Help your content be seen

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Let’s face it, creating good content can be time consuming, so you want to make sure as many people as possible enjoy it.

In this lesson we’ll look at different ways to promote your content, how to create a content marketing calendar, as well as ways to increase visibility through owned, earned and paid channels.

Did you know - some bloggers recommend you spend as much time promoting your content as you do writing it? With so many people online at any one time, making sure you are promoting content well is essential to helping it reach a larger audience.

Imagine if Ryan, a pet toy store owner, just spent a lot of time and effort creating an entertaining content piece about how to teach old dogs new tricks.

After all that work, he wants to make sure it will be seen by as much of his target audience as possible - which is where promotion can help.

For Ryan, the key to his content promotion strategy is understanding where his audience spends their time online. Is his audience on Pinterest? Instagram? Do his customers watch videos on YouTube or do they prefer to browse blogs? Understanding how his audience consumes content will help him get his strategy right.

Before you start creating a content promotion plan, it’s important to consider the channels available. Identifying channels by Owned, Earned and Paid categories is a great place to start.

For Ryan, 'owned' refers to the marketing channels he manages, for example his website, blog, and social media profiles. Promoting content over owned channels is a great starting point because it’s a typically flexible and low cost option.

Earned channels refers to anything that’s picked up by a third party, such as another pet care blogger that shares Ryan’s content. Earned channels can boost the reach of content and add credibility.

Finally, paid channels refers to promotion you pay for. This can allow you to target campaigns to a specific audience, based on your goals and budgets. Ryan could invest in advertising his blog post over social media, and reach more potential readers who regularly browse those channels.

Once you know which channels to promote your content through, it’s time to create a content calendar. A content calendar is a detailed timeline that organises your content marketing activity. By clearly outlining what to publish and when, it can help make your content process consistent and efficient, as well as give everyone involved a clear action plan to follow.

Here are some tips to get you started on your own content calendar:

• make it achievable. Your content calendar should include realistic time frames - if it’s not achievable, you’ll fall behind schedule and your content won’t reach its full potential
• highlight key dates. Things like public holidays or relevant events are great for releasing seasonal content
• consider multiple channels. Think about how a variety of marketing channels, such as a blog and social media, can work together to promote your content marketing campaigns
• remember the audience. Clearly define your audience at each stage of the calendar. If you segment your audience, specify which group you’re targeting
• explore online tools. There’s a variety of free and paid tools available to help you create a calendar, publish content to social media accounts, or collaborate on content with your team. These tools can save you time by automating some of the content creation and distribution process.

Now that we've covered how to promote your content online, think about which channels would work best for your business or brand, and consider how a content calendar can maximise the effectiveness of your content marketing campaign.