18 Content Distribution and Dissemination “If consumers don’t see/hear/watch/listen to it, it won’t make a sound.” Creating great, persuasive, educational, entertaining, informative, and compelling content is important, but it isn’t enough It is critically important to get content “out there,” to online and other digital channels You must develop strategies for content distribution and dissemination that will get your content in front of its target audience as effectively and with as much visibility as possible Publishing content on a website, on a blog, or on a social network can indeed be effective, but it shouldn’t stop there A strong distribution/dissemination strategy creates opportunities to greatly amplify the impact and the reach of the content It’s the tree falling in the woods theory, as applied to content marketing If consumers don’t see/hear/watch/listen to it, it won’t make a sound 152 Part III G e t t i n g Ta c t i c a l : C o n t e n t N u t s & B o l t s Additionally, publishing, and publicizing content on additional platforms, such as social networks, websites, and other digital media channels, regardless of what they are, automatically conveys search engine optimization (SEO) benefits Not only will content be more findable to its intended audience when it appears on more platforms, it will be more findable by search engines Links will be created to and from your website or relevant web presence that can help boost visibility for the piece of content in question and possibly for a site or blog in general Finally, maximizing the channels where content appears increases its chances for viral pass-alongs But it also increases the chances that members of a social or business network, an email list, or subscribers to a newsletter or RSS feed are exposed to the content Better yet, making content available to multiple channels increases the chances that people seeing the content will virally distribute it to their own lists of contacts, followers, or networks What follows are some best-practice strategies for getting content “out there.” Contribute Certainly your own website, blog, Facebook page, and other content channels are taking up plenty of your time, as well they should But that’s no excuse for underestimating the value of contributing content to properties you don’t own or control to increase visibility and gain new audiences you may not otherwise have attracted • Publications—A key component of contributed content is published bylined articles, editorials, or columns in relevant editorial publications (online or off) These can be industry, trade print or broadcast publications in your area of expertise They also can be business journals, local news publications, or anything that’s relevant to your business or goals One of the strongest reasons to pursue this path is that editorial media outlets have editorial controls The information they publish automatically conveys a higher level of authority and quality given there are hurdles to overcome in the editorial process • Blogs—The same path can be taken with relevant blogs (many of which have higher levels of readership than more “traditional” publications) Again, guest blogging on relevant sites creates more awareness and can build new audience segments Guest blogging also creates valuable links back to your own site or content Don’t forget to reciprocate by inviting guest bloggers to contribute to your own blog, as well Finally, keep track of content you publish on external sites Blogs and online newspapers and magazines almost always have comment sections As an author, you have a responsibility to monitor the discussions around your contribution and to contribute to the discussion around the issues you raised Chapter 18 Content Distribution and Dissemination 153 Promote Go social when contributed content is published, whether on a blog or in a more traditional news outlet There’s absolutely no excuse not to promote your content For instance, tweet a teasing heading and a link, or add summaries and links to social networking sites and to news aggregation and social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon In addition to creating and amplifying awareness for your own content, you’re helping to drive traffic to the source that published your content contribution They’ll appreciate it As discussed in Chapter 11, “Content and SEO,” the value of an online press release has increased exponentially online Press release that go out over wire services create additional links, boost SEO, and are often picked up automatically by portal news sites (not just editorial sites and blogs) Disseminating content online, therefore, involves rethinking what’s newsworthy in terms of making a formal press announcement Moreover, archiving news releases on a website or on a digital media center creates internal links that boost content visibility So when you’ve created and published content on a third-party site, be proud of it—support it with a press release! Of course, there’s always the chance the press release will serve its more traditional purpose: getting that content noticed, picked up, and linked to by yet another news source Syndicate via RSS Feeds It’s likely that content is being published on a regular basis on several sections of your website or sites Blogs, press releases, new product announcements, podcasts, and a YouTube channel are just a few examples of areas that are frequently or regularly updated RSS (which stands for either rich site summary or really simple syndication—take your pick) allows newsreaders and aggregators to scrape headlines, summaries, and links off websites for syndication RSS has long been used to syndicate news content and financial information such as stock quotes More recently, it’s become standard operating procedure for blogs Organizations are turning to RSS to issue events listings, project updates, and corporate announcements There are RSS feeds that can track eBay listings, products on Amazon, packages sent via major courier services, project management activities, forum/listserve posts, “RSS is an invaluable tool for getting content out there, rather than simply building it and hoping they will come.” 154 Part III G e t t i n g Ta c t i c a l : C o n t e n t N u t s & B o l t s recently added downloads, search results, a book’s revision history—you name it If it’s online, and particularly if it’s frequently updated, it’s almost certainly RSS-able RSS is an invaluable tool for getting content out there, rather than simply building it and hoping they will come Make sure you push content, or links to content, out on social networks, forums and discussion sites However, don’t forget the old standards for content pushing, like good, old-fashioned email, which still works perfectly well both for announcements and newsletters with links back to online content There are also numerous ways to repurpose content from one channel into another For example, a webinar can be recorded as a video and published on your own website or YouTube Going further still, tools such as Tubemogul can push that same video to some 30 video sharing sites More ways to repurpose content are examined in Chapter 23, “Listening…and Responding.” ... There’s absolutely no excuse not to promote your content For instance, tweet a teasing heading and a link, or add summaries and links to social networking sites and to news aggregation and social... external sites Blogs and online newspapers and magazines almost always have comment sections As an author, you have a responsibility to monitor the discussions around your contribution and to... question and possibly for a site or blog in general Finally, maximizing the channels where content appears increases its chances for viral pass-alongs But it also increases the chances that members