The idea of “promotional time” is not likely something most people consider. People do, though, sometimes consider those things you do to promote a blog or a blog post.
Many people like that idea of a simple process. Like, you publish the new post, then you execute certain promotional steps to get it out there. We covered the basic ones earlier in the week.
But, no doubt you’ve heard of other strategies for promotion. Stuff like:
- Writing guest posts
- Cross promoting your posts via videos on Youtube
- Participating in social groups and forums
- Answering blog comments (on other blogs)
- Posting presentations on Slideshare
- Doing audio posts and posting on iTunes, etc.
- Emailing other bloggers and seeking out opportunities
- Being a guest on related podcasts
I mean, there’s all kinds of things you could do. Thing is…
You don’t need to do it all.
Not only that, it’d be downright overwhelming if you even tried.
Instead, you might want to set up something you could call “promotional time”.
This would be a block of time that fits into your schedule where you do anything that is outbound and promotional in order to put your stuff in front of more people.
During this promotional time, you produce nothing. Instead, your sole focus is to be out there interacting with the “community” and making new people aware of you, your blog, how you can help, etc.
If you schedule this time, you’ll do it. And it allows you to have ongoing things going on which doesn’t seem like it would ever end, but you’d still make SOME movement on this ongoing effort of promotion.
During that promo time, perhaps you email a podcaster and propose yourself as a guest interview to provide their listeners with some great content related to what you do. Perhaps you spend that time answering people’s questions in a popular forum (which, of course, includes your site link in the signature). Perhaps you answer some Quora questions. Perhaps you write something up for Medium.
What you do is up to you, but this is time where whatever you do should be OUT THERE…. not in-house and producing content.
Your business depends on that connection to your target market… and that market is often in other places not on your site. If you sit there and depend on Google to send them to you, then you’re dropping the ball. You need to take ACTIVE actions to get out there and interact with your market and bring them in.
So, what could YOU do during your promotional time? And when can you pencil it into your schedule on a repeating basis?
– David
