Let’s take the example of Martin Luther and his theses: A monk develops theses that relate to the current situation in the church and thus hit the nerve of the times. He understands that his theses only work if he publishes them at the point of the event, the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. If the theses had not been up to date and if he had not published them in a prominent place – who knows if the Reformation would have sparked such a momentum?
This is how successful seeding works.
At Content Seeding content is designed in such a way that it hits a nerve with the multipliers. It is then proactively placed with authority media for maximum exposure and engagement. Since seeding is an online-based process, you will gain links, traffic, rankings and conversions.
If you are successful in seeding content you are faced with a complex task that has to be solved both in terms of content and strategy.
Definition: We call seeding (which translates as “to sow”) the targeted dissemination of information – ie content – on the (social) web. For this purpose, the content is designed differently and adapted to the conditions of the respective platform. This makes consumption easier and increases the chance of viral spread.
Table of Contents
What separates successful from unsuccessful content seeding
Content seeding is often used incorrectly:
- Mass instead of quality: The content is distributed on as many websites as possible without them having a thematic connection to the content.
- All Only purchased: Content is only distributed via paid channels (e.g. Facebook Ads).
- Purchased Interaction: Shares, Likes or blog comments are bought with the aim of getting attention and reach.
Factors for successful content seeding:
- Focus on the content: High-quality content is aimed at target groups and offers clear added value and entertainment value.
- Attraction to multipliers: The content is designed in such a way that multipliers like to share it and so for viral Effects provide.
- No commercial intentions: Commercial aspects are left out when creating the content.
- Personal contact: Potential multipliers are addressed individually and in a friendly manner by telephone or email.
Focus on the content
Content seeding is not rocket science. The following tip will help you lay the foundation for a successful campaign.
As the name suggests, content seeding clearly focuses on the content. Therefore, the quality of your content should have the highest priority. Here it is important to balance between comprehensibility and claim to find. Your target audience should be able to tell the usefulness of your content from the title. If this is purely advertising-oriented, the interest of your target group and the willingness to share of the multipliers decreases.
Seeding is often referred to as pure advertising or SEO Measure misunderstood. If you also strengthen your brand, generate leads and one or the other backlink strengthens your domain popularity, these are great side effects. However, these should by no means be in the foreground.
The opening credits of ” Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” follows the same concept and already included a distribution effect through its launch on schmoyoho, which has led to more than four million views on YouTube alone.
The Netflix example shows that Co-Creation with multipliers can make its virality more predictable when creating content, from which both sides benefit.
Closing words
Like I said, seeding already begins in content planning and production because “the seed has to be planted”. I can only recommend that you start building your own network early on.