15 Best Content Distribution Platforms To Maximize Your Reach27 min read
We’re not going to teach you to suck eggs. If you’re here then you already know what a content distribution platform is and why it’s important. There are literally thousands and thousands of different platforms that claim to offer the largest reach for content promotion.
In this blog, we’ll make finding the right one for you a lot easier.
Below is a list of the best content distribution platforms. And using these is a surefire way to increase your brand awareness and level up your reach. Are you ready? Buckle up.
The platforms we’ll cover are:
- Owned media
- Quuu Promote
- Medium
- YouTube
- Social media
- Buffer
- Outbrain
- Quora
- Mailchimp
- HARO
- Newswires
- Digg
- Niche communities
- Slideshare
Owned media
Okay, so this isn’t a platform. It’s a channel you have ownership over. You’re reading this on the Quuu blog, which is our owned media.
The great thing about using your platforms to distribute your content is that you have total control over your final product.
External content distribution platforms can restrict you to a certain character count or medium. But on yours, be it a blog page or email list, you’re free to create whatever you want. Want to add a GIF?
Sure, your own media probably doesn’t have the same reach as some of the other platforms on this list, but if they’re reading your blog or listening to your podcast, they’re already engaged and interested in your brand. Now is your chance to really sell it to them.
You also have access to an incredible amount of metrics when it comes to your website. This allows you to dig deep and determine what type of content works.
You might wonder why I haven’t included social media accounts as owned media. Yes, they’re exceptional for content distribution. But while you own your accounts, the platform itself is entirely out of your control. You might remember a president who appeared to spend quite a lot of time on Twitter until he was suspended from the platform.
Whether that suspension was justified isn’t the issue. Your account is at the mercy of the platforms and their algorithms. And they don’t always work as they should.
Once you publish your content on your own platform, only you can remove it.
Quuu Promote
Quuu Promote is a content marketing tool designed to get your content in front of as many relevant people as possible. Uploading your content is as simple as adding your RSS feed. Once your article is on Quuu Promote, it’ll appear in the feeds of those who want to see it. When we say those who want to see it, we mean real, engaged, and active users. No bots.
If they like it, they’ll instantly be able to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Quuu users share 120,000 pieces of content a day. To date, Quuu Promote users have had their content shared across social media over 98 million times. They’re big numbers, aren’t they, Donald?
If you’ve just published your latest article for your golfing brand, your RSS feed will send it directly to Quuu Promote. Then your content will be reviewed to ensure it’s something our network will likely share before being sent to the feeds of golf lovers.
Golf is just one of the many topics available on Quuu Promote. How do 500 different interest topics sound? Ethical fashion? Yep. Bodybuilding? That’s also on there. Chances are, whatever your niche, there’s a topic to suit.
Right now, your content would expect to reach 53,900 people over the next three months. And you don’t even have to do anything.
We think it’s the ultimate content distribution platform. But don’t just take our word for it. Neil Patel likes it. So does A Better Lemonade Stand.
Medium
Blogging site Medium has been around since 2012, and it’s still going strong. The platform is open to anyone to blog about whatever they like, so it attracts a healthy mix of professionals and amateurs. It’s also incredibly popular, with 100 million users a month in 2022.
But if you’ve already got your blog, what’s the use of Medium as a content distribution platform? The obvious benefit is the huge user base Medium has. Sure, your brand might not be for everyone. But with such a large audience, you’re bound to find your people.
It sounds obvious, but the best way to build your reach on Medium is to post consistently with care and attention. Some of the biggest brands in the world, such as Intel, use it.
That means users expect a certain level of quality and expertize. Don’t be afraid to take your time. Make sure what you’re publishing is your best work, just as it would be on your own blog.
Once you’ve built up some authority and your relationships with other users have flourished, you could be asked to contribute to a popular publication. These are spaces for stories written around the same theme. Some work like traditional print outlets with their own team of writers.
Due to the community-focused nature of Medium, many make use of the expertize available on the platform. (That’s yours.) And being invited to write for a publication will get your content in front of new people and grow your audience.
If you don’t want to spend the time creating unique content, you can simply paste the URL of your most recent blog into Medium, and it will upload that for you. Don’t worry, it lets Google know it has permission to do this, so your SEO won’t take a hit. A link back to the original article will also be included automatically. Nice.
Flipboard was launched in 2010 as a news aggregator. It gives users a one-stop shop to read only the topics they want, which makes it a great choice for your brand. Just like Medium, it attracts 100 million users per month. The easiest way to get your content on the platform is by adding a share button on your blog.
Once you’ve published your content on your site, simply hit the button to share it on “Flip” it. This also allows others to share it.
The platform will automatically add it to the topics it deems relevant. As well as topics, Flipboard uses Magazines to categorize posts so you can better reach your target audience. You can create your own to curate your content, and other users can add your content to theirs.
Although the platform collates the content users want to see in one place, nothing you share on the platform is hosted there. Click on an article, and you’ll be taken to that brand’s site. This gives you great potential to grow your website traffic and increase your audience.
YouTube
From humble beginnings to 2.6 billion monthly users, YouTube is the content distribution platform to be on if video plays a role in your content marketing strategy. And it should. A Promo study conducted in 2019 found that 50% of people watched more than 5 videos a day.
You can approach YouTube in several ways. The first is by creating your own channel and publishing unique content. Okay, creating videos takes time. But you don’t have to put out 10-minute-plus videos every week filled with J.J. Abrams lens flares.
DIY store Fix.com has been on Youtube since 2016. They don’t produce lengthy videos about why you should buy their products. They produce short and to-the-point videos like getting rid of that smell in your fridge. That’s it.
It’s an incredibly simple strategy, but it’s resulted in over 50,000 subscribers and videos with almost 1 million views. At the end of every video, there’s a call-to-action directing viewers to their webpages or blog, and the description of each video is full of links to specific products featured in the video.
For Fix.com customers, it’s a great way to optimize their experience. They need to know how to fix their washing machine. And they need to buy very specific parts. The Fix YouTube channel puts both things in one place.
If you’d rather not create original content for YouTube, you can create ads or promotions. As with all social media, these work two ways. You can create ads through YouTube or pay influencers or video channel owners to feature your content.
If you opt for the more traditional route, your ads can appear before or during videos. You can also use banner ads that stay visible throughout the video.
Alternatively, if you strike up a deal with a content creator, they’ll insert your advert into the video, just like the folks at Corridor Crew.
It’s clever. If your content features before a video as a separate ad, it’s just that. Separate. If their favorite YouTuber stops a video halfway through to talk about your brand, it must be good. The people watching the video already trust the people making it, so they’re more likely to trust your brand when it gets featured.
Social media
Yeah, I know I didn’t exactly give social media a glowing review earlier in this post. But you can’t deny the colossal numbers on the platforms. And you’re probably not Donald Trump. Of the 7.9 billion people on the planet, over half are on social media. That’s another big number, isn’t it, Donald?
The various social media channels are all great content distribution platforms, offering endless possibilities for your brand, regardless of the type of content you want to produce. And once you’ve published your piece, they each offer a unique way to engage with your audience and gauge their emotions in real-time. All the social media channels offer their own analytics tools, so you know who your audience is on each one, and what type of content works best.
For users, each social network is great for content discovery. Don’t believe me? How often do you spend on your “For You” feed on TikTok rather than your “Following” feed? Or how about your suggested posts on Instagram? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Unfortunately, they’re always changing. This means you’re always playing catch-up whenever platforms change their algorithms. Since TikTok exploded in popularity, Instagram has promoted video content more heavily than any other. Likewise, YouTube has put more focus on its Shorts feed.
As with YouTube, social media isn’t just about your own channels. They provide plenty of opportunities for paid media and earned media too. Go down the traditional ad route for your digital marketing campaigns, and you’ll be able to push your brand to the right audience.
Facebook has an enormous amount of data on its users. So if you use Facebook ads, you can be sure those ads are getting promoted to the right audience. This means they’re more likely to result in clicks and engagement.
Alternatively, reach out to the influencers in your space and have them feature your content or brand. Social media is the home of influencer marketing, so scope out influencers you think will be great to work with. Build a relationship with them and see if they would like to promote your brand as sponsored content.
These platforms are also places for sharing. Create great content that engages certain people, and they’re more likely to share it. More shares increase your reach. But people aren’t the only inhabitants of social media. There are other brands on there too. Some of those brands, such as LADbible, almost exclusively share content from around the web. LADbible currently has 45 million followers. And there are countless other content-sharing channels all over social media. The possibilities are endless.
Buffer
Buffer is a platform focused on sharing across social media and making it as easy as possible. Rather than creating separate posts for each social media platform, Buffer allows you to publish your content across all of them from one simple dashboard. It tells you the best days to post, what type of content works best, and when it works best. It makes content creation across your social pages a breeze.
You can create, plan, organize and reply to your audience all from within the platform. So you no longer need to switch between your different pages constantly. You also have access to analytics from the dashboard to see what works and what doesn’t.
Outbrain
Outbrain is a clever tool that connects your content to other articles from reputable brands. On this platform, you gain access to some of the biggest names in media, such as CNN and Bloomberg. You might not think of those media giants as content distribution platforms. But with Outbrain they can be.
You can then create pay-per-click ads that will appear alongside relevant articles. Sounds pretty simple, right? It is, but Outbrain’s ace card is that those ads mimic the editorial style of the website, appearing as sponsored content. Rather than your content looking like an ad and disturbing a user’s browsing experience, it will look like an article created for a reputable brand.
Quora
Quora might not be an obvious content distribution platform, but it can help grow your brand and cement your place as an expert in your field. It’s the place where people go to ask questions about everything. Seriously, anything. For you, that means there’s a wide audience out there with questions that you and your brand can answer.
It can be a bit time-consuming having to answer individual questions, but in the long run, it builds up your authority on the site. If you’re adding backlinks to your answers, you need to make sure those answers are valuable and not just an empty vessel for your link.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the best email platforms, allowing you to manage all your campaigns, lists, and templates. It can be used to automate your newsletters and delve into your analytics to see what’s working.
It’s easy to forget about email marketing, but it still plays an important role and is a useful content distribution channel. Sure, social media has an unfathomably large audience, but you know your email newsletters are only going to people who have requested them. They’re already engaged with your brand.
Here are some tips to increase your conversions:
Keep it high-quality
Only say something if you’ve got something worth saying. Don’t pump out a newsletter twice a week if the content isn’t something worthy of your audience’s time. It’s much better to send out the occasional email that speaks to your audience than to send too many with little content. They’ll feel like spam.
Personalization
This is really simple, but it can make a huge difference. It can be as small as adding the recipient’s name to the beginning of your emails. Or you can suggest recommended products or services to them based on a recent purchase, with
Segmentation
If your brand offers a wide range of products or services, chances are not everybody is interested in all of them. If you’ve got data on your customers, you can go into detail and figure out what they might like. It’s no use sending an email promoting your sale on left-handed golf clubs to customers who have only bought right-handed clubs.
Mobile optimization
How many times have you picked up your phone today? Probably more than you care to admit. We’re always on our phones, so ensuring your emails work correctly on those devices is key. The number of people using their phones for emails has been rising since 2017. If your email isn’t optimized for mobile, a huge amount of people will be put off the moment they open it.
Great landing pages
Great, your emails deliver a good amount of clicks, but where are your users being directed? If you send them to generic, old landing pages, they’re probably leaving before they’ve even seen your content. Make sure your landing pages are crisp, fresh, and up to date.
HARO
HARO, short for Help A Reporter, is unique on this list. It’s not a publishing platform, so you can’t publish content whenever you want. You have to wait until a journalist asks a relevant question. It might sound odd, but news outlets like Mashable and Reuters use HARO regularly.
Once you sign up to HARO, you’ll receive an email three times a day full of questions from reporters worldwide needing expertize. If there’s a question your brand can answer, that’s your chance to get your brand name and authority in some of the biggest publications in the world.
HARO emails are simple to read and provide you with more information from the journalist once you click on the query you want to answer, as well as a unique email for that question.
Don’t forget to state who you are and what your company does, as well as add a link to your website.
Newswires
This is the opposite of HARO. Instead of waiting for journalists to create a query, you give them something you think is newsworthy. Newswires are one of the best content distribution platforms to get your work out to journalists and bloggers worldwide.
PR Newswire connects you with 3000 newsrooms, including publications like The New York Times and BuzzFeed. Access to such big names comes at a price. Annual membership costs $195. Prices for sending a press release start at $350 and go all the way up to $8700! Make sure what you’re sending is worth it. Once you submit a press release, staff at PR ensure it is targeted at the right publications to ensure maximum engagement.
Another newswire is imaginatively called Newswire. This one is a paid service, which handily lists all the publications you will reach depending on your plan.
Because newswires are professional tools for journalists, you want to make sure you’re only using them if you’ve got something newsworthy. Journalists are less likely to trust you if you’re throwing every little piece of content onto the newswire. (I know, I was on the receiving end of newswires for a long time.)
If you’re confident you have something journalists will want to write about, here are some tips for writing a good press release:
- Write a good headline
- Get straight to the point
- Keep it short
- Include quotes
- Add company information and contact details
Write a good headline
An interesting and informative headline is half the battle. If journalists aren’t intrigued by the headline and don’t know what it’s about, they probably won’t read the rest.
Get straight to the point
Give the journalists the most important facts at the beginning. They’re probably working to a tight deadline, so make it easier for them. It doesn’t need to be too in-depth. The easier it is for them, the more likely they are to use your press release.
Keep it short
Again, make reading it as quick as you can. Give them what they need to know. Just like I did with these two sentences.
Include quotes
Adding quotes is a great way to lend authority to your press release. If possible, supply quotes from different members of your team. And don’t forget to mention their job titles.
Add company information and contact details
It sounds obvious, but leaving these out will ensure you won’t be contacted again. Adding your company information and contact details gives journalists what they need to know and someone to contact. This could potentially lead to good relationships that turn your brand into a trusted source.
Digg
If you recognize the name, you’ve been around a while. But don’t worry, you haven’t been transported back to 2008. For our younger audience, Digg used to work much like Reddit, with users upvoting the content they liked. The more upvotes, the higher it appeared on the relevant pages.
In 2022, Digg is a mix between Flipboard and Medium. If you want to share content from your blog, you can simply paste the URL into the platform. Then readers will be sent to the original blog on your website.
If you want to create an original piece of content, you can do this on Digg itself. Once you’ve published your content, it can be added to Namespaces, which are basically topics users can choose to follow and have appear on their homepage.
Niche communities
Let’s not sugarcoat it, niche communities can be a blessing and a curse. You know this, you publish content on the internet for a living. The upside of niche communities is that you know there’s already a certain level of interest or, at the very least, knowledge when it comes to your brand and the industry you’re in.
That means you can get straight into the nitty gritty of your brand, and create valuable connections with people that value your brand.
It also means you might come across users that have lost trust in your brand. Now is a great chance for retargeting. Have real conversations with these people and win them round. Rebuild that trust.
Reddit is one of the biggest websites on the internet. With such a large user base, it has communities dedicated to almost anything you can imagine. But if you want to use it as part of your content distribution strategy, you can’t just directly link to your website.
You have to earn respect. Before discussing your brand, it’s best to contribute to the wider discussion. Comment regularly, and interact with other users. If people like the cut of your jib, they’ll reward you with upvotes, and your karma will go up. Users can also take away your karma.
If you think your brand is big enough, you can set up your own subreddit (that’s what Reddit calls its communities). If you’re able to do this, you’ll get away with a more direct approach. Users will expect you to keep them up to date, so they’ll happily accept a bit of direct marketing. Make sure you continue to get involved with the community to keep your karma high!
Slack groups
Slack isn’t just a messaging platform for you and your colleagues. There’s a whole world of specialized communities on the platform in the form of Slack groups. They work just the same as your work groups do. But there are more people in them. A lot more. How does 30,000 sound?
They’re great because, unlike Reddit, you know the people you’re interacting with are serious about that particular topic. People don’t join just to check in every couple of weeks and post the occasional meme. They seek out that particular community because they have a high-interest level and want to engage with like-minded people.
But, just like Reddit, you have to be an active member. You can’t open up Slack, post the link to your latest blog post then disappear again. Talk to them, get to know them, and become a trusted community member. Once that happens, users will be much more likely to read your latest article.
Here’s a handy list of Slack groups to get you started.
Forums
I’m showing my age a bit, aren’t I?
Look, whatever you young ones might think, forums still exist, and there are still thriving communities within them. Forums are the home of dedicated fans. It’s easy to join a group on Facebook if you have a passing interest in something. But to search out a forum for a specific topic and go to the hassle of creating an account? That requires more effort.
That means the same applies here as it does for Reddit and Slack groups. Talk to the users and get to know them. If you’re on a forum, it shows users that you care about them, and they’re a great tool for connecting with your audience.
Slideshare
If you’re in the business of creating infographics or presentations, Slideshare is a great content distribution platform. It allows you to upload your documents, be they infographics, PDFs, or even white papers, and then makes them accessible to the world. Users can view your content on Slideshare or embed it on their own page. If they’re subscribed to Scribd, the parent company, they can download your snazzy graphics for use offline.
Slideshare allows users to embed or download your content, so it could end up in places you never thought with untapped demographics. And as long as your content is branded, whoever views it will be directed right back to your website.
Conclusion
Content is king, now more than ever. Search engines love it, and people do too. But there’s no point creating heaps of new content if you can’t get it seen by the right audience.
The content distribution tools above are the best in the business. Pair them with your top-notch content strategy, and that, my friends, is a recipe for success.
Which content distribution platforms do you rely on? Are there any that haven’t made the list? Let us know in the comments.
