After spending some time to ensure your content conforms to “standards” and that it is keyword-rich, you may be ready to click that shiny Publish button. So you did. And you think your job is done. But no, THIS is just the preface. It is just the beginning of a more intensive job – sharing your content to the world.
Writing and publishing is no longer the only thing you need to do to attract users to consume your content. The notion that “create it and people will get it” is no longer valid. It is more like “create it, promote it, and people will get it” is the new norm.
For many bloggers and content creators, sharing contents to Facebook and Twitter is enough. But then they will find that they don’t get enough traction to gather as much traffic as they thought they would. Although Facebook and Twitter give a good amount of audience, you should not rely on just these two. There are a lot of other places out there where you can promote your contents and gain traffic from. I mean a lot. Really.
To help you with your content promotion, take advantage of these 12 additional choices where you can share your contents on:
StumbleUpon: Many readers rely on StumbleUpon’s suggestions when it comes to consuming contents. To use this social network, users click the Stumble button to get a new article to consume. It has a thumbs up/thumbs down rating system which largely affects which pages they send to users.
For content creators, signing up to this network is a must if you want to leverage it. To add your site or page, click on the Submit button, then fill up the required information. You can add tags and label the site as safe for work or not. It’s as easy as that.
Scoop.it: Many readers go over to Scoop.it to get fresh, exciting, interesting, and even intriguing contents. This is a content-curation network that relies on users for content suggestions, or scoops. A user’s topic gets its own URL that you can share to the world.
One thing to note is that it is a “freemium” service, meaning they have a feature-limited Free account, and feature-rich Paid services. The Free account can cover only one topic, while the lowest subscription price of $11/month allows curators to cover up to five topics and other nice features as well.
Blog Engage: Blog Engage is not just a social networking platform, it is a community of bloggers from different topics. It gives writers and content creators a platform to promote their contents and gain traffic to their websites. Note that it needs a certain number of votes before contents become published. When it does, a good amount of audience will definitely see your contents and it may snowball from there.
Reddit: Last year, Reddit became the channel for leaking photos of famous celebrities. What a shame. It may not be the most compelling reason why you would use Reddit, but hey, it reached millions of people in just a few hours. This means that writers can promote their contents through Reddit’s sub-forums, or subreddits, and reach ample amount of traffic.
Millions. Traffic. Readership. That’s what Reddit offers, but you must make sure to publish only high quality contents. You will gain credibility if you do so. Otherwise, that amount of readers may wreak havoc to your campaigns. You have been warned.
SlideShare: Slideshow presentations still are good ways on providing ideas and education to most users. And, it is most likely that you can turn your contents or blog posts to presentations using PowerPoint, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Google Presentation, and other similar software.
After making a slideshow presentation, you can publish it to SlideShare, giving you instant access to a wide variety of readers. Competition on this platform is not as strong as on other similar services, and that means you may reach more audience through it.
Triberr: This is another social network and community for bloggers and creators alike. Triberr can quickly provide traffic to your site by sharing others’ contents. Just join a like-minded “tribe” and you are good to go. You can become an influencer by doing this.
BizSugar: From the name itself, this site provides a sharing platform for bloggers and content creators about small businesses. You can share small business news and tips on BizSugar, and it can provide a place to find new readers.
Google+ Communities: This social networking size is huge, though not as big as Facebook. It provides everyone to post about specific topics related to a certain “community.” Users are usually the nerdy and geeky types, and this means they really engage with high quality contents. And if you provide good posts, you will surely receive a substantial amount of traffic.
Pinterest: Although it seems like a majority of Pinterest users are women, it still provides a good platform for sharing and distributing your contents. It has an active community that may provide traffic to your site.
Pinterest is not your usual platform, you will have to make attractive graphics for your contents that should show up perfectly fine on its card-type view. And, again, note that most users are women, and so contents that are either unisexual or geared towards women may get more audience from Pinterest than those that are too masculine.
No, I am not sexist, but it’s the fact.
Instagram: This is THE social network for sharing visual contents. Instagram has tons and tons of users who are likely to share and appreciate photos and graphics with 1:1 height to width ratio. No “texts.” It has a built in photo filters that can enhance photos before sharing them with the world. There have been reports of followers contacting influencers for their products or services. Take note of that.
LinkedIn Groups: As THE social network for professionals, sharing your “professional” contents to LinkedIn Groups allows precisely targeting the audience that matters to your niche. If you create high quality, relevant, and not-so-self-promoting contents and post them to LinkedIn Groups, you will likely receive traffic and conversions as well. Otherwise, you will be kicked.
Visual.ly: Here is a platform for creating infographics and visual presentation of your contents and for sharing them to consumers, too. Visual.ly provides a great starting point for exploring new medium on how to distribute your contents. Moreover, these infographics and visuals are shared and liked by many readers on other social networks as well.
“An ebook for your email address” or “30% off the subscription price for your email address” works great. Who doesn’t want free items or discounts? By collecting email addresses, you are equipping yourself with your own distribution channel whose users are definitely interested with your contents. Leverage this to share contents and even promotions and product launches.
It is very likely that your niche or industry has its own social networking site. Sharing your contents on these sites will surely engage with the right audience. It doesn’t get simpler than that. Examples include 500px and Deviantart for photographers and graphic artists, FoodSpotting for foodies, GoodReads for book- and magazine-lovers, ManageWP for WordPress-related posts, and Inbound for SEO, bloggers, and internet marketers.
Look up what’s for your industry or niche and leverage it.
The internet is flooded with networking sites where you can post, share, and publish your contents. You will rather find it exhausting to post on all of them. The list above shows those sites that are very popular and with tons of users. But these are just specks of sands. There are more out there.
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