When it comes to content marketing, distributing said content is a pretty obvious part of the equation. It’s not enough to create (and curate) stellar content; you’ve got to get it out there where it can be found. This is what I have learned about blog distribution tools. Gary Vaynerchuk taught me a great deal.
Because there’s nothing sadder than a lovely blog post with no one to read it. Ok – I may be exaggerating on that a bit. But it’s still a downer.
When it comes to distributing designs with your social media marketing, Vaynerchuk found that there are many areas for helping to improve your sharing designs. These include automation, communicating, engaging, and more.
Here’s the deal:
When I look for helpful design tools, I often grab ones that make a difference in one or more of these areas.
Each of these social media content distribution tools that highlighted some that fit into one of these categories. Here’s hoping that a bit of help in each area can unlock some creativity for you.
The design isn’t something that every marketer feels comfortable doing, but the reality is every one of us will need to design something at some point in our careers. Whether it’s a website, some sales collateral, or an ebook, there will be some design expertise required to finish the project.
Now … the reason why we often get bogged down in it all is that often, we don’t know how to use the tools at our disposal to get high-quality designs. But here’s a little secret, marketers: You don’t need Photoshop to create great designs.
Below are design tools even the most design-phobic marketers can use to create gorgeous visual content
Luckily, there are a ton of great tools out there to help make sure your content gets in front of the right people, and lots of them.
Here’s a list of great, good and just plain nifty content distribution tools worth looking into. Some are free, some are paid, but all of them have been tried, tested and proven to work.
Blog distribution tools … HubSpot
HubSpot describes itself as an all-in-one inbound marketing software, and boy is it ever. It does a ton of stuff, from email marketing to analytics reporting, but the feature that’s most relevant to this list is their Social Inbox.
The Social Inbox lets you manage, monitor, schedule and publish to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and more networks, much like Hootsuite.
What’s special about HubSpot’s Social Inbox is that it weaves your social communities in with the data brought in via email marketing campaigns, landing pages and other features you’re using within the marketing automation software.
Blog distribution tools … AddThis
AddThis is an easy way to install those sharing and follow buttons you see all over the place, but their focus is keeping people on your site and reducing bounce rates.
They allow people to share your content and follow your social networks without leaving the page they’re on.
There are a ton of other ways you can use AddThis, such as implementing sharing buttons in newsletters, so it’s worth checking out.
Blog distribution tools … Appinions
Appinions is an influence marketing platform that allows brands to connect with, monitor and manage their relationships with industry influencers.
It gets better:
As it’s an enterprise solution, it’s pretty in-depth – you can see the “who” and “why” behind changes in the influencer landscape, how key influencers are performing, monitor your relationship with them and a lot more.
This fits in with more of a long-tail distribution strategy as you build and manage relationships with key players in your industry but offers a ton of insight that you’d be hard-pressed to find on your own.
Blog distribution tools … Outbrain
Outbrain is two-pronged – you can use it either to offer recommendations to your audience on your own site or for third-party content, or you can use it distribute your own content on other sites.
You can either provide an RSS feed of your content or the URL of a specific piece, and Outbrain presents it as a sponsored or related post alongside content on other sites.
They have a large network that includes high-profile publishers such as Mashable and NYTimes.com, so your content reaches a pretty impressive audience.
Blog distribution tools … GaggleAMP
GaggleAMP works to leverage your team’s social networks without them having to post anything themselves. Instead of having your marketing team bug the rest of the team to share company content, they can schedule social media posts to be filtered out to different Gaggle networks.
Members of these networks have the option of either customizing these posts before publishing to their networks or having them go through automatically.
Gaggle networks can even extend to business partners, brand advocates, customers, and so on, increasing the number of eyes on your social shares tenfold with barely any extra work for the people involved.
Blog distribution tools … HootSuite
Most people have heard of Hootsuite already, and with good reason – it’s one of the most comprehensive social distribution platforms out there.
You can manage and publish to all of the major social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and even Foursquare, from your dashboard.
They’ve also got a ton of integrations to choose from in their App Directory, from other social networks like YouTube and Tumblr to marketing and sales integrations such as MailChimp and Salesforce.
Blog distribution tools … Content Blvd
Content Blvd connects brands with publishers who will post their content. After creating a profile on their site, you submit an article and then share it with publishers in their Content Marketplace.
When a publisher wants to use your content, you’ll be notified of their offer and can either accept or reject it. This simplifies the blogger/publisher outreach process (and makes it way less annoying than cold-emailing publishers you hope will like your stuff).
Buffer
Buffer allows you to “set it and forget it” when it comes to scheduling social media posts. Queue up several Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ posts by either setting a scheduled time or “buffering” them, which will automatically spread your posts out throughout the day.
One of the best parts of this tool is how simple and efficient it is – there’s barely any learning curve to using it, and it’s incredibly easy to fit into your current workflow
Blog distribution tools … Click to Tweet
Click to Tweet makes it quick and easy for readers to share your content, or pieces of content, to their Twitter followers by clicking to tweet. You create your pre-written tweets and Click to Tweet provides a link that, when clicked, will open that tweet inside a user’s Twitter account.
It’s an easy way to eliminate the barrier of typing out a tweet for your readers to share it, and since you’re working with a link, you can use it however you want.
SlideShare
SlideShare is another one you’ve likely already heard of, although it’s not commonly put under the “promotional” umbrella.
The popular presentation tool allows you to upload slide decks into easily digestible and shareable presentations that can be hosted on SlideShare.com or embedded into blog posts and websites.
Presentations can be shared through some channels – the obvious ones like email, Twitter and Facebook, as well as Google+, Scoop.it, and even Reddit.
Uploading presentations are easy and make for more engaging content, but it’s the extensive sharing features that make SlideShare an awesome distribution tool.
Blog distribution tools … Storify
Storify, as the name implies, lets you create stories out of conversations happening on social media.
What this means is that you can compile, say, a series of tweets or Tumblr posts and turn them into an interactive slide deck or blog post that can be hosted and shared from your brand’s
Storify profile or embedded into an external page. It’s a cool way of displaying what you and your followers are talking about on social media and turning it into a different, shareable piece of content.
Blog distribution tools … Contently
There’s a good chance you’ve already heard of Contently as well since they just raised a big bucket of money.
They’re hailed as the marketplace of journalists, connecting brands with freelance writers to help them pump up their content marketing – but they also offer a range of tools for content creation, management, and distribution.
Each journalist has their portfolio page where they can display and promote their content, complete with sharing features and publisher categories.
Having access to a large pool of writing talent in which each freelancer is nurtured in their work is great for brands – your content will be promoted along with the writer’s portfolio.
SharedCount
SharedCount provides social URL analytics for quick insight into which pieces of content are being shared (and which ones aren’t) on an individual basis. Simply plug in a URL and get a lightning-quick report on how many times it’s been liked, commented on and shared on Facebook, tweeted about, Pinned, shared on LinkedIn, and even “stumbled upon” on StumbleUpon.
While this isn’t a distribution tool per se, it’s a handy little tool that will give you quick insight into which channels and content are strongest, helping in your overall distribution strategy. There are several pricing points, but the free version is all you need.
Blog distribution tools … PitchEngine
PitchEngine adds style to the traditional pitch by turning sales flyers, press releases and the like into engaging content pieces.
This platform guides you through the necessary content fields and allows you to include images and embed videos, turning what would have been a stagnant text piece into a multimedia experience.
Features like responsive boilerplates, location stamps, tagging for SEO and the ability to schedule your pitch to be published ahead of time are the icing on top.
Distribution tools … Tweriod
Tweriod is a timing tool for your tweets. A lot of attention has been paid to which times are best to tweet, but there’s no blanket answer.
By accessing your Twitter account, Tweriod assesses your tweets and your followers’ tweets and generates a report tailored to your own Twitter presence and community. It’s a neat little tool that’s simple to work with and gives you the information you can use.
The bottom line
Make your thinking about tools by including what comes naturally to you. For example, you may not be able to imagine sequences of ideas very well, but you may excel in imagining other modalities such as smell, touch, and sound.
You may be excellent at infusing your tools into visualization with emotional charge and great feelings. DO not feel compelled to stay within any single modality but make your visualizations and imagination vivid and rich by including numerous modalities.
Your senses are wonderful tools for you to engage while unleashing the power of the imaginative mind. Make it colorful and exciting. Make your imagination your ally and your best friend.
