You know how people say content is key?
Well, distribution is right up there with content and some might even say that content distribution is more important than content creation itself.
What good is there in creating content if you do not have the right distribution channels that you can use in sharing amazing content with your audience?
This is why you have to start planning your distribution strategy right from the moment when you decide to create any piece of content.
Especially if you are leaning towards episodic content that will require an understanding of the episodic content marketing framework
In this post, we talk about using company channels for content distribution and the many benefits you can get from doing so. Some of them are:
Before you start the actual distribution of your content, it is important that you look into how you can repurpose your main content as it will help to have many pieces of content when distributing across multiple social media platforms.
Once your content has been repurposed then it becomes easier to plan out the distribution methods. We have already covered the use of personal brands when it comes to content distribution but if you have any issues or questions, do not hesitate to reach out us or you can also have a live chat with us on the website, we’re more than happy to help.
So moving on to brand channels, this basically refers to the use of your own company pages for the distribution of content. This is something that comes naturally to a lot of us, once the content is created we don't just publish it let's say on YouTube or on your website but it is normal to post the content on the company channels as well.
But asides from this being the norm, there are actually many advantages to making use of company pages/brand channels for distribution. And some of them are:
One of the reasons why it’s important to use your company channels for distributing content is that doing this will help to increase the number of followers you have on your company pages. The probability of people following your social media pages increases when you start to put out content consistently and so constant sharing of updates and posts on your company’s social media pages will get you more followers in the long run. Also, more followers mean a wider reach which translates into more people viewing your content.
Using brand channels for content distribution is a great way to really diversify the content that you're sharing on your company pages. For most companies/brands, the majority of the posts that are shared are mostly self-promotional content about the company. However, if you included company pages in your distribution strategy, then there would be a mix of various posts such as blog updates, snippets from interviews, and many others.
This could be a great way to break the monotony and actually give value to your audience as opposed to having a channel where you only post updates when there is an announcement to make like a discount or a sale or whatever the case may be.
Episodic content like podcasts is great because you know that it is not a one-time thing. And once you are able to repurpose from the main pillars (i.e video or audio), then you would have more than enough content to feed your company channels.
One other benefit to using brand channels is the fact that it allows you to experiment between the various channels and see why they are performing the way that they do. If you own a brand/company and they have social media pages across platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, it means that you have access to data about each platform and how your company channels are faring on them.
This gives you an insight into the behavior of your audience, allows you to know which platform is most preferred by your customers and what company channels are performing better than the others. You can use this information to make better decisions about the kind of content to share, the times at which to share the content, and also the preferred formats enjoyed by your customers.
All of the above are great reasons why companies should start using brand channels in their content distribution efforts. And the fact that one uses brand channels does not mean that personal brands should be left out of the equation. Brand channels go hand in hand with personal brands. They both amplify each other and if done well, will do wonders for improving a brand’s visibility.
In addition to communicating internally when content is ready so that the team members inside your company could share it, sharing content on your brand channels as well is a great idea because it acts as a nice reminder when it pops up for some of the employees who maybe have not shared that content yet on their social media pages.
Imagine a scenario where the company employees are already following the company’s social media account, any update posted on your company channel will be viewed by your employees and so if any of them had forgotten to share your content, then it will be very easy for them to simply hit share and repost that when they see your update. Using a platform like LinkedIn for instance, they could even add their caption so as to share their thoughts on the post.
So if you were skeptical about using brand channels before, we hope we’ve been able to show you the many benefits that can be gotten from using them and how they are definitely a staple that should be kept in mind when creating original or episodic series.
Our last and final part of this episodic marketing series is next and we are going to discuss all about using communities to distribute your episodic content. See you next time!