What good is a killer piece of marketing content if no one ever sees it? No, we’re not trying to be existential (not before we’ve had our morning IV of coffee, anyways), it’s simply a fact that far too many people rely on passive marketing (hoping the audience comes to them) instead of actively pursuing the people they want to reach. Efficient and effective content distribution can make or break your business’s future. Here are a few key apps that will help your killer content hit home.
I’ve never met a client who didn’t salivate a little at the thought of their newly purchased content eventually going viral (and really, what writer doesn’t want to be the wizard behind that curtain), but it’s shocking how few of those very same clients think about how they can help facilitate reader-initiated sharing. AddThis is a multi-layered, user-intuitive tracking technology that can help you increase your audience as well as manage and capitalize on the viewers you eventually amass. You’ll see a jump in your page views, but you’ll also figure out ways to keep those surfers on your site longer, exposing them to more content and more on-brand messaging. Win-reallybigWin.
Almost everyone has at least heard of Hootsuite, and for good reason: It’s simply one of the easiest and most widely applicable content distribution and management tools available to businesses today. To use Hootsuite all you need to do is plug in your social media account information (and we’re talking multi-channel use here, which is awesome), upload your content, check the channels you want to distribute to, and press send. You’ve just potentially reached all your followers on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, and several more. You can view the resulting analytics through a dashboard that keeps each site’s stream separate yet visible side-by-side for comparison’s sake. When it comes to online publishing, it doesn’t get much more streamlined than this.
Sometimes distribution is about throwing content at the Internet and seeing what sticks (anyone who tells you they have a magic formula for creating viral content is lying – unless they’re the masterminds behind Frozen, I suppose…), but more and more it’s less about creating content and then hoping people read it than it is about seeing what people want to read and then creating content to fit. SimpleReach supports the latter by providing users with real-time data that identifies what’s trending on social media now, so you can ride whatever wave is building before it crests and breaks. For those people for whom content distribution is always about being just a little late to the party, SimpleReach can have you strolling into the ballroom at the perfect moment. Finally.
The name is weird, but the tool works, so I recommend keeping this one front and center for whenever you have video content you want to world to actually see. TubeMogul works in a fashion not dissimilar to Hootsuite albeit with a focus on sending videos to the channels best equipped to handle – and distribute – them. You’ll have access to quick distribution, SEO management, and all the data you need to harness the power of your ever-increasing viewership.
Writer Bio: Alana M is a budding distribution diva. When she isn’t hard at work writing all kinds of witty and engaging content, she enjoys long walks on the beach, lion taming, nuclear physics and lying about her hobbies.
