I don’t know about you, but it takes me a lifetime to write a blog post.
For instance, my first post published last month sharing tips to building a successful website took about 15 hours to write over a 2 week period.
As you may know, I also run a social media agency in London, so that is 15 hours less I have on sales and helping clients.
Aside from business, there’s also time away from my 12 week old daughter, Sienna, and my wife, Dipna.
In other words, PRECIOUS TIME.
It shouldn’t then come as a surprise when I tell you that the thought of no one reading my blog posts does not sit very well with me.
I have a strong feeling you also feel the same way.
The truth is the time it takes to write a blog post is not actually that important.
Because whether it takes two hours or 20 hours to write, we want people to read our stuff, right?
Especially if you’re planning to make your blog a business, you need people to find your content and share your wisdom online.
So, how do you do get your blog posts in front of more people?
By putting together a CONTENT PROMOTION PLAN.
If you’re spending time writing, you need to spend time promoting.
There’s no two ways about it.
Unless you’re blogging from a therapeutic point of view.
But we’re not, are we? 🙂
I’ve put together a list of critical activities you need to do after publishing a post.
5 Things You Need To Do After Publishing A Blog Post
1. Find An Online Community
Time to tell your community about your epic content.
There’s thousands of them online so it shouldn’t be a struggle, but here’s a few popular ones:
- Facebook Groups: search for groups related to your niche
- Quora: look for questions your content answers
- Reddit: search for reddit threads related to your niche
- Google: search for “[your niche] forum” to find forums you can engage in
Before you jump in and start sharing your content, you need to establish yourself within the community.
That doesn’t mean commenting for the sake of showing a presence.
Like, “great advice”, “thanks for sharing” or “awesome”.
I’m talking about comments like the one I received from one of my recent posts:
Or
So, technically you should’ve started getting to know your community way before publishing your blog post.
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
– Anais Nin
If you’re like me and like to do things in the spur of the moment, go find a community after reading this blog (of course!) and be helpful. 🙂
This is what can happen when a community likes you and your content.
135 upvotes!
2. Email Your List With Personality
However big or small your email list is, your subscribers want to know about your blog posts.
This is particularly true when you’ve put your heart and soul into your writing and it’s going to help your target audience in any way, shape or form.
But, please, don’t just send a link to your blog post because there’s a higher chance of someone unsubscribing from your list than checking out your post.
Take a look at the email I sent last month after I published my blog post.
If you don’t collect emails on your website, it’s time to start. Seriously!
There’s a ton of email marketing tools you can use, but I love Active Campaign: It’s easy to use. You can create some cool automations and visually see what’s going on. Best of all, it’s cost effective.
3. Instagram Your Blog Post
I love Instagram as much as I love creating content and doing SEO.
Sorry, I just had to get that out my system.
Not only does Instagram give you another group of people to reach and serve, I truly believe it helps you create a more personal brand online, unlike any other other platform.
Using images, videos and stories, you can add a completely different dimension to your online presence.
For instance, check out my Instagram profile.
If you’re content is relevant to your Instagram audience, then it’s a good place to tell them about it.
Not everyone following you on Instagram is going to sign up to your email list and vice versa.
That’s why you need to message your audience on the platform they prefer.
But before you post about your blog post, change the link in your Instagram bio to link directly to your blog post.
There’s no point in promoting your offer or email opt in, if you want people to read your blog posts.
Here’s what I posted on Instagram for my last blog post.
A few days later, I changed my Instagram bio link back to my original offer.
4. Tell People Face To Face
Do you meet potential customers in person or even people who may know your target audience?
I’d recommend sharing your blog posts with them. This certainly beats the mundane business card introductory email that no one remembers.
I attend at least one event every week and whenever anyone says something that one of my posts can help to answer, I briefly tell them about it and ask if they would be interested in reading it.
100% of the time they say “Yes”.
I then send them a quick email with a link to my post and some insight into my expertise. 🙂
I recently met someone who was planning to stop building websites and I mentioned how I wrote about my building first ever website.
I followed up with him (his name is also Neil by the way):
I was glad to see his response:
There’s a few things that have happened here which my blog post has enabled me to do:
- Positioned me as an expert in website building from a strategic marketing and business point of view
- Reconfirmed his own thinking for the past 18 years and, in turn, he now trusts me to deliver an exceptional service for his clients
- Becoming memorable and not just another website and digital marketing guy
Let’s look at the alternative.
I could’ve told him that I build websites as well as part of my agency and then sent him an email about previous websites and services.
There’s a good chance he would’ve got bored reading the email, but let’s say he responds and is interested in talking.
We then meet for coffee and I go into my process and the details of how we work. It’s all very boring still!
It will probably take a few more meetings for him to have the full understanding of my expertise and begin to trust me.
My blog post has successfully saved us both time talking details and created trust between us, all while saving time.
That’s not to say we’re not going to meet up for coffee again, but at least there’s quite a bit we can skip.
This is a great example of what I really love about online marketing: helping you scale your business in the real world.
What are you an expert in that you can share a personally challenging story?
5. Share It On SlideShare
Heard of SlideShare?
Slideshare is the largest slide hosting platform and is the go-to place for professional content that you can digest quickly.
SlideShare sits in the top 100 most visited websites on the internet and boasts over 80 million visitors per month.
Do I have your attention now?
There’s one thing that makes SlideShare even more interesting: SlideShare tends to be overlooked by marketers.
The visual and fun appeal of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Pinterest tend to take the spotlight.
This presents an opportunity to take over an untapped market.
That’s why I’ve decided to summarise my content for SlideShare.
I’m still fairly new to it, but you can check out my first slide:
Final Thoughts
You might be interested to hear that this post had taken around 6 hours to write.
I think I might be getting faster.
But, that doesn’t excuse me from sharing my hard written labour with the world.
Next stop is to tell my communities, email list, Instagram audience, people I meet and, of course, to slideshare it!
Thanks for reading,
Neil Sheth