Content distribution is how you share and promote content across platforms to amplify your reach, engage your target audience, and ultimately, grow your brand.
Social media strategists and digital marketing leaders are looking for ways to tap into the power of their network to distribute content beyond their own brand channels to increase reach and drive more engagement.
However, there’s only so much you can post on your brand’s social media without overcrowding your feed and exhausting followers.
Why Go Beyond Your Brand’s Content Distribution Channels
Drive More Revenue: When channels associated with your brand share your posts, 10X more eyeballs see your great content. Greater visibility drives event attendance, ticket sales, merchandise sales, and more.
Provide Value to Sponsors/Partners: Sponsors now expect digital activation and deliverables as part of agreements. When your sponsors can see proof of their brand being used, you increase the likelihood of garnering more sponsorships and raising more money from that channel.
Increase Reach, Visibility, and Engagement: People follow people, not brands. Distributing existing content to channels associated with your brand who have a significant following exposes your content to a wider audience with larger social networks who can amplify your message and help you attract new followers, which increases brand awareness and drives more engagement.
Better ROI on Content Marketing Efforts: Brands can only post so much on their own channels. Promoting content and telling their own stories alongside your brand channels empowers your ecosystem with every social media post.
Improved Efficiency & Scalability: Leveraging your network’s existing audience’s, tapping into their network, activating fans and stakeholders allows you to work smarter not harder. You’re also able to get more content in front of the right audience at the right time.
Build Your “Beyond” Content Distribution Strategy
Here are the actionable steps you can take to create a content distribution strategy:
Identify Your Primary Goals: To drive more revenue, start by understanding what makes your viewers click. The goal is clear — you want eyes on the prize from every conceivable angle, which translates to more engagement and, critically, more sales. Visibility can be a game-changer, and with sponsors and partners relying on digital activation, leveraging a network that extends your reach can serve mutual benefits.
Potential Content Marketing Strategy Goals:
- Increase event attendance, ticket, and merchandise sales.
- Provide tangible value to sponsors and partners.
- Amplify message reach and deepen audience engagement.
- Generate a better return on content marketing investments.
- Increase organic traffic to website or certain landing pages
- Enhance campaign efficiency and scalability.
Tap Into Your Network: Decide which stakeholders on what social media platforms you believe will give you greatest opportunities for amplifying your message and expanding your reach in your distribution plan. For example, if you’re a sports brand, you could share content with athletes and coaches. If you’re a hotel brand, you could share content with individual property managers.
Equip Your Ecosystem: Empower your sponsors, athletes, celebrities, and other stakeholders with the content they can share on their networks. When they tell your story on their social media channels, it becomes more relatable and compelling to their audience. Provide them with:
- Customizable content in sharable formats that aligns with their personal or brand narrative.
- Clear CTAs for every piece of content that drive direct action from followers.
- Toolkits or guidelines for maintaining messaging consistency across all types of content.
Deliver Symbiotic Value: Your content promotion and distribution strategy must serve your external channels’ interests just as much as your own. Here’s what you can offer:
- Data Sharing: Show sponsors concrete engagement metrics.
- Brand Expansion: Allow athletes and celebrities to align with your esteemed brand.
- Exclusivity: Give influencers first dibs on launching new content pieces.
Monitor & Optimize: The power of data post content creation is in its interpretation and subsequent actions. Keep a close eye on engagement metrics and alignment with your key performance indicators (kpis) to adjust your strategy where needed to ensure that all partners are benefiting. Use metrics such as:
- Engagement rates.
- Traffic referrals.
- Conversion rates.
You will also know what content to repurpose and what content to retire the next time you run a campaign or create your next monthly content calendar.
A successful content distribution strategy recognizes the strength in numbers. By collaborating with external channels that resonate with your brand, you create a powerful alliance that extends your reach, invigorates your content marketing efforts, and ultimately, drives revenue. Remember, your ultimate goal is not just to display your high-quality content on different channels, but to ensure it reverberates across the digital landscape, making the maximum impact where it truly matters.
Get Started with the Right Content Distribution Tools
Ready to stop guessing and start scaling your content distribution strategy? Get started with the right marketing tools: Try PhotoShelter and Socialie today.