You’ve probably heard that content marketing is one of the best marketing strategies today.
Marketer, Neil Patel, is a huge believer in content marketing:
I’ve invested over $30,000 in the creation of my advanced guides, but I give it all away. At first, a lot of B2B marketers thought I was missing out on the short-term rewards, which I totally understood. But, my focus is on long-term profit via quality lead generation, content marketing ROI, and strong email marketing campaigns.
I’ve made 10x what I invested to create those high quality guides, so far…
Maybe you’ve invested in content marketing. Maybe you’ve done some sharing on social media with that content.
And…maybe you haven’t gotten the results you’re looking for from either.
Content distribution is a big part of content marketing. It’s usually the point where people get frustrated. They have the content, but they can’t get it to the target audience. Even when they share it on social media it seems like nobody is engaging.
Here are some tips for using social media for your content distribution.
1. Native Content
I’m guilty of not following this one, but I’ve been working on getting better at it and I’m seeing the results.
Social media sites do all they can to keep their users on their sites. For some people Facebook is the entire Internet.
I heard someone talking about the early days of the Internet when most people logged on with AOL. They got their news, email and pretty much everything right on AOL. They never left that platform for other sites.
That’s how Facebook is now. Not many people are clicking on links to articles or YouTube videos or anything like that. They want to stay on Facebook. And Facebook does all it can to keep people there.
So the first rule with distributing to social channels is to post native content.
Post your entire article on the channel. Or upload your video directly to the channel.
The big mindset shift is that you’re branding. You’re not trying to get traffic to your website. That will come in other ways, but only if people know that your brand exists.
2. Right Content for the Right Audience Mindset
The next tip is creating the type of content that people on social media actually want to see.
Hint: It’s not sales content.
Yet many of the posts you see businesses posting and distributing on social media is about themselves. Their products. Their services. Them. Them. Them.
Then they complain about not getting any traction with their social media efforts.
I ask businesses that do this what they do when they’re on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. They say that they’re looking for what they’re friends are doing. They’re looking for the news. They’re looking for information about life. Funny things. Entertainment. A little education. Learn something new.
I almost never hear them say, “Products and Sales Materials”…
Sharing content on social media or creating content for social media is just about earning the attention of people. To do that you have to focus on the type of content they want to see on those channels.
On Twitter it’s probably news. On Facebook it’s information about life. On Instagram it’s moments from life or cool feats. On LinkedIn, it’s education about the working world.
Entertainment and Education. That’s the focus. Not sales.
3. Target More Than Customers
This one throws most people for a loop, but I think Rand is right when he talks about creating content for customers, influencers, journalists, etc.
Content marketing and distributing the content on social media is about more than your customer. It’s about anyone that might have influence over your customer.
Why write content that journalists and bloggers are interested in?
If they find your content interesting they may mention it in their content. That raises the profile of your brand and can increase awareness and searches around your brand. It can show search engines that your brand is worthy of higher rankings.
It’s indirect influence that can have a great long-term effect.
4. Hashtags
These get overlooked. Some people look down on them. Others only use funny hashtags that nobody is following.
I’m here to tell you that they work. And most social sites use them. I don’t know many people on Instagram that have grown large followings without using hashtags.
Here are some to get your started:
Top 10 Hashtags For Entrepreneurs
10 Top Hashtags For Software Companies
20 Hashtags To Use On LinkedIn
5. Consistent Outbound Engagement
By this I mean doing the things you wish others on social media would do for you. Commenting on your posts. Liking your posts. Sharing your posts.
Why expect others to do it for your content when you’re not consistently doing it for others?
Make it a habit at your company to engage with the content of others. And there’s a key point here – you’re not just jumping into a conversation and talking about yourself or pointing our your own content.
You’re adding to their content. You’re telling them how good of a job they’re doing. You’re resharing their content. You’re making them look good.
6. Guesting & Partnerships
Like Hashtags, this tip is about expanding your reach on social media beyond your own followers.
Instead of creating a piece of content, like a video or podcast, by yourself, find a partner to create it with. Then you can both distribute it to social media and you get both of your audiences exposed to each of you.
You don’t even have to create the content for your own channels. Write guest posts. Be a guest on podcasts. Be a guest on video podcasts or interview for blog posts. Provide the best content you can so that it does really well for the brand that owns the content.
7. Patience
I’ll end with the word “patience”.
You’re not going to get viral content on social media right away. Look at the brands you admire on social media. Chances are they’ve been working on their content distribution for a long time. Many years.
You’re looking at the same type of timeline.
Conclusion
There are some big mindset changes in order if you’re looking at content distribution on social media. These days a big one is not just sharing the link to your blog post on social media. It’s about publishing that blog post natively on social media. It’s about uploading your video directly to Facebook.
Follow these tips and you will have better success with your content distribution on social media.