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16.10.2017

2 min read

Search Love: Content Distribution – Ross Simmonds

This article was updated on: 07.02.2022

Ross joined us from Canada for his talk, and opened with a chat about how a conversation at a networking event was overthrown by another conversation nearby about butter.

ross simmonds search love

What happened in his head, he wondered, that made him focus on the other conversation over his own?

It’s called the Cocktail Party Effect. We’re able to be having a conversation with someone and hear another discussion that we’re more interested in. The brain focuses on particular aspects of sound in a sea of noise.

The internet is, says Ross, the biggest cocktail party of all time. So how do we get people’s attention in amongst the noise?

Content is not king, anymore. We don’t get points for creating good content, because that’s what we are supposed to do! How can we stand out when everyone is doing it? Instead, we need to think about how we distribute our content.

Promotion starts when you hit publish

Content doesn’t just ‘live’. It doesn’t just ‘get found’ (or rarely). Instead, we need to think about how we promote out content, how we help it to get out there.

It’s on us to create distribution channels that help us get closer to our audience.

How?

  1. Discover new channels
  2. Distribute your content in an appropriate way

At the core, we need to go back to our knowledge of marketing fundamentals. We need to remember that marketing starts with people.

Get to know your audience

Facebook will give us these insights. You can get very in depth analysis of your audience to help you work out where to distribute your content.

You can work out which pages they like, and consider how you might tap into that page to distribute your content. Deep dive into those audience insights.

Bonus tip: check out my talk on how to create audience personas from Brighton SEO here.

Facebook is a goldmine

Facebook, as well as giving you a lot of insights, can also help you identify new distribution channels.

Look at the pages that people like in your niche, and consider how you can tap into those audience.

Look at related tags to find new pages, too.

Plus, graveyard pages – those which aren’t managed anymore but still have a great following – can be an asset. Ross gave the example of him purchasing a graveyard page, which then paid for itself within 2 months as it connected him with the relevant audience and they made more than enough money from those sales to cover the purchase cost.

Use Reddit

Reddit is an existing distribution network that you can use. But it’s also a great place to get inspiration on what content will work and spread well.

Check out the top posts to see what topics are working well. You can then create new content based on that to get more engagement.

Slack is another place to find similar.