Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, famously said: "Every two days now, we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003."
And he said that way back around 2010.
For context, Facebook and Twitter were only just in their infancies then. Instagram launched that same year and, in the seven years that followed, grew from a million users to a billion.
So, you can imagine what that quote would sound like 13 years later.
The point is this: today, there is so much content on the internet.
There’s tons of incredible content, and even more terrible stuff but, either way, a lot more to compete with than ever before.
The goal used to be to create a blog article based on a keyword and get it to rank on the first page of Google’s search results.
But things are changing, and Google is overhauling how it shows content on its search results engine pages (aka SERPs).
Today, Google’s SERPs include Google Ads, Google My Business, and snippets that answer questions without people ever having to click the link to the website. There are even carousels and round-ups of “popular on the web” results and things to shop directly.
And that’s why content distribution is the secret sauce of content marketing today.
Instead of publishing a blog post on your coworking space’s website and then waiting—hoping—for it to get viewed, you need to take matters into your own hands and distribute it far and wide.
Once you hit publish on your blog, that’s when the real marketing starts.
So, here are six content distribution ideas to consider.
I publish every single one of these articles you’re reading on my blog as well. But I feel confident that you’re probably reading it for the first time by way of this email.
Your email list is your most direct way to get in touch with your members and leads.
So, when you publish a blog post, send it out via email. Include a summary of the blog post and a link to read more, in turn driving traffic back to your website.
For more on this, check out my list of 16 less-than-obvious email marketing tips. You might also like this quick article on how to tell if your content is performing well using email marketing metrics.
Just in case you miss this in your inbox, I also share it on my social media—including through LinkedIn’s newsletter feature.
Use your company's social media channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to share blog posts. Tailor your message to fit each platform and audience.
Not sure how to do that? Check out my article on content platforms: what, how, and when to use them. It explains everything you need to know about each one.
With guest posts, you’d typically reach out to relevant blogs to see if you could publish a useful article on their platform.
Doing so helps extend the reach of your content, puts your coworking space in front of a new audience, and drives new visitors to your site.
These days, I’ve implemented a new iteration of this as one of the most essential pillars of my clients’ content marketing strategies.
Here’s how it works.
Consider writing articles that are relevant to your members or prospects.
What are they interested in? What do they want to learn? How can you help them grow their businesses or achieve their goals?
Instead of just writing an article filled with information you’ve researched independently, reach out to a member in your space or someone in your network.
Interview them for your article. Get them to give you their unique expertise and insights.
There’s no prompt in the world that can make ChatGPT gather this kind of information.
Doing this provides a degree of credibility to your article and, by extension, your space.
It makes the article extra valuable for the reader.
But the most important step is to ask the person you’ve featured to share this write-up with their network in every way they can.
This puts you in front of a massive number of net-new readers who are most likely business owners or professionals who might need a flexible office space.
Then, consider how you can use all of the other tactics in this article to amplify it even further.
You can extend this to non-business-focused articles as well, such as rounding up the best local restaurants to take your clients then share the article with every restaurant you’ve featured, tag them on social media, and ask them to share. itas well.
Pro tip: to give you the best chance of people agreeing to be featured in your article, make sure to communicate the benefits of this arrangement.
Let them know that you’ll:
Ultimately, this is free marketing for them. All they need to contribute is a little bit of time and expertise.
Consider using networks like Medium or LinkedIn's publishing platform to republish your blog content and reach a wider audience. These are easy ways to use content you’ve already spent the time to create.
This can be super impactful, but it’s important to make sure you’re doing it in a value-driven way, not a spammy one. If you’re being too self-promotional in these places, you’ll probably get banned quickly.
You can share your content on forums like Reddit or Quora.
But, more importantly, you can figure out where your potential members are spending time and publish your content there as well.
Think about places like Facebook groups or Slack channels (such as local business or entrepreneur groups). Join in, watch what people are talking about, and look for opportunities to contribute with the valuable content you’ve created.
Be helpful. Establish your space as a resource for relevant information. And only chime in when it can happen organically.
You can also use these forums to find inspiration for what to write about. Look for relevant questions being asked, write up an article that pertains to them, then respond to that thread with your article. Let them know you saw their questions and wanted to create a resource to help them out.
Share your blog content in relevant online forums or communities such as Reddit, Quora, or industry-specific groups where your target audience is active.
When you create content, consider how you can expand it into new formats, like audio and video.
Here are a few examples.
If you write a blog article, record a video summary and share it on social media.
Or, if you interview an expert, record the entire conversation, transcribe it, and share it as a podcast.
Alternatively, you can chop up highlights in either case and include them throughout your blog article to make the piece even more engaging.
You can also share these small audio or video recordings on social media for months to come to continue driving new traffic to your original page.
The key is to make your content as accessible as possible—just because someone doesn’t have time to read it in its entirety doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to get value from it.
Content has reached a saturation point.
So, the best way for you to ensure your audience gets value from your content is to creatively distribute it as far and wide as possible.