Roadmap to Successful Content Distribution with Essential Tools & Tactics

Imagine spending hours on writing a well-researched blog and you fail to gain any traction, it sounds disappointing. Even if you have written a high-quality blog with all the useful information, it will not be of any help to you if nobody knows that it exists. That’s where the role of content distribution comes into place. Without distribution, your content is not going to reach the targeted audience. In this digital age, with tons of content available online, for your content to shine through on the first page of Google is not an easy task. With the constant flow of content, it is pretty easy even for your high-quality content to get lost amidst the crowd. However, there are ways through which you can make your content visible to a larger number of audiences. There’s a very popular theory which states that writers should only spend 20% of their time creating content and spend rest of 80% on distributing it. Before moving on to how exactly this process works, let’s take a look at the basics.

What is content distribution?

The term says it all! Content distribution is the process of promoting your content through various channels and formats to reach the maximum number of audience. This process of distribution is usually done in three ways namely:

·        Owned

·        Earned

·        and, Paid

1. Owned Content Distribution: This type of distribution pertains to sharing your content on platforms that you own. Some of the examples of owned content distribution are blog pages, social media channels, newsletters and websites. Moreover, in this type of distribution, you are in complete control of the content that you share.

2. Earned Content Distribution: When people start sharing or talking about your content they become a part of your earned content distribution. Earned content distribution is majorly acquired when people share or retweet your posts on social media, mention you in a product review, guest blog or in press coverage.

3. Paid Content Distribution: In this type of content distribution, you pay for your content to be visible to a wider group of audience. Paid content distribution is usually done to direct the audience towards your owned channels. Some ways through which you can make use of paid distribution is through pay per click (PPC), cost per click (CPC), social media advertising, displaying ads and paying influencers for mentioning or talking about your content.

How Will Content Distribution Help Your Brand?

If you are trying to create a positive impact on your brand with the help of content, then keep in mind that all three channels of distribution play a pivotal role. The ideal thing to do is to make use of owned, earned and paid content distribution channels equally. Using all three channels ensures that you get the maximum results. Using all channels will allow you to understand your brand’s reach, user behavior, retention capabilities and conversions. A lot of people think that link building helps in content marketing. But, link building when compared to content marketing is a different concept; without distribution, your content is not going to reach the targeted audience.  Here are the different tools that you can use for each type of content distribution channel. Take a look.

Tools for Owned Distribution Channels

Medium

Medium is a publishing platform that will allow you to post content. The platform is open for paid and unpaid writers. Additionally, it is not just writers; even businesses can post on Medium. The platform offers you a large readership. To make use of this readership, post content that is visually appealing and intrigues the people on the platform.

SlideShare

In the current time, people are more attracted to visual content rather than written content. Infographics, presentations and videos have a higher chance of grabbing the attention of readers. A lot of people use SlideShare to find great visual content online. Having interesting and apt graphics that people are looking for will help you reach a large audience.

Tools for Earned Distribution Channels

Quora

Everyone who is looking for answers online is sure to log onto Quora first. The platform is specifically designed for people to ask and answer questions. Quora caters to questions from all types of businesses and industries. Look for questions that pertain to your industry and answer those questions with your experience and knowledge. You can even link back to your blog so that readers can get a detailed insight into the topic. This is a great way to answer questions that people are asking and also distribute your content.

Reddit

The platform is similar to Quora, but it isn’t as easy to crack. The platform has communities called subreddits. These subreddits can pertain to your industry or topic. Your goal as a digital marketer is to find these subreddits that are a perfect fit for your content. Once you find these subreddits, start participating in the discussions and share your content. When you post high-quality content that appeals to the readers, they start upvoting it. The more upvotes you get, the more user engagement you receive.

Tools for Paid Distribution Channels

Social Media Advertisements

Social media has taken over our lives. Almost everyone that we know has a social media account. And to top it all, there are different channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. With so many people being active on these platforms, running paid ads actually works to your benefit. Every social media platform has its own set of advantages when you run ads. Plus, they are cheap when compared to traditional ads. So, running ads on social media platforms is a great way to distribute content.

Outbrain

We have all seen ads linking back to another page or content on every website. You can display your content ad on leading websites with the help of Outbrain. Outbrain is a content discovery platform which connects your content to large readership channels like ESPN and CNN. Outbrain can place your content all over the internet and get a large readership towards your content. It is a great way to build readership and increase engagement with users all across the internet.