Insights

How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss | Brian Dean

Key Takeaway: In his presentation, “How to Promote Your Content Like a Boss", Brian Dean recommends leveraging the right strategies for your marketing plan while splitting time 80% promoting and 20% creating content. 


Why Content Promotion is Key?

According to a BuzzSomo + Backlinko study, 94% of blog posts receive 0 backlinks with only 2.2% receiving at least 1 link.

With 70 millions blog posts published a month on Wordpress alone (a 46% increase in content in the last 4 years), it’s getting harder than ever to get content seen, shared, or linked to.

"Sites fail not because of bad content but because of bad content promotion." 

Brian recommends allocating more time to content promotion vs. production when competing against sites such as Moz, HubSpot. 

💡 One thing to keep in mind is creating content that pairs well with content you've already created, check out our SEO guide to content hubs.

Content Promotional Strategies

Audiences are overwhelmed by the amount of content they are receiving and the way it's being distributed to them— only 8.5% of outreach receives a response. 

Brian shares seven promotional strategies for you to leverage: 

  1. Create content for the “linkerrati” aka the bloggers and journalists in your industry vs. your target audience. There’s no direct correlation between a link and a share, customers don’t have the resources (websites) to link to you. 💡 Pro tip: Reverse engineer a competitor site in your niche using Ahrefs “Best by links’ growth” to identify content opportunities.
  2. With the goal to keep users on the platform, social media algorithms bury posts with links to other sites. The best way to combat this is to share native content along with links.
  3. Adding a touch of personalization to outreach can make a huge difference, templated outreach doesn’t work how it has before. 
  4. BuzzSumo and Backlinko asked journalists how they preferred being pitched, 85% said through email. 💡 Pro tip: Leverage BuzzSumo to identify who are sharing similar content, reach out to the “influencers” prior to the contents publish date with a “want a heads up when it goes live?” It's a low-lift tactic that helps to build relationships with your potential brand amplifiers.
  5. Leverage retargeting campaigns to lower the costs of boosted Facebook posts.
  6. Instead of posting links to content on Reddit, post original content specific to subreddits that are considered niche communities.
  7. Easy lift, make content easily shareable with a “Click to Tweet” link throughout blog posts
  8. Bonus strategy: Newsletters are one of the best content promoters, simple plain text and plain link newsletters perform best. Recommended format: Lead > Big Reveal > Link to Post

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Caloua Lowe
Caloua Lowe
Manager, Marketing