20 Places You Should Use to Promote Your Content
Here are 20 places you should be sharing your content, from the mainstream to the niche.
1. Medium
Medium allows you to republish your existing blog posts (if you use their import feature, they even add a rel=canonical link), but you can also use this platform as a way to increase traffic to the full blog posts on your site.
This is the tactic DrumUp uses: they post snippets of full blog posts on Medium, and then direct users to the full article on their website.
If you don’t want to syndicate the entire text of your blog posts, this might be a tactic to try. If you’re getting good traction on Medium, you could mix it up by adding occasional exclusive Medium articles once you’ve built up your readership.
2. Reddit
Reddit can be a worthwhile platform to consider for sharing content, but it needs to be done the right way.
Redditors are very conscious of brands attempting to “spam” subreddits with their own content, so this is usually best left to a few employees with active Reddit accounts who may occasionally share company blog posts once or twice a month.
These articles should be carefully chosen and provide real value to the users. It’s also possible for Redditors to view other users’ activity, so make sure that employees are using their Reddit accounts for more than just posting company blog posts.
Otherwise, they’ll be pretty easily found out and your company may get called out, which is never good on such an active platform.
3. LinkedIn Articles
Like Medium, LinkedIn allows you to syndicate blog posts on your personal LinkedIn profile as LinkedIn articles.
Although these articles currently don’t automatically add rel=canonical links, research has shown that Google isn’t flagging these as duplicate content (even though they show up on duplicate content search sites like Copyscape).
Because of their existing network on LinkedIn, many users have built up a strong subscriber base for their articles on the platform. Users can choose to subscribe to users’ posts, meaning they will get a notification every time that user publishes something new.
This built-in alert system is a definite advantage over other platforms, especially since your blog readers don’t get alerts like that unless they subscribe to email notifications, which is a lot bigger commitment than checking a box to receive an in-platform notification on LinkedIn.
4. Email
Promoting your content through email is an “oldie but goodie” tactic that still pulls major weight.
In addition to being much more loyal to your brand, email subscribers are 3xmore likely to share your content via social media than visitors from other sources, according to Campaign Monitor.
Email clicks are also usually higher than the CTR on social media posts as well — Campaign Monitor also found that you are 6x more likely to get a click from an email than from a sent tweet.
The way you share your content on social media highly depends on what works best for your schedule and your users. It’s worthwhile to experiment to see what gets the most clicks.
Some companies or writers prefer to send out a new email every time a new post is published (which is usually automated in some way using an RSS feed and a service like Zapier or IFTTT), while others wait until the end of the week or month to send a newsletter of updates and the latest published posts.
The platforms above are the most useful for driving traffic. However, there are plenty of other platforms to consider based on the topic and format of your content.
5. DesignFloat
An online discussion board for designers to share articles, element ideas, and more.
6. Managewp.org
This is a slightly different format, but users can up- or down-vote content about WordPress.
7. Dzone
This discussion board has over 1 million developers who share content and links on coding, cloud computing, and more.
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8. Twitter Brand Accounts
If your article makes sense for your brand, consider adding your article to your sharing list for your brand accounts. You can even schedule the article to be posted several times over a few months.
9. Twitter Personal Accounts
Twitter moves fast, so it makes sense to share your article, along with a great quote, in a few places on Twitter. It is in your best interests to spread the shares out a bit so you don’t overwhelm your audience.
10. Twitter Chats
For a more targeted audience, look for industry-related Twitter chats and use their hashtags when sharing really high-quality content.
Use it sparingly: don’t spam the chat hashtag with every piece of content you write. But it’s fairly common to see popular marketing hashtags like #seochat and #twittersmarter active even when the regular Twitter chats aren’t going on.
11. Personal Page on Facebook
This one seems obvious, but it is a place many people forget.
If you are concerned about spamming your family or friends who aren’t in the industry, consider creating a Facebook list for work folks. This way you don’t have to worry about confusing your Great Aunt Gertrude with a step by step guide to PPC.
12. Brand Facebook Page
Another sort of obvious one, but it shouldn’t be overlooked.
Grab a good quote from your content, make sure your image displays correctly and send it out – assuming it is relevant to your audience.
13. Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are still alive and well! Because many users are already using Facebook on their personal time, they are usually more active in groups.
Join a few industry-related groups and share your best content once a month, while also contributing to the group when possible.
Be sure to stay active as a member of the chat or group by answering questions, reading others’ content, and contributing genuinely to the group.
14. SlideShare
Creating really good content takes time.
One way to get the most mileage out of your content is by taking highlights and turning it into a presentation for SlideShare.
Just changing the format you present your content in can help reach a wider audience.
15. LinkedIn Groups
If you are active on Linkedin, consider sharing your content in related LinkedIn Groups.
Be sure to check the group’s policies on sharing first and make sure you are engaging with members outside of sharing your content.
16. Your Pinterest Account
Create a nice header image (like the one on this article) and share on the visually-driven link sharing platform.
17. Shared Pinterest Boards
Another simple way to drive traffic is by creating a shared Pinterest board and allowing other people to add their own content about a topic.
These boards tend to get more traffic.
18. Instagram
To drive content from Instagram, add a portion of your content in the caption and add the link to the content to your bio.
19. Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories only last 24 hours, but allow you to share links more easily.
20. YouTube
Record a video of a team member discussing the key points in your content.
Summary
No one likes a self-opportunist who only seeks to share not engage. When you are valued member of an online community, whether that’s Medium or a Twitter chat, you’ll be much more likely to build strong relationships and become part of a supportive community that shares each others links.
Contributing to the Internet as a whole follows these same guidelines. Sites like Medium and LinkedIn have given us the opportunity to share our content and get it seen in front of more people, but don’t take advantage of that by sharing low quality, uninteresting content.
Megaphones can get tiresome after a while, so make sure to put down your self-promotional hat and participate in discussions regularly.