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Complete Guide to Business Content Distribution Strategy

How to select and master the right content distribution channels to get in front of your key audience

Many business leaders have gotten the memo that content can expand their business, but have not yet implemented a content distribution strategy for their content. Well-written content can take hours to write, but if it’s not posted online and put in places where your audience is going to find it, all that time spent writing has no payoff. If you do not have a plan to share that content with the world, you are losing potential value when you could be gaining traction with your customers.

 

Fortunately, content distribution is easy enough if you know how to do it. In this guide, we explore how to distribute your business content by exploring categories of content distribution channels. Not all of these channels are necessary for every business, but leveraging the right channels for your business can gain momentum for your content and make an impact in your market.

 

Understanding content distribution will make it easier to assign directives to others to distribute content, too. In turn, getting a good grip on how distribution happens will make it easier to hire the right PR firm, community engagement group, social media agency, or any other vendor who focuses on fulfilling part of your content distribution strategy, making your bidding processes simpler, more efficient, and easier on your budget.

 

This guide will examine the tactics and benefits of six types of business content distribution channels: 

 

  1. Press relations
  2. Guest appearances
  3. Community outreach
  4. Search engine marketing
  5. Owned content
  6. Direct sales

 

These channels offer you a wide variety of options for your business content distribution strategy and are often best used in concert with one another.

 

As you read about each type of channel, it may help to pause and visualize how these channels can be applied to your business. 

 

What are some ideas you can implement immediately to achieve instant upgrades?

Do you have the budget and personnel to make it happen? 

Who can you talk to? 

What are your alternatives?

 

If you ask yourself those questions and truly assess the ideas we have gathered, we promise that by the end of the exercise you will find several easy opportunities to increase how many people see and engage with your brand. 

 

Let’s begin.

Channel Type 1: Press Relations

Press relations, AKA public relations (PR), is about talking to journalists and finding ways to earn media for what you do. Positioning yourself with the media opens opportunities for you to get in front of larger audiences, creating a stir for your business or organization.

PR isn’t cliodynamics. It’s a function any business can use to amplify its message.

Press Relations Benefits

  • Increases brand visibility
  • Builds brand authority
  • Stronger relationships
  • Backlinks

 

Press Relations Tactics

 

Press Relations Tactic 1: Send out press release or press announcement

 

Press releases are a timeless tool, especially in the world of B2B business. Press releases have a simple format that is easy to mimic and use to generate buzz about your company.

 

The idea behind a press release is to send the journalist a version of the story that you wish they would write, but still sounds reasonable and realistic. Journalists will often quote press releases directly if the information is presented in a professional manner.

 

Reasons to Write a Press Release

 

  • New product
  • New hire 
  • New company
  • New funding
  • Big conference
  • Performance milestone
  • Awards
  • Partnerships
  • Mergers and Acquisitions

 

Press Release: Morgan McAllister Joins RedShift Writers as Senior Content Writer

 

Press Release: Senior Content Writer Morgan Acree Joins RedShift Writers

Press Relations Tactic 2: Send out press kit

 

A little more extensive than a press release, a press kit includes several pieces of collateral to tell journalists about your company or recent company news. Press kits are versatile and can be used for a wide variety of purposes.

 

A press kit usually includes:

 

  • Press release
  • Company bio
  • Headshots and leadership bios
  • Product sample(s)
  • Any other relevant information, such as an event invite or upcoming calendar schedule of events

 

Press Relations Tactic 3: Reach out with tips or expert insights

 

Just as journalists may print parts of a press release verbatim because they need content fast in order to do their jobs, they may also take quotes verbatim from experts in the field regarding a story that they are writing. When you create a piece designed to drive thought leadership for your company, make sure to send it to journalists with a note letting them know you are available for interviews and would be happy to lend insights or answer questions. In turn, you may end up in their stories as a voice of authority.

 

Press Relations Tactic 4: Hold a press conference

 

Need to share information that is highly newsworthy to multiple outlets at once? Plan a press conference. You can hold press conferences in person or virtually depending on your needs, the reporters you are trying to reach, the weather, etc.

 

Press Relations Tactic 5: Host an event

 

Whereas a press conference is simply the speakers and the press, an event takes a lot more work. But if you do it right, the event itself can become a story and draw the attention of journalists.

 

Types of Public Relations Events

 

  • Grand openings
  • Parties for customers and other stakeholders
  • Live product tests
  • Product launches
  • Book releases
  • Conferences
  • Workshops
  • Panels
  • Speaking events
  • Publicity stunts
  • Galas

 

Press Relations Tactic 6: Conduct a research study

 

Journalists love data points. It helps them keep things factual. When you send them sound research that has been tested via survey, it takes some of the work off their plates. If you have enough time, try launching a survey and sending the results out in a case study or white paper angled toward your business needs.

 

Press Relations Tips

Press Relations Tip 1: It takes time

 

Do not expect that you will send out a press release and journalists will swoon. You have to build relationships with journalists before they pay attention, and it will take time to calibrate your news pitch so you can learn what they are looking for from sources like you. Keep a journalist database that includes all journalists for your particular beat. If you want to get fancy, you can use a PR database to blast press releases to a bunch of lists of influencers all at once.

 

List of PR Distribution Databases

Cision from PR Newswire
Businesswire
Prowly
GlobeNewswire
PR Buzz

 

If you cannot afford a fancy system like one of these, you can also just email journalists directly and follow up with a phone call. If you send the same email to a lot of journalists, use the BCC function on your email or you will send a spammy-looking email that ticks people off.

 

Press Relations Tip 2: Not everything is news

 

I once knew a window company who wanted to be in the New York Times. Why? Because they read the New York Times, and they wanted to be somewhere with a lot of attention.

 

The problem is that nothing about them warranted a story in the New York Times. The effort it would have taken to pull off such a miracle would not have been worth the cost. It would have been cheaper to take out a full page ad. The New York Times covers some of the nation’s most pressing stories. Its readership just isn’t that interested in glass windows.

 

Not everything is news, and sometimes you have to accept that your company is not as newsworthy as you think it is, or at least not yet. Good PR firms have to explain this to their clients all the time. 

 

If you want to be newsworthy, get creative. Find an angle and pitch journalists that are relevant to your beat and your story. Start small, build press, and use your momentum to grow your presence in the media over time.

 

Press Relations Tip 3: Measurement is tricky

 

I received my masters degree in the field of public relations. Throughout my program, measurement was a hot topic because the impact of PR is difficult to quantify. How do you measure public opinion? How do you assess sentiment? Is it about how many stories you land? How many column inches you take up in the paper? 

 

What about how positively your brand is presented in the media? How do you measure that?

 

There are all kinds of fancy tools to measure sentiment, but there is no magic bullet to measuring public relations. The key is to come up with a goal before you launch your PR efforts so you can measure using the same key performance indicators at the beginning and end of the campaign. You will likely find that your PR performance is tied to other parts of your company such as marketing, especially in the age of digital public relations, where site traffic and other web analytics are used to measure the reach of a news story.

 

Press Relations Tip 4: Be strategic

 

Remember, not everything is news. However, what is news to you may not be news to me. If you are launching a new little library program in your small town, the small town paper may find that newsworthy even if CNBC does not. Your new product offering may not break into the business section at the Chicago Tribune, but a credible business blogger may still write about it. Be strategic in listing out the parties that are most relevant to your business and most likely to run a story about you, and you can save yourself time and effort.

 

Also consider using press relations tactics in coordination with a larger public relations campaign. For example, you may want to plan an event, then send out a press kit with a press release to promote the event. You can even hold multiple events or a press conference followed by a product launch to build a narrative with continuous buzz. 

 

The more methodical you are in your public relations efforts, the more successful you will be.

Channel Type 2: Make Guest Appearances

When you are invited to be a guest on podcasts, shows, or in the editorial pages of publications, it can build credibility for your business. It puts your ideas in front of a mass audience.

 

While being a guest in the media is an extension of press relations and can be used as a complement to previously mentioned press relations tactics, guest appearance outreach is unique enough to warrant its own focal point.

 

Guest Appearance Benefits

 

  • Builds credibility/authority
  • Spotlights ideas
  • Strengthens and expands relationships
  • Builds awareness

 

Guest Appearance Tactics

 

Guest Appearance Tactic 1: Write a guest post or editorial

 

Are you a good writer? Or do you have a good content writer on staff or available as a vendor? A guest post or editorial may be the way to go.

 

Many news outlets and blogs accept guest posts or editorials because they need content to fill their pages. Your target audience is likely tuning in to many of those outlets; if you are already researching outlets for PR opportunities, you will likely come across guest post and editorial opportunities along the way.

 

Make sure to only submit to relevant media, and to come up with a great angle for the beat. Otherwise your post will not get placed and your efforts may be wasted.

 

How to find guest post opportunities

 

  • Search Google

 

Type “submit a guest post” into Google and see what comes up. There are a ton of lists out there put together by content marketers about the “100 best places to guest post” by year, niche, etc. It’s easy to find if you Google around a little.

 

  • Connect with bloggers and editorial boards

 

Network, like you would with journalists.

 

  • Join chambers and organizations

 

Most business chambers have access to places where you can submit short blurbs about your company.

 

  • Trade space with partners and clients

 

Like the business chambers you are a member of, your clients and partners want you to succeed. Many will give you space for free.

 

  • Check in with your alma mater

 

Your alumni association probably has a newsletter. The school newspaper would probably run a story, too.

 

Guest Appearance Tactic 2: Appear on podcasts and streaming shows

 

It seems like everyone has a podcast. Podcasts need guests because the podcast business model, like that of news outlets, demands a regular churn of new content.

 

Find podcasts and streaming shows that are relevant to your beat and your business, then reach out. They may be happy to host you.

 

How to find podcast guest opportunities

 

  • Search Google

 

Use a search strategy similar to the one we used to find guest post opportunities.

 

  • Scan YouTube, then Twitch

 

There are a lot of streamers out there. See if any of their shows align with what you do.

 

  • Check Twitter

 

Twitter is an interesting place to look for podcasts because it shows you what is trending. Podcasts are made for trend marketing.

 

Guest Appearance Tactic 3: Do some public speaking (solo or panels)

 

Public speaking organizations now carry clout. Ted Talks, Ignite Talks, Spark Talks and other innovations in oratory have led to widespread speaking events with market focus and professional, global branding.

 

Public speaking does not have to take place in front of a large audience in order to benefit the speaker and their business. It is easy now to gather pictures and videos of people talking to an audience, both digitally and in person.

 

The content of our speeches shapes our dialogue. It can move minds.

How to find public speaking opportunities

 

  • Search Google

 

Again, repeat what we did in the guest post opportunities section.

 

  • Talk to schools

 

Connect with schools you attended; schools you have donated to; programs at universities in your city that in any way connect to your business; and student organizations that are relevant to your company.

 

  • Talk to professional organizations

 

These groups are often looking for guest speakers to pitch their business. For example, Business Networking International (BNI) groups exist across the United States and are always seeking new guests.

 

Guest Appearance Tips

 

Guest Appearance Tip 1: Do your research

 

No matter what you are pitching, you need to pitch the right people the right way with the right information, just like you would with journalists. Sites that take guest posts usually require that you meet certain editorial guidelines. Positioning to be a podcast guest means understanding the podcasters and their audiences. Organizations accepting submissions from public speakers have similar processes to follow. Comply with what is needed to land these opportunities.

 

Guest Appearance Tip 2: Write strong content

 

If you are guest posting, turn in a great piece. You can update content on your own site, but you do not usually have that luxury with a piece on another site. Make sure your content is powerful.

 

Guest Appearance Tip 3: Practice your speech or presentation

 

Public speaking is difficult, even if you are naturally good at it. If you want your speech to land, you need to put in work before you step on stage.

 

Guest Appearance Tip 4: Prep for all interviews

 

Like speeches, interviews require prep, although it is prep of a different kind. Interviews range greatly in nature, so how you prepare will, too. If you do not know a lot about handling interviews, please find someone who does.

 

Guest Appearance Tip 5: Do as much advanced work as possible

 

There are two reasons you want to be prepared before going on the road. First, if you are doing a five-city tour, you do not want to have to write social media posts and press releases, or film a bunch of videos or record audio while you are trying to prepare for your speech. The bigger the opportunity the more true that rings; no one wants to write a 500 word post after a long ride from the airport to the hotel.

 

The second reason you should prepare content in advance is that you can optimize performance by making sure it goes out at the right time, and preferably as soon as possible. The longer content is out there, the more chance it has to pick up traction and traffic. Put a longer tail on the impact of your guest appearance efforts by doing that work in advance.

 

Or better yet…

 

Guest Appearance Tip 6: Hire creative professionals to help

 

All tasks involving pitching people can be sourced one way or another. So can all the writing, design, development, etc. There are vendors, free lancers, and employees who can pick up different parts, make a good living, and thrive. Don’t do it all yourself. Find the right help.

Channel Type 3: Community Outreach

Akin to press relations, community outreach involves finding all of the community groups that communicate with your company. Community outreach tends to look beyond corporate media relationships to the grassroots connections you can make for your business, no matter your size or focus. 

 

Community Outreach Benefits

 

  • Softer sale
  • Authentic connections
  • Shows values
  • Qualifies leads
  • Brings people together

 

Community Outreach Tactics

Community Outreach Tactic 1: Pursue social good

 

What causes do you care about? How do you want to make a difference? Where do you donate charitable funds?

 

Social good spaces are where you can meet a lot of people whose values align with your own because these spaces are actually built around those efforts.

 

There are a million social good spaces out there, so searching for a space can become a time-consuming process. Fortunately, social good organizations tend to communicate clearly about what their mission is, so it should be easy for you to quickly tell whether or not their efforts align with yours. Research different programs and applications for things you care about and send them content.

 

Social good opportunities also carry direct business advantages: they clarify what you stand for, build goodwill, and save you money on taxes. If you launch your own social good project, remember to send out a press release about it. You may as well tell the world and inspire others to do something good, too.

 

Community Outreach Tactic 2: Join trade and professional groups

 

Every profession brings a different mix of people. If you work in construction, you probably know roofers, plumbers, window and cabinet companies, architects, designers, lawyers, and many other people who are in and around the construction process. Since we are a writing company, we tend to network a lot with marketers such as web developers, graphic designers, PR teams, social media strategists, and other roles in the marketing profession. 

 

You are probably already thinking about the spaces that are relevant to your own industry. Go network in those spaces. They offer a lot of room for business growth.

 

List of Professional Group Examples

 

  • Practitioner (Role) Groups
  • Industry (Vertical) Groups
  • Local (Geography) Groups
  • Age (Generational) Groups
  • Identity (Culture) Groups

 

There are plenty of other ways to sort and find groups to network with. Remember: in addition to joining groups that are directly relevant to your industry, also find groups frequented by your prospects. If a client has been ideal for you, network in their industry space. For example, if you are a cleaning company who has found success with medium-sized businesses in tall buildings, attend events that those companies go to. You can find a lot of information about a company just by Googling them.

 

Those who you compete with may still trade leads with you, or even want to partner up on something fun and prosperous, so be sure to be among others in your industry sometimes, too. 

 

You likely already know who many of those folks are.

 

Once you find the groups you want to engage with, check out all the ways you can get in touch with them.

 

Possible sub-distribution channels within community outreach include:

 

  • Online forums- Usually on social media.
  • Luncheons- Rubber chicken and conversation.
  • Galas- Fancy shmancy suit and tie stuff.
  • Educational Events- Workshops, speeches, and presentations.
  • General Networking- Coffee, bar nights, bowling, whatever.

 

Your industry also likely has a ton of certifications and awards. Consider applying for both.


If you’re a B2B business, you will probably also see a ton of opportunities for your clients to connect with their customers. Let them know about those as a matter of service, and build ways for them to make it happen. (Customer experience hacking makes life better for everybody. Boom!)

 

Community Outreach Tactic 3: Join business chambers

 

Business chambers are easy to find. They operate much in the same way as professional and trade groups, and you can find them the same way. Structurally, they offer similar opportunities, but are composed only of business owners. These groups have a lot of decision makers in them.

 

Community Outreach Tactic 4: Seek out opportunities from government bodies

 

Government groups are also fairly easy to find, and there are a ton of them out there. If they are important to your business or could add a prosperous dynamic to what you do, check them out. To get started, search for Small Business Administration opportunities in your area. You can also search for economic development councils, especially ones that are related to local public universities or municipalities.

 

When we think of the government, a lot of people think about elected officials. The government definitely is inclusive of those folks and their staff, but it is much, much more. There are departments at the local, state, and federal level all putting out projects and vying for budgets and attention. There is a market there.

 

You can also find quasi-governmental bodies, such as public commissions, public-private partnerships, or public honors for private entities. Maybe you can get a client an award at City Hall. 

 

Community Outreach Tactic 5: Attend art and culture events

 

Museums, galleries, and recreational establishments all hold different events with paintings, DJs, discussion groups, movie screenings, concerts, tastings, and plenty more. A few are bound to overlap with your interests and purpose. Go connect. Have fun!

 

Not sure where to start? Ask yourself: what is the largest cultural event in your area? The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the largest annual event in mine. It has a ton of committees and individual tents where people need assistance for the day. You can network there just by getting involved in the organization.

 

Community Outreach Tactic 6: Go for the goal at sports and recreation events

 

A lot of wealthy people love sports, and not just the most popular sports. In most large American cities, football, baseball, basketball, and perhaps hockey are the biggest sports. However, squash is a well known game in many parts of the world, and is a favorite of people who are wealthy enough to have memberships to very nice squash courts. If you network with the squash crowd, you can sell them your service, or you can sell a service specifically around squash. Either is an opportunity made real by those willing to network in squash circles.

 

Community Outreach Tactic 7: Support schools

 

Kids deserve to learn in a good environment, so schools can use all the help they can get. There are opportunities at all levels of education to get involved.

 

You can:

 

  • Talk to classes
  • Join PTOs
  • Volunteer
  • Support a good policy
  • Launch a scholarship

 

There are certainly good business opportunities here, but make sure they follow true goodwill if you are going to go in that direction. Schools are a good place to engage and be helpful as you network.

 

Community Outreach Tips

 

Community Outreach Tip 1: Make a non-mutually exclusive list of all stakeholder audiences

 

Write down literally all possible stakeholders for your company. Every kind of consumer, influencer, community member, media outlet, regulator, partner, etc. Start with categories; you do not have to be specific. 

 

Once you have all of your audience categories listed, you can use the list to further guide research into those audiences. You may already have a list of names in a company CRM. You can also easily hire people who will build large lists that can help you take shortcuts as long as you give those vendors strong direction on what information is to be gathered.

 

Community Outreach Tip 2: Focus your efforts

 

Unless being in a ton of different communities is essential to your brand, as might be the case with a PR firm, be judicious about community outreach. You do not need to be in every area. Find the ones that make sense for you and focus on those.

 

For example, if you want to position your business to win government contracts, you probably need to get good at responding to Requests for Proposals (RFPs), and get to know the people who draw those up so you know the best way to respond to them. Public meetings to discuss those bids are eye-opening if you have never attended them. 

 

Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas is currently undergoing a $1.5 billion airport makeover that started in 2014. That money was bid out to the public by the City of Houston, who owns the airport. When a bunch of people show up to a meeting about how to bid on more than a billion dollars in drywall, carpet, ceilings, floors, fabrication, transportation, catering, and whatever else is needed to complete that bid, that’s an opportunity for many businesses to find clients.

 

Where do you need to go to find those clients fast so you don’t scour the whole world in search of something undefined?

Community Outreach Tip 3: Connect people when possible

 

People love to be connected to other people in a mutually beneficial way. Think of other people and connect them with a well-worded email or text about how great they both are and how you thought they might work well together. The people you connect will benefit from their relationship with one another, and both parties will remember you as a connector who is worth keeping in their network. Not only do you get good business karma, but they will also be likely to return the favor down the road.

 

Community Outreach Tip 4: Let genuine interest guide you

 

Something about the communities you engage in must ring true to you. Otherwise, hire someone else to do your community outreach work. It is okay if a group is not for you, but then you are not the one meant to network there.

Channel Type 4: Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) involves making your company easy to find on search engines.  It includes both Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is called “organic search,” and Pay Per Click (PPC), which is called “paid search.”

 

The goal of SEO is showing up on search engine results pages (SERPs) or in tables and snippets at the top of SERPs, then driving traffic to your website. The goal of PPC is to drive leads by getting people to click the paid ads that show up at the very top of search results.

 

Search Engine Marketing Benefits

 

  • Softer sale
  • Big reach
  • Measurable
  • Flexible
  • Fixable

 

SEM Tactics

 

SEM Tactic 1: Research keywords and write targeted content 

 

Creating and distributing well-conceived, well-executed content through the right distribution channels is going to feed into SEO. In other words, posting content is going to generate traffic to your website.

 

Part of making your content powerful is optimizing it. To optimize your content, start with keyword research tools to find keywords that are commonly searched by your audience. 

 

There are a ton of SEO research tools that evaluate keywords, including:

 

 

The basic idea behind keyword research is to find the ideas that people are searching for online (keywords), then create content that shows up when they search for those ideas. It is best to target keywords that are:

 

  • Relevant to your business
  • Easy to rank for
  • Aligned with the search intent of your prospect

 

Once you find those keywords, you can design a whole content strategy around them and leverage search engines for content distribution. Make sure to include the keywords in the headline and first paragraph, and to sprinkle them naturally throughout the article.

 

SEM Tactic 2: Optimize on-page content 

 

Even if your articles are angled toward search engines, you must still optimize the SEO-specific fields on your site associated with each page or post in order to achieve true search engine optimization.

 

These fields include:

 

  • Title Tags
  • Meta Descriptions
  • Custom URLs
  • Alt Text on Images
  • Headings


If you update your own website, you probably have a plug-in that tells you how to fill these out. If someone else updates your site, check in with them to see how to update each of these sections so you can include keywords for each.

 

SEM Tactic 3: Build backlinks

 

A link from another site to your site is called a backlink. Backlinks show Google that you are a legitimate site. The more backlinks you have from sites that are recognized by Google’s search engines, the more likely your site will rise in search rankings. 

 

Common Backlink Tactics

 

  • Press Relations
  • Guest Posts
  • Guest Appearances
  • Community Outreach
  • Signing Up for Directories and Other Listings
  • Creating Content People Want to Link to
  • Social Media

 

SEM Tactic 4: Enhance your technical SEO

 

Technical SEO is not so much a central part of your content distribution strategy as it is a prerequisite for Google to like your website. If your site has a lot of broken links, loads slowly, or is difficult to navigate because the link structure does not make much sense, then Google won’t like it.

 

A good web developer and a content strategist can make your site much technically cleaner.

 

SEM Tactic 5: Invest in pay per click (PPC)

 

Pay per click (PPC) is the paid advertising side of SEM. Google’s pay per click program is called Google AdWords. It allows you to create ads based on certain keywords, similar to how you practice SEO. The difference is that when you pay for PPC, you show up in the advertisements above the organic search results. When users click these ads, you are charged a certain amount for each click (get it? Pay *per* click).

 

Pay per click campaigns, like other ad campaigns, depend on targeting the right customers (through search intent) and writing a sharp headline and description text to compel them to click. Google AdWords fortunately offers lots of guidance for how to maximize your ads throughout the process.

 

Search Engine Marketing Tips

SEM Tip 1: Follow Google’s rules

 

Google is the world’s largest search engine. It is most likely that the majority of your prospects are using Google as opposed to other search engines. Some smaller search engines also tether themselves to Google’s philosophies and approach, so following suit with Google will set you up for general success.

 

It cannot hurt to check out other search engine performance too, so take a look at sites like Bing and Yahoo at some point to see if they are worth your time to optimize for. But start with Google. If your site ranks well on Google, chances are it will rank well on Bing and Yahoo, too. 

 

SEM Tip 2: Keep building content

 

Activity begets more activity. Keep writing and designing content in various forms. Write, design, make videos and presentations, and do anything else you can to build up your site content and provide value to your audience. Search engines will reward you for it.

 

SEM Tip 3: Test, check, adjust

 

Google does not entirely share how its search engines work, so you need to observe your content and site performance over time. Keep an eye on your web traffic and performance through Google Analytics, SEMRush, or HubSpot and then adapt to overall trends.

 

One way Google does help out is by telling you when a big update is coming, so even if you do not know exactly how it works, you can still measure changes that come with general search engine updates. Even better, see what SEO specialists are saying about Google updates whenever they happen so you can shortcut some of the dirty work of testing the changes yourself.

 

SEM Tip 4: Source help if needed

 

SEM takes a lot of time and dedication. A little investment can go a long way. Consider hiring vendors to make the most of your search engine marketing efforts sooner rather than later.

 

Potential vendors who can upgrade your SEM performance include:

 

  • SEO vendors
  • PPC vendors
  • Content writing agencies
  • Graphic designers
  • Web developers
  • Videographers
  • Photographers
  • Social media companies

Channel Type 5: Owned Content

Owned content distribution channels are all the ones under your control, from your website to your office and every other asset. If you have vehicles, you can put a sign on them. Same with  a wall that you own. 

 

Owned content can be pushed out through channels you do not own through guest posts and press relations, but it is mainly designed for content that goes directly on your website, brochures, phone scripts, and other major collateral. It may also be pushed out through spaces that are quasi-owned. For example, you control most aspects of your social media pages, even if you do not control the websites that host them. Therefore, these pages are under your control but not technically yours. Nevertheless, they are a big opportunity to connect with your audience.

 

Owned Content Benefits

 

  • Ownership of ideas
  • Direct attention and SEO traffic
  • Builds value in the company
  • Certainty in distribution

 

Owned Content Tactics

Owned Content Tactic 1: Update your website

 

Since your website is basically your digital storefront, you should always leverage it for authority and performance. When people land on your site, you want them to understand your service and start looking to buy.

 

Just like a physical location, the changes you can make to your website are limited only by your imagination. Unlike a physical location though, they are far less limited by your budget.

 

When looking at ways to update your website with fresh content and a new look, there are several broad categories of subtactics worth exploring.

 

Website Update Tactics

 

Add Pages

Adding new pages to your site will expand your sitemap, increasing the likelihood that pages will be indexed by Google, linked to by other websites, or browsed by website visitors.

 

Possible new web content for your website includes:

 

 

Update Pages

 

If you do not want to add an entirely new page, you can also add content to an existing page, or otherwise change the content on the page.

 

Possible page updates you can make to your website include:

 

  • Adding or changing the footer of your website
  • Adding sections of new web content to an existing page
  • Adding new photos, videos, or graphic illustrations
  • Editing or enlarging existing paragraphs
  • Adding plug-ins and widgets to your page such as graphs, tickers, countdown clocks, and social media feeds

 

Change Pictures

 

Altering the images on your site by upgrading them to higher quality or optimizing the alt text can be a fast, easy way to improve the optimization of your site.

 

Change Template

 

Changing your website template may require a larger overhaul effort than other tactics, but moving widgets, plug-ins, content, and graphics around can make a big difference in your content performance. Some digital marketing CMOs spend their days testing two versions of the same page (AKA A/B testing), then directing traffic to only those that perform best. Eventually, they are able to optimize the template of the website for the best possible performance. Any company, whether it’s a small business, a medium-size business, or a conglomerate, can take the same approach.

 

Owned Content Tactic 2: Launch email campaigns

 

Decades ago, businesses depended on a mailing list and a phone list to reach their customers. Today, email lists have become the new central repository for most customer information.

 

Email campaigns target prospect lists that you have either tailored or purchased specifically for your needs. Oftentimes, these campaigns are aimed at people who actually opted in to receive more information, making for fertile ground for rich interaction with your intended audience.

 

Email campaigns are based on sequences of emails tied to user behavior. 

 

Types of Email Campaigns

 

  • Direct sales emails: Make the ask for purchase.
  • Educational emails: Inform the customer, providing them some new knowledge that is relevant to their interests.
  • Promotional emails: Highlight a specific offer.
  • Seasonal emails: Highlight something related to the time of year and your customers’ seasonal interests.
  • Drip campaigns: Send out a series of continuous emails designed around a specific objective for your company.
  • Reengagement emails: Loop in “cold” customers who have fallen out of touch.
  • News emails: Inform customers of something happening now.

 

Each of these email campaigns can be used in sequence with one another and in varying patterns to maximize results. Some individual emails or email marketing campaigns can fulfill more than one purpose, adding more depth and texture to your efforts.

 

Tweak your email campaigns the same way you do your website. Try sending out two batches to the same group with only one changed variable. See which version of the email gets better results. Go with what works.

 

Owned Content Tactic 3: Enhance your social media presence

 

Social media networks were once a secret weapon. Now, many of the largest social media sites have gone mainstream. But social media is constantly evolving to offer new opportunities to engage your audience, whether its emerging social media networks or new ad services added to older networks. 

 

Social media presents the opportunity for direct engagement with customers, but direct engagement must be used cautiously. For many brands, the time commitment and risk of PR mistakes outweighs the potential benefits of an ongoing discussion with your market. Nevertheless, almost all companies can find a reasonable, positive way to use social media. And in many industries, it is vital to push a consistent social media drip to keep audiences engaged.

 

Social Media Content Distribution Tactics

  • #Hashtag campaigns: Design a campaign and assign a #hashtag to it.
  • Live streams: Talk directly to your audience.
  • Webinars: Plan a digital event or workshop and gather a crowd.
  • Cool art: People love to share imagery. You can always use memes.

25 Social Media Content Distribution Channels

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit
  • Quora
  • Snapchat
  • Vimeo
  • Twitch
  • Google Reviews
  • Flickr
  • Medium
  • Discord
  • SoundCloud
  • Nextdoor
  • Meetup
  • Clubhouse
  • Periscope
  • Triller
  • Goodreads
  • Yelp
  • Vimeo

 

You do not have to be on all of these, and there are tons of other social media channels out there beyond these 25.

 

Owned Content Tips

 

Owned Content Tip 1: Plan your calendar

 

Instead of trying to keep up the pace with day-to-day churn, plan your calendar out in advance so you can develop quality content on a regular basis. Site updates, email campaigns, and social media can quickly grow into an enormous beast within your marketing department. If directed properly, owned content can benefit your business, but it can also be overwhelming to manage. 

 

Keep a clean, easy-to-use content calendar that you can lean on to know what’s next. Hold periodic meetings to discuss what is on deck and to brainstorm so you can stay ahead of the calendar, no matter what content distribution channel you are discussing.

Owned Content Tip 2: Be consistent

 

Keep producing and testing content. Activity begets interest over time. Stay at it.

 

If you are unsure where to get started, remember that you do not have to turn everything on at once. Think carefully about your overall content strategy before focusing on distribution instead of diving headfirst into trying to do everything at the same time. Planning will save you a ton of time, headaches, and budget.

 

Owned Content Tip 3: Ramp up

 

Start small, then grow. You have to walk before you can run. You have to get a handle on one owned content channel before diving into another.

 

Owned Content Tip 4: Align and integrate all owned content efforts

 

Whatever is happening in your email campaigns should complement what is happening on your blog. Your social media should push out blog posts and videos. Your videos should have transcripts and images. Seek alignment in your voice, style, and activities across all channels.

 

Owned Content tip 5: Lean into your strengths

 

If you’re good at video, use video. If you prefer to write, write. Leverage your company’s natural talents and hire out the rest of the work.

 

Owned Content Tip 6: Optimize

 

Social media channels in particular operate according to specific rules. Similar to search engine marketing’s relationship to Google and other search engines, social media companies require marketers to play into certain algorithmic preferences, usually discovered by posting and testing the performance of your content. Perform tests to figure out what works best.

 

Owned Content Tip 7: Hire content writers, graphic designers, web developers, and other strategists

 

Remember to lean on hired talent! You do not need to do everything, and in fact, can’t. 

Channel Type 6: Direct Sales

Last but not least are all of your sales channels. To exist, a business needs at least one customer (or client, if you prefer that term). Your sales team knows a lot about your product and your audience. Your marketing team and your sales team must work together for you to maximize the impact of both. If your marketing team develops collateral that is useful to sales, you will see a higher quantity of larger sales close at a more rapid pace.

 

Direct Sales Content Distribution Benefits

 

  • Warms up leads
  • Closes sales
  • Cross sells and upsells by introducing new products and ideas

 

Direct Sales Tactics

Direct Sales Tactic 1: Leverage telemarketing

 

In spite of severe regulatory restrictions implemented over the past few decades, telemarketing still works. Your phone team is usually one of your most dedicated sets of evangelists from inside your company. Successful telemarketers operate via adaptable scripts and know how to navigate almost any possible conversation with a prospect.

 

Use telemarketing as a chance to impress any new messages upon the people you’re calling. Just like your service department, your sales team can carry forward important brand messages as they talk to your audiences. Make it part of their script to offer marketing collateral as a followup to their calls. Invite them to events. Get the message through on the phone.

 

Direct Sales Tactic 2: Make your pitch face-to-face with door-to-door sales

 

Never underestimate a sales rep who can pitch people one by one. These folks are persistent. They have to be; the failure rate is too high.

 

Face-to-face sales reps can hand out brochures or promotional items of follow up via digital means. Make sure to leverage their good-old-fashioned content distribution capabilities.

 

Direct Sales Tactic 3: Attend trade shows

 

Trade shows and conferences are where many companies build authority. In many industries, there are specific shows that everyone goes to. These shows get plenty of publicity that you can use to your advantage.

 

Consider preparing well in advance for trade shows so you can maximize all opportunities and prepare your content for distribution. With so much foot traffic, you should be able to get your content out to critical prospects without too much trouble.

 

Direct Sales Tactic 4: Launch direct mail and email campaigns

 

With direct sales emails and direct mail campaigns, you can send content directly to a client’s inbox.

 

Direct Sales Content Distribution Tips

 

Direct Sales Tip 1: Connect sales to marketing

 

If your marketers, product leaders, and sales reps are connected, you will eventually see powerful content messaging and distribution arise from their relationships. Make sure they are collaborating.

 

Everything you produce for marketing can be turned into sales content. If you are writing ebooks for key audiences, those can be broken into tip sheets and all other kinds of material that are direct sales content delivered to the prospect by hand from your sales team. Leverage all of your efforts together. Use the content you develop in one place to be distributed through plenty of other channels.

 

Let no good content go to waste.

 

Direct sales tip 2: The sale is the point

 

While direct sales channels are good content distribution channels, the sale takes priority. A lot of sales discussions are facilitated through conversation as opposed to content.

 

When it makes more sense to sell than to distribute content, focus on closing the sale.

Jumpstart Your Content Distribution Strategy

A sound content distribution strategy is essential to your business. Content distribution expands your reach, putting your message in front of new audiences and creating room for new opportunities. While you do not need to leverage every channel, taking the time to find the right content distribution channels can pay off for years to come. Smart content distribution strategy multiplies the effect of your content, making better use of your time and resources.

 

Now that you have an immediate list of the most common channels to explore, you should be able to find the ones you want to leverage and start amplifying. 

 

Need help figuring out where to start?

 

If you have any followup questions, contact RedShift Writers for a conversation. Our experience in content strategy spans both content production and content distribution. RedShift Writers has deep experience in writing and distribution in both the public and private sector. Whether you are exploring content strategy for social media channels, news outlets, newsletters, ads, or any other medium, drop us a line at 832-489-7643.

 

See RedShift Writers’ full service offerings.

 

Have questions? Read our FAQs.

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Daniel J. CohenComplete Guide to Business Content Distribution Strategy
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Five Powerful Phrases for Writing Partners

Five Powerful Phrases for Writing Partners

No writer is an island. By finding our fellow writing partners and working together on projects rather than always flying solo, we can exponentially improve our writing. There is something irreplaceable about bouncing around words and sentence structure with another person to help us pinpoint exactly the right way to convey our intended meaning, to shape our inner thoughts, and to fashion them into a piece of writing. When we write with another person and establish a rhythm, we improve our skills and produce better work.

 

Building a relationship with another writer takes time, though. It’s one thing to proof a piece for grammatical errors. A step above that is to give somebody basic feedback on their work by telling them what you like or don’t like. But where two writers often achieve their full potential is when they establish a rhythmic back and forth discussion about the piece that makes beautiful prose move across the page. Powerful collaboration takes time, dedication, and a willingness to truly understand one another.

 

Over the past few years, RedShift has established numerous successful partnerships among our writers and between ourselves and our clients. One thing we have noticed that has enhanced our collaborations between writing partners is the use of certain magical phrases that keep our minds and our conversations active. These phrases have led to some of our best work. Try them out to see if they help you, too.

1) Try it.

There is a push-pull relationship that often happens in a successful writing partnership in which both writers have different perspectives on a piece of writing. One writer conveys what they think, and the other writer listens; then, they switch. Eventually, both writers need to hear each other out and decide how to integrate either one or both perspectives into the piece. Sometimes, we may even uncover a new perspective that unlocks additional creative potential. 

 

At the end of the day, though, the words we use aloud to communicate with one another are not foolproof. We may struggle to use words to get our point across during the writing process, even if we are gifted with words to begin with, and doubly so if we feel strongly that our preference is the better one and that nothing else will do for a given part of the writing.

 

If you’re working with another writer on trying to find the right way to say something, and the person you’re working with starts to verbalize the sentence aloud (“What if we put it like this…”), that’s usually a good opportunity to say “try it.” Then, they can write it down on the page before it leaves their head, striking while the iron is hot. 

 

Conversely, if your writing partner seems on a roll and you don’t want to interrupt, try jotting down what they’re saying. Your writing partner might speak faster than you can type, so you may only be able to jot down the beginning of what they say. By writing it down, you can remind them of where they started so they can retrace the thread and capture the whole idea.

 

“Try it” tells your writing partner to feel free to play with what is there. It dissipates all of the judgment that might have been looming in the air. The person saying it opens themselves up to the idea in front of them, and the person then challenged to “try it” is given the motivation to outline their vision on the page so both partners can assess it.

2) Show me.

“Show me” busts down a lot of the same barriers as “try it.” It’s a phrase that implicitly reminds us of how we should usually write: by showing, not telling. It also expresses from one writing partner to another that while an idea may be good, they are having a hard time immediately envisioning it. If we are shown an idea, we can then make a healthy assessment of it. 

 

“Show me” helps overcome a lack of visualization. If you’re helping your writing partner write an instructional piece about how to clean a dog’s paws, and you notice there’s a lack of detail that could confuse the reader such as “take a wet wipe and rub it on your dog’s paws,” you could ask the writer to “show me” what that looks like. 

 

They may say something like, “Well, the wet wipe should be made of natural ingredients. You also want to clean the pads of their paws, and wipe between each digit of their paw. Oh, and the dog will probably try to pull their paws away if they are sensitive, so you may want to have someone help you calm them and keep them still.” And suddenly you have a lot more information and detail to work with. You could even go on to ask, “Can you show me what different dirty paws look like?”, to which your writing partner might respond, “Sure! They could have muddy paws, dusty paws, paws with dirt caked on the nails…” and now you’re writing a far more helpful and informative piece. 

 

“Show me” can also stave off what Stephen Pinker calls the Curse of Knowledge, the assumption that someone knows more than they actually do. The Curse of Knowledge leads to writing that goes over the reader’s head. They won’t understand it unless they go look it up themselves. If you want them to understand the concept you’re discussing without the same amount of knowledge that you have, you will need to break some concepts down for them. “Show me” encourages writers to outline their thoughts in a way that can be understood, or “seen”, by the reader.

3) Break it.

Many writers talk too much on the page. We write too many words. We say the same thing over and over again, going on and on to make our point. 

 

Sometimes, readers need a pause to process what you are saying. A long complex-compound sentence can be powerful once in a while. But if your piece consists entirely of long, complex-compound sentences with no paragraph breaks, you’re going to overwhelm the reader with a wall of words. 

 

“Break it” is helpful when a sentence with multiple clauses becomes unwieldy and would simply be better if it were made into more than one sentence.

 

Here’s an example:

 

The people gathered around, pointing at the seals flopping around on the pier, drawing the attention of onlookers from a passing boat, who snapped pictures as the ship made its way toward the dock.

 

There are multiple ideas going on here: 

 

  • Seals are flopping around
  • A ship is sailing by
  • There are people on the ship
  • Those people are taking pictures of the seals

 

Putting all of that in one sentence is not only confusing but also leads to grammatical errors; in this case, the passing boat is supposedly “snapping pictures” as it sails “toward the dock”, which isn’t what the writer means. 

 

If we “break it” and rearrange it, it will read better.

 

We might edit it to read:

 

People gathered around to gawk as the seals flopped around on the pier. Onlookers from a passing boat pointed and took pictures as they sailed toward the dock.

 

See how there is less going on in any given sentence and you can follow the train of logic from one idea to the next? When we “break it”, we make the sentence into smaller, more easily digestible pieces.

 

“Break it” can also apply on the paragraph level, too. If you look at the page and it seems like there are no paragraph breaks in sight, you may want to separate each large idea into individual paragraphs. 

 

“Break it” naturally leads to conversations about reorganizing and restructuring a piece of writing to be easier to read. Sometimes you’ll find that the conclusion of one paragraph is better as the lead sentence of the next paragraph, or vice versa. So feel free to also say “combine it”, “move it here”, “move it there”, and experiment with the order of your writing. 

 

Headings, section titles, subtitles, and lists are also great ways to break up information to make it more approachable and less intimidating to your readers.

4) See what you think.

Your writing partner has good ideas, and so do you. When you say to your writing partner, “Let me know what you think” or “Tell me what you think” or any other derivative of that phrase, it is a sign that you trust their opinion. In a healthy writing relationship, your writing partner will give you open, honest feedback, telling you what they liked about your writing and how you may be able to improve it.



If your writing partner is asking for your opinion, it’s important to remember that good writing is all about taking chances. The writer you’re working with is testing an idea on the page—using a new frame, playing with a new voice, or exploring new ways to structure their ideas—so it’s important to encourage experimentation while also letting them know your honest opinion. If we simply tell our writing partners, “It’s great!” or “I don’t like it” without telling them why, we are doing them a disservice. 

 

One good way to encourage your writing partner is by actively being inspired by their ideas. If they show you a piece that they framed as a funny list, you can let them know that you liked it by adding to their idea. Your writing partner might say, “I wanted to introduce this piece with a checklist for summer; what do you think?” And you can say something like, “Sandals, sunscreen… what if we add koozies?!” 

 

When you allow yourself to be inspired by your partner’s ideas, they in turn become inspired by your ideas, creating a positive feedback loop or a creative flow between you and your writing partner. 

 

You may be thinking “Doesn’t that remove my fingerprints from the piece?” or “What if every time I say ‘see what you think’, they think that my idea stinks and delete what I have written?”

 

If those thoughts enter your head, remember three things: 

 

First, when you have a collaborative relationship with a good writing partner, the end piece is co-authored equally. No one owns any particular words or paragraphs. Your contribution to the piece is not the words you typed, but rather the effort you put in to get to the final product. Let the ego go. It’s not about who is the better writer; it’s about the greatness you can achieve together. 

 

Second, just as you want your partner to “see what you think”, they deserve to have you ask what they think, too, especially when it can make your piece so much better. If your writing partner is inspired by what you wrote and wants to add to it or heighten it, don’t be afraid to allow ideas to evolve with their contribution, even if it means re-writing some of what you wrote. Some of the words you write are going to get deleted, and that’s okay. Those words got the conversation going, and established a framework for the piece.

 

Lastly, if you are feeling too much friction to keep up basic communication with a writing partner, you may want to take a step back and talk about the relationship. If they always seem to shoot your ideas down, talk about it. Let them know how it makes you feel. Stay calm, but be firm that you feel like your creative potential is being hampered. If they are not clear about why they dislike your ideas, you may want to ask them, “Why? What don’t you like about my idea?”

 

As writers and general creatives, we can sometimes let our egos get in the way, so actually letting someone know how it makes you feel when they don’t provide constructive feedback may help them become a better collaborator. Of course, there may come a time when you need to move on and explore the possibilities that other writing relationships have to offer. 

5) I like that.

While it is always important to give honest feedback and to suggest how to improve a piece of writing, sometimes a person simply needs confirmation that their writing is good.

 

“I like that” can be a simple, positive nod to a phrase that stuck the landing. If you’ve both been searching for the right word or phrase and someone finally lands on it, you may find the other writing partner saying “I like it” or “Yeah, that’s it.”

 

“I like that” can also be used to encourage someone to carry an idea even further. If your writing partner uses a particular word such as “howdy” to evoke a folksy or plain tone, you can say, “I like that. That’s folksy,” to encourage them to explore other folksy language and build on that tone.

 

Telling your writing partner that an idea works gives them new techniques for their tool kit and makes them feel more confident about writing outside the box. 

 

Try telling your writing partner every once in a while that you appreciate working with them and are grateful for that opportunity, too. If you want people to enjoy working with you, encourage them. Lift up their strengths. The opportunity to write together is priceless.

What phrases do you use when working with a partner?

Every writing relationship is unique. Different writing partners may vary the words they use when working together. These are just five of the phrases we use at RedShift Writers.

 

Keep a running list so you can recognize the phrases that unlock creative potential in your writing relationships. Show us the phrases that will make us say “I like that” at contact@redshiftwriters.com

 

Looking for writing partners? Consider joining us at Community Writing Hour

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Daniel J. CohenFive Powerful Phrases for Writing Partners
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What Makes a Great Memoir?

What Makes a Great Memoir?

Hint: you don’t have to travel the world or experience spiritual/romantic/culinary awakenings; you certainly don’t have to be famous.

On any given Sunday, depending on your feelings about gambling on the Lord’s day, you can place fairly certain bets on a few things: fanciful hats will be in abundance after morning church service, students will be hurrying to finish homework that they should have started Friday, and at least one memoir will be on the New York Times’ Best Seller list. Memoirs of all kinds and qualities saturate the shelves of bookstores and stockrooms of online retailers, to the point that even the most voracious reader might feel overwhelmed or simply over the genre.

 

You, the aspiring memoirist, might feel something more akin to desperation. You have an idea and want to put pen to paper, but what would make people want to read your story out of all the others—especially when, unlike fiction, it’s not just your story, but your life? In our view, the question isn’t ‘What makes your story worth reading?’, it’s ‘What makes any memoir great?’

A Great Memoir Fosters Empathy and Recognition

When Jeannette Walls’ indelible memoir The Glass Castle opens, we’re there with her as she looks out of a taxi window and catches a glimpse of her unwashed and disheveled mother dumpster diving. What follows is the story of how her family has come to this point; how Jeannette and her siblings survived and escaped poverty and abuse, and why their parents chose to remain. 

 

Published in 2005, the book had such an effect that it remained on the New York Times nonfiction paperback Best Seller list until October 2018, having remained there for 440 consecutive weeks. It will likely never go out of print. Why? It makes readers who are unfamiliar with poverty and dysfunction empathize with people and situations they might usually judge or pity or ignore, opening up their world; readers who are familiar with some or most of the circumstances recognize parts of themselves or the people in their lives, and feel less alone with that recognition. In either position, the reader comes to identify with the author’s story. 

A Great Memoir Highlights The Humor In Everyday Life

With no prior knowledge about David Sedaris, if one were to visit the Wikipedia page for his autobiographical essay collection Me Talk Pretty One Day and read the single-line synopses of each essay, a person might question why this guy thought that any of these experiences were book-worthy. “Today’s Special” is commentary on the descriptions of food on the menus of upscale restaurants. “The Learning Curve” chronicles his experiences as a writing teacher. “21 Down” is about his love for crossword puzzles. It’s life as we generally know it best—fairly average. Upon opening the first page, however, the unfamiliar reader quickly learns that everyday life, in Sedaris’s telling, is filled with the absurd, the nonsensical, the unfair, and the plain terrible—and all of that is able to be playfully or mercilessly roasted. 

 

Me Talk Pretty One Day is not Sedaris’s first or last foray into memoir. His essay collections Naked, Holidays on Ice, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames round out the set thus far, and all have gone on to become New York Times Best Sellers. They’ve also cemented his legacy as one of the finest humorists in American literature. His success both in writing and speaking about his life experiences upends the commonly-held view that one has to have extraordinary life experiences in order to write a memoir. Like a friend who is able to spin uproarious tales about life events, Sedaris’s chronicles are compelling because they reveal the absurdity in what’s perceived as normal, and use humor to make those absurdities evident. And like that friend, having a David Sedaris book around is absolutely essential for an enjoyable time. 

A Great Memoir Grants Us Access to Lives and Experiences We Wouldn’t Otherwise Know About

 “I’m a chronicler of Negroland, a participant-observer, an elegist, dissenter and admirer; sometime expatriate, ongoing interlocutor.”

 

So begins the second chapter of Margo Jefferson’s memoir Negroland, an account of elite Black society from her perspective of having grown up within it, in mid-20th century Chicago. From the get-go, Jefferson gives the reader a view not only of her own life, but also the history of her world. On one page we get a scene of five-year-old Margo dancing at a recital full of “excited Jack and Jillers,” members of the prestigious Black social and cultural club Jack and Jill of America. On another, we learn of Anthony and Mary Johnson, African indentured servants brought to the American colonies in the 1620s who, after buying their own freedom, accumulated 550 acres of land, numerous indentured servants, and became some of the first legal slaveholders. 

 

Negroland won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography in addition to being a New York Times Best Seller. The book’s critical and popular appeal is clear. The lives of upper-class Americans have always been obscure, locked behind well-controlled gates, and thus have remained tantalizing to the rest of us. The Black bourgeoisie is even more obscure, and because of structural racism, its existence is all the more fascinating. Through her deft mixture of remembering and reporting, Jefferson grants access to a slice of American society many don’t know about and most will never be a part of. Memoirs like these will forever remain historically and culturally relevant. Research and interviews can only capture so much—nothing compares to a sharply observed first person perspective. 

A Great Memoir Gives A Personal Account of Events that Shaped History

Memoirs are, at their core, written portraits of the human condition, and as such, many deal with personal trauma that impacts an individual’s life trajectory. Night, a memoir by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel documenting his experience as a captive in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, is one of a very few memoirs that captures the trauma of an entire people, and gives insight into events that forever altered not only those people, but also the entire world. Along the way, Wiesel challenges the meaning of meaning, showing how many of the things that we hold onto—religious faith, communal solidarity, personal moral codes, basic empathy—are shattered when conditions are desperate enough. The only salvation is for the atrocity to end. 

 

Night, an essential book in the canon of Holocaust literature, has sold over ten million copies since its publication in 1960. It’s been translated into 30 different languages, and it spent 80 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list after Oprah Winfrey selected it for her Book Club in 2006. It was taken off by the paper’s news survey department—they’d decided it was no longer a new bestseller, but a classic. Night is notable for many, many reasons, but for our purposes, it’s an archetypal example of a firsthand account of events that shaped an era. It’s timeless for being wholly a product of its time. With books like these, anyone, from historians to everyday readers, can get a sense of what it was like to live through cultural touchstone events, and that’s something we will always return to.

A Great Memoir Is Innovative

In any genre of literature, as in society at large, classics are made when creators dare to push the envelope and move beyond the forms of their predecessors. Memoir is no exception. Some of the greatest autobiographical works, both historical and contemporary, are those that have chosen to do things differently. Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa, published in 1987 and now a classic of feminist literature, weaves together prose memories with analytical political commentary and lyrical poetry. Anzaldúa also liberally mixes Spanish in with the English text, refusing to prioritize a monolingual, Anglophone audience. 

 

Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, experiments with language even further—it’s a graphic novel (well, graphic memoir, to be precise) that tells the story of Satrapi’s coming-of-age in Iran in the midst and aftermath of the Iranian Revolution primarily through illustration, with accompanying text. As of 2018, since its publication in 2000, it’s sold more than two million copies worldwide.

 

Memoirs like Borderlands/La Frontera and Persepolis  have made an impact because they’ve combined great storytelling with approaches that push the genre forward, opening up the possibilities for future memoirists (and writers in other genres). They also reflect the authors’ individual experiences and ways of seeing the world. Anzaldúa’s mixing of untranslated Spanish with English reflects how she speaks and thinks in real life at her most comfortable, and Satrapi’s use of the graphic novel form allows her to combine her talent in both visual art and written storytelling. In thinking beyond literary conventions, these authors have given future writers more ways to tell their stories.  

And ultimately, that’s what makes a great memoir—when a writer embraces their unique perspective. Readers may open the pages to identify or to learn, and may come away laughing, crying, amazed, or a mixture of all three, but the memoir and the author remain in their hearts and minds. No matter the nature of our life story, we all have that unique perspective and mode of expression. What matters is finding yours.

 

See you on Sunday’s Best Seller list,

 

The team at RedShift Writers

 

Want to tell your story? Contact us to connect and capture your story for generations to come. 

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Willow CurryWhat Makes a Great Memoir?
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Google Ngram & Google Trends: Two Google Tools No One Ever Talks About

As evidenced by the obsolescence of phone books and Encyclopedia World Books, it’s no secret that the Internet and the rise of search engines have revolutionized the way people find information over the last several decades. In particular, Google has powered much of the online revolution thanks to its intense interest in how we search, take in information, and what we do with the results of our online queries. As a result, Google is now the world’s most popular search engine and leader in the field of search algorithms and search information. When Google updates its algorithm, the world takes notice and starts its own discussions about the implications the algorithm changes have on public information.

Yet even today, some Google tools still go overlooked by the general public. While Google search, Gmail, and Google Chrome are popular with a wide variety of computer users, two of the most impressive Google tools are rarely mentioned: Ngram Viewer and Trends.

With a better understanding of these tools, writers, researchers, and people who are simply fascinated in how the world thinks can gain insights never before possible.

Here’s how they work.

Ngram Viewer
Google Ngram Viewer allows you to look up the frequency of “grams” in every book in the Google Books database. “Grams” are keywords and phrases that appear in books and other writings over time. A “bigram” is two words, such as “pen cap” or “baseball cap”, while a unigram is a single word such as “pen” or “pencap”.

The Google Books database comprises books dating back to 1800 and runs up to the year 2000. You can see the frequency of a given phrase in the entire body of books they have available, giving you an idea of how popular a term may have been over time. Essentially, Ngram Viewer gives us the opportunity to look at the quantity of word and phrase usage within a cross-section of books.

Why Ngram Matters
Books and pamphlets were the central mass media for transporting in-depth ideas during much of that time period. Radio and television did not even begin to make their mark until the 1920s (and for television, it was truly much later than that). Movies with sound were not released until the late 1920s as well. The Internet was only widespread in the last few years of that time period, and early search history was not as well documented (a point we’ll discuss more in a moment). Books were simply the best tool available for unpacking big ideas before the year 2000.

Why is that meaningful? Well, since books were the broadest method of transporting complex ideas, and individual words and phrases in conjunction made up the ideas in books, Ngram Viewer becomes a way of assessing microtrends in broadly shared ideas over those 200 years. With each chart we create in Ngram, we get a different perspective on how people thought, spoke, and spread ideas, improving our theories on collective information and psychology.

Did I mention this tool is free?

Ngram in Action
Let’s assess some generalized fields in Ngram to see it in action. Here is an Ngram search result for “business”, “politics”, and “arts” between the years 1800 and 2000.

ngram trend for social sciences

You’ll notice that the reference to “business” is far more popular than the other two, which may speak to the field being a bit more common in English practice, or may speak to the versatile nature of the word “business”. In other words, many uses of the unigram may be about “business” as a field of study or practice, but others may be more along the lines of its use as part of the phrase “business as usual”. We have no way of knowing without looking up every cliche involving the word “business” in the Ngram database.

However, it does appear that the concept of business as a whole is far more mentioned and far more popular than those of “art” or “politics”. Furthermore, the relationship between those two latter terms is fascinating, as “politics” surpassed “arts” in usage in 1884.

Then again, the term “arts” is a variation of “art”, which is much more common in usage as a whole.

ngram chart 2

“Art” shoots over “politics” by quite a bit. Not too surprising given the possibilities for the gram “art” (including its use in the phrase “the art of politics”).

Let’s look at the chart with one more variation, swapping “politics” with “political”:

The “political” nature of things seems to have taken off starting mid-twentieth century. Given that “political” is a term that can be used in a way that is not necessarily about “politics” (as in “The corporate world is extremely political”), it may be the case that the term simply increased in general use. However, this uptick is suspiciously steep, so steep that it seems more likely to have come from an increase in interest and discussion of “political” matters in the literary world. For example, the phrase “The personal is political” AKA “The private is political”, a slogan popularized during Second Wave Feminism, both may account for some of the uptick in the use of the term “political” by authors.

Google Trends
Whereas Ngram Viewer assesses words and phrases used in books, Google Trends assesses words and phrases used as Google search terms. Trends demonstrates frequency of a given search for specific words as weighted against total Google searches. In other words, Trends not only shows you comparative frequency of searches between various words or phrases, but also shows you roughly how popular those words or phrases are in context of total Google searches. While Trends doesn’t show exact number of searches per term, it does assign a weighted number that compares each specific search to the average of other search terms.

Whereas Ngram Viewer covers the years 1800-2000— a period when, as we mentioned, books were used as the main method by which in-depth ideas were spread— Trends covers the years from 2004 to the present. During years covered by the Google Trends database, the Internet has provided an immediate platform for sharing and researching ideas.

Interestingly, Google Trends also gives users the option to measure words as a “topic” rather than just search terms. Whether this means Google is measuring the word as an idea based on all of the terms related to the “topic” or if “topic” is just a synonym for “search term” is unclear.

Google Trends lets you select the terms you want to search, the time range you want to search, categories of online topics, and types of searches within Google (news searches vs. general searches vs. YouTube vs. Image vs. Shopping queries).

Trends in Action
Let’s start by looking at a single phrase assessment on Google Trends so we can see some immediate utility. Here is the search volume trend over time for “frisbee”.

Frisbee is a more popular search during summer months. Not particularly surprising, right? What may be surprising, however, is that the term “frisbee” is actually decreasing in share of overall searches! This is an interesting contrast to the claim of some people that ultimate frisbee is gaining in popularity.

However, the decline of “frisbee” as a search term does not necessarily mean that people are less interested in frisbees than they once were. Early Google searches were often keyword based. Later searches have been more semantic, phrased closer to the way people speak thanks to advancements like voice-to-text and improved geo-search capabilities. Whereas an early Google Search user may have simply typed the word “frisbee”, a modern Google user might use voice-to-text to search the phrase “buy frisbee online” or “ultimate frisbee game in Houston”.

Let’s look at “Skiing” as a subject:

As we might expect, Skiing is more popular as a search term in the winter months. It also has decreased as an overall part of the search environment over time.

Now for a less “seasonal” trend: Tarot. It has felt lately like more people are interested in Tarot, but something like that could also be a function of living in a city, being in my thirties, knowing Bohemian people, etc.

Let’s see if search interest in Tarot aligns with my experience.

Well, I’ll be dipped! Tarot searches are pretty much at an all-time high. May not be a bad time to get into the Tarot card business.

Trends for Business Owners
To see how Trends can help you if you’re a business owner, let’s look at something comparative and practical. RedShift Writers is a content writing firm, so the service we sell might be described as “Copywriting” or as “Content Marketing”. Either term alludes to elements of what we do, so when we are faced with the option of using one or the other, we have to decide which will be more effective.

It has felt over the life of our company (starting in December of 2012) that “copywriting” has become a term of the past, and that “content marketing” and other terms have become more popular. Trends can tell us whether or not my instinct on this is correct.

As it turns out, “Copywriting” is actually still the more popular term. In spite of the fact that it has been trending down while content marketing is trending up, “Copywriting” still enjoys nearly three times the searches.

Something interesting happens when we add the search term “Blogging” to the mix:

As we can see, “blogging” was a scorching hot topic on the Internet in January of 2008. Like, as hot as they come. It was a topic the whole world suddenly wanted to know about.

The popularity of “blogging” as a term correlates to some macroeconomic trends in ways that may lead to interesting potential theories. The bottom of the stock market decline during The Great Recession was March of 2008, marking a time when people were desperately looking for an advantage in the market, or new revenue streams, both of which might come about from blogging, if a person put their mind to it. Today, the term has leveled out to around the same search volume as “Copywriting”.

Fun with Trends
Trends may also be useful if we want to explore the peak of memes. Remember when everyone was making Harlem Shake videos?

If you don’t, here’s the Wiki. Go get a feel for what it is and come back. If you remember it, keep reading.

Trends can tell us the exact month the Harlem Shake peaked, and how the fad flamed out.

We’ll view one more example: seasonal search. For this query, we turn to the “NFL” as a search topic. After all, we’re from Texas. Football is pretty popular here.

Here’s the long-term search trend for “NFL”.

Two trends stand out. First, search volume is growing over time. Second, the search interest in NFL topics usually peaks in January, likely because of the Super Bowl. However, in 2007, 2012, 2013, and 2018 the Super Bowl was not the period when search interest was highest. Theorizing why that was in the case during those four years with any real insight would likely take a person who is a bigger football fan than I am, but it stood out.

Google’s Lost Years: 2000-2004
Since Ngram covers through the end of the year 2000 and Trends begins at the start of 2004, the forward-facing Google dataset is missing four years of data. Trends from this period— celebrities, products, memes, recreation, movies, etc.— are not available to us for in-depth analysis, so we’re missing the high-water mark for post-Y2K analysis: The Strokes, Outkast, and That Seventies Show, among other things.

What Trends Interest You?
What can Ngrams and Trends teach us? They are mostly good for exploring interesting trends. It is limited, though, because correlation of word usage or search term frequency does not necessarily translate to causation.

We’ll continue to investigate these tools and other tools along the way and share more on what we learn and observe. Our hope is that these insights will continue, over time, to yield something useful to everyone in the RedShift Writers community.

Got an interesting idea for Trends, Ngram, other Google tools, or something else altogether? Reach out and let us know at contact@redshiftwriters.com.

RedShift Writers: Stories change history.

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Daniel J. CohenGoogle Ngram & Google Trends: Two Google Tools No One Ever Talks About
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Red Light, Green Light, SEO: Yoast Plugin for WordPress Explained

What all is involved in boosting your website’s ranking on Google? For businesses that haven’t dealt with search engine optimization (SEO) before, the term alone can be intimidating. Afterall, SEO sounds very technical. Plus, you’ve probably heard how expensive paid advertising can get with a non-organic SEO plan. But with a good writer and good tools in place, it doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. SEO tools, like the Yoast plugin for WordPress, simplifies all the technicalities of creating organic SEO content. But how does it work?

How Does the Yoast Plugin for WordPress Help with SEO?

Once you’re ready to enter your blog into WordPress, go to the ‘Add New Post’  tab found on the left side of the page. Enter the title in the title field. Copy and paste your content into the main window. This will activate the alerts in the Yoast plugin. Scroll to the bottom of your blog in WordPress and you’ll see the Yoast SEO window.

There are two main categoriesReadability Analysis and Focus Keyphrase—which should be marked with a red, orange, or green light. Let these lights serve as your guide to optimizing the content on your blog. Your goal is to get a green light for each of these categories. A red light means that section needs a lot of work. An orange light  means there are a few adjustments that need to be made.

Under these categories are subcategories also marked by a red, orange, or green light. These subcategories don’t necessarily have to all be green in order for you to score a green light in the two main categories. This means you have some wiggle room to write naturally and less like a robot.

The wonderful thing about Yoast is that it makes the rules of SEO pretty easy for writers to understand. Although the rules are pretty straightforward, there’s also the subjective part of content writing that Yoast doesn’t account for. It won’t tell you how to write a more effective title or meta description. It won’t tell you how to persuade the searcher to click through to your website. And it won’t tell you that you need a stronger intro paragraph to keep your audience interested. That’s where having a professional writer helps. But to get you started, let’s take a look at the SEO components Yoast does cover.

 

What SEO Components Does Yoast Watch For?

Readability Analysis

Sentence Length

If you tend to be wordy, Yoast will challenge you to write more concise sentences. It will alert you with an orange or red light if you have too many long sentences. Why? Studies show that readers tend to stop reading if there are too many long sentences, especially earlier in the copy. Shorter sentences help get your message across to a wider audience. Remember, not everyone who reads your blog is an avid reader.

Rule of thumb: Keep majority of your sentences under 20 words. But it’s okay to mix things up a bit and have a few longer sentences here and there.

Passive Voice

If you’re not a grammar buff, the concept of active vs. passive voice can be a hard one to grasp. But a good writer should be able to ensure that your blog contains mostly an active voice. This is important not only for SEO purposes but also to make your point crystal clear.

Example:

Active Voice: The man played a beautiful song.

Passive Voice: A beautiful song was played by the man.

The example above shows how using an active versus passive voice comes across more concise and natural. Notice how the subject of the sentence (the man) is clearly performing the action. When you change it to a passive voice, the man is no longer the focus of the sentence and the sentence becomes awkward and wordy. Yoast will alert you with an orange or red light if you have too many passive sentences.

Rule of thumb: Keep your passive voice to under 25% of your sentences.

Focus Keyphrase

Frequency, Length, Title, Subheadings, Meta Description

When writing your blog, decide what your keyphrase will be. The focus keyphrase is the word or phrase you want your website to rank the highest for. For instance, if you own a pet services company, your keyword phrase may include everything from “pet grooming” and “pet boarding” to “dog camps” and “dog training.” This keyword phrase should be repeated throughout your blog but in moderation. What Yoast doesn’t account for is how competitive your keyphrase is compared to other marketers. That’s where a good content strategist comes in handy.

Once you dump your blog into WordPress, enter your keyphrase in the Focus Keyphrase field. From there, Yoast will tell you exactly what needs work regarding your keyphrase. Does it show up enough or too much throughout your blog? Yoast triggers an alert if the keyphrase appears in more than 2.5% of your content. Anything above 2.5% appears unnatural. It will also trigger an alert if your keyword phrase is too long or if it doesn’t appear in the title and meta description. You also want to include subheadings (also known as H2, H3, H4) that help break the content up, making it easier to read. Subheadings should introduce the paragraph and be relevant to your keyphrase.

Text Length

Because longer posts outrank shorter posts, Yoast recommends blogs of at least 300 words. You’ll notice a red or orange light if your word count is too low. For a shorter blog, make sure the you optimize it to be useful and informative, not spammy. Use each and every sentence to drive your message home. Blogs of 1000 to 2500 words have a better chance of ranking higher on Google, but you probably want these longer form blogs written by a content writer who can produce professional content and can recommend images to go along with the blog.

Images are also important to make your content interesting. If you don’t include any images, Yoast will remind you with a red or orange light.

Links

Last but certainly not least are internal and external links. The Yoast plugin for WordPress checks for both.

Internal links take the reader from one page on your website to another page on your website. For instance, if you’re talking about how to train your dog, you can link the words “how to train your dog” to your pet training webpage on your website.

External links take the reader from your website to another. These are typically used to validate the credibility of your blog. For instance, if you write about how long it takes to train a dog, you can link the words, “time it takes to train your dog,” to a specific study from a credible source, like the Humane Society.

As long as you adjust your content according to Yoast’s instructions, you should eventually get a green light in both the Readability and Keyphrase categories (you may need to hit the Save as Draft button to refresh the page to see if your adjustments helped or not).  Remember, you don’t need to get a green light in all the subcategories. Just aim for green in the two main categories, and you’re off to a good start.

Are your blogs not bringing enough traffic to your website even by using Yoast?  RedShift Writers provides consultation and writing services to generate more interest in your content. Connect with us today.

 

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Cecile BaltazarRed Light, Green Light, SEO: Yoast Plugin for WordPress Explained