In August, I delivered a webinar titled “Better, Cheaper, Faster: Grow Your Business With Inbound Marketing” for the Control System Integrators Association.
In the attendee surveys, one person asked the following question: “I understand the importance of blogs from a content standpoint and from a SEO stand point. How do we get the word out that we have started a blog. How do we get anyone to read it? In other words, how do we market a blog?” This is a great question and it boils down to promotion and there are two general categories; free and paid.
Paid Promotion
Among the paid options, advertising is the most obvious. Organizations can purchase ads on search engines like Google and Bing or social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. A good way to get started with this approach and to get the most bang for the buck is to direct people to blog articles with calls to action to download an eBook or white paper.
Free Promotion
When it comes to free options, social media is the place to be. LinkedIn can be particularly effective for blog promotion. There are many opportunities to jump into discussions in the Groups and Answers sections of LinkedIn. You can frequently respond to questions by directing people to a blog article you wrote. It’s also a great place to generate ideas for posts. Twitter is another great channel for syndicating content. It takes time to generate an audience but can pay big dividends through viral sharing.
Learn to grade your own inbound marketing efforts! Download this free self-assessment guide. hub.am/UumCou
— Jon DiPietro (@JonDiPietro) October 1, 2012
Leverage
One of the many great advantages of digital marketing is the ability to leverage other channels. In investment terms, leverage means the “use of various financial instruments or borrowed capital, such as margin, to increase the potential return of an investment” (viaInvestopedia). There are a couple of ways you can do this.
The first leveraging instrument is making use of influencers. First, you need to identify them by searching Google, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc… Look for individuals and organizations who talk about the topics you’re covering. Next, get on their radar by following them on these media and commenting on their blogs. Eventually, attempt to get them involved by sharing your content with them or even involving them at the front end by asking for their feedback or a quote.
The second leveraging instrument is syndication. Republishing your content in multiple places is a great way to “borrow” traffic from other properties and gain from viral sharing. Here’s an example: Take an ebook and create a PowerPoint presentation. Upload the presentation to Slideshare and Scribd. Then narrate and record the presentation and upload it to YouTube and Vimeo. Keep repurposing the same chunk of content in as many forms and as many places as possible.
