Content Is King, Distribution Is Queen

For the most part, I view content as a way to engage and connect with an audience, rather than the conventional view of a product to sell or monetize.

The latter viewpoint has been a driving factor on how content is produced and to a certain extent why it is produced.

In a chess game, although the king is the most valuable piece, it is the queen that has the widest reach. This ability to reach and influence an audience is often more important than the content itself.

The notion that "content is king" has long been a guiding principle in the media and marketing worlds. Some have attributed it to Bill Gates as one of the first individuals to utter that statement, and he said it from the viewpoint of technological innovation.

It's similar to the concept that making the product so good that it sells itself, with content, which can also be viewed as a product, the thinking is that if the content is compelling and high-quality enough, it will naturally find its audience and achieve success without needing significant investment in distribution and promotion.

Intricacies And Nuances

I would argue that this view is becoming a bit outdated and fails to fully capture the realities of the modern digital landscape.

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In today's attention-scarce environment, simply creating great content is not enough. "Distribution is queen" is a more apt framing, in that no matter how brilliant your content may be, without a solid distribution strategy to get it in front of the right audiences, it will struggle to have any real impact.

The logic behind distribution being more important than content itself stems from the sheer volume of content being produced today.

Given this dynamic with anyone with an internet connection being able to create and publish content, the chances of high-quality content being discovered and consumed are relatively low without an effective distribution strategy behind it.

It's one of the interesting things that I couldn't fully wrap my head around previously when I had just got onboarded into the digital space - I'd see great or high quality content, both subjectively and objectively, but with very little reach in terms of views or engagement.

One of the arguments I'd made is that just like not everyone wants to be famous, not every content needs to have a broad reach.

But then the other argument that also forms in my head is that if you're sharing an information, you might as well maximize its impact.

Content Is Still King

Of course, this isn't to say that content quality doesn't matter at all. In my view, producing consistently high-quality, valuable content is the baseline and it's essential for building a loyal audience and driving meaningful engagement.

Distribution is what amplifies that content, effective distribution capitalizes on the riches you've created through your content production efforts.

The queen may not be the most critical piece in the game of chess, but her versatility often plays a crucial role in delivering checkmate.


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