How to promote a blog: 10 content distribution strategies

Not sure how to promote your blog posts? Or want to make sure you’re ticking all the content distribution boxes to make the most of your blogs?

Writing a blog is hard work and can take hours or even days, but if you don’t promote your blog on social media (and other available channels) most of your audience won’t know you’ve posted something new 😱 

We’ve put together our top blog promotion strategies to help you get more eyeballs on your best content, without spending hours on each channel.

1. Facebook post

With close to 2.45 billion monthly active users, Facebook is still the most popular social media platform overall and relevant for most brands. One of the best ways to promote your new blog posts is to post a short summary (with a link) on your Facebook business page and encourage audience participation, like comments and shares. For example, here’s a Facebook link post we shared earlier this year:

But you don’t have to limit your Facebook activity to link posts. In fact, posting links all the time probably isn’t a good strategy. Instead, you could share a graphic with a useful, funny, or insightful quote from the blog post overlayed on it.

The goal for your Facebook post is to get engagement and interaction, which increases your post’s reach and helps to generate more traffic from Facebook back to your blog post. But that’s not the only way you can use Facebook...

2. Facebook group

Hidden away from the main newsfeed, you’ll find thousands of active, thriving Facebook groups that cover nearly any shared interest you can think of. If your audience likes to hang out in closed groups on Facebook, make sure you’re in there, too.

If and when you’re allowed, share a link to your latest blog in the group. Or use your blog when responding to a relevant question if you think it could help. Just make sure you follow the rules and stay active in other conversations in the group so you don’t get booted for self-promotion. This exact same approach can apply to other online communities and forums, too.

Tip: Groups are also a great way to “spy” on your audience and learn about the challenges they’re facing. You might get inspiration for blog content or even a new product, service, or feature your audience needs.

3. Instagram post

Instagram is the perfect match for you if your content is aesthetically pleasing or you’re a personal brand, especially if your audience includes 18-29 year-olds.

One way to promote your blog content on Instagram is to add a graphic (with a quote from your blog) to the newsfeed. Or share a related Instagram-worthy photo and a longer form caption to match, with relevant hashtags to boost visibility. Since you can’t post links within Instagram posts, you’ll need to add your latest blog link to your profile, and invite your audience to go there (use those magic words, “link in bio”).

Instagram stories can be powerful to promote your blogs, too. Share screenshots, quotes, and interactive polls/questions that relate to your blog post and encourage viewers to check it out. If you have more than 10,000 followers, you can also add a swipe up link so that viewers can access your blog directly from your stories.

4. LinkedIn post

LinkedIn is a powerful platform to promote your blog if you have a professional or B2B audience. For a start, you could use your company page to post a short excerpt from your blog, with a link to read more (similar to the Facebook posts we mentioned).

But on LinkedIn, personal profiles usually work better than company pages - after all, people use the platform to connect and network with other people. So, write a short post and share some extra comments about the blog topic, then finish it off with a link back to the article. Use popular hashtags that are relevant to the topic and audience, and invite interaction to help increase the visibility of your post. You could also share a shorter version of the blog as a featured article on your profile (with a link to read the full blog at the bottom).

5. Pinterest pin

Pinterest is ideal for your brand if your audience uses it to find information about your product or niche. Clothing and gift retailers, DIYers, beauty brands, travel brands, makers, artists, designers, fitness brands, and recipe creators all tend to do really well on Pinterest. The best way to promote your blog on Pinterest is to create some kind of infographic or quote graphic, or take a high-quality photo, and embed it in your blog post. Then pin these images to a relevant board (or two) on Pinterest, along with descriptive copy.

6. Email marketing

Email may be a little older than all the other content marketing platforms, but it’s still very effective.

If you don’t have a bulk email system set up, you could simply send a direct blog link via email to individual contacts who you think will find it helpful or interesting. This works great on a small scale and is more personal, so will probably get a better response.

But if you’re collecting subscribers through a system like Mailchimp, there are a few different ways you can promote your blog:

• Email your subscribers with a blog summary or teaser - to read more, they’ll need to click the link to the full blog
• Paste the entire blog into the email so they can read it without leaving their inbox
• Add your evergreen blog to your email nurture, drip feed, or onboarding sequences

7. Tweet

What JavaScript front end framework should developers focus on in 2020? We compare the top 3 - Angular, Vue, and React - to figure out what’s 🔥 right now and what’s likely to be trending in a year or so.https://t.co/xINpDEgTb5 pic.twitter.com/LSwyfiJWh5

— Tiny (@joinTiny) February 19, 2020

We’re big fans of Twitter (please follow us @joinTiny if you are, too!). On Twitter, it’s all about getting to the point quickly, being useful, and facilitating good conversations. Here are a few different ways we like to promote our blogs on Twitter:

• Share the link and/or a key takeaway
• Use appropriate hashtags to increase reach
• Tag brands and people if they’re mentioned in the post
• Invite followers to share their ideas and perspectives

8. Video marketing

You can share videos on most social media platforms these days, although YouTube is still the #1 video marketing platform, with more than 2bn logged-in monthly users.

Ways to promote your blog with video include:

• Recording a demo
• Sharing behind-the-scenes footage
• Discussing key points in your blog
• Doing an interview
• Hosting and filming an event (we’ll expand on this in point #10)

Once you’re done recording and editing, upload the video to the most suitable platforms (including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn) and embed the video in your blog post. In the video description, include a link back to your blog post to encourage viewers to head to your website for more info and resources.

9. Podcast episode

Podcasting has seen strong growth over the last few years - in 2019, 51% of the US population had listened to a podcast, compared to 44% the previous year. Podcasts can add another layer to your blog content or open it up to new audiences who prefer to consume audio content.

Record yourself reading your blog out loud (with extra commentary) and use this to produce a podcast episode. Or interview an expert to add their unique perspectives. You could also make yourself available as a guest on other podcasts, using your blog to guide the conversation. Once you’ve recorded and produced your podcast, embed the audio on your original blog post so readers have the option of reading, listening, or both.

10. Event

Turn your blog content into a presentation and share it at a conference, or on a live webinar. Record your presentation and reuse the media (images, video, and audio) on all the other social media platforms, as well as embedded in your blog.

For example, in our blog, web accessibility for beginners, I embedded a video recording from a presentation I shared at the Australian Accessibility Conference earlier this year.

Final content distribution tips

We’ve shared 10 ways to promote your blog and amplify your content. But before you go and do ALL the things, let’s go through a few final tips:

• Blog first - Use your blog as your primary content piece and invest time in getting it right. You’ll own the content on your site and it will potentially generate value forever, long after your social media posts have stopped getting reach and engagement! It may even get more organic traffic over time.
• Focus and start small - You don’t have to implement all ten of these content amplification strategies! That would take a lot of time and effort, and could be overwhelming and unsustainable. If you’re new to content marketing, you might want to tackle just one platform or strategy at a time before you expand.
• Distribute your eggs - At the same time, don’t put all your content eggs in one basket. That’s why it’s good to generate traffic to your blog via a range of channels - there are so many ways to promote your blog!
• Go where your audience is - Some marketing channels will suit your audience/brand, and some won’t. Spend most of your time where your audience hangs out, then repurpose your content for other channels that aren’t as important.
• Analyze and adjust - Check your analytics to see where your traffic is coming from and adjust your strategies as you go.

Finally, remember that content marketing isn’t about blasting your content out there into the ether - it’s about engaging in conversations with your audience. So engage your audience, respond to their comments and messages, and listen to their feedback so you can create blog content that’s relevant to their interests. If you do that consistently, your audience will do most of your blog promotion for you.

You’ll find us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook

Want to hang out with us? You’ll mostly find us on Twitter @joinTiny, but we’re also on LinkedIn and Facebook (since most of our readers are, too).

Come find us and share what blog promotion methods are working best for you right now!

If you’re also looking for ways to improve your actual blog, consider using TinyMCE as your rich text editor. It’s already found in loads of CMSs and is easily integrated into custom solutions. We’ve even written a blog post on how to integrate TinyMCE as Contentful rich text editor.