I’ve heard talk lately saying that social media and blogging are dead. “They don’t work anymore.” “There’s too much noise.” “It’s impossible to get heard.” “It doesn’t drive traffic.”
I’d like to go ahead and call bullshit on that right now.
Social media and blogging absolutely do work to drive traffic, you just have to be smart about it.
The mistakes I most commonly see clients and peers making that render their blogging and social media efforts useless are:
- they are inconsistent
- they aren’t making their content highly shareable
- they only promote their content once
- they rely entirely on automation
Ok. Let’s briefly talk about why each of these mistakes are costing you blog traffic.
Inconsistent
Whether it’s being inconsistent with a blogging schedule or with blog topics, your audience will get confused and move on.
This starts with knowing your audience and creating content that they are going to care about. Then, get on a consistent schedule of publishing content that makes your existing audience and your dream people say fuck yeah! They’ll read/watch/listen to it and share it.
It’s important to create a schedule and stick to it if you want to create any kind of momentum. If there is no new content, the audience you’ve been building is going to stop coming back.
Not So Shareable
The best way to get in front of your dream people is to have your existing audience share your content with them. Chances are, your existing audience is connected to a lot of other people with similar interests that would eat your content up, too. If you’re not making your content shareable, though, they aren’t very likely to make the effort to spread the good word about you.
Here are a few ways to make your content more shareable:
- install the Pinterest share plugin on your website
- install other social share plugins like SumoMe to make it easy to share to other networks
- create captivating blog graphics with a catchy title
- add a click to tweet to your posts
- make your tweets less than 120 characters for easier retweeting (some tools like Hootsuite will still cut your retweet off if it’s too long)
- write that ‘fuck yeah!’ content that your audience wants
Make it so easy to share your stuff that people can’t say no.
One-Time Promotion
A lot of people write a new blog post, share it on their social channels that morning, then never speak of it again. This is a huge fucking waste.
The life of a tweet is like 90 minutes. You can’t expect everyone ever to see it in that one tweet. This is why you should be sharing your content several times in the first week to get any traction on it, and keep it as part of your regular social media rotation for a while.
Derek Halpern of Social Triggers says you should be spending 20% of your time on content creation and 80% on content distribution. Most people do the opposite and, as such, miss out on major traffic.
Click below to get my guide on sharing and promoting your content more than once to get more traffic without annoying your audience. Know how often to share to each social channel, and how to reach out to get more shares from your audience.
Automation Station
Automation can be a life saver for busy freelancers and entrepreneurs. It’s fantastic in some cases and can totally work to attract an audience and even convert them into clients and customers.
But automating your social media 100% is a mistake. There lies a huge opportunity in interacting with the people sharing your content or discussing keywords in your niche. Being human is a crucial element of a winning social media strategy because it builds trust, it makes people care about what you’re doing, and it brings them back for more. No one gets emotionally invested in a robot.
Try freshening up your automated shares of older content every few weeks so your twitter feed looks a little less recycled. Mix in new content with a human touch, like personal observations or quote images.
Tools like Edgar, CoSchedule, and Buffer help with automation while still giving you control to change your message and keep it fresh.
What tools and methods do you use to drive more traffic to your blog?
Beth says
Ack! I am so, so guilty of at least 2 of the 4. Thanks for the reminder to step it up!
Kayli says
We’re all a little guilty Beth!
Elizabeth Jahns says
Great tips! Thanks!
Chrissa - Physical Kitchness says
I’m so guilty of sharing my content once and that’s it. I don’t want to annoy my audience but after reading this, I recognize I am big time missing out and it’s very likely my audience didn’t see it for the first time anyway!
Kayli says
I think it takes a lot to annoy your audience if they really dig what you’re saying and you’re not just repeating yourself over and over again.
Ingrid Cliff says
I am another one guilty of the one time promotion – and know I need to repeat the sharing more. It’s challenging walking the line between being new and fresh, and getting the hustle on.
Kayli says
It is definitely a balancing act Ingrid. I find that batching the promotion tasks makes it easier to keep that marketing machine going while giving you time to focus on putting out more new content.
Radhika - Fulltime Nomad says
Great advice! Today I’ve been working on creating a schedule for re-sharing my content so it was a nice reaffirmation to see your post 🙂
Kayli says
Perfect timing! I’m glad it helped.
Ally says
Pretty bad about being inconsistent with blogging but I am active on social media.
Kaye says
So guilty of promoting once and done. I wish there was an easier way to do this (Edgar is a bit expensive for me right now).