Assuming you’ve built your online communities, we’ll go over the social media marketing strategy to drive traffic to your blog.
Some people think that social media engagement is easy. However, many blog owners find that doing more than just sharing every blog post on social media takes a significant amount of time and effort.
Fortunately, the best tools for social media management simplify this process (for example, check out the SocialBee review).
There are tactics for making the most of your efforts to promote your blog posts on social media. These are the social media marketing strategies that have helped to create some of the most popular blogs online.
Social Media For Websites
Every month, it seems like a new social network is launched. There are two types of social networks: large and niche. There are many ways to advertise your blog on each of the social media platforms, but most people cannot manage to use them all.
Some people have attempted to use every platform, but the end result is usually multiple accounts with little to no engagement in social media.
Focusing on only a handful of social networks, or even just one is a better approach.
Here’s how to figure out which social media platform is best for promoting your blog.
1. Determine Your Target Audience
Some people are heavy users of social media. Some people only use one or two social media platforms.
Your job is to figure out who your target audience is and then identify which social networks he or she likes.
2. Analyze The Social Media Engagement And Traffic Potential
In my experience, the social media channels that send the most amount of traffic to websites in general are:
Depending on who you’re trying to reach, you’ll get different results.
If your blog article is more targeted toward professionals or meant for small business owners, LinkedIn could be a better source of traffic. If your target audience is more visual, focusing solely on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook could be a better option.
After you start receiving engagement in social media and traffic, you’ll be able to evaluate it to see if your target audience is visiting your website.
Keep an eye on the bounce rates of your articles in your analytics. Social media traffic should be segmented. This way you’ll be able to tell whether traffic from some networks is better than the traffic from others.
Best Tools For Social Media Management
It can be time-consuming to market on social media. You have to go through the process of creating online communities that enable you to market to them. Building such communities is not a simple job. Besides once you’ve created them, it’s not easy to promote your blog to them.
Fortunately, there are resources available to assist you.
When it comes to sharing your blog articles on social media, automation is the key. In this part, we’ll go over how to automate as much of your content sharing as possible using the best tools for social media management.
1. Dlvr.it
Dlvr.it is one of the best tools for social media management. It is an application for automation that lets you share new posts to your social media profiles automatically. You can do this by using your blog’s RSS feed, which is typically (if you are using WordPress):
mysite.com/blog/feed/ or myblog.com/feed/
On dlvr.it, the free plan includes three social profiles and five feeds. This allows you to share not only your own blog’s content but also content from four other blog sources. Again, this allows you to help those who might be able to return the favor in the future.
2. Sharing Through WordPress
Using the Jetpack plugin for WordPress, you can share your WordPress content. It offers a number of features, including stats directly in WordPress and a sharing function that automates sharing to a number of social media sites.
Navigate to the WordPress Dashboard.
Select Settings in the left-hand navigation and go to Sharing in the secondary navigation.
Connect the social media accounts you’ve selected to your blog. As mentioned earlier, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are the sought-after options.
Next, in the editing section, near the scheduling widget, you’ll see the sharing settings when you start a new blog post. Confirm that the checkmarks for the profiles you created are selected.
The title of each new blog post will be automatically posted, along with a link to your post. By editing the message in this area for each post, you can customize what is being shared each time.
By using this automation, your new blog articles will automatically be shared to selected social media accounts, reducing the number of times you have to share them manually.
3. Buffer
Buffer is a scheduling tool for social media that works on a freemium model. With the free edition, you can queue up to ten posts for a limited number of social media accounts, including your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts.
If you are planning to use the free version, setting up the social accounts that you’re allowed to use is a good place to start. A LinkedIn company profile, for example, requires the premium edition.
Then make a plan for yourself. You are able to have 10 items in the queue at the same time. Set up a schedule for the items to be shared each day for five days of the week. On weekends, people are not as active, so it may not be necessary to share on those days.
That being said, your business might be in an industry that requires you to be active on the weekends. For example, if you’re a sports reporter, you’ll need to be available on Sundays.
You also want to be sharing while your target reader is online. For the most part, this will be between 10:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. You’ll have to adapt if your customers are more localized than those in the US or elsewhere in the world, but these are the typical busy times on social media.
Followerwonk is another tool for determining the best times to post content on social media.
Followerwonk works with Buffer and can determine when your Twitter followers are most active. It will also schedule your updates to be posted automatically at those times from Followerwonk.
Schedule new posts to be shared 5 times during the day. Each time you share the article, give it a different, distinct title.
How To Create New Titles
For instance, if the original title is 12 Best Tools For YouTube To Help You Grow Your Audience.
That was the first title I used to share one of my articles.
The title template for the remaining four:
- Check Out These Brilliant Tools For YouTube To Grow Your Audience
- You Won’t Believe How Easy It Is To Grow Your Audience On YouTube
- See How The Expert Marketers Grow Their Audience On YouTube
- Did You Know You Could Grow Your Audience Using These Tools?
This allows your new blog post to be shared several times with your readers, giving it the best chance of being seen by as many people as possible. Also, since you’re changing the title every time, your posts would appear different.
As you share more articles, you’ll notice the titles that resonate with your audience the most.
For the other scheduled posts with Buffer, you can share old content using the same title techniques, but we’ll get into that in a bit on reposting blog articles.
You can share even more content if you upgrade to the paid version of Buffer. It’s a good idea to incorporate material from various sources that complement your blog. You don’t want to constantly promote your own content, and it’s important to build relationships with people who are valued members of your industry.
They want their content to be shared, and if you do so often enough, they will most likely reciprocate.
Reposting Blog Content
You can extend the blog’s reach by reposting content. You’ll compile a great list of articles as your blog grows, but they won’t all be popular right away. Continue to promote these great pieces on social media and through other platforms to give them more visibility.
To increase engagement in social media and organic traffic to your site, follow these measures to repost your content on your social media accounts.
1. Create New Titles
Pick a post that you’d like to share. If all are high-quality posts, you can pick any of them.
You’ll see the post’s original title, which you may reuse if it’s catchy. You can, however, create a new title if you want to keep it fresh.
There are various methods for coming up with different titles.
To begin, simply replace it with something similar and equally appealing.
Original title:
GoToMeeting Review: An In-Depth Analysis Of Plans And Features
New title:
You Won’t Believe The Plans And Features Available With GoToMeeting
Another option is to use some of the text from the article for creating the new title. Statistics and quotes can be useful for doing this.
You should have no trouble coming up with new titles for your articles if you use variations of these methods.
You could do this with a spreadsheet, but we’ll take a simpler approach.
If you are a WordPress user, click the Posts link in the left-hand navigation of your dashboard. This will show your previous posts. By default, you’ll be able to see 20 items at a time.
You can see more if you click on Screen Options in the top right corner (or less if needed).
For this activity, 20 works, but you could do more depending on how many posts you want to schedule at once.
Open Buffer in a new tab. If you’re sharing one old post at a time, you can just open up the different social profiles instead.
Type in the new title in Buffer or on the social media profile where you’ll be posting.
Right-click the View link under the article you’re sharing and copy it to Buffer or the social profile where you’ll re-share the old post.
Again, you can use Buffer (or another scheduling tool for social media) to add these old titles to your schedule. The posts will be shared at the times you specify during the day and week. This is a perfect way to fill out your social profiles with content so that they stay engaged at peak hours even when you might be busy.
Use relevant hashtags when posting updates on Buffer or if you are using another scheduling tool for social media. These hashtags work with Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
Sites like Tailwind can help you find the right hashtags for the posts. These services (both free and paid) show trending hashtags, those with high (and low) search volume, and hashtags that are recommended for the particular article.
4. Using WordPress Plugins To Retweet Old Posts
There are WordPress plugins capable of retweeting your old blog articles automatically.
You can set up these tweets to go out at specific times during the day and week, like every hour, couple of hours, and so on.
Revive Social is a fantastic plugin to try.
If you’re a social media user, you must be familiar with hashtags. We’ll go through basic rules and strategies for using hashtags on social media and other platforms that allow them.
Each post covers a particular topic. Identify the 5 to 10 hashtags related to the topic. To find popular hashtags that are appropriate for your article, use resources like Tailwind.
Include hashtags while sharing on social media. Each update should have up to three hashtags. If you think you should use more, make a new post with those hashtags and repost the link to your blog article.
Add Social Sharing Buttons To Your Website
1. Use Sharing Buttons For Your Primary Social Traffic Sources
For a variety of reasons, it’s important to concentrate on only a few social media platforms. In addition to confusing visitors, using so many buttons on your blog posts can slow down page speed.
On most blogs, the only sharing buttons you’ll need for each post are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. It’s tempting to add more to give visitors the option to share on any social media platform, but studies show that when people are given too many choices, they will choose none of them.
Having no more than three buttons would narrow down the options and make it simple for people to share on the three social media networks that are most important to your site.
2. Making Use Of WordPress Plugins
WordPress also has a number of plugins that make adding sharing buttons to your blog posts very easy. Some people like to reduce the number of plugins they use on their WordPress websites. This is because it can slow it down and expose it to more attacks. But if you do decide to use plugins, a social sharing plugin should be a top priority.
One of the most common social sharing plugins in WordPress is Social Snap.
It includes all the widely used sharing buttons. Whatever you select, make sure you restrict the number of icons that appear and that the plugin does not significantly slow down your page speed. You’ll lose visitors if this happens.
Social Media Engagement With Viral Content Bee
Viral Content Bee is a free service that helps you get shares and engagement in social media for your content. You become a member of a group of people who benefits each other by promoting blog posts. You can earn credits by sharing other people’s content, which you can then use to get people to share yours.
- Register with Viral Content Bee
- Share content that is related to your blog post
- Build a credit score of 100
- Submit your blog post and take advantage of all the 100 credits
Social Media Marketing Strategy For Twitter
Sharing the blog post is one method to promote it on Twitter, but there are other options. Here are a few strategies for increasing the number of people who see your post on Twitter.
If you follow someone who has posted content similar to yours and they follow you, you can ask them to share your latest blog post by sending them a direct message.
Begin by letting them know that they’ve previously shared similar content and that you think they’ll enjoy yours. Then, if they find it useful, request them to share it on Twitter.
2. Find And Respond To People Who Have Tweeted Similar Content
You may use Twitter’s search feature to find tweets with content that is close to what you’ve written in your blog post. Find people who have posted similar content and have more than 500 followers.
Respond to their tweets with similar content and tell them you think they’d benefit from your blog post.
Go to your Twitter mentions column any time you publish a new tweet. People who have already shared your content are more likely to do so again.
Reply to them or send a direct message letting them know you’ve published a new post. Request that they read it and share it with others if they like it.
4. Create Twitter Lists For Specific Types Of Content
You’ve heard of Twitter lists, but are you making use of them correctly?
You can easily get others to tweet your latest blog post on Twitter using the right lists.
Here are the various lists you’ll need:
Make a list of influencers first. Add them to the Twitter Influencer list.
Reach out to these individuals on Twitter when you publish your new article. Introduce your post and let them know that you think they might find it interesting.
Add those that have shared your post to a new list called Sharers. This list would be useful in the future because you know these people have already shared your posts and are likely to do so again.
In your future blog posts, add links to the content of people in the Influencer list. Then you can go back and notify the individual that you’ve published a new post that includes their link.
Social Media Marketing Strategy For Facebook
You’ve already scheduled and submitted the post on your profile and Facebook page as a basic update. Here are more measures to use other features of Facebook to promote your post.
Send a message to your Facebook friends and colleagues. Inform them that you’ve produced a valuable piece of content that you think they’ll enjoy.
Request that they share the post on their personal profile, group, or page. Check to see if they’ll leave a comment on your original Facebook post to get the engagement going.
Others are more likely to join if they notice the social media engagement.
Make a list of ten relevant groups in your niche. Share the post in those groups.
3. Participate In Facebook Groups and Spread Your Content
For nearly every niche, there are a variety of Facebook Groups. There are also different groups dedicated to helping bloggers promote their latest posts.
Join the following groups:
Once you’ve joined, you can submit the blog. Other members of the group can share it, leave feedback, and help you grow your audience.
Social Media Marketing Strategy For LinkedIn
Share your article on your LinkedIn page and profile, but you could do more.
1. Direct Message Your Connections
Determine which contacts are most likely to get involved with your content. Send these people a direct message informing them that you’ve published new content and that you believe they’ll find it useful and interesting.
Mention a previous post that the individual has shared, read, or written. This will increase the likelihood of the contact reading your new content.
Share your articles in groups that are a good fit for your topic. Use the feed based on the best practices of the group. Identify the groups that bring the most traffic to your blog. Focus your efforts on sharing content with them every time you publish a new article.
Sharing Snippets Or Sections Of Your Content Without Links
Another way to promote your blog content without being apparent is to use this technique.
Some users on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, don’t like it when a profile’s only content is titles and links to their blog.
You must post what is considered “social media type” content to make your profiles more appealing to people.
Here’s how to go about it.
1. Pick A Post And Find 3 To 5 Snippets
This may be a brand-new or an older post.
Look through the content for key ideas or snippets that could stand alone as great social content. It may be something you think your reader would find useful or interesting.
One of the points in the article would be one of the snippets you could use. Statistics, quotes, and other things make for interesting updates as well.
2. Use Buffer To Schedule The Snippets
Collect your three snippets and use Buffer or your preferred scheduling tool for social media to share them. This will give you the ability to share several snippets at once rather than over the course of the day, which you can still do if you have the time.
Often during work, you might come across tips or ideas that are worth sharing on social media but not enough to create a blog post.
This is common among sports journalists. They write whole feature articles on players and coaches, but it makes more sense to share basic details like tryout information or quick facts that they discover when they research something.
You could use the same social media strategy. To add more value to your posts, share the easy, quick tips on social media. Your followers would appreciate the fact that you aren’t constantly overloading them with blog links. If your snippets are engaging, they will want to check out your blog to see the amazing content.
Final Thoughts
There is an art to sharing your blog’s content on social platforms. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. People have found success with their own ways of sharing blog posts. Some people will only post links to their blog articles on social media. Others will use the best tools for social media management to share more unique content.
Just like most things in life, the best course of action is to follow a balanced approach. If you use the tactics in this post, you should be able to see engagement in social media and drive consistent traffic to your blog. With time, you’ll be able to adjust the social media marketing strategy to suit your specific blog and company over time.