Comment, article or social? – Content24

Content creation is, and should be, a key focus for content marketers. However, today’s post looks at whether the content marketing sector has nailed something equally important – distribution. Also we mention a new move by Twitter

How you push out your content marketing

Yesterday we flagged up Euromoney’s research on content marketing and thought leadership, but think it is worth another look. This source makes the same point as countless others; ie the sector is doing well in terms of increased budgets but tactically some marketers are still scratching their heads.

Distribution is one area that bears this out. According to the survey, many marketers are split between which channel to push content on to. Asked about the number one route? Eighteen per cent said social media, 14 per cent round table events and 18 per cent blogging and comment pieces.

Another issue was the lack of good measure for ROI. Eighty per cent of respondents said positive client comments were the best test of a wellperforming campaign. Sixty-seven per cent said traffic or downloads.

Choosing the right channel demands an editorial/journalistic approach; it should be decided by someone who is used to making a judgment call on what people want to read. Just as for an actual publication, the one and only way to rate something – certainly online – is by how many people read it.

Twitter removes share counts

Twitter has removed counts from its own share and follow buttons. The platform revealed the change in a blog post in October with a view to implementing the change this week. As often happens, no one read the post and people, including the Huffington Post, have been caught on the hop.

To be clear, the change only affects Twitter’s own buttons and not the many third-party ones that are floating around. These showed both how many followers you have as well as shares. If you look at the Huffington Post, there are blank areas where the counts used to be.

Many publishers are unhappy about this because it was a key feature of their site. Share buttons are an important element in content distribution. For example, more than 30 per cent of The Guardian’s shared URLs are distributed via share buttons.