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We live in a world of content saturation and sensory overload. From YouTube to TikTok to millions of online blogs, content appears limitless.
While this vast network of content is inspiring, insightful, and hopeful, there is just one problem: 95% of all content online has zero backlinks and subsequently zero traffic.
Content creation itself is already difficult enough, let alone getting eyes on content you worked tirelessly to produce.
Social channels are noisy, paid ad costs are increasing, and users are less receptive to promotional emails.
So, what’s left? What promotion tactics actually move the needle? Here are a few.
Get experts involved
Experts and thought leaders are experts and thought leaders for a reason: They know what they’re doing, and display a proven record of success. These are markers of trust, and more importantly, social proof.
Experts in business are essentially influencers, just without the Instagram product placements. A single mention of your content on their social channels could skyrocket traffic levels and virality.
According to a recent study surveying over 1,000 content creators, contributor/expert quotes are a top-two factor in driving results with online blog content, just behind video. Sourcing opinions from trusted professionals helps transfer credibility to your own content, a key driving force that most online content lacks.
Thankfully, reaching experts is easier than ever with tools like Help a Reporter, or simply reaching out to journalists, experts, and publicists for a quote in your story.
The benefits here are vast: Experts who are quoted in content often reshare said content to their own audience. This, in turn, drives direct traffic, social ranking signals, backlinks, and press attention.
Getting experts involved is no longer an option. It’s essential to succeed with passive content promotion.
Related: 27 Leaders and Experts You Should Follow to Help Build Your Business on the Side
Don’t stop at social
Social media platforms are fantastic tools in your digital swiss-army knife. They’re versatile, diverse, and effective.
But social media is becoming more pay to play than ever. Organic reach rates on social media platforms have diminished to negligible amounts in favor of paid ads. On LinkedIn, posts that share your latest YouTube video or blog post are displayed less in user feeds. On Facebook and Instagram, it’s no different.
Simply put, if you are copying and pasting your content to promote on social, the reach is slim to none.
Social is a great first step, but it shouldn’t be your only one. After sharing on social, head to real forums and communities like Reddit, Quora, Slack groups, and Facebook groups. Engage with real people in your niche, genuinely asking their thoughts on your latest content piece.
I’ve personally joined half a dozen Slack communities in digital marketing to connect with experts and virtually network. Think of them as a conference, but instead of buying drinks at the bar, you’re connecting in a Slack channel to learn more about what they do.
Within these communities, you will develop strong, symbiotic relationships that naturally promote your content without spamming it on every social channel you can.
Related: 5 Tips and Tricks You Need to Know About Slack
Diversify your formats
Content is much more than written words. It’s more than a short social video. It’s more than a podcast. Content can (and should) be developed and consumed in dozens of formats, all of which help you drive more organic growth.
Limiting your creation to one format subsequently limits your promotion efforts, too.
For instance, promoting long-form blog posts on social media isn’t going to resonate with scroll-happy users looking for quick releases in dopamine. On the contrary, repurposing that long-form blog post into quick 15 second video clips will.
Taking existing content and flipping it into digestible formats for each social or traffic network is key to promotional success.
This is a strategy that Gary V dominates from his personal blog to social and every medium under the proverbial sun. In fact, one of his most popular pieces on how to create 64 pieces of content in one day details just that: take a single piece of inspirational, evergreen content and slice it like a samurai.
Turn that blog post you wrote into social snippets, videos, and a slide deck. Transform that slide deck into Instagram stories. Reconstruct your Instagram stories into a Twitter feed.
The options for repurposing and redistributing content are vast, but the purpose remains the same: promote your content the way users consume it on a given platform.
If your content promotion is falling behind your content creation, start getting experts involved, expand beyond traditional social platforms, and diversify your formats for increased success.
