Guys, I’m going to drop two big truths on you this Friday morning.

Truth #1 – Time is your most precious commodity. It’s the one thing in this world you can’t make more of. You can make more money, you can come up with more ideas, eventually you will have more toilet paper (#coronavirus). But time? What you’ve been given is what you’ve got, friend.

I know, super heavy for a Friday.

Truth #2 – You need to be making content. For any small business, content is king. Why? Ugh for so many reasons which I can do an entire blog post on later. But the big ones are (if done correctly) it’s free advertising, it provides value to your audience, and it’s an opportunity for them to engage with your brand on a deeper level. So I’ll say it again. You need to be making content.  And you need to be making lots of it.

At this point, you might be saying, “Well, that’s great and all, but doesn’t Truth #1 negate Truth #2? I would love to be a well-oiled content creating machine, but who has the time? I can’t create Instagram captions and Pinterest pins and manage my SEO and help my clients and keep my website fresh and feed my kids and do the laundry and work out and self-care (because Gwyneth and Goop tell me to) and solve world hunger. I’m only one person, dammit!”

Okay. Before we have a Sylvia Plath level breakdown, let me tell you that there’s an easier way. What if I told you that with a teensy bit of work, a quick wave of your wand, and an “alohamora” (yep, Harry Potter nerd right here) you can use one piece of content to unlock promotable opportunities across your channels? Let me introduce you to (or reacquaint you with) one of the biggest time-saving hacks in your business – how to cross-promote your content.

Before we begin, I want to reiterate that your content (whether a blog post, freebie, eBook, webinar, video, whatever) is a great way to attract people to your website which is where people a.) get to know your brand better and b.) ultimately convert to an action, whether it’s purchasing a product, filling out a contact form, or signing up for your email list. The end goal of almost all of your content should be to deepen your relationship with them, entice them to visit your site, and move them down the purchase funnel. As you cross-promote content across channels you need to keep this in mind and make sure you’re making it easy for them to get to where you want them to go.

All right, seven ways to cross-promote your content.  Here we go.

1. Instagram

You should “advertise” every piece of content you put out on Instagram. I’m not just talking about your blog posts and your freebies, I’m talking about your email newsletters, podcast episodes, etc. as well. The great part about this is that you’ve already written your content. Just provide a Sparknotes version in your IG caption, relate it to an audience need, add the link to the content in your bio, and make sure the CTA in your caption drives them to it.

This is where I find having a linkin.bio to be extra helpful, because it catalogs links to past posts. Without it, you’re only allowed one post in the bio section of your profile, meaning any past links get erased and people have to go through the added steps of going to your website and searching through your posts to find what they’re looking for. Ain’t nobody got time for that.  The social scheduling tool, Later, offers linkin.bio as part of their free version, which is awesome.

2. Facebook

This is a twofer with Instagram. If you’re posting on IG and you have a business page on Facebook, post to your Facebook too for extra exposure. I don’t regularly use Facebook, but if you’re someone who does, you should absolutely be doing the same thing on Facebook that I noted for Instagram.

3. Pinterest

My biggest piece of advice for Pinterest is to kill 3-5 proverbial birds with one stone. What I mean by this is that you can create multiple pins for a single blog post or content type. I typically recommend 3-5. Anything more than that is overkill. Create 3-5 pin templates in your creative program of choice and every time you create new content, fill out the templates accordingly and create your pins. Always make sure your pin drives to the relevant post or page on your website. There’s nothing worse than clicking on a pin you think is going to take you to a post and instead being taken to someone’s homepage. You can stagger your pins over a few days or weeks, or you can pin 2 at the same time to A/B test and see which one performs better.

4. Email

This should be a no brainer, but if you have an email newsletter, you should absolutely be promoting your content in that newsletter. I actually recommend sharing new content with your newsletter audience before you share anywhere else because this is your most valuable audience. They should be the first to hear about the happenings in your business, especially new freebies or resources.

5. SEO

Fresh content on your website is awesome for SEO because it tells search engines that your site is being updated frequently with new content. Do yourself a favor and download the Yoast SEO plug-in for your website. It helps you quickly and simply optimize your content so its easily crawlable by search engines, like adding meta descriptions and making slight tweaks to your wording so it’s more SEO friendly.

6. Website

Content is a great way to show people that you’re an expert in your field and that your site is being frequently refreshed, encouraging them to stop back for new news. So showcase it! Make sure it’s visible on your homepage. It doesn’t need to be front and center, but it should have its own dedicated space on your homepage to prompt visitors to engage further.

7. Client Education

This one is simple, but easy to overlook. Somewhere down the line, I might have a client who is stressed about creating content – she wants to create more of it, but simply doesn’t have the time. I can reassure her that it’s really not that hard, if you’re strategic about it, and then share this blog post with her. It saves me time, gets her the information she needs, and also reestablishes me as a trusted resource in my client’s mind.

For each piece of content that you write, I encourage you to take five minutes to plan out how and when you’re going to promote it across platforms. And keep in mind that you can always recycle and reshare content down the road as needed too.

So there you have it. One piece of content. Seven different ways to use it. Now the most important question is what are you going to do with all that extra time??

easy tips for better, simpler marketing

Our fool-proof hacks and quick tricks for marketing success, delivered right to you.  Unsubscribe at any time.