Ultimate New Blog Post Promotion Strategy

It’s been long time since the last DelhiCourses podcast episode which I created back in April 2013, and I’ll be brutally honest, it’s not easy to find the time to record a podcast, and it’s no easy process either, especially if you make as many mistakes as I do during recording and editing.

Podcasting is a great platform to get your content on and I do love creating the shows, but it is one of the most time consuming methods of content creation.

I will try my absolute best in the future to get a show out on the blog once a month, that’s one of my goals I set out at the beginning of the year.

OK so what’s in this month’s episode?

This month I’m sharing with you my ultimate new blog post promotion strategy.  Below you’ll find the full transcript and links to resources mentioned in the show, enjoy.  If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask by leaving a comment below this post.

DelhiCourses Podcast Session 6

Hey folks you’re tuning into the Delhicourses Podcast session number 6, and in this episode I’m going to be sharing with you my ultimate blog post promotion strategy, so grab yourself a cup of tea or coffee and a pen and paper, kick back for the next 15 to 20 minutes or so, get ready to make some notes.

OK let’s waste no more time, let’s get on with the show.

(Introduction Music)

Hey what’s up everybody welcome to yet another exciting episode of the online business, small business, online marketing and blogging tips podcast sponsored by Delhicourses.in, I’m Gaurav Heera and I’m your host.

This is the show where we share and discuss with you tips and strategies for growing your online business or your blog, tips on social media marketing, content marketing, video marketing, eCommerce, small business blogging, WordPress tips and so much more.

If you’re tuning into this podcast show for the first time, welcome and thank you so much for listening, I truly appreciate it.

OK so in this session I’m going to be talking about and sharing with you my strategy for promoting and driving traffic and readers to a brand new blog post –

So each time I publish a new post on Delhicourses Blog or any other blog I’m writing on, I’ll have a strategy ready for getting as many visitors  and readers to that post as possible.  Visitors from social media sites, social bookmarking sites, blog community sites, my email lists and so forth, so let’s get started.

I spend a lot of time creating and putting together valuable content for each post, so I think it’s equally important that I spend as much time, or even more time promoting that content the best I can.

So OK I’ve written my post and I’ve scheduled it to go live.

Once it’s live on the blog where everyone can see it, I’ll begin my promotion strategy.

So let me start off with my strategy for sharing and promoting new posts on the main social nework sites.

1. Facebook

Facebook Page – So with our Facebook page which currently consists of around 13000 fans (at time of recording), the first thing I’ll do is post and share a link to my new post, pretty obvious stuff right?

Now unfortunately these days, links posted on Facebook business pages tend to have a relatively low reach, especially since Facebook started penalizing low quality content on pages.

Yes I know, it seems so ridiculous if you ask me to start penalizing content before it has even got the chance to receive any activity, (engagement, likes and shares).

How does Facebook determine what is low quality and what isn’t is completely beyond me, but that’s another argument for another time perhaps.

Anyways to get the most from our Facebook page regardless of low reach, I usually post a question to my fans (use an engaging call to action), or at least create a compelling and attention grabbing headline title, followed by the link to my new blog post.

Sometimes I’ll screen capture the title and first paragraph of a new blog post and then post it into the timeline, followed by a short description and then the link to the respectful article itself, which on many occasions have worked more effectively than just posting a generic link.

Also I won’t post at any random times on Facebook either, I’ll usually check the insights report to see when would be the best time to post content, just to try and get the post seen by as many fans as possible and maybe to try and promote more engagement, likes and shares.

Facebook Groups – I run a Facebook group with around 2,000 members.  So similarly I’ll share a link or photo related to my new blog post with the group.  Being the owner of the group I also have the opportunity to pin my new posts at the top of the timeline, where it is more visible and the additional exposure has proven to generate a few more likes and traffic.

In addition to my group, I’m also a member of around 25 or so other groups on Facebook, all in the interest of sharing blogging and online business related content, so I’ll also use the same strategy to share the link to my new post with those groups as well.

So that’s my Facebook strategy, now let’s look at my strategy for promoting new content on Twitter.

2. Twitter

When I publish a new post, I usually tweet that post straight away, but then afterwards what I’ll do is schedule more tweets or re-tweets to take place throughout the week.

I usually retweet a new post twice per day for the duration of a week, so for example, if a post goes live on Monday (as with this one), I’ll retweet the post twice per day for the next seven days.

I use BufferApp to schedule retweets.

I’ll also use HootSuite to schedule tweets at specific times of the day.  If I’m going to be away from the desk for any length of time, on vacation or a business trip, HootSuite is perfect for scheduling retweets in advance, I’ve used HootSuite to schedule tweets for up to a week in advance before.

Now in addition using BufferApp and HootSuite, I’ll also use JustRetweet which I’m sure you’ve probably heard of by now.  If you haven’t, let me just explain briefly what JustRetweet is,

JustRetweet is a powerful social media marketing tool that you can use to gain more Facebook likes, more Google+ 1’s and of course more retweets to your content, or anything you want to promote online.  You can also use JustRetweet to grow your twitter audience, (your followers) and additionally to connect with readers of your blog.

I’ve had an immense amount of success with JustRetweet over the last year, so I’d highly recommend checking the service out if you haven’t already done so.

3. Google+

OK so let’s move onto Google Plus, now my strategy for sharing content on Google Plus is almost identical to my Facebook strategy, however I do spend a lot more time fine tuning my strategies for sharing content on G+.

I spend a lot more time networking with users on Google Plus full stop.

As with Facebook I do have a business page, but probably like many people I don’t really use the business page as much as I use my personal profile.

So what I’ll do is either post a question or a graphic element and a description followed by the link to my new post into my Google Plus profile timeline, I’m currently in just over 2,400 circles.

I’m pretty fortunate and I’m not afraid to admit it that I do have a great bunch of connections on G+, and my posts do quite often get a nice +1 boost, in fact I get a lot more engagement going on with new content that I share on G+ than I do with any other social site including Facebook, which is probably why I enjoy spending a lot more time on the site promoting content.

Like with Facebook I’m also part of several community groups on Google Plus.

So all in all I combine my manual link posting or image sharing with using campaigns in JustRetweet to gain more exposure and more +1’s to new content shared on Google Plus.

Just so that you don’t get completely confused, I’ll quickly recap to this point.

1. A post goes live, and I’ll immediately tweet, Like and give a +1 to the new article.  I’ll then move on to sharing a link to the post on LinkedIn and a few LinkedIn community groups.
2. Then I’ll reserve half an hour or so to mass promote my new content across Facebook groups, our own Facebook page, and Google+ community groups too.
3. Lastly as far as promoting on social media sites is concerned, I’ll schedule tweets using BufferApp, HootSuite from time to time, and create social sharing campaigns using JustRetweet to increase visibility of the post and to further increase likes, retweets and google +1’s.

I should also mention that I tend to have my JustRetweet campaigns run during peak traffic times of the day, on two selective days throughout the week, which are usually Wednesdays and Thursdays.  I usually publish an article on Delhicourses Blog on either Mondays, or Tuesdays and Thursdays anyways.

OK so what else do I do asides from use the main social media sites to promote new content on my blog?

3. Social Bookmarking and Content Cu-ration Sites

Well? I’ll also promote a new post on several social bookmarking and content curation sites, the main ones that I tend to focus on mostly on are:

StumbleUpon, not quite as effective as it once use to be but still a place for regular traffic, on rare occasions my blog will get a traffic spike from StumbleUpon.  StumbleUpon brought 227 visits to the blog in 2013, compare that to 2012 where we received 1,500+ visits from StumbleUpon.

Pinterest, now I waited quite a while before I began to show any real interest in using Pinterest properly, I think I started making better use of Pinterest as from July of last year.  Pinterest brought around 100 visits to the blog in 2013.

Scoop.it, which is an awesome content curation tool which last year brought Delhicourses around 225 visits.

I also from time to time use Paper.li, I can’t comment much on this platform as like I said I only use it from time to time.

OK so by this point I’ve promoted my new post on several social media sites, social bookmarking sites and content curation sites.  The next thing that I’ll do is start posting the actual URL of my newly published article to blogging community sites, and there are several which I’ve been using over the last 12 months.

Top of my list is BizSugar.com, which is an extremely popular bookmarking community site for sharing small business news, tips and strategies, and since Delhicourses falls into that niche industry (business tips), BizSugar has been a favorite site for content promotion and attracting traffic and readers, although much of the engagement (comments and social shares) has been happening on the BizSugar site rather than my blogs.  Last year BizSugar brought around over 300 new visits to my blog.

More recently I’ve also been using DoSplash and Klinkk which are both relatively new blogging community sites, but nevertheless both are promising platforms and I’m expecting a lot of great things to come from them in 2014.

What else? Oh and occasionally I may also use BlogEngage.  I’ve not paid much attention to BlogEngage only because I’ve had better luck with using other more niche targeted blog community sites like BizSugar.

In addition to generating traffic and bringing in fresh new and regular readers to a newly published post on my blog, I’ve also been able to build a lot of great quality backlinks from a lot of those sites too. In particular, Scoop.it, Pinterest, BizSugar, BlogEngage, Storify which I didn’t mention and Paper.li as well, those sites have provided a great source of backlinks to my blog over the last 12 months.

4. Email List Blast

One last thing that I’ll do to promote a new piece of content on my blog is to create an email newsletter.

I’ll usually write the newsletter at the same time as writing my blog article and schedule it to be sent a few hours after the new post has been published.

Delhicourses.in has a little over 1,000 email subscribers so this certainly does help to bring back some regular readers to the site.

Well that is it folks, that’s my entire strategy for promoting a new post published on the Delhicourses blog or any other blog that I’m writing on.

Here’s one final recap once again.

1. Post goes live
2. First I’ll manually share the post by liking, tweeting, giving a +1 and posting to my LinkedIn profile using the social buttons in the post (Digg Digg)
3. Then I’ll mass promote on Facebook groups and Google plus community groups, as well as post to our own Facebook page and Google Plus profile.
4. I’ll then schedule retweets using BufferApp and HootSuite.
5. I’ll then create campaigns in JustRetweet to increase social sharing, traffic and new readers.
6. I’ll post to social bookmarking sites like Pinterest and StumbleUpon, and use content curation sites like Scoop.it.
7. I’ll then create an email newsletter and send it out to my subscribers, letting them know I’ve created a brand new post on my blog.

I just want to say before we finish off here today that consistency is extremely important.

You’ve got to actively be promoting your content yourself, it’s not always just about letting your visitors do all the work, granted if they like your content they’ll take action and share it of course, but I believe you have to be consistent doing it yourself too.

Well that about wraps it up for this episode folks, I hope that you’ve been able to make sense of my jibber-jabber in this session, (laughs). But of course if you have any questions, tips and strategies of your own you want to share with me, please leave a comment, if you’re listening to this show via the blog.

As always if you want to learn more tips and strategies on blogging, or marketing your business online or learn how to get the most from social media for your small business or your blog, visit https://www.delhicourses.in/blog, I look forward to reading your comments and connecting with you on the blog.

Enjoy the rest of the week folks, stay productive, stay focused.  Until next time, peace.

Gaurav Heera

Delhi Courses