Content amplification is one of the most important parts of content marketing. In fact, it is as important as creating a high-quality and engaging content. Because if no one sees it then there's no point of creating this content. Amplification is that piece of a puzzle that delivers your material to the right audience. It is what makes your content go viral and brings customers to your business.
Creating a good-quality content is one of the first steps of your content marketing strategy. The next step is amplifying that content. It is done through three types of channels: owned, paid and earned.
Owned Channel: Organic Social Posts are dying.
Owned media is every marketing asset that belongs to the business. This channel allows you to dictate what content is delivered through which channel and how often. Also, you are able to moderate it and track various kinds of analytics. Owned media includes your website, blog, email list etc. Once upon a time, your owned social channel account is considered owned channel, however, as on average reach of organic Facebook post is only 2%, and the over-saturated of twitter post feed, it take more effort to reach out to organically.
Earned Media: Holy grail of content amplification
This is the most valuable and also the most difficult type of amplification to acquire. Earned media is when your readers or any other high-authority sources share your content. It could the word of mouth, viral content, reviews from influential people or testimonials. Everything that amplifies your content naturally from sources not having direct connections with you.
Paid Media: Options are abundant but caveat emptor!
Paid media is when a company pays money to promote its content on third-party platforms. It involves promoting your content on Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. It could be advertising on Google Adwords or Bing. Also, companies might use content amplification platforms like Outbrain, Taboola.
I would like to dive a little bit deeper into content amplification platforms because they are making their names in digital advertising very fast and bringing millions in revenues every year. It has become a very powerful type of content marketing these days. The primary objective of this kind of marketing is to provide content within the context of user's experience making advertising feel more like a natural content. These ads seem less pushy while significantly increasing the odds of a visitor to click on the link.
Usually, these kinds of ads appear at the bottom of a popular content on sites like ESPN, BBC or Huffington Post. It is delivered based on various algorithms. Such platforms like Outbrain or Taboola are top platforms in the market. Their clients are companies like BBC, CNN, ESPN, Huffington Post, NBC and other large media brands.
Unfortunately, these big platforms are so overstuffed with low-quality content that sometimes it is difficult to control what should be shown and what should not. People are starting to get annoyed seeing clickbait headlines everywhere they go. If you are a brand, are you sure you want to associate with "How older men Tighten their skin"?
If done right, content amplification platform is a cost effective way to distribute your content, but just be sure that you have ability to do specific targeting in a brand safe environment. Alternatively, you can also explore using programmatic display to distribute your content. We will explore this is subsequent posts.
Amplifying your content is a complicated process that requires a lot of planning and preparation. Just remember that creating a content distribution strategy is the first thing you must do in your content marketing. It is not the content itself that is a primary objective but the channels you are going to deliver through. So plan first and then make you move.
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