Even if you create the best content in the world, if nobody reads, it's of no use. You are simply wasting your time, money, and resources.
Therefore, it is critically important to create a distribution strategy. Distribution helps your content reach out to the audience. The more people read your content, the more benefits you get.
How can you create an ongoing distribution strategy?
In this guide, you will get familiar with content distribution in detail.
Shall we begin?
The Essence of Content Distribution
Content distribution is about promoting published content across multiple channels in different formats. The main goal is to reach out to as many people as the promotion allows.
Content distribution revolves around three main channels - owned, earned, and paid.
Let's review each channel in detail.
1. Owned Channels
Owned channels are those that you keep under your control. Here are the main ones - website, blog, email list, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok.
For example, a website is the first channel that you control. You can do whatever you want on your site. The same happens with your blog. In other words, it is up to you what content to publish there. As a rule, you can cover a few core types of content on your blog:
- guides (comprehensive information that helps people improve their knowledge and use practical tips)
- product information (updated information about your products, services, or tools)
- visual content (using different images, charts, and an informative infographic to make interactive content and to help people understand complex topics)
- data studies (provide people with in-depth stats and insights related to your niche)
Email list
When you collect emails and build an email list, it helps you send your content to people directly.
How to collect emails?
Create a pop-up that suggests users sign up for your email newsletter.
Of course, people won't sign up just for fun. You need to motivate them. Offer something in return. For instance, a free e-Book or a niche-related comprehensive course. It works.
YouTube
If you want to breathe a new life into an outdated blog post, you can repurpose it into a video. You can also use Youtube video editing software to make sure your video content looks brilliant. Afterwards, upload it on your YouTube channel.
YouTube is an excellent platform for content distribution. Repurpose step-by-step guides into video series and reach out to your target audience on the second most used search engine on the web after Google.
Visme has 68.7K followers on Twitter. It is a clear signal that this channel should be used for content distribution for sure.
2. Earned Channels
Earned media represents the channels where your content has been featured due to its uniqueness, trustfulness, and authority. As a rule, content must be approved by a blog editor or moderator.
A few examples of earned media channels - Reddit, forums, blogs (guest posts), or Facebook groups.
3. Paid
It won't be hard to guess, paid media represents channels that require payments for content distribution.
Paid media includes the following channels - Google ads, Twitter ads, Retargeting, Sponsorships, Native advertising, etc.
A Step-By-Step Process on Creating a Content Distribution Strategy
You have already noticed that there are many channels for content distribution. You may be a bit puzzled on this occasion. And you don't know where to start.
Likely, here is a simple and actionable plan on the content distribution strategy to be armed with.
1. Start with publishing content on channels that you own
Keep in mind that you can't start creating content and distributing it without knowing the exact channel it was created for. However, practice shows that the first channels people start with are a blog and YouTube.
Which one to choose?
It depends on your personal skills and technical abilities. For example, if you can't write blog posts because you don't like this process- don't do it then. Instead, try yourself in video content creation. Create a YouTube channel, buy a solid camera, and start your work.
For instance, the basic channel at Visme is a blog, and it uses YouTube for content repurposing goals.
2. Distribute your content across secondary channels
Secondary owned channels - email list and social media.
When you distribute your content on these channels, you accomplish two goals at once.
- It allows you to share key points of your content with your subscribers
- It allows you to drive traffic
Secondary distributing channels can vary. It depends on where your target audience hangs out. Thus, analyze your target audience presence and distribute your content accordingly.
3. Work with earned channels
Third-party channels require content approval. Hence, you can't distribute your content without following certain requirements. For example, guest blogging.
Guest blogging is the process of writing content across third-party sites related to your niche. This way of content distribution helps you share information, promote products, and raise brand awareness as well. It is especially a wonderful opportunity to get your content featured in front of a large audience.
First of all, you need to find sites that accept guest contributions. And the best way to find the sites is to explore those that are related to your topic.
How to do this?
You can do this with the help of the tool called Content Explorer from Ahrefs. Type your topic in the search bar. Then, switch the dropdown to "In title", filter down the results by the "one page per domain" option, and click the "Websites" tab.
4. Use paid channels
If the owned and earned channels don't provide you with the expected results, then you should stick to paid channels.
Google ads
Google ads help your content appear above top organic search results on the SERP. It is a great way to distribute your content (and products) when it comes to paid channels.
Quuu Promote
Quuu Promote is the cheapest paid channel that you can imagine. Just for $50 per month, you will be able to promote 10 blog posts and reach out to 39K+ people. And if these people like your content, they will share it across their social channels.
Native advertising
Native advertising works as ads that have a form of regular content. These native ads can be seen on well-known websites like AOL, USA Today, Weather.com, etc.
By the way, Outbrain and Taboola are quite popular marketplaces where you can start testing native advertising.
Facebook ads
You can promote your content on Facebook by clicking the "Boost post" button when uploading the post.
5. Use specific tools to measure results
The goal of content distribution is simple - reach out to people. And you should measure content distribution performance. To measure the performance you will have to use a few actionable tools. Let's review them.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a basic tool that provides all necessary insights about content distribution. You can get information on where visitors came from, time spent on blog post pages, and whether content distribution helps in terms of conversion.
Twitter allows you to see the reach of each post you post on the channel. Click the graph icon to see the data.
Ahrefs
Optimized content on your blog leads to rankings on Google for certain relevant keywords.
To get a clear picture of how your content performs in terms of traffic and organic keywords, use Content Explorer tool from Ahrefs. Grab a target blog post URL and analyze it with the tool.
As you can see, this blog post ranks in the top 100 for 11.1K keywords and drives about 13.2K of organic traffic monthly.
To Sum Up
Content distribution is a driving force that helps push your content forward. By using suggested tips for creating an actionable content distribution strategy, your content will reach as many people as it deserves.
Choose content distribution platforms carefully. Keep in mind that your choice should go in line with your entire content marketing strategy goals. Plus, don't forget to measure the performance of each distribution channel.
Remember even if your content looks brilliant, it won't hit the jackpot without a proper content distribution strategy.
If you think this guide lacks more tips, feel free to share your ideas in the comments.
