How to Proliferate Content

So you develop this really cool content…

Now what?

For many brands it means publishing the content on their digital and social channels – blog, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. – and then waiting for people to interact and share it.

Sometimes this works, but sometimes it doesn’t.

The reason is because having a content strategy for owned digital channels is more than just producing the content – even though that’s become the primary focus for most brands.

There is no doubt that creating content – and creating good content – is the key to any content marketing strategy.  But creating content isn’t enough.

To produce and proliferate digital content there are three areas of focus:

1. Production

This is the creative side.  The brainstorms!  The ideas!

Brands are teaming with fascinating stories and cool campaigns – and there are dozens of ways to bring these narratives to life (presentations, blog posts, events, videos, applications, infographics, cartoons, websites – you name it really).  How to tell these stories and bring these campaigns to life is what production is all about.  It is creating the content.

Most brands get the production side of thing.  They understand that it takes content to create a TV ad.  It takes content to fill social networks.  It takes content to build an iPhone application.  It takes content to write a blog post.

Content, content everywhere…

2. Syndication

But once you have your content – what do you do with it?  How do you distribute it?  How do you get people to interact and share it?  That’s your syndication strategy.  And it is as diverse, complex and creative as producing the content in the first place.

Why?

Because there are so many ways to distribute content – from traditional modes such as marketing, PR and advertising to amazing new ways via social networks, social advertising, applications, blogger relations, and search optimization.

The key to a successful syndication strategy is to understand your audience.  Where are they?  How do they find content?  What makes them share it?  The successful syndication process works best when it is a mix of social, search, public relations and communications and advertising.

Syndication = discovery.

3. Integration

Content does best in crowds, which is why it should live in many places.

Stand-alone content can work, of course.  Like a blog post.  Have a great idea for a post and you can publish it on your blog.  But if you really want to get it noticed why not think about integration?  How does the content fit in other areas of your marketing and communications – as an event, as a op-ed, as a video, as a Facebook status update.

How can the content you created be integrated into other formats?  How can it be used across platforms?

Can it support or is it being supported by other content?  Is it part of something larger?  Better yet can the content itself be the center of a larger campaign?

Syndication and integration components are essential to content creation.  Adding them to the mix gives every brand what they want from content:

• Engagement

• Sharing

• And, of course, passionate and loyal customers

What do you think?  Are you all about content?  Have you thought about syndication and integration?

Links:

7 Tips for Getting Your Content Noticed

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