What is Content Distribution in Content Marketing? Understanding the 4 Distribution Channels
We will never know who the best artist is in the world.
Or the best singer.
We’ll never know which business is the best in its particular field, all things being equal.
Why?
Because of Content Distribution. Or a lack thereof.
In a previous post, I covered what is Content Marketing and why we need it.
Content Marketing is here to stay. There are tens of millions of pieces of content created every month.
But who sees it?
How do we guarantee that what we’re creating doesn’t (all) go into the ether?
With Content Distribution.
What is Content Distribution?
As the name implies, Content Distribution is the process of disseminating created content to the masses, with the objective that your target audience sees and interacts with your content.
With the overwhelming amount of content one can consume, our attention spans are at their lowest. We have to go beyond consistently creating content. Content Distribution helps your content reach the right people at the right times using one or more distribution channels.
Why is Content Distribution Important?
Attention is the new oil.
It’s the only currency that matters today. Not money.
An attentive audience allows you to sell on autopilot.
Attention is what places people in positions of power.
It’s the reason why people buy fake followers online. Even the appearance of attention can be valuable.
It’s how you can convince the people around you to do what you want them to. The more attention you have, the more trust you build from someone who sees you for the first time.
In the digital realm, the only way to gain attention for your business is to share your content often and sometimes through multiple channels.
Content distribution:
Amplifies your reach
Drives engagement
Improves your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Builds your business’ authority
Increases conversions
You can’t have Content Marketing without Content Distribution. Once you have your distribution planned out, even on autopilot, you’ll realize a few things:
You create fewer pieces of content: Distribution extends your existing content, saving you time. One piece of content can be split into 5 and shared multiple.
You maximize your ROI: Content creation is expensive and time-consuming. If more people pay attention, the investment pays off by reaching a wider audience and generating desired outcomes, such as increased brand awareness or lead generation. Hence, the value of viral content.
You can learn audience behavior: How can you tell your audience’s behavior and preferences? By sharing your stuff online. You find out the best times to share content, the best platforms, and where the decision-makers of your niche hang out.
You’ll have to diversify: A blog post may perform well in one space, but video content may be better on IG and TikTok. Infographics may kill it on Pinterest.
So, yeah. Sharing your content is an important part of being a Content Marketer.
Most content marketers start with a big piece of content, like a blog post, video, or podcast. Chances are, you created (or managed the creation of) said piece of content. Your next job is ensuring the content gets into the right hands.
You have 4 primary distribution channels: organic, owned, paid, and earned. The lines can get blurry with some of these, but you’ll notice each channel contains avenues you can use to share your content. Start with one avenue in 1 channel, with the ultimate goal of using at least 1 of the avenues in all 4 channels.
1. Organic Distribution Channels
Let’s say you create a blog post, video, or podcast and hit publish.
Then, do nothing.
By default, you’re attempting to tap into an organic distribution channel.
An organic distribution channel is one where the content is distributed naturally, often without any extra work on your part.
It’s picked up by a platform’s algorithm or shared by its initial consumers.
Organic distribution is great because it can sometimes take a life of its own and become viral. In some rare cases, virality can turn into countless leads, revenue, and business opportunities. However, it’s not as predictable as you’d want.
Here are some examples of organic distribution channels.
Search Engine Optimization
Once you create a blog post and publish it on your website (or Content hub, which we’ll debate shortly), it’s indexed by search engines. If your content and website meet certain criteria, it can end up on the first page of Google/Yahoo/Bing’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
The same goes for YouTube videos — as YouTube is also a search engine — podcast networks, and organic forums that share your content.
While you can optimize your content, this happens organically and, in most cases, over several weeks or months. However, it’s one of the best long-term plays for your content. People who use search engines do so with intent, and if you’re ranking on page 1, you can likely convert customers on autopilot.
Social Media
Social media should not be your Marketing channel. Rather, it should be a way to distribute your content.
Why? Well, for starters, those channels don’t belong to any of us.
For instance, Elon Musk can decide that Twitter will be named ‘X.’
Tomorrow, he can close your account for one innocent post. Next week, he can shut Xwitter, or whatever it's named, down entirely.
Next, you want to funnel your social media viewers toward your owned distribution channels, as you’ll have some control over what your audience consumes.
Social media is an organic channel. Your content can give you more organic reach if it is good enough. In some cases, it can even go viral.
Social media is a great space to distill your larger content assets into bite-sized chunks, which will funnel those interested into the larger, more in-depth pieces.
2. Owned Distribution Channels
You’ve created a social media account, and you can use it, but it’s not quite yours.
An owned distribution channel is one that you’ve created from scratch. You have full control over the information and data.
This channel depends on the viewers and customers who already know about your business and come there for information or advice. Owned distribution channels include:
Your Business Website
Your website can be used for organic distribution, but it’s also your Owned distribution channel.
You pay for the hosting and domain, which is like the land. Website design is like your building.
You can then set up content on the website, so share it with anyone at any time. You can share your website with Cold Leads, Warm Leads, and your existing customers.
If you don’t have a website, you’re missing out on the potential to land new clients or grow your business
Resource Libraries
Content Marketing is all about education. You provide your potential client with quality information to understand how to use your products.
You can consolidate all this information in a resource library so they can access it anytime.
Knowledge Bases, Wikis, Notion Sheets, and instruction manuals are common resource libraries. Chatbots are the new wave and can double as a repository for customers.
Email, Newsletters, Contact Lists
Can you grab your potential customer’s email or contact?
Once someone opts into your email list or newsletter, they become part of your owned distribution channel.
You can then share content at will.
Emails and newsletters are great ways to launch new products and services; some have become 7-Figure assets.
Contact lists on WhatsApp are another popular owned channel.
3. Paid Distribution Channels
Distributing your existing content organically or even in your owned channels may go into the ether. In some cases, your content won’t reach your ideal customer avatar.
That’s why sometimes, you have to pay to play.
Paid distribution channels allow you to create paid ads to reach people with your content. There are three prominent paid distribution channels.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a form of online advertising where businesses pay a fee each time a user clicks on their ad. It’s an effective method for content distribution because it allows you to target specific keywords and demographics for a specific budget, ensuring your content reaches a highly relevant audience. PPC is often found on search engines like Google or social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Sponsored Content allows you to pay a third-party website, podcast, newsletter, or business to share your content, product, or service. You leverage that entity’s audience to get your product in front of new leads.
Influencer Marketing is a relatively new form of paid distribution. Sponsored content allows you to create content for the business to share. However, influencer marketing leverages smaller individual audiences by allowing them to make the content themselves (User Generated Content). Businesses like Cuts, Skims, Gymshark, and Fenty all experience massive growth through the Influencer model. Influencers often have targeted, engaged audiences that allow you to find your target customers faster.
Paid Distribution provides immediate visibility, precise targeting, and increased engagement, making them essential components of a comprehensive content distribution strategy.
4. Earned/Shared Distribution Channels
Sometimes, the quality of your content is enough to get it shared naturally or to ask others to share it on your behalf.
Some platforms host content with their own audience, who in turn read, engage, and share it with others.
These are all earned/shared distribution channels.
Here are some examples:
Medium, Quora, Reddit, and other content spaces
Content hubs like
are in this weird in-between space. You can label it as owned distribution. It is a personal blog, after all. And for the most part, you can export your content.
You also have email newsletter features built in.
However, it’s not quite a website, blog, or newsletter. You can post content on these platforms that is then shared with others on the platform or through social media. These are great free options to redistribute your content and let the community do the work.
Backlinking
This is an earned content distribution strategy where other websites link to your content. These links act as referrals, indicating your content is valuable and authoritative. It’s the equivalent of getting an endorsement. The more popular the website, the more valuable the link.
The right link from a website increases your traffic, strengthens your SEO, and immediately brings you referrals.
We’ve seen the power of this firsthand through helping a dermatology client get links in Huffington Post, Cosmo, Prevention, and Allure. It increased her website traffic 100 times and nearly tripled her revenue.
You can ask for backlinks, but you can also earn them by producing helpful, shareable content.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging involves creating content for another website or blog as a guest author. This earned content distribution channel is a win-win for both parties involved. Along with building a backlink, you can tap into new audiences, build relationships with the blog owner, and grow your credibility.
Online Communities
Online communities — such as forums, social media groups, and discussion platforms — offer shared content distribution opportunities. If your content is helpful enough, you can share it there, hence attracting new leads and opportunities.
Collaboration
Link up with a similar business owner or adjacent vertical to share each other’s content. Businesses can swap content on newsletters, blogs, social media, or as guests on podcasts.
You each get access to the other’s audience because you’ve earned it through reputation, product, relationships, or similar goals.
How Should You Distribute Your Content?
Do you need to use all of these channels at the same time?
Not exactly. Even businesses with big Marketing budgets struggle to distribute content using all these methods.
But you can create a process that leverages one option in each of the four Content Distribution channels.
Here’s a good example:
Create a long-form piece of content via blog post, video, or podcast. Go as deep as possible, helping the content consumer as much as possible.
Post the content on your website, YT change, or podcast — (Owned and Organic Distribution)
Repost the content on ONE social media platform of your choice, using the appropriate format — (Organic Distribution)
Share the content with your email list, newsletter, or other owned channel — (Owned Distribution)
Repost on a content hub like Medium, Quora, Reddit, or an online community — (Earned Distribution)
Check your analytics after several days. If something is performing well, then use PPC or sponsored content. — (Paid Distribution)
Everything else — like SEO, backlinking, etc. — will happen or when you have more resources to scale. Once you start with one piece of content, one organic, earned, and paid channel, your Content Marketing should take off with time.
Your Next Steps
We hope you got something out of this content and now have an understanding of how to share your content.
There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Just get started!
