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11 Easy Twitter Promotion Ideas Bloggers Sometimes Ignore
You have all of this wonderfulness to share so you write a blog post. You press publish and it looks amazing, even if you do say so yourself. Now to get the word out about it.
Twitter is a magical place to get more exposure for your blog posts. One thing that people do a lot more of on Twitter than they do on Facebook is click – they are more likely to click through to a blog post, or click through to an article.
The other great thing about Twitter is that you can also tweet out more often. You can’t bombard people on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn every day with 3 or 4 links to your latest blog post, but you can definitely tweet it out more often on Twitter. Not only can you share your new blog posts but you can tweet out your old ones as well – more on that later.
Let's have a look at 11 ways you can ramp up your blog promotion strategy. If you would prefer to watch a video than read scroll down to the bottom of the page.
1. Use Appealing Images
Using appealing images is really important because this is what's going to catch people's eye. Once you've caught their attention they're more likely to read what you have posted. You know what it is like – you are flicking through your Twitter stream (usually on mobile) at a rapid pace and only stop when something catches your eye.
Also, use different images for the same blog post as different things catch different people's eye.
2. Create Tweetables
What are tweetables? Tweetables are little words of wisdom from your blog posts. You want to keep them short and sweet, at about 100 characters. That way people can retweet them and still have room to add their own comments or tag other people.
There are a few ways you can use them. Post them straight onto Twitter without a link, as a tip, and you can use a hashtag or add a link back to your blog post with it. Tweetables are also great to add to an graphic or image.
To find Tweetables, read through your blog post and find little tips or information that would make sense as a stand alone point.
3. Use the Click to Tweet Plugin
We've already talked about tweetables and the ‘Click to Tweet’ plugin is a great addition.
It is a handy little tool that makes your tweetables easy for other people to tweet out, straight from your blog post. They click on the words or an image and it opens up in a little separate window with your tweet already written in it. Then all they need to do is click on the tweet button, and away it goes.
Make sure you add your username to the tweet so you know when people have tweeted it out and you can go and thank them.
There are various plugins out there you can use, There's the official ‘Click to Tweet‘ plugin or CoSchedule has one that you can use as well. I personally use a plugin called Social Warfare as it has the click to tweet option as well as various other functionality. It is a premium plugin whereas the other ones are free. There are a lot of different plugins that do the job, if you don’t like any of those just do a search and you will find others.
4. Use a Variety of Headlines
One of the traps we sometimes fall into is that we write our blog post, share it with the current title and then that is it.
The more different headlines you have the more often you can promote the same blog post. We already talked about using tweetables from the post, with a link back to your blog. You can also just change up the headlines. If you struggle to write headlines there are different tools that can help. Portent has one and there's another one called Kickass Headline Generator. If you don’t like either of those you can do a quick search for headline analyzer or headline creater and you will have many options to choose from.
Different words are going to resonate with different people so you want to create as many options possible for people to click through to your blog post. You did, after all, take all the time to write it youpost and want as many people to read it as possible.
5. Tweet More Than Once
You want to make sure that you are constantly retweeting your content. There are some great tools out there that you can use to schedule and repost your blog posts. There's Hootsuite or Buffer. I use eClincher.
Simply upload the tweets and schedule them out. Some systems, like eClincher, recycle your content. You only need to add it once and then it continuously posts out your tweets. If you are using Hootsuite or Buffer you will have to re-upload the tweets, as it only tweets each post out once.
You can also use a plugin for WordPress to help you with this. The most common is call Revive Old Post. You can choose which posts you want to go out, and then it will automatically post them out at set intervals – be that every hour, every four hours, once a day. You can choose which categories you want it to share from if you don’t want it tweeting out all of your blog posts.
Regardless of which option you choose make sure you are sharing out old blog posts. After writing some new headlines and creating tweetables you will have a lot of different ways that people can find out about your blog posts.
6. Social Share Buttons
Social share buttons are the buttons on your website that people use to share out your content – you will see them at the top and the bottom of this post, as well as down the left hand side. (Don't forget to share this blog post – wink wink!)
Again there are a lot of options for these. As I mentioned earlier I use Social Warfare. There are also free options like Shareaholic or the many other options on the WordPress social share buttons page. They all pretty much do the same thing.
Basically people click on the link and then a pre-populated post appears which they can share out onto their preferred platform. Make sure when you are setting your account up for Twitter that you add your username. That way you will know when someone has tweeted it and then you can see who it was and thank them for it.
7. Pin a Tweet
Pinning a post at the top of your feed is a great way to gain exposure.
Again you want to be using a really great graphic and then you can pin the tweet straight to the top of your feed. The first time people come to your profile that's the thing that they're going to see.
It is easy to do and you can change it out as often as you want.
8. Put a Link in Your Bio
The next strategy is putting a link in your bio. There are two different places to put a link:
1. You can put a link in the area that Twitter has set up for you to put a link in, and
2. You can actually put a link right inside your bio. The link must start with https://. If you just start with www and then your website, it's not a clickable link. It has to be: https://staceymyers.com
Have one of them a link straight through to a blog post so people can easily click on the link and go straight to the post you want them to see.
9. Use Hashtags
I’m definitely guilty of not using hashtags to their full advantage. Twitter and Instagram are the platforms that use hashtags the most.
If you don’t have any hashtags that you use already then you want to start to take notice of the hashtags that people are being used in your niche. Check out the hashtags the influencers in your niche are using.
No one owns a hashtag. So, if someone else is using a hashtag that you'd like to use as well, you can use it. The tips ones, like #Twittertips that I use or #socialmediatips, #beautytips, any of those kinds of ones you can freely use. If you can see that someone's hashtag is pretty much personal to them and their brand, I wouldn't go piggybacking on the top of that or it could get you into trouble. But any of the ones that loads of people are using you can definitely use.
You can research hashtags on Twitter by looking at people’s accounts and tweets, by using the Twitter search functionality or by using one of the various hashtag website that help you see which hashtags are popular. Hashtagify.me or Hashtags.org are a couple of good options.
10. Tag Relevant People
If, in your blog post, you have mentioned someone or linked to their blog post you can sent them a tweet letting them now.
Please note: I said tag relevant people. Don't just tag people, it is really rude and quite spammy if you tag random people so they can find out about your post. People do it to me all the time and it drives me nuts. Only tag people with your blog post link if you actually mentioned them in your blog. You can send them a tweet to tell them that it's in there, or you can tag them with something like, ‘Here is one of Steve's greatest tips about marketing your business on my latest blog post'. You can use something like that and then tag him with his username. That would be completely appropriate – randomly tagging people is not.
11. Use Video or Live Stream
I know this one can seem a bit scary, but the rewards are well worth it.
You can create little video snippets – a bit like tweetables – from your blog posts. You can upload videos to Twitter that are up to 140 seconds (2 mins 20 secs) long. You can also link to longer videos that are hosted somewhere else.
I am doing a similar concept with this blog post, except it is a little back to front. I already created a video (which you can find below) and have now written a blog post using the same content. I will then take these blog post ideas, break them down individually and create smaller videos, and social media posts, for each one. I will then put the videos up on Twitter and also on my YouTube channel.
If you don’t want to have your face on video you can take a certain tip, create a graphic for it using canva or powerpoint, put it up on your screen and record your screen while you talk over it. All the viewer sees is the tip on the screen, not your face. This is a great way to get started if you are a bit shy.
If you feel a more confident you can do some live streaming and share your blog post that way. You can take a piece of your blog post, or you could share your entire blog post – the choices are endless.
If you would prefer a video you can watch it on YouTube – https://youtu.be/wfFl-5VyERM
There are so many different strategies you can use to help you get more exposure on Twitter, and of course the other social platforms as well. I would love to hear which ones you are going to give a go.
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I can't wait to put this valuable information into action.
I am pleased to hear that! Let me know if you have any questions.
I don't create tweetables and alternate titles nearly often enough. Thanks for the reminder 🙂
They are things that are easily overlooked. Most of the time we are just happy to have been able to publish something.
Hi Stacey,
Great tips! I still see some blogs that don't have shareable buttons. What a big opportunity they miss. While one's post can be shared through copy and pasting the URL, no one would really waste the time to do that. So it is really important for everyone to include social media share buttons.
Thanks for stopping by. Yes, share buttons are very important to have on your website.
Great tips. Thank you so much.
It is my pleasure, Nafissa! Thanks for stopping by.
Stacey…I've all but given up on Twitter these past few years after my business partner ran it into the ground with spam. Gave it a run a few months back but quickly lost my steam and interest again. Maybe you need to give me akick and inspiration to go at it again! 🙂 This article definitely gets me thinking about it! You make it sound fun!
Twitter is a great place to market your business. I would encourage you to give it another go.
It actually can be quite fun. You should definitely pick it up again.