“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” You’ve probably heard this philosophical question before. But when it comes to your content marketing, the saying goes, “If a piece of published content isn’t distributed, was it even created at all?” 

There’s no greater sorrow than that of a piece of unshared content. I use  “sorrow” because when you think about the amount of time it took to brainstorm, pull research and information, write the article, edit, optimize for search, and then publish it, it is quite sorrowful if no one ends up knowing about it. 

Your contents’ lifespan doesn’t come to an end once it’s published. In fact, life begins at publication. What you do with your content and how you distribute it matters greatly to its success, so making sure you’re trying various methods will make all the difference. Here are some ways to distribute your content that you haven’t already tried. 

1. Blog Teaser

If you just completed a whitepaper or other gated resource, put together a blog post that teases it and excites readers to download it. This helps you capitalize on your blog traffic by getting this new piece of content in front of your blog readers. And, if you’re anything like us, you’re sharing your blog content with your prospects via email marketing. Do the same with your teasers by including them in drip campaigns and your newsletters.   

2. Guest-Contributed Articles

Did you know that guest-contributed content can be a form of distribution? Guest-contributed content is any piece of content you write for another online publication or another brand’s blog. When doing so, find a seamless way to link to the specific piece of content you’re trying to distribute. This will hopefully get some more eyes on it that wouldn’t otherwise know about it or see it. 

3. LinkedIn Groups 

LinkedIn Groups are great because they’re driven by specific industries and typically consist of professionals within that industry. All you have to do is find and join the groups targeted to your audience (so if you’re a marketing company, find any that focus on marketing, digital marketing, social media, etc.) and share your content in the group thread. Most groups will flag promotion, so make sure you explain how the piece of content you’re sharing benefits the group. 

4. LinkedIn Pulse

Once one of your blog posts or articles is published, head over to LinkedIn and take advantage of LinkedIn Pulse. LinkedIn Pulse is LinkedIn’s news feed that aggregates certain content and shares it in the feeds of those who may be interested. I frequently use the platform to republish my content. All you have to do is click the “Write an article” option and copy and paste your article. Make sure to add a header image and to source where it was initially published. 

5. Medium

Medium is another republishing platform. Use it similarly to LinkedIn Pulse by reposting any published content so it can be shared with Medium’s audience. It’s a simple way to repurpose a valuable piece of content.

6. Create A Webinar Around It

Not seeing enough people download a particular whitepaper? Then try creating an entire webinar inspired by it. Use the whitepaper as a guide, pulling some important tips from it to touch on in the broadcast. But, make sure not to give everything away. At the end of your webinar, you can promote your whitepaper, letting registrants know that there’s more information for them to check out which can motivate more downloads. Just make sure you track how many people are downloading it so you can see how well this method worked.  

You probably noticed that social media wasn’t one of the items listed, and that’s because you’re perhaps already sharing your content on your social platforms. That’s great! But you aren’t pushing the envelope and getting creative unless you’re also trying the five methods listed above. Are there any other creative ways to distribute content that we forgot about? Let us know!