You’ve created a video showcasing your business. You’ve compiled an infographic to highlight last year’s accomplishments. You wrote up an article or other document outlining a new initiative. What do you do with it now?

SHARE IT.

Sometimes, it’s easy to rest on our laurels after creating content and think it will get out either because it’s on our website, or we’re posting it to social media. But in today’s internet landscape, people demand that information be pushed to them. To ensure you’re reaching the right people, sometimes you have to submit it to a lot of different places. Consider this a checklist for the next time you create a really stellar piece of content.

Get it online: If you’re producing great content with an external audience in mind and not posting it online, you’re missing out! While this seems like a ‘duh’ message, too often people are afraid of criticism and don’t want to take that next step to expose their content to the internet. Take a deep breath, and take the plunge anyways! Whether it’s a company site, a blog, or some other site – get it out there!

An RSS feed or email subscription: Seems again like a no-brainer, but consider what your existing online subscription options are. If people want your information, are you offering a way for it to be pushed right to them?

Your personal social media channels / your co-worker’s social media channels: While submitting it to the public via your organization’s profiles makes sense and should be your first stop, if you truly believe in what you’ve created then you should share it within your networks and add that little extra touch of a personal recommendation. Granted, you may not want to do this too often as your friends may become sick of seeing news about your company.

Stumbleupon: “StumbleUpon is the easiest way to find cool new websites, videos, photos and images from across the Web”, or so their website says. It’s certainly a way to gain exposure if you make use of their tags system to match up your content with people interested in it. Install the toolbar, and start “Liking”!

Reddit:While Reddit can be very anti-marketing and ‘troll-y’, as David Hall would put it, if it’s a legitimately cool piece of content you could get plenty of interesting feedback and exposure. Even if Redditors hate it, you can guarantee a boost in your site traffic! Just be sure to search out the appropriate and relevant sub-reddit to submit the link to and consider watching the subreddit’s etiquette, ie. how their users interact with one another, before posting.

Influencers, and industry blogs and publications:Find some thought leaders in your industry and share your content with them. Don’t beg for a retweet or reblog, but impress them with the quality and leave any action up to them.

Respond to related content: Find other content about a similar topic and leave a comment about it. Work in a reference to your content. Your comment should not simply be a plug for your content – that is bad netiquette!

News makers / news sources: While what you’ve produced may not be newsworthy to you, let the media company be the judge of that. You never know what stories they might be working on already. As I mentioned in last week’s post about the news cycle, your time window can be short on this so act fast!

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in – there is always another way to get your content out. I was advising some young, aspiring journalists this past week about ways to get exposure for their work to make a name for themselves. Whatever your goals, exposure is a key part in the growth of your organization and of your career.

What are some other ways to get your content out? Leave a comment below!

-PG