James Carson

We’ve heard that creating content has never been easier, but this throws up its own challenge. With so many options for audiences, getting your content seen is still a real challenge.

That’s why I wanted to write the Econsultancy guide to content distribution.

With my tongue in my cheek I prefixed the headline of the guide ‘How to Go Viral’.

We can hardly guarantee our content will ‘go viral’, but with all the success of publishers due to social sharing, I feel it’s an idyllic goal for content marketers.

The B2C travel sector should be a sector that is ripe for content marketing.

Similar to fashion, for many people it is a pursuit in itself, while it’s also an out and out leisure activity.

It is also wedded to social media. Many people can barely resist going on beach holidays without snapping a ‘hot dogs’ as legs shot or a refreshing mojito and putting it on Instagram.

What comes first: the distribution or the content?

In content strategy, people often focus on the most obvious part (the content creation) and don’t quite realise that there’s a lot more to it.

Content strategy is a big picture that is made up of four main ‘blocks’. A burger (content) can be quite nice, but on its own it’s just a meatloaf. You need the bun, the cheese and the sauce to make it really tasty.

These parts all work together, and are made up of smaller ‘ingredients’ to make the whole.

Brands as publishers is a popular mantra, but what does it really mean? Does it also mean that publishers can become brands that sell stuff?

Digital disruption has not been kind to established publishers.

Firstly, circulation of print media has declined due to the rise of social media, the explosion of freely available commoditised content (particularly in the lucrative celebrity market, in which the Mail Online is causing major disruption) and the slowness of the economic recovery.