Consultant helping B2B SaaS companies establish and grow their Content Brand | SaaS marketing leader | Dad x5 | Shoots 85% from the free throw line
Distribution isn’t a tactic, it’s a strategy. Most advice I see around distribution is just a list of tactics. 🥱 Post a Twitter thread 🥱 Post on LinkedIn 🥱 Post on Facebook 🥱 Post to Reddit 🥱 Post to relevant Facebook groups, etc., etc. This is “check the box” distribution. Doing this alone won’t move the needle. Distribution is about how you structure the content in the first place. ⭐️ Are there quotes that can be pulled out into individual promotions? ⭐️ Are there insights that can be broken up into unique pieces of content and shared natively? ⭐️ Is there original data that can be pulled out to tell its own story? ⭐️ Are there different media types than can be leveraged? These aren’t things that can be tacked on afterward. But, when you bake these types of things into the actual content, it creates natural distribution breakpoints in everything you publish. Then, it doesn't feel like you're distributing content but instead creating "new" content for each channel. Does your content have natural distribution breakpoints baked in?
I always think of Andy Crestodina's point that a partner in content creation is a partner in content distribution. Leveraging experts (like you typically would for a big piece of content like a report) opens up so many more doors for getting eyes on that content as they can help distribute and promote as well. It also gives you opportunity to interview them for videos, open up more partnerships around guest posts, etc.
Most strategies are just a list of tactics. Strategy has been long forgotten
This is so important! Companies treat content distribution as an afterthought—a lazy approach that only gets lousy results. When you have it as part of the creation process, it makes your content much more intentional and your distribution results much more lucrative. Simply posting on different social platforms doesn't cut it. I especially love how Klaviyo shares what their long-form posts are about in social media videos (CC: Tracey Wallace)—that's content distribution baked right in with a good splash of creativity!
Thanks for sharing John Bonini - really great reminder for many marketers that reusing content doesn't need to be a boring copy and paste - and most already have enough content to last much longer than they think..
The biggest thing I find holding people back from doing this (trust me, everybody *wants* to do this kind of work) is companies pushing them to publish too fast. If you're asking an IC to publish multiple pieces of content per week and bake in amplification and distribution (and do it with best in class effort), they can't sustain that for long. The result is, more often than not, going to be more commodity content.
To follow up on your points, some other distribution and content amplification questions we've seen successful brands ask and then pull them off successfully: ⭐️ Is there a thought leader, followed by our target audience, that we can quote or somehow include in our content piece - because they often discuss a similar topic or have a similar POV? ⭐️ Is there a way we can tie this content piece into an ongoing event, or campaign that's already getting traction, so we can feed the traction back to the content piece itself?
Totally agree with you on this one John Bonini. I remember writing an article similar to this a few weeks ago and the way I described it was something along the lines of "starting with the end in mind." Basically, for every major piece of content you create, instead of writing or shooting and then randomly looking for parts to cut out and repost, right from the start, bake distributable insights into the article, video, podcast, etc. To make this a repeatable process, you can insert a note for distribution in every outline or script. At the management level, editors/content managers can look out for distribution notes before approving an outline for execution. That way, you're not stuck reposting irrelevant pieces of the content just to check boxes. Instead, you're strategically sharing insightful bits and pieces of information from the larger asset.
I like this. Baking distribution tactics into the creation process itself, not an after thought. I’ve always thought about this in terms of starting with a long form piece of editorial content and then rechunking insights from that piece into a variety of assets for different channels (I don’t mean just sharing the link to the article across channels, though) 🙂
Content repurposing is a tricky activity, but it is well worth the time. Every channel/network has its own own psychology. Some overlap, others don't, but distribution shouldn't be neglected, otherwise you're shooting your own leg
I build and execute content strategies for sales-led B2B SaaS startups that sell complex solutions to large buying teams. | Former Inc. 5000 marketing director | Mom x 3
1yYes! I love how you're talking about baking distribution into the content strategy from the start. I do this on two levels. First, my model starts with big content (like a report), which I use first and foremost to support/validate the company story via videos, social posts, blogs, etc. One report can easily inform a year of content. Second, I have a similar process for writing "medium" size content like long-form blogs or e-books so it's easy to chunk up and repurpose in video form, social posts, carousels, etc.