90 10 Social Media Marketing Strategy for Bloggers

Adopting the 90 10 social media marketing strategy is a powerful way to drive more traffic to your blog, leveraging the platform’s algorithms to your advantage.

This strategy helps you work with social media algorithms rather than wasting your time trying to beat something that can’t be beaten.

Too many bloggers get on social media and waste so much time that they can’t get back. They promote their blogs the wrong way. There is a right way and an easier way of getting seen on social media.

That way is the 90 10 social media marketing strategy.

Having used the 90 10 social media marketing strategy since the inception of my blog, I can attest to its effectiveness. It’s a straightforward and efficient approach that delivers results.

In this guide, I’ll tell you everything about this strategy and how it can work for you.

What is the 90 10 Social Media Marketing Strategy?

In the 90 10 social media marketing strategy, the ’90’ represents the percentage of native content, which is content that is originally uploaded or posted on the platform. This type of content is crucial for engaging with the platform’s algorithms.

The 10 in the 90 10 social media marketing strategy stands for 10%. It represents the percentage of content that will be promotional on the social media platform you’re working with. Promotional content is external links such as your blog and blog posts.

Every social media platform uses its own algorithms. These algorithms are made to put more views on users who post native content. They put less views on promotional content. Why? Because they run ads on their platforms and need people to stay on them in order for the ads to be utilized so that the platform can keep making money.

Social media is a community all on its own. You have to enter it with a community-development mindset. If you build a community on social media, you’ll flourish your blog with new followers and subscribers. If you don’t build a community on social media, you won’t see much benefit from ever using it. There is definitely a required strategy for using social media to market your blog.

The 90 10 social media marketing strategy encourages reputation building over promotion. You’ll promote more effectively and efficiently through reputation building than you would through simple link promotion. Once you get into that mindset, social media marketing becomes so much easier and gives you so much more results than you would get using any other tactic.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a blog utilizing social media platforms for marketing is to join too many platforms. Too many platforms will overwhelm you and cause you to burn out. You should research each of the most popular platforms. These include YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, X, Pinterest, and others like that. Try to find out what platforms your target blog audience is using the most. Choose the platforms where your audience is most active rather than choosing too many platforms to market on.

If the social media platform offers a verification process, you should consider purchasing it. By purchasing a verified account, you typically get more replies and views to your page. This will help you grow your community on social media. This is not required by any means, but it tends to be very helpful in speeding up the process.

Now, let’s move on to the core functions of the 90 10 social media marketing strategy.

90% Native Content Strategy

The 90 in the 90 10 social media marketing strategy refers to the 90% of native content you should post on social media. This content should be original to the platform and never contain external links.

You need to post this content daily, every day, and multiple times a day. I post at least 4 to 5 times a day, from early in the morning to late in the evening. Use the platform’s scheduling features to help you stay ahead and organized. I also recommend Buffer as a scheduling tool, especially for X. Work on getting consistent with posting every day.

If the platform offers it, post text-based posts to engage with your followers. I commonly post these in the form of questions, quotes, and polls. The idea is to get a follower to either react, comment or share the content. If you can get them to do all three engagements, then you’re off to a great start.

You should also upload videos and photos to the platform if it allows you to do so. Don’t upload watermarked videos to a different platform (e.g., TikTok watermarked videos to Instagram), as the algorithm will detect them and reduce their views. It helps if you align your video content with current trends and music that is being used by the masses. Make sure your photos and videos are high-quality and visually appealing to get the best results.

If the features are available, update your story often—do this multiple times a day. You can share your posts as well as content that you haven’t posted anywhere else. Stories are very popular features on most social media platforms. If there is a live feature, try to go live at least once a week to once a month, depending on how much time you can contribute. Going live is a great way to interact with your audience and get new followers.

Try to use all of the features provided by the social media platform. You should especially use the newer ones. Typically, the platform will reward users who use newer features they introduce. When YouTube first launched Shorts, those who jumped on board in using them were some of the biggest growing channels today because of their willingness to use a feature early that essentially became very popular very quickly. Be open-minded and be willing to accept change on social media – try to develop the ability to adapt quickly to change,

You should be engaging more than you post on social media. This means that you should use your page to find others on the platform and engage with them. Engage with other related pages and people, groups, events, and through available features on the platform. If you utilize the content scheduling feature on platforms, this will give you more time to engage with others in your specific community or niche. Engagement is critical to achieving the 90 10 social media marketing strategy.

Now that you have learned about the 90% function let’s move on to the 10% function of the 90 10 social media marketing strategy.

10% Promotional Content Strategy

The 10 of the 90 10 social media marketing strategy applies to the 10% of promotional content that you will be posting on the social media platforms you’re working with. These are links to your blog and blog content. These could be other links to content you have as well, including other social media pages, your newsletter, and stuff like that.

Your main strategy here is to put your blog link in your bio. I created a custom mobile-friendly page that gives you a link to my blog, newsletter, other social media pages, and a CTA, and that’s what I link to on most of my social media profiles. I find that is the best way to get everything looked at.

The main idea of social media is to promote yourself rather than your external links. You want to promote yourself as an expert and an authority in your specific niche or industry. The more people become aware of you, the more followers you will get. Your followers will find your blog and look at your bio for links about how to find more of the resources you provide. It’s important to engage often, be as friendly as possible, and be as helpful as possible on social media in order to build your authority and expertise on the platform.

Post a few of your links each day. Just mix them up a bit if possible. One day, I may post a link to my newsletter and, later, a link to my latest blog post. The next day, I’ll post a link to my newsletter and then a link to one of my better-performing previously created blog posts. Just don’t post only promotional content, as the algorithm will work against you, and you’ll waste precious time attempting to cheat it.

Don’t spam. Posting only promotional links is spam. Posting links in DM without permission is spam. Posting links when replying to everyone you are engaging with is spam. If your strategy is to do nothing but post links on the platform – you’ll be labeled as a spammer. You might get your page banned, too. It could even hurt you on search engines. It will definitely give you a reputation for being a spammer.

Instead of spamming other people’s DM (direct message), do this instead: Build a relationship with them. Be an active listener and follow their work. Comment often while being helpful and engaging to keep the conversation going. Befriend your potential followers. After that, ask them if you can share a link to your blog. If they accept it, then you can share your link with them.

And that wraps up the 10% component of the 90 10 social media marketing strategy.

Final Thoughts

Now you’re well versed with the 90 10 social media marketing strategy. This strategy will greatly help you utilize social media to help promote your blog or anything else you hope to market. It’s up to you to get out and there and use it for yourself. Trust me. You’ll be amazed by the results once it starts kicking in.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my article about this social media marketing strategy. I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you did, consider sharing it with other bloggers who might also enjoy it.

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About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.