Going back to, say, the mid-2010s, content and SEO were bosom buddies. Appearing highly in search was seen as the pinnacle of brand awareness. And content marketing was considered one of the most powerful tools to get your brand up there, on page one, in front of willing eyeballs.
This is still largely true. The right content – using the right keywords and search awareness – is still great SEO practice and I encourage you to continue it in line with ever-changing search algorithm wisdom.
Yet nowadays, the web is noisier than ever, and only getting noisier. Simply throwing your content onto the web – even when search optimised to the Nth degree – isn’t enough to reliably get it under people’s noses anymore, especially for us SMEs who are competing for attention from big, industry names. It’s a lot harder to achieve lasting results by delegating your content distribution to Google et al.
Content is no longer a case of “if you build it, they will come.”
Let’s look at the current search situation with fresh eyes:
- The internet is – as I said – fuller than ever, so content about well-trodden subjects is going to rub shoulders in the search results with countless other, similar articles. Content about quite direct subjects that don’t allow for nuance and debate are going to start appearing particularly samey.
- Google’s algorithm is getting cleverer by the day, and looks at countless factors to work out where it’s going to rank websites – not just content or “on page” factors.
- In order to rank, small and medium sized businesses need to get clever when it comes to keywords, identifying hyper-specific search terms, search intent, and content gaps. Not always the easiest task when the best tools are hidden behind hefty paywalls!
- Google answers many search questions before you even click through, minimising much of the content’s own brand awareness efforts.
So what can we do to better ensure the distribution of our content, especially on a budget? Don’t worry, because all is not lost.
Search Isn’t The Only Method of Content Distribution
You can’t talk about content distribution nowadays without discussing content formats, and you can’t talk about content formats on the 2020s web without discussing social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, or media sharing platforms like YouTube, Spotify, or TikTok.
Where
But let’s start from the top. Where do your audience hang out online? Where do they go to look for answers, insight, and that dreaded term “thought leadership” relating to your niche? Which spaces are buzzing with conversation about your specialist subjects? And who’s dominating the conversation there at the moment? It might be a competitor!
How do you find this out? Lurk! Online, lurking isn’t as shady as it sounds. Lurking is the act of being present within interactive, online communities, but not as a participant – just an observer. If you have a hunch that competitors or clients in your niche are particularly present on a platform, sign up anonymously and check it out for yourself.
Word to the wise – using an anonymous username here is key. If you don’t gel with that particular platform or the buzz there isn’t as buzzing as you believed, you won’t have an empty, unprofessional-looking profile there that can be tied back to you or your brand. Just sayin’.
What
Now we need to talk about content formats. Obviously, if you’ve identified a particularly vibrant, relevant community somewhere like YouTube or TikTok, then you are sort of destined to create video. If you don’t mind that, great! But if you do, there are still ways to be present there without showing your face or voice – though be aware that creating that human connection does have massive potential.
If you’ve identified an audience at a Quote Unquote Proper social media platform like LinkedIn, Facebook, X, etc., then you have a few more options. These sites are great all rounders in terms of things you can share – blog links, images, videos, and so on.
So these more general social platforms give you a little more flexibility in the content you can create and put out. So what content should you share there?
Time to get your lurking pants on again and explore what types of content get the most engagement. Within your field, and on that platform, do your audience tend to prefer text posts, images, links to blog posts, videos, podcasts, or something else entirely – perhaps presented in a format that is unique to that platform?
This should give you some insight into what content formats may be best to share, and where.
How
Next come the practicalities. These are essential as they can influence some of the bits we’ve already established.
Time is a crucial consideration when beginning (or revamping) a content journey, especially for a small or medium sized business with more limited resources. Which kinds of content do you have time to create – and with regularity? And which type of content is going to cause you the least disruption to create, considering your other roles and responsibilities?
We all work differently so there are other practicalities too – some folks like to think things out carefully and communicate using the written word, perhaps in a format that can easily be edited and updated over time, so blogging would be a natural choice for them. Other folks, who may have dyslexia or simply can’t afford to be tied to a keyboard for hours on end may be better off recording more off-the-cuff podcast or video, provided they have the equipment available to create a polished result.
Which brings us nicely to which content formats are you best set up to create? If you have audio or video recording equipment available, you’ll be in a better place to create more multimedia content than someone without.
And perhaps most importantly – what content formats do you want to create? If you don’t vibe with creating a particular type of content – say you don’t want to appear on video – then don’t force it. I’d encourage you to give it a go, but you don’t have to post the results.
And remember that outsourcing content creation to a content marketer like me, or a video producer, or an audio producer, is always an option if you have the budget.
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