I die a little bit inside every time I hear someone complain that no one is interacting with content on their month-old blog because they’re waiting for SEO magic to bring them an onslaught of avid readers.

I’m not joking. Sometimes my eye twitches. Any content marketer worth their weight in salt knows that you need an actual strategy to get eyes on those blog posts you’ve worked so hard to create (or paid someone else to create).

Content is often done to help with SEO. And yes, SEO is a content distribution strategy, but it is not an effective one at first, and it should never be your only one.

If you want your content marketing efforts to truly yield all those amazing results you’ve heard other brands boasting of, then you need to diversify your efforts.

In this post, we’re going to explain why content distribution strategies are so vital and go over 7 distribution options to help you expand your reach and blog traffic.

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What Are Diverse Content Distribution Strategies, and Why Are They So Crucial?

Content distribution strategies are the methods you use to get your blog posts, webinars, ebooks, and other content in front of as many relevant users as humanly possible.

Despite what we all wish, it is not enough to write a truly magnificent blog post and just wait for people to find it, especially if you’re a newer business without a lot of site authority, incoming traffic, or brand recognition as it is.

To really get the results you want from content marketing, you want to be intentionally and strategically implementing multiple distribution options to expand your reach in as many places as possible.

The more places you can promote your content, the more users you can likely reach. And since the last thing you want is for your masterpiece of a blog post to sit unvisited and unread on your site, more users is a good thing.

7 Effective Content Distribution Strategies in 2022

There are plenty of different content distribution strategies to consider, and not every one will work for every business.

That being said, most of the strategies that we’re featuring here will work for the large majority of sites, so you can pick the ones that work best with your site (and your strengths) and implement them accordingly. Remember you can always add more as needed.

Let’s take a look at 7 of the most effective and reliable content distribution strategies in 2022.

1. SEO

I know, I know. We started the entire post talking about how SEO shouldn’t be your only content distribution strategy. That’s still true.

But it should also be part of your long-term content distribution strategy.

Why wouldn’t you want users who are actively looking for content like yours to be able to find you?

“While it takes a significant chunk of time to start really gaining the kind of authority you need to bring in major traction from search traffic, in about six to twelve months you can start seeing major returns in having all of your content strategically optimized for SEO.” says Andrew Cooper owner at Simply E-Liquid

I still have clients who find me off of posts that I’d written and had published three years ago.

I’ve also had multiple clients stop working with me after a few months and then come back a year later and say “you were right, the results are finally showing up, and your content is getting the most hits still.”

So make sure that you do your keyword research and get strategic, using those keywords in your headline, headers, text, and meta description.

And if you’re new to SEO, Moz has an exceptional SEO Beginner’s Guide to get you started.

2. Social Media Sharing & Repurposing

“Sharing your blog posts on your social platforms is an easy way to extend their reach fast. You definitely don’t want to exclusively post links to your blog posts on social media or you’ll get unfollowed fast, but using it as part of your social campaigns can help get your content in front of an engaged audience.” says Alice Rowen Hall from Rowen Homes

You definitely don’t want to exclusively post links to your blog posts on social media or you’ll get unfollowed fast, but using it as part of your social campaigns can help get your content in front of an engaged audience.

You want to do more than just copy and paste a link and maybe share the headline, though. In order to get the best results, consider trying the following:

• Update your images and social media content: If your team created visuals for a product and promote it on social media, you can reuse the same pictures but update it by changing its background. Tools such as Picsart help you change background of photo online for free.
• List a tip or interesting tidbit from the article in the social message. If you’re sharing a report, list one of the most interesting facts from the report that will catch users’ attention, and let them know they can read more in the link.
  “10 Content Marketing Trends” isn’t as interesting as a social media post as “Only 5 out of 10 businesses see results from their content marketing, and they blame six common reasons for why they’re not getting results. See what they are here.”
• Repurpose the content. Have an outstanding blog post and want more eyes on it? Turn it into a social media video that either reviews the post, dives deep into one specific segment, or features a tutorial. With the ability to easily design posters with templates, you could create an infographic by leveraging an online poster maker tool and then link back to the blog post for more information.
• Schedule promotions in advance. When you have high-value content you want to recycle, you don’t want to post twice in one week. Instead, consider using a social media scheduling tool like Agorapulse to schedule a post about a piece of content right after publication and again several weeks or even months later. Reposting can increase reach overall, especially with new users following you overtime, but you don’t want to spam users with the same post back to back.  

3. Email Newsletters

If you have an engaged following and a decent subscriber list, take advantage of that. A recent consumer survey by Service Direct revealed that only 16% of consumers never sign up for email newsletters from small businesses they have patronized, with 23% rarely signing up, 37% sometimes, 18% usually, and 6% always signing up for email newsletters. That data suggests there is still a strong appetite for email communications from businesses they like.

It’s typically not going to be practical to send out emails for every blog post you write, there are a few ways to use email newsletters as an effective content distribution strategy. These include:

• Creating newsletters with high-value industry links. Put together a list of great resources written by industry experts. Include a link or two of your own at the top, but feature content written by others, too. My go-to strategy is to have a bullet list with the title the posts bolded and a sentence or two about what makes it great.
• Featuring your high-value resources prominently. Sometimes we create content that we know will be a standout on our site and incredibly valuable for our audience. Zapier sends out emails that feature high-value blog posts relevant to segments of their target audience, and they’ll put a list of other relevant blog post in bullet points underneath. This is a great option.  
• Repurposing blog posts into an email newsletter. Some blog posts can be repurposed into newsletter-style content fairly easy. Updates in the industry are great examples. Craig Anderson, Founder of Express Dentist, says to “give a brief overview of absolute need-to-know info, and then link to a blog post for more details, and watch your open rates skyrocket.”

4. Influencer Mentions

Getting an expert quote or referencing an authoritative figure in a blog post doesn’t just bolster the quality of your content; it also gives you a solid distribution strategy.

When I interview someone for a blog post or feature them in some way, I make sure to tag them when the post is shared or recommend that my clients do so when promoting the post on social media. In many cases, the expert will engage with the post and might even share it themselves, because it looks good for them, too.

You should thank the influencer in your social media posts, and make sure you’re tagging their correct (read: professional) profile if they have more than one. Make sure that the posts are shareable so they can share it directly.

An important note here: Only tag influencers and experts when there’s a good reason to do so. You shouldn’t tag them “to check it out” or “because you think they’ll like it.”

5. Paid Campaigns & Placements

One of the biggest benefits of content marketing is that it’s free or low cost. If you want to increase your reach fast, though, paid options can be beneficial.

You can do either of the following:

• Use PPC platforms to increase reach. You can use Facebook Ads or Google Ads, for example, to attract traffic to high-value content and lead magnets that will appeal to your audience. Choose your targeting carefully to increase relevance, and you can appeal to cold audiences to use the content to build trust.
• Look for paid promotion opportunities. Some sites allow you to publish your content on their blogs for a fee, or to feature your blog in a newsletter. Again, choose high-value resources that you know will reliably appeal to certain segments of your audience.

For example, TeamUp used a Facebook ad to promote their get started marketing campaign, which in the content itself includes instruction on how to use Facebook and Google ads to grow your business. By doing this they expand the reach of people who will see the content with a direct example of how to effectively execute the strategy.

This might require some testing, and it can be hit or miss. Most of my clients opt for PPC platforms instead of sponsored content opportunities because it’s lower cost, and you may only be paying per click depending on what objectives you choose.

6. Guest Posting with a Backlink

This is a content distribution and a link-building strategy all in one. Win-win.

Make a list of sites that you could contribute to. Marketers, for example, can consider submitting contributor applications to sites like Social Media Examiner and Business2Community.

“You typically don’t get paid for some of these opportunities unless you’re hired by them, though the exposure and backlink can be worth it. In many cases, you can add one backlink to non-promotional and educational content on your site, alongside a general link to your site in your bio.” says Steve Pogson, Founder & E-commerce Strategy Lead at FirstPier

These backlinks can drive clicks, and they also can help with SEO in major ways. This makes guest posting an effective short-term and long-term distribution play.

And if guest posting is too much of a challenge, keep an eye out for expert quote opportunities. If you’re featured in an article, you can typically request a link to your site when you’re mentioned.

7. Syndicate on Third-Party Platforms

While your content should always live on your blog first and foremost to get all that outstanding SEO juice, there’s nothing wrong with some content syndication on third-party platforms.

Medium, for example, shouldn’t be your primary blogging platform, but it’s a great content distribution option. You can syndicate your blog posts from your site to Medium to hopefully reach more audiences there without getting dinged by Google’s plagiarism checkers.

Some sites also offer this, allowing you to syndicate already-posted content to their site, too, though this may come at a cost. Take a look at what’s available in your industry and see if it would help you reach more members of your target audience.

When you’re using this strategy, always make sure you have at least three backlinks to your own site in the content so it’s sending people right back to you.

3 Content Distribution Strategies To Avoid

There are a few content distribution strategies that can backfire relatively quickly. These are the strategies that I often see recommended online but that I heavily recommend avoiding:

• Spamming people through their personal email addresses to promote content. Nope, don’t do this. Reaching out and asking writers and asking them to update their two-year old post with your link will be a no. This is not a productive way to spend your time.
• Posting your own links on sites like Quora. I see people say all the time to just start posting your own content on Quora answers. No! This will get you suspended or banned from Quora. These platforms are not meant to be content distribution platforms.
• Cheap “link building” schemes. Companies offering private blogging networks (PBNs) or that promise to get you X number of backlinks per month are a big no. Google can actually penalize you for this, and they’ve gotten great at spotting it.

Final Thoughts: Choosing the Right Content Distribution Strategy

There are plenty of content distribution strategies that you can choose from, and you can attempt to implement them all, or only opt for a few.

When choosing what content strategies you want to focus on, take some time to think about what you can realistically work towards and which strategies play to your strengths.

Someone who only has 15 followers on Facebook (two of which are from mom and grandma) should not be relying on social media is a significant portion of their distribution plan, and someone who has no time or interest in guesting post should rule that one out, too.

Remember that you can always start small and scale your way up, but the more eyes you can get on your content, the better.

Looking for more ways to scale your content distribution and production efforts? Learn more about Wordable can help by streamlining publication and even syndicating to platforms like Medium.

Ana Gotter

Ana is a strategic content marketer specializing in business, finance, and marketing writing, though she's worked across a range of industries. She works in Orlando with her three dogs.