Day Four: How to Publish, Promote, and Propagate Your Article

This is part five in a series on Content Marketing Strategies from Pamela Wilson of Big Brand System.

It’s your fourth and final content production day: time to hit publish!

Need to catch up on the rest of the 4 Day Content Creation System? Here are the previous posts: 

• A System for Easily Publishing Consistently Great Content
• Day 1: How to Build a “Backbone” for Your Content Marketing
• Day 2: How to Fill in the Details of Your Winning Piece of Content
• Day 3: How to Polish and Prepare to Publish 

Your content marketing job doesn’t end on the day your article goes live. In many ways, it’s just the beginning of your efforts to make sure your information gets in front of as many people as possible.

Day 4 Tips

Publication day is the day your content promotion process starts. This article you spent three days crafting deserves attention, and it’s your job to ensure it gets it.

How can you do that? Try:

• Making yourself available in your comments section to answer questions and interact with your readers. When readers see the author is available, they tend to show up and speak freely.
• Promoting your post across the social media channels you use: don’t be afraid to post multiple times on the day of publication.
• Emailing your article to your list of readers or including it in your email newsletter.
• Going back to previously-published content that gets traffic and “linking forward” to this content when it complements the information on the previously-published page.

Not all content fits in the “epic” category. But when you write an especially good article that you know would help a specific group of people, reach out to other website owners and ask them to share your content with their audience.

To do this, consider sending a message that sounds like this (feel free to add details):

Hi [NAME],

I have learned so much from reading your site, [URL]. Thank you.

You share valuable information about [TOPIC], so I thought you might want to share my latest article, [HEADLINE and LINK] with your readers. The focus of this piece is to help readers [HOW THEY’LL BENEFIT FROM READING].

I appreciate anything you can do to help me get this content into the hands of the people who need it: thanks in advance for your help.

Best wishes,
[YOUR NAME]

It’s not easy to write strong content week after week, but dividing the work up over several days makes it feel less daunting. And building time into your schedule to step away from your post and return with fresh eyes will make you a better writer and editor.

To make this system work, decide on the day you’ll publish and put it into your calendar as a repeating event.

Then set up repeating events for your Day 1 tasks (Build Your Article Backbone); your Day 2 tasks (Fill in the Details); your Day 3 tasks (Polish and Prepare to Publish); and your Day 4 tasks (Publish, Promote, and Propagate).

Feel Free to Ignore This System

One important note: if you are not a “systems” person, and you find processes like this too constraining, please don’t feel like you “must” follow the information in this chapter to create your content.

This system has worked beautifully for me, and some of my best content has been created when I use it. But I don’t write every single piece of content this way — sometimes a deadline looms and there simply isn’t time to spread the content creation process out over time like this.

In those cases, I still end up using these basic steps, but the time between them is condensed.

For example, I still try to write forward when I write my first draft — not allowing myself to go back and edit as I’m writing. And I still build in time between writing and editing … but sometimes instead of 24 hours, it’s a 30-minute lunch break that gives me enough time to think about something else and return to the content with fresh eyes which are ready to edit.

In a perfect world, you would spread out your content creation process over a three-day period.

But we don’t live in a perfect world, do we? So follow this system when you can, and when you can’t, don’t worry about it.

Does Your Article Rely on Research? Start with a “Day 0”

Not all content is based on extensive research, but some definitely is. You may write research-based articles all the time, or only occasionally.

Either way, if you need to add research to the mix, plan on adding a “Day 0” to your content creation system. On Day 0, spend time gathering resources and taking notes so you’ll have what you need when it’s time to write your headlines and subheads on Day 1.

Let’s Review the Series: A System for Publishing Great Content

• Focus on creating less content, but higher-quality content. There’s always room for well-written and beautifully presented information — the best content rises to the top.
• Spread your content creation process out over four days. This gives you space and time to do your best work.
• Day 1: Build Your Article Backbone. Pick your topic and focus on writing an engaging headline and strong subheads.
• Day 2: Fill in the Details. Fill in the structure you created on Day 1 with all your main copy: focus on speed and aim for first-draft quality (remember, no one will see this stage).
• Day 3: Polish and Prepare to Publish. Do a careful read-through to proofread and polish your article. Spend some time formatting it for readability. And choose an image that will communicate and intrigue readers. (More on this in the next chapter.)
• Day 4: Publish, Promote, and Propagate. Use this final day to put your article into circulation on social media. Give it a good push on the day of publication, repeating your posts about it several times on the platforms you use. Then add it to your long-term social media promotions, so you continue to drive readers to your content over time.

Thanks for reading! I hope this simple system will help you realize that content creation can be a fun, fulfilling, and effective business-building activity you’ll look forward to doing week after week.

Pamela Wilson is a 30-year marketing veteran and is the author of Master Content Marketing: A Simple Strategy to Cure the Blank Page Blues and Attract a Profitable Audience. Find more from Pamela at Big Brand System.

*Disclaimer: This Post Contains Affiliate Links.