Develop a Distribution-First Mindset to Win in the Attention Economy

Whether you’re just getting started on your content creation journey or if you’re a seasoned content creator with established workflows and formats, the big idea and framework we’re introducing here can be an absolute game changer. 

In our content audits we’ve seen one trend that’s consistently holding social impact marketing teams back in their content strategy. And the worst part is that we see this with teams who put a lot of time and effort into their content. But because they aren’t implementing this strategy, they still aren’t getting the most return on their investment. So then they have to spend more time and energy thinking about new content ideas and formats, more time and energy creating that new content, and so on. 

By the way, did you check out our article where we covered why no one cares about your content and how you can fix that? If not, you might want to read that first, because it will make everything we’re talking about here so much more valuable.

Ok, let’s get back to it. 

The secret to unlocking the most value from all your hard work creating and producing content is to adopt a distribution-first content strategy. 

Now you might be thinking, “Wait, I already have a content distribution strategy. And figuring out how to distribute all of my content across all my channels just feels like more work, not less.”

But if you’re thinking about your content distribution strategy as just knowing what channels and formats you want to use, you’re stuck at Content Distribution 101. 

Let’s take a look at how to go from Content Distribution 101 to Content Distribution Mastery — and how making this shift can be a massive time and energy saver, all while making your overall content efforts significantly more impactful. 

Content Distribution in the Attention Economy

We think of the attention economy as an ecosystem where information is overflowing and overwhelming us and our attention is being bought and sold by large brands to grow their profits. 

Capturing and sustaining attention is the first step in converting your content into engagement and action — and eventually building and maintaining deeper relationships with your community of supporters. 

Effective content distribution is critical in the attention economy because our media diets and content preferences are more siloed and scattered than ever before. Our access and exposure to information is determined largely by algorithms. So we can’t just post our content to our website, send out an email, and call it a day.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to spray and pray your content across every channel out there. That’s a recipe for spreading yourself too thin, burning out, and getting lackluster results on each channel. 

But It does mean that you need to be strategic and intentional about how you plan to distribute the content that you create. And you need to do this before you create your content — not after. 

You get less value, reach, and engagement out of any given piece of content — big or small — and this burdens you to come up with new ideas, new formats, create more new content, and so on. But because you still haven’t come up with an effective distribution strategy and workflow, all of these new ideas and content are still not being leveraged to their true potential. So this vicious cycle repeats itself. 

The beauty of a distribution-first mindset is that it allows you to squeeze the most value out of your content efforts and ideas. This means that you can spend more time creating quality content based on original, valuable, distinct ideas and messages, and get those ideas in front of the right people, in the right channels, in the right formats, at the right times. 

Developing Your Distribution-First Mindset

So, what does a distribution-first mindset look like in practice?

Before we get into that, let’s make sure you have a few foundational principles in place with your border content strategy. We’ve talked about these before, but it’s worth revisiting here briefly so we can connect content distribution to the larger equation. 

Define Your Niche

You have to clearly define and own your niche as an organization. If you don’t position and differentiate yourself within the broader social impact ecosystem, it’s going to be difficult to make good choices around your distribution strategy. 

Define Your Audience

Similarly, you have to clearly define your audience and understand which audiences you’re hoping to reach with your content strategy. This is fundamental, because effective content distribution is born from an audience-first approach. 

An audience-first approach means deeply understanding your audience, knowing what channels your audience actually hangs out in, knowing what content your audience actually wants and needs, and building a content plan around that — rather than building your plan around your ideas and your goals. 

Determine Your Brand and Market Strategy

Lastly, how does your content strategy support your broader brand and marketing strategy? Remember, we’re not just looking for likes and clicks here. This ultimately needs to drive actual value for your community and your mission. 

Ok, so let’s say you have all of that generally figured out. Here’s what a distribution-first mindset looks like in practice. 

A distribution-first mindset, in its simplest form, is really all about reverse-engineering your content strategy. Rather than starting from the idea and the content itself, you need to start by imagining how, where, and when that content will actually be packaged, distributed, and consumed by your audience. 

When you think about your content from this end-state perspective, it can actually have huge implications on what content you create in the first place.  Because when you start with what channels and audiences you are hoping to reach for any given piece of content, it creates helpful constraints around the type of content that actually has a chance to be effective within those channels and for that audience. 

Then, you can outline a simple distribution strategy for each piece of content. Let’s look at an example to help clarify. 

A Distribution-Last Example

Say you’re a conservation-focused organization that helps protect and preserve wild spaces across the California Coast. Traditionally, you may approach your content strategy something like this:

You want to share stories featuring some of the natural wonder and wildlife to remind your community why your work is so important. So you plan an article featuring a story about sea otters. You know everyone loves sea otters, because they’re adorable and photogenic. 

So maybe you interview a field biologist on your staff that has expertise on otters and their ecosystem. You source some photos, and get started writing the article, with loose plans that you’ll post it to your site, feature it in your newsletter, and then maybe do a few social posts to promote it. 

That’s a distribution-last mindset. 

The Distribution-First Version

Here’s what a version of this same story looks like using a distribution-first mindset: 

A core pillar of your broader content strategy is featuring stories of individual flora and fauna in your protected area. You’ve already identified the key channels and formats for this content pillar, with a set cadence and distribution plan and schedule. 

Just like you’ve done with past stories like this, you’ll tease the post on social media with an emotional, scroll-stopping, image-based post 1 week before the full story goes live to get some early interest and engagement. 

Then, the day the story is published, you’ll send it out to email subscribers as a standalone piece that features a compelling hook to click through to the full story on your site. 

That same day, social posts will go out on whatever social channels you’ve identified as relevant for this content pillar. These posts feature zero-click content that lives in the channel and doesn't require your audience to click through to your website. They can see some of the featured photos, maybe even a video, some pull quotes from the interview with the field biologist, and the supporting copy does a good job communicating the core ideas and concepts in an entertaining and channel-appropriate way. 

And sure, you’ll also invite your audience over to your website where they can dig deeper and connect more fully with your brand and community. But they don’t have to do that to find value in your content, either. 

Cool. 

Not so fast. We’re just getting started. Because distribution doesn’t end when the story goes live. This is just the beginning. You’ve already identified that you’ll re-feature this same piece of content in 2 weeks when your digest newsletter goes out. And again in 3 weeks when you do your social catch-up post featuring the top content from your brand.

You’ve also created a series of short form vertical video posts from your interview with the field biologist that you’ll drip out over the course of the next few months. 

And you cut a long-form video that features the best parts of your interview with your field biologist paired with other content and footage from your existing media library for your Youtube channel.

And you’re planning to pull some of the content and ideas from this story into a bigger piece of hero content when you launch an interactive experience on your site where users can browse through all the different flora and fauna of your protected area to learn more about the biodiversity and rich ecosystem that makes your area so special. 

Wait a minute. I thought a distribution-first approach was supposed to create LESS work, not more. This sounds like a lot of extra work. 

Think again. 

Look at all of the content and value we’re squeezing out of this one idea. Even if all you’re doing is writing an article about this, you still have to do all of the work to come up with the idea, figure out how to frame and package the idea, interview the field biologist, write the article, post it on your site, promote it, and so on. 

With our distribution-first approach, you’re getting significantly more bang for your buck for this one story. So this one idea, this one story, gives you content across multiple channels, for multiple months, from a micro scale to a macro scale. 

And because the distribution is considered from the start, you’re ensuring that your story is set up for success before you go through all the effort of creating it. This not only saves more time and effort in the long run, it also makes it significantly more likely that your audience will actually see and engage with your content. 

It All Comes Back to Attention

Remember the attention economy? You’ve got to give your content a fighting chance. Our social feeds and inboxes are noisy. You can’t rely on a single post in a single channel to get your audience's attention. 

The example above is just one approach to a distribution-first mindset. It’s probably not the perfect approach for your organization. You’ll need to right-size this for your brand, and your team’s capacity, opportunities, and audience. But hopefully it helps you understand how thinking about your content strategy from a distribution-first mindset can be a powerful way to get more out of your content.

As competition in the attention economy continues to grow and you look to find new ways to connect and activate your community, an effective distribution strategy can be just the edge you’ve been looking for. We hope that the ideas and example we shared today will equip you with what you need to move past Content Distribution 101 with flying colors and quickly reach your own version of Content Distribution Mastery.