You’ve written a great article. Now what? It can’t just sit on your desktop, gathering digital cobwebs, so you need to actually engage in some content promotion.
Content promotion is the process of distributing your content to a target audience. It can be done through free or paid marketing channels and takes many different forms.
But how exactly do you promote content for engineers, and which avenues are open to you?
Below, I’ll go through some of my favorite platforms you can use to promote content for engineers in a way that will actually have a positive impact on your business.
1. Your engineering blog
All content for engineers needs a home, and your blog is the best place for that.
Think of it as the platform to collect all your digital publications, and all your engineering articles, white papers, e-books, newsletters, and more can be published on your engineering blog first.
This isn’t only great for you — you can access everything you have in one spot — but it’s also great for archival purposes, because you, and anyone else, can repeatedly go back to visit something already published (as opposed to social media or newsletters, which tend to be more “in the here and now”).
Don’t forget that a blog is also a great source of website traffic. If your content is well-optimized for search engines, it will come up in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) whenever it matches the search intent of people typing something into the search bar.
For example, if you have an article on 3D printing in the aerospace field and someone searches for this, your article, if well-optimized, will come up. This drives continuous traffic.
Blogs do have to be updated regularly — while older content can still be a great source of traffic, it’s important not to let it be dated. If any industry-relevant info has changed, this will need to be reflected in your articles. You also need to publish new information on a regular basis.
But if you run your engineering blog well, it can be a great place to store and promote your content for engineers.
2. Social media
In contrast to engineering blogs, social media is way more current — and way more focused on the community feel.
According to a 2024 industrial marketing report, YouTube, LinkedIn, GitHub, and Facebook are the top social media platforms for technical users, but many other mainstream platforms are used too.
This doesn’t mean you have to use all social media platforms for best results — it’s worth identifying which platforms match your content and target audience best. If, for example, you don’t create any video content, YouTube, while the most popular for industrial marketers, will be completely useless to you.
It’s worth noting that YouTube operates much more like a search engine than a social media platform. Many other social platforms put more emphasis on what’s new and current, so these are great if you’re jumping on industry trends and sharing very hot topics.
3. Email
Emails are a fantastic way to promote your content for engineers. The industrial marketing report referenced above also says 98% of technical buyers subscribe to newsletters, which is a huge majority.
This means if you’re not yet doing email marketing, you’re missing out.
While it’s not a great way to reach new audiences (blogs and social media are much better for that), emails are awesome at building your brand’s relationship with existing customers.
Of course, when it comes to emails, you’re likely thinking of email newsletters — and, indeed, newsletters are a fantastic way to share your content for engineers more quickly. You can send out a weekly newsletter with your latest blog post, for example, or share company and product updates.
But you can also use email marketing to nurture your relationship with customers in a different way. For example, you can send out holiday greetings, replacement part reminders, or confirmation and thank you emails.
These don’t promote your content for engineers directly, but go a long way in retaining existing customers.
Just be wary of sending too many emails — no one likes being bombarded with information.
4. Online communities
Online communities are great for sharing content with other engineers.
Many of these — like LinkedIn, Quora, or Reddit — are possibly similar to social platforms, but they focus much more on the discussion aspect and less on the content creation aspect.
You also have more specialized communities like The Engineering Exchange and Design News. These are focused on discussions within the engineering industry.
These platforms aren’t really about content promotion, but you may find a way to link to or talk about your content as you spend more time chatting with other engineers.
They can also do wonders for your overall brand authority as you can position yourself as a thought leader in a specific field.
5. Paid advertising
If you want to reach a large number of people quickly and don’t want to use organic routes, you can also promote your content for engineers using paid methods.
Paid advertising is simply online advertising that you pay for. It can include anything from Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns to paid-for social media advertising.
Paid advertising can be very targeted, and you often reach the right audience. It also opens up opportunities for retargeting people who have visited your site before.
But paid advertising has to be done by someone well-versed in the field, as it can quickly become very expensive. To receive a good return on investment, it’s worth working with a professional with a good understanding of all the paid ad opportunities and setting a firm budget to stick to.
Get results when promoting your content for engineers
Your work does not end when you’ve finished writing an article — this is only the beginning. The real work starts when you start promoting your content for engineers.
There are many methods — both organic and paid — available for doing this, and you’ll need to decide on which works best for you.
But if you need help crafting your content for engineers in the first place, give me a shout. I can help you write engineering content that’s perfect for your target audience.
Content For Engineers FAQs
LinkedIn can be super valuable since it’s a targeted business platform. You can share a whole bunch of content, from articles to case studies and white papers, write native content that’s short and sweet, and share links to other sources. You can also chat with industry leaders and lead discussions in LinkedIn groups. You can even use LinkedIn ads to target specific engineering audiences.
You definitely don’t need to focus on it all. For example, if you’re already quite tight on time and have your hands full with your engineering blog, running a newsletter, and posting to social media, you may feel that paid advertising or being active in online communities is simply too much.
It’s always best to figure out which platforms work best for your content and how much capacity you have to manage it all.
If you have the chance, then promoting your content on other sites and in other publications is a great idea.
Why not ask if they accept guest posts? You will then write a post specifically for that site. You’ll likely be able to include a backlink to your own site, either in the text or in the author bio. This not only promotes your site but can do wonders for your domain authority.
Video is playing a bigger and bigger role in marketing, something also reflected by the dominance of video content on socials. This doesn’t mean you have to include video in your content marketing strategy, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you want to reach your audience in the best way possible.
