Branding Risks in Syndication Networks

Syndication represents a very useful way to expand your reach, build your audience, and contribute to your industry’s thought leadership. The quality of your message influences the quality of your customer development and engagement results, but this is often not enough.

Each channel focuses on a specific user demographic and content type. As a thought leader it becomes crucial that you have a thorough understanding of each channel and the opportunities and risks that it can create for your company’s brand and message.

In addition to social media, syndication involves other professional and industry channels including blogs, news channels, and video sites. Evaluating the quality of the syndication channel and its fit for your company depends on your goals:

• Customers: The target demographics of the channel’s customers. Do they match your company’s target customer?
• Control: Do you retain control over your content and how it is used?
• Copyright: Do you retain copyright over your content? If shared, is it clear that your company produced this content?
• Referrals: Does the syndication channel drive traffic to your company pages? Do customers interacting with the syndication channel, or content shared from the syndication channel, understand who to contact for more information?
• Credibility: Does the syndication channel brand and image lend to the credibility of your company’s content? Does it continue to promote your company? Or is it used primarily as a vehicle to promote the syndication channel’s goals?
• Promotion: Is your company’s content getting promoted properly to engage its primary customers? Time? Days? Tags? Category?
• Conflicts of Interest: Is the syndication channel targeting the same goals and customers as your own? Provide the same products or services? Or – complement your company’s offerings with different products and services?

When marketing through syndication channels it is important to consider the business models of your network. Selecting the wrong syndication partner can be tricky. The relationship can impact the effectiveness and quality of your reach if not your company’s credibility. When selecting your syndication partners it is crucial that the relationship be evaluated for values, execution, and business model alignment to insure your company’s message, brand, and goals are supported.

Travis Barker, MPA GCPM