How to Promote a Blog Post on Social Media?

Whether you are a new blogger or whether you've been into this subject for a while, the question on how to promote a blog post may have popped up in your mind. Maybe you've heard or seen some things: promoting here and there, expecting some results. For us, marketers, it's fairly easy to talk about promotion. Sometimes we assume that every single person knows about the promotion on social media, communities, and forums.

But we are very wrong. I've personally met people who don't even know what LinkedIn is; I'm talking about young people; plus ones that were even supposed to know about digital marketing because they were at a Marketing College.

Still, I don't blame them specifically, nor you must understand that marketers feel superior to everyone else. I'm trying to tell you that you should never assume somebody knows something about what you do. Thus, I will now not assume that you know about how to promote a blog post. See what I did there? Joking aside, assume that you can teach people something through what you write, and thus promote your blog posts as if they are something new to the world.

This situation can be also connected to the fact that you might be afraid to promote your blog. Don't be! The Internet is a vast place, therefore all of the subjects that you may think of can be taken. Don't let this stop you! As long as you are writing good, you'll be okay. Thus you should promote your work, especially if you want to make a living out of this!

It doesn't matter what domain are you in – fashion blogging, travel blogging, food, experience, social media etc. It matters what you know and how are you going to put that on a (virtual) sheet of paper; how you'll promote your blog post on social media and on other digital channels.

You see, marketing is an investment – it may work or it may not. What is certain is that you must invest time and resources in order to get something in return. It can be tough at the beginning, but as soon as you get it done and going, you'll see that you'll just have to keep a close eye on your… let's call it a system – almost everything will fall into the right pieces. You'll be able to focus on other things because your blog articles will be promoted by others.

Oh, let's stop a bit on that last sentence. Remember that you have to write qualitative blog articles. In THIS way people will trust what you're writing. They'll know that they'll always find great ideas reading your blog. Therefore, they will commit to following you, and they will spread the word around their friends and acquaintances.

Worth mentioning is that brands reach vloggers and bloggers because they are the ones closer to the community; this helps brands to actually be closer to their fans, which is a perfect (or almost) marketing strategy.

OK, now that we've eased up into the promoting a blog subject, let's see what are the (virtual) places to promote a blog post.

Here's what you'll find here:

1. Promote a blog post on Facebook

   1. Promoting through your Facebook Page
   2. Promoting through Facebook Messenger
   3. Promoting your blog article in Facebook Groups
2. How to Promote a Blog Post on Instagram
3. Ways to Promote blog articles on Pinterest
4. Promote a Blog Post on Twitter

With the new Facebook algorithm launched this year, people started seeing less content from the Facebook Pages they were following. Mark Zuckerberg said that the new algorithm will limit public content from brands, businesses, and media. The content that will be shown in the newsfeeds will reach a certain standard: Facebook is not only for fun, but it is also a place for sharing and finding information. Thus, this information must be correct and true. This standard also implies that the content “should encourage meaningful interactions between people” – Mark Zuckerberg.

What you have to take away from this above is that you will be responsible for sharing quality content. You shouldn't be scared (at least not that much) that your Facebook posts will not appear on your followers' newsfeed. What you'll have to do is to promote your blog posts in a way that you'll engage with your followers.

What does engagement mean? Every follower that reacts, shares or comments on your Facebook Post does an action – an action called “engagement”. This means that you'll have to share your blog posts in such a way, that your followers will engage with your Page.

If you want to create a business out of your passion (maintaining and writing a blog), then you should consider right from the beginning if you want to create a brand for yourself or if want to simply start as yourself. This will help you decide if you want to create a Facebook Page or not (a personal Page or a Business one).

In case you are working for a company as a blogger, then you'll be definitely promoting your content through a Business Facebook Page.

There are a few basic things that you should keep in mind whenever you want to promote your article on your Page.

First thing first, it may be tempting to constantly post here. BUT it's best to post only once a day; post twice a day if you have more than 10000 followers.

Secondly, link previews are, as CoSchedule says, the best way to share something. This is because a link preview not only contains an image (which is highly visual and easy to remember), but it also is a proof that it's not a scam. Facebook doesn't let you change the preview anymore, specifically because they are trying to increase the transparency and to reduce spam.

Having this in mind, create a perfect featured image for your blog article, one that will raise even more interest for what you wrote. It's OK if you're at the beginning of your blogging journey and you didn't choose a theme to go with. As soon as you will decide, try to stick with the same design.

Thirdly, photos are another great thing to add to your Facebook post. This is mainly because the visual content is the best way to promote something. Thus, after you've used up your link previews, create graphics out of your blog article. Search for the best sentences, rewrite them to fit in your photo, then start sharing your article. This method allows you to promote the same article more than once.

Fourthly, if your Page has less than 100 followers, you won't be able to see statistics related to your audience. For this, you can consider these best times to post on Facebook:

• “Saturdays–Sundays at 12–1 p.m.
• Thursdays–Fridays at 1–4 p.m.
• Wednesdays at 3 p.m.” (source-CoSchedule).

After you've reached a bigger audience, you can stick to the same times or check your statistics. See when your audience is online, and test to post then.

Another way to reach your followers is to write them from your personal account, in the name of the company, using Messenger. Now… I totally understand that this method of promoting a blog post may not make you feel comfortable, but it will definitely help you.

As you may have noticed, getting personal with your audience started to become more and more effective. These new generations of young people are into creating a relationship with the brand or business that they are following.

Let me put this into one example. You are a food blogger, and you just wrote an article where you mentioned a certain another blogger, or even a magazine. To promote your new blog post you can reach both of them through Messenger, from your personal account.

What should you write in your message?

• Tell them that who you are and what you do;
• Explain a bit why you chose to mention them in your article;
• Ask them politely to read it and to tell you if what you wrote about them is correct or if they like it;
• Include the link to your blog;
• Kindly ask them to engage with your article – preferably, to share it on their accounts. Still, whatever engagement is good, at least for the beginning.

There are two reasons why you should use your personal account to write messages for promoting your blog:

1. There's no other way to reach the Pages you mentioned in your article;
2. Those Pages that you're writing to, are managed by people! Not a surprise, huh? So they, too, have that tendency to create relationships with their followers (maybe less, maybe more, but still it's worth trying).

“Can't I create a separate personal profile? I don't want to let people know that I'm writing a blog/working for a company as a blogger.”. Dear reader, this is a bit of a complicated situation. You can create a separate personal profile, but I don't advise you to do this. This action will be considered fake, therefore you'll not have success in promoting your article. It's perfectly OK to maintain your privacy; but if you want this, then maybe this method isn't right for you.

Besides, you shouldn't be afraid or ashamed to promote your work. There are so many bloggers out there, why can't you be one of them? Whoever will want to support you, will do it for sure. Don't think about “haters”, because they'll always be there; make the most of the “haters make me famous” saying. And this goes for every social media platform.

Take into consideration the new 2018 Facebook feature that allows page administrators to add themselves or others as Team Members. This is another point that leads to the new levels of transparency that Facebook wants to reach.

Did you think I was done with Facebook, not to mention, Facebook Groups? In a close relationship with the new Facebook algorithm, Facebook Groups grew in popularity. They are communities of people that are all interested in the same subject. There is a great number of benefits that you can get out of Facebook Groups. These are the most important ones:

• genuine communication among members of the group;
• loyal fans;
• easy knowledge about your fans/customers.

There are two main paths you can take regarding Facebook Groups.

The first one is to join several Facebook Groups that are specific to what you're writing. Whether you are on your own or you are writing for a company, there are tons of groups, believe me. If you want to join general blogging Facebook Groups, take a look at this list.

Of course, you would have to join with a personal account, which brings us back to your decision regarding privacy.

Keep in mind that as a member of a Facebook Group, you should follow the group's rules. If you're not permitted to promote yourself, then don't do it. You'll risk being kicked out. Still, you can help members (and yourself) by interacting with them; give advice, share opinions and ideas based on what you're writing. Do this on a constant basis and you'll increase your popularity. This will lead to the situation where the members of the group could check your personal profile and see what you're sharing.

_It may be a slower promoting process, indeed, but once it gets going, it will be a truly qualitative one. _

The second path is to actually create a Facebook Group. Again, it doesn't matter if you're working for a company or if you're all for yourself. You will be able to create a community that will be genuine, and closer to your / your brand.

Interacting in, and managing a Facebook Group of your own is fairly easy. Facebook tried to develop them for the community, therefore there are a lot of cool new features that you can use. And yes, there are some basic things that you should follow, such as:

• create and stick to your rules;
• always interact with your members;
• keep a respectful, but happy vibe;
• always add some text (content) to the link you're sharing.

Instagram is the land of beautiful pictures and photos. Recently, it's been also the land of live videos and stories.

All the bloggers and vloggers have accounts on Instagram because here they know the engagement rate is bigger than on Facebook. If you have time, choose a famous blogger and check both his/her Facebook Page and Instagram account. Can you see that the same post has A LOT more likes and comments on Instagram, than on Facebook? Why do you think this is happening? Is it because we, as users, know that our _Facebook Newsfeed feeds with our activity – what we like, what we share, where we comment? _

When you open Instagram, you only see visual content. You must choose to look for the other's activity in order to get to see it. That means going to the notification tab, and switching to “Following”. Most of us simple users don't do this.

Having these said, promoting blog articles on Instagram is super easy (technical speaking). Post a stunning or interesting photo/picture and ask your followers to check your bio for the link. Generally speaking, it's a bit more complicated.

You are not permitted to post a link to your Instagram photo. Links are only available in your bio or in messages. As a result, you'll have to rely on the fact that you are posting photos that are interesting and beautiful enough that you'll create a loyal audience. A community that will excitedly check your Instagram account for a new link to your blog article.

Most bloggers and brands stick to an Instagram theme. This means that they post photos that are similar in the way they are edited, created, captured. Try to find your unique way of sharing this type of content, so that people will recognize you instantly.

Another way to promote a blog article on Instagram is through Stories. This option has two variants of its own: one, to add a link to your story; the second, to simply ask (verbally or written) you followers to go to your bio.

If you have less than 10.000 followers, you'd have to choose the second option, that is to simply ask your followers to check your bio. Now, of course, you should put an effort to create a beautiful story, as well. Because you ask your followers to do an extra step, you have to make everything possible to assure that they will do the extra step. Invest a bit of time in putting your creativity to work, and to create some engaging Instagram Stories. For this, you can use:

• HypeType to add text;
• Unfold – to beautifully arrange your photos and videos; it lets you add pages where you can stick both a photo and a video; you just have to be creative in the way you're using it.
• InShot, to create videos on the go; these videos can have music (added from your own library or from within the app), both pictures and videos, recordings, filters etc.
• CutStory, to keep your beautifully created videos from InShot, but present them into Stories and not lose a part.

If you've managed to have more than 10.000, kudos! It truly was a time investment, to follow the right people, comment on their photos and patiently expect them to follow you back. Now if you're at this level, then you can consider yourself a popular blogger. If you reach this level (genuinely), it kind of means that people are enjoying your Instagram feed.

You are offering them high-quality content, and Instagram “awards” you by permitting you to add links to your Instagram Story. Still, you will have to continue to create beautiful and interesting stories. Same with posting a link somewhere, here you should also add a bit of a context. You members can't see previews of the link, thus you must explain what they'll find. Do this either verbally, or either posting the article featured photo with some text. You can still use the tools above to make this process easier and professional.

Use the same method as in Facebook: promote your article multiple times, to ensure that most of your followers will see it.

Remember that it's best to post around 3 times per day (maximum). And you can post both inspirational text pictures, as well as photos. Think when your audience is online, scrolling; if you have an audience that's from different parts of the world, try to use a neutral hour to post.

Of course, you can make use of the business profile. With it, you can see insights like:

• activity -> what and how many actions were taken on your account, and how many accounts you reached, both in the time span of one week.
• content -> your activity regarding posts and stories
• audience -> for which you can find more details after you have 100 followers.

All of these insights are a great resource to use. You'll know if what your posting is performing well, thus you can improve the way you are promoting your blog articles.

Pinterest is one of my favorite platforms because it's a special search engine. Even though many consider it as a social media platform, there are some that think this is a search engine (exactly what Melissa Griffin says).

Pinterest does have ads, but almost everything is organic. All the content is visual, so you have to differentiate through this. Here you can find everything you want: from social media to baby clothes. Still, every Pin has a link, that goes directly to an article. This is why Pinterest is a valuable tool for promoting blog articles.

1.Differentiate your boards from the others
While you have to promote your own pins, you can and should repin others that are of interest to you. To create a thriving Pinterest account, create separate boards for each subject, and create separate boards for repins. Your own pins should be in their own board, visible right at the top of your account.

In order to have a professional Pinterest account, opt for a business one. It will appear differently than a personal one:

Have your groups placed right at the top of the page while placing the others next:

• which are the most popular pins;
• characteristics of your audience;
• interests of your audience.

All of these give you insights that you can use to improve your pins and the way you're administrating your Pinterest account.

Pinterest should be the social media platform where you must be active: the best is to post 9 times per day. You can repin every day, but organize yourself so that you'll pin your own content:

• wednesday;
• thursday;
• friday.

2. Find and Join Pinterest Group Boards

OK, now you've organized your profile, pinned and repinned into your boards. Let me present you another way to promote a blog post on Pinterest: Pinterest Group Boards. In some ways, they are similar to Facebook Groups:

• there are rules that you must follow;
• the curator must accept your inquiry to join the board;
• you must engage with other's pins.

You must find niche ones because the ones that have pins of all kind don't perform well. These niche Pinterest Boards are just like a community; if they follow the rules (as you should do), they will repin your pins. This will give your pins a boost in Pinterest's “eyes”, which will make them more visible to everyone.

3.Design great Pinterest Pins

Of course, it doesn't only matter where and how you organize your pins. It also comes to how they should look like.

Stick to the Pinterest photo size: 600 x 900 pixels (or if you like math, go with a 2:3 ratio). Almost all of the pins have this size, so try to keep it, to have everything visually organized. Of course, if you don't want to be like most people, you can choose another photo size. It's a free world.

Set up Rich Pins, as they retrieve more data from your blog, making you pins look complete: photo, headline, description, author – these characteristics are for the Article Pins. There are another 3 types of pins that each include another set of data: Recipe, App, and Product Pins.
If you can't set up rich pins, at least try to include a description of your pin. This will benefit you in two ways: firstly, because Pinterest is a search engine,  it will search into your pin's description for keywords.

This is why you should write two-three sentences, describing your article. Also, you can include your name at the end. This leads to the second benefit: most people don't erase the text when they are repinning, thus what you wrote for your own pin will “keep on going” – same as your name/business's name. The result will be that Pinterest will find your complete pin in many more boards.

Don't forget to create a memorable pin! That means stick to your own theme, add some text and maybe a call-to-action. Keep it minimal, but professional. Or, of course, do some A/B testing and see what your audience likes more.

Last, but not least, here comes Twitter! One of the oldest social media platform presented here, it comes with a big level of investment from your part. I mean, here you can be the most active, posting even up to 15 times per day.

Just like on the other up-mentioned social media platform, you can choose to get access to analytics. Again, they are a tremendous way to know if you are performing well or not. Check these analytics every day, in order to keep track of your tweets about your blog posts.

Still, if you want to be able to schedule all of these tweets, you can use Buffer. This tool always you to even re-buffer (retweets) the best performing tweets, taking a burden of your shoulders.

In terms of what your promoting blog article tweets should contain, it is very important to include images. They are visual and they perform better than simple tweets. **You can't promote a blog article relying on the link preview, because this doesn't exist. **

Also, be sure to include 2-3 hashtags right inside your message, or at the end of it. Our attention span is low, therefore keep the hashtags at the end (if you can't include them in your message) and keep the most important part at the beginning.

When is the best time to tweet? Start with this advice from CoSchedule:

• “Wednesdays at 12 p.m. and 5–6 p.m.
• Mondays–Fridays at 12–3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
• Any day of the week from 2–3 a.m., 6–7 a.m., and 9–10 p.m.”

See if this works for you. Besides, always check the analytics when you're doing tests. Adapt to your audience, and post whenever you find they engage most.

All of these platforms have different “requirements” when it comes to the message you should use. Facebook likes link preview, Pinterest likes a bit longer descriptions, Instagram craves for hashtags and Twitter enjoys complete, but concise messages along with some hashtags.

You have to adapt to each one of them – think yourself as a chameleon. Keep an Excel file or a Google Spreadsheet where you note:

• the article you're about to promote;
• the article's link;
• the general message you want to share;
• every social media platform you're active on.

Adapt your message for each social media platform. You can even use the “=LEN()” excel function to count your characters! You will be organized and your promoting messages will be exactly on point.

The best tool to use for this process is from CoSchedule, and you can find it here. It scores your message by taking into consideration a number of things: message length, type of message, emojis used, message sentiment.

It even shows you the best times to post on each social media platform! This free marketing tool is really easy to use, you'll see. It's pretty convenient that you have all of the messages in one place, switching from one to another in order to create the best ones.

Getting to an end, there are still many more things to say for each social media platform. But to keep it simple, remember these most important ways to promote your blog posts. Have in mind that each social media platform is different, therefore you should act differently. You'll see that every platform will bring you different traffic, so be ready to adapt and constantly improve when it comes to promoting blog articles. Use the tool above to make your life easier, and your promoting skills better!

P.S. If you need more tools for blogging, check our article here.

If you are willing to find more about blogging, we can help you with that, too.

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