How many readers does your blog have? Is it more than 330 million?
If not, you should be using Twitter to promote your posts.
Just a few years ago, you probably didn't know what hashtags and retweets meant, but with over 330 million active monthly users and 500 million tweets sent in an average day, Twitter has rapidly become a powerful tool for content writers to reach their audience.
If you buy blog content or do your own SEO content writing, promoting posts on Twitter is a great way to maximize the return on your investment. But even with the expanded number of 280 characters available per tweet, you need to make sure each and every word counts.
Buying Blog Content? Twitter Can Be Your New Best Friend
With its rapid-fire pace and quick, snappy tone, Twitter can be the perfect place to promote SEO content writing in today’s blink-and-it’s-gone environment. But the same attributes that help content writers showcase their work can also work against them. If your message looks like all the other tweets in a follower's feed, it’ll be lost in the shuffle.
If you're ready to make your tweets stand out, read on for three strategies that will grow your readership and help you make the most of your content investment.
1. Tweet and repeat.
Ideally, you'll share a blog post on Twitter shortly after it's published. But there's no guarantee that all your followers will catch the tweet and immediately head to your blog to read your insights.
Even the most avid Twitter enthusiasts don't spend all day focused on their feed. That means that your tweet could be missed while followers take calls, attend meetings or check in on their other social accounts.
And that's not the only way tweets get missed. Do you do business internationally? There’s a good chance that your Twitter followers aren’t in the same time zone as you. In fact, with 79% of tweets coming from outside of the United States, it’s possible that they’re not even in the same country.
This means that users who are otherwise occupied when your blog post is uploaded might miss your initial announcement under the deluge of recent tweets. At the same time, you don't want to spam followers with tweet after tweet about the same content.
To determine when multiple tweets are merited, ask yourself the following:
- Is this a decaying blog post? If you've written a hot take on the news of the day, interest in that post will naturally die down over time. By the end of the week, most people will be less motivated to read it. If your post has viral potential, it might make sense to tweet about it in the morning and the afternoon. But don't just recycle the same tweet – change your wording in each post.
- Is this a compounding blog post? If your post is a compounding post, aka evergreen content that is likely to continue to drive traffic over time, you'll want to tweet about it more than once. Keep an eye on your analytics, and use your Twitter following to redirect interest to this post over the coming months. This allows new followers to discover previously published content and helps maintain strong performance from powerful posts.
Just remember that your followers are interested in fresh content from your blog and your Twitter account. Make sure you're using the platform to foster a dialogue, not just as a promotional machine. Which brings us to the next point…
2. Put the “social” back into social media
You probably did some online research for your blog post, and using the Twitter handle of the sources that you used in an @mention is an easy way to give them a virtual shout-out. In fact, many people will share your post, or at least retweet you, providing you with the larger audience that you’re looking for.
Another way to expand the number of eyes on your post is to use hashtags that categorize your post, making it easy for people to find it and add their voices to the conversation.
Twitter’s website reports trending hashtags, but that’s probably too general for your needs. Third-party apps and sites often provide more detailed information that suits your demographics more closely. For example, if you want to see what people in a specific region of the country or world are talking about, Trendsmap can show you what’s trending in real time.
Another site, RiteTag, delivers instant suggestions on hashtags that might be relevant to your post. It shows you the strength of hashtags you type in, and it provides you with other ideas that might gain you more exposure.
Remember that inbound marketing is about creating a conversation with your audience. If you can involve more voices by including people and businesses that you’ve collaborated with via an @mention or by adding the right hashtags, it’ll help create a richer, more informative discussion.
3. Reuse, Repurpose and Recycle
Twitter is commonly used to drive traffic directly to your site, but what about users that want to access content without leaving Twitter? An easy way to engage these types of followers is to repurpose ideas contained in your post to create visual media, such as short videos or graphics. Once they're hooked, they're more likely to visit your blog.
Twitter allows you to upload videos of up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds, and with the Twitter app, all you need to do is hold down the record button while talking and release it when you’re done.
Not sure what to record? Think about what your post is about, and try to build on that. For example, are you promoting the release of a new product? An unboxing video that shows your customers what they’re getting will keep them excited while they wait for the release date. If you’re a restaurant or bakery trying to showcase a new dish, show a clip of how you prepare the ingredients before serving them.
Keep in mind the old saying of “show, don’t tell." Give your followers a glimpse into your world, and then encourage them to find out more.
If you’re not quite ready for video, a graphic is another way to grab the attention of your followers. A Twitter feed can sometimes become a huge block of text, and a picture helps to break up the monotony of line after line of words scrolling past.
Doing your own SEO content writing or buying blog content from expert writers is just the first step towards an effective blog. If no one reads it, your content investment has been wasted. That's why it's so important to take advantage of Twitter and other social media platforms to promote your blog posts and increase your following.
Are you struggling to maintain a business blog? Our blogging subscription packages can provide the content development needed to jumpstart blogging and inbound marketing in any industry. Contact us today to learn more about how Virtucom Group creates #content that drives #growth.
