Episode #290: What to do after you publish a blog post
TAYLOR BRADFORD: You are listening to episode number 290 of the Boss Girl Creative podcast. Today I’m sharing tips on what to do after you hit publish on a blog post. On to the episode.
0:13
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Inner Circle membership, which is closing its doors on December 31, 11:59 pm Central Time, and you do not want to miss out. Trust me. You do not want to miss out on being in the Inner Circle, so you got to go to bossgirlcreative.com/InnerCircle to get yourself in. Beyond December 31st – so let’s just queue up January 1, 2021 – the doors will be closed until April 1st. And the reason I’m doing this is to help those that are in the Inner Circle level up and get into implementation mode for their goals in 2021. And we are going to deep dive, y’all. We are going to get into the nitty-gritty, and we’re going to have some accountability, and we’re going to tackle the goals. We are going to get to December 31st, 2021, and have accomplished everything we set out to do in 2021. So if you want to be a part of that, do not delay. This is the last week – and legitimately, it’s going to close until April 1. So you got to get yourself in for as little as $10 a month. Seriously, two lattes. Get yourself in. bossgirlcreative.com/InnerCircle. Again, that’s bossgirlcreative.com/InnerCircle.
1:42
Well, hello, friend. Welcome to Episode 290. It is the final episode of 2020. Hallelujah, that ship is almost finished sailing. 2020. I’m so pumped about 2021. I have found a lot of peace lately and joy, which is amazing because we all know 2020 has been a rocky, rocky road for a lot of us. And I’m really pumped about 2021. There are some really amazing things on the horizon for Boss Girl Creative and also the Sugar Creek brands. And I am pumped to bring it all to life and what that looks like, and I’ve been in planning mode for the last few weeks. And I’m really excited to be here in this joy. I truly am in joy, and that is such an uplifting feeling. And I hope that you are finding that joy as well. I hope that you are finding the grace to move into this next year and just hang up your hat on 2020. If you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, you definitely want to do that. I think it’s going to prepare your mindset for finding this joy to step into 2021, so definitely go back and listen. This whole month I’ve been basically diving into the nitty-gritty of the things that is going to help you in 2021.
3:15
This episode is no different. I’m talking about what you need to be doing after you hit publish on a blog post. And if you’re not blogging as a part of your business, you definitely need to add this to your 2021 calendar and part of your goals because blogging – even if you’re not, or you don’t consider yourself to be a blogger – blogging can bring you business and getting yourself out on social media can bring you business. So that is what we’re focusing on today is what to do after you hit publish on a blog post. And I’m really, really pumped to dive into this. So let’s get going because this is going to be good stuff. And if you don’t have a notebook, you need to grab one, and a pen, and maybe your favorite beverage. And yeah, we’re just gonna dive into this.
4:12
So here we go. Number one, create a second pin for your blog post. And you can either do this by inserting it and adding some code, which I will include in the show notes for this episode because it’s just really technical for me to just talk it out because of all the brackets and everything, so you can find this episode in the show notes over at bossgirlcreative.com. This is Episode 290. And you’ll see the code that you need to add if you want to hide the second pin on your post so that when somebody clicks dependent button on your posts, you definitely need to have that installed. If you don’t already, you can actually do that through Pinterest, or you can use a social plugin type thing if you want as well, but I trust the Pinterest thing, so go to Pinterest and find that. And you can hide it in the post, or you can just simply create a new pin through Pinterest, add your link, and now you’ve just created, or you just added a second actual pin to Pinterest that’s related to that piece of content without having to hide it, which can be kind of convoluted. So you have two options, you can either hide it in your blog post, or you can just simply add it to Pinterest, link it to the post, and bam, you’re done. So that’s number one, creating a second pin.
5:43
Number two is literally diving into the social media aspect, the marketing aspect of your blog post – so sharing it out on social media. You want to share it the day it’s published. You want to share it a few hours later, on Twitter specifically, if you use Twitter. Share it the next day. Share it a week later. You can stick it into a content shuffler like Smarter Queue, MissingLettr, Edgar. Those are all things that are content loops that will help you continually to share your content moving forwards. It’s kind of like a one time set, and then you’re done, and then it’s looping for you and sharing. So the recommendation for sharing out on social media: Facebook one to three times a day, not necessarily the same post three times a day, that would be dumb, but sharing content 1-3 times a day on Facebook. Twitter is 13 to 20 times a day. That’s 13 to 20 tweets a day out on Twitter. Pinterest is pinning 10 to 50 pins per day. And Instagram is one to two times a day. I personally prefer sharing once a day out on Instagram, and most of the time, I’m sharing three days a week or two days a week, depending on the business. I don’t feel it’s necessary to be sharing content twice a day on Instagram just because of the algorithm. And I don’t think it’s that effective to share that much unless your account is just stellar and you’ve built up an audience to expect that kind of thing. So if you’re still in the trenches of growing your Instagram, once a day, three times a week, two times a week. Basically, you’re going to train the audience as to what it’s going to be, so I just wouldn’t start out with twice a day. I don’t think that’s smart. So you want to post once a day on each platform, then increase it to two times a day, once you’re comfortable posting one time a day. And then pick the platform to focus on where your content readers are coming from or where your actual readers, followers, people engaging with the content, where they’re coming from. Most of the time, that’s going to either be Pinterest or Instagram. Sometimes it’s going to be from Facebook. So that will take just some working and some effort for you to figure out where your people are coming from, and that’s where you’re going to focus your efforts on. But you don’t want to leave all your eggs into that basket. You definitely want to continue to share out on the other platforms just for the opportunity to get more eyeballs on your content, even if it’s not a ton of people. Like, it really doesn’t take that much time once you get your content written – and you’ve got your posts written – to duplicate that elsewhere. Change up a few words etc., etc., and on you go. So you can use social media scheduling tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, Edgar, Tailwind, Later to do the sharing for you. So you can basically sit down and do this in a day, and then boom, it’s working for you all week long or all month long, depending on how you set things up. But I also encourage you to manually share things. Pinterest loves manual sharing. I stopped using Tailwind a long time ago. And Pinterest prefers you to manually pin into their platform. Again, Pinterest wasn’t made for you and me, Pinterest was made for the stay-at-home mom basically, and they don’t really care about us all that much, even though we’re the content creators. They didn’t create their platform for us. They created it for the stay-at-home mom looking for a recipe or a tip or trick or hack or whatever. So know that manual sharing out on Pinterest is the better option. Although you can use Tailwind to set it and forget it, but you should be manually pinning at least weekly, if not more frequently than that. But just don’t get nutty with it.
9:53
Okay, here we go. Number three, share with groups and communities through Facebook or LinkedIn – depends on where your people are hanging out – but you have to be super-mindful about dropping a link and running and not being proactive with actually following up with other people that are providing their own links. So you need to take a super personal approach if you’re going to link into share threads through Facebook groups. And – because you don’t want to be that person that just links and runs. And when I had the active free community on Facebook for Boss Girl Creative, I had a Wednesday share-fest, and the people that participated in that linked and ran, and they didn’t participate in the community outside of that day. And that was a big reason for me to shut down the group. Lack of engagement – because there’s so much noise out on Facebook, but also the linking and running, so don’t be that person.
10:56
Step Four. Number four is making sure your post is amazing with SEO. Like, if you haven’t figured out how to SEO your post, you definitely need to do that. I have a course. You can get to it through courses.bossgirlcreative.com. You can find it there. It’s $97. It will help you SEO your blog posts. And that’s step four. Number four is making sure you did the work, and your SEO is amazing. And just double-checking. Making sure that your post title has your keyword in it, your post has your keyword in it, your images and your headings have your keyword in it. You don’t want to stuff it, but you want to make sure that you have it set up properly. And it probably wouldn’t hurt – depending on when you did the keyword research for the post – to go double-check that your keyword is still the right keyword to be using. So checking your title, your image tags, your headings, etc., after you run your keyword research again, that probably is not a bad idea to be doing.
12:01
Number five. Step five is repurposing this piece of content that you worked so hard to create into something else, whether that’s a podcast episode, a video out on YouTube, or a video through Facebook, an infographic, a slide show, a quick-tip graphic, a webinar or a hangout with your community, a challenge that might be related to the blog post, email series, a free offer, or publishing it through Medium or LinkedIn. So repurpose it. Don’t just let it sit there as its own thing. Definitely repurpose it through other channels. You can also do this with popular posts. So every 30 days to three months – if you go into your Google Analytics, and you’re looking at what your top 10 posts are – repurposing content based on those top 10 posts, and creating things to push out onto social media – or it actually might even spawn you to figure out other content ideas that you can link to when you create new blog posts, and link back to the popular posts to kind of help boost the new post. Lots of things that you can be doing. So you can repurpose your popular posts. You can also repurpose your older posts if you want to get more action on them, more eyeballs on them.
13:31
Step six. Number six is replying to comments that you get through the blog and through your social media platforms.
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Number seven is extending that particular piece of content through a new piece of content in the future, which is what I just talked about.
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Number eight is sharing to social bookmarking sites like Mix, Flipboard, Digg, or Delicious.
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Number nine is adding your latest post to your email signature line. You can use an app like Wise Stamp. You can also through your social media platforms on Instagram, you know you have your profile link, you can use an app like Link Tree or just create your own landing page on your website that mimics what Link Tree does, which is what I actually recommend you doing versus using Link Tree. Why give a third-party app traffic? Why not give yourself that same traffic? It’s not hard to create, and you will be the one that benefits from that traffic.
14:41
Okay, so number 10 is commenting on other blogs. That’s another great way when you go out and comment on other people’s websites, you get to leave your name, your email address, and a link to your blog before you get to your comment. It’s a great way to link back to your latest posts or just your blog in general or wherever you want to be linking them to.
15:06
And then finally, number 11 is emailing your audience about your latest posts, either through a monthly newsletter, or a weekly newsletter or through an RSS feed. So with The House of Sugar Creek – I’m still working on my email templates, so if you’re on the email list that was formerly Taylor Bradford blog, you’re getting my RSS feed – I’m not creating a newsletter just yet, and I’m still struggling with the template pulling the photo. And I had to figure that out. But regardless, you need to email your audience about your latest posts, either through an RSS feed newsletter or through your monthly newsletter or weekly newsletter, where you do a roundup of the things that you want to talk about.
15:53
Okay, so here is a sample schedule of how to work your way through if you’re a one time a week blogger, how that might look for you. Now, this can also work for you if it’s a multiple week blogger. So if you are writing content three days a week, you can still do this for yourself and your blog post. So Sunday, the first Sunday of every month, research what your blog topics are going to be for that particular month or for that particular week. And this will be a way for you to do something in advance so that you’re not feeling claustrophobic and a serious procrastinator even though you’re probably a procrastinator like me if you’re unconventional like me. But this is made so that you can be several steps ahead of the game on when you actually publish. But here – let’s pretend we’re working on content. This is a week’s schedule for future content. So we’re going to schedule and publish, and then you’re going to make it make sense for you.
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Okay, so first Sunday of every month, you’re going to research your blog topics for that month or for that week, whatever is going to work best for you. Monday, you’re going to write the posts, whether that’s one post, two posts, three posts. Tuesday, you’re going to SEO your post, and you’re going to create images for the post that work in the blog post itself and also out on social media. Wednesday, you’re going to create a content upgrade for the posts or posts. Thursday, you’re going to add the upgrade to your post – that content upgrade – and you’re going to create a graphic button with your call to action. Instead of burying it in text, you want to make it stand out so people will click it. You want to make sure that your opt-in form is created specifically to get that freebie, and then you’re going to write the delivery email. So the delivery email starts out, “Thank you so much, here’s your freebie download,” and whatever else you want to say. And then, two to three days later, follow up with a triggered email that says, “Hey, how’s it going? Are you enjoying that freebie? If you haven’t had a chance to download it yet, here, it is again.” And that’s what you do on Thursday. Friday, you’re going to publish the posts – or you’re going to schedule them forward – and then you’re going to start promoting. And then Saturday, you’re going to repurpose your post by creating the additional content, whether that’s a video, a podcast episode, a quick-tip graphic, creating more social media-related content, and getting that into a scheduler. And then Sunday, you’re going to come back, and you’re going to schedule your updates, your tweets, your pins. So remember, the first Sunday of the month is where you’re researching, but every Sunday, regardless, you are scheduling your updates, tweets, pins. Figuring out if anything needs to be updated, that’s a previous blog post, etc., if there’s content that expired or you need to double-check affiliate links, etc. And then, throughout the week, you are going to share your content within Facebook groups or communities or LinkedIn communities wherever it makes sense without being smarmy.
19:25
So here is a sample of what your social media schedule might look like for each of the various platforms. So on Facebook: on day one of the brand new posts that went live, you can share the link out on Facebook to your post. Day three, you can create a video summarizing the post for Facebook. Day seven, turn that particular post into a quick tip with an infographic. Day 14, you can pose a question that – basically you’re getting – trying to get engagement for that blog post and link it back to the blog post. And then day 30, you’re going to repeat day one again. Again, this is specifically for Facebook.
20:07
For Twitter: day one, tweet a link to your post. Several hours later, a new tweet for the same post. Day three, share a clip from your Facebook video out on Twitter. Day seven, share a quote from your post out on Twitter. Day 14, change the image and share another tweet. And then day 30, repeat day one but share the best tweet that got the best engagement from that previous month on that blog post. Pinterest: day one, pin it to your boards. Day three, share a second pin to your boards. Day 14, share a video pin from the short clip to your blog post. Day 30, repeat day one and share the best pin from the month for that blog post. Instagram: day one, post an image with a text overlay if that makes sense for your content. Day three, an Instagram story and video format to introduce the blog post content with a call to action. Day seven, post the video clip from Facebook. Day 14, share the same quick tip from Facebook, and onwards we go. LinkedIn, if you are a fan of LinkedIn: Day one, share the link post as an update. Several hours later, same day, share to groups on LinkedIn. Day seven, share the same quick tip from Facebook. Day 30, repeat day one. And then YouTube, upload your video, include a link back to your blog post. Make sure you have YouTube cards set up so that you’re linking back either to your blog or website or other videos in your YouTube channel.
21:54
So for each post, you need to be creating the post itself with a hero image, which is your main image for the blog post itself, two images for Pinterest – that’s the hero image and the second image – two Instagram images, an Instagram story, a video for the post that makes sense to have some kind of a video created, a question, and a quick-tip infographic. These are things that can be created for every blog post that you create – again if it makes sense for you to create those things.
22:31
So how do you make this easy on yourself? That was a lot moving across multiple platforms for one blog post. You use schedulers. Days 1-14, so the first two weeks of a blog post, use schedulers like Buffer, Tailwind, Later, and then for the monthly stuff, the stuff that allows you to set it and forget it, that’s Smarter Queue, Tailwind Smart Loop, Edgar, RecurPost, SocialOomph, Later – those things will all help you regurgitate that content so that you don’t have to. And yes, you’re going to need spreadsheets to keep track of all of this. And, side note, if you’re in Inner Circle at level two, you’re gonna – at level two or level three – you’re going to get access to these templates because I’m creating them for you, which is why you need to be in the Inner Circle. So don’t miss out. Because again, the doors closed December 31st at 11:59 pm Central Time, and you can’t get in until April 1st unless you already know somebody in Inner Circle, and then they can let you in.
23:39
So I know that was a lot. And you’re probably going to have to rewind and listen and take lots of notes to make this all make sense for you, but at least that gives you an idea of what you need to be doing after you hit publish on a blog post. Yes, it’s a lot, but you need Google and these platforms to be working in your favor. It’s not enough for you to just hit Publish. You have to actually get out and market the content for other people to find it. If you want to grow your business and grow your community around you, you’ve got to do more than just hitting publish on a blog post.
24:24
Okay, I hope you found this episode super valuable. I hope you’ll share it with your business bestie, and again, you don’t want to miss out on getting yourself into the Inner Circle for as little as $10 a month. That’s two lattes. Come on. Get yourself in. Go to bossgirlcreative.com/InnerCircle and until next week, which means we’re in a brand-new year – 2021 – I hope you have a great end of 2020 and a great rest of your week.
