Last week, I was chatting with a client about getting value from blog posts. He asked if I was worried that people wouldn’t get to read some of my work because I was posting on Twitter every day. It makes sense, I have over 2100 followers (not huge but reasonable…) and I’m sure only a very small percentage would ever see a tweet about a new blog post.
The truth is, I don’t post new content everyday – I wish I could. I try to post something new once a week, or maybe twice a week if I get really inspired. I’m not a professional blogger but I enjoy writing about marketing and blogging is good for my business.
What I do use are some really useful plugins and tools – here they are and how they help me get value out of old posts.
1. Tweet Old Post Plugin
I love this plugin. It allows you to automatically tweet old posts from your WordPress dashboard. You can set up certain limits around what type of posts you want to send (or not send) and connect it with your Twitter account. You can also set the hashtag that appears in the post. This is how I send all tweets with #marketing automatically.
Here is what an automated post looks like.
My preference is to send out an old post once a day but you can set them to send as often as every 4 hours if you want. I’m always amazed at the feedback I get from old posts that have found a new audience.
2. Related Posts Plugin
Another great plugin that places a list of other blog posts underneath each post. Below is how it looks on my blog.
When a visitor finishes reading a post, they can see other articles I have written on the same or related subject. This also helps keep people on the site and is great promotion for old posts.
3. TweetMeme Button and Facebook Share Plugins
Yes I know, these two plugins are nothing new – but I have recently placed them in the top right hand corner of each post. They are a great for retweets and facebook sharing. I find them far more effective than some of the share buttons I have used before. Here is how they look on my blog.
I have to say, it took a lot of time to get the Facebook share button to appear below the Tweetmeme button. It was a bit of trial and error with code, lots of Google searches and a bit of luck – but I finally got there.
4. Share this post box
This is another recent addition to my blog and it’s a ripper. This tip was given by Eric Marke at the ThinkMarketAct blog. It did take me a while to set it up and I did get some help from Josh Pugh from Identiti Web Development to get it right. I always get nervous when I need to change code (I lost my site once after doing it myself) so I called in Josh who is an experienced WordPress developer. It appears at the bottom of each post and is automatically filled with the post content – the reader just has to select the tweet button. That’s gold! Here is how it looks on my blog.
So there you have it – four simple ways to get value out of your old blog posts. If you have any others, I would love to hear them..
Chris Dale
Chris Dale is the founder and managing director of MarketingHQ. He loves to help businesses of all sizes get more out of their marketing – and by more he means more sales! Find out more about him here or feel free to connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.
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