That Work (with Examples)
One of the greatest lies that we have adopted from pop culture (in my humble opinion) is “if you build it, they will come.” Anyone who has started a business or worked in marketing knows this just isn’t true. A more appropriate idiom when it comes to marketing is, "if a tree falls in the forest but nobody hears it, does it make a sound?"
Likewise, if you are creating great content, but you don’t promote it, who’s going to see it?
The internet is a loud and busy place where it can be tough to break through the noise and be seen and heard. But there are also plenty of strategies you can use to promote your content and get it in front of the audience you want. Let’s look at seven specific content promotion strategies that work, along with some examples to get you going.
1. Repurpose and repackage your content
One of the best strategies for getting eyes on your content is simply repackaging it for different channels.
Using your blog post, video, podcast, or whatever it is, think about what it could look like on Facebook, or YouTube. If your content is text, use it as a script to create a video, and cut down a few versions for different platforms. If your original content is a long-form video, trim it down for Instagram and TikTok.
With a bit of creativity and effort, most quality content can be repurposed into another format – and by covering as many formats and platforms as you can, you’ll reach your audience where they are more likely to see it. Bonus points if you can keep each piece of repackaged content a little different, for those seeing it in multiple places!
2. Email marketing
If you have an email newsletter (and you probably should!), this is one of the best places to promote your content. The people subscribed to your newsletter are already interested in your work, and email remains one of the most effective free (or nearly free) marketing tools around.
At Starling Social, we use our newsletters to promote our blog posts (like this one!), as well as useful digital marketing news and tips from across the web. You may even be reading this because you followed a link in one of our emails. Woah.
Whether it’s a blog post, a video, podcast episode, or any other piece of content, let your most loyal audience know by including it in an email newsletter. The format also makes it very easy to share and save; don’t be shy asking your readers to do just that within your email either.
3. Guest posts
One of the most difficult – but also most rewarding – ways to promote your content is by securing guest posts on other blogs and websites. This can be tricky to break into without help, but if you have relationships with other bloggers or websites within your industry, take advantage of them.
In a recent Starling Social newsletter, we shared an article on guest posting from Semrush, which gives a great overview of the benefits and how to do it well.
Ultimately, guest posting means getting your content published on someone else’s website, which can lead to new audiences seeing your content, increased visibility and authority, and even bumps to your SEO (if the site allows a backlink to your website and original content).
4. Online communities
Another high-labour, high-reward strategy is participating in online communities related to your work. This can be time-consuming, because it really only works if your participation is genuine, and members of these communities are often very good at sniffing out spam.
But, if you have the time, it can be worth your while to find places like Facebook groups and Reddit communities related to your business, join them, and engage organically. Once you have a feel for the rules – spoken and unspoken – you can begin to look for opportunities to share your content.
Reddit in particular can be pretty hostile to brands and self-promotion, although many Facebook groups have rules against it too. However, in the right context, done in good faith, you can win new audiences and customers in these spaces. My rule of thumb is to treat these spaces like you’re overhearing a private conversation in a public space, and realize you have something valuable to share. Be respectful, explain that you may have something of credible value to share, and offer it freely. It’s still a gamble, and you might get shut down, but you may also gain a new loyal customer or audience.
5. Internal links and evergreen content
On the lighter-lift end of the spectrum, utilizing internal links and a variety of evergreen content is a good strategy for promoting more of your content to people already visiting your website.
Anytime you are creating a new post, find opportunities to link back to previous posts and other places you share content in order to keep eyes and attention on your content for as long as possible. Also, where possible, it is great to maintain some evergreen content that you can link back to regularly, like this Starling Social blog post about evergreen content. (See what we did there?)
6. Partnerships with other brands or influencers
It can come in many different forms, but partnering with others – another company, a publication, an influencer – is a great way to get your content in front of a new audience.
A more traditional (and still very effective) way of doing this is to partner with another business – ideally one in your same field, but not a direct competitor – and conduct or commission some kind of study or survey. You get the initial benefit of sharing the cost and effort to gain (hopefully) valuable data, but you can also publish the results jointly, and benefit from each other’s audience and marketing efforts.
With the advent of influencer marketing, another way to do this is to simply pay someone to create content about your business. Usually this is less of a partnership and more of a transaction, but depending on the size of your business (and the influencer’s following), you could find opportunities for true partnership that benefits both parties and raises your profiles in tandem.
7. Paid online advertising
Finally, as much as we all love to find a free way to promote our business and content, sometimes the most effective strategy is to simply pay for some ads.
That isn’t to say that paid advertising is the easy way out – it still takes strategy and creativity, and many ads fall flat with little or no return on investment.
When paying to promote content, specifically, you can go from a simple boosted post on Facebook or Instagram (which can certainly be effective), all the way to coordinated social media and PPC campaigns that get people to sign up for your newsletter, or even pay money, in exchange for some piece of downloadable content.
The latter option here can be pricey, but if you are building up a newsletter email list from scratch, or have some truly valuable content that you want to sell, it can pay for itself quickly and easily – if you do it right.
Start promoting your content
These strategies can go a long way toward getting the attention you want for your content, but before you invest your time (or money) into promoting it, your content needs to be good!
High-quality, useful content that people want to read and come back to is the starting point of any good content strategy.
If you need help with creating or promoting your content, we’re here to help! From copywriting to social media management to paid social and PPC advertising, our team can create content that will make your business stand out, and help ensure it reaches your target audience every time. Get in touch today to book a discovery call!
