I’ve been a member of the Placer’s Gold Toastmasters club for a little over two years. Recently, I gave a presentation on promoting yourself on social media. This is ironic given my woeful inability to promote myself.
I’ve had a presence on the web for twenty years or more. At one point, I won a radio promotion for which the prize was an account with a local Internet Service Provider (ISP). Along with that account came some space on their web server. So I created “Dadkind’s Boiler Room” which still has references even to this day.
It was a website related to professional wrestling as offered by WWE (which went as the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) at that time). On its pages you would find some commentary regarding the latest televised matches, a summary of the jokes and quips offered by Jerry “The King” Lawler, and most importantly, several pages dedicated to Chyna, a persona of the late Joanie Laurer. The “Love Letters to Chyna” page was particularly successful (the love letters were penned by fans, submitted to me, and posted to my web page).
This website was produced by hand-written HTML using Notepad on a Windows 95 workstation. This was before I even knew what a Content Management System (CMS) was and how web applications worked. Still, there was decent traffic on this site and had several other sites sending traffic my way.
Those were the days!
Since then, traffic to a site is dependent on Google search results to be sure, but also on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook interactions, and the number of followers you have managed curate.
But things don’t stop there. In order to get those tweet mentions, post likes and, ultimately, views you have to create new and interesting posts on a near daily basis. Then, once your content is created, you must promote that content on social media platforms.
Some things never change: You must publish, or perish.
Fortunately, there are tools that you can use to help promote your content. Hootsuite is one such tool, and the one that comes to mind first. But, there are a number of alternatives, and you should research which tool will suit your needs best, should you decide to use them to promote your content.
Why do I suck at self-promotion?
Above, I mention that content needs to be generated on a near-daily basis (daily original content is preferred!!). There is no question about that. Unfortunately, my life is rather complicated at the moment. I simply find it difficult to set aside several hours to pen an engaging post (like this one) that shares information that people will want to read. If you look around this site and you will see that I’m engaged in other activities that occupy almost all my “free” time (politics). So “creative time” is currently very limited.
Next, comes the problem knowing how to promote. My education is in Science (B.S. Physics at one point; never worked a day in the field). Today, my job is in Information Technology and I have learned the mechanics of the web and HOW to post on social media. But this is different than knowing WHAT to say. The result is a series of Tweets (mostly) that receive minimal engagement on their own.
Focusing on Twitter, here are a couple of tips that I HAVE found to help promote my blog posts.
- Ensure your tweets have an engaging photo to draw the attention of “scrollers.”
- Keep your text short and descriptive making use of popular Hashtags as appropriate
- Post several times, during the week, and during the workday.
There are an infinite number of other suggestions, that are probably more germane and effective. But those are mine for now.
What are yours?