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Content Amplification Guide For Publishers

Last updated on Feb 22, 2023

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Content Amplification Guide For Publishers

Ta-da! The cornerstone content the whole team spent months to produce is now LIVE!

Solid keyword research … check.

Timely and relevant topic … check.

Backed with research and compelling stats … check.

Engaging copy … check. 

But after a few days everyone is asking the same question - where’s the visitor traffic?

It happens to the best of us. You spend hours planning content based on our carefully developed target audiences, data insights, and thorough keyword research. Yet, for whatever reason, our best pieces just aren't bringing in enough visitors. 

But that doesn’t mean you shrug it off and move on. Content is an investment! Once you’ve released a badass piece of content, you have high hopes that it will get the reception it deserves. But that’s not always the case. Creating valuable content goes beyond the effort you put into creating each piece. So summon some marketing mojo and get your content goals back on track.

Content amplification is the secret sauce for luring in an audience. In this guide, you’ll be introduced to a game-changing content amplification strategy to get your high-value content seen.

Table of Content

  1. What is Content Amplification?
  2. Why Do You Need Content Amplification?
  3. Three Types of Content Amplification
  4. Top Content Amplification Strategies and Tips
  5. Time to Amplify Your Content to the Next Level


What is Content Amplification?

Content amplification is a networking strategy with the objective of gaining greater exposure for your content.

In a way, content amplification is kind of like event promotion. What’s the best way to maximize turnout for a big event? You could invite everyone you know, but how many of them would actually show up? 

To improve your chances of reaching attendance goals, consider extending invitations out to other networks. In the world of online content, such content amplification platforms are social media, PPC advertising, email marketing, etc.


Why Do You Need Content Amplification?

Creating a content masterpiece is indeed an accomplishment. But if it just sits there waiting for readers to stumble upon it, that’s wasted potential. For most content pieces, sharing to social media or implementing keyword optimization is the absolute bare minimum. These steps by themselves are just not quite enough to generate significant traffic to your content. 

This is where a well thought out content amplification strategy comes into play. By using some of the tried and true methods below, you can get more eyes on your content.

Moreover, when you adopt a more ambitious content marketing strategy, you stand to score in several areas. You’ll see gains in SEO health, brand awareness, authority building, and the lifespan of the content itself.

Here are more specific examples of content amplification gains:

  • Brand mentions
  • Backlinks
  • Reviews
  • Comments
  • Follows
  • Email subscribers
  • Click-through rate
  • Direct web traffic
  • Return visitors
  • Domain and Page Authority

As an added overall benefit, keeping all of this in mind adjusts the mindset of your content team. When everyone is on the same page about amplification, the content will be aligned with these optimization goals. For example, if the goal is to make the content more share-worthy, the team creates it with that intention.

Feeling motivated to get started on your content amplification strategy right now? We’ve outlined some different approaches to help you reap the rewards of amplification and absolutely crush it with your content.


Three Types of Content Amplification

When putting an action plan together, it helps to be familiar with what media channels are available. Ideally, the strategy should include several media and marketing channels that work together over time toward specific gains. 

With that said, let’s go over each category of content amplification platforms: paid media, owned media, and earned media.

Paid Media Amplification

Paid media amplification is exactly what it sounds like - paid advertising. This involves building an ad campaign around the content you wish to promote. Typical methods are Facebook post promotion, Facebook ads, PPC, retargeting, etc

Other popular paid media opportunities are:

  • Twitter - Promote tweets
  • LinkedIn - Sponsored content
  • Instagram - Ads or promoted posts
  • AdWords - PPC campaigns
  • Paid influencers - Those who have built a following promote your brand.

Which of the above is most likely to reach your target audience?

Owned Media Amplification

Owned media amplification is about making the best use of what is within your control in order to own your audience. Such assets are a website, blog, or branded social media accounts. 

Examples of owned media amplification are:

  • Publishing and sharing company blogs regularly with a consistent content schedule.
  • Regular content distribution to your email list.
  • Initiating guest post or content syndication opportunities. 

While paid media is geared toward building awareness, owned media focuses on retaining and growing an audience through engagement. And building an audience is what we’re after, isn’t it?

Web push notifications are one way to keep an audience engaged. iZooto is the original owned audience marketing platform. This push notification tool empowers a publisher to build its audience. It works by inviting visitors to opt in for notifications about what’s new on your site. When your visitor accepts, congratulations! You just gained a conversion.

Earned Media Amplification

With any luck, those paid and owned media efforts will pay off with fantastic earned media. In the case of earned media, initiation doesn’t come from your end. Instead, an outside entity gives you an endorsement or mention of their own free will.

Examples of these surprise gifts are:

  • User-generated content - Such as published reviews about your company.
  • Free influencer marketing - An influencer shows some love by promoting your product or service because it impressed them!
  • Press coverage - Your company catches the interest of PR or news media channels, so they tell the public about you in a valuable context.
  • Unsolicited social media sharing - Users post, share, retweet, repost your content based on real interest, and not because you asked or paid for it. (Also related, word of mouth recommendations.)
  • Surprise backlinks - Marketers work full time to network for backlinks, so when you gain a link by happenstance, that’s a high compliment and endorsement of content quality.

Each part of this plan should produce one or more of the following content amplification gains:

  • Traffic
  • Links
  • Shares
  • Engagement
  • Conversions
  • Leads
  • Transactions

Navigating content amplification is an intuitive and thoughtful process. Not every content amplification platform will fit into your content marketing plans. Which ones do you think might be the best opportunities for your strategy?


Top Content Amplification Strategies and Tips

Let’s go a bit deeper into how content amplification works. Below is your digital amplification starter kit.

1. Use PPC to Retarget Specific Audiences

Repetition is a pillar of advertising. Repeated exposure is the key to conversions and retargeting does just that.

Retargeting (also called remarketing) is a paid tool where you speak specifically and directly to those who have already visited your website. Browser cookies collect information on visitors and this is used to generate ads elsewhere during internet sessions. It taps people on the shoulder as a follow up about their encounter with your content.

How granular you get with this approach is up to you. Seasoned marketers say that you get more for your ad spend if you’re very specific about your retargeting audience. In other words, only retarget those who are most likely to convert.

Facebook retargeting allows you to be extremely granular about who sees these follow up ads. Whether Facebook users like it or not, the world’s most used platform collects copious amounts of data about each individual. This is leveraged to offer advertisers customized audiences. The better you can hone in on who is most likely to continue in your funnel, the more precise your retargeting will be.

Does that mean Facebook should be your default? Not necessarily. Different purposes are served with each of the content amplification platforms. 

  • Twitter: Ideal for top-of-funnel to attract new users. Insights from this platform will help you learn about who your audience is.
  • Facebook: Geared toward nurturing a community. More opportunities for engagement build relationships with the public and customers. (Twitter does this sometimes with humorous tweets that go viral.)
  • LinkedIn: A lead generation and sales channel. B2B connections are made through this network as you forge contacts with decision-makers and ideal agency customers.

Retargeting is all about identifying those high-value touchpoints and helping them along.

2. Increase Likes and Shares with Social Sharing Button Plugins

Help your visitors share and like your content. If a reader arrives at the end of the article, they most likely found something interesting or valuable about it. Having social sharing functionality at the end (or wherever you prefer to place it) invites them to pass it on and get the content in front of more eyeballs.

Some social share plugins include a counter showing the total shares and likes a post has gained. Boom! Social proof.

Build a fanbase by adding social sharing functions on your content pages.

3. Email Outreach and Guest Posting

You can’t steal a huge audience of an authority site, but with guest posting, you can borrow it for a moment.

Many quality websites are open to having guest bloggers publish content on their own site. It’s a win-win for them and for you. They win by adding more quality content to their site. You (ideally) get a backlink and entice them to check out the content on your site.

Curating guest posting opportunities through email outreach is time-consuming. Some even do this as a full-time job. This task involves vetting the prospective website and using email sales skills to snag the opportunity.

It starts off by deciding if the website is worth outreach effort. Is the website relevant to your industry or niche? What are the site’s traffic numbers? How does the page rank (or Domain Authority)? How frequently do they publish posts? Is comment engagement active on the posts? Do they have a sizable social media following?

Backlinking outreach also helps with content amplification by finding link replacement opportunities. In this case, the proposal includes replacing a lower quality link (sometimes a broken link) with better content.

Email outreach is also about relationship building. When you deliver quality content and build rapport, this might lead to other link building opportunities. Don't forget to use dedicated services, like EssayWriter and Grammarly, that will help you ensure the top quality of your content pieces.

Link-building outreach is challenging and you may only see a few green lights, but it’s worth the effort. Securing these opportunities builds “link juice” to grow your page’s Domain and Page Authority. This boosts search visibility and builds your brand.

4. Use Content Syndication to Build Your Blog Audience

Another way to get your content in front of more eyeballs is with content syndication. This allows you to publish on several platforms. Here is a list of the best content syndication tools to help you.

Republishing on the right third-party websites gives you access to a bigger audience. It is yet another link building opportunity and may generate brand mentions.

You’d help websites related to your niche and industry better serve their audience with highly relevant ready-made content.

5. Engage Influencers In Your Industry

Oh, to have the talent and charisma of an influencer. Working with the right influencers grants you access to an audience that is hanging on their every word.

An influencer marketing study estimates that for every dollar spent on this content amplification platform, $6.50 of revenue is produced. 

Your brand name in the mouth of the right authority boosts your social media visibility and builds your brand. 

Podcasting is yet another influencer marketing channel. A successful podcast has a faithful audience. Being a guest or getting a plug on a relevant podcast is a valuable endorsement.

Which influencers would you want to be associated with?


Time to Amplify Your Content to the Next Level

Hopefully, you’ve heard the message about content amplification loud and clear, but here’s a breakdown to help cement the core concepts.

To recap:

  • Tiers of content amplification:
    • Paid 
    • Owned 
    • Earned (the most valuable)
  • Content amplification game plan components:
    • Retargeting
    • Social media amplification and on-page sharing functionality
    • Outreach for guest blogging opportunities
    • Content syndication
    • Influencer marketing

With this overview, your marketing team can map out where to start audience building and how that leads to your goals. Also, define what success looks like for your content amplification strategy. 

The steps of your action plan build upon one another to gradually achieve the reach you’ve always hoped for. Content strategy without content amplification is playing small. Don't settle for lackluster ROI and leave money on the table. Build an audience to build your content marketing value.

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Luke Heneicke
Luke Heneicke
Luke is the founder of Linear, a Utah-based PPC agency with an intense focus on conversion rate optimization. Luke and his team have helped hundreds of their clients increase conversion rates, grow their business, and greatly improve their ROI. Connect with him on Twitter, LinkedIn, or get a free custom proposal.

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