My last article discussed why it’s important to have a strategic content distribution plan in place; this one focuses on the how.
You don’t have to lift your eyes from the screen to see all the conversation around content marketing, its importance and how to do it well. But once you have the content, publish it and share it, how does the conversation around it grow? It’s pretty simple: more eyes. Here’s how to get more of them on your content:
In my last article, I asked seven questions to begin thinking about your content distribution plan, but we didn’t give consideration to where your competitors distribute their content and where they spend their time online.
Here are some fundamental questions to ask:
If you’re looking to create a strategic content distribution plan that provides measurable results against your unique business objectives, why spend all this time on your competitors? So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Figure out their website domain authority and spam score to determine their level of credibility in the online world. Determine if they take their brand and reputation seriously by the quality and frequency of their blog posts and social media activity.
If they don’t excel at these things, you’re not far from gaining an edge on them. If they do excel in these areas, you now have an idea of how to measure what you’re up against.
When you measure your competitors, be brave. Do it for real. I like to measure not only one or two of our honest competitors but also a couple of organizations we want to emulate.
ALPFA is the Association of Latino Professionals For America. Education, leadership development, and professionalism are all important to us because we understand the correlation between those things and career advancement. So I measure us against other Latino organizations focused on education, an association of professional women, an association of association executives, and a national chamber of commerce.
Why? These are organizations similar enough that they are attracting comparable members and they are modeling industry best practices. They are also of similar relative strength in social media and domain authority, and they give me ideas for other important metrics to track.
We don’t just want to be the best in our neighborhood; we want to be the best in the nation. To do that, we must aim high. Therefore, we must set stretch goals that are higher than those whom we might initially think of as our immediate competitors.
Not sure how to get it all done, or don’t have time? I use Preznc Report to affordably collect the metrics and deliver condensed recommendations I need to make my best decisions. Using one intelligent service means I go to one place to track all the data, and I have a knowledgeable consultant that I trust who helps me by confirming what I believe to be my next best steps, validating the decisions I’ve already considered before I implement them, and deciding what I need to work on next and when.
Preznc has been the most powerful and concentrated resource to amplify my time and effort. They stay ahead of the curve on measurement (the “what”) and keep me on top of my defined competitors (the “who”) so I don’t have to. Rather, I can focus on creating great content and distributing it smartly in ways that get us noticed.
Remember that strategic content distribution planning “begins with a foundational understanding of the environment, who your audience is and where they spend their time.” Knowing what your defined competitors are doing will also help you stay ahead of the curve. You want to know not only what your current competitors are doing but also, much like the chasing the fastest NASCAR drivers, looking ahead to who you really want to compete against (i.e., the pole-starters) will keep you focused on where you want to be.
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