Way back in time, February 2011, I decided to follow my dreams and build a life and career I’d love.
And I’m so glad I did.
This is my eighth year since stepping out and deciding to be a full-time entrepreneur — and this coming May will mark eight years for my company, Express Writers.
The idea of figuring out how to make money doing what I loved came to me like a lightbulb moment, and I acted on it same-day, Googling “how to write and earn money online” and building my first freelance profile. (To the action-takers the world belongs!)
Waking up and doing something I loved gave me a brand new reason to get up every day and embrace Mondays.
I’d always loved to write, ever since I was a 12-year-old kid writing a 200-page medieval fiction. And I loved the internet. I’d made my first paycheck doing online surveys at 13.
I blended both passions, and found online content.
Within three months, I had an entire career on my hands, and dozens of clients asking me for more. I was suddenly at a crossroads: stop taking more clients (I already had more than I could handle), or build a team.
I built a team, that May. (This was just four months after making the decision to drop out of college and quit McDonald’s!)
Today… eight years later, 90+ people on staff, thousands of clients served… I am proof that anyone, anywhere, can follow their dreams. I was living in a cult when I decided to build my own life — which I later escaped, thanks to the freedom and income I’d built! That means you, my friend, have no excuse.
Since this benchmark has come, instead of my typical how-to videos, I decided to film a special video for you today.
Being an entrepreneur may look pretty from the top, but it’s a hellauv a lot of hard work, especially if you have BIG, hairy goals (like me). My constant goal is to build the best content writing agency in the industry. I don’t consider my brand fully ‘there’ — but we are at an incredibly exciting place today, and I wanted to stop and celebrate that with my latest video for my YouTube channel, @JuliaMcCoy.
Without further ado, here it is.
This is dedicated to each and every one of you as motivation to never, ever, give up on your dreams. If today feels like your greatest struggle, then your greatest moment is just a few steps ahead. The best is yet to come.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t expect everything for nothing. Put in the work to reap the results. This and more in @JuliaEMcCoy’s inspirational video, celebrating 8 years of #entrepreneurship ” username=”ExpWriters”]
3 Major Lessons from 8 Years: What It Takes to Be a Successful Entrepreneur
Being an entrepreneur is a twofold thing.
It’s incredibly rewarding, and incredibly difficult.
It’s an exhilarating ride when you win and achieve your goals.
And it’s a letdown when people desert you, things don’t work, and you get overwhelmed.
For the past eight years, I’ve been an entrepreneur. I’d never call it easy, but I call it rewarding. The process of becoming a full-time entrepreneur, learning the skills necessary to grow a team, earn hundreds of clients, and make my own living has taught me so much.
Today, I identify as a content hacker. I take online content and create it in a way that directly leads to bottom line revenue and growth, like growth hacking but with content. Content marketing is the new marketing, for today and tomorrow’s entrepreneur — it provides value to your end user and puts you where they’re already searching for answers. So, I’m a college dropout who taught myself everything simply as I went! I got out there and put in the work. Today, my methodologies in content marketing have been the sole means of growth for my agency, Express Writers — and millions of dollars in revenue.
As I go into my eighth year of entrepreneurship, with hundreds of people hired and fired, countless failures, lessons and letdowns, incredible wins and moments where it all became worth it, and millions of dollars in revenue… what are the top factors that have contributed to my entrepreneurial success?
3 Lessons that Equal Entrepreneurial Success
Here are my top three lessons from 8 years of entrepreneurship. They might not be what you think.
1. Quit Chasing Shiny Objects
If you’re chasing shiny object after shiny object, and you have serious FOMO about the things you want to do, STOP right now. Focus on one goal, and do everything in your power to achieve it. Then focus on another, and achieve that. Think in terms of single goals. And make these goals big—the bigger the better! It’s better to shoot for the stars and land on the moon than shoot for the hills and land back in the weeds.
Here’s an example of a big hairy goal: grow my business to seven figures in 12 months, or build an industry-leading course in 8 months. The how and the path will get clearer when you know and focus on one goal and what it takes to get there.
2. Getting Up After Failure is the Key to Success
Don’t expect everything for nothing. Put in the work before you reap the results. After your hard work is done, expect to do more hard work. Get up after you fail. Don’t dwell on your failures; dwell on what you’ve learned from them.
Your three best friends in success are Self-Discipline, Hard Work and Perseverance. This means not letting a failure stop you. Get back up and try again!
3. People Aren’t Unicorns
I hate to break it to you…but all humans make mistakes. It’s just a human thing. So, never put your faith in a single human. This means both your clients AND best team leader. Be ready and anticipate change, hold your people accountable no matter what, never blindly treat someone like a unicorn, a cash cow–ditch all that thinking now. It’s up to YOU and no one else to see your success through! So, make sure you consistently put in the effort, know what’s going on, and never sit by and let someone else do everything.
Exciting Announcement
This spring, I have two HUGE launches I’m super excited about (this means a few 12-hour days and late nights, but it will totally be worth it!).
I’m about to launch a new personal brand this spring, which I’m super excited about. I can’t wait to reveal it.
We’re also about to unveil a whole new site soon for my agency brand, Express Writers.
Stay tuned!
As I end… Here’s to each and every one of you, and many years of business success and happiness for you, too!
Now, imagine blending a beautiful dose of storytelling into an otherwise bland content marketing campaign.
Tapping into the undeniable power of stories gives your marketing an ability to draw an audience like moths to a glowing streetlight.
You give your content color and life. You make it relatable, understandable, and personal.
Understandably, storytelling is a big topic for marketers. Stories keep people reading, but what’s truly interesting is people remember stories (incidents, happenings) more than almost anything else.
That’s because stories and narratives help construct memories and keep them intact in our minds, according to Jason Gots for Brain Think:
“Cognitive science has long recognized narrative as a basic organizing principle of memory. From early childhood, we tell ourselves stories about our actions and experiences. Accuracy is not the main objective – coherence is. If necessary,our minds will invent things that never happened, people who don’t exist, simply to hold the narrative together.”
A great example:
This article from the Guardian is all about how constructing a story helps with memory. First, they give you a story to read, a strange one about a man named Nigel and his pet squid:
Once you read this tale, the article asks you to close your eyes and recall as much of the story as you can from memory. Then, you’re supposed to write down all of the items/details of the story you specifically remember.
Ready for the clincher? This isn’t an ordinary story – encoded within it is a recipe for a stir-fry with squid and peppers from Nigel Slater:
If you compare the two, it’s easy to see the recipe emerge in the details of the story. 300lb squid = 300g of squid. Lime-green limo = juice of one lime. Sesame Street = sesame oil.
Chances are, if you were asked to remember this list of ingredients on its own, you’d have some trouble. You’d have to read the list a few times, repeat it to yourself, and recite it in a specific order.
When you add the story element, suddenly, the ingredients are much easier to remember. The memory comes together and is held together by the addition of a narrative.
This is just one example of how stories impact memory. Now think about that in terms of storytelling in content marketing.
The possibilities are incredible! If you tell stories in your content, your content (and YOU!) will remain in your audience’s mind much longer, than if you built a content marketing campaign minus stories.
You’ll have a better chance of resonating, of making an emotional impact, and building a connection with your humans. Which means a true (and loyal) brand audience, growth, and ROI!
Sound good? Let’s look at how to do it, including examples of storytelling in content marketing we can take inspiration from.
[bctt tweet=”If you tell stories in your content, your content (and YOU!) will remain in your audience’s mind much longer. Learn how to build your next content marketing campaign with an authentic tale. #storytelling @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
How to Use Storytelling Content Marketing to Tell Powerful Brand Tales: 4 Methods
Tie in Emotion
Tell True, Authentic Stories
Try Storytelling Content Marketing That Maps to Your Goals
Don’t Be Bland – Get Personal
Let’s get into it!
4 Ways to Use Storytelling Content Marketing, Plus Inspiration
1. Tie in Emotion
One of the simplest ways to implement storytelling content marketing is to add emotional details to your content. If you write with feeling, your audience will have a better chance of connecting with it (and your brand) on a deeper level.
Prime example: The Significant Objects experiment, which looked at how adding story details alongside insignificant objects (junk, in other words) actually made them valuable.
For the experiment, Joshua Glen and Rob Walker bought cheap knick-knacks from thrift stores. They wanted to see if they could resell each item on eBay for a profit by including personal stories in each item’s description.
This creamer cow, in particular, originally retailed for $1. Here’s the item description/story that appeared on its eBay listing:
The creamer, previously worthless, ended up selling for $26.
THAT is the power of story, right there. The emotional details (the creamer may have belonged to Norman Rockwell, the grandmother named it “Norman”, and it was a regular part of family tea rituals) are what made it special and unique, thus giving it value.
In the same way, you can add relevant anecdotes and stories from your experience to your content. Share your failures and successes alike, and share some personal, emotional details that people can relate to.
2. Tell True, Authentic Stories
Remember, never make up stories just to add “buzz” to your content. Nobody likes inauthenticity, and that kind of approach WILL end up biting you in the end.
[bctt tweet=”Never make up stories just to add ‘buzz’ to your content. Nobody likes inauthenticity, and that kind of approach WILL end up biting you in the end. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
Look at Samsung – they made up stories about the kind of photos their phones were capable of taking.
They posted pictures they claimed were taken with the front-facing camera on one of their phone models. However, soon, users discovered that these photos were, in fact, purchased from a stock photo provider and taken with a professional DSLR camera.
Here’s the thing: You shouldn’t have to make up stories, period.
The stories you should be telling are already there – you just need to unearth them.
Here are a few questions to prompt discovering your story angle:
How did your business get its start?
What problem were you trying to solve, and how did you (or someone you know) experience this problem?
What’s your history? How does it influence your present?
Who is the hero of your story?
Who are your story’s main characters?
What are your biggest failures, and how did you work through them?
Look at how the founder of Dollar Shave Club incorporated storytelling content marketing into the company’s product launch. He starred in a video with himself as the protagonist, drawing on his background in improv comedy:
The result is funny, but it also tells you exactly what DSC is about AND makes you want to buy. It’s all thanks to the (true, authentic) story the founder tells as he leads us through his warehouse.
Another good example: National Geographic.
They’re already well-known for their photos (as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words). But what takes their content over the top are the stories they tell in the captions.
In each photo and each caption, the subject becomes the main character. In the above example, we learn about the spirit bear captured. In the one below, an Arctic explorer tells us about his frozen selfie.
For National Geographic, the stories are about the photos and people they capture. The brand fades into the background to let the authenticity of their subjects shine.
Similarly, try telling true, authentic stories about your customers and audience to really make your storytelling content marketing engaging.
3. Try Storytelling Content Marketing That Maps to Your Goals
Stories are powerful on their own, but if you tie the ones you tell into your goals, they become 10x more effective.
[bctt tweet=”Tie stories to your content goals. Ask key questions, like, Will this story communicate something important and authentic about my brand to my audience? @JuliaEMcCoy on #storytelling in #contentmarketing” username=”ExpWriters”]
First, define one concrete micro-goal you hope to achieve from a particular story. Ask yourself some key questions:
What do I hope to gain from telling this story?
Will this story communicate something important about my brand to my audience?
Maybe the story you tell will subtly hint to your audience how dedicated you are to your customers. Or maybe it will show them the craft and expertise behind your product/service.
A good example of brand storytelling that hits this exact goal (showcasing dedication, hard work, craft) comes from a small candle company called Hearth & Hammer.
The owner/candle-maker regularly takes to Instagram Stories to share a series she calls the “Night Shift”. In it, she records herself dancing around her workshop to stay motivated to keep making candles throughout the night.
Here’s the thing about storytelling content marketing – to do it in a way that invites connections, engagement, and more, you have to actually get personal.
You have to share pieces of yourself with the internet.
You have to show you are in fact a thinking, feeling human.
Let’s look at “about” pages as a good example of what I mean.
On our site, we don’t just share some bland company about page. Instead, we share the story of how I started Express Writers.
On top of that, we show you the names and faces behind our team, including managers, support staff, and featured writers.
Each team member has a bio below their name that tells you a few personal details about them. In this space, we share our accomplishments, our likes, our past jobs, and why we love writing and content marketing.
Now compare our about page to this one, from one of our competitors (we won’t name names):
You may have noticed a few things are different.
First, this is not a designated “about” page. This site doesn’t have one. This tiny section on the homepage stands in for one, and it appears to be the only place that describes this company. (That’s a big mistake and a HUGE missed opportunity!)
Second, absolutely nothing here is personal, relatable, or human. It seems very cold and aloof, like maybe robots are running the show.
In contrast, when CEOs/founders build up their personal brands alongside their companies, it makes a huge difference in storytelling content marketing. It gives your followers, customers, and fans someone to root for and rally behind. Most of all, it gives your company a personal voice people can relate to.
Garrett Moon of CoSchedule, for example, is someone who does this very well. He built his personal brand through guest blogs, article writing, and his Twitter presence, not to mention his book, 10x Marketing Formula.
Plus, CoSchedule’s about page is personal and awesome (they call themselves “the liger of start-ups”, for heaven’s sake):
People want to connect with people and their stories.
So, this brings me to one of my most important closing notes:
If you’re a founder and aren’t telling your story, you’re missing out.
Case in point: At local networking events, I’ve interacted with people who I’ll look up on Facebook and follow later, only to see they’re using bland company page stock photo options. There’s nothing about them and their personality on their page. Meanwhile, they are the COOLEST people alive. Such a missed opportunity! Don’t be that person.
Use Storytelling in Content Marketing to Have Conversations, Build Relationships, and Add Heart to Your Marketing
Stories are universally appealing.
They’re beloved.
Not to mention, we ALL use them to help us construct memories in our minds, relate to the world, and tell the world about ourselves.
Any bland, old piece of copy becomes instantly memorable once a narrative is added.
So, the real question is, when are you going to start using storytelling in your content marketing?
You put lots of hard work into creating that new blog post. It cost you real money, time, and effort. ⏳
Now, how can you get serious return out of your content?
Promote it.
Without a boost from a few smart, strategic promotion strategies, that blog won’t get traction beyond bare-bones SEO and organic shares. (Which could be significant by itself, but why settle?)
If you feel comfortable letting your blog hang out on the internet without any help, be prepared for a surge of activity followed by a quick decline. Your blog will limp along for a while until it’s forgotten entirely.
If, on the other hand, you want to give all your new blogs a fighting chance at getting read by a wider audience – not to mention a longer lifespan online – promotion is essential!
So, how to promote a new blog post in ways that actually get it noticed? Follow along as we share our best tips and techniques.
How to Promote a New Blog Post: Your Comprehensive Guide to Boosting Traffic and Engagement
1. Do These 5 Tactics BEFORE You Promote a New Blog Post
Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself
Build Your Email List Using Lead Magnets
Optimize Your Blog Posts for Search
Promote a New Blog Post Internally
Build Relationships with Peers, Fans, Followers, and Customers
2. Promote a New Blog Post Using Email
Segment Your Email List and Target by Interests
Did You Mention a Specific Brand/Influencer in a Post? Email Them
Write Your Emails the Right Way
3. Promote a New Blog Post on Social Media
Use Instagram Stories
Cross-Post to Each Platform You’re On
Plug Your New Blog on Relevant Twitter Chats
Add the Link to Your New Blog on Your Profiles
Share Your New Blog Multiple Times on Fast-Moving Feeds
Use Those #Hashtags and DO @ People
Share Your New Blog to Your Social Media Groups and Communities
4. Promote a New Blog Post with Smart Tools
Use Quuu Promote or Zest
Curate Your Blog Posts in a Content Hub
Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Posts
Do These 5 Tactics BEFORE You Promote a New Blog Post
So, you’re all ready to start learning how to promote a new blog post.
Hold on one second. There are a few foundations we need to cover first. Don’t skip these steps – they’ll help make blog promotion much, much easier.
1. Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself
Content promotion will mean absolutely nothing if all you do is lead visitors to a subpar blog.
All the promotional tactics in the world can’t save mediocre content.
Why?
Quite simply, people don’t want to read, share, or engage with content that’s “eh.”
They may be lured to a blog that sucks because they won’t know it sucks until they land there. Once they find out, they’ll bounce away from the crappy blog as fast as they can. You’ll be no better off than you were before.
That’s why you MUST commit to creating the best blog this side of the internet. An amazing blog makes people want to stay, read, engage, and share. Plus:
Amazing content promotes itself!
A case study from Ahrefs nicely demonstrates this point. They regularly receive organic promotion from outside sources without any effort, like this Reddit post:
As they explain in the post, Ahrefs did absolutely nothing marketing-wise to get this kind of great P.R. – their readers love their content, and that love makes them WANT to share Ahref posts.
Simple logic, but something that a lot of people forget about when considering how to promote a new blog post.
Make sure your blog is amazing at the start, and organic promotion will follow.
2. Build Your Email List Using Lead Magnets
I can’t emphasize the importance of this next point enough:
Build your email list to create a built-in audience for your blog promotion.
According to the latest report from The Radicati Group, today there are over 3.9 billion people using email worldwide. That’s over half the population of the entire globe.
Not only is email widely used – it generates the most ROI per dollar spent out of any other marketing activity. (A Litmus study estimated that email is worth an average of $38 for every $1 spent.)
Your list, when you build it, is worth a TON. It’s a direct link to people who are interested in you/your brand, and thus the perfect channel for blog post promotion.
Lead magnets are golden nuggets of content that are high-value. You offer these as exclusive downloads for your audience in exchange for their name and email address. A truly high-quality lead magnet is well-written and packs in tons of helpful/valuable information.
Create lead magnets offering high-value information, then offer them to readers in exchange for their email address. Once you get their email – boom! – your list building has begun.
Once you have an email list, send out messages to it with links to your new blog posts. Done and done.
3. Optimize Your Blog Posts for Search
Besides blog promotion, don’t forget about SEO. It’s a major way to scoop up organic traffic to your blog posts from search engines like Google.
That said, a LOT more goes into proper SEO besides just inserting keywords in the right places. You need to think about factors like:
Content quality
Whether your content fulfills user search intent for your focus keyword
Whether your blog showcases relevant expertise for the topics you’re covering
Your site design and page-load speed
Your use of links and sources in your blog
And more
It’s important to get your SEO down before you think about how to promote a new blog post with other tactics. That’s because SEO is a passive way to draw more traffic and leads to your blog. Cover this base, draw in readers organically, and then hustle for more traffic actively using the other tactics we’ll cover in this post.
Linking internally is one of the best ways to promote your content to people who already read your blog.
What do I mean by “linking internally”?
Basically, just that you include links to your other blogs inside your new blogs. This is what that looks like:
Inside this EW blog, the internal link takes you straight to a related post that further explains the concept of CDF.
As you can see, internal links in your blog posts are there to help your readers, first and foremost. Your links should be there to provide more information or further reading.
Secondly, and most importantly for blog promotion, those links also lead your readers on a journey through your website and content. It’s a great, free, easy way to promote your other blogs – old AND new.
5. Build Relationships with Peers, Fans, Followers, and Customers
What’s another foundational tactic to do before you learn how to promote a new blog post? Start building relationships online.
Connect with peers in your industry. Talk to your followers, fans, and customers on social media. Most of all, do it genuinely.
This, itself, is not about promoting your brand. It’s about forging friendships and building your network. If you start anywhere, start here.
Not only will you create a support system for yourself and your business, but you’ll also give yourself a built-in audience who will cheer you on when you start promoting new blogs and content.
Remember: These relationships aren’t one-sided! It’s important to give as much as you receive. Cheer on others in your network and industry, share posts, write comments, and engage. I guarantee you’ll get back every ounce of goodwill you put in.
How to Promote a New Blog Post Using Email
Now that we’ve gone over the basic steps to follow pre-promotion, it’s time to dive in. Get out there and promote your new blog posts, starting with email.
1. Segment Your Email List and Target by Interests
Remember that email list you built? It’s time to put it into action.
First tip: Don’t just send your new blog post emails to your entire list. Segment your list into smaller groups, first. Then, target each group by their interests.
This will make your emails far more personalized, which readers really appreciate, according to research from Dynamic Yield.
Plus, email segmentation is a proven way to increase your email opens and clicks, and decrease your bounces and unsubscribe rate. This MailChimp study compared segmented email campaigns to non-segmented campaigns. The segmented campaigns performed much better:
For example, segmented campaigns got 14.31% more opens and 100.95% more clicks than non-segmented email campaigns.
Some examples of email list segments may include:
Splitting up your list by demographics (where people who live in the same general area are lumped together)
Splitting it up by gender
By age groups
By education level
By job industry
To learn how to split up your email list into smaller segments, read this guide by HubSpot or these tips from Optinmonster. Using email segmentation is how to promote a new blog post strategically.
2. Did You Mention a Specific Brand/Influencer in a Post? Email Them
In most well-crafted blog posts, you will be citing research from other sources or mentioning other brands, influencers, or industry experts.
These links, citations, and mentions are a perfect opportunity for blog promotion. Crack open your email and send your new post over to the person/brand/influencer you gave a nod to.
This is a great promotion technique, especially if:
You furthered the topic discussion in some way that might be useful to them
You promoted the person/brand or gave them an accolade
For best results, make this about being useful, not about being spammy. If you send an annoying email like this, without any context…
“Hey! Check out my awesome new blog post! You won’t regret it!”
…You’ll get ignored, or worse, marked as spam. Instead, make a point to be thoughtful, intentional, and useful. This is as much about relationship-building as it is about blog promotion.
Look at this example written by Brian Dean for inspiration – it’s simple, relevant, to the point, and personal (this is how to promote a new blog post using networking power!):
3. Write Your Emails the Right Way
In keeping with the above point, you should also focus on writing your emails the right way.
Here are a few things you shouldn’t do:
Don’t clutter your email with babbling unrelated to the topic. Get to the point.
Don’t be overly promotional.
Don’t be impersonal. People WANT personalization, remember? (See tip #3).
And here are a few things you should do:
Be friendly, open, and genuine. People can see through a ploy for attention from a mile away. Aim to be helpful and informative, not promotional and spammy.
Social media is a major channel you can use to promote your new blog posts. Follow these tips to get the word out there.
1. Use Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are HUGE! According to data from Statista, over 400 million users are active on Stories daily. Plus, the IG Stories feature is twice as popular as Snapchat.
Its high-use factor means it’s a great channel to promote your blog posts. Here’s how:
If you have 10k followers, you can add a link directly to your story. The best part? It only takes a few seconds to record yourself talking about your new blog and add the link.
Don’t know how to use Instagram Stories? This IG Stories guide from Later covers every aspect for the newbie.
2. Cross-Post to Each Platform You’re On
Don’t just post a link to your new blog on one social media platform. Create unique posts for ALL of your accounts. This is how to promote a new blog post to get it in front of more people.
This is necessary because your entire audience doesn’t live on one social channel. They’re spread out.
Some people use Facebook but not Twitter; some are on Instagram and Twitter but not Facebook; and some people prefer LinkedIn exclusively for networking. Create posts for each channel to get the most traction and hit every type of social media user in your audience.
3. Plug Your New Blog on Relevant Twitter Chats
If you join a Twitter chat, you’re welcome to share a link or two as long as it relates to the topic and adds value. I’ve shared links from our blog relevant to the topic at hand in a Twitter chat and earned a lot of clicks.
A7
I covered 5 critical #SEO trends in my new @ExpWriters Write Blog today
1. Be Mobile-Ready for Mobile-First Indexing
2. Featured Snippets Rankings Will Go Up in Value
3. Create the Highest-Quality Content
Relevancy and usefulness are key, here. If sharing your link in a Twitter chat doesn’t hit either checkbox, don’t share it.
4. Add the Link to Your New Blog on Your Profiles
One often-overlooked place to promote your blog is on the main information panel on your social media profiles.
This is what it looks like on Instagram, using @cmicontent as an example:
On Twitter, too:
And even on Pinterest:
On these platforms, in particular, the featured link is prominent. This is a perfect spot to plug the link to your newest blog post, as anyone visiting your account will no doubt see it immediately.
5. Share Your New Blog Multiple Times, at Optimum Times, on Fast-Moving Feeds
Some social media feeds move fast – so fast, lots of your followers may not even see the link you posted to your new blog post.
For these feeds – think Twitter and Facebook, especially – it’s a good idea to post about your new blog multiple times the day you publish. Here’s a good rule of thumb for how to promote a new blog post:
Post once, right after you publish the blog
Post a few more times, a few hours apart
Keep a few things in mind to make sure more people see your post:
The best times to post on your chosen platform based on research
The best times to post based on your audience’s preferences and habits
For example, SproutSocial analyzed their own customer data to determine the best general times for posting to the biggest social media platforms, like Facebook:
CoSchedule did research on this topic, too, and came up with some benchmarks for each platform:
Don’t consider this type of research your posting Bible, though. Take into account your audience, and try experimenting with post times to see if you can find your personal sweet spot.
6. Use Those #Hashtags and DO @ People
Another factor to remember when composing social media posts promoting your newest blog: Use hashtags and mention relevant people!
It’s surprising how much more engagement your post gets when you include some well-chosen hashtags and mentions.
This is a good example of hashtag usage on Instagram from a candle company, Frostbeard Studio:
And here’s another post they shared that includes a mention of who originally created it:
Not sure which hashtags to use? This post from AdWeek has some excellent tips for finding the right ones for your posts.
7. Share Your New Blog to Your Social Media Groups and Communities
Final tip for how to promote a new blog post on social media:
Share that puppy with your groups and communities!
That includes Facebook groups, group chats, discussions, and forums. Especially if you’ve been engaging in your groups for a while, you’re likely to have a whole team of people ready to spread your post around the web like there’s no tomorrow.
When it counts, lean into your networks and use them to your advantage. Again, relationship-building always pays off.
How to Promote a New Blog Post with Smart Tools
Beyond email and social media, you may be scratching your head for ideas on how to promote a new blog post.
Good news – there are tools out there for that.
1. Use Quuu Promote or Zest
Want your content pushed out to more people? Tools like Quuu Promote or Zest make it ridiculously easy.
You have to apply and pay, but these are high-quality “sources” of content for marketers. That means you’re getting in each tool’s high-quality promotion queue, where they only approve the best of the best for promoting to their audiences. (Check out Quuu’s promotion criteria to see what I mean. It’s strict!)
These useful tools qualify content, which is good in a world of 3+ million published blogs/day. They help separate the wheat from the chaff – and YOUR blog posts could be the wheat that gets promoted to subscribers. (Just make sure your content is the best of the best – scroll back to the top of this post, to “Make Your Blog the Best Version of Itself” to get my drift.)
2. Curate Your Blog Posts in a Content Hub
Content curation is a great way to do a few brand-promoting activities at once.
It builds you up as a thought leader because you’ll be sharing and highlighting the best content that catches your eye (as well as your own high-authority content, which will get the benefit of association).
You’ll build an asset that both supplements and boosts your own content and blog posts. (For instance, you know video does really well with readers, but you don’t produce a lot of it yourself. In this case, you can curate relevant video content from other sources to supplement your own blog posts.)
There are plenty of good tools out there for creating content hubs:
To create one to host on your own website, try Scoop.it. Here’s an example of a content hub they created called “Content marketing resources”:
Or, try Flipboard to create curated boards with your blog posts and related content from around the industry. Look at this Flipboard from Copyblogger
3. Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Posts
What happens when your readers are on your website, reading your content, and they want to share it?
If you add social sharing buttons to each post, they’ll have an easy way to do just that with a few clicks. (Much, MUCH easier than copying and pasting your link into Facebook or Twitter.)
A good tool for the job is Monarch, a WordPress plugin. It gives you lots of options for button placement and design.
Bonus: These buttons also make your blog posts look snazzy and professional. Win-win!
How to Promote a New Blog Post: Done and Done
This is where our exhaustive answer to “how to promote a new blog post” ends, but…
How far your posts go from here is up to you.
Blog promotion takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it. You’ll help MORE potential leads and customers find your amazing posts, which will lead to more traction for your brand.
Don’t let those promotion opportunities fall by the wayside – dig in and take advantage. They’re not difficult, and they WILL lead to better ROI for your content babies.
One more thing, before you go…
One Final Tip for How to Promote a New Blog Post
Don’t outsource TOO MUCH of your promotion and creation.
Help and delegation are good, but remember that you need to be the idea originator for all your blogs.
I can’t stress this enough! You promoting your own content should be natural and authentic.
You can absolutely hire someone to help schedule and post for you, but make sure you’re in the thought process! In short, don’t outsource the thought in thought leadership – that needs to come from you.
How do you plan to go forth and promote your new blog posts? Let us know your game plan in the comments!
I was browsing LinkedIn while wrapping up some work.
Now, I try not to open my laptop much on weekends, but I’m an entrepreneur. You know what that means — sometimes, we work on weekends.
That particular week had been quite the doozy. Our team director had resigned the weekend before, suddenly and without warning. So, I had no choice but to pull an 80-hour work week re-assembling everything, jumping in and doing extra tasks to get my business back up and strong. I helped our clients get their content on time, wrote and edited, alongside training my new team managers and still staying on top of all my marketing campaigns and day-to-day tasks. Plus, I had just been invited for no less than four speaking engagements in the next two months. To say I was busy would be an understatement!
So there I was on a Saturday, browsing LinkedIn and using the Recruiter platform to talk to candidates I was interviewing, with my four-year-old cuddled beside me on the couch watching Netflix.
I decided to hop on over and check out my inbox for messages. I scrolled down and started to read the dozens of messages I’d been sent the week prior from all kinds of people.
Guess what was in my inbox?
Pitches.
Ugly, cold, sales pitches. Dozens by the handful, coming from new connections I’d recently accepted.
One was from a guy with an agency of offshore writers pitching me on using his team. (I thought to myself: “Did you not look for two seconds at the company I lead?”) Another was from a lady, following up the fourth time in three days to see “where I was at” on booking a call with her about PR services. I scrolled, deleted, and blocked as I went.
All these pitches had one thing in common.
The people sending them were seeking my wallet, and not a relationship first.
So, I decided then and there to create some “content on the fly.” (I’ve been doing that quite a lot. For example, I’ve completely stopped scheduling anything to my Twitter feed except some basic promos — I go in and tweet whatever I want to, whenever. And it’s worked surprisingly well. It helps that I enjoy Twitter.)
I wrote a short “rant” about the problem that all those cold pitches had in common. My brow furrowed as I thought and thought of what kind of media I could attach.
A meme was not sufficient. A GIF wouldn’t work. An image wouldn’t cut it.
And then it hit me — why not make a fun Boomerang video from Instagram of me “facepalming”, and make that the media?
It was PERFECT! It was 100% relatable, fun, and exactly described how I felt at that moment, reading those sales pitches.
(I have to give some credit here to my friend Jessica Campos. She had a course student enroll from an Instagram Story clip of her shaking her head and being silly!)
So, I wrote a short message and posted it. It was 100% authentic to how I felt in that moment.
It looked like this, and if you pressed play, it was a 4-second Boomerang-produced video of me facepalming myself:
I was not prepared for what happened next. Here is the story. Learn what happened, what came from it, and the four lessons from my “viral stint” on LinkedIn.
[bctt tweet=”The problem that all cold pitches have in common: Seeking my wallet, and not a relationship with me as a person first. Read @JuliaEMcCoy’s story & lessons from a #LinkedIn post gone viral ” username=”ExpWriters”]
The LinkedIn Viral Story: The First 24 Hours
Because “24 Hours” and Jack Bauer go together, always.
After I posted the LinkedIn status on Saturday, I logged out and pretty much focused on resting, relaxing, and having an enjoyable family day. We had a friend’s birthday party to attend, so my husband, little one and I went out for lunch at Panera, headed to our friend’s birthday, and didn’t come back till late in the evening.
That Saturday evening I logged in to work on some Write Blog tasks, and LinkedIn was up in my browser. I went over to it, briefly, saw a lot of red in the notification area, and flipped back to my tasks. I typically do a million tasks at once, just because I can be in the middle of hiring, training, communications, marketing tasks, scheduling, and more, all at once. So, LinkedIn wasn’t high up in my priority list. I had a lot to do.
But after working on my tasks for a while, I subconsciously recalled how “red” the LinkedIn notifications were. It was around midnight when I finally went back and checked on the LinkedIn post.
I had 99+ on the “Notifications” tab, which was strange. I knew something was up. I clicked on the post that had all the notifications, and that’s when I saw the status on the video I’d posted that morning.
398 likes, over 100 comments, and 22,000 views!
I’d never had that kind of results with any LinkedIn post, so my jaw dropped a bit.
But, it was late on a Saturday night, nearing midnight: so, after scrolling through it and experiencing a small “YAY!” moment, I closed the computer and fell asleep not too long after.
I woke up Sunday, went to church, and pretty much forgot entirely about the post.
I Slept, I Woke Up, Had a Relaxing Sunday Morning, and Then Logged Into Crazy Town
After church, I had a couple hours before heading to a friend’s house. I opened my computer (again, something I try not to do on the weekend, but unavoidable given the business issues at hand to fix). I worked on recruiting tasks for a while. Then, I saw the LinkedIn tab still open, and I leisurely clicked over to check on it.
425 likes, 133 comments, 24,000+ views! Whoa!
I scrolled through the comments, and was shocked to see that while 75% of the comments were a very strong affirmative, i.e. “PREACH IT, SISTER!”, 25% of the comments were pure hate.
Like this guy, Alex. (Who by the way had most of his face wrapped in a bandana, if you click on his profile and see his headshot.)
And then, of course, there were guys like Epuri who thought it was okay to call me “sexy.” Amy put it so well — “the underbelly of being a woman on this networking site.”
I couldn’t believe it.
I mean, I had dozens and dozens of positive comments, but those few haters — well, they chose to be pretty shockingly hateful.
Then, I noticed something. When I dug into the comments from the haters, there was a pattern.
I’ll tell you why. I noticed something when digging around the comments.
The haters posting the hateful comments were then going and questioning a bunch of non-hating people on their thinking.
They were keeping the thread going.
The (few) haters that sided with them kept following up with a “YES! THIS!” to their frequently posted comments.
I am not kidding you. These haters were replying to the people in favor of me, questioning their judgment, and then haters would align below them.
The little tribe of haters that assembled basically put the wood in the fire. They fueled the traction of my post.
And that’s when I realized it.
I need to hug my haters. I am thankful for them! I’ve always noticed when I get one or two negative views on something I’ve posted, that’s when the amplification seems fairly high.
The End of the Story: 200 Views Per Minute (The Sunday Madness)
Okay, back to the story. So it’s Sunday afternoon. I’m at 24,000+ views, 400+ likes.
After watching the post balloon for a bit (it went from 24,000+ views to another 2,000 in an hour), I logged out of LinkedIn and forgot about it again. Instead, I spent the afternoon hanging with a friend that had just moved to a new house. I don’t have LinkedIn on my phone, because I’ve limited myself to no more than three social media mobile apps, so I had no way to check on it via mobile.
That evening, my husband, Josh, opened LinkedIn up on his iPhone. My post was at the top of his feed. He told me, “You have 900 likes!” I said, “What?!” That was another 480+ odd likes since I’d last checked just a few hours ago! He started refreshing LinkedIn, and it stayed at the top of his feed. Something crazy began to happen. Every second he refreshed it, the post would get a bunch of new likes and sometimes up to 50 new video views! It was crazy. At one point that evening, we counted 200 views per minute.
By Monday morning (the next day), the LinkedIn post was at 1,000+ likes, and over 77,000 views.
The Connections Were Gold: But the Sales, Zero
Best of all?
The connections! OMG, it was LinkedIn connection gold. As in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, gold. I accepted over 150 new connections on Sunday evening, and hundreds more on Monday morning, from all kinds of people from finance executives to professors, freelance writers, and in between. It was amazing. I also read message after message thanking me for the anti-slimy-sales post. Lots of people told me how much it resonated with them.
Now here’s where my “views don’t pay the bills” lesson comes in.
With 77,000+ views, I thought I’d see at least one direct sale come in for my content agency, but surprisingly, there was nada. Zilch. Zero.
So views don’t pay the bills. They really don’t. You can’t expect immediate sales from a “viral” post. (Did you have results where you made sales from something like this? I’d love to hear in the comments!)
Opportunities? Long-term potential benefits? Yes, for sure. I did get several people interested in my book (have yet to hear if they’ll buy it), and a ton of new followers who told me they look forward to my future updates (a few of them have impressive marketing or engineering backgrounds), and one guy is messaging me about getting me to mentor him. Someone else wants a call about financial content, but we have yet to set that up. We’ll see what happens. So, good potential long-term things.
4 Lessons From My “Viral Stint” on LinkedIn
Now that you know the story, let’s talk about my four biggest lessons from my viral LinkedIn experience.
1. Produce Platform-Specific Content
Be platform-specific with the social media content you create.
The more you hit on a core “reason” for people to use that platform in a message with your opinion or message, the more of a nerve you’ll strike and the more people on that platform will rally around it.
So if you’re writing on LinkedIn, think about the business-oriented audience you’re reaching. Interestingly, I seemed to hit on a nerve or pain point that everyone on that platform experienced. Would this have gone as far and wide on Instagram, for example? Facebook? I doubt it. Everyone and their brother and their mother use LinkedIn to network. And the core of my “viral” message was first and foremost about networking and sales.
[bctt tweet=”Be platform-specific with the social media content you create. The more you hit on a core ‘reason’ for people to use that platform with your opinion, the more of a nerve you’ll strike. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”]
2. Create Content That People Rally Around (Tip: You Can Rally Haters, Too)
This ties back to a big point Mark Schaefer made in his new, hot book Marketing Rebellion. Today, business growth must be built on “human impressions instead of advertising impressions.” Human-centric marketing will win. Well, this is a case study of that. I created a message that people rallied around, a very human message with a very human video (can’t get more ‘real’ than me quickly filming a facepalm video on a Saturday afternoon). And guess what? People rallied around it! I’d never had that kind of following on any kind of content I’ve created, numbers-wise. Oh, and you can rally the haters, too! If you see haters on content you’ve created, it means your amplification is a success and the message was powerful enough to hit the right spot and really get out there.
[bctt tweet=”Getting haters on your content? It means your amplification is a success and the message was powerful enough to hit the right spot. @JuliaEMcCoy ” username=”ExpWriters”]
3. Create More Social Media Content on the Fly
I cannot recommend this enough. It’s time to quit scheduling everything you create on a social media calendar, especially if it’s for a personal brand.
I get it. We’ve got to get content out to make sure our feeds are updated, and that’s especially important for our brand marketing. But if it’s you sharing a message, you need to give your brain the time and creative room to come up with cool stuff. Don’t schedule this in!
That means watching TV with your kid on a Saturday, working, and letting inspiration strike. Taking a walk, letting it strike. Letting your brain relax in the shower and come up with cool stuff. Then, acting on it when it does strike.
When you have a great idea, don’t second-guess it. Get your message out! Just try it. What could happen? A viral LinkedIn video could happen, and then you get lucky!
4. Follow Up on Viral Peaks
Even though I had a crazy Monday morning ahead of me, training a new manager and getting back in the groove, I knew I needed to take a moment to post an organic link-free status and follow up with all my new connections.
I posted this three-minute video explaining who I was, letting my new connections see my face, hear my voice, and connect in a human way. I also explained what I love doing (content hacking!), and who I am as the CEO of Express Writers, author, etc., and invited people to tell me who they were and tag their business in the comments.
Well, it was a great idea. The followup video ballooned up to 4,000 views, 40+ comments, and 100+ likes in the next few days. Typically, my organic videos get 40-60 likes, so this was a good 50-60% increase from my typical reach.
It is a great idea to take a few minutes and follow up on any kind of virality you’re seeing. After you accept your new connections or see a dramatic increase on any social media platform from an organic post you created, go and create another organic post reconnecting with your audience. Time is everything here. Don’t wait too long.
Ending at 85,000 Views: They Don’t Pay the Bills, But They’re Great!
Yes, views don’t pay the bills, but it was pretty cool to hit over 85,000 views on the video. (Current stats on the post as of Friday, February 1, 2019: 85,000 views. I just got another new comment on it moments ago!)
Have thoughts or comments? Let me know below. I’d love to hear from you!
Now when I say anti-customer sales funnels – I mean a very specific type of “funnel.”
You know these very well. They’re the ones that start out with a Facebook ad, featuring an “expert” sitting in a flashy Lamborghini, or ostensibly walking around and showing you his pool and/or house in some exotic location, promising you with eagerness that his genius online money-making methods can make you millions of dollars, too — and when you click, you end up watching a pushy webinar and you’re funneled into a timed-out sales sequence page connected to a hard sales pitch via email that goes on for days on end.
It’s the opposite of valuable, relevant content marketing that serves the audience.
Well, times are ‘a changing.
Sales funnels may be dying, and we have proof. You may have heard of Amanda Bond (A.K.A. The Ad Strategist).(I sat down with her in a recent episode of The Write Podcast. She’s a marketer I really respect.)
Amanda isn’t just a commanding online presence – she has the chops to back it up. She has personally served over 73 million ad impressions on Facebook, and her ads have generated over $10 million in revenue. She recently published an incredible report full of so much gold, I had to share it with you all, here on The Write Blog. It’s called The Real Reason Facebook Ads Have Stopped Working.
This report speaks to me not just because of the staggering results inside (more on those coming up). Amanda has a mantra after my own heart, which she eloquently brings up in her disclaimer at the beginning of the piece.
“No one wants to attack their own industry. No business owner wants to ‘bite the hand that feeds them.’ But this level of corruption is wrecking people’s lives. Good people’s lives. And it’s time you heard the truth from someone on the inside.”
This is just the beginning of a fantastic report that is full of MAJOR takeaways for any marketer.
One of the biggest findings in her report? Facebook ad ROA has gone from 11.88x to .66x, in just two years. Amanda estimates that the total return on ad spend (ROAS) in 2016 was 11.88x. That means whatever you spent on ads, you got back 11-12 times over. In 2018, that number has plummeted to 0.66x.
Let’s take a look.
Facebook Ad ROA Has Plummeted From 11.88x to .66x: 3 Major Takeaways from the Latest Facebook Ad Study
1. Facebook Ad Funnels (and Funnels in General) Aren’t Working Anymore… But It’s Not Your Fault
According to Amanda, Facebook ads used to work like gangbusters. The years 2014-2016 were a heyday if you wanted to create profitable ads.
Today, that scenario is a distant memory. Amanda estimates that the total return on ad spend (ROAS) in 2016 was 11.88x. That means whatever you spent on ads, you got back 11-12 times over.
In 2018, that number has plummeted to 0.66x.
Why that huge plunge? The initial success of FB ads was built on a broken system to begin with.
Internet marketing was exploding, and a key subgroup was at the helm, shaping the way people approach ads to this day. Amanda calls this “The Rise of Bro-Marketing.”
“A digital marketing subculture dominated by money-hungry, funnel-hacking, win-at-all-costs business owners. A business ethos that’s publicly client-centric, but privately egocentric.”
These types of people were not just pioneers in the Facebook ad industry, but also some of the loudest. They built sleazy lead generation tactics and funnel hacking, and swore by the mentality of “sales first, clients second.”
An industry built on these principles was sure to fall at some point…
Especially as the market became saturated and people started wising up to the aggressive ad funnel game. That leads us to our next major takeaway:
2. Self-Centered, Seller-First Marketing (Bro-Marketing) and Sales Funnels Are Dying
Of course, bro-marketing tactics and “force-driven funnels” are both dying, as Amanda reveals in her study. These are the main reasons she mentions:
Bro-marketers compete on volume. That means they’re ultra-focused on getting people into their sales funnel, whether they’re quality leads or not. That ALSO means 99% of those leads fall out of the bottom of the funnel.
To turn a profit using this system, you have to keep generating more and more leads just to get to the one or two that eventually stick and make a purchase.
And THAT is how bro-marketers normalized abysmally low conversion rates – as low as 1-2% – which are unsustainable for most people.
Amanda puts it like this:
“They’re paying for one hundred (expensive) leads and only ever converting one of them.”
HOWEVER, bro-marketers trick people into buying into this type of marketing by using their own vanity metrics to create a false sense of security, i.e. “YOU CAN GET THESE RESULTS, TOO.” But, the truth is, the results are a sham.
What I love here is how Amanda explains you are NOT a bad marketer if you bought into this. As she says, the ad funnel industry was built on these principles, and “we’re all drinking from the same polluted pond.
The saddest part:
“Standard funnels (the vehicles designed to generate sales) are often the very thing keeping people from purchasing.”
This screenshot of slimy funnel ads drives that point home. (Are these types of ads the newest form of the cliché “used car salesman”?)
3. The Secret to Profitable FB Ads: Connect, Commit, Close
So, what’s the opposite of manipulative funnels and sleazy sales tactics?
Connect with your audience by giving them value and leadership. Win their trust and attention. Warm them up naturally so they want to commit. (This is also the foundation of content marketing – no coincidence!)
You’ve connected, and your warm audience is engaged and/or demonstrating a desire to commit. At this point, you invite them to invest while empowering them to make the best decision possible.
Leads who make it to the next stage are hot. It’s time to close by overcoming objections, educating, and selling smartly.
Say “No” to Funnels and “Yes” to Your Customer’s Needs
She has really summed up a huge movement in the marketing industry right now:
The sales funnel mentality is failing to serve anyone, anymore.
Consumers these days are too smart to be dragged along sales assembly lines. We have to treat them like the intelligent, human buyers they are, NOT like wallets or numbers in our selling machines.
It’s not just about ethics, either. It’s about improving your engagement and profits, too, which is a win-win for everyone. But don’t just take my word for it…
Why Content Marketing Is a Huge Win for Marketers Today
From this report, the overall takeaway is clear: Modern marketing that works is customer-centric, not sales-centric. That applies to ALL your marketing – which is why content marketing, in particular, is a winner.
First of all, it seamlessly fits alongside a customer-centric, funnel-free ads strategy, like what Amanda teaches. It meets your customer at their point of need, offers them value, guidance, and information, and builds trust. Put those elements together, and it adds up to profitable end results.
Market research backs that up, too. A recent forecast says the main reason for the industry’s growth is that content marketing offers “lower costs than traditional advertising and an increased conversion rate.”
Over and over, we have found that to be truer than true. Content marketing is the customer-centric marketing of today, and it’s here to stay.
At Express Writers, where we use content marketing exclusively to earn organic traffic and leads, we see conversions from hot inbound leads happen in two days to two weeks on average. These high-quality leads net us four-figure sales regularly – pretty amazing, right?
Here’s a screenshot of our Google Analytics across one month of 2018. On average, we’re seeing upwards of 3,000 visitors/day from our organic traffic rankings.
The majority of EW’s traffic and leads come in through organic search, thanks to content marketing.
Incredible things happen when you put your customer front and center. (Express Writers is living proof of that.) No matter what type of marketing you’re talking about, that’s a huge takeaway for the future.
