6 Great Ways to Boost Likes & Shares for Your Posts

Posted: 29 Jul 2016 07:11 AM PDT

Are your posts valuable and relevant for your readers? Do you want to get more likes and shares for your content? Generating leads is among the most important objectives of any blogger or online business. Social media is an effective tool to gain more visibility as well as a larger number of followers and traffic.

How should you use social networks to achieve a higher visibility and more fans? The bigger the number of followers is the higher your reach will be. You must apply some tactics to increase this important metric. We have gathered several great ways to help you obtain more likes and shares in the digital environment.

1. Choose The Right Social Media Networks to Promote Your Posts

Before actually starting a business or a blog, you should closely look at your target market. Who are your clients or followers? What are their needs, desires, and pain points? Use this information to create your buyer persona (the profile of your ideal customer). Your potential fans might not be on all social networks. This is why you have to create accounts on those that are truly relevant to what you have to offer.

For example, to reach the masses, Facebook is a good choice. When you have a lot of visuals and images, the best choice is to use Instagram. If you want to promote yourself as a professional, LinkedIn is the right pick for you. So on, and so forth. You don't have to be present on all the existing websites. As a matter of fact, this would only dilute your efforts.

Focus on a combination of two or four networks. Choose those that are best suited for your social media needs and also keep their relevance in mind for your subjects or activity domain. At first, you can try several platforms, and discover where your potential customers are spending most of their time. You can do this by using the Google Analytics suite.

Besides web metrics, how else can you find where your buyers spend their time? Well, you can also ask them directly, by running a small and concise survey. Another useful method is to take a glance at what your competitors are doing. If you are targeting a small niche, check if your domain is active on the networks you want to create accounts.

2. Optimization Is Crucial

After you have chosen the right social media mix to promote your posts, you should consider optimizing your content and your profiles. You can even connect all the accounts. For example, if you create a text post for your Facebook account, try to adjust it to be utilized for other profiles as well. You can transform it into a short video and upload it to YouTube.

Optimization should be taken into consideration for all the aspects of your content, starting with the title and ending with images. If you want to build a brand, try finding your voice. Be unique and original. While it is recommended to look for inspiration, you should never copy. The digital environment is full of useless and duplicate content. Maintain your focus. Think about your goals. What do you exactly want to obtain by promoting these specific posts?

Keywords should not be an afterthought, as they will dictate the general direction of your content. Spend as much time as needed to identify relevant long-tail keywords & optimize your content for them.

3. Create Engaging Content

Add images or videos to your posts. Make them look appealing. Also, you can use specific programs such as SumoMe to add sharing buttons directly on your visual. When a user hovers over your post's images, he/she will be able to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media networks, thus increasing your number of likes and shares.

You can also add a visible "share" button under each image or video. As long as you make your content user-friendly, followers will be more likely to share it on social media. Engaging content shows realistic and natural things. Instead of using the picture of some models to represent your team, take some real pictures of them. This way, you will become more trustworthy in the eyes of the users.

4. Diversify and Re-Share Content

First and foremost, your content should always be very relevant and valuable to your target audience. When you post a variety of content, you make sure that your social media profiles are always updated and offer fresh reading materials for your followers. Keep your audience engaged at all times. Otherwise, they will become less interested in what you have to offer.

Attract your clients by posting all types of content, from informational to promotional. Make sure, however, to apply the golden rule- the 80/20 method. This means you should post only 20 percent promotional content. The rest should be helpful and valuable for your target market. Creating loyalty among your clients is more important that just to attract short-term website traffic.

You can make a schedule of your posts. By sharing it several times on your social media profiles, you will increase the number of people that sees your content. You can use several online platforms that help you make a proper publishing schedule. They offer features such as planning which content to be distributed, on which networks, and the exact time to do this.

5. Test Different Titles

Titles are imperative for both SEO and user experience. Take the time to craft engaging and intriguing titles. A way to do to this is by applying the A/B testing method. The title can determine whether the post will be opened or not. Also, it will play an important role in the number of likes and shares you will get. For example, "How to" titles have great audience exposure.

Compelling titles should encourage readers to click on the post. You can see how good is your titles by using some specific web tools. Most of them are free of charge. This element of your post is the first one that the users see so make it a great one.

You also have to think about where you will post the content. The titles should be optimized accordingly. For example, Twitter titles are shorter than those posted on other social media networks. So, what's in a title? Well, a big part of your effective writing and optimization.

6. Insert Valuable Links and Opinions

By using high-quality resources, you will raise your posts' overall value. For example, you can interview experts or influencers in your industry. This will increase your credibility. When you mention someone relevant for your users, they will be more willing to share the posts, and promote it on their social media accounts.

This is a great method to attract new followers as well as increasing your visibility and awareness. Cross promotion is another wise way to obtain the goals previously mentioned. You should post your content everywhere, as long as it is a place where your potential clients are. Link building is a powerful tool, so use it wisely.

Let's Recap

Great and relevant content will increase your visibility. Besides this, there are also other several factors you should consider when you want to attract more leads, likes and shares. Building a higher reach requires time, so be patient and unwavering.

Using these strategies will make your audience show more interest in reading and sharing your content on social media networks. If you keep applying them, the results will show up eventually. You can also experiment with different methods, to see which one works best for you.

Author Bio: Michelle Baker is freelance writer & mother of two. She worked as a customer care representative for several ISP companies in the past. Her personal experience in the industry & tech-savvy nature have helped her write unbiased ISP reviews for BroadBandSearch, as well as blogging & marketing guides for various online publications.

Original post: 6 Great Ways to Boost Likes & Shares for Your Posts

ProBlogger: How to Pitch Brands When You Have Low Traffic

How to Pitch Brands When You Have Low Traffic

Posted: 28 Jul 2016 07:00 AM PDT

photo-1458324124043-7803d4fec380

A common question from new bloggers is "How big do I have to be before I can start working with brands?"

It's a question that reveals how often emphasis is put on audience size when it comes to marketing spend in the influencer space.

There are definitely ways you can change this emphasis to work for, rather than against you. It's important to understand that audience size is a carryover from traditional advertising and media buying – the more eyeballs the better!

Digital marketing makes it easier and cheaper to reach more eyeballs than ever before (hello Facebook ads). It's no wonder people are fed up with and becoming blind to advertising messages. We now prefer, more than ever, 'word of mouth' recommendations from people we know and trust to help us filter and make decisions on how we act and what we purchase.

I just received an email this morning informing me of the rise in the search term 'influencer marketing' – quite the spike in the last 12 months!

Screen Shot 2016-07-21 at 10.56.05 am

This is great news for you if you're an influencer. Note the search term is for 'influencer marketing', not 'massive website marketing' or 'how to market to fake Instagram followers'.

So, when it comes to your strategy for approaching brands when you have low traffic, worry less about the size of your audience and start focusing on the impact of your influence on that audience. It's your influence you need to emphasise to the brands you want to work with. If you need to figure out if you've got influence, check out The 4 Rs that Show a Brand your Blog is Influential.

Here are 4 strategies you can use to approach the brands you want to work with when you have low traffic.

photo-1457524461416-8796b6d23efb

Focus on your influence rather than your reach

Ask yourself, what is the brand buying – eyeballs or actions? Sometimes it's a mix of the two, but ultimately brands are working with influencers because of their ability to effect change in the opinions or actions of their audience.

Your job is to emphasise, where you can, the impact of your influence – not how many people might see something, but how many people bought or did something because of it. In your case it might not be many people, so another thing to consider is how much did they spend? There's a big difference in influencing a $5 spend vs a $50,000 spend.

I once did a sponsored car review after borrowing the car for a week. I had less than 10,000 unique visitors to my blog per month. I was paid $150 and given a gift card towards a family excursion in the car. I created a blog post with a video on YouTube which received over 10,000 views, but more importantly had two people contact me and say my review helped them with the decision to buy the car. So approx $80,000 in car sales for $150 blog post on a small blog (not all of whom were the target market). So next time I want to work with a car brand it's the $80,000 figure that's the important one – not the 10,000 readers.

Tip: Focus on the metrics that tell the most relevant story and emphasises the impact of your influence

Prove You're a Good Match

If you're going to approach a brand, make sure you're a true advocate of the brand. Your credibility is more valuable in word of mouth marketing than the size of your audience. It doesn't matter if you have 100,000 instagram followers if they call you out for promoting a brand that doesn't fit.

When brands offer influencers products to review, they've usually already done their homework and are happy that it's a good idea to give you something. Just because brands offer influencers products for review, it doesn't mean influencers should solicit products for review without also doing their homework and proving why working with them is a good opportunity for the brand.

Here's a simple approach to proving you're a good fit for a brand

Proactively post about them (yes, for free!)
Share their content with your audience on social media
Screenshot proof of engagement and influence from the above activities (very important!)

Doing the above helps you build a case for working with you. Backing it up with the metrics that emphasise your influence and target audience fit will be far more convincing than just sending them a media kit focusing on Unique Visitors or followers. They will be more interested in an influencer who shows why they're a good fit than someone who won't post about them unless they're paid to.

Tip: If the reach numbers alone are not telling the story, get proof that you can generate interest and engagement around their brand.

Focus on the relevance, not the size of your audience

Relevance is one of the more important factors of your ability to influence your audience to the benefit of a brand. The blogger with 250,000 readers will not always be the best choice for every opportunity. The total size of your audience is less important than the total number of the brand's target customers in your audience.

Gather information about your audience demographics, the reasons they follow you, the problems they need solutions for. Also consider how well placed you are to help the brand achieve its objectives.

A smaller, well matched influencer may have more men aged 21-35 living in Sydney who love boating, than a larger sports influencer with a predominantly international audience.

Tip: Get specific and find the brands you love that want to target your specific niche rather than reach a mass market

Don't ask for more than you are offering

Actually, to begin with, don't ask for anything at all! The point being that the beginning of a relationship with a brand you'd love to work with shouldn't be a straight out ask for product or money. Interact with them on social media first or track down a contact and just introduce yourself and let them know you're just starting out and would love to be on their radar for any opportunities they have.

When you do send them a proposition, be realistic and offer them good value. Your job is to make it easy for them to do the math on their return on investment. A quick check is to divide the amount you’re asking for by the price of the product/service and checking to see if it's realistic you could influence that many people to buy. Of course there are other factors and it's not always all about getting a purchase right away, but it's a good sense check.

If you don't feel you can offer much in they way or influence or reach on your own channels, offer to create something the brand can share on their own channels. More often than not a brand will have a larger audience than you, but it's authentic content they need to connect with them. Maybe they need recipes – let them know your fee for developing recipes for them!
When you're just starting out or have low traffic, a sound approach is to do whatever you can to prove your worth. Having a blog or social media following doesn't entitle you to anything. No matter the size of your audience you should always be prepared to prove your relevance and benefit to a brand.

Have you had good experiences with brands despite having smaller traffic? What are your tips for those just starting out?

The post How to Pitch Brands When You Have Low Traffic appeared first on ProBlogger.