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Content Atomization: How to Build a Social Media Bomb [Infographic]

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content atomization social media bomb

Content Atomization: How to Build a Social Media Bomb [Infographic]

Home / Content Marketing / Content Atomization: How to Build a Social Media Bomb [Infographic]
content atomization social media bomb
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Creating epic content is hard work and takes a lot of time.

The effort you put in means that every time you create a valuable piece of content you need to make sure that it spreads far and wide.

When I was looking for ways to get the most out of a single piece of content I came up with this model.

Content Atomization: How to Build a Social Media Bomb – download for printing in PDF format.

Several years back when I started using this concept, it didn’t even have a name.

Now it does: Content Atomization.

You can also look into content upcycling to get more mileage out of your hard work.

First, your “great content” needs to be a bit more substantial than a single blog post or short essay. Some good examples of great content would be:

  • survey reports,
  • e-books,
  • extensive white papers,
  • how to guides and so forth.

Publish the main piece of your content on your own domain to maximize value from incoming links.

Now, the key to this model is that you can reformat and republish your information.

You can do it in different format, medium, and length. Presenting material in different form gives it more reach. You will also get more shareable items on your site. Using different formats opens up a lot of channels for syndication and distribution.

Next, I’ll give you a short explanation of what each of the points on the graph means and how to get the most out of it.

Video Content

You need some tech and skills to create videos, but you have already done the main bulk of the work in the form of your great content.

One minute of video is approximately 100 to 120 words. The length depends on your production and how fast you talk, generally on a page full of text gets you 5 minutes of video.

Create a short video version of your content and load it to Youtube. You can also embed Youtube videos in your SlideShare presentations.

When creating a video avoid talking heads, use graphics and animation. Use Youtube as a video warehouse but embed the video on your site and promote that.

One of the easiest formats for video is slides with voice over. So you need to create slides for the video, but you can recycle slides for LinkedIn, SlideShare and also post them on your site as a separate piece of content.

To get traction send the video to your email list and publish to social media sites (explained below). Add a call to action to videos that will take people to your site.

Create Slides

Create slides from your content. Use large colorful images for slides. Just one point or idea per slide, no more than 10 words on a single slide. You can add short explanatory paragraphs to your slides.

Make sure that the added text is readable in SlideShare default view. (Remove the paragraphs when presenting).

content marketing slide distribution

Load your slides to SlideShare and Scribd. These two are by far the most used slide sharing sites.

Send information about your slides to your email list and publish to social media sites.

Embed your videos in SlideShare slides.

Write Press Releases

Write press releases and distribute to relevant journalists. After you give them some time to react distribute through online PR websites. Write an engaging press release and be sure to add information that makes journalist want to use it:

  • what’s important,
  • how this is new,
  • stats and numbers, etc.

Do not send your press release to your email list and social media sites, but be sure to post it somewhere on your website. Here's a terrific post by Mike Butcher about how to get your message to press.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is a very short and concentrated teaser of your main content.

Create it to generate initial interest that will lead to deeper engagement. You can use this if you plan to sell the main material of your great content. Also, executive summary type of teaser can be a great tool to direct visitors to your lead magnet.

The length of the executive summary is 1 or 2 pages. You can use the same talking points you created for video and slides. Keep the most important revelations in the main body of great content and direct your audience to a lead form.

Similarly to slides load this to SlideShare. Let people know through your newsletter and social media channels. In all your writing tasks you will benefit from the daily writing habit.

Images, Graphs, and Infographics

Make infographics, graphs, and other colorful material from your content. Even if you are presenting only a few key statistics then make them visual.

retweets with images
Source Buffer

Images are easy to consume and spread. Upload your images to Flickr and other image sites. Use the highest resolution possible. You can also create PDF versions of the images and distribute them through SlideShare and Scribd. Share the content on your social channels and mailing lists.

Snippets, Expand Your Content

Extract important facts and data from your content and go in-depth. It is almost always possible to expand a paragraph or subsection to stand on its own. For example, every point on this list could be a stand-alone blog post.

Ask for feedback and opinions on specific issues from your visitors and expand on that. Format the snippets as blog posts and distribute through social media channels. You can send an overview or digest of the snippets to your mailing list.

Create events around your content

Organize events to announce great content. You can organize announcement events in real life or online. But don't stop there, stretch the material you have as long as possible.

Invite your industry influencers and potential clients. The key is to make the attendees mingle and have a good time. If you play it well, your existing clients will be your salesmen for new leads.

apple launch event

Explain and teach great content at seminars and conferences. Ask people to attend webinars. Send information about events to your mailing lists and social media channels. Create videos of the events and make available online.

Audio Content and Podcasts

Record a podcast about the content. If your content does not rely too much on visuals, rip the audio from the videos and use that to:

  • explain the key concepts,
  • give a general overview, and
  • discuss selected specific points about the content, etc.

Audio is not the most popular form of content so you might want to check your audience if it’s worth the effort.

If you decide to do it distribute trough iTunes and social media channels. You can read more about how to distribute your podcast on different platforms here.

Social Media Channels

The social media channels mentioned throughout this post are specific to you. Select social networking, news, and bookmarking sites. Include sites for slides, images and other types of content.

Make your selection depending on your niche and target group. These channels might include Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn and many others. But make sure that this also includes your blog and website.

Repost your best performing material on social sites and find similar content to get more engagement from your audience.

Timeline

Do not send out all the content at once. Working with the various formats and media channels may take weeks. You should plan what goes out first so that the interest stays up.

Every new piece of content is targeted to add and expand on previous information. The goal is to increase reach and bring in new visitors (leads, and sales).

Create Multiple Status Updates

Every time you create or update your content, make sure that you let your followers know.

Post to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social channels.

Make sure you post several times, as most of your followers will not get the message if you post just once.

For example post to Facebook on the day of the update, and then 7, 14, and 28 days later. Don't worry, most of your followers will not see the message more than once.

Email List Building

People rarely buy on their first visit to your site. Try to get them on your list so that you have time to work with them and nurture the leads until they become paying customers.

Whenever you send out information in a different format, ask people to sign up for more. Create lead magnets based on the content.

Content Syndication

Content syndication is publishing you existing content on other websites. The content can be syndicated in full or you can edit the syndicated copy. Syndicated copy can be shorter or focus on one aspect from the original content.

Content syndication will help you promote your brand or website and you will be able to reach audiences that don't know you yet.

To get started with content syndication consider sites that already have a huge audience. Also, to get the feel of it use the sites that let you post for free:

Use some of your best content for syndication and make sure you link back to your site. The links may be rel=nofollow, but you will give the people a way to find out more about you.

Selling Content

If you plan to sell the main bulk of the great content, then use this model to spread snippets and executive summary. You need to find the balance between what is in the paid product and what can you give out for free.

One way to sell your content is in the form of online training, seminars, workshops, and webinars. Include references to your paid content in all of your communications.

License

For best results, you should license the content with Creative Commons license. This way people know that they can spread the word and don't have to worry about copyright issues. Of course, the part that you are selling should have the appropriate license and copyright.

Links in the Content

All the content that you distribute and syndicate outside of your website should link back to you. Make sure that you have:

  • links in the content,
  • CTAs (call to action) for people to follow links,
  • tag all links for Google Analytics here.

Following these steps will help you get more out of your hard work. You will be able to use a well-crafted piece of epic content for months. Leaving you enough time to create the next epic piece!

Update Your Epic Content Regularly

Make sure that you update your content regularly. If your content has dates that are from several years ago, then you may get a lot fewer visitors.

People will see your content as “old” even if you are writing about stuff that is up to date and hasn’t changed in the past years. When doing content atomization, you should update content everywhere!

  • Update stats in the content
  • Update filenames of the PDFs and other files

Even if you don’t update anything else update the date on the content and re-publish.

The Content Marketing Grid The Content Grid: Content Marketing in a Blink [Infographic]

Content grid takes a look at the three stages of the marketing funnel and matches those to the content types and prospect goals. There’s another dimension to the grid. Color coded distribution channels where to promote that type of content for maximum results. Take a look at the content grid.

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Image credit Apple iPad 3 Event by Blake Patterson

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