23 Smart Ways to Promote Your Latest Blog Post

You’ve just hit publish on a post you’ve been working on for days, you have pretty pictures added in and you’ve got your coveted green light on Yoast… now it’s time to just sit back and wait for all that traffic to come… Right? Uh… I wish.

The old adage of ‘if you build it, they will come’ certainly does not apply to blogging. Instead you have to be a bit more creative in coming up with ways to promote your blog posts. And sometimes you can get stuck in a rut doing the same things over and over again.

So, to shake things up a bit, I’m giving you 23 clever ways you can use to promote your blog posts. But there’s a catch… these aren’t just methods I read somewhere and thought ‘hey why don’t I share that’. These are methods I have actually used in order to promote my posts and drive more traffic to my site.

There’s nothing that annoys me more than when someone gives ‘advice’ on what to do, and the advice they are giving is a strategy they have never or would never use themselves. Urgh! You don’t need to hear from me to cold email 500 people with a link to your post… because I would never do it! And I certainly don’t expect (or advise) you do to it either!

Okay, let’s get into it!

1 – Share it to your Facebook Page (let’s get the obvious out of the way first…)

We had to get the most obvious one out of the way first. The most common thing people do once they hit publish is to write a post about it on their Facebook page. BUT… what I’m challenging you to do is, instead of writing something simple like ‘hey, here’s my latest post’ put some more effort into your ‘tease’ and really drum up some interest.

This is your chance to get your followers really wanting to click that post. You need to make it irresistible. Also, add a quote in from the post, it will add more interest for your followers.

2 – Share it to Facebook Groups

I know a lot of people get frustrated with this method but the reason it is here is because it works. To keep track of what groups allow promotions on what days I have a little spreadsheet that I keep up to date with a simple name of the group and day to promote.

However, I don’t ever recommend to just drop your link to your post and hope for the best. This isn’t how to use Facebook groups effectively. Take some time to read through other people’s articles and comment on them – reciprocity goes a long way. Also be sure to be active in the group asking and answering questions, not just expecting to use a group that someone else spends time running as your own personal promo tool.

3 – Share it to your personal Facebook Profile

We all know Facebook works on algorithms and it doesn’t show our posts to all of our followers. We also know that the ‘algorithm’ is much more forgiving to personal profiles than it is to business pages.

So make that work for you. Share your post to your personal profile, chances are you have some friends who would be interested in reading your post. And, to this day, my Mum still shares every post I write on Facebook – she’s so sweet.

4 – Send it to some friends on Facebook and ask them to share it for you

On that note, rally up some of those friends and actually ask them to hit the ‘share’ button for you. This is most effective soon after you publish on Facebook as it tells Facebook that this is a post people are interested in and it will boost your reach to others.

This isn’t a strategy I’d be using regularly, however it can be super effective if you’ve written a post you know your friends would be interested in and would be happy to share.

5 – Snap a pic to go with and share to Instagram, updating your URL in your bio

While Instagram isn’t usually associated with driving massive traffic to your site, it can work really well if you know how to use it. Snap a pic of you publishing your post (make it cute with a coffee in hand or your cat – people love cats) and give an overview of your post – don’t just say ‘new post up on site, check it out’. There’s nothing enticing about that. You could also use any image that works with your post.

Also, because Instagram only allows one clickable link on your profile, be sure to update the web address in your profile to your latest post. And remember, don’t just promote it once. Add a little reminder to the end of all of your posts about the link in your bio. Work it!

Read More: How to Easily Track Your Referrals on Instagram

6 – Add it to StumbleUpon

(Update – StumbleUpon is no longer a viable option)

It amazes me at how many people forget about StumbleUpon and it’s ability to drive awesome traffic to your site. Some people are deterred because if they get a spike in traffic from StumbleUpon, their ‘time on site’ goes down because Google has trouble calculating the time from StumbleUpon but in my experience, a spike in traffic from StumbleUpon always results in a spike in subscribers so at least some of them are sticking around. Which is always a good thing.

Read More: Use Pinterest and StumbleUpon Together

7 – Pin it on Pinterest to your blog’s board

The number one board you MUST have on your Pinterest profile is a board completely dedicated to your blog posts and yours alone.

This means that if anyone stops by your Pinterest account, they can see all of your posts in one spot. It’s something I search for regularly when finding new people to follow and am always surprised at how few people have it!

Pin your post there and if you’re super savvy, be sure to loop your board too.

Read More: Pinterest Basics

8 – Pin it to any other relevant boards on Pinterest

Again with Pinterest. Make sure your blog board isn’t the only place you pin your new post, pin it to any other board that is relevant for your post. Written a new post about travelling with kids?

Be sure to pin it to your parenting, travelling and kids activities boards too!

9 – Pin it to relevant group boards on Pinterest

Group boards are the shiz when it comes to growing your traffic with Pinterest. They seriously make the world of difference and can take a trickle of pageviews to a landslide in no time.

But you have to use them properly! Be sure to pin to group boards when you first publish a post (spread out your pinning so it’s not all at once) and pin again a few weeks later, and a few weeks after that. Sharing your pins over and over shows your pins to a new audience each time – maximise that audience.

Check Out: The Blog Planner has planning pages to help you keep track of your Pinterest Group Boards.

10 – Tweet it (and ask people to re-tweet it)

While Twitter doesn’t win the landslide of blog traffic for me, you can still share your posts to Twitter and be sure to make it easy for others to do it too. Using a plugin like Click to Tweet you can add a quote in that prompts your readers to share that quote on Twitter, and it links back to your post. While your reader may have found you through Facebook or Pinterest, they may be willing to share a witty or inspiring quote to Twitter for you.

11 – Send an email to your list

We all know we should have an email list but how many people actually do have one? And then, how many people send emails regularly to their list? Not as many as there should be! Your list is a great way to drive traffic back to your site. Think about it – they already love you and what you do enough to give you their email address – they are literally asking you to email them! So do it! Be sure to make your email entertaining and full of value, other than just ‘hey here’s my latest post’.

Read More: How To Start an Email List

12 – Send it in an email to some of your friends and ask them to share it

Have you written a post you know your friends will love? Send them an email and let them know, and ask with a pretty please if they could share it for you (you may even offer cupcakes in return). Your friends will naturally want to support you (if not you may want to reconsider the ‘friend’ title) and will most likely be happy to help out. Just be sure to only do this with posts you know they will LOVE and not for every post you write.

13 – Send it in an email to key influencers who may find it interesting

Okay, this one is pretty bold and I have to admit, not something I do very often. However, if you’ve written a post that would be useful to key influencers then let them know. This comes with a clause though – you need to have a ‘way in’. Don’t just cold email with a line like ‘hey, thought you might like this, can you share it?’.

Check out any Facebook Live’s they may have done, check out their latest tweets, see what they’ve been talking about. Did they mention a topic that you just happen to have written about? That’s your in. You don’t have to email, you can Tweet them if you’re more comfortable. And ALWAYS address them by name if you do email them. I guarantee they get TONS of spam email every single day – do something to stand out.

14 – Run a Facebook Ad to it

Facebook Ads can be a great way to drive traffic to a post, however again this comes with a clause. I only ever promote posts that have a TON of value and have been completely optimised for email leads. That is with a content upgrade and at least 3 different spots within the post (plus more on my site) where people can opt-in. This investment needs to give me good ROI otherwise I’m just paying for clicks and that doesn’t really get you anywhere.

15 – Link to influential articles within your post, email people you linked to and let them know

Linking to other articles in your posts is a great way to give your readers even more detail about a particular topic. You can even create entire round up posts of amazing articles you’ve found and then you can email the authors of the articles and let them know you’ve linked to them! When I do this I always add ‘feel free to share if you’d like’ but never actually directly ask for it. However I’ve found a lot of influencers are happy to share an article they’ve been mentioned in – especially if it’s well written and has great detail their audience will love too.

16 – Create a YouTube video that is relevant to your post, add to YouTube

Video is quickly becoming a hot medium for reaching our audiences, and YouTube is no exception. It can be a little scary to jump in front of the camera but the perks of YouTube is that you can pre-record it and edit before it goes live (although you can do live too if you’d like). Add extra detail to your video than what you may have in your post, or even record a tutorial and link to in in your blog post. And be sure to remind viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel so they are notified when you publish a new video.

17 – Create a Facebook Live that is relevant to your post

Facebook has started rewarding those who utilise Live video streaming with a greater reach for all of their posts, so it really is super beneficial to jump on live. Why not live stream a video about your post, why you wrote it, who is it for and what benefit will readers gain by reading your post. You could even go into more detail about the post or add a little tutorial in too.

(Bonus points, do a FB live first, download the video and add to YouTube. Double points!!)

18 – Be creative and share on Instagram Stories

I love Instagram Stories, it’s like a cute little behind the scenes of the people I follow. It’s unedited and fun. You can share a pic of you publishing your article, you could even share one of you writing or researching the article. And be sure to let your followers know to click the link in your bio to see it (and update the link in your bio).

19 – Share on SnapChat

Same goes for SnapChat as with Instagram stories. I’m not a huge Snap fan, it kind of doesn’t make sense to me, but I like the filters so I use it. Then I save the snaps and share to Instagram Stories… why double up on work when I don’t have to? Winning.

20 – Repeat share on Facebook a few days later, schedule another share in one month

As I’ve mentioned with Pinterest, sharing a post once just isn’t enough. Facebook has an inbuilt scheduler so use it. Schedule out a share for your post again in a week or so, as well as a month or so later. You can even schedule again another month or two after that. Before you know it you will have built up a bank of posts in your Facebook scheduler and it all just takes a few minutes more.

21 – Share to Google+

There’s a lot of debate over whether or not Google+ is worth your time but I figure if you’ve done everything else, why not give it a go?

22 – Share to your own Facebook Group

Have you started your own Facebook group yet? If you have, share it there. I’ve seen people debate over whether or not it’s ‘ethical’ to share a post to your own Facebook group, especially if you’re quite structured in how you allow others to share posts however my argument to that is this: It takes you time and effort to create the group – you are the one who spent the time marketing and promoting it to acquire members. You are also the one who takes the time and puts in the effort to maintaining and running the group – and as such you should feel confident enough to promote a blog post in it.

That being said, I don’t encourage posting every single blog post in there otherwise you run the risk of your group being treated as simply a promo tool instead of a value tool.

23 – Update old posts to link to latest post

This is one thing I forget to do all the time. After you hit publish, be sure to go over your older blog posts that may be related to your most recent post and add links to it where appropriate. It’s easy enough to add links as your writing but we often forget to go back and interlink to new posts too. This simple task can be one of the most powerful ways to increase your overall pageviews and pageviews per user.

Do you use these strategies as ways to promote your latest blog post? Hopefully there’s a few things in here that have given you an ‘ah ha’ moment and will help you to get your posts out there. I’d love to know what is your favourite way of promoting your posts? Comment below to let me know.