Ever wondered what the best places to share blog posts are?
A lot depends on what works best for your audience.
However, getting the best results is a long-term process.
In fact, blog content and content marketing programs have a lifespan of nearly two years.
And this can increase the reach of your brand over the long-term.
But I know what you’re thinking…
“I thought I already picked the best places to share blog posts”!
How you share your blog posts is an important part of why blogs fail to attract readers.
Because sometimes that might be one of the best places to share blog posts, but the problem is either:
- The social media copy and how it communicates what the content you want your followers to read is all about
- You tweeted, sent out your newsletter, or shared the content on Facebook once and assumed your readers actually saw it (they don’t always FYI).
So…what are the best places to share blog posts?
It’s all about always finding new ways to share blog posts you’ve already written, based on questions that you’re asked on and offline.
The following are some of the best places to share blog posts based on my own experiences, and how you can use them in your business.
1) Answer questions on Facebook
Facebook Groups are one of the best places to share blog posts. Because members will sometimes ask questions that your blog posts answer without knowing it.
In fact, that happened to me this past week when a group member asked a question about client calls:
I offered value without being salesy, by offering a solution to this person’s most immediate problem.
Even if she doesn’t become a customer in the future, I’ll likely get either a social share or a word of mouth share for being helpful.
Or…at the very least she’ll google my name, or visit my Facebook Page.
So, next time someone asks a question in a Facebook group that your blog posts answer, share the link and explain why it offers a solution.
Because you never know who fans of your work might send your info to.
2) Do social media posts months later
More specifically… do social media posts about the content you’ve already published with a whole new angle.
In fact, I did that recently when I tweeted about one of my guest posts. The point was to encourage readers to check out my guest post about staying productive when you’re a freelancer going through a slow period:
So here’s how I do that… I inject a dose of (my) personality into it.
I love SNL, so most of the GIFs I’ve used thus far have included SNL comedians, including this one.
And then I injected my way of talking into the tweet, to reach freelancers who might be going through similar struggles.
You can do this by writing social media posts that feature a key takeaway that your followers need to know about, and then add the following:
- Images
- Your own approach to talking and communicating your message
- And a sense of humour that looks and sounds like you.
You can also put a new angle on it by taking key blog post takeaways and applying them to current events/ problems that readers are facing.
For example, here’s how the gals at Think Creative Collective used that approach to appeal to their audience, female, creative entrepreneurs:
If you’re not sure what makes that so effective, put yourself in the shoes of any entrepreneur that’s only just starting to work from home.
If you saw that in a news feed, and that was a problem you were facing, wouldn’t you want to learn more?
You can either use humour (like I did), or you can write social media copy about your blog posts that solve your audience’s most common problems.
3) Use blog posts to build customer relationships
A few months ago I wrote a blog post on the freelance content marketing process.
However, there’s a bit of a backstory behind why I chose to write it in the first place.
After three years of being in business, I noticed something important about my clients:
I’m often either the first freelancer they’ve ever hired, the first writer they’ve ever hired, or their first attempt at hiring a writer turned out terribly and my job is to improve things.
In other words, a lot of my clients have hired me while knowing very little about working with writers (or even freelancers).
When the website published my article, I started to do something with the article that made my life a lot easier. This involved using the article ass a strategic follow-up tool for potential clients:
And the responses I got were actually quite positive:
This email turns what could potentially be a trashable “just checking in” follow-up into a helpful interaction between myself and a prospective client.
And clearly this method is a good choice because only a few minutes later I noticed that:
- My prospective client’s colleague checked out my LinkedIn profile
- And Yesware alerted me that they opened my email a few times in a row.
If you’re an active blogger, either on your own blog or someone else’s you likely have at least one blog post that could make your client’s lives a lot easier.
And don’t be shy about sharing it, because they probably need the advice more than you realize!
4) Set up automatic re-shares
I’m a huge fan of automation when it comes to social media content.
And I feel the same about blog post promotion as well.
Here are few apps/ plugins that I recommend for doing that:
Buffer is a user-friendly (and free) social media pre-scheduling tool with a click-and-drag interface.
When you think of a clever quote from one of your blog posts, pick an image, and add it to your social media queue.
Then Buffer will post your message based on the most popular times for your followers to log in to their accounts.
CoSchedule allows you to promote the same post, multiple times without being super annoying about it.
Apps like CoSchedule are based on one, very simple fact about social media: social media users don’t see everything you post.
Therefore, important messages need to be shared multiple times.
Its default days are:
- Whatever day you choose
- A day later
- A week later
- And a month later.
All you have to do is customize the messages and the feature image, and then hit publish. And then the CoSchedule interface will post based on the most popular times for followers to log in to their accounts.
Revive Old Post is a WordPress plugin that automatically posts messages about your old blog posts on your behalf.
5) Join communities filled with like-minded people
Both off-line and online are good ways to do that by the way!
If you haven’t joined groups filled with like-minded people already, you might want to do that.
After I become a regular participant in a handful of marketing and entrepreneur focused groups, I experienced a lot of growth both within my blog and my business.
In fact, the benefits I’ve experienced include:
- Referrals from writers in other niches
- Guest appearances on podcasts, Facebook Lives, and a membership group (all the above are going public in spring 2018 by the way).
- Avid fans of my blog ( a ton more of them)
For example, here’s a recommendation that I got after months of participating in a group for freelance writers:
FYI: I omitted some names for confidentiality reasons.
But where are some good places to check out?
Well, a lot depends on the subject you cover/ want to cover. Here are some suggested places to check out when you know who you’re trying to target:
- Meetup and Eventbrite
- LinkedIn and Facebook Groups
- Quora and Reddit (places where people go to ask questions about every subject you can possibly think of).
- Community and religion centre bulletin boards
- Library bulletin boards
Conclusion
Often the best places to share blog posts involve having actual conversations and providing valuable advice to potential readers that need it most.
Because these conversations are what can help you uncover what is and isn’t working on:
- Your blog
- And your social media profiles.
FYI:
Did you know that custom social media posts, about the web content I helped you create, is now included in the cost of my copywriting and editing services?
For more details, check out my website’s hire me page.
