How To Get Your Disrupt Articles To Go Viral

Getting an article published on Disrupt Magazine is exciting, but to reach an even greater portion of your target audience, actively marketing your published article is key.

In fact, when you see an article on Disrupt with thousands of shares or page views, its author is often contributing directly to its success. And those authors are the same members who report back to our team with amazing results: a single article might lead to a new potential customer signing up for a lead gen offer, job inquiries from qualified talent or even a cold email from a potential partner.

If you want to see similar benefits, you’ll need to be strategic about contributing content regularly and sharing it with the right people. Luckily, that’s not as hard as it sounds — it just takes a little time and planning. Here are 22 simple but highly effective strategies to get you started:

1. Create an article marketing checklist. This article is a good place to start. That way, every time a post goes live, you have a pre-set plan ready to put into motion.
2. Add a link to your latest press mention to your email signature. Chances are, you send out hundreds of emails in a given week to clients or customers, colleagues, partners, vendors, you name it. Your email signature is valuable real estate — use it!
3. Ask your assistant to add a link to your “Press” or “As Seen On” page. Your personal and company sites are ideal showcases for your recent press mentions.
4. Create a series of social media “snippets” for sharing each mention over time. Tools like Buffer, Edgar, HootSuite and CoSchedule make sharing to multiple networks over time easy. The key is to reframe your update each time, based on target audience and network — and to keep sharing snippets weeks (or months) after your press mention is published.
5. Email your sources the article link. Did you quote someone in your network? Or ask a colleague to share an experience you discuss in your article? Email them the link (and a thank you) when your article or Expert Panel goes live.
6. Tag any companies or influencers mentioned in your post. When you share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks, make sure to tag the experts, companies or organizations cited in your article. They might repay you by sharing it with their own networks!
7. Send a personal email to key people in your network. Clients, advisors, trusted colleagues in your industry — send them a note when you appear in Expert Panels or write an article on a topic that they care about. Tell them how they influenced your thinking; you can even ask them for their candid feedback in a comment.
8. Include the link in your next newsletter. It’s a great way to build credibility with leads or existing clients while sharing information or advice they can actually benefit from.
9. Use the article or Expert Panel topic as a springboard for a related post. Your existing press mentions can inspire future articles or even company blog posts. Don’t forget to link back to the original.
10. Repurpose your advice or tips as a slide deck or PDF. Done well, marketing on Slideshare is a highly effective way to reach a wider audience.
11. Create a short video. If video is one way you reach customers, why not create an original short video discussing your article’s main insights and share it on your website, in a blog post, on Facebook or YouTube?
12. Create a compelling image with a key quote or snippet. Quotable, shareable visuals are ready-made for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and similar networks.
13. Add it to your LinkedIn publications. Potential hires, partners, investors, colleagues all use LinkedIn to verify your credentials. Here’s a quick tutorial.
14. Engage with other experts who write about similar subjects. Here are some tips for finding them. Hint: This isn’t a one-way street; share their content, follow them and comment on their posts before asking them to read or share your article.
15. Ask industry influencers to weigh in and share. This takes some work and some high-level networking (unless you already have top influencers within an email’s reach), but the potential impact of an influencer sharing your press mention is huge.
16. Keep track of social mentions so you can re-share, follow up and say thanks. Google Alerts, Mention or your existing social media scheduling software can help you or a staff member stay on top of mentions and shares. When someone in your industry does share, follow up, re-share, say thank you or even ask them to comment.
17. Add important press mentions to your job postings and career pages. This won’t necessarily increase shares or views, but it will ensure that key hires understand your organization and your vision from the get-go.
18. Boost your article’s visibility with paid promotion. From services like Outbrain and Taboola to sponsored Facebook posts and promoted tweets, there are a lot of additional channels to explore if you’re interested in investing further.
19. Share your favorite articles with your peers (including your fellow members). No one understands and appreciates your business challenges and resulting insights as much as another member.
20. Republish your post (in whole or in part) with a link to the original on your personal website, Medium or LinkedIn. Just remember to wait until the exclusivity period expires. (Ask your member concierge for details.)
21. Keep a “link list” of all of your published content. Better yet, create a page on your site dedicated to all of your published works. Then, every time you write a new post on a related topic, think about ways to incorporate your previous articles in the new piece. Let’s say you write often about digital marketing and Facebook advertising. If you wrote a long explainer post about how to set up a Facebook ad and your next article focuses on audience targeting, it just makes good sense to link back to it every time you write about Facebook ads — that way, you stay top of mind for readers by giving them all the info they need in one spot. (Tip: Make this same list available to your marketing team.)