Employing the Web to Spread Your Story

10 comments Written on June 22nd, 2010 by
Categories: Digital Media, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
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In my last post I talked about what makes a good storyteller and I thought this post would be a good follow up to talk about how to use the web and social networks to spread your story.  Now we all love a good story and want to share with our friends.  But if you are managing an online brand what’s the best method to spread your story via the web and social networks.

We all hear the experts say start with a blog or web site.  While this is the starting point it’s important to look at channels that can help spread your story.  Feedburner and RSS feed tools are one great way to allow users to subscribe to your content and stay abreast.  But are there other avenues to help spread the word?

The answer is yes and to explain this point I’m going to use a recent example I came across.  A few weeks ago my friend Greg Ng @gregoryng asked for volunteers for a Freezerburns episode on frozen hamburgers.  I was excited to be chosen as one of the taste testers for his “frodown” where he had three fathers taste frozen hamburgers and choose their favorites.  The episode was a big success for Greg and even made the front page of YouTube on Father’s Day.

Freezerburns on Front Page of YouTube

Wow exciting right? But what really caught my interest was when I went to Freezerburns site and check out the subscribe page. I expected Greg to have the leading subscription options like YouTube and iTunes. But what I found was that he had that and much more. A total of 13 subscriber options are available for his content. The usual suspects like Feedburner and email options as well as Twitter and Facebook are present. But what impressed me were some of the lesser known, at least to me, video and podcasting options Greg managed his content through. Take a look below at his subscriber options listed on his page.

Freezerburns Subscription Options

Now I know there are tools that allow content creators to autopost to multiple sites.  But at the same time that’s only half the work.  Setting up accounts, moderating comments and keeping up with all the necessary options, updates and other tasks on these networks is time consuming.  What this impressive list tells me is that Greg is dedicated to his audience and wants to deliver content to audiences on sites that are relevant to his content type, video.  I know that I’ve had to sometimes not use some social networks or distribution sites for some of the online brands that I manage because I’m not sure if it’s the right audience or if anyone is really going to the site.  However in making that decision I may have missed some readers and opportunity to connect with potential customers and audience.

What channels are you evaluating when distributing your content on the web?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 10:50 am and is filed under Digital Media, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy. You can subscribe to any comments to this entry via RSS 2.0.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About the Author: Brian McDonald
http://www.squarejawmedia.com
Brian McDonald started Square Jaw Media to document strategies and techniques he had used over his experience working in marketing and communications since 1990. During this time Brian wrote about many of the exciting Raleigh social media events where great knowledge was being shared and tries to share some of the tips and tricks.
  • http://www.freezerburns.com Greg: The Frozen Food Master

    Brian, Thanks for the mention and for joining me for the frozen hamburger frodown!

    I told myself early on in the planning stage for Freezerburns that video content changes the way you should approach community. In traditional blogs it was always a goal to drive people to one location. But with video it is more important to offer your content where people choose to consume their content. And most importantly evolve your show based on what you know about your subscribers. For instance, I have discovered through my analytics that 31% of subscribers are consuming my content through their HD Roku boxes. So I have made moves to export my show in HD to accommodate big screen tv consumption. It isn’t easy as every community of users have different needs and wants. But I have found it’s well worth the time!

    -Greg

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  • http://www.mediatwopointoh.com/author/morgan%20siem/ Morgan Siem

    Wow, impressive list of subscription options, Greg! Brian – I totally agree that this shows Greg’s level of commitment to his audience. I think it’s great. To serve as devil’s advocate, though, is it ever too much? Is there a point at which the array of options overwhelms the audience instead of charming it? I personally think that since these are all opt-in options, they benefit the user. Is it different for “share” options? I’ve often heard that it’s best to keep it simple and limit the number of share options you provide with your content. Greg – do you see a response on each of the subscription channels above? Or do readers mostly concentrate on a few of the more well known ones?

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  • http://www.freezerburns.com Greg: The Frozen Food Master

    Morgan, Tests have shown that too many options can cause decision paralysis and thus yield no response. I have A/B tested the heck out of this page and for some reason this comes out on top in terms of subscription results. Ive tested the size of the icons, the number of choices, creating hierarchy in terms of which subscription option is best, multi columned approach, and individual boxes. There are real drastic differences in subscriber numbers but if I can make my show available for just one user the way he/she wants it, thats a win in my opinion.

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  • http://www.squarejawmedia.com Brian McDonald

    Greg and Morgan, great points. I too was asking myself it too many options caused confusion. However in today’s social web it seems that there are many roads that lead visitors to your content. Hence why I used Greg’s subscription page as my example.

  • http://www.mediatwopointoh.com/author/morgan%20siem/ Morgan Siem

    Wow – what a perfect answer! That’s great to see that you are A/B (C/D/E…) testing to determine best results. You provide such a strong example of why understanding your analytics and using that data to adapt your approach is soooo important and so rewarding. Congrats on the continued success of Freezerburns! It’s been exciting watching you sky-rocket into YouTube stardom :)

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  • http://KarlSakas.com/ Karl Sakas

    Greg, you’re the Frozen Food Master, but you’re also the “Testing and Analytics Master.”

    It seems the ideal goal is to have just enough sharing buttons before you prompt decision paralysis. And that’s clearly a moving target. Something new’s going to coming along and you want to be there when (or before) it happens.

    At the Triangle AMA’s CMO panel a few months ago, Cheerwine marketer Tom Barbitta pointed out how there are dozens of social sharing buttons on sites. We don’t know *which* specific networks are going to “win” over the long term, but the breadth makes it clear that social media is not a passing phenomenon.