Amanda Clark
You spent the last couple of weeks mulling over a great idea for a sweet new company blog post. This morning, you finally carved out a couple of hours to write it, review it, revise it, and ultimately post it. The blog is now live for all the world to see, and you couldn’t be prouder.
So now is when the real fun begins.
Blogging is significant, and a great way to establish value and thought leadership on behalf of your brand. Writing isn’t the end of the process, though, nor even is posting. Content marketing is all about engaging, building relationships, connecting with users—so how are you going to use that top-notch blog post to connect with your customers and clients?
Here are a few things you should do once the post goes live.
- Share it. Your first stop should be to Facebook, where you make the post public. Write a quick summary for it—maybe a line or two of teaser text, conveying value or asking a pointed question. Hashtag and make sure your blog post includes a compelling image that will appear in Facebook newsfeeds. Once the post is up on Facebook, share it on any other social networking sites you use. Don’t forget about Pinterest and even Instagram, assuming you have a compelling image to use.
- Schedule it. You don’t have to share your post once and then be done with it, though neither do you want to beat a dead horse. Go to Hootsuite or the social scheduling app of your choice and set the post up to be shared again in a couple of days; maybe share it two or three times in the first week, then periodically revisit it afterward.
- Email it. You may not want to do this immediately, but make a note to include a link to this and any other really good blog posts in your next company e-mail blast.
- Put it up on LinkedIn Pulse. Trust us on this one!
- Ask for feedback. Send your post to a couple of personal friends or family members and ask for their thoughts; take their feedback to heart next time you have a new blog post to write.
- Start brainstorming. Does your great blog post open some doors for more great blog posts? Does it present you with an obvious opportunity for a follow-up post, or a post on a related topic? Could you repurpose it, using similar content in a different form—an FAQ, maybe? Spend some time reflecting on the post and plotting your next few blog entries.
- Reuse it. If you’ve got a really hot topic on your hands, there’s no reason why you can’t re-use that blog as fodder for a press release, a YouTube video, or perhaps even an evergreen section of your company website.
Remember: In content marketing, it’s not just about what you write. It’s about what you do with it once it’s written.
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