Hi @simplymike
I do promote my posts and could probably do more but here is my routine.
A photo is worth thousand words
I try to get a nice thumbnail related to my content. I take the photo myself and then use Canva to add some title and effect to it. A good thumbnail will make a post stand out in the feed. I really should take my DSLR out of the cupboard but I’m too lazy these days and prefer using the iPhone for everything including the editing.
Formatting is important
I try to learn advanced Markdown syntaxes and content layout to make it easy and comfortable to read thru my posts.
Relevant tags to attract relevant readers
I choose tags that are relevant to my post and I would use some specific community tags (#ulog #teamaustralia etc...) when I target them.
Promotional boost when needed
I occasionally use Smartsteem to promote a post that I think needs more attention but I don’t often have liquid currencies so this is not happening often.
Communities
I would then post my post to some Discord servers such as PAL, Team Australia, Team Vietnam and depending on the topic I would post to different servers like Earth Tribe or the Global Homesteading Collective for gardening and other environmental content or the French servers for posts in French etc...
I’m my brand
I also promote myself not just the post because if people find you interesting, helpful, fun, friendly etc... they will come to your profile and see what you write about without the need of you promoting your content. So I try to participate in conversations on various Chat services and try to help where I can when I can.
External promotion
I occasionally make posts to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube with a URL of my Steemit profile as a watermark to photos or videos. My dormant newsletter will be soon awaken with issues linking to some of my Steemit articles. I will probably use some push notifications to push to external users who have signed up to read my content.
It's a shame the bounty has been paid out already, because this is a reply full of good tips.
Personally, I like the watermark idea - I haven't used that trick before, so I steal the idea ;0)
The last two paragraphs in particular have made me curious about what you have been doing in the past. I'm guessing you're not new to some kind of marketing: you have a mailing list, but it's also your choice of words.
Anyway, I can only agree the things you say. An appealing photo, a nice layout, the right tags... all very important factors. And it is absolutely true that on here, you are your brand. Networking is extremely important, maybe even the most important marketing technique of all. Once people get to know your name and like the things you say or do, they start looking out for your posts.
Thanks for this interesting reply
All good, I just wanted to contribute :-)
Another idea for marketing is if to add your steemit link with or without a kind of catchy logo in the email signature. So every single email you send professionally or personally is also promoting your Steem profile.
I've worked with a communication agency before, not as a marketer but I still learned some tricks and ways of thinking. Also sitting with designers for marketing project is helping with understanding stuffs. I have a mailing list and also have some email marketing automation going on things like if one of my newsletter subscriber goes to a specific page of my worm farming website, then it will trigger an email to advertise for a worm product etc... if they click on it, it will send another one two weeks later blablabla.