Looking for tips and tools to promote your blog post? I’m sharing here my to do list of 10 things you can do to promote your blog post, after hitting the publish-button. 10 things sound too much work to do for every new post you publish? Don't worry, I also show you tools you can use to help you with your work in no time and how you can tick off your checklist as quickly and as easily as possible. And, you will see that promoting your post can have a tremendous impact on the performance of your post.


Once you've written and polished your blog post for readability and search engines, the real work only just begins. Even, if your content is top of the rocks outstanding, it won't promote itself.  To get readers and fans for your post, the promotional work is the most important part of blogging. Promoting your post using social media, content syndication and networking with influencers can be highly effective to build up a continuous flow of targeted readers to your blog post and increase your blog traffic.

A lot of bloggers simply forget, they already have blog subscribers or a newsletter list. Your email subscribers are the first ones who should get to know about your new post. They have signed up to get news and updates from you and they should be the first to know about your post. Subscribers are your most loyal visitors and the most likely to like and share your post. Don't forget to ask your subscribers for their opinion, because they are the most likely to comment on your post and start a discussion.



Tools to use, to make it easy to share your blog post with your email subscribers:Tip
If you don’t have an email newsletter yet,

Try the Email Subscribers plugin from Icegram. The plugin automatically informs your list, whenever you publish a new post.
Try MailChimp or MailerLite to set up your newsletter list for free.

Placing social media share buttons at the top and at the bottom of each posts will encourage your readers to share your post. Also encourage your readers to share your images. If you have an infographic, invite your readers to share them or embed them on their blogs by displaying embed code. Always use strong call-to-action like "please share" to nudge them into action.

Tools to use to make it easy for your visitors to share and promote your blog posts


Use the Better Click to Tweet plugin for your blog. The plugin adds ready to use Twitter boxes to your posts or pages. (free & premium)
Try the GetSocial Social Share Button or the Social Warfare plugin for your blog to add social media buttons to your post. There are multiple design options to choose from more networks, designs and analytics options. (premium)
Get the Pinterest Hover Pin It Button plugin for your blog to make your blog post images pinnable (free)
Use the WWM Social Share On Image Hover for your blog, if you want to offer your readers more options to share your images on social media. The plugin adds 6 social media icons on your blog post images: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ Pinterest, and Tumblr. It will show the social media icons automatically on hover the post images on your site.  (free & premium)

Start by sharing your blog post on your social media channels. Social media are very powerful sources to get more outreach for your content and to drive traffic to your blog.

Twitter and Facebook are the obvious choices for most bloggers. However, Google+ has over 3 billion registered users, and 4-6 million being quite active. So, most of your pals and targets are very likely to have a Google+ account. And, most importantly, active profiles on Google+ have an impact on the ranking in Googles search engine. Even if your main outlets are Twitter, Facebook, cross-posting to Google+ to promote your blog still makes a lot of sense. 
However, each social network offers different options for promoting your blog post:

Each network has a different character limit and different image size requirements.
In some networks you can join current discussions by adding popular hashtags. Hashtags also turn your posts into searchable content.
Some networks activate @ handles to reach out to specific users.
Or, you can add emojis to personalize your posts with emotions.

Each network is used for different purposes and at different times, when communities are most active. And, the communities react differently to post formats. Hashtags work fine for Twitter and Instagram, but they perform less on Facebook and LinkedIn. Google+ users read long comments, while on Facebook short comments perform better. You may also need to address your LinkedIn business contacts differently than your Facebook friends.
To effectively cross-promote your blog post, don't just cross-post the same message on every social network. Tailor the message for your posts to fit each social media platform and audience.

How to cross-promote your blog post on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn


Share your post on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn (if your content is business-related)
If you have product or business pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, share your posts to your pages as well but at different times and days.
Also share your blog post to relevant groups and communities on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, but share them on different days and times and use different messages tailored for each group.
Schedule your post multiple times on Twitter and on your LinkedIn timeline, but be more selective with Facebook and Google+.
Schedule your posts at the best times for each network and spread over several days, weeks and month to extend the lifespan of your posts. Re-share and re-schedule your evergreen posts from time to time, to revive them.

Tip: Use social media tools and plugins to help you with cross-promoting, sharing and scheduling your posts. But look out for tools that let you tailor your messages for each network. Cross-promote your content to meet the characteristics of each platform and community!
Check out our free guide and checklist to promote your blog and share your blog posts



Tools to automatically cross-promote your blog post on social media networks


Use the Blog2Social plugin to share and cross-promote your blog posts automatically to your social media channels, directly from the WordPress dashboard. The plugin allows you to auto-post and to customize your posts individually for each network. You can also schedule your posts to be shared at the best times to post on each network. The plugin auto-posts your blog posts to Facebook (profiles, pages), Twitter, Google+ (profiles, pages, groups), LinkedIn (profiles, pages), XING (profiles, pages, groups), Diigo and Reddit, to Tumblr, Medium, Torial for re-publishing your post, as well as your images on Instagram, Flickr and Pinterest. You may also re-post old post and pre-schedule your scheduled post for auto-posting.

The proverb "A picture is worth a thousand words" has taken on a special significance in the age of social media. People are more likely to click on posts with images, than on posts with plain text. And, people love to search for images and videos online. There are many sites and search engines just for image and video search, not to forget Google image and video search which is directly displayed in the regular search index. Visual content such as photos, infographics and videos can have a tremendous impact on the attention you get for your blog post from all these sources as well as from social media.

Whenever you share your blog post on social media as regular link post, only your featured image will be shared. But most blog posts have more than just one image. Images you can use to re-share your post or to use for highlighting different aspects of your blog content.
How to best promote your blog post images on social media:


Share your post on Pinterest, Instagram and Flickr, using your focus image with your introduction, hashtags and a link to your post.
If you have multiple images in your blog post, share them all, but share them on different days and at different times, stressing a different focus of your topic.
You can also share your post with selected images as image post format on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ to re-share your posts with different visual anchors.
Note: Image post formats will automatically upload your images to your media gallery on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Your images don't disappear in your timeline, but can be accessed by your followers anytime they browse your gallery. So don't forget to add a link to your post in the comment of your image post to make your blog post accessible as well.

Blogger communities like Reddit, Triberr or Quora are community to find bloggers in your niche and promote your content. Specific categories to give your content a wider outreach and connect with people specifically interested in your topics. By networking with blogger with similar interests you will be more likely to find people willing to share your content. Most communities work on a ‘give and take’ principle. You leave comments on other blogger posts, and they will leave on yours.

Share your blog post in special interest communities on Reddit, Bloglovin' or Triberr
Also look for other blog submission networks to share your latest posts, such as:

Inbound.org
Klinkk
GrowthHacker
Viral Content Buzz
Viral Content Bee
AllTop
Kingged.com


Look for communities and discussions on your topic to comment and share your post
Always stick to the community rules, when sharing your content.
Read the whole article here and get a Blog-Promotion-Checklist for free!