Don’t Waste Time! Distribution is Key to Content Marketing Success
What do you think of when I say “content.” Several things may come to your mind are blogs, newsletters, white papers and e-books. Did you know it also includes the actual text of your website? It can be said that content is king. Oh wait, it is said and quite often. (Check out the history of this phrase.) Now think about all the content you produce or have had written for you. What happens next?
Whether written by you, a team member or by someone you outsource to, you make sure all the spelling is correct and punctuation is appropriate. You use keywords (without stuffing) and concise headlines. What’s next? Meet the Queen!
Jonathan Perelman of Buzzfeed is credited for the phrase, “Content is King but Distribution is Queen and she wears the pants.”
Basically what he is saying (along with many other thought leaders in Content Marketing) is get your content out, market to your most important media outlet, your social media platforms. There are pockets of niche customers throughout the internet world who might be looking for your information.
A Blog Post is not Just a Blog Post Anymore
Maybe you have heard of leveraging your content? This is exactly what you need to do to put it to work attracting niche viewers through social media. Visualize your content as a beehive. Your website is where the ‘queen bee’ resides. Worker bees (your content) go out and gather pollen (target audience) to carry back to the hive where it is used as food for the developing bees. (your business). To be successful in this you need to develop a content strategy. Outstanding blog posts on your website can become video tutorials, infographics, podcasts, webinars, slideshows, free reports and more.
Let’s take a look at the big 3: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Take key points from your blog post and use it as posts. Ask for comments from readers and encourage interaction. Include links to the original content on your website. Photos of products or video demos can be showcased here as well. If that’s not enough to get you interested in visual media maybe this will:
Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. (Source)
How about YouTube? Video tutorials are a great way to share information with viewers and get some traffic to your website. Let people know who you are through your profile and always include your website address.
Images are not just for YouTube. Pinterest combines images with videos and your unique keywords to bring an idea to life for your audience. Make use of your content with pics to illustrate it as well as a link to the content that inspired it.
Remember how viewers want to know what value they get for liking your page or viewing it? Turn a blog post into a free report or guide that’s used as an opt-in for signing up for your newsletter.
There are any number of ways that you can leverage your website content on social media sites to gain the attention of your niche audience as well as drive traffic to your site. On social sites, you can read and respond to comments about your content right away. It sparks conversation and therefore, engagement with your viewers.
Repurposing your content is one way to stretch your blog posts. It can be hard to produce new content frequently. This gives you some leeway and keeps your audience interested in what you have to say. Every time you change your content format, try to add some extra tidbit that hasn’t been seen before to keep the quality high. Scheduling content to post on future dates allows you to repurpose each article now when the ideas are fresh but for later use.
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Content Marketing: Create a re-purposing strategy today.
Infographic: Content Repurposing.