Stop Posting, Start Distributing

Priscilla McKinney:

Hello and welcome to Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing podcast. I'm Priscilla McKinney, CEO and mama bird here at Little Bird Marketing. And I'm so excited about today's topic because I see this problem everywhere, everywhere.

I am known to be in the back of a cocktail party talking with some owner and this problem emerges. So picture this, you're creating amazing content. You're putting in the work. You've got a blog post. You probably spent hours putting it together, maybe even days. It's well researched. It's helpful. You feel like you've got the voicing right. You feel like you also have what your audience needs. And then you hit publish and you cross your fingers.

And nothing happens. Does that sound familiar to you? Cause I hear it all the time and the painful truth about B2B marketing and the thing that kind of companies don't want to hear is that often they don't have a content problem. I see a lot of good content out there. I mean, believe me, I see a lot of trash content, but there is good content out there, but they don't have a distribution program that is going to win the day.

So let me say that again because it's really essential. You possibly don't have a content problem. You might have a distribution problem. So today I'm going to talk about the difference between posting and distributing because they're not the same thing and they're not even close.

And once you understand the distinction, once you really get it, then everything changes. And the content actually starts working harder for you and your audience actually sees what you're creating. Visibility. That's the issue, right? You stop feeling like you're shouting into the void. So let's dig in and see how that could be possible.

Let me define what I mean when I say posting versus distributing, because I think a lot of people use these terms interchangeably and they really shouldn't. Posting is truly hitting that publish button. You write something, you put it on the platform, and you're hoping that people see it.

A lot of people go share it one time on LinkedIn. And even when people come on my podcast, they say, okay, let me know what day you're launching it. So I know what day you're posting. And I'm thinking, I'm not having you on my podcast and posting about this one time. Are you kidding me? This is way too much effort. So you see where I'm going with this. Too often people move right onto the next thing after they've posted about something they've worked so hard on only one time.

So distributing, what does that mean? That's an entirely different animal. Distributing means a strategic pushing of that content through hopefully multiple channels to specific audiences with intentional calls to action. Do you see how different that is? It's not write a blog and post it. It's have a plan. You've got to have a system. And you're working that content like it's a job because frankly, it is.

So let me tell you a story. We had a client who was so frustrated. They came to us. They were writing all of these amazing blogs and I mean excellent stuff. It was even SEO optimized and it was overtly helpful. It was actually well written, something that I can't say about most things that I see. It really was everything you'd want in that piece of content, but they were getting zero traffic, zero conversions. And they really were stumped about why.

So we dug in a bit and this is what we found. They were publishing the blog and then that's it. That was the whole story. Publish and hope, not even an email announcement, no social media promotion, no internal sharing, nothing. The content was amazing, but it was sitting there on their website.

And listen, I get it. Creating content is really hard, but that's the point. It's so hard that when you finally hit that publish button, you have to figure out what it's going to take to get it across the line, to be strategic for you, to actually fulfill your business goals. Creating the content is the starting line.

Now I had another client who was posting on LinkedIn every single day, every single day. And they look at their metrics and see all of the likes and comments and they'd feel pretty good about it. But sometimes those can be vanity metrics, right?

In fact, the opposite is true because if you go out to Little Bird Marketing's LinkedIn feed, the corporate feed, it can often look like we're very lonely. But I happen to know for a fact that I'm getting enough traction where I see people are moving off LinkedIn and over to my website where I can control the actual journey to converting.

And so you have to be careful about those vanity metrics. Either they're really high or they're too low. Whether people like, comment or share, yes, that might push the algorithm to whatever degree, but this isn't a job of chasing the algorithm. What we need to know, the data we need to have is if it is bringing people to our website, giving them a conversion option, are we getting a meeting? Are we getting a sale from it?

So what we found with this client was they were really talking about them and there was a lot of conversation, but nobody was clicking through to the website to get more information. And so they never got an opportunity to convert and they were never joining their email list, which means we can't nurture them to eventually convert. The client was just working their tail off and they were chasing the LinkedIn algorithm, which I don't like to do. You got to understand it, but you can't just be beholden to it.

But they weren't really building any genuine relationships with their audience or coming to a point where they owned that relationship. Meaning they got them off of LinkedIn, which is just a vehicle to having the relationship.

So here's the mindset shift I need you to make. Content creation is about 30% of the work and distribution is about 70%. And honestly, most people are doing it absolutely backwards.

So what good is amazing content really if nobody sees it? I mean it's the proverbial tree falling in the forest right. So you can be writing the most amazing blogs in the history of your industry and there are many clients who've come to me who claim that they have, but without a distribution strategy it just doesn't even matter.

So let's talk for a minute about balance because this is where a lot of B2B companies really get more confused. Most companies are either posting way too much sales content or posting so inconsistently that their audience forgets that they even exist. And neither approach builds the trust that you need to actually get conversion. And if you want a social media marketing strategy that actually works, you have to get this balance right.

So here's a concept I have. I call it the rule of 15. It's straight from my social media guide, a free resource that's on our website, littlebirdmarketing.com slash resources. I've got all kinds of things there. You don't even have to do business with us, but there is free stuff out there for you.

But this is how it works. And just listen here, take a little note and crib this. For every 15 pieces of content you put out there, 10 of them need to be interesting pieces. These are stories or your insights or value adds. Then the next four need to be helpful pieces.

So I think of it as the first ten being show that you're interesting, the next four show that you're interested, right? You're trying to help people. Think of how-to's, templates, resources, infographics, just tactical stuff, right? Maybe a listicle or something like that. And then for that 15th piece, you have earned the right to ask.

That is your call to action, your actual promotion, your sales message. Please at that point, don't get all shy and act like we're not in business. Nobody likes someone who just sales, sales, sales, sales, but also at some point we've got to ask for the sale. So we've got to get that balance right.

And that's why I say that most B2B companies get this balance backwards. Also, they only post when they have something to sell or they just kind of post here and there. And you know, that's just not enough.

Your audience tunes out when all you do is ask but if you consistently provide value, when you show up with interesting ideas and helpful resources, I mean that changes the game. You earn the right to ask. You build trust and you get people interested and you get their attention. And then when they're listening, then you can make a very relevant offer.

I worked with a client who completely flipped their content ratio and their engagement just absolutely skyrocketed. People started looking forward to their content. It was like, you know, you guys are very helpful. And they actually started doing very important things. They started sharing that content. They started bookmarking that content.

I mean, these are things that yes, the algorithm wants and likes, but think about that. Who cares about the algorithm? If people think that your company is a valuable resource so much that I'm going to bookmark your posts and I'm going to share them. Oh my gosh. When you finally do make an ask people will respond because the relationship is there, the value is there.

So that's the balance piece. Now let me walk you through a little bit about what distribution actually looks like in practice. So at Little Bird Marketing when we publish a blog post, whether it's a recap from Ponderings from the Perch or an actual blog, one piece of content becomes at least, at least 10 touch points. And I'm going to walk you through exactly how we do this so you can steal my system. Seriously, again, take some notes.

Touch point number one is an email. We don't just publish the blog and assume everyone will find it. People who know and like us are in our CRM and they don't wake up every morning thinking, oh my gosh, what has Priscilla written? No, they've got their own lives. But in our early bird gets the worm email, we basically give people a recap. Like here's some things you'd want to listen to. Here's a blog you want to read, et cetera, et cetera.

Touchpoints two and three are LinkedIn, but we approach this strategically. I post from my personal profile because that's where I have relationships and credibility. I have over 20,000 followers. People are more likely to pay attention to me than to my company, right? That's just human nature. So I create a first person, authentic post. I have the ability to tag things that make sense and it sounds like me.

We also post from the Little Bird Marketing Company page. And that's more professional. It's more evergreen. And here's the critical part. These aren't the same posts. We're hitting different angles and different audiences.

Touchpoint four could be X or whatever we're calling it these days, but you might be on it. You might be off of it, you know, but you want to consider it. So if you're on it, you need to go post for it.

Now touch points five, six, and seven are about employee advocacy, but this is not about people just saying you have to promote this. You have to push this. Here's the post. You put it on your account. Team members need to reach out differently within their own networks. They have the credibility and they have the reach.

And if you work with them and you upskill them to the degree to which they really understand how to use LinkedIn, there's an actual plug for my social influence LinkedIn course, which you can find at littlebirdmarketing.com forward slash social hyphen influence. If you can upskill your employees and really invest in them in a meaningful way, they can take touch points five, six, and seven and really get you amazing reach.

You have to make it easy for them. We do provide pre-written copies to employees, and we give them graphics, and we make it so simple. But we really give them the skills to help them personalize it and help them understand who they might send it to, who they might tag, what it might look like if they put their own spin on it.

Touch points eight and nine are repurposing. And that is where we pull the best quotes from the blog and turn them into graphics. We create 10, 30, 60 second video clips and we use them on Instagram, on LinkedIn, YouTube shorts, embed them in an email, do all kinds of things. Same content, different formats and different platforms, but it comes from that same original source.

Now touch point 10 is something that a lot of people forget about and that is, wait for it, email signatures. We like for people to update their team email signature and include a line like, here's something recent from our blog, or they need to put their spin on it. It's like, want to hear something fresh? Here's a link. That's passive distribution and it's brilliant.

Touchpoint 11 is sales enablement. Wait, wait, wait, Priscilla, you said there were going to be 10 touch points, but I'm giving you a bonus one. We make sure our sales team knows the content exists, that it's ready, that it's locked down, that it's there for them. And when a prospect asks a question that that blog addresses, our salespeople have that at the ready and they can say, you know what, somebody in our team just wrote about this. It made me think of you. Here's a link.

That's just an amazing way to help people. And that says, we're not just vendors, we're thought leaders. And yeah, this is just one piece of content, one blog post, but this is an amazing way that it can reach 10 plus ways. That's the cumulative effect that builds brand presence, brand awareness, and actual recall, which is really important.

People aren't always staring right at your marketing materials when they need what you have. And so that recall is super, super important.

So let me connect this to something we talk about a lot at Little Bird Marketing, and that is our SOAR system. Again, this is something you can crib from me. Distribution isn't about doing more, doing tons more. It's actually about being strategic, organized, accountable, and then doing what is repeatable. Might S O A R.

So this is what separates effective B2B digital marketing from just looking busy. And strategic means every distribution channel is chosen intentionally. We're not just posting everywhere because someone said we should. A lot of people tell me I should be on TikTok. I'm not interested. That's not where my buyer is.

Organized means we have content calendars. We treat Little Bird Marketing as a client and we batch process our work. If I'm going to write all four or all 12 posts about this particular piece of content, I'm going to do it all at the same time because otherwise when am I going to have time to come back to this four or 12 times?

We plan that way. And that way we don't come in Monday morning scrambling, trying to figure out what are we going to post today? That was decided like six or seven months ago. We're not going to change our business that dramatically. We know what we're selling. So there's no reason we can't just get organized in order to be that far worked ahead.

The A stands for accountable and that means we're tracking what we're working. It also means that when we have a new idea and a new way to do something, we say, whoa, whoa, that's great, but let's make sure it's strategic and we can organize it. One little extra tip about that accountability and organization is also bandwidth. You might be able to organize it, but it has to be accountable. Does the person you're assigning to it have the time to get it done?

The last one is repeatable. And that means that we have templates and processes. If everything goes super well and we are like, wow, what a cool win, do we know how to repeat it? We need to know what exactly we did so that we can repeat successes and we can quit doing things that amount to nothing.

I cannot tell you how many meetings at Little Bird Marketing we have had where we're talking for 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, and we go, wait a minute, do we need to even do this project? Are we looking at the data? There's so many times that we've given ourselves the ability to say no to something. And when we say no to something, that means we quit getting distracted and we can start getting traction on a different project, a better focus.

So with all that said, here's something I really want to leave you with, and that is that distribution should not be an afterthought. You have to build distribution into the content creation expectations from the very beginning. Even before you start writing, you want to ask where, when, how is this getting in front of our audience, right? You might change a little bit of what you're writing based on what channels you're using for your distribution.

You need to know who's going to share it. What's the timeline? So if you don't have a distribution plan, you really shouldn't spend that time creating that content. That's just true. Do not invest time and money into creating something that no one is going to see.

Now, of course, at Little Bird Marketing, we have all kinds of tools that help us get this done in a very efficient manner. We like to use all kinds of zaps and webhooks and we use Trello and we try and connect all kinds of automated systems. The biggest one we use is HubSpot. If you're interested in HubSpot, we also offer HubSpot onboarding. You can take a look at that at littlebirdmarketing.com slash HubSpot hyphen onboarding.

It doesn't matter what system you use. The point is have a system. We don't bleed orange. A lot of our clients do use HubSpot. We use HubSpot, but my biggest push about MarTech is, you know what the best kind is? It's the kind you will use. So if your team is really embedded using a particular technology for marketing and they really know it well, by all means stay right there.

So we use HubSpot for scheduling. It's super important for our distribution because it has so much tracking. We use content calendars for planning and then we have templates for team sharing. It's really not overly fancy. It's just really organized and it really works.

So as I finish here, I just want to tell you a couple of areas where I see B2B teams fail most often. And maybe you can say, that's kind of the place where we're faltering and you can actually put together a plan of attack to fix some things.

The first pattern I see often is that people create content in isolation, meaning there's this one great writer on the team and they really like to do it, but nobody on the team finds out that they're even writing. And it can be a person who likes to do thought leadership, but it also could be the marketing team that gets isolated. The marketing team creates content and never tells sales. They never tell the broader team and that content lives in this little silo. That's just not helpful.

The second pattern I see that causes failure is a lack of a promotion plan. There is that inherent assumption that if we build it, they'll come and it's just not true. People are busy, people are distracted, it's an attention economy, it's hard to get heard above the noise. So you have to have a plan to attack that sense of overwhelm that everybody else has.

The third pattern I see that causes failure is that sometimes companies don't have employee buy-in. The team doesn't know the content exists. Nobody's asked them what they think should be written about. They haven't gotten any opportunity to input and they kind of look at it like, well, it's not our job. And so all that potential reach sits there unused and I think it's a real waste.

The fourth pattern that I see often is that there's just no measurement. I'll ask a CMO or I'll ask a head of marketing or I'll ask a content creator, great, show me your blog or your piece of content that performed the best last year. We're going to go optimize that. And they don't know which one. Now they might have a feeling, but then we go and look at the data and that feeling is not even remotely what the data is saying to us. And that amounts to just flying blind.

After a few months, someone in leadership is going to ask, wait a minute, is this content thing working? You have to have a good answer to understand what is resonating with people. So the reason why all these things happen is that distribution really is a lot of work, but it's necessary work.

Your takeaway today is that posting is not the same as distributing. Posting is just crossing your fingers and hoping. Distributing is a multi-channel strategic system that gets your content in front of the right people at the right time. If you're creating great content and no one's seeing it, that's not a content problem. It's a distribution problem.

Build distribution into your process, make it repeatable, give your teams the tools and the templates and the training that they need, track what's working. And for the love of all that's holy, stop just hitting publish and praying. Your content really deserves better than that and your audience deserves better than that. And honestly, you deserve better than that.

So if this resonates with you, if you're sitting there thinking, yeah, we've been doing this all wrong and we need to fix it, head on over to our website and check out our content distribution services. We would love to help you build a system that actually works, but I tried to give you a lot of value today so you could crib some of our systems and kind of take a look and reassess where you're at.

And if you want to dive even deeper into distribution strategy, check out our blog on podcast marketing strategy. It's another deep dive on how to get more mileage out of the content you're already creating. If you enjoyed this episode of our B2B marketing podcast, be sure to subscribe and don't miss future episodes. Have a great day and happy marketing.