Distribution is what happens after publishing, and a reasonable rule is to spend as much time on it as on writing. If that sounds excessive, consider that a piece nobody sees has a return of zero regardless of quality.
The plan below assumes you have almost no audience, because that is the situation where distribution matters most and gets skipped hardest.
The order that works
Distribution has a natural sequence, and doing it out of order wastes the early momentum.
- Day zero: email your own list, because they are the most likely to read and respond
- Day zero: post natively on the one social platform where your audience actually is, not all of them
- Day one to three: send it directly to the specific people it would genuinely help. Individually, by name
- Week one: answer a question somewhere public where the piece is the honest answer
- Week two: repackage the strongest section as a standalone post in a different format
- Month six: update it and share it again as an update, which is a legitimate reason to reshare
Native beats linking
Every social platform suppresses posts that send people away. Posting a link with a sentence of introduction is the weakest possible use of a channel.
The version that works is to put the actual value in the post itself, in that platform's native format, and mention the full piece for anyone who wants the rest. You will get less traffic per post and far more reach, and the reach is what compounds.
The direct send is the highest return step
One message to a specific person saying you wrote something that addresses the thing they mentioned will outperform a hundred broadcast impressions, and almost nobody does it.
It works because it is true and specific. It stops working the moment it becomes a template sent to a list, because then it is just email marketing wearing a friendly voice.
Five of these per piece is a realistic target, and the people worth sending to are the ones who asked the question in the first place.
Repurposing without repeating yourself
One piece contains several formats if it was any good: the argument, the list, the example, the counterintuitive bit, and the mistake to avoid.
Each of those can stand alone in a different medium. That is not recycling, it is meeting different people where they are, and the overlap in audience between two platforms is smaller than you think.
The limit is honesty. If a section cannot stand on its own without the surrounding piece, it is a teaser rather than a post, and audiences learn to skip those quickly.
How often to reshare
More often than feels comfortable, and always with a new angle rather than the same sentence.
A reasonable cadence for an evergreen piece is on publication, once a week later from a different angle, once when it is genuinely relevant to something happening, and once when you update it. Four to six touches over six months, each one framed differently.
A tiny fraction of any audience sees any given post. Reshares reach different people, not the same people again.
When to stop distributing something
When the piece stops earning attention on its own merits after several genuine attempts, it is not a distribution problem. It is a signal that the piece was not needed, and continuing to push it is the sunk cost fallacy with a scheduling tool.
Take the lesson and put the effort into the next one. Distribution multiplies what a piece is worth; it cannot create worth that was not there.
Common questions
- How much time should I spend on distribution?
- About as much as on writing. A piece nobody sees returns zero regardless of quality, and most content plans stop at publish, which is the halfway point.
- How many times can I reshare the same piece?
- Four to six touches over six months is reasonable, each framed differently rather than repeating the same sentence. Only a tiny fraction of any audience sees a given post, so reshares reach different people rather than the same ones again.
- Why does posting links to social media not work?
- Platforms suppress posts that send people away. Put the actual value in the post in that platform's native format and mention the full piece for anyone who wants the rest. Less traffic per post, far more reach.
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