Your Expert Guide to Content Distribution

Owned media refers to the digital assets that your business controls completely. This includes your website, where you can publish articles, landing pages, and product information. You might also have a blog, which allows for consistent content updates and is a great way to establish authority in your niche.

Email marketing and newsletters are effective ways to communicate directly with your audience, share updates, and promote content. And social media accounts enable you to share content, engage with your followers, and build a community. For example, you can share behind-the-scenes content on stories to humanize your brand and increase engagement.

Earned media includes coverage, mentions, and shares that you gain organically through other people and occurs when your content is compelling and valuable enough to be picked up by others.

Take media coverage, for example. Getting featured in industry publications or news outlets can significantly boost your credibility and reach. Guest posts, in which you write articles for other reputable websites, can position you as an industry expert and drive traffic back to your site. Positive reviews and mentions by customers can enhance your brand’s reputation, and social shares can help you reach a much larger audience.

Unlike earned media, where users share content because they’ve had a positive experience with it, paid media involves paying someone to promote your content. This includes social media ads, paid searches, sponsored content, and influencer partnerships.

Platforms like Instagram offer targeted advertising options to promote your content to a specific audience. Using Google Ads to appear in search engine results for specific keywords can increase your visibility. Collaborating with media outlets or blogs to publish sponsored articles makes you visible to a wider audience. And partnering with influencers to promote your content allows you to access their followers and reach.

Getting to know your audience involves:

• Demographic analysis: Examine your audience’s key characteristics, such as age, gender, income and education level, and location.
• Behavioral analysis: Learn how your audience interacts with your content and brand. This includes tracking their online activity, purchasing behavior, and engagement patterns.
• Identify your audience’s pain points and interests: Understand the challenges your target customers face and the topics they’re passionate about. By addressing these pain points and tapping into their interests, you can create relevant content that provides good value.

Setting clear objectives helps you to stay organized and focused on your content distribution strategy. Your objectives might include: 

• Increasing brand awareness: Create content that will introduce your brand to new audiences while reinforcing your presence within your existing audience. This should take the form of high-quality, shareable content that showcases your brand’s values, mission, and offerings.
• Lead generation: Focus on attracting potential customers and then following up with them. You can find contact details through gated content, such as ebooks and webinars, that require users to provide their contact details.
• Increasing customer engagement: Create content that encourages interaction, such as social media posts with inquisitive captions, surveys, and interactive infographics.
• Driving sales and conversions: Your content should highlight the benefits of your products or services and include clear calls to action. Case studies, product demonstrations, and customer testimonials can encourage potential customers to consider your product.

Each media distribution channel has its pros and cons – the right choice depends on your audience’s preferences and your content goals.

Social Media

• Pros: Wide reach, real-time engagement, and potential for virality. 
• Cons: Requires consistent posting, can be time-consuming, and algorithm changes can affect visibility.

Email Marketing

• Pros: Direct communication, high return on investment (ROI), and personalized content.
• Cons: Requires an email list, has potential for low open rates, and could be marked as spam.

SEO and Organic Search

• Pros: Long-term traffic, high-intent users, and cost-effective.
• Cons: Competitive, requires ongoing optimization, and results can take time.

Paid Advertising

• Pros: Immediate results, targeted reach, and scalable.
• Cons: Can be expensive, requires continuous investment, and potential for ad fatigue.

Influencer Partnerships

• Pros: Access to influencer’s audience, builds trust, and potential for viral content.
• Cons: Can be costly, finding the right influencer can be challenging, and has variable results.

A content calendar helps you to plan and schedule your content distribution strategy. This means planning ahead to determine the types of content you want to create and when you’re going to share it. A calendar allows you to clearly see upcoming work and allot time for each task while ensuring that you consistently publish new content.

And that’s important because consistency is key to maintaining audience interest and engagement. A content calendar helps you maintain a regular posting schedule, which is crucial for building a loyal audience. It also allows you to balance different types of content and ensure that your messaging and tone remain cohesive across all content marketing channels.

Keyword research means identifying the terms and phrases your target audience uses when searching for content. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMrush can help you find relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your content to improve your visibility in search engine results pages.

On-page optimization ensures that each piece of content is structured and formatted in a way that’s easy for search engines to understand. This includes using relevant keywords in titles, headings, meta descriptions, and URLs. Use clear headings and subheadings, and incorporate images and multimedia elements that are properly tagged with alt text.

Link building means acquiring backlinks from reputable websites to your content. Backlinks signal to search engines that your content is valuable and authoritative. Strategies for link building include guest posting on other blogs, collaborating with influencers, and creating shareable content that naturally attracts links. Internal linking, or linking to other relevant content on your own site, also helps improve SEO.

Tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and email marketing analytics can help you monitor the performance of your content distribution strategy. Key metrics to track include page views, engagement rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and bounce rates.

Analyzing this data will help you understand what’s working and what isn’t. Use these insights to refine your content distribution strategy. For example, if you notice that certain articles are driving more traffic and engagement, consider creating more content on similar topics or following similar formats. If a particular content marketing channel isn’t performing well, evaluate why and consider reallocating resources to more effective channels.

Engaging with your audience is vital for building a loyal community and encouraging interaction with your content. Respond to comments on your blog posts, social media updates, and other content, ensuring your responses are prompt and genuine.

Actively participate in conversations related to your content, share relevant industry news, and interact with your followers. Use social media to respond to questions and participate in relevant groups and forums to expand your reach and build relationships.

Building a community around your brand involves creating a space where your audience can connect with each other and you. You can do this through social media groups, online forums, or community events. Encourage discussions, share user-generated content, and provide exclusive content or offers to your community members. Steer conversations toward positive, upbuilding topics and discourage interactions that could be confrontational, controversial, or offensive.

Repurposing content is a high-return technique for relatively little effort, as you get to re-use your own content, so you’ve already done the hard work. Here are some ways to do it:

1. Turn blog posts into videos. Videos are highly engaging and often favored by audiences. Transforming a well-researched blog post into a video can help you reach audiences who prefer visual content.
2. Create infographics from articles. Infographics are visually appealing and can effectively summarize complex information. Extract key data, statistics, and insights from your articles and turn them into infographics. This makes the content more digestible and shareable, increasing its potential reach.
3. Use snippets for social media. Social media platforms are ideal for sharing bite-sized content. Take compelling quotes, statistics, or tips from your articles and create social media posts. Pair these snippets with engaging visuals to capture attention and drive traffic back to the full article.

Influencer marketing is a strategic way to tap into established audiences and maximize your reach. To do this effectively:

1. Identify the right influencers. Look for influencers whose audience aligns with your target demographic. Tools like BuzzSumo, Traackr, and Upfluence can help you find influencers based on reach, engagement, and relevance.
2. Build partnerships. Reach out to influencers with personalized messages, explaining how a collaboration could be mutually beneficial. Offer value, such as exclusive content, products, or financial compensation, to incentivize their participation.
3. Measure ROI. After establishing an influencer partnership, measure its effectiveness. Track metrics such as engagement rates, website traffic, lead generation, and conversions resulting from the collaboration. Use unique tracking links and promo codes to attribute results accurately.

Automation tools can streamline your content distribution efforts, saving time and ensuring consistency. Tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social can schedule and publish your social media posts across multiple platforms. Mailchimp and HubSpot are excellent for automating email marketing campaigns, while CoSchedule and Trello can help with content planning and project management.

Automation offers numerous benefits, including increased efficiency, consistent posting schedules, and the ability to manage multiple content marketing channels from a single platform. It also frees up time for creative tasks and strategic planning, allowing you to focus on producing high-quality content.

Content distribution is the process of sharing and promoting content through various channels to reach and engage your target audience.

A content distribution strategy includes identifying your audience, setting clear objectives, choosing the right content marketing channels, creating a content calendar, and using analytics to refine your approach.

Choose content marketing channels based on where you can reach your target audience, the type of content you produce, and the goals of your content distribution strategy.