How is content distribution strategy different from posting on Facebook?

Top managers of Xerox, global PR agency Weber Shandwick and a startup who makes articles for The New York Times, talk about the experience of creating and distributing content. We have translated and supplemented the material.

When Ian Cohen talks to his clients, the hardest part of the conversation concerns bookmarking funds for paid distribution. Ian is the president of content creation and innovation at Weber Shandwick, one of the world's leading public relations firms .
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One of the main mistakes that marketers are making today is a complete focus on creating content without attention or setting a budget for distributing this very content. And, in a sense, you can't blame them.

Initially, SMM was positioned as an inexpensive tool.

Social media evangelists have been selling the idea to brands that if you spend a little time producing content on a “hot topic”, you can reach your “Oreo moment” and reach a mass audience around the world for nothing.



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Oreo Tweet : “No Light? No problem. You can eat in the dark ”(literally“ you can dunk in the dark ”) published on February 3, 2013. Entered the top SMM cases tops .

During a blackout in the arena of the 2013 Super Cup match in American football, Oreo published a tweet that in more minutes took more than 15,000 retweets. Case Oreo entered the top 10 SMM cases of the decade. And he became an example of the convergence of Twitter with television. Twitter even included it in its prospectus to IPO.

But in recent years, the landscape has changed dramatically. Social channels are so rich in content that it is almost impossible to break through without paid distribution. Changes in Facebook's algorithms have become a huge obstacle to any brand that wants organic viral coverage. Ian Cowan explains that it is now inefficient for brands to create excellent content if they have not yet developed a distribution plan and donated money for paid promotion.

We have customers who say, "Beyonce is going to tweet this." Congratulations, you just got three views!

"When the algorithms are built in this way, you cannot be so naive as to think that this will work."



Ian Cowan (left) and Vice President of Weber Shandwick Creative and Strategic Direction Patrick Chopam (right)

At Weber Shandwick, Cohen manages a team of more than 100 people — producers, authors, editors, cameramen, animators, and distribution specialists. Before content creators take the first frame of the video, they first discuss with the media relations and paid distribution specialists how this content will reach its audience.

Distribution strategy may dictate content

Luke Sherwin, co-founder of Casper

Luke Sherwin, one of the founders and creative director of the Casper mattress and bed sales company. Casper creates Van Winkle's sleep culture website. Shervin lays a small budget for paid distribution. Basically, to make measurements, what kind of content works better. If the publication starts to work well by itself, it invests a small amount in paid promotion.

Van Winkle's distribution strategy is designed to ensure that site publications reprint large publications like The New York Times, The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

External sites account for approximately 80% of views.

Van Winkle's produces high-quality journalistic materials that will attract the attention of editors of reputable publications.

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About other ways to place branded content in the media, read our text about native advertising.
How to make native advertising in Russia?

“We want to be trusted and we do everything thoughtfully. And it liberates. Therefore, we can spend several thousand dollars on articles about post-traumatic sleep disorder . Of course, we are worried about the views, but we are really creating the content with the expectation that we will get reprints in the media and blog posts, ”says Shervin.

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KIA achieved a similar effect on the Russian site BigPicture.ru . The text of the American writer about how he first came to Russia gathered 600-700 thousand views. Of them on BigPicture.ru. 160 thousand readings. The rest of the views came at the expense of reposts in blogs.

This story was told by the founders of BigPicture.ru, Sergey Baryshnikov and Alexander Kuksa, in an interview with the editorial staff of the Relap.io blog. Read the full text about how they manage to sell Longrides for 160 thousand characters and that the traffic is more complex than Google Analytics shows.

As a team of blog BigPicture.ru sells Longrida for 1 million views and opens the agency SALO



Josh Golden, Head of Xerox International Marketing

Regardless of what field you work in, everything that you release should reflect the principles of the company. Josh Golden of Xerox calls them the North Star. He advises brands, even before the distribution or content production strategy is developed, to define a single value around which everyone who works for the company can unite.

Even excellent content and a brilliant distribution plan, the resulting views and reposts in social networks will not really affect your profits if no one knows what is behind your brand.

“At Xerox, we worked with six agencies and tried to make them all think the same way. And as soon as we got the “Polar Star”, we endlessly strive for it. Therefore, when we do work, whether it is advertising, posting on social networks or content, all of this reflects the special benefits and advantages that consumers expect from our brand. ”

We translated the most interesting material from Why Your Creative Will Fails . The blog The Content Strategist , where this text is published, writes about how brands attract customers in the media. Many stories about the experience of Western companies. Recommended to read.