Create once—distribute everywhere
By Sharon A.M. MacLean The single most compelling reason that social media made sense to me in 2008 was the opportunity to tell more stories.
At the local business magazine I owned, we had never-ending offers from experts in fields such as finance, technology, and real estate to write regular columns. It was the free way to get their message published since prospective writers could not afford to buy enough print space to brand themselves in the marketplace. Forget media campaigns that combined print, television, and radio that required big budgets.
Social media changed everything. Now experts could write about their better pop stand and publish on any network to reach an audience. Today, there are so many different ways that we can send our content into the world— blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube videos, podcasts, e-books, articles, and live events, to name a few outlets.
So, potential authors took over the reins as publishers—and all the questions that plagued media producers: how often do we publish…how much copy do we need…where do I get accurate research…what about imagery? where am I getting all the content to feed a perpetually hungry machine…is anybody listening?
Enter Internet marketing icons Mike Koenigs and Paul Colligan. They came up with Multicast Marketing: How to Podcast, Publish and Promote Your Content to the World with Google Hangouts, YouTube Live, Kindle Books, Mobile and Social Media.
The Koenigs-Colligan proposition? Take one serving of content and reproduce it numerous times for different audiences—rather than keep finding fresh words and visuals all the time. The content would be distributed to as many places, formats, and devices as possible—podcasting, publishing, and promoting using social media, Google, YouTube, and mobile devices, among others.
They did it all in 5 easy steps. Here’s how.
Step one: Tell your stories online using Google Hang Outs or YouTube. You can either take lessons to discover best lighting and sound techniques and how to speak in front of a camera or hire a videographer if you need higher-end output. Imagine having multibillion-dollar partners like Google promoting you.
Step two: Take your video and turn it into a podcast. This means that your audience can download an audio or video file to watch or listen to on any device or computer. Think about Apple’s iTunes to send out your podcast to their many hundreds of thousands of listeners. The secret sauce here is that Apple will distribute your show for free–and promote you, too.
Take that, world of paid advertising.
Step three: Transcribe the content from your original video and edit into a book—both hard-cover and an e-book to be read on e-readers, tablets, and cell phones. The secret sauce here is Amazon distributes to devices at no cost, maybe even pay you. Amazon gives you a free author web site that you can put your pictures, bio, video and links to your web site, too.
Step 4 is your phone. This is how you capture leads when listeners text their email address to a designated phone number, visit a mobile-friendly web site, capture a QR code or call a phone number to get your e-book.
Step 5 is social media. Now you circle back to the beginning when we first talked about Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In, for examples. The original content you created is distributed to video sites, social bookmarking services, article directories, blogs, and podcast directories.
It’s all about telling your story, your way. Create once–distribute everywhere, to every possible device–for free.
