5 Ways to Strengthen Your Marketing Strategy With Content Syndication
5 Ways to Strengthen Your Marketing Strategy With Content Syndication
Alyssa Patzius, VP of Sales • Intero Digital
The Quick Version
- Develop Thought Leaders: Publish high-quality, non-promotional content to establish internal experts as industry leaders.
- Plan for Syndication: Integrate syndication opportunities into your content marketing strategy from the start.
- Consistent Unique Content: Regularly publish fresh, engaging content on your website.
- Effective Pitches: Craft compelling pitches tailored to target publications.
- Utilize Paid Tools: Use tools like Semrush, Moz, Outbrain, and Taboola to identify and leverage syndication opportunities.
You’ve worked so hard on that piece of content. You did your homework. You crafted language that fits your brand values. You perfected it and published it.
Too many marketers stop at this point, put their feet up, and announce that the work is done.
But after putting in all that effort, why not get your content seen by more people?
Content syndication is a value-boosting marketing strategy, but only 8% of marketers are using it to distribute and promote content. Why is this content marketing strategy so underutilized? Perhaps because people don’t really know what it is and how it works.
What Is Content Syndication?
A content syndication strategy is the practice of sharing original content again through a third party, like a publisher, an influencer, or another content distribution partner.
Because syndicated content gives proper ownership through canonical links and making note of the original publication, syndication allows for republishing your owned media while bolstering the original content, allowing your company to engage a larger audience.
Syndication can happen in a bunch of different ways. An entire piece of your owned media could be republished by a publication, using a canonical or no index tag to ensure the syndicated content doesn’t compete with the original. Or a publication could republish an excerpt within another piece of content or a condensed version.
What Is Content Syndication Not?
Content syndication is not a guest post, which is a piece of original content published in an external publication. While some content marketing results — like a wider audience or increased credibility — are shared with a guest post strategy, a content syndication strategy does not require a new, original piece.
Securing content syndication for your owned media is also not the same as republishing your content yourself. Republishing is a content marketing strategy that can spread the impact of a piece of content across various platforms or formats that you own, harnessing a bigger proportion of your existing audience. But syndication reaches beyond your existing network because it collaborates with credible third parties.
Why Content Syndication?
What is valuable about this kind of content marketing? It builds exposure. The more exposure your piece of content gets, the stronger it becomes — and it’s even better if that exposure comes from a range of reputable sources that can boost your company’s authority and power greater SEO. When a credible external source links back to your company and its original content, your position in the hierarchy gets a leg up. New readers can see that your content is trusted thought leadership and are then more likely to go to your website to seek more information or expertise. The bottom line is increased content marketing ROI.
1. Establish internal experts as thought leaders.
Publications want to pair up with authoritative voices. It adds to their own credibility to do so. For that reason, developing thought leaders within your company will be key to standing out from the crowd.
But that doesn’t mean just having your team members publish any old bit of data or research they can get their hands on. Becoming a thought leader means publishing high-quality, non-promotional content. Back up data with learned insights, boost an opinion with educational research, and open up a dialogue by sharing thoughtful comments and questions on others’ content.
2. Consider syndication opportunities from the beginning.
Give a content syndication strategy time to work by planning for it. As you plan your content marketing schedule and plot what kinds of pieces you’ll create, spotlight some of those slots for syndication opportunities.
Consider how you could use upcoming content marketing to boost thought leadership or how you’ll pitch a particular piece to publications with high authority. For example, if you’re pitching a blog post about finance technology for possible syndication, find a finance publication with a high level of tech expertise whose audience comprises finance companies trying to grow their businesses.
3. Publish unique, shareable content consistently.
Focusing on the strength of your own website’s content can help you attract syndication opportunities. To stay relevant and competitive, you have to continue to publish fresh content on your site consistently. This is important both for SEO and for audience engagement and credibility.
Think about it. Which site will you place more trust in: one with recently published content that answers your questions or a stagnant site that hasn’t been updated with new content since a couple of years ago?
4. Write a pitch that converts.
One way to make content syndication happen (if you’re not attracting it organically or if you’d like to target a particular publication), is to actively pitch your content.
A great pitch delivered to a publication editor will mesh with the aims and interests of that publication. It begins with a pithy, attention-grabbing subject line and a clear value proposition stating how this piece of content will serve the publication’s audience right now. Show that you’ve done your homework and that you know what kind of content this publication prefers, and end with a motivating call to action.
5. Use paid tools.
Targeted tools can help this process. For example, as you look for publications that might want to syndicate your content, you can use Semrush’s authority score or Moz’s domain authority score to review websites’ performance and pinpoint which high-quality syndication sites you’d like to tailor your content for. You could also try a paid tool dedicated to content syndication, like Outbrain, Taboola, or DemandWorks Media.
Well-written, informative, and relevant content goes hand in hand with syndication opportunities. Great publications are always looking to boost their credibility with great posts.
