Without a content distribution strategy, why bother to publish?

Today, anyone that posts content on their website and simply expects people to find it there is delusional.

There is just too much noise, nonsense and distraction clamoring for internet users attention. As a result, it’s increasingly difficult for any really good content to stand out, get noticed or get found—especially without a content distribution strategy.

The market changed your business. What about you?

Like it or not, just about any business must now confront a new reality if they want to market their product or service online. Because whatever business you’re in today, you must now figure out how you’ll be in both the publishing and media business too.

What does that have to do with you or your organization? Well, everything.

After you publish, then what?

To succeed these days, you’re going to have offer prospects and customers more than your product or service.

As leading authority, Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and author of Epic Content Marketing points out, defining, creating and deploying content that your prospects and customers will find relevant, educational or entertaining is now required.

Be forewarned. Stepping up to meet this requirement is no small undertaking. But if you approach this requirement with a structured Content Marketing strategy to tell your story, chances are you’re headed in the right direction to succeed.

Publishing alone, however, is only half of the story. It’s a fact that plenty of organizations still aren’t sure how to distribute the expensive content they create or what to say to any of their social media communities.

Without a story, it’s not worth much

Authors, writers, and artists understand that storytelling is much more than just a pile of sentences strung together with a few arresting headlines. Your story (if you’ve invested in developing one) becomes engaging by taking people on a journey. Here, characters and content reflect our lives, desires, and aspirations.

If great content built around your story online is the new bait, then social media is one of the many channels that can attract people to it. But make no mistake, social media is competing with email, pay-per-click ads, search results, and even traditional media as one of the ever-growing list of channels available for distributing your message—and value.

How Social + SEO extend reach

According to a recent content marketing survey by the UK’s Direct Marketing Association and CMI, 90% of marketers use social media outlets other than blogs as a content distribution channel. Interestingly, 78% do use blogs and another 52% rely on publishing white papers on their websites.

Social media and consistent content creation work hand in hand to provide the people you’re trying to influence or inform with a reason to follow you in the first place.

SEO also works alongside social media and must be strategically aligned and integrated with it. As search engines continue to refine and modify their algorithms, old-school techniques like back-linking and keyword stuffing are becoming much less effective.

Plan on how to spread it around before you publish.

If you spend hours writing your latest blog post and then hit ‘upload’ and forget it, you’re wasting precious opportunities to leverage your value and distribute your message.

Your goal should be to map a plan for distribution before you publish. Because when you expose your story to a different channel, it improves the opportunity for others to notice it, share it or respond to it.

Make the biggest impact with your content investments by developing a plan to expand its reach BEFORE you publish. Without this, you’ll ensure your content is worth a lot less.

Your turn

Do you start content creation with a structured distribution plan? How are you faring? Looking forward to what you have to share.