Every day, about two million new blog posts appear online. It’s no longer enough to just create an awesome piece of content and do some initial promotion. To make your piece stand out in a sea of content and gain some traction, you will need an active and well thought-out promotion strategy.

This article will outline some less-known content promotion strategies that are used by world’s most successful content marketers and that you too can use to amp up your content promotion efforts:

1. Ask industry influencers for a quote

When you start working on a new piece of content, a blog post for instance, try to get in touch with some of the thought leaders in your industry. Ask them if they could share their point of view on the topic you’re writing about. If you manage to get their quote, even just a few sentences, include them into your piece. It will give your writing more credibility and authority. Don’t forget to credit your source (or sources) by providing a link to their social profiles or official website.

Also, remember to notify the influencer you’ve quoted once the post is live. If they decide to share it with their network of followers, either through social media or their newsletter, you will gain exposure to a completely new audience (and not a small one, to say the least!).

Here is a great source to find influencers:

Image Source: HARO

2. Break out snippets for social media sharing

Make content work harder for you by breaking out pieces useable for sharing on social media. Try using variations of your title, short summaries of your important points, and abridged versions of statistics you used to establish your points.

After pulling out your snippets, combine them with the link to the original piece and you’re ready to design a social promotion campaign that can run anywhere from a week to a month – depending on how many snippets you were able to pull. The idea is to post one snippet a day in regular intervals to generate sustainable interest in your content.

3. Contact people who have shared or linked to similar content

After you publish your new piece of content, make a research to find similar pieces that others have published before. Note down their titles and URLs because you will use them to find people who have shown interest in the topic you wrote about.

Twitter is probably the simplest platform for that kind of research. Just enter the URL or titles you jotted down into the search box and you’ll be able to see the list of people who shared them. Your next step is to connect with those people, either through direct message, by email or by tagging them in one of your posts. Simply notify them that you’ve published a new piece they might be interested in reading and provide a link. If, by chance, there are any business owners among them, you can also consider reaching out to them through their company website. Messages sent via contact form have a lower chance of getting flagged as spam.

The same principle can be applied to people who have linked to content that is similar to yours. Contact them and introduce your piece in a few sentences. Explain that it provides a fresh or different perspective on the subject, that it contains more up-to-date information, or that it’s simply more detailed. After you introduce the piece, request them to consider linking to it.

4. Use different formats to reach different audiences

You can maximize the use of your content by repurposing it into different forms that will appeal to different audiences.

Right now, videos and slides rank among the most popular online formats. If you create a video, you can transform it into a slide show to achieve a broader reach. After that, you can break out the audio track from your video and use it as a podcast. Finally, you can create a transcript that enables people to read your information (it will serve SEO purposes as well). These are just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

5. Schedule your emails

Your email list is one of the most effective ways to get your content noticed, which is why you need to make sure you optimize it for best results. This includes picking the best time to send out your promotional emails and maximize click-through rates.

For example, you should schedule your emails for the early afternoon when people get bored and will more likely pay attention to your message and click your links, rather than early in the morning when they usually have many other emails to process.

6. Involve content curators and roundup creators

Even though they’re often overlooked, weekly and monthly industry roundups are a fantastic and rather hassle-free way to promote your piece. People who create them are always on the lookout for quality content they can share. You simply need to reach out to them and ask them to consider adding your content.

The same thing can be done with content curators, but under one condition. While roundup creators could be interested in things like overviews of recent industry events, content curators need content that is more evergreen by nature. That is something to keep in mind when you pitch them.

In either case, a great thing about this strategy is that you stand a very good chance of receiving a positive answer to your pitch. The reason is very simple: these publishers know that every quality piece they include enhances the value of their work.

Conclusion:

There are lots of strategies you can use to help you get the new content out there and make it seen by as many people as possible. You’re welcome to try out the six strategies we’ve outlined here and share your experiences in the comment section. If you’ve had success with implementing any other less known promotion strategy, please leave a comment below.

Author bio:

Short bio: Taylor Moore, a freelance marketing writer interested mainly in small business and retail. Follow me on Twitter @taylormtweets.