Branded Media 7: Distribution
“Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants.”
– Jonathan Perelman
Commit as much effort to distributing your content as you do creating it. Content is king, but it's wasted without effective distribution.
Think of your publishing outlets like entrances to a mall. It doesn't matter which one they use as long as they come in. When you have good content, you don’t worry about trends in publishing because you just post wherever your customers are.
The previous six articles in this series (An Overview, Vision & Value Add, Idea Generation, Scope & Assignment, Project Management, and Approval & Publishing) covered content creation in detail. This article address how to approach the distribution of that content for maximum benefit.
Distribution is just one phase of a comprehensive branded media strategy
Customer-Centric Distribution
Make it easy for your consumers by meeting them where they already are and deliver the content how they want to get it. In general, there are three ways people find content: links, searching, and browsing.
Most content is accessed through a specific link (in an article, news feed, or directly shared with them). People also search for content. Sometimes they know exactly what they’re looking for, and sometimes they seek relevant information to a general inquiry. Finally, some consumers want to browse all your content in one convenient location.
Distribution is a case of 1 + 1 + 1 = 10. You want all your bases covered, especially because the cost of distribution is so small. Consumers won’t work very hard to access your content. They want it how they want it, and your competitors will fill in any gaps you leave.
Your Permanent Home
You need a permanent home for your content. Even if most of your views happen in social media, you need a place where general browsing can happen and where you link to. Over time, this permanent home becomes a rich resource worthy of mass visitation.
Your content site should be built on a CMS (Content Management System) that makes it easy to add content. Many companies can get away with a template-based solution like Wordpress. There are advantages to custom designing a site using platforms like Drupal or Joomla, if you can justify the cost.
Whatever system you use, provide options for browsing. Create categories and tags that reorganize the content according to key themes. Most systems automatically place the most recent content on top, which may or may not serve your customers well. The more evergreen your content is, the less you care about when it was published. Use metrics to assess your categories, tags and content hierarchy, refining as needed.
Findability
Search is such an important element of online life. The topic is complex and there is a lot already written about it. Addressing SEO and SEM is outside the scope of this article, but it’s also less crucial to higher volume content marketing.
Be diligent about using tags and hashtags with every post, adjusting to trends in each platform. For example, you can use more hashtags on Instagram than on Twitter. Also, make sure your titles and descriptions include keywords popular with your customers.
To help customers navigate your content, use a deliberate and intuitive naming structure for each piece. Balance this with catchy soundbites to pique interest. Also, make sure your permanent site includes an effective search feature specifically for your content.
Finally, use playlists and recommended content wherever possible. Make it very easy for them to find more of your content.
The Long Game
The key to branded media is building a relationship with your customers through high volume publishing. There are no shortcuts, so commit to a long game. It is like the proverbial snowball. Everything starts small, but the cumulative effect becomes magnified over time. Each additional piece both adds to the value of your library and increases the likelihood of discovery.
Consistency over time is extremely important. Your customers eventually recognize and appreciate your efforts as a commitment to them. This can’t be bypassed with paid promotions (though some promotion is becoming increasingly necessary even to reach your existing followers).
Over time, your permanent website will become a legitimate destination in itself. It will contain so much valuable content that your most loyal customers will include it in their regular perusals of the web.
Posting Strategies
There are several strategies for how to create your posts. Experiment with them and track the results.
One method is linking to the content on your permanent site. This is the simplest. For each outlet, tailor the post’s headline, copy and image, but include a link that takes the viewer back to your site. This has the advantage of landing them on your home turf. It also gives you metrics and the ability to track them. The downside is that people can be reluctant to leave where they were, and some platforms like Facebook will limit your distribution if you’re always linking away.
Second is embedding the full content in the outlet. Videos on Facebook are a prime example of this. There is some evidence that native videos get more views even than YouTube videos embedded into the feed. While the algorithms are constantly evolving, there does seem to be a trend toward greater distribution of native content. Often, the benefits of having your content more broadly consumed outweigh the loss of metrics and your own site traffic. This is especially true if you’re embedding brand messaging into consumer-oriented content.
A third approach is repurposing the content for a particular outlet. This could be clipping out a six second highlight from a video and posting it on Instagram or Twitter. Or extracting a list of tips from an article and posting it on Facebook or Pinterest. By themselves, these may not do full justice to your content, but they're likely to more widely consumed, and they do support the relationship with your customers.
Two Tips
- Highlight a different aspect of the piece in each outlet, which is great for those who follow you on multiple platforms.
- Put a link to the full content in a comment instead of the post itself as some algorithms will distribute it more widely.
Don't change direction too often or you’ll lose your followers
Timing, Experimentation, Metrics
Each outlet has its own culture, timing, and expectations. Because your content has inherent value, you are freer to experiment with different kinds of posts. Be a data hound with the results. A/B test on a regular basis. Track a variety of metrics to see which ones truly reflect meaningful insights.
Measure twice, cut once. Analyze your data, but make small, deliberate adjustments to your strategy. You’re building a relationship through high volume publishing. Treat it like a friend trying to follow you in traffic. Too many changes of direction and they’ll be lost.
Schedules and Leverage
Plan and schedule your publishing ahead of time whenever possible. Branded content is usually evergreen, meaning it retains value over time (unlike news, which gets stale quickly). Planning allows you to leverage outlets and friendly forces. Usually, you want to time your posts to the rhythm of the outlet. But don’t be afraid to hit everything at once if you have a big event.
Communicate ahead of time with friendly forces to leverage distribution. If your content features a popular person, they can simultaneously post and share the content in their channels. If your content mentions another company or includes one of their products, they may be eager to share it also. While you can do this after publishing, it’s more effective planned in advance.
Easy to Share
The holy grail of content marketing is getting your customers to share your content widely. Sharing tools are built into all social media platforms, so stay within their standard posting practices. Also, install the latest social sharing tools on your permanent website.
Be cautious with tracking and analytics devices added to your content. They can increase content load times, which directly reduces consumption. Instead, set your valuable content free.
Finally, be tasteful and restrained in asking for shares. You want your customers to enjoy the content. You’ll alienate them if the request for sharing is too strong.
A Word about Clickbait
Never use cheap tricks to get people to click on your content. You’ll lose customers who feel deceived by the difference between what was teased and what was delivered. Like with a vase, broken trust is difficult to repair and never quite the same. Instead, respect your customers by presenting them with a nugget of value in the post. They can get even more value by clicking to see the full piece. Even if they don’t click, you’ve given them a little something. This adds up over time, and soon you’ve built a connection.
Conclusion
Be content focused and platform agnostic. Distribute your valuable content across as many outlets as reasonable. These outlets are like entrances to a mall—you don’t care which ones they use as long as they come in. Schedule and plan your posts as much as possible, leveraging your networks to increase exposure. Track data and assess strategies, but make small adjustments at a time because you’re dealing with human behavior.
Then, pay close attention to the feedback you get, but be careful how you interpret it. The voices of the internet do not necessarily reflect the majority and should not be taken literally. My next article will cover this in detail.
This article is the seventh in a series. See the previous articles: An Overview, Vision & Value Add, Idea Generation, Scope & Assignment, Project Management, and Approval & Publishing.