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You spend thousands of dollars and countless hours creating insightful content for your target audience. But it doesn’t convert if they never see it. Trying to execute a content strategy without considering distribution is like trying to kayak without a paddle. Sure, if you're lucky, the current might take you where you want to go, but you’re more likely to get there with the right tools.
Learning the basics of content distribution will help you promote your blog posts, videos, social media feeds, and other resources. Effectively promoting your content improves your chances of connecting with the right audience, which increases conversions and your return on investment.
What Is Content Distribution in Marketing?
Content distribution involves strategically promoting your content on digital marketing channels to make sure you reach the right audience. Instead of posting a video and hoping people find it, you research your target audience and promote yourself.
Strategically promoting your content across multiple channels increases its online visibility. Using platforms that appeal to your target audience improves your chances of finding people to engage with your content.
For example, if your target audience is active on Instagram, promoting videos through paid ads helps you reach interested customers who may not be familiar with your brand. If they like your content, they might comment or share it with others.
When your content resonates with your target audience, they are more likely to make a purchase, and you get a higher conversion rate.
How Distribution Fits Into the Content Marketing Lifecycle
It’s tempting to push digital content distribution strategies aside until you’ve finished your work. But you’re more likely to see success if you plan out your content distribution channels ahead of time.
The typical content lifecycle includes:
- Ideation: Generating ideas based on target audience research
- Creation: Making your content, for example, writing a blog post or shooting a video
- Distribution: Promoting your content to various target audiences
- Measurement: Using metrics to determine your success level
Instead of waiting until you’ve created your content, start thinking about potential distribution channels during the ideation process. You build a great content strategy by understanding your target audience and their behaviors, which includes their online habits.
In the ideation stage, define your primary goal and research your target audience. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness and your target audience is local singles aged 18-24, you’ll create informational content centered around keywords that resonate with this demographic.
Since you know young people typically like watching fun, engaging videos, you might shoot a video series. If you know they enjoy scrolling through Instagram Reels and TikTok, you can use these tools to distribute the video. When you’ve chosen your distribution channels upfront, you can consider what works best for each platform while creating your content, rather than having to reformat it later.
The Three Pillars of Content Distribution
Content distribution isn’t limited to your digital platforms. You don’t have to exclusively toot your own horn. You can partner with others to promote your content and broaden your reach. Content distribution falls into three categories.
- Owned media
- Earned media
- Paid media
Owned Media
Owned media refers to any channels you control, including your blog, website, newsletter, gated content, and social media. Promoting content on owned channels gives you full control of your messaging. It’s also an affordable way to publish consistently.
Engaging your audience through owned media channels strengthens your relationships with customers and positions you as a trusted expert on the topic.
Earned Media
Earned media refers to the organic distribution of your content through your networks. This includes user-generated content, social media mentions, influencer coverage, and public relations coverage in third-party articles.
Since people share this content organically, it gives you more credibility with your target audience. Earned media broadens your reach by connecting you to people outside your owned channels.
Paid Media
Sometimes, you need help finding your target audience online, which is where paid media comes in. This refers to sponsored social media posts, digital ads, and paid partnerships with influencers or other brands.
Paid media enables you to bypass organic impressions, extending your reach and enhancing brand awareness. It usually produces results faster than owned and earned media.
Now that you understand the fundamentals of content distribution, it’s time to explore how to do it.
Step 1 – Define Audience and Goals First
Use your overall business and content marketing goals to start your distribution strategy. For example, if your goal is to increase revenue, consider targeting high-intent users at the conversion stage of the funnel. These individuals are ready to make a purchase, and the right piece of content could inspire them to take action.
Once you know who you want to reach and what action you want them to take, it's time to do some research. Learn where your target customer engages online and what motivates them to click on a link.
Define key audience characteristics, including their:
- Age range
- Location
- Income and education level
Start by assessing your website and social media analytics. If you have a customer database, use a client relationship management system to segment your audience by behavior, such as frequent shoppers and one-time shoppers.
Use this information to select the digital channels most likely to reach your best customers. If you’re considering earned media, research which blogs, online publications, and podcasts appeal to your target audience. Consider partnering with a publicist to pitch your content to media contacts. Or cultivate relationships with popular people in your industry.
Step 2 – Define the Right Channels for Your Content
Promoting content isn’t always as simple as sharing a Facebook link whenever you publish a new blog. Your content strategy likely encompasses a variety of formats, including blogs, infographics, podcasts, videos, case studies, and more. Match the format to its most appropriate distribution channel.
For example, an infographic is easy to reformat and share on Instagram, but it’s more challenging to turn it into an entertaining short-form video.
Focus your distribution strategy by matching the best platforms with each piece of content to the most effective platforms for your target audience. Taking a scattershot approach can help you reach a broader audience, but a tailored strategy is more likely to help you target the right individuals.
Step 3 – Build a Distribution Timeline
Your audience is seeing digital content daily through multiple channels. Distributing your content consistently helps you break through the volume of competitors. People engage with content differently throughout the day.
When you’re researching your most effective content channels, learn how people use each platform, including the best time to post. For example, most social media platforms are active between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. during the week. Schedule your posts to appear on social media during this timeframe to maximize traction.
Posting consistently also builds audience trust and loyalty, particularly if they enjoy your content. Consider your favorite podcast. You might have an alert set so you never miss a new episode. If the creator doesn’t post regularly, you can easily lose interest and turn off your alerts.
Make a content marketing calendar to track which pieces you’re promoting and where. Promote timely content in daily social posts or weekly round-ups. Share evergreen content in newsletters or use it as gated content to encourage people to send you their contact information.
Step 4 – Measure the Success of Your Distribution Efforts
Effective content distribution is a process of trial and error. Track your results and tweak your strategy with each campaign.
Key Performance Indicators to Track
Make sure you’re hitting your targets by tracking:
- Organic website traffic
- Traffic sources
- Engagement
- Lead generation
- Conversions
- Brand mentions
- Follower growth
These metrics will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you’re not seeing an uptick in website traffic from a specific social media site, rethink your targeting strategy. Choose your target audience’s second-favorite app and promote your blog on social media to see if you get a bump.
Tools for Measuring Content Distribution
A combination of free and paid content promotion tools is available to track metrics. Start with Google Analytics. If you have a Search Console tool, connect it to Google Analytics 4 for performance tracking, custom reports, and useful insights.
Many website-building platforms have analytics tools that show you how people are finding you online and what they’re doing on your site. Other sites, such as WordPress, use plug-ins to track analytics.
Search engine optimization (SEO) tools provide data on your keywords. Track your ranking for targeted keywords and compare your results to those of your competitors. Use these tools for new suggestions if you’re not getting results with your chosen keywords.
Consider AI-powered analytics platforms for deep audience insights, predictive and behavioral analysis, and detailed engagement tracking. Some of these platforms will also optimize your content automatically before distributing it.
Best Practices To Maximize Reach and Engagement
Posting high-quality content consistently is your best option for maximizing reach and engagement. Understanding your audience enough to know what they value will help you create pieces that resonate. People tend to share high-value content that they find helpful.
Even with the best content, you still need a targeted distribution strategy to reach your goals. Get more traffic to your blog by following these best practices.
Repurpose Content for Multiple Platforms
If you have a great piece of content, make it work harder for you. Turn your most successful blog post into an Instagram carousel or a video series on YouTube. Cut a webinar into smaller pieces for TikTok.
Spin a broad piece of long-form content into a collaboration. For example, approach a podcast host with a case study that fits into their topic library.
Repurposing content expands your reach and engagement levels in less time than starting from scratch. It exposes your brand to people who may not have engaged with the original content. Someone who doesn’t know of your company won’t be a current blog subscriber, but they might find you through an Instagram carousel.
Add Context and Commentary
It’s easy to find a stock photo, create a link, and hit “publish” on social media, but that approach isn’t very appealing to an audience. Instead, add an actionable caption and encourage your audience to engage. Invite them to discuss the post in the comments or share it on their social media.
This personalizes each post and makes it more palatable to your audience. Adding context also helps your SEO efforts, as you can incorporate strategic keywords and metadata.
Optimize Distribution for SEO and Social Algorithms
Use keyword research to boost organic traffic on the posts that promote your content. Organize your content with clear headings and subheadings. Break up content walls with photos, infographics, and block quotes. Enhance the user experience by testing your content on a mobile device before you post it.
Research best practices for each platform to help the algorithm find your posts. For example, high-quality images and strategic hashtags can make you more visible to Instagram users.
On TikTok, it’s better to post short videos with a strong opening hook. Add a combination of general and specific hashtags to help more people find your posts.
Turning Distribution Into a Repeatable Growth Engine
Successful content distribution includes a mix of owned, earned, and paid media. For best results, align your distribution channels with your goals.
- Nurture customer relationships and build trust by engaging people on your owned channels.
- Extend your reach while establishing your reputation as a go-to expert through earned channels.
- Quickly boost your content through paid channels.
Nailing content distribution exposes your brand to a wider range of potential customers. It helps you increase your return on investment by reaching more qualified leads on the right channels. You spend a lot of time on your content. Distribution makes it more successful. Plan for distribution at the early stages of content development to effectively target potential clients.
Having original content ready to publish makes it easier to post consistently. If you need help developing original content that speaks to your audience, hire a writer at Compose.ly. Tap into our network of pre-vetted writers to find your best match.
Contact us today to learn more.
And if you want more advice, check out this webinar on distributing and repurposing content with Compose.ly's head of marketing, Nicole Maclean. She talks to Rachel Downey, founder and CEO of Share Your Genius, and Jonathan Gandolf, founder and CEO of The Juice.
