If content creation is an art, choosing the right set of platforms as distribution channels is a science. Marketers often focus on creation because this is where creativity can shine and win awards despite being aware that the best idea cannot harness its potential if nobody sees it. Unilever’s Hamish Priest once said, “Content without reach is like building cathedrals in the desert”, which perfectly illustrates this point – content without reach has little value.
But, in this age of multiple screens, it is not easy to always click the right buttons that help you take your content to the right TG and hence, there is always a cat-and-mouse game. At its heart lies the question, how can one decide to put content on social media, owned platforms, YouTube or other paid platforms?
Considering brands have to be constantly present where their target audience is, choosing the distribution channels is never the case of either/or.
Darshan Bhatt, Director, India, South East Asia, Africa and Middle East, Goquest Digital Studios, said, “Firstly, there is a need to understand the target consumer media touch points and approach them like a multi-media campaign. The content has to be omnipresent, while most importantly being present where the target consumer is.”
According to Sandeep Balani, Head of India, Outbrain, choosing a platform clearly depends on their goals but also the content. “For instance, take the T-series story. They want to be the No.1 YouTube channel globally but vice-versa you have clients like Amazon and Flipkart who would like every traffic to come to their platforms. In these cases, the goal defines the channel.”
“However, sometimes, the content can play a leading role in defining the channel. For instance, if you have a long-form video ad that was created for TV that is perfect for in-depth storytelling, you can repurpose it for online but need to choose the right video format – such as a native in-feed click to watch or view to play. However, if you have short branded clips built just for the awareness, you would do better with YouTube and Outstream video formats,” Balani added.
When asked how do you decide that a particular channel is the best fit for the brand, Karan Kumar, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer, Fabindia, said, “Brands need to evaluate the distribution channels in terms of the audiences they best serve, by platform type. These choices need to be made by brands for both their own assets as well as third-party publisher ones. Given clearly stated campaign objectives, there are various tools that can help a marketer arrive at the appropriate channel/platform mix.”
“Facebook analytics can be used to identify user intent and demonstrated behaviour across different platforms. That can aid the decision on co-opting paid platforms as part of the brand’s overall digital media content marketing plan. However, an ideal content strategy would always be a mix of paid, owned and earned media,” added Kumar.
There is the ‘spray and pray’ approach where you just put your content everywhere and experts call it a lame approach. Each distribution channel has its own content needs. If you just take a look at the social media platforms alone – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram – each one is unique in its way and has completely different audience expectations and hence, the content on each also needs to be customised if you choose all of them. Since most brands promote content on these platforms, which has a cost involved that can be significant, you need to be wary of what platform you choose and what you put on them, otherwise, you will spend money with little results.
Shamik Ghosh, Head of Content and Communications, Paisabazaar.com, said, “Each content distribution channel has separate audiences and unique attributes. You need to understand the value each one brings to you and choose the most meaningful ones depending on your content and goal. Choose channels that have the relevant audience, are aligned with your content’s messaging and tone of voice and have the maximum chance of the audience engaging with your brand.”
“Ideally, your content should first rest on owned media like your website, blogs and your social media channels and YouTube page, because that already has the relevant audience in place. You then reach out to new relevant audiences through other paid mediums. But there is not one strategy, it all depends on the content, the audiences you are targeting and your end objective,” Ghosh added.
Kartikay Mehta, VP, Sales, Unibic Foods India, said, “Remember the target audience, their preferences, their consumption habits of particular content, and substitute/alternatives. Based on this, the right channel can be picked to drive distribution.”
But which platform should it actually be? Answering this, Mehta said, “This is a very tricky question. It depends upon how strong the content is. How viral it can go? How much budget.”
Channel identification is a science that is mostly built on our understanding of the audience, which is also dictated by the nature of the content often, according to Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer, Wavemaker India.
“The economics of driving the audience to a platform purely on media spends is becoming progressively more expensive. This is mostly because today, the audience consumes content ‘in stream’ and seldom goes to a destination to do this. So, the right answer is probably a combination of all of the above but skewed towards audience behaviour in that specific category,” said Nagarajan.