What’s the point in producing it if you’re not going to market it?
Today we visit the third and final pillar of Owned Content strategy: Publication. We’ve already looked at Platform, the framework of the program, and Content, the heart and soul. Publication and promotion serve as the outfit and wardrobe for our owned content. In it, we ask, “How are we going to present this to the world? How are we going to get noticed?”.
Where platform is about building a repeatable process, and content is about great storytelling, Publication is all about the eyeballs. Getting as many eyeballs to your content as often as possible. Without those eyeballs, how are you ever going to win mindshare?
Channel: Where should you publish your content? This often comes down to the question, “where are the most eyeballs already?”. In the case of video, YouTube is a wise selection. It’s already a highly-performing search engine, and the audience generally knows it as a video destination in the same way they know parent company Google as a search destination.
For blog posts and podcasts, the issue can become murkier. You should definitely keep functionality and cost in mind. Free blog platforms are great, but can you easily embed other content, like video, pictures and audio? Can you use your graphics? Since you need to be concentrating on storytelling and volume, the channel should be as simple as possible to build and maintain.
Cadence: Now we get to the heart of promotion. How often shoul
d you promote your content via social media channels? If you said once, just when you publish, the good news is: you have company; the bad news is: that’s the wrong answer.
You should be publishing your content at times that are optimal for your audience. Here’s a good general idea of what “primetime” means for certain social media promotional platforms.
Intensity: Your social media and paid promotion cadence should promote your stories often. Routinely changing taglines and promotional angles for your content is key; you do not want to be caught keeping the same “commercial” out in the public. New and differently-written plugs for content garner attention.
Your chance to be creative with owned content didn’t end at the content development stage. In promotion and publication, your creativity to draw viewers into your owned content will make all the difference. 
Joe Gura 
Great post, Joe. I completely agree. It’s very easy for marketers to rely solely on averages based across industries. Instead, we all should be learning from our audiences. When we understand their motivations for discovering information, we can best optimize our sharing strategies so they are aligned. Thanks for the solid reminder.
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Great post! It can be very tempting to post your content on all social media platforms at once – especially if you are using a marketing platform such as Hubspot or Hootsuite. However, it’s important to post during the optimal times as well as the optimal day of the week. The larger your audience reach, the more activity you are likely to experience from your posts.
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