Without a proper distribution strategy, content is just a piece of content, says Isobar's Gopa Kumar

A lot of times, brands and agencies focus more on content creation without a well-planned distribution strategy, which ends up fetching less Return on Investment (ROI) on the piece. Hence, it is of utmost importance that brands and agencies pay equal attention to the content distribution strategy as well. 

Gopa Kumar, Executive Vice-President, Isobar India, said, “A lot of times, brands invest hugely in the creation of content but don’t distribute it well. Not much focus is given on distribution. The web is becoming more and more cluttered. Unless you start promoting it well, that piece of content is just a piece of content. Majority of people are just focusing on the creation of content, and distribution and measurement is just an afterthought. With a proper distribution strategy, content reaches the right target audience.”

With so many tools to measure content’s effectiveness available in the market, the brands still have reservations and are not sure about their methodologies. Kumar said as and when the content space will get more prominence, the doubts around the measurement metrics will also get solved over time. Another challenge Kumar pointed out is that with content available in so many forms, it is difficult to find a common metric to measure its effectiveness.

“Content marketing has been there for quite some time but the marketers are now looking at it in a more focused manner. As of now, there are no definite metrics. The marketers are sceptical because of the cost involved. As and when the content ecosystem matures, the brands will start investing more in a piece of content,” he added.

Recently, Isobar India launched viewCent, which is based on deep machine learning and can, quite precisely, forecast the kind of consumer attention that a particular type of content can achieve within a specific given time. The resonance score for the content, which is called Viral Grade (VG), is calculated by collecting 400 different variables around that content. The variables are then fed into two patented AI engines — the Super Relevance EngineTM and the Viral Prediction EngineTM — to process the data, real time.

A lot of times, it is seen that the marketers get satisfied with the virality of any digital video, which doesn’t necessarily mean that it has made an equal impact on the consumers. Virality can also be fetched by pushing the content by investing money on it. Therefore, it is important for the brands to expand their horizon of calling content successful only when it becomes a part of the consumers' conversations.

Kumar said, “A content piece pushed with money gets reach and the metrics you want, but from a conversation point of view or impact point of view, not necessary all videos viral have a huge impact. If the piece of content doesn’t become a part of the conversation, then it is a half done job.”

An important point that Kumar made at the end is that in the digital marketing space, brands should not treat content as an afterthought and need to have a clear agenda around it.

He said, “Because content is becoming more and more important, brands need to have a clear content strategy. A piece of content requires time and effort and the brands need to think in that manner.”