When you have news, here's how to share it
Our friend's success makes for a great internet marketing lesson
Friend, client, and evolutionary astrologer Gaye Mack was just published in her industry magazine.
Congratulations, Gaye!
We helped her promote the news online, and thought "we should remind everybody how to do it!"
What a great object lesson in internet marketing. So here goes the step by step for when you have news (big or small)
1) Write a blog about it on your website. It's your news story. Companies used to write Press Releases to send to local (or national) news sources since they were the way to get the word out. Well, now we have the internet and everyone (for better or worse) is a news source.
2) Inside the blog post, put a link to the "thing" you're referring to. In Gaye's case, it was the article she wrote that the industry organization published in their magazine. You may have won a client so you may want to link to them, or maybe you won an award and you link to the award site. In some cases, it helps substantiate your claim. In others, it's a courtesy to the object of your news, and in that case, they often reciprocate with a link back to you, which is good for you!
3) Make a picture to add to your blog. YES, it still is "a thousand words" and a picture catches the eye of the person scrolling down their feed. (Oops, i'm giving away the next step!) If you received an award, take a picture of the award. If it's an anniversary of an employee, snap a photo of the employee (just a headshot is fine, but in action at work is better). One last thing about pictures: don't steal one! Make sure you have rights to copy an image if you're going to use one from another site. Better yet, make one.
4) Now that you have a blog post, copy the URL of the post. How? Click on your site, then your link to the list of blog posts, then click on the blog in question, so you now see the blog on your screen. Go up to the address bar in your browser, click to select it, and copy.
5) Go to the social media platform you use, that your customers use. Let's say Facebook. Go to your business page (Don't have one? Contact us so we make one for you). At the top of the feed, there's a box for you to say something. Click in there, then paste your URL. Facebook will sense that, go fetch the contents of your URL, grab the title, first few words, and the picture, and make you a great looking facebook post that automatically links to your blog post. Now, delete the URL from the text area. Don't worry; the picture, title, and link stay there. Then, write a brief introduction. "I got an award." "This cool thing just happened" etc. AAAAND, post!
6) Repeat step 5 for every platform you use. The mechanics of each for posting may be different.
So that's it. It's pretty easy to do. Not as easy as just jumping on Facebook and blurting out the news, but much more beneficial to you. When it's on your website, it's forever, while over on Facebook, it's fleeting, will only be seen by a few, and then forgotten.
Take the extra steps and help yourself. Or not! Let us do it for you. That's what Gaye did. She sent me a paragraph or two in an email, along with a link to the published magazine pdf. I went into her WordPress site (this works with DNN or other website platforms - no excuses!!) and made her a blog. Then I went to the pdf, pulled an image of the cover and the first 2 pages of her article, and did a little photo manipulation to make it look like a real magazine spread, and added it as the featured image.
You can read her blog post and follow the link to her published article, here.
Now let's get meta! I'll make a facebook post for Gaye that uses her article as the basis. Then I'll add another facebook post using this article as the basis.
And to take it to the trippy level, here's a link to the Facebook post which links to this article which links to Gaye's blog post which links to her published work! Our Post.
Happy promoting everybody!
Don Gingold
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sprocket Websites, Inc.; Co-Founder Chicago Area DotNetNuke User Group
Other posts by Don Gingold