When you want to get your content in front of new readers, tapping into the dozens of targeted platforms on social media is an obvious choice. Whether you share a blog post on Facebook or an infographic on Twitter, social media outlets boast millions of users. These established, engaged audiences give you a chance to not only get your content read, but also shared frequently.
However, there are times when you’ll need to go beyond normal social media sharing. Maybe you’ve found that your target market isn’t as active on traditional social sites as they are elsewhere. Or maybe you feel you’ve gained as much as you can from posting content to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and similar services. If you want to grow your audience further, you’ll need to think outside of the box when it comes time to share content.
Fortunately, there are plenty of options to share content besides the major social media sites. When you’re ready to take this step, pay particular attention to sites where you can share content that other people will then curate from, allowing you to get even more bang for your social buck. Here are five alternative ways to share content other than social media platforms to consider.
Scoop.it
On Scoop.it, you can share content on specific boards that are centered around the niche topics and keywords that are relevant to your business, your industry and your audience. People start to follow your content boards – similar to Pinterest – which can drive a lot of relevant traffic to your website as a result.
Add your own unique perspective to each article that you “scoop”, and share it not only to your content category but also on your website, blog and more. Many professionals rely on Scoop.it for their own content curation efforts, so posting your work here will increase your chances of having it be shared by others.
Triberr
Dubbing itself “A community of talented Bloggers and Influencers come together to read and share great content,” Triberr is another targeted place to share content other than social media.
To use Triberr, join specific tribes or groups of people sharing a specific category. By joining tribes that are related to your industry and interests, you can share content with a group of people eager to both read and share it with others. You can locate tribes exploring everything from SEO to women’s issues – there’s never a shortage of niches for you to tap into and grow your tribe.
Email Marketing
Email marketing has proven to have a consistently high conversion rate, and sharing your content to your email list is a sure-fire way to have your content reach those who are interested in what you have to say.
You can email your list a digest of content on a regular basis, including your own fresh content and interesting pieces you’ve curated from reading others’ work. Or, send your blog posts out as an email, and include the entire text of the blog in the email message itself. Before you launch, make sure that your email service provider is setup to handle the format, graphics, and links that you want to include. If your service provider has an RSS option, use it to translate your already-published content into your email.
Video Marketing
Not everyone enjoys reading and translating text and copy. Instead, sharing your content via video can be a great way to expand your reach. In fact, HubSpot shows that 40 percent of people respond better to visual information than written, making videos a relevant and useful option.
Videos can quickly be uploaded to a variety of sharing sites, as well as embedded in your website and sent to email subscribers. As with all content, simply creating a video or audio clip isn’t enough – you need to share and promote it. By adding it to your landing pages, email signature, and sharing sites such as Vimeo and even Google Hangouts, you’ll be able to send your content to thousands of new people without using social media.
Guest Posting
Creating guests posts on popular business news sites such as Inc., Forbes, and Entrepreneur can be a great way to share your thoughts without using social media. When you guest post, you not only reach the audience of a much larger website, you also get the credibility of the larger site as a tacit endorsement when people read your content.
When executed correctly, guest posting can bring tremendous additional traffic to your website and landing pages, while also creating buzz around your ideas, visibility and the ability to position yourself as a thought leader in your field. The secret to successful guest posting? Being selective about where you publish. Consider all of your content sharing options and select only those that will position you and/or your brand in the best possible light.
Sharing your content doesn’t have to end with the main players of social media like Facebook and Twitter. By adopting these five alternative ways to share content other than social media, you’ll find and reach a new audience of engaged readers, viewers, and listeners every time you produce new content.
Where else do you share content outside of social media?
Crop Dusting Photo via Shutterstock