Social

Having a blog is great for business.

In fact, studies show that companies that run a blog have 80 percent more visitors and over six times the amount of traffic. This is because having a blog allows you to receive a steady flow of traffic from organic searches, emails, RSS feeds an social media.

Social media is one of the best platforms for marketing your blogs and other content however, with so much competition it may be difficult to stand out from the crowd.

While the basics of sharing, hash-tagging and tweeting may work well, here are some more advanced techniques that you can adopt in order to help drive traffic to your site and boost shares.

Here are 5 advanced ways to promote your content on social media:

1. Ego Bait Post

Ego baiting is when you target your post to a specific person who may be an influencer in their field.

For example, say you have a list post about the “Top 10 Things Not To Do When Running for President”. When you go to share this post on Facebook or Twitter you can tag in popular influencers like “@DonaldTrump”, to help them notice your content.

You don’t have to just go after big name celebrities either, in fact reaching out to smaller level influencers in your field is probably a better and more viable strategy.

The goal with this is to get the person’s attention enough for them to re-share, re-tweet or like your post, that way you will help to reach their following as well. Of course, if you get re-tweeted by someone as big as Donald Trump, your website will be in for a flurry of activity and traffic.

With an ego-bait post you can be as daring or as creative as you want in getting their attention but just be mindful of abusing this strategy as it could end in bad press or backlash.

2. Charts, Tables, Stats and More

Did you know that articles with digits in the title are 175 percent more likely to be shared across social media platforms?

Adding stats, studies, surveys, tables or even infographics to your content is a great way to boost shares and likes. The trick with this is to not just have the tables in the content but to use them as the main image for the post.

You can also just share any relevant graphs or tables as stand alone images on social media in order to help boost engagement and to generate followers.

Even though this strategy may not result in an instant flow of traffic, over time the more followers you have, the more likely they will be to click on your content.

3. Trending Topics and Hashtags

Most social media platforms offer insights on the latest trending hashtags and topics. By using this list appropriately you can help draw in more visitors to your site.

To do this, all you need to do is find a relevant post that matches up with something that is currently trending in the media and adjust your social tagline to make it relevant.

For example, say you have a post about ‘Productivity Hacks for Small Business Owners’, you could very well cater this to the always trending #MondayMotivation hashtag or even relate it to #TBT (Throwback Thursday). Get creative with it and try to relate your content to current news or media stories that may be trending on a particular day.

You could also take this strategy to another level and engage in a conversation on social media about a trending topic while relating it to back one of your own posts. For example, you could say- “hey @fakename I feel the opposite about #TrendingTopic, check out my view point here (link to article).”

4. Co-Author Posts

This strategy comes down to some simple mathematics- Bob has 100,000 followers, you have 100,000 followers, but if you and Bob write an article together and share it on your own networks then it will reach many more followers (200,000, to be exact).

By co-creating work you open yourself up to a field of possibilities and opportunities, especially when it comes to traffic flow and getting people to your site.

Co-authoring a post is also a great way to make connections in the industry, build links and is usually far less time consuming than writing a post of your own.

5. Give Away Gems and Create Discussion

Giving away gems is about offering a powerful quote, statistic or other tidbit of information that will get your followers excited to read more.

While you don’t want to give away the entire punch line of the post, offering some information can help your audience value your page and be more engaged in what you have to say.

The best information to share from your post is one that creates discussion or interaction with your followers, thereby increasing the need for them to click on the full article and read more.

For example, you could state something like- “Did you know 1 in 3 children will drown in pools without a fence (insert link to article here)- do you think pool fences should be mandatory?”

This social highlight not only offers an important statistic (gem) from the post but it also creates a discussion by asking a question. This is also a good way to get audiences engaged in your content and is a good measure for you in regards to how your content is being received.

Social media is a great way to drive traffic to your site and following these more advanced tools are surely to help your website increase its ROI.