Sue Reynolds
You’ve taken several hours to write a blog, create a new Slideshare presentation, research and design an infographic or shoot and edit a video. The content is compelling and on brand. You feel good about it. I don’t have to tell you that creating your own content is hard work and time consuming, so of course you want to get the most value and reach. If you’re like a lot of people, here’s what you do. The content is live and you post it to social media using a nicely worded Facebook post, a tweet, perhaps a post on Google Plus or LinkedIn and, if you have great images, you probably pin the best one to Pinterest.
Then you sit back and wait for the likes, shares and comments to flood in.
And you’re very often underwhelmed, right?
Here’s what I recommend to get the most out of that content, using social media of course!
The first day your content is live, post it on Facebook. Plan on posting this content several more times over the next week or so, but make sure to craft the posts so they look different. Use a tool like PicMonkey or Canva to create a graphic to go with your post and change out the image. If you’re using a quote, try Quozio, an easy quote generator with several style options. Be sure to word each post differently. Watch and see what types of post engage your audience the most and use that information to craft future posts.
Twitter’s audience is more tolerant of repeat content, most likely because the average interest decay of a tweet is about two hours. The first day you’re safe to tweet three or four times if that’s part of your normal twitter pattern. Also, as soon as you publish your post, craft a month’s worth of tweets, the number depending on how often you typically tweet per day, and use a scheduler like BufferApp, Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to schedule them out over the month. Similar to Facebook, each message should be different, using different hashtags and copy.
Pinterest or Instagram
Your blog should contain one or two high quality images that are pin and/or Instagram worthy. As soon as you hit publish, pin those images and include descriptive content including keywords. Keep these image heavy platforms in mind when you’re choosing the image for your blog and you’ll get better results. Use Instagram to generate engagement around your posts as well, as Instagram tends to receive higher post likes and comments than other platforms.
Google Plus
I still recommend using Google Plus as a viable platform for sharing content. It allows you to post long form status updates or a short post with a link back to the content. Each post to Google plus is actually a separate webpage, showing up in search depending on the plus 1s and sharing it receives. This is a perfect platform for sharing content from your own website, as the link juice from those plus 1s and engagement is passed back to the content itself. Share the content from your personal Google Plus profile if appropriate, which also allows you to email everyone following you there. Share to your company page as well. As you do for Facebook, post several times over the month using different images and copy, and try making one post the full copy.
Your strategy for LinkedIn posting can be similar to your Google Plus strategy. Share your content on your own personal LinkedIn profile, as you’ve most likely developed a professional network on the platform that sees you as a thought leader in the content area. If you have a company page that’s appropriate for the content, share it there as well. Then craft several different posts, each time with different lead in copy. Add an opinion as to why you thought this content was a good share for your network. LinkedIn also allows you to share content in a long-form post on the platform through LinkedIn Publisher, and similar to Google Plus, allows you to share the entire post in blog-like format. Look for the pencil icon in the status update section to create your long form content.
All in all, a good rule of thumb is to create around 20 different posts as soon as you’ve published your content, as the main ideas and language and still fresh in your mind. Don’t forget the non traditional platforms such as StumbleUpon, Tumblr and Reddit as well. Spend some time creating supporting images, then use a content calendar to plan your posts. Then remember to analyze the results.
How do you typically share new content? What are your favorite platforms for spreading that content on social?
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