What is Content Distribution?
Content distribution is the strategy you apply to publishing, sharing, and promoting your content across multiple platforms and channels to ensure maximum reach and engagement. If you’re going to spend the time, money, and effort to create content, you want to make sure it’s doing its job effectively. It’s not enough to hit “Publish.” You want to make sure your content is reaching its intended audience.
Why is it Important to Have a Content Distribution Plan?
You can have the most fantastic content in the world, but it won’t make a difference if it’s not reaching people. And not all content performs equally well on every channel. Having a content distribution plan ensures that you’re making the strongest possible impact with your content through reach and engagement. It also helps you know which content to post to which channel, and when.
A content distribution plan can also:
- Boost your impact through content curation and creation
- Ensure efficient collaboration between your team and other departments
- Help you measure your content’s performance against the marketing goals you’ve set
What Are the Types of Content Distribution Channels?
Content distribution channels consist of three main types:
Your owned channels are exactly what they sound like: content channels you own and have 100 percent control over. Earned channels can also sometimes be paid, but these are channels where you are essentially borrowing the audience of others (influencers, other blogs, media outlets, etc.) and have limited — if any — control over the content being published. Paid is once again exactly what it sounds like; however, this is more what you would think of in terms of traditional advertising (Google ads, sponsored content, display advertising, etc.).
When it comes to content distribution, you may also hear terms like “amplification” and “promotion.” These can be both paid and earned (depending on your strategy) and can be applied across multiple content platforms.
Key Components of a Content Distribution Plan
With so much content to distribute over many different platforms, having not only a content distribution plan but also a checklist can be extremely helpful.
Your content distribution plan should include:
- Posting to social media. Your social media accounts are free and 100 percent within your control. They also provide unparalleled opportunities to connect directly with your audience in real time. Just remember that not all content is suitable for every social media platform, and keep in mind the different types of audiences each platform may bring.
- Engaging your email list. Email marketing continues to deliver the highest ROI per dollar spent, so don’t sleep on that email list! Letting your audience know about newly published content is a great way to amplify it. Make sure you’re delivering content that’s relevant to your audience by segmenting it based on demographics and stages of the buyer’s journey.
- Working with influencers. In the content game, influencers need content as much as you do. If you’ve identified influencers with your particular audience, find out their preferred method of contact and see if they’d be willing to share your content. If you have a budget for it, even better! One of the best ways to make sure your content is reaching people is by having someone with a passionate audience share it with theirs.
- Answering questions on Quora and Reddit with your content. This helps build authority when done correctly. Don’t over-share or be spammy. Answer the question that’s been posed, and then subtly include a link back to your blog post or article that offers more in-depth value.
- Using Google alerts to stay on top of new discussions. Go to Google alerts and put your topic in the search bar. Then hit “create an alert.” Google will email you whenever a new article is published about this topic. Discussions about it can easily be found this way — especially in article comment sections where you can link to your content.
Difference Between Content Distribution and Content Marketing
Content marketing is the overall term to describe using content creation to market your product or service. Content distribution is one part of content marketing and an essential one! It ensures that your content is doing its job. All content distribution is content marketing, but not all content marketing is content distribution.
Get Started With Content Distribution
We sure do! Not only can we create quality content that resonates with your audience, we can make sure it’s getting in front of them in the places where they consume content. We achieve this in two ways: Content Placements and Content Syndication.
Through content placements, ClearVoice will…
- Identify topics relevant to your brand
- Research high-traffic, relevant, and trustworthy websites that publish content
- Create a 500+ word article that relates thematically to your brand
- Share content on vetted websites with links pointing back to your website
- Monitor the results
And with content syndication, we…
- Ensure your top-quality, newsworthy, SEO-friendly content meets all syndication guidelines
- Distribute your content to websites to publish, based on its value to their readers
- Help you attract new audiences and increase authority as more sites publish your content
Ready to increase your reach? Talk to a content specialist today!
