How to Promote Your Blog Content

First: If you’re new to blogging, read our newsletter, Is it Time to Start a Blog? and check out our webinar, How to Blog.

Once you’ve created a guideline or editorial calendar for your blog, you can get started writing. Each blog post you write should be promoted off-site in order to increase awareness of your blog and drive traffic to your site. Keep in mind that shorter posts, especially those that are just added to share a link and perhaps a brief comment, should not be promoted in the same manner as a more lengthy post. I use the following sites every time I post to my blog.

Below is a prioritized list of off-site channels:

LinkedIn
You should participate in LinkedIn groups and use discussions as a way of sharing your knowledge and, when appropriate, providing links to relevant blog posts. You can also use the LinkedIn Q&A feature to answer user questions that are relevant to your area of expertise and link to related posts on your site.

Facebook
Start by setting up a Facebook page for your firm. This is a great place to include RSS feeds for any newsletter or blog content from your site, as well as to start discussions related to your articles. Use your personal account wall to share links to any blog post, article or other content on your site.

StumbleUpon
Each blog post you create should be “stumbled.” The easiest way to do this is to set up the StumbleUpon browser plugin for Firefox (you can download it from the StumbleUpon website). StumbleUpon allows you to submit a link to your post, add a description, and categorize it.

Twitter
Use your Twitter account to announce new blog posts and provide links to them. Make sure your Twitter activity is not limited to only posting links but also includes questions, posting of other peoples’ content, general status updates, etc.

Digg
Submit all your lengthy blog posts and articles to Digg. Digg’s categorization options are limited, and though we perceive it to be on the wane, it’s still worthwhile to promote your content there.

Industry-Related Forums and Blogs
Find 2 or 3 forums and several more blogs that are specifically related to your industry. Make sure your participation is much deeper than simply promoting your content, but includes a sincere effort to share and gain knowledge through discussions and comments. You want to prevent being perceived as a spammer in these venues. However, once you’ve established a rapport with the other users, traffic from these sources should be healthy. Some examples of forums that Newfangled participates in are:

• Boxesandarrows.com
• A List Apart
• Undrln.com

Note that when you leave your name and link when commenting on another person’s blog, you should leave your actual name, rather than descriptive text that might be better for SEO link building (i.e. “Your Name” rather than “Inbound Marketing Experts”)