‍‍In the digital age, your content's journey doesn't end with creation; it actually begins. The battlefield of content marketing is vast, and standing out requires more than just quality writing or engaging visuals. It demands a masterful distribution strategy that ensures your content doesn't just exist but thrives and reaches the audience it deserves.

This guide is your compass in the world of content distribution, exploring the content distribution strategies and channels that will amplify your content's impact from inception to afterlife.

Setting the Stage: Pre-Production Planning

Keywords and Topics: Your content's voyage begins long before it takes form. It comes down to researching and producing content people actually want to consume. Think value, problem-solving, entertaining, differentiated, or just plain old better.

Understanding Your Market: A deep dive into your market's needs, preferences, and content consumption habits will guide your content's tone, format, and channels of distribution.

Collaborations: Collaborating with influencers, brands, and thought leaders can extend your content's reach. For example, a podcast interview or listicle blog post mentioning 10 brands or influencers has potential distribution baked in, as people love to share content that’s all about them.

Trending News and Angles: Leveraging trending topics or news can catapult your content to the forefront. It's about being at the right place at the right time with the right angle.

Quality content: No matter how good your distribution, if the content sucks then people will leave and it won't achieve its mission of engaging audiences, and converting them to followers, subscribers, or customers

This foundational phase sets your content up for distribution success, crafting it with the end in mind and ensuring it's primed for visibility and engagement.

Post-Publication: The Distribution Arena

Once your content is polished and ready, the real work begins. Distribution is where strategy meets execution. Here are the channels and tactics to consider:

1. Google Search / Organic

While not usually a quick win, ranking on page one for a relevant keyword with material search volume is one of, if not the best long-term content distribution strategies. 

Despite not actively working on the business for two years, the website for my company Collective Campus still generates about 10,000 users per month and over 100 leads thanks to our arsenal of blog posts.

Google Search is the gift that keeps on giving, and unlike social media where you might get an initial surge of views or engagement and then fall to zero, organic traffic often works in the opposite direction.

So how do you rank?

1. Define a relevant keyword for your content

2. Ensure the keyword is generating decent traffic, but isn’t too competitive (unless you have a domain name with strong authority already, which if you’re reading this you probably don’t). Use Google’s Keyword Planner to determine traffic.

3. Optimize your content for this keyword. For example if it’s a blog post ensure the keyword features in the article headline and body content, URL slug, page title, and meta description. 

4. Publish content that is credible, relevant, and useful.

5. Ultimately though, one of if not the biggest determinant of organic traffic is your domain’s authority, and the best way to grow this is through backlinks which can be earned (or bought) by featuring on other websites, especially those with large audiences and strong domain authority.

My numerous articles for Harvard Business Review, where my author blurb points back to my companies, have helped me secure some high-profile backlinks back to my company websites.

2. Third-Party Publications

‍Especially vital for growing audiences, industry-specific publications can introduce your content to engaged readerships.

You might not have a large following on social media and may not have cultivated a large mailing list yet. If that’s the case then you’re probably relying on social media algorithms to find and amplify your voice, which is way more miss than hit.

If this is you, then consider approaching relevant third-party publications and offer your content, preferably as an exclusive - essentially guest posting. 

Ensure the content has at least one backlink to your website to help you build domain authority and rank for your own content in Google search results, but also to help you capture potential leads, customers, and grow your own audience. 

Syndication

You might also engage in syndication agreements with third parties, whereby you post the content on your own channels, but they are free to duplicate it (so long as they use canonical links crediting your version as the original). I’ve done this with publications such as Flying Solo and Kochie’s Small Business Builders.

3. Social Media

‍Don't just share on social media; use relevant hashtags, tag featured companies, people, and engage associates to widen your content's exposure. 

Tailor your message to fit each platform's unique audience and format.

Engage Associates

Say you interviewed a partner from a venture capital firm on your podcast. Don’t just tag them in the post. 

Tag their firm, their colleagues, and maybe some founders from companies the firm has invested in. There is a vested interest in engaging with and perhaps even sharing said content amongst these cohorts of people, so this approach will get you a lot more reach simply tagging the guest alone. 

If you want to go the extra mile, send a personalized message to people on social or via email mentioning the post and that it might be of interest to them. 20VC’s Harry Stebbings is a huge advocate of this approach.

Collaborate on Instagram

If you’re posting on Instagram, relatively new features like Collab posts will post your content onto the wall and feed of collaborators, instantly giving you more reach. 

4. Listicles and Directories

‍Being featured in listicles or directories like Flipboard can boost visibility. Craft content that fits these formats to increase your chances of inclusion.

5. Direct Outreach

‍Personalized emails or LinkedIn messages can significantly enhance reach, especially when targeting influencers or potential collaborators.

I used this approach at my company Collective Campus, and it helped us generate thousands of downloads of our numerous eBooks.

Say we published an eBook called Innovation and the Law. We’d search for CTOs, Digital Transformation leads, and Heads of Innovation at law firms across our target geographies on LinkedIn. We’d then send a short message introducing the eBook with a download link. 

No selling, just providing value. It worked surprisingly well, but the message needs to be short and to the point. Always lead with what’s in it for them.

6. Mailing Lists

‍Your subscribers are your loyal audience. Share your content with them first to build engagement and encourage sharing.

Don’t yet have a mailing list? Why not?

Unlike social media, where your connection to your followers is predicated on a) the social media platform continuing to exist (consider the fall of MySpace or Facebook’s waning popularity), and b) actually serving your content to followers. 

With email, you own the communication channel, and providing you don’t get blocked, get flagged by email filters as spam, and your subscribers don’t unsubscribe, you can rest assured that about 80% or so of your emails will be delivered, and if the quality of your emails is high, 50% or more opened and engaged with.

In a world of ever changing algorithms and social media platform preferences, you can’t afford not to have a mailing list.

7. Paid Ads

‍A mix of paid advertising and organic strategies can propel your content further, depending on your budget and goals. You could distribute your content using ad engines from Meta, Google, Instagram, X, and others. You need to be conscious of the budget/spend, target ROI, and unit economics.

For example, if I spend $1,000 on advertising a new Ebook, and it generates 500 downloads, 50 of which convert to customers worth $50, then I've made $2,500, earning $2.50 for every $1 spent. If the math doesn't stack up and you don't have a big budget to spend on building brand awareness, you might want to reconsider this approach and focus on content which is essentially free and permissionless.

8. Warm Ties and Online Communities

‍Engage with groups and communities related to your content. Platforms like Reddit or specific Facebook groups can be goldmines for targeted distribution.

When I published my first book on Amazon, The Innovation Managers Handbook vol 2, I reached out to Paul Williams who curated a massive LinkedIn group for corporate innovation professionals at the time. 

I had already cultivated a relationship with Paul by having him on my podcast, Future Squared. 

He agreed to share my book with his audience, featuring it in the group, and literally overnight, his doing so was fundamental in my book getting thousands of downloads and rocketing to number in its target categories. 

9. Repurposing for Different Platforms

‍Adapt your content for various formats—videos, podcasts, infographics—to maximize its reach across different platforms.

A video podcast episode on YouTube, for example, could become a blog post, a transcript, an audio podcast episode for Spotify and Apple Podcasts, a library of short videos for TikTok, and Instagram, and perhaps a carousel post on LinkedIn with key take-aways. 

I repurpose podcast videos for one of my clients, fintech Parpera, into engaging shorts for social media (below). This practice has single-handedly resulted in the company reaching 26-times more accounts on the platform in less than two months, from 800 to 21,000.

10. Viral Platforms

‍Websites like Hacker News or Product Hunt can send a surge of traffic your way if your content resonates with their communities.

11. Partnerships

‍You might look to join a private group or create a syndicate of your own, comprised of brands and personalities who engage with, share, and promote each other’s content. 

12. Reposting

‍Whatever content you’re producing, chances are you can re-post it as is across different platforms. 

A blog post on your website? Post the article to Medium and LinkedIn. 

A podcast episode on Spotify? Post it to Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. 

A short video on YouTube? Post it to TikTok, Instagram, and X.

The list goes on.

Q: How do I choose the right distribution channels? A: Match your content type, audience preferences, and your marketing goals with the channels that best align with these factors. Experimentation and analytics are key to refining your strategy.

Wrapping Up: The Art and Science of Content Distribution

Mastering content distribution is both an art and a science. 

It requires understanding your audience, leveraging the right channels, and continuously optimizing your approach based on feedback and analytics. 

Remember, the goal is not just to reach a wide audience but to engage and convert them - that’s why quality content matters, as does optimizing your website and channels for conversion. 

Ready to amplify your content's reach? Let's make waves together.

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