Social media can be the magic that helps people find your blog articles. A few years ago, blogging and social media were separate. Blogging was long-form, serious, and crafted. Social media was short-form, personal, and spontaneous. Some people predicted that social media would replace blogging because of declining attention spans.
Blogging and social media not only amicably co-exist, they complement each other. The trick is to use a blog to enrich your social media with long-form posts and to use social media to promote your blog. This article explains how to integrate social media and blogging.
Here’s the heart of the social media magic – you have to put in the time to optimize and share your blog articles. You are the magic. You and some elbow grease. I hope you find a few things here to add to your own blog promotion and find some new magic.
[clickToTweet tweet=”The heart of the social media magic – you have to put in time, optimize & share your blog posts.” quote=”The heart of the social media magic – you have to put in time, optimize & share your blog posts.”]
1. Share your own content
If someone looking for great content came across your blog, would they share your posts? I hope so. And haven’t the people who followed you expressed a desire to see your work? Logically, then, you should share your own posts through social media. If you don’t like your posts, who will?
Of all content, you should curate yourself and share your own posts. If a post is not worth sharing, it’s not worth writing.
2. Add drama
Every post should contain a picture or video. Make it as easy as possible for people to share your content.
“Visual content has been shown to do well on social media. According to an article by Buffer, content with images gets 94% more views and receives 150% more retweets.”
Adding great images makes them look like a rock star on their social media. This will lead to more likes, comments, and shares for their content. And hopefully they’ll come back to your blog to share more!
Unbounce recently wrote, “Visual content may be more work, but don’t underestimate its potential when it comes to putting your content (and your brand) in front of a broader audience.” They found their two most tip-shared articles were due to Pinterest traffic. “Visual content has been shown to do well on social media. According to an article by Buffer, content with images gets 94% more views and receives 150% more retweets.”
3. Add share buttons
Make sharing your blog posts friction-free by adding share buttons on your blog.
Rather than adding each platform’s button, there are products such as ShareThis that installs multiple share buttons. Also, a WordPress plug-in called Flare provides a cumulative total for the number of shares across platforms. This number is a form of social proof and might encourage more people to share it.
I use the Social Warfare plugin on my blog which is a paid plugin that adds mobile responsive social sharing buttons that you can customize.
4. Entice people to follow you on social media
Include links to your social-media accounts on your blog so people can easily follow you.
Whereas share buttons take people to specific blog posts, these links take people to your social media accounts. If your blog is interesting, people will follow you on social media, and if your social media is interesting, people will read your blog.
5. Add a “ClickToTweet” link
A service called ClickToTweet enables you to embed a Twitter link in your blog posts and emails. When people click on this link, they are presented with a draft tweet. They can edit this draft or tweet it immediately. This is included in the Social Warfare plugin that I have on my blog but it’s great to use Click to Tweet on Linkedin or Medium posts.
My experience is that many people are happy to do this for two reasons: first, it’s an easy way to generate a good tweet; second, it’s a way to thank you for your efforts.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Add a click to tweet option in your blog posts. Make it easy for people to share your content.” quote=”Add a click to tweet option in your blog posts. Make it easy for people to share your content on social media.”]
6. Pin every post
You should make a Pinterest post for every blog post. Then when people re-pin a Pinterest post, it appears in the public timeline again.
Pins have a long “shelf life” as they “reincarnate” and drive more traffic to your blog post. Nothing has the staying power of a Pinterest post.
Pinterest is fun and boosts creativity but at its social media heart, Pinterest is marketing. Very smart marketing! [read article]
7. Add a “Pin it for later” option
Many people pin articles to remind themselves to read it later or to collect for future reference. You can make this easy by adding a link in your blog post with a call-to-action that says “Pin it for later” that points to the article’s pin.
8. Add your blog to Alltop
Alltop is the RSS-feed aggregation site that helps people scan the news and find content. You can submit your blog’s RSS feed in order to get it on an Alltop page. The process is free, so you have little downside.
For example, if you want to position yourself as an expert in adoption, you should try to list your blog in Adoption.alltop. Go here to submit your blog for any Alltop topic.
How to “Peg” your post
Guy Kawasaki coined this term when we were writing The Art of Social Media. From this day forth “Peg” is a verb that means totally integrating social media and blogging. These are the ten steps that I use to promote a blog post to illustrate what it means:
- Write multiple interesting and click-worthy versions of the blog title.
- Create three images in Canva: 735 pixels by 1103 pixels, 940 pixels by 788 pixels, and 876 pixels by 438 pixels.
- Pin the 735 pixels x 1103 pixels image on Pinterest with two links (one in the description field and one in the source field) back to blog post. Embed the pin on your blog post with the Pinterest widget.
- Share the link to your post on LinkedIn with the 940 pixels by 788 pixels image. Make sure the image name matches the title of your post or LinkedIn will show image819809754.jpg which isn’t impressive.
- Create a longer post on Google+ with the 735 pixels by 1103 pixels image, a link to the blog, and a link to the Pinterest post.
- Share on Facebook profile and page with the 940 pixels x 788 pixels image with less text than the Google+ post. Add a question to start the conversation on Facebook and two links: one to the blog and one to the Pinterest post.
- Tweet the blog post with the 876 pixels by 438 pixels image.
- Schedule additional tweets with quotes from the post using the different titles.
- Share your article in relevant LinkedIn and Facebook groups and Google+ communities.
- Add relevant hashtags when you share your post so more people can find it.
Remember to share to bookmarking sites
From top social media blogger Rebekah Radice, “bookmarking is a great way to balance how and where you’re sharing your content. It helps index your content for search and creates a catalog, making it easy for anyone to find. Remember, they’re also a social sharing site. Some people still prefer to get their daily news there.”
Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas. Add the Pinterest browser button so you can add pins from anywhere on the web.
BizSugar
BizSugar delivers the content that small business owners, managers and entrepreneurs care about, without all the noise. You share your business blog posts, videos and other content, so that others can learn from you.
Reddit is a unique social bookmarking and social news website with a very unique community. Search by “sub-Reddit’s” that act as categories.
Scoop.it
Sccop.it is a bookmarking and curation website where you can create magazines based on topic or niche. Add content from across the web to your Scoop.it account and let others begin to find you based on similar interests.
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