3 Tips for Promoting Your Company Blog

This summer when I went on vacation, I had one major concern regarding being away from home for more than a few days. That concern? I had just planted some new St. Augustine grass and was a little worried that my sprinkler system wouldn’t be enough to care for my new grass that requires daily watering and a little love and attention. Hey, don’t flowers and grass grow better when you talk to them and show them love and attention?

Well, this is true of your company blog, lead generation and inbound efforts as well. You can’t just “go on vacation,” stop publishing blog posts and stop nurturing leads and expect to see results. Just because you publish a blog 3 times per week you can’t expect to automatically generate leads and see a positive ROI unless you actually promote those blog posts on social media, get links to your blogs on other websites and optimize for SEO. It’s a well-worn cliché, but if a tree falls in the forest and no ones hears it does it make a sound? The same can be said for your recent blog post. If you publish your post and no one reads it, did you really publish a blog post? Great question.

If you truly want to be successful with your inbound marketing program you will spend as much time promoting your company blog as you do creating content. How should you promote your blog?

1. Get your team behind the effort

Your blog should be analogous to a sales library. This sales library is where you archive the most common questions asked by your clients and prospects and can email these resources to them when appropriate. The best blog posts come from interactions that you have with your clients and prospects, the objections they have and the questions they ask. So, what better way to serve your clients and get new business then by sending them information from this sales library to answer their questions.

2. Get links to your blog on as many websites as possible

Most businesses are members of various organizations, chamber of commerce and other civic organizations. Don’t be shy in asking to have them link to your blog or asking to guest post on their blog if they have one. The more incoming links to your blog and website the better.

3. Get Social

Make sure that you are engaging in social media where your clients and prospects are online. Not all social networks make sense for every company so establish yourself and promote yourself on the networks that make the most sense for your target persona.

You have a choice in the matter. You can either have a beautiful garden that you water, spend time pulling weeds every week, and spend money fertilizing every quarter or you can neglect your landscaping, take a vacation and come back to weeds and dead grass. Just as you can with the maintenance of your yard, if you can’t spend the time to do the job properly, you can hire an expert to do it for you. Let’s face it, not everyone is cut out for gardening and if inbound marketing is not your main job it’s best to hire someone with a green thumb to do it for you. This is especially true if you or someone on your team doesn’t have the skillset required to conduct an inbound marketing program.

This blog post can probably be applied to more than just landscaping and inbound marketing. Whatever you focus your attention on you will tend to see results and reap rewards. However, as with most things in life you get out of it what you put into it. So if you want to start an inbound marketing program but don’t have much to put into it in terms of time, money, or staffing you are probably best off not getting started, as you will certainly be disappointed when your limited input creates limited results.