You’ve poured your heart and soul into creating a killer piece of content and, of course, expected it to go viral. However, nothing happened. Why? Well, content creation is just half the job done. The other half is getting your masterpiece noticed by the right audience.

Here are a few steps to take when promoting your content effectively.

Write Quality Guest Posts

Guest blogging is still one of the most powerful SEO techniques. It not only lets you build high-quality links, but also increases your credibility in the online world. Precisely because of that, you need to do publish your content on authoritative and reputable sites in your niche.

No matter if you’re doing manual research or using link building tools, always audit the quality of a guest blogging opportunity before reaching out. Pay attention to their relevance to your niche, domain authority, reader engagement, rankings, and the quality of their posts. Even the design of the site, its meta tags, anchor texts, and the number of ads may tell you whether the site is worth connecting with.

Sign up for HARO

HARO is short for “Help a Reporter Out,” an outstanding online community of journalists looking for expert insights into numerous topics. This is one of the most powerful ways to showcase your knowledge, get your content noticed by the right audience, and create high-quality links for your existing content.

Once you sign up, you need to create a profile and say whether you want to contribute to the site or just share your knowledge with other users. Sure, you can choose both. Then, HARO will start sending you emails related to your niche. You just need to wait for a perfect topic and offer your content as a valuable resource.

The same goes with Q&A sites like Quora that will help you position yourself as an authoritative online resource and promote your content easily.

Include Influencers

Identifying the major influencers in your niche and mentioning them in your blog posts brings numerous benefits to the table. First, their names will make your content more credible. Second, you will manage to get more eyeballs on your blog, either from the authority figures in your niche themselves or their extensive fan base. Of course, you shouldn’t just pack their names in the post. Instead, put them in the right context and make sure their statements are related to the issue you’re addressing.

Now that your content is live, the next step is to reach out to the influencers. Your goal is to build relationships with those people. So, make sure you connect with them before the article is live. Follow them on social networks, retweet their posts, and leave meaningful comments on their blog posts to get them to notice you. Once your blog post is published and you reach out to them, they will already see you as an authoritative resource and be more likely to share your content.

Repurpose Old Content

If you’ve created a killer piece of content that has gone viral and driven loads of qualified leads to your site, you certainly don’t want it to be buried somewhere on your site, forgotten. This is where content repurposing shines. In other words, you could turn your existing piece of content into another format- the one that resonates with a different audience.

For example, you could repurpose your comprehensive guide into a nice video or turn a lengthy article into a nice SlideShare or an infographic. You should share your repurposed content on your blog, social networks, and other online communities to make it visible.

Leverage Social Media

Social media marketing is the real meat and potatoes of your content promotion strategy. It gives you the opportunity to connect with your target audience on an emotional level and encourage them to interact with your brand actively. However, just sharing your blog post is not enough to get people to click on it. Here are a few ways to improve your content promotions on social networks:

• Publish new content frequently. CoSchedule analyzed 14 authoritative studies and found that 1 Facebook post, 15 tweets, 1 LinkedIn post, 2 Google+ posts, and 1-2 Instagram posts daily give your content an optimal visibility without making you look spammy.
• Schedule your posts to make your content more consistent. Of course, you need to do thorough research, find when your followers are active and adapt your social promotions to them. You can automate your social sharing and save lots of time using social media management tools.
• Create about 20 social media snippets to make your content more engaging. Snippets could be the variations of your titles, quotes, statistics, key statements, anything that would be interesting for a user enough to click on the link.
• Use hashtags, as they help you put your content in front of the right searchers and enhance your online exposure.

It All Starts with Your Site

Your content promotion doesn’t start with social media or guest blogging. It starts with your blog. Therefore, you need to take the following steps to encourage people to share your content:

• Add easy-to-see social sharing buttons.
• Come up with catchy calls-to-action to get readers to take the desired action.
• Make sure your headlines are engaging, authentic, and intriguing.
• Experiment with the types of content. For example, long-form content (2500+ words) has proven to be more effective than its shorter alternatives. Case studies, expert guides, podcasts, videos, and infographics may also be powerful.
• Pay attention to your internal linking practices. They help your older posts get indexed again and be seen by the right audiences.

Content promotion is a critical aspect of your content marketing strategy and you need to take it seriously. And, I hope these techniques will help you take the visibility of your posts to a whole new level.

Lauren Wiseman is a marketing specialist, regular geust author in adlbweb.com, contributor to bizzmarkblog.com and entrepreneur. She helps clients grow their personal and professional brands in the fast-changing and demanding market, strongly believing in a holistic approach.