7 Alternative Ways to Distribute Your Content for Better Visibility
Content just not getting the views you want? Here are 7 ways to distribute your content to gain more visibility that you might not have tried.
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Specialists understand the role content plays in the overall success of their marketing endeavors. They are ready to increase efforts and spending on content marketing as it’s the key to their brands’ increased visibility and performance.
They write better content than competitors and spend resources crafting comprehensive and compelling content assets readers will love to check and share.
The problem:
No matter how well-researched and valuable your information is, you waste the endeavors on its creation if your target audience doesn’t know it exists. As Jonathan Perelman from BuzzFeed once said, “Content is king, but distribution is queen. And she wears the pants.”
Indeed:
The essential part of your content strategy is distribution, not writing itself. Sharing and promoting your content is a must: After all, how will your audience know about it? They won’t come through your assets accidentally: You need to deliver them to the right place.
In this article, we’ll reveal the nature and role of content distribution strategy in marketing and provide the seven alternative marketing channels to distribute your content for better visibility.
What Is Content Distribution?
First things first:
What is content distribution, and why is it critical for your marketing success?
Content distribution is the process of publishing, sharing, and promoting your assets in various formats on different platforms. These platforms are distribution channels of three types — owned, earned, and paid — and all are essential for crafting an efficient content distribution strategy for your brand.
- Owned distribution channels: Your blog, landing pages, social media profiles, and newsletters. They help you grow your owned audience and drive traffic to your content pages from social media.
- Earned distribution channels: Guest posts, shares, brand mentions, and reviews at third-party resources. They require some effort — you’ll need to invest in producing valuable and viral content — but they serve your brand credibility and reputation.
- Paid distribution channels: PPC, sponsored content, influencer campaigns, and social media ads. They will help promote your most essential marketing content: landing pages, product pages, offerings, etc.
Distribution is integral for every content marketing campaign: It helps get your assets in front of the target audience (and reach the broader one) via the right channel and just in time.
7 Alternative Ways to Distribute Your Content
With so many content distribution channels available, we bet you’ve tried most of them already! Below are the seven less obvious ones to consider: While most marketers know about them, they often ignore content distribution via these channels because of their time-consuming nature.
1) Syndication
Content syndication is the process of republishing an exact copy of your content asset on third-party websites. They don’t edit or change it but backlink to the content source, praising your authorship that way.
Please note:
Content syndication has nothing to do with guest blogging or content repurposing (more on both below). While guest posting is about writing a new piece of content for a third-party blog and content repurposing is about changing the format of your existing asset to fit the new platform, syndication is about republishing the exact copy of your existing content.
Like this:
Many websites are open to such content collaboration, and they’ll agree to become syndicates for your assets. To find them, you can try Google Search with operators like “originally published in” or “originally appeared on” and then contact them to offer your content for republishing.
Self-syndication is also available: Free websites like Medium, Quora, or LinkedIn welcome republishing. Paid resources like Outbrain, Zemanta, and Taboola are worth trying if your content is relevant to their niche and you are sure your target audience “lives” there.
The benefits of distributing content via syndication:
- Backlinks and referral traffic. When republishing, websites mention you as the source and backlink to you, encouraging readers to click and learn more about you.
- Automated promotion. The websites you use for syndication will promote the content for you, exposing the piece via their communication channels.
2) Ebooks
Ebooks are among the formats for content repurposing:
Understanding the value of long-form content for readers and your brand’s credibility and reputation, you can take some actionable and well-performing blog posts or step-by-step guides of yours — and expand them, turning in an ebook with in-depth expertise and applicable information.
How does it help your content distribution?
First, you mention your brand and backlink to its experts and other content assets in the ebook: Every user downloading it will learn about you, and it will serve your brand visibility.
Second, you can use the ebook as a lead magnet on your website, offering it for free to everyone who leaves their email address. Thus, you’ll build an email list and reach a broader audience to contact with your marketing messages later.
Creating an ebook takes time and other resources, but it’s worth it. It’s an effective instrument to engage users: They love formats to “take away” and have all the information in one place to address any time they need.
You can take a step further and create an ebook with interactive elements like GIFs, quizzes, videos, or pop-ups to make the content even more compelling and virality-potential. It will encourage shares and backlinking to the ebook, boost downloads, and skyrocket your visibility and expertise in the niche.
3) Guest Blogging
While some insist guest blogging doesn’t work and doesn’t bring any referral traffic, most marketing experts consider this instrument the #1 link-building strategy. No wonder:
Besides building backlinks and search engine rankings for your website, guest posting is also effective for content distribution, brand awareness, and long-term relationships with industry experts for further collaboration and brand promotion.
Guest blogging is time-consuming, and it’s a long game:
- First, you need a step-by-step strategy with a list of authoritative websites to pitch. (It stands to reason these “donors” are those related to your niche and content topics.)
- After that, you contact them to pitch content ideas and start a collaboration. (It may take weeks to agree on the topics and get a green light from them.)
- Then, you write a draft on the agreed topic, following their guidelines and getting ready to discuss all the edits they may have. (If you are not a content writer, you can hire freelance writers or collaborate with passionate guest authors to write content for you.)
As a result, you get a published article with a backlink to your content, distributing it that way. If used right, guest blogging can help you boost referral traffic, generate qualified leads, or (at least!) increase brand mentions and make your website more visible.
4) Podcasts
A podcast is a series of recorded audios related to the same topic and released regularly as episodes. This content form isn’t new, but it got its crazy popularity not that long ago:
In the recent 5-7 years, podcasts have become a promising marketing channel. Brands use it to build awareness and reputation, as well as distribute their content to a broader audience. Given that 51% of the US population listens to podcasts today, it comes as no surprise businesses don’t want to miss such a rich piece of cake.
With the inexpensive equipment available, podcasts aren’t that challenging to create:
If you have interviews with experts on the blog, you can start by repurposing them into podcasts:
Invite those experts to record audio versions and publish them on podcast hosting services. Many are free: Anchor, Pinecast, Buzzsprout, Spreaker — consider those most relevant and suitable for your situation. Also, feel free to record audio versions of your blog posts to engage the fans of listening to content instead of reading it.
Or you can also craft a video version of the podcast and publish it on YouTube to distribute the content. Plus, your brand’s representatives can participate in podcasts of your industry experts to reach a new audience and spread your content that way.
5) Emails
Email newsletters are among the most common ways to distribute content:
Once you get new assets on the blog or third-party resources, you design a compelling email to subscribers to inform them about it. Meaningful subject lines are critical here to grab interest and motivate the audience to open your email. Also, ensure to enrich emails with bright visuals and catchy calls to action for them to click and read what you have for them.
Besides this standard tactic, there are also some alternative ways to use email for content distribution:
1) Place links to your content in your business or marketing email’s P.S.
2) Use your content backlinks in email signatures.
3) Mention the content you want to distribute in your out-of-office emails when applicable:
6) Forums
Niche forums, online communities, and QA platforms with your target audience active there are great options for content distribution: As a rule, people look for answers there, and you can give them by referring to your relevant assets.
Quora and Reddit are the two most popular platforms able to give you a boost in content shares. Both have different categories where users ask questions and discuss issues, so you can go to relevant topics and provide insightful responses with a link to your resource for more details.
The tactic reminds crowd marketing, a promotion technique of increasing sales via recommendations:
- Brand representatives register accounts on social media and topical platforms.
- Using those accounts, they participate in discussions and share practical advice, representing their product as a solution. (They don’t sell directly but suggest or recommend trying it.)
- The community clicks the links to learn more and decide on a purchase.
Instead of product recommendations, you can use this tactic for content promotion: Share your assets as educational or informative resources to help users find answers to their questions.
While this way of distributing content requires time and effort, it’s perfect for increasing the authenticity and transparency of your brand. How to use it?
- Find relevant questions and forum discussions.
- Come up with an insightful response. (Don’t post similar replies to different issues to avoid spam accusations and build your expertise.)
- Add a link to your content related to your posted answer. Build your message in a way it would motivate a reader to click your link. (Be honest; avoid manipulations.)
This content distribution channel helps you with brand awareness, credibility, and user engagement. Using relevant forums and online communities regularly, you can also generate leads with your responses.
7) Review websites
Enter third-party review websites to distribute content and build your brand credibility and trust. They provide a platform to share product reviews, product descriptions, and brand success stories for user engagement and lead generation.
G2 Crowd, Capterra, Top Ten Reviews, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and Manta — all invite users to write reviews or rate their favorite brands. Register at those relevant to your industry or product category, and create your brand page there.
Not only is it an extra opportunity to distribute content, but it’s a chance to influence the purchasing decision-making process of your target audience. People trust reviews and testimonials, often reading them before making a purchase.
That said, this content distribution channel also works as an actionable marketing tool for your business.
Key Takeaways
Content distribution strategy is essential for your marketing campaign success: No matter how comprehensive and valuable your info is, it won’t bring results if no one knows about it.
With so many content distribution channels available, it’s critical to choose the right and most relevant ones for your assets. In this post, you’ve got seven to consider. (More than that, this post is an example of using one. Can you guess it?) Now it’s time to give them a try!
