‘Content is king’ is a notion we have all heard about – over and over again. However, as marketers, how do we create and distribute content? Yes, distribution is as important as creating content, yet this is something many marketers forget to give equal importance to. Here, I will try to focus on both aspects and suggest how best to improve our content game.

Let’s start off with content creation. There are three main sources you can use to create content. They include keyword research, digital trends and building on user-generated content by involving communities. These three sources will help you create content that is suitable for your brand. However, before moving forward, keep your niche in mind.

Keyword research is the first source of generating ideas for content. Let’s say my blog is entertainment-related and I need ideas. For this, I turn to Google AdWord’s Keyword Research tool and start to look at the keywords for ‘songs’ and the relevant keywords within this category.

There are three main sources you can use to create content. They include keyword research, digital trends and building on user-generated content by involving communities.

This is what my search looks like: ‘songs’ had an average of 823,000 searches per month; ‘Indian songs’ 368,000 searches and ‘Pakistani songs’ 74,000 searches. Of these, the main keyword ‘songs’ was too generic while ‘Pakistani songs’ had a lower search volume. Therefore I decided to go for ‘Indian songs’ as the category for the blog post. Then to make things more exciting and appealing to my audience (based on BuzzFeed’s recommendation of using numbers in posts and the premise that my blog is addressing a primarily Pakistani audience), I selected the title ‘Top five weirdest Indian songs ever’.

Read: When content meets marketing

‘Trends’ can be another source for creating content. There are three main sources to find out what is ‘in’. One, Twitter Trends; hashtags that tell you what people are talking about. In our market these trends are mostly political, but every once in a while you will find trends that are relevant to your brand. Another source is Google Trends, where you can find out what has been trending based on a specific timeframe. Using Google Trends, I was able to find out that within the past 15 days, OPPO’s new F3 Plus Selfie expert smartphone has been in the news, so I decided to write a piece on the topic and I managed to generate a decent response.

The last source of generating content ideas is a more speculative approach, which attempts to involve your audience into making decisions for you when it comes to content. For example, if your brand is about food, you can involve the many food groups on Facebook (and in the same way other communities when it comes to other niches). You can start with a discussion and end up with some really good topics and once you create that piece of content, you will have these communities supporting you and sharing it on your behalf.

The second piece of the puzzle is content distribution. There are four ways to go about this. These include using your friends and family, using advertising, influencers or even ‘cheap thrills’ which uses reward systems. However, you need to make sure that you are not deviating from your niche, otherwise it could be problematic.

Let’s talk about the notion that almost every marketer has heard about: “Have your people share the content; I’m sure you know a lot of people.” Well I put this notion to the test with an experiment whereby I had 10 people on board (friends and family) with an equal mix of males and females, including housewives, working women and people who were considered social. As a result, I concluded that on average each share resulted in four people visiting my website and viewing the content in detail. So, it is not a bad bargain, but it requires a lot of work.

To sum up, there are various sources for content creation and distribution. You just need to find your perfect mix if you really want to make use of the ‘king’ i.e. the content.

Advertising is another major tool when it comes to distribution. If you know your audience and what you want them to do – and you have the budget – advertising is right for you. But you need to understand that ‘boosting’ a post doesn’t necessarily mean that it will make people interested in what you are talking about. What it means is that your ad will be seen by people who are more likely to engage with your post – but not necessarily click through it. If you want them to view the content on your website, then a conversion ad on Facebook, optimised for viewing content would give you better results.

The last two sources are a bit unorthodox but have been used repeatedly by various content creators. One of these falls in the domain of digital PR or ‘word of mouth’; the other is more about ‘cheap thrills’ as per the ‘Like, Share and Win’ contests. You can use the latter once in a blue moon to push your rankings up, but remember that when you do this, you will also activate a host of fake profiles. Digital PR is more solid and having other people talk about you is always a good idea when it comes to boosting your credibility.

To sum up, there are various sources for content creation and distribution. You just need to find your perfect mix if you really want to make use of the ‘king’ i.e. the content.