CONTENT SYNDICATION THESCOOP

What is content syndication?

Content is king. But, if you’re a content marketer (or if you’re familiar with the craft) then you know how difficult it is to ensure that your content is getting the attention that it deserves. [That is why at Spotlight we inserted this phrase ...if Content Is King...the Content Syndication is Queen' to emphasise this point.

Even if your company has a popular blog, newsletter, and social media channels, publishing on these platforms alone may only earn your content a couple hundred views (maybe fewer).

"Listen Up! If Content Is King... Then Content Syndication is Queen"

- Jennifer Nash

Content syndication is the act of republishing blog, case study, infographic, or video content across a number of websites or platforms. The aim of this is to optimize the impact of highvalue content by placing it in front of a variety of different audiences. There are a few ways that content can be syndicated.

Source: The Fundamental Guide To Lead Generation By Vendasta

Here are some of the most popular syndication strategies available to marketers today:

1. Outreach to other websites and blogs

This can be a great way to generate awareness for your brand by reaching new audiences, but the chief risk here is that you will get little traffic back to your site without a strong incentive for readers to do so

2 Social media

Posting a blog link on your social media sites is the bare minimum for social syndication However, marketers can take this a few steps further by publishing full length blog content on LinkedIn, publishing infographics on sites like Pinterest, or even publishing slide decks on SlideShare.

3. Medium

Medium is equal parts social network, blog, and forum, and it’s completely accessible to anyone on the web. Post on Medium to unlock additional SEO opportunities, reach new audiences, and potentially have your content delivered in personalized newsletters or placed behind the Medium paywall.

4. Paid syndication

This category belongs to companies like Outbrain and Taboola that are in the business of creating “Recommended for You” and “Around the Web” ads for online news articles that link back to your website

5 Forums

Quora, Reddit, and Tumblr are the biggest names in this space, and they boast massive opportunities for marketers to amplify their syndication efforts through micro-content that can be derived from larger content pieces

6. PR strategy

Getting your work published in a major publication like Fast Company is no small task. That’s why a dedicated press strategy can be instrumental in getting your work placed in these influential news sources.

Why is content syndication important?

Content without syndication is kind of like having a product without a distribution network to back it Syndication strategies allow marketers to maximize the impact of everything they produce, from blog articles, to videos, to podcasts, to infographics, and everything in between

1. It’s nitrous for content marketers When you publish a blog, the only automatic reach that you receive is whatever may result from your current web traffic, and what you might realize in SEO value a few months down the road. By building a more integrated syndication strategy, you are effectively supercharging the reach and the impact that your content would otherwise have.

The effect of content syndication is simple:

1. Accessing a larger audience equals greater reach.

2. Authority backlinks serve to improve your domain authority and all subsequent website marketing tactics

3 Greater reach translates into greater web traffic

4 Greater web traffic means an increase in conversions

Here’s an anecdote:

Without syndication

You publish a blog on your website which averages just over 30,000 monthly visits. You have a newsletter that distributes your content to an email list of 3,000. As a result of your publication, you earn 300 pageviews in the first month, 50 in the second month, and 20 in the third month. By month four, your blog begins to rank on the low end of the top ten for a long-tail search term and starts to generate ~30 monthly visits from organic.

With syndication

Alternatively, you publish the same blog, earn all of the same organic metrics, BUT, you also deploy a syndication strategy. Here is the net effect:

• You reformat and publish it on Medium and refer an additional 20 clicks per month

• You post tidbits of your content on Quora and generate hundreds of answer views per month

• You get the piece republished in SearchEngineJournal (SEJ) and get an additional few thousand reads which translates into greater awareness, an influx in direct organic leads, and a handful of referral leads