It would be great if, after hitting “publish” on a new piece of content, your connections would notice and it would be widely read. In reality, it takes a lot of work to build the many parts of a successful content marketing strategy.

You can’t solely rely on search engines and a handful of followers and blog subscribers to boost your organic volume. Content producers need to establish syndication connections and build a strategy to ensure that each piece of content is read by key influencers and your target audiences.

Also remember that when you post new content to social media via a status update, only a small percentage of your friends/followers will actually be online at that moment to see it. Many of them will never see your content, depending on the time of day and their settings.

Successful content writers are social media specialists, marketing and SEO specialists. And it’s not hard to master all of these. Here are some tips for optimizing exposure of your thought leadership:

• Write short copy to introduce the content for posting on social media.
• Research the right hashtags to accompany your post.
• Ask a select group of others to promote your content to their networks (and do the same for them).
• Post your content in various LinkedIn groups to reach others outside your immediate network –LinkedIn Groups have exploded in power over the past few months.
• Most social networking sites and online forums allow content promotion as long as it’s valuable, relevant to the community, and not blatant self-promotion
• Promote content through partnerships (also to reach prospects outside your network)
• Utilize a content syndicator to enhance the reach of your posts
• If your content covers multiple topics, create a different status update for each topic and then spread those out over the course of a few days.
• Keep it short, simple, and easy to read by using headings, bullets and lists. Keep paragraphs to only two or three sentences.
• Add your latest blog post or client alert to your email signature. You never know when a prospect, vendor or client might read a post that sparks a conversation or creates an opportunity.
• Use images, graphics and videos to tell a story where possible. Visual content is more engaging, and can often tell the story quicker and more succinctly than words alone.
• Keyword research and integration can have a big impact on search engine rankings and traffic. Scan through your content and pick out the main topics covered in your post. Plug those terms/phrases into Google Adwords’ free keyword suggestion tool. Note the most popular search terms and variations in phrasing and wording. Go back to your content and enhance your post title, content, meta description and tags with those popular terms/phrases.
• One of the most powerful and misunderstood mechanisms of a blog is its RSS feed. This enables you to automatically feed your blog’s content to many social networking sites. This can significantly expand your reach and save you hours of time versus posting content manually.
• Send certain VIP contacts an email with a link to your new article and a note that says something along the lines of “I thought you might find this article of interest.” Make sure to look at your analytics to see if they actually clicked on it.
• If you have an e-newsletter (which you should), you should incorporate your blog posts and client alerts. Look at your analytics to see which posts get the most clicks and do follow-up blog posts on those topics.

I hope I’ve given you some ideas on how to take your content to the next level. Remember that content marketing is a long-term marketing investment that will show ROI if you are patient. Every piece of content you produce helps to build your brand and your authority as a subject-matter expert, which can help lead to new clients and referrals.

*

Stefanie Marrone helps law firms effectively tell their stories and find their unique voices. Over the last 18 years, she has worked with some of the most prominent and innovative law firms in the world, developing and executing global revenue generating business development and communications strategies, including media relations, branding, and multichannel content marketing and social media campaigns. She is very passionate about using social media for lead generation and brand building. She has a diverse range of experience in both Big Law and mid-size/small-law firms. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her latest writing on JD Supra as well as her blog The Social Media Butterfly