How Content Seeding Helps You in Online Marketing
Game, seed and victory - Here you can learn how you can generate the maximum reach for your content through content seeding.
- Definition: Content Seeding
- Types of Content Seeding
- Example Channels for Content Seeding
- Strategy Development
- Measuring Success in Content Seeding
- What You Should Avoid
- 5 Tools for Content Seeding
- Conclusion: Content Seeding is a Must!
Good and relevant content are the alpha and omega for a content strategy. But how do you ensure that your posts reach the largest possible audience? In this case, the magic word is: Content Seeding. What it is, how you implement it in your workday and what you should consider, we will show you in the following guide.
Definition: Content Seeding
Content Seeding is a marketing strategy aimed at increasing the reach of content and thus generating more traffic, brand awareness and backlinks. The content is spread on various platforms to reach as many people as possible. This makes content seeding an integral part of a well-thought-out Content Marketing Strategy.
The core of content seeding involves creating high-quality content and distributing it specifically to achieve the greatest possible impact. It is important to know the target group exactly and to prepare the content accordingly.
Why is content seeding important? Quite simply: Because it is more important than ever today to stand out from the crowd. In a world where countless content is produced every day, it is difficult to attract the attention of the target group. Content seeding offers a way to increase reach through targeted distribution of content and thus reach more people.
But content seeding is not only important to attract the attention of the target group. It can also help strengthen your brand's image and gain the trust of customers. Because if high-quality content is distributed specifically, it shows that your company cares about its clientele and provides them with relevant information.
Overall, content seeding is an important marketing strategy that can help increase the visibility of your brand, improve customer loyalty and ultimately generate more sales.
Types of Content Seeding
Not every type of content seeding is identical. Depending on the goal and approach, the distribution of your content can take different forms.
A distinction can be made between simple and extended seeding. With simple seeding, the content is published on your own channels and shared on your profiles on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. This type of seeding is easy to implement and does not require large financial resources. However, the reach is limited as the content only takes place on your own channels.
With extended seeding, the content is also published on other platforms such as forums, blogs or online magazines in order to reach a larger target group. It is important to choose the right platforms to reach the target group. Guest blogging on other websites can also be an effective way of extended content seeding to reach a larger target group and build backlinks.
An additional option for extended seeding is influencer marketing. In this case, influencers are specifically approached to share the post and thus achieve a higher reach. It is important to choose influencers who fit the target group and your brand image. Cooperations with other companies can also be an effective form of extended seeding to reach a larger audience.
Overall, there are different types of content seeding, which differ in their implementation and goal. Which one is right for you depends mainly on your budget and resources, but also on the type of your content.
Example Channels for Content Seeding
Unfortunately, there is no ultimate channel to generate reach. Each platform brings specific requirements for your content seeding and offers advantages and disadvantages. In the following, we will show you some examples.
Social Media Channels
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are great channels for sharing content and reaching a larger target group. Advantages are that it is easy to share content and that many people are regularly active on these platforms. The disadvantages are that it can be difficult to attract attention as there are so many contents competing for the attention of users. By the way: In our other guide, we show you how to collect the best ideas for social media content.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a strategy where companies collaborate with well-known personalities to promote their products or services. Advantages are that influencers already have a large fan base that they can reach, and that they often have an engaged audience that listens to their recommendations. Disadvantages are that it can be expensive to collaborate with influencers, and that it is difficult to find the right personalities for your business.
Guest Posts on Other Websites
Guest posts on other websites can be a great way to increase the reach of content and generate traffic to a website. The advantages here are that you have the opportunity to position yourself on reputable websites and thus gain both brand awareness and credibility. In addition, this is a simple method to generate backlinks. The disadvantages are that it takes a relatively long time to acquire suitable websites and you can hardly influence how your own content is presented on the other side.
Press Releases
Placement in press releases is also a good way of content seeding. The advantages are that they represent a cost-effective way to reach a large target group, as they are read by many journalists and media companies. They can also help improve the image of the company and increase credibility. Disadvantages are that it can be difficult to write an entertaining press release that will be picked up by journalists and media companies.
Newsletter
Newsletters are also a popular platform for content seeding. The advantage is that you can communicate directly with the target group and thereby build a long-term relationship. The challenge is that subscribers are difficult to win and the opening rate can be low depending on the topic. To prevent this in the future, we have compiled a list of Tools & Tips for your Email Marketing for you.
Strategy Development
To develop a successful content seeding strategy, you need to go through some important steps. Here are some points that should be considered when developing a strategy for successful content seeding:
Define the Goals of Content Seeding:Before you start content seeding, you should set clear goals. Goals can be, for example, to increase the reach of your content, generate more traffic on your website, increase target group engagement or strengthen customer loyalty. The goals should be specific, measurable, and realistic.
Identify Topics and Define Formats:In the second step, you should identify relevant topics and define suitable formats for your content seeding. The topics should be tailored to the target group and provide them with added value. Suitable formats could be blog posts, infographics, videos or podcasts. Here, it is important to try out different formats to find out which ones work best. Therefore, always plan a certain amount of flexibility into your strategy, so that you can adjust if necessary.
Find Multipliers:Now it's about finding multipliers who will share and distribute the content. These could be influencers, journalists, bloggers, or social media users. It is important to select the right multipliers that match the target group and the company's marketing goals.
Place content:This step is about publishing your content. We already showed you above which channels you can use for this: social media platforms, guest posts on other websites, press releases, or newsletters are suitable, for example. It is important to select the right channels that match your target group and your company's marketing goals. You should also ensure that the content is clearly visible and attractively presented on the channels.
Monitoring Success:This step is often neglected. However, to measure the success of the content seeding strategy, it is important to regularly monitor the results. For this purpose, you should measure the reach of the content, the number of clicks, the interactions, and the target group's engagement on the different channels. In this way, you can find out which channels and content work best and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Let's summarize: Developing a strategy is essential for the success of your content seeding. It is important to set clear goals, define relevant topics and formats, find multipliers, place content on the right channels, and regularly monitor the results. Then a well-thought-out content seeding strategy can contribute to increase the reach of your content, generate more traffic on your website and increase the engagement of the target group.
Measuring Success in Content Seeding
To measure the success of content seeding, there are various key figures that you can consider. Here are some points that will help you:
Reach:No matter what platform you share your content on: Reach is an important metric in any case to measure the success of content seeding. You should analyze the number of people who have seen your content. This can be recognized, for example, by the number of impressions.
Traffic:Another important metric is the traffic that is generated to a website. You should measure how many visitors come to your website after seeing the content. This can be measured, for example, through the number of clicks on a link or the number of visitors who come to your website from a particular source. You can do this, for example, using UTM parameters.
Social Media Interactions:The quality and quantity of your target group's interaction with your content on social media is another important metric for measuring the success of content seeding. Look at how many likes, shares, comments, or retweets your content has received on Twitter and Co.
Backlinks:Backlinks are an important factor for the Search Engine Optimization of a website. Backlinks you receive from trusted sites have a positive effect on the trustworthiness of your own site. For this reason, you should measure how many backlinks were generated after you placed content.
Conversions:Conversions also help you as a metric to measure the success of your content seeding. So look at how many visitors come to your website and perform a desired action. This could be a purchase, a completed form, or a newsletter sign-up. The conversion rate can contribute to measuring and improving the ROI of content seeding.
What You Should Avoid
Content seeding is an important measure in content marketing. However, there are some things you should avoid. Here are some points that you should better avoid when developing a successful strategy:
Quantity instead of quality:It is important that you focus on the quality of your content instead of just producing as much content as possible. Your content should be relevant, informative and engaging, to arouse the interest of the target group. It is better to produce fewer but high-quality contents than many average-quality contents.
Bought Likes, Shares and Backlinks:As tempting as it may be: You should not buy likes, shares or backlinks to distribute your content. These practices are not only unethical, but can also lead to your content being punished by social media platforms or search engines. You also risk your reputation among users.
One-sided Marketing Mix:As almost everywhere, the motto in content seeding is also “The mix makes it!”. It is important that you set on a balanced marketing mix, which consists of paid media, owned media and shared media. One-sided marketing strategies, which focus only on one channel, can lead to the target group not being reached and you wasting potential.
Purely Commercial Content:Make sure to produce content that is not just purely commercially motivated. Your content should provide added value and be tailored to the needs and interests of your target group. So, inform, entertain and inspire!
Impersonal Content:Last but not least, it is important that your content is personal and authentic. Impersonal content can lead to your readers not perceiving the content as authentic, boring or not perceiving it at all.
5 Tools for Content Seeding
As you have seen, content seeding is a broad area of content marketing. Therefore, the tools that you can use for seeding differ significantly from each other. We have brought you here 5 software with which you can perform the control over different social media channels or other platforms:
Conclusion: Content Seeding is a Must!
It should now be clear: A thoughtful content seeding strategy is a must-have for the maximum reach of your content. This means more effort for you than if you just randomly share your content over various channels. However, a well-implemented strategy often rewards you with long-term customer relationships and a loyal base of users.