Here at AnAesthetic, we subscribe to the philosophy that Content is indeed King. However, 90% of our work isn’t so much producing the content itself, but disseminating. In fact, it’s more than that. It’s also getting it noticed and linked. Usually when someone contacts us, they already appreciate the value of content. In fact, they might even already have a strong idea of what their content should look like, or have even started producing it already. It’s the challenge of how to exploit to their advantage that usually necessitates getting in touch with us.
Lee Odden over at the Online Marketing Blog seems to be able to appreciate this. As he notes:
The key to realizing the linking benefit from creating useful, engaging and unique content is to create channels of distribution. As the network of people paying attention to your web site or blog grows, the greater the number of unsolicited links will occur. The more links, the more traffic and link popularity for rankings on search engines.
Of course, this brings us back to exactly how to build that distribution network. Accordingly, Lee also offers 5 Tip for Content Distribution. We’ve summarized (using Lee’s own words) below, but there’s some additional information in the original post that’s definitely worth checking out. The media are:
Blogging – Blogs can serve as an excellent platform for distributing content because of RSS and the tendency blogs have to freely link to each other.
Media Relations – News organizations be they online or offline, mainstream or blog networks, are always looking for good content and story ideas.
Email – Email newsletters offer an excellent channel of distribution as the publisher or in an advertising capacity.
Social Networking/Media – Networking and word of mouth is the oldest kind of marketing there is and in many cases, still the most effective. Online tools for networking and sharing of information can be leveraged in concert with real-world networking to build an impressive level of connections.
Forums & Discussion Threads – Whether you start a forum yourself, moderate, advertise or simply participate, the exchanges that occur within forums and discussion threads can build credibility that can be leveraged into building blog and newsletter subscribers.
Of all of these, we hold blogging, social networking/media, and media relations to be the strongest. Basically, these three offer a well blended mixture of active Web 2.0 (blogging), passive Web 2.0 (social media), and old fashioned publicity with a touch of link bait (media realtions).
Although forums can be extremely powerful, their value really depends on both your niche market and your resources. On the one hand, certain industries just don’t translate well into forum material. This is particularly the case with industries that will rely on content that is meant to be consumed passively. There just isn’t always a way for the audience to participate directly. For example, a successful blog can be either conducive or not to commenting. A forum demands participation.
Furthermore, forums can often become relatively high-maintenance, and if you don’t have relatively large web team that the moderation duties can be divided amongst, until they build up a respectable user-base (which can take a while) forums can eat away at your time, energy, and attention.
As for e-mail, I haven’t seen any numbers recently, but I see it as a dying marketing medium. Essentially, in addition to spam filters, younger generations are become increasingly immune/desensitized to spam. I believe that this medium’s days are numbered, and usually advise my clients to not invest valuable resources into newsletters and such unless they’ve already amassed a trustworthy and dependable mailing list.
Great post. I absolutely agree that it’s all about distribution.
http://www.britopian.com/2007/01/27/treating-social-media-optimization-as-another-distribution-channel/