12 video distribution strategies for content creators to maximise reach

Video streaming continues on an unrelenting uptrend, with the global video streaming market projected to grow at a CAGR of 21.5% from 2023 to 2030. As video content creation becomes an increasingly dominant force for audience engagement and monetisation, creators must master the art of scalable and profitable distribution. It becomes important for content creators to be aware of major video distribution strategies, and analyse the pros and cons of each approach.

The article provides actionable insights into optimising distribution for maximum visibility, community building, and revenue generation in today’s crowded digital landscape.

Overview of distribution landscape

Before delving into specific strategies, it is crucial to understand the modern distribution landscape. There are three major categories of distribution:

Organic social media distribution: Leveraging platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to attract viewers through content quality rather than paid ads. Relies on community sharing and algorithm optimizations.

Paid social media distribution:  Paying for boosted posts, ads, and other promotions to reach wider audiences on social platforms. Provides instant visibility at the cost of budget constraints.

Owned and operated platform distribution: Hosting videos on your website, app, or other owned digital real estate. Offers complete creative control but requires major investment into design, hosting, and driving site traffic.

Balancing these approaches is key for creators building their brand and monetisation strategy in 2024 and beyond.

Now let's look at the 12 specific distribution tactics spanning across these categories:

1. Optimise for each platform’s algorithm

The visibility of your organically shared content depends heavily on platform algorithms that are constantly evolving. Study how each platform’s algorithm works and optimize accordingly:

YouTube – Focus on watch time, clicks, subscribers, and engagement. Include clickable elements like end screens and info cards. Provide value from the start rather than frontloading promos. 

Instagram – Prioritise engaging captions, strategic hashtag use, and post frequency. Leverage Reels and Stories for visibility. Enable shareable moments. 

2. Encourage community sharing

Enable your brand superfans to become ambassadors by fostering user-generated content sharing through reposting, reacting to fans in comments and messages, creating playlists of viewer videos, and running collaborative contests. Community sharing leads to exponential growth as viewers feel invested in your brand’s story.

3. Double down on comment engagement

Comments showcase popularity signals to algorithms while allowing meaningful connection with your audience. Make a conscious effort to respond to comments, ask thoughtful questions, and nurture one-on-one interactions at scale by thanking first-time commenters, resharing standout responses, running regular Q&As, and following up on questions later on. The personal touch goes a long way in cementing loyalty.

4. Strategise hashtag usage

On visually-centric platforms like Instagram and TikTok, hashtags remain a crucial discovery tool allowing you to permeate new niches and micro-communities. Research top hashtags in your niche, especially rising trends. Combine popular tags with specific branded hashtags. Use maximum allowed hashtags per post. Be selective with narrow, low-volume tags. Get strategic with data-driven hashtag optimization.

5. Define campaign goals & KPIs

Before allocating the budget towards paid social campaigns, clearly define goals and success metrics aligned to overarching business objectives, such as target cost per click (CPC), click-through rate (CTR), cost per thousand impressions (CPM), return on ad spend (ROAS), sales generated, and email sign-ups. Match campaign KPIs to goals for optimized spending. 

6. Leverage interest targeting

Granular targeting options are a major advantage of paid social. Use personalized interest, behavioural, and demographic targeting to find your best-fit audience groups at scale. Targeting upside depends hugely on your niche - test interest-based cohorts through A/B campaigns.

7. Retarget engaged users

Paid tools allow you to create custom audiences of site visitors, video viewers, contest participants, and others who have actively engaged with your brand. Retarget these users with personalized offers and content recommendations via ads. Prioritize re-engaging highly interested users from your organic efforts into paid funnels. 

8. Develop coordinated creative

Adhere to platform specifications in terms of dimensions, aspect ratios, text overlays and creative style while maintaining brand aesthetic consistency across campaigns. Optimize visuals, captions, and calls-to-action tailored to each campaign objective, be it push notifications, sales, or email captures. Coordinate a cohesive experience across platforms.

9. Justify the investment

Hosting videos on your own platform offers unparalleled creative control but demands substantial investment in design, content, hosting, and maintenance. Analyze if you can justify the ROI - factors like monetization potential, brand control needs, and core audience loyalty play a role. 

10. Build a video-first site

Optimise your site UX specifically for video delivery by having a media-rich design minimizing text, intuitive video galleries and databases, SEO enhancements with rich snippets, adaptive streaming and download options, and fast, consistent playback experiences. Craft exceptional viewing experiences that outrival external platforms.

11. Facilitate audience discovery

Getting discovered organically on owned sites is totally dependent on internal navigation and external marketing efforts. Enable discovery through personalised video recommendations, segmented categories and playlists, search and filter functionality, email/social promos of new releases, and collaborations driving external traffic. Help viewers navigate your expanding content library. 

12. Gate premium content

The owned platform model truly shines when using exclusivity to incentivize payments. Consider “gating” premium videos, early releases, bonus materials, or personalised tiers to drive recurring membership revenue, increase time spent per viewer, and foster brand loyalty through rewards. Monetize and retain audiences directly.

To conclude

Today’s diverse distribution landscape provides immense flexibility but also complexity in devising optimized video strategies. Assess your brand goals, audience profile, content formats and resources to strike the right balance of organic, paid and owned distribution. Mastering the above 12 tactics across platforms can help to cut through the noise and maximise video visibility and monetisation.