Content promotion is a new drug.
“You should spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% of your time promoting it”, – I don’t know who was the first to say that, but the whole content marketing world had gone crazy ever since.
That’s because it sounds like the answer to all your problems.
The reason you’re not getting traffic is not because your content is poor, but because you don’t promote it enough.
And so thousands of bloggers went writing mediocre articles and using every promotion tactic they know to distribute them.
I’m sorry, but things don’t really work this way.
Where do the readers come from?
Open your Google Analytics account and tell me your Top 5 traffic sources.
Let me guess what’s there:
- Traffic from Google;
- Direct traffic;
- Facebook;
- Twitter;
- Some big website that links to you.
Now “traffic from Google” and “direct traffic” are self explanatory. What about the other three?
Did you ever think how people from Facebook and Twitter end up reading your article?
That’s because someone shared it with them!
- You get traffic from Facebook, because people have enjoyed reading your article and they have shared it with their friends;
- You get traffic from Twitter, because people loved your article and they tweeted it to their followers;
- You get traffic from another website, because the website owner thought your article is worth linking to.
Now where am I going with this?
It’s not YOU promoting your article with different promotion tactics.
It’s your readers, who are promoting your article to their friends and followers.
Thus, if you want to get tons of traffic – you have to make your articles “contagious”!
How “contagious” articles work.
You write a new article and then you share it with your email subscribers.
If your article is not “contagious”, none of your email subscribers will share it, and the article won’t reach any extra audience.
But what if your article is so good, that it makes people want to share it?
Your email subscribers will share it with their friends;
…and then friends of your email subscribers will share it with their friends;
…and then friends of the friends of your email subscribers will…
I guess I’d better visualize this for you:
As you can see from this graph, “contagious article” will reach a lot of extra people, for any initial traffic that you bring to it will be naturally amplified.
And besides, the most effective content promotion tactics are based on reaching out to influential people and making them share your content with their huge audience.
Well, influencers never share mediocre articles. You have to pitch them something “contagious”.
4 Steps To Crafting “Contagious” Articles
How do you create a kind of article that people would love to share with their friends and followers?
Well, people love sharing things that make them look good in the eyes of their followers.
This concept is known as “social currency” and it’s based on the idea that what we talk about influences how people see us.
And here’s how you create the kind of article that people would love to be associated with.
Step #1: Find a proven idea
Why would you want to guess the things that might make your audience “tick”, when you can just use an idea which worked for someone else?
There’s a cool tool called Buzzsumo.
Type any keywords and it will give you a list of most shared articles based on these keywords.
This tool can be your never ending source of ideas for contagious articles. Here's a more detailed look at Buzzsumo from Ms. Ileane (part of an interview she did on Shout Me Loud).
Step #2: Improve that idea
Stealing ideas from other people won’t get you very far… unless you know how to “steal” properly!
The trick is to rework the idea that you’re trying to “steal” to a point where people can no longer see the resemblance with the original.
Here are two best ways to do that:
- Do a thorough research and write a more in-depth piece than the original one;
- Take a totally different angle and offer your unique perspective.
The first one is also known as the “Skyscraper Technique”, which I’m sure many of you have already heard of.
And a great example of the second one is “The Periodic Table of Content Marketing” infographic, which is nothing but a “different angle” at “The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors”.
Chris Lake openly shares where the idea of his infographic came from and I didn’t see anyone accusing him of stealing someone else’s idea. That's because he had to basically recreate if from the scratch.
Step #3: Use Visuals
According to a study conducted by Moz, articles that contain visual content attract more links:
But that doesn’t mean you can get away with just throwing a few related images in-between your paragraphs of text.
The catch is to create your own unique images, which other people will then use in their own content and link to you.
Remember my “contagious article” visualisation? I’ve paid $15 to have my friend design it for me.
But if you don’t have any web designers among your friends you can always go to Upwork and quickly hire someone.
Here’s another visual that I’ve got for $5 from Fiverr:
Can you believe you can get a professional comic for as low as $5?
As you can see, creating custom visuals is something anyone can afford. And the best part is that you can reuse your visuals unlimited amount of times:
- use them in your guest articles (like I just did);
- post them on Twitter and Facebook;
- use them in your presentation slides;
- use them in your ebooks.
Step #4: Use Copywriting Techniques
People don’t actually love reading.
If they could just plug a cord into their heads (like Neo in The Matrix movie) and upload all the information they need in a split of a second – they won’t ever bother reading.
So every time you write your article you should be fighting for their attention.
1. Headlines
When people share your article on Twitter or Facebook, all their followers see is the headline.
If it sounds enticing – they will click it. If it’s not – you’ve just lost your reader.
“On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy” / David Ogilvy
Grab this awesome list of headline formulas and make sure to apply them when writing your next article.
2. Stories
There’s no better way to deliver a message to someone other than tell him a story.
Think Bible – all the great knowledge in this book comes in the form of stories.
Stories allow the reader to empathize, which creates a connection between you and your audience.
Take a look at this article by Jon Morrow, which got shared over 3000 times on Facebook alone.
It’s not the idea, that made people share it with others (the idea of this article isn’t new).
It’s the empathy that comes from reading Jon’s story, and people can’t help sharing emotional things.
3. Sound bites
One of the best ways to make people share your article is to recap it in a single catchy sentence and make it tweetable.
This strategy is known as “sound bites” or “tweetable quotes”.
If you look at the blog of Michael Hyatt you'll see that he ends every article with a catchy quote that you can tweet just by clicking on it:
Just do a search on Twitter for that quote and you'll see how many people are actually tweeting it:
You can easily create tweetable quotes on your own blog using a WordPress plugin called Social Warfare (aff link). And if you want these quotes to be really good looking, consider using a premium WordPress plugin called TweetDis (disclosure: this plugin is my birth child).
So you’ve got traffic. What’s next?
Now you know the exact steps to writing articles that bring tons of traffic to your website.
So what are you going to do with all that traffic? What are your business goals?
Some people make money from banner ads and traffic is pretty much all they need.
But what if your goal is to grow your email list or make sales? It would be silly to waste all that traffic you’ve worked so hard to get, right?
That is why you need to learn how to write articles that convert readers into email subscribers or sell the things that you need to sell.
Just recently I’ve published a nice guide that teaches you exactly that. It’s called “The Guide To Strategic Writing” and I invite you to check it.
And I’d love to hear your opinions on the concept of “contagious articles”!
Do you think “content is king” or promotion is more important than the actual content?
Hi Tim,
Think I just saw you wandering through the wilderness here in Bali. Was that you in the jungles of Jimbaran? LOL you are all over dude, well done! Spot on points too. Visuals are big because eye candy catches our attention. I figure, before I write a blog post, that I need to be true to me but I also need pay attention to marketing tactics that work, and work well, and are used by all of the big wigs out there. Not about copying or mimicking them but it’s about taking an idea that works, speaking in your voice and running with it, running like the blazes. If you study good copy from pros, and if they do it from a high energy space, you’ll learn how to craft your own, unique, eye-catching copy, and in conjunction with your own promo campaign your blog posts will indeed promote themselves. It really is a win-win scenario, a simple way to generate passive traffic over the long term.
Smart tips Tim! I use more than a few, and even though I lessen my image sizes a bit these days to improve site speed and overall performance I’m still huge on posting images of me blogging from paradise to keep that passive promo stream flowing. I can only do so much promoting before my fingers fall off, or before I need to head down to the pool for a dip. It’s hot here!
Tweeting from Bali. Thanks Ileane for sharing the stage 😉
Ryan
Hey Ryan!
Thanks a lot for your insightful comment! I’m actually hoping to meet you somewhere in Asia someday 😉
great article. proven ideas always help us a lot to get more shares and likes. we must use this technique on our blog.
I’m using Buzzsumo from a long time and already written many articles with the help of this tool. but now there’s a new tool introduced in the market called AHREFS content explorer. this tool is comes with much more features than Buzzsumo. AHREFS is best in it’s industry and I’m enjoying it’s new tool and hope you’ll also like this.
Thanks
Gaurav
Hey Gaurav!
Yeah! I know about Ahrefs tool! In fact they’ve reached out to my to try it and give them my feedback.
And I was honestly blown away by how good they were! So from now on I will only be advocating Ahrefs… till Buzzsumo will be able to win me back as their brand ambassador!
thanks for mentioning Ahrefs, Gaurav 😉
I really like the idea of creating content that promotes itself. I love the quote from Ogilvy “On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy”. It makes sense that we spend so much time writing headlines.
Hey George… if the content can’t “promote itself” – this means that people see no reason to promote it for you. So yeah.. we should focus on creating something that people will spread the word about for us!
Hi Tim,
Your article is spot on. Visuals are very important. Sometimes they tell your audience more than just the text. They are also quick to catch your reader’s attention.
Idea is very important. If you can find your own idea and develop on that, it would be the ultimate thing to do. However, if you’re able to develop on someone else’s idea then you would be making an important contribution. Both of them are equally important.
Great read, Tim.
Glad to see you here, Brian! I’m a huge advocate of “stealing” ideas.. I try to read a lot and this gives me inspiration to write a lot 🙂
Tim,
Nice piece with some excellent points. You’re spot on though. Getting influencers to promote your content , even if you ARE an influencer, is vital. In fact if you are an influencer, it’s actually easier to get them to help spread the word.
What if you have just a bit less influence than necessary to pick up the phone or send an email to the likes of Ted Rubin, Seth Goodin, or Chris Brogan? What then? Well, sorry, there’s no free lunch. You have to actually build a relationship with them by contributing value and persepctive. They are real people, after all. Once you’ve done so, they will likely give you and your content a shout out, if the quality’s there.
One other way to get an influencer or two on board the promotion train, is having them collaborate on the content. I’ve done this many times, and its such a win-win. The audience gets tremendous value, you strengthen your relationship with both the audience and the expert, while getting even better content, and the expert further builds their reputation as an expert, while gaining additional exposure.
Thanks for the post!
Steve
Hey Steve!
Thanks for your awesome advice! I think it perfectly complements my article 😉
Hi Tim
Let me confess: I was in that “write okay content and promote hard” bandwagon for some time. But now I understand that having sharable content is equally imortant (although you cannot ignore promotion). I liked the way you explained the process of creation of a contagious piece. It’s not something new, but the way you presented it was very attrative. I read the whole post. Thanks for reminding the basic ideas! I also visited your blog. Its wonderful.
Regards
Neil
Thanks Neil! feel free to reach out once you invest your time into writing a viral piece! I want to take a look at it 🙂
Sure, Tim!
FYI, the first quote was introduced “80/20 promotion rule” by Derek Halphern from Social Triggers in a video on 2011. Ever since, marketers using the same strategy to get more visitors to their websites instead of churning out new contents each and every day. I personally think that’s true.
But it’s also true that you need to have great copy before sending massive visitors to your sites. Great post Tim!
Can’t agree with you more, Anil 🙂 thanks a lot for your comment!
Hi tim,
First of all thanks for such great views and you have mentioned here that visual content attracts more links and now a days infographics are used widely, so using more infographics is good practice or not??
Hey David!
I actually think infographics are overused… and most people try to get away with a low quality $10 infographic, when in reality a quality thing can easily cost a $1000
I suggest to stick with custom visuals, not infographics.. you can have a very decent visual for $30 and it will add a lot of credibility to your article
Hey Tim,
Just following these 4 steps will make a positive difference. I just started using Buzzsumo a couple of weeks ago and it has been quite helpful in coming up with topics and crafting my blog posts similar to those that get a lot of of shares.
Also copywriting makes a big difference. I discovered some great copywriting formulas I can use for my headlines and blog. Also I was using the EMV Headline Analyzer, but now I’m using coschedule’s since it gives you a bit more detail of what you need to improve your headlines.
Thanks for sharing Tim! I hope you have a great week ahead!
Thanks for the comment, Sherman!
You should definitely try this thing too – https://ahrefs.com/content-explorer/
It’s much-much better than Buzzsumo! I promise 😉
Great, I’ll check it out… thanks for sharing!
Hi Tim,
Good to see you over here at Ileane maam’s blog.
Yeah you are right proper images can simply bump up the share quotient of any post provided it also has content worth sharing.
I agree with buzzsumo. It’s the number one go to tool for blog post ideas and see what is trending.
I have used the sky scrapper technique from Brian and its the best thing I think that can be done to an already selling idea/post.
Have a great week ahead Tim. And yes I love your blog too 😀
Thanks Swadhin! 🙂
I’m really glad that the tools and tactics I’ve mentioned here resonate with you 😉
Thanks for your post, the part on creating contagious articles was really interesting!
Clever angle on this topic and awesome post.
The buzzsumo/including images and skyscraper combination is definitely a recipe for success.
Thanks for the post!
Buzzsumo has been a great tool for me since I read your post. Thanks for all the info!
Wow this is a great post. For a while now, I have been hearing about Buzzsumo but have not slowed down long enough to pay attention. Now, I have it open and will pay attention moving forward.
I really struggle with writing stories. My blog is more about step by step tutorials and I know that stories are important but frankly, I am just not that great of a writer. To help me with this, I am now working with an editor but that is proving tough. Thanks for a lot of great stuff here.
Making a daily habit of writing content makes us to write more amazing stuff and we should read a lot from various sources too to know every aspects of the story. Thanks for sharing nice points.
I’m glad i have found one more unique content here. I visit this blog often. Actually, I have seen many bloggers who just focus on writing more and more content. I guess this will lead them nowhere if they don’t promote it. This post is surely going to help many bloggers.
Hi there,
Recently i read a blog at one of Neil Patel’s blog, there he mentioned traffic and infographics relation. I tried it and i could see awesome increase in Traffic.
Here i pick another #Idea of “VISUALs” today from BBT and i’ll tell you how it worked very soon.
Thanks for another Awesome Post 🙂