Your social media can assist you with your content marketing strategy and visibility if you tie all the pieces together properly. Yes, this includes your actual press release too. This is a strategy we have discussed previously which can be found in our Knowledge Base here . You should be posting to your social media the day your press release is distributed from the 24-7 Press Release Newswire.
If the information you are sending out is useful and considered valuable to your audience, you may notice an increase in your followers.
Unfortunately, as of recent months (from the end of 2015), we have started to notice a trend in ‘less than satisfactory’ social media posts, which could potentially means less followers.
Allow me explain. When people visit or stumble across your Facebook page, if you have information that is of value to them, they will keep coming back. They may follow you. They may share your information (part of how posts go viral). These types of social posts may include press releases announcing a new product, or an upgrade, tips and techniques to help existing customers; or keeping them up to date on an industry, such as finance. We talked a little about this in our article titled “When Disseminating a Press Release, Quoting an industry Expert Who Can Vouch for You Can Further Validate Your Brand and Earn Trust in Your Marketplace”.
Where we have started to see things go south in the quality of posts is with the “Look at us!” style postings. You are probably familiar with these. They are the Facebook posts displaying images of office party socialization’s, birthdays, Friday afternoon hangouts with the selfies. Not to say the occasional post like this wouldn’t be appreciated particularly if it is a ‘personal Facebook page’, however for a business page, it is not that interesting for your customers.
You need to put yourself in the seat of your customer. When you visit a company’s social media page, would you rather see updates to a product you have purchased and how that product may be used; or ‘the Friday afternoon office hangout selfie’?
Here is another way to think of it. Let’s think big Corporation. How often do you see the party type pics on an Apple Facebook page? I would say very rarely.
The point we want to make is ensure you incorporate your press release within your social media and content marketing strategy. When you distribute your news with 24-7 Press Release Newswire we provide you with a link to your news story. Use this link to further your reach and share on your social media; particularly if this press release will be useful to your existing or potential customer base. As far as frequency goes, a good rule of thumb is three to four times a month. With this being said, we only recommend disseminating news when you have a story to tell that will be of interest to your audience. Don’t force something that isn’t natural.
Keeping these ideas in mind will be a sure way to help with your overall content marketing strategy and put you above those that are not practicing these strategies or not posting at all.
Sharing Blog Posts
Sharing your blog posts is a surefire way to ensure the growth of your blog. It’s one thing to craft a well-written post, put it up on your blog and then sit back and wait for the comments to come flooding in but chances are, if you are a fledgling blog, you’re going to have to put in the legwork to get those readers to your site, and the best way to do that is the golden rule of blogging: Share, share share.
Set your blog up with a Facebook page (or your company, and promote your blog posts on your company’s page). Make sure you have a Twitter account. Share your blog posts on LinkedIn. Ensure you use the opportunities social media has to offer as much as you can, as this will get you readers with very little time or financial investment. Use a tool like HootSuite and you can post your blog link to all of your social media accounts with just one click.
Another way to share blog posts is through commenting on other blogs. We talked about this in our post on Engaging with Other Blogs and Bloggers last week, and it remains one of the best ways to share your blog posts. It could just be that people will click on your link and therefore discover the latest blog post, but many comment box plugins used by bloggers actually post the title of your latest blog post under your comment, ensuring that more readers see what you’re writing about – which will ultimately grab the interest of many more readers. (For this reason, it is always a good idea to title your posts well – short, snappy titles are good but make sure they accurately describe what your post is about! It’s often all someone will see before deciding to click or not!)
Guest posting on other blogs is another great way to share your blog. Reach out to other bloggers in your area of specialty who you have connected with and ask if they would be so kind as to post a guest post you have written for their blog. If they are going on vacation or just want a break from blogging one day, they will often agree, and as long as your post is well written, it should be accepted. When guesting, be sure to spend a short introductory paragraph introducing yourself and your blog and what it is all about. Then it is usually polite to say how you know the blogger whose blog you are guesting on, and then launch into your post. The post itself should be about a topic that is of interest to the readers of the blog on which you are guesting. Hopefully these are shared interests with your own blog but sometimes that’s not the case (for example, if you are a sports blogger but tend to focus on hockey, and you are guesting on the blog of someone who predominantly talks about golf, perhaps write a golf-focused post this time). That way you ensure more people make it to the end of your post, and once they’ve completed that they may well want to read more.
It always takes an investment of time and energy when you start blogging, but it often pays off in more ways than just an increased readership. You can make worthwhile connections and form beneficial relationships, so put in the legwork and reap the rewards!