What good is the best blog article in the world if no one reads it?

New content is regularly placed on websites to create user loyalty. However, this content is really only successful if it is read by many users.

It is rarely possible to generate new users in this way through pure SEO. Especially with time-sensitive topics, such as news or policy changes, new content must be distributed quickly.

For this reason, you should also promote your posts via paid advertising!

This way, not only your content will be spread quickly, but also your own brand awareness will be increased and new returning users will be generated. Here are two channels that are particularly suitable for this.

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Facebook

Facebook offers several ways to promote blog posts. You can very easily and free of charge present posts through Facebook posts. However, you usually only reach the users who have already subscribed to your page.

So if you don't have a large following yet, it can be very difficult to reach readers relevant to you this way.

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Run Facebook ads

To change this, you can also run ads to promote posts via the Facebook Ads Manager. This way, you reach the target group you want to address with your topics.

Facebook ads let you choose how a user interacts with your post:

• Interactions: Users should actively interact with the Facebook post by tagging it with "Like", leaving comments or sharing it.
• Web page clicks: entice users to come to your website to read the entire post.
• Video views: Motivate users to watch your videos.

Depending on what you choose, the look of the promotion changes a bit.

Next, you need to define who should see the ads. To do this, you define a specific target group according to location, age, gender and interests. It is also possible to target lookalike audiences. The more specific the group, the more likely you are to reach the right users.

However, ads created in the Facebook Ads Manager can be played not only on Facebook, but can also appear on Facebook's Audience Network and Instagram. However, the selection can be adjusted at any time.

There are two options for the ad design:

1. Promote an existing Facebook post
2. Create a custom display

No matter which ad type you choose, pay attention to the image you use as a preview. It must be meaningful and immediately appeal to the user. It should not only express what the post is about, but also encourage the user to read it.

However, Facebook also has some limitations with ads. For example, an image used may contain a maximum of 20% text. In addition, only three lines are displayed in the preview text, but you can expand them.

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Outbrain

Outbrain offers the possibility to place ads directly where users are already reading news articles or blog posts.

The ads are usually displayed under news articles or in blogs as suggestions and target the user's previous interests or the topic of the article. Advertisers' ads are mixed in with other articles on the website, suggesting at first glance that they also come from the website itself.

However, Outbrain's ads are marked as "display." This means you reach users at the point in their customer journey when they are most receptive to engaging with your posts.

The advertising options are very similar on Outbrain and Facebook. Here, too, you can target groups with specific interests. The selection options here are also very extensive.

A range estimate shows how many users can be reached with the settings. This gives you a good estimate of whether the target group is large enough.

Clicking on an ad then takes the user directly to the article on their own website.

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Facebook, Outbrain or Twitter after all? - My conclusion

Besides Outbrain, there are other providers like Taboola that have very similar functions. However, they differ in the partner websites on which the ads then appear.

There are also alternatives to Facebook that you can test. Platforms such as Twitter & Co offer further possibilities here.

It is important to test different channels, only in this way can you find out which one will best reach your target audience.

In the whitepaper Paid Advertising - Your Guide to High-Performance Campaigns you will find more tips on how to combine different channels and what you should keep in mind for your campaigns.