This document provides a guide to content seeding in 5 steps: 1) Plan goals and strategy, 2) Create quality content, 3) Seed content on various platforms, 4) Measure results, and 5) Manage the ongoing process. It describes how to seed content on social networks, bookmarking sites, blogs, and with journalists to generate traffic, buzz, and conversions. Key aspects are creating engaging, evergreen content with keywords and links and understanding different metrics like social shares, site traffic, and leads to evaluate success. Content seeding is portrayed as an iterative process where performance is tracked and strategies are adapted based on results.

1. A Guide To
Content Seeding
By Rebecca Hesilrige
becky.hesilrige@gmail.com
@beckyhesilrige
linkedin.com/in/rebeccahesilrige

2. Contents
Content Seeding Plan
1. Plan
2. Create
3. Seed
What is Seeding?
The Big 3
Also Consider..
Social Bookmarking
Blogs & Journalists
4. Measure
5. Manage
The Ongoing Cycle

3. Content Seeding Plan
• 1. Plan • 3. Seed
– Goals – Which Platforms?
– User Research – Social Networks
– Message – Social Bookmarking
– Budget – Blogs
– Format – Journalists
– Source
• 4. Measure
• 2. Create – Understand what you are measuring
– Quality – Proxies
– Evergreen Content – Traffic
– Links – Leads
– Keywords
– Clear Titles • 5. Manage
– Keeping track of performance goals
– Updating content regularly
– Monitor content interaction

4. 1. Plan
Goals – What do you want to achieve with this content? Traffic? Buzz? Sales?
Reviews?
User Research – Know your users. Age? Gender? Location? Interests? Tailor
your content around this demographic.
Message – Your content needs to include a clear message, whether it be ‘buy
me’ or ‘share me’, make sure the user has a call to action.
Budget – How much do you want to invest in your content? This will decide
what type of format you use.
Format – Articles? Blogs? Posts? Videos?
Source – Who will create your content? In house? Outsourced?

5. 2. Create
Quality - Great content has to engage the reader, make that it is interesting, unique
and well written.
Evergreen Content - "Evergreen" content means that the information will not be
outdated a month from now, try to include this as often as possible
Links - Include links to point the user to your website or to other relevant content and
pages within your site
Keywords – Include key words which you are trying to rank for in search engines. Help
them to stand out to readers by putting them in different colours, fonts, or formats.
Clear titles – Make it clear what you are going to talk about, this will not only make
your content more noticeable, but it will also help search engines to monitor your
content.
Meta Data - Include meta data to help search engines learn what your content is
about, and to categorise it effectively

6. 3. Seed
Depending on your goals, you will have to decide which platforms to seed your
content
Social Networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and many more niche
sites
Social Bookmarking – There are hundreds of social bookmarking sites available,
however Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon and Delicious will help you get the best results
Blogs – You can either set up your own blog to update regularly, or form
relationships with bloggers who will blog about your services.
Journalists – Journalists are always looking for new and interesting news. Form
bonds with relevant journalists so that they can publish press releases and articles
based around your services.

7. What is Seeding?
Social Media Likes, Retweets, Buzz, Traffic &
Sites +1s, Shares Conversions
Social Buzz, Traffic &
Sharing & Links
Bookmarking Conversions
Content
Keywords & Buzz, Traffic &
Blogs
Links Conversions
Keywords & Buzz, Traffic &
Journalists Conversions
Links

8. Social Networks – The Big 3
To help content spread throughout Facebook build a strong base of engaged
fans to share your content with. To do this offer your fans something unique
within your business page; discounts, promotions, unique content,
competitions are just a few examples.
Content can spread quickly through Twitter via Retweets.
Firstly - make sure that you build up a large and (more importantly) relevant
following to expose your content to.
Secondly, -interact with key influencers who are likely to retweet your content
to their many relevant followers.
After Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine. Therefore if you
are looking to seed video content it is imperative you create an account with
this site. Include relevant tags and keywords

9. Also Consider...
LinkedIn is a site dedicated to professionals. Here you can make
yourself an authority within your industry by publishing content
within relevant groups and discussions
Vimeo is a video sharing site similar to YouTube. It has more of a
community of established film makers and photographers, and is
great for films which are arty, in-depth and well designed.
Google + is the fastest growing social network around. As it is owned
by Google and is integrated within social search, it is important to
establish a presence on here
The new kid on the block, Pinterest is growing at a rapid
rate and is very popular with visual companies such as
fashion, food and photography. ‘Pin’ your photos onto
your Pinterest site and tag with relevant key words to get
your photos found.

10. Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon and Delicious allow
users who would not normally be exposed to your content to discover and share it.
By including links within your content, users can find your website and its services
By including keywords within your content, you are increasing your ranking in
search engines, which will also result in users finding your website and it’s services
Site Visits
Social
Content Sharing Conversions
Bookmarking
Buzz

11. Blogs & Journalists
Blogs – By producing a blog you can receive a variety of benefits, such as:
Including Key words
Linking back to your site
Interacting with customers
Keeping customers up to date with news/promotions etc
Maintaining branding and reputation
Alternatively you can contact established bloggers and ask them to either
write a blog post about your brand, or to publish a post you have already written. This
can help your content to reach an relevant audience which has already been built up
Journalists – Contact established journalists in your industry with articles and
stories about your brand. Journalists are often on the look out for interesting industry
news, and if yours is relevant you may find it on one of your top industry websites.

12. 4. Measure
Understand what you are measuring – Firstly decide on what you want to
measure, whether that be social buzz, traffic or conversions. Each of these have
very different ways of being measured
Proxies – Proxies are a great indicator of social buzz and brand sentiment. A few
examples of useful proxies are:
Facebook Likes
Retweets
Shares
Reblogs
Comments
Followers
@mentions
Traffic – Google Analytics is a fantastic tool to help you track traffic to your
website. Here you can search Traffic sources to find out exactly which social
platform your traffic is coming through, and whether there has been a general
increase in traffic since you began content seeding.
Leads – Also by using Google Analytics you can track any increase in conversions,
and from which platform they came.

13. 5. Manage
It is important to continuously manage your content based around the results
you are receiving to receive the best possible result.
Do this by:
Keeping track of performance goals – Keep in mind what your
Performance goals are and whether your content is reaching this ideal. If
not, re-evaluate your strategy and change your content accordingly
Updating content regularly – Content which is out of date not only reflects
badly but can be misleading for potential customers, as well as potentially
affecting your SEO ranking.
Monitor content interaction – Never forget that your reputation is involved
In your content - reply to any questions or comments as quickly as possible

14. The Ongoing Cycle
Content Seeding Plans are an
Plan ongoing cycle
Once content begins seeding, you
will be able to measure it’s success
Manage Create Based on it’s success you can move
onto planning further content
based on your findings, or
tweaking your current content for
better results.
Measure Seed

15. Get In Touch!
Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or need any advice
becky.hesilrige@gmail.com
@beckyhesilrige
linkedin.com/in/rebeccahesilrige