7 Digital Content Distribution Channels Your Brand Can Leverage.

Content creation is exciting and pretty stressful in itself, so how do we manage to create a lot of useful content, yet they soon become an arsenal of stale resources. Every Content Marketer who is interested in producing results from his/her content marketing effort must have a structured content marketing strategy in place which emphasizes the need for proper distribution of all content even after creation and publication. Speaking about strategy, I have no idea how you can win at it without a well laid out plan. What I am sure of is that you must highlight all your content distribution channels before you start creating content. This gives you an insight into the type of audience you are addressing, their struggles, the length of content they will be willing to engage with, and other significant information. Most brands already make use of the very popular social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) so this post won’t be directed towards those platforms. The advent of the internet and increased popularity in the use of mobile devices has led to the creation of mobile applications for virtually all content distribution channels listed below.

Reddit

According to Alexa.com, Reddit is ranked as the 18th most visited website in the world and was said to have 330+ million users in 2019. Do you think what I am thinking? When do you intend to start taking advantage of this platform with an impressive engagement rate? Well, if you are already considering taking a chance on it, I suggest that whatever content you choose to deposit on the platform is pretty engaging and relevant to the Reddit community else you will be left with a high number of downvotes. Amazingly according to the Alexa ranking, this platform ranks higher than both Instagram and Twitter. There is no rule or technical manual for Reddit users, sign up, get familiar with the interface, and use the free platform as one of the content distribution channels for your brand.

Quora

A platform to ask questions or respond to questions other users are asking. How about you create content that gives a perfect answer to questions a large number of people are asking? All you need to do is type a particular keyword or topic in the search bar, check the number of people that have responded to that question; a high volume of responses on a question implies that people are interested in such a topic. If your content addresses a problem they are facing, you can drop a link to your content and a catchy phrase to lead people to visit your website or blog. Asides from posting links and answering questions on Quora, don’t forget to follow other spaces that are of interest to you and your brand; this will give you some form of popularity and authority.

SlideShare

Just like the name implies, SlideShare is a platform that allows you to share slideshows, infographics, presentations, and documents in any of the acceptable formats (PDF, PowerPoint, Word, OpenDocument, Presentations, Videos, and Webinars). Here are some remarkable statistics that should make you wonder why you aren’t yet making use of SlideShare. There are over 38 million registered users, 80 million unique SlideShare users, with 18 million pieces of content shared on the platform, and about 159 million monthly page views. As long as your presentation is loaded with information your audience needs and it has a pretty design, do not hesitate to place such content on SlideShare.

Medium

Medium should not take the place of a brand’s official website. As a small business owner trying to save cost, you might get tempted to use Medium as your primary brand asset apart from your social media pages. Resist such temptation and use the platform for the purpose it was created for -a publishing platform where people can read important, insightful stories on the topics that matter most to them and share ideas with the world. It could pass for a personal blog, but as a brand, you should be using Medium as one among your other content distribution channels to lead people back to your landing page or website.

YouTube

Being the 2nd most popular website on the Alexa ranking and one of the most used search engines in the world, the essence of video content cannot be overemphasized. You can create video content using texts and sounds, animation, tutorials, and human expressions; however, we recommend it shouldn’t be less than 2 minutes long because the longer your video, the higher it will rank. It is also essential to consider the rules of SEO and ranking criteria when putting out your videos on YouTube.

Webinar

If you consider yourself to be very knowledgeable about your industry, why not explore the use of webinars? Let’s take a look at the pecks of hosting a webinar. Your audience is not forced to be a part of the discussion, which means they have joined voluntarily, and you can expect a high level of engagement from them. It is a great way to nurture prospects; people want to be sure that you are as capable as you say you are, so imagine during the Q&A session- you ace all the questions thrown at you. Some form of trust will be built at that point; they will be confident enough to invest in you and expect the returns you have promised. Webinars are a sure way to close sales.

Podcast

As much as people will love to read and engage with your content on your blog, they sometimes don’t have the luxury of time to read through that carefully crafted ‘Everything You Need to Get Started with Email Marketing’ and all those in-depth content you have dished out. You could consider that busy commuter and try to keep him engrossed in your content by also putting it out in an audio format that can be listened to anywhere, anytime, and right on their mobile device? Some tools you can use for your podcast include Anchor FM, Google Podcast, Podbean, Spreaker, and more; it all depends on which serves your purpose.