How to get an audience for your content without spending any money

So you've got an amazing piece of content and just need people to read it - what do you do?

Like a lot of problems this one is easily solved by chucking a wad of cash at it. It's simple (and fast) to buy views, put up some google ads with lofty bids on high traffic keywords and watch as the site traffic sky rockets.

But what do you do when you haven't got a penny in your marketing budget? Well, it's bit tougher but still totally doable, here's a few ways you can go about it...

Social

Use the social channels available to you and share your content - and don't forget to use personal social channels to celebrate success at work.

Let's say your golden piece of content is a recording of a webinar you hosted. On your business' LinkedIn you can tag participants and guests along with a thank you for attending and calling out some of the highlights. On your personal LinkedIn you can share the same content but with a less formal message - perhaps talking about your pride in pulling off such a great event. On your personal Instagram account you can share the same content but with a reference to the visuals and a chattier message - a comment on the unflattering lighting but how it didn't put a dampener on the event.

There's a debate about whether YouTube is a social media channel. I'm firmly on the side of 'yes' and would really recommend any webinars are shared though YouTube.

Syndication

You can syndicate your content to other publishers - basically publishing the same piece of content on another website.

Loads of people shy away from this one because they fear the wrath of the Google Gods which is fair enough; Google hates duplicate content - but Google is perfectly happy with syndicated content provided it's done right.

Doing syndicated content the right way means telling the readers and search engines that the new page is not the original source. For humans this looks like adding text along the lines of:

"This article appeared in [Original publication + Link] and has been published here with permission."

For search engines you need to specify your preference for a canonical url.

Targeted

The thinking here is that someone else has the audience you're after. Perhaps a journalist, a social media influencer, the internal communications lead at a business.

These people are a gateway to the audience you're after. They're in a position to drive a load of traffic your way so how do you get them to do so?

Ask them! I know it's cringey and awkward and smacks of blowing your own trumpet and all those other awful things but there's the thing - it works.

Your content is amazing (if it isn't you have another issue), the audience on the other side of the gatekeeper want it, its a great situation. All you need is to work with the gatekeeper to make this happen.

And search, PR, viral marketing and so on...

You won't be shocked to hear there aren't just three ways to get a free audience for your content, the list is huge, far too many for me to cover in one rainy afternoon.

If you're interested in producing amazing content or getting the content you already have in front of the right audience please get in touch.