Supercharge your content promotion
Are you struggling with promoting your content? Do you have great things to say but don’t know how to reach people who care? Are you scratching your head about how to make your social media and email work better for you?
Good news: these questions indicate you have progressed past the stage of just publishing a web page and wondering why no one is looking at it. You are already ahead!
I reckon two things will help:
Evaluate your content promotion maturity to get a really good understanding of what you are doing right now and how effective it is
Make improvements to your content promotion activities based on a thorough understanding of your audience
1. Evaluation
Assess your current content promotion efforts and figure out where to make improvements. This illustration will help. What level are you at? The desert, high street, conference or party?
Level 1
You have made some content and published it on an un-curated social media feed or unsegmented distribution list. You don't know who is following or if the content is appealing to them.
Level 2
You try to get more eyeballs on your content by publishing in a space where there are more people, but you don’t know who they are or what they want. You are still not getting much connection with your content or changing behaviour.
Level 3
You jump into an existing social community or distribution list that aligns with your target audience. You see an improvement in connection with your target audience, and you can measure a change in behaviour. You probably have a fledgling promotion budget and are figuring out how to allocate it.
Level 4
You create your own awesome community in social media or via newsletter segments where people get the VIP experience and really want to talk to you. They love the experience you have built and enjoy conversations with you and others in the group. You allocate your promotion budget with great effect and measure the impact you are making (or at least you feel you are doing this as well as can be possibly hoped for).
2. Improvement
I think we can all agree - we want to get to level 4 - the party. But how do we do that? Well, let's have some fun and pretend to design it.
Know your guests
To be a great host you need to know a lot about your guests
What they care about
Where they hang out
How they like to communicate
What motivates them
How they see themselves
What they want for the future
What is going on in their lives
So, the first step is to do some user research.
Create a great ambience
To design a party that people love being at you need to think about location, decoration, timing and catering. Let's translate that to channel, visual design, cadence and message substance. This can be distilled down to creating fabulous content that is really connected with the needs of your guests and delivered at the right time.
Customise your invites
Have you seen the fabulous doco about the Met Gala? It is a great insight into high-level party planning and the way they invite guests is fascinating. The two big lessons from the film are to segment and stagger your invites. If you are trying to generate buzz, figure out the right mix of people to invite - considering their dynamic with each other as well as with you.
Set your budget
You will probably already know the social media catchphrase, “You gotta pay to play”. In order to reach more prospective guests you are probably going to have to pay to boost your reach. If you don’t have a budget to do this, be pragmatic about the return you will receive and make good choices about whether the effort is worth it.
And then all is left is Party Time!
Oh and by the way - I made these illustrations using DALL-E and it was lots of fun. I’m really keen to learn how to use it better. If I can do it anyone can. Have a play today!
What advice would you add to this list? Have you had success promoting your website content? Please share :)
