Content Distribution Strategy for Personal Brand and Business

This is my personal standard for distributing content across various platforms. I use this system to maintain consistency in sharing personal insights. While this is my personal workflow, I'm sharing it publicly as it might be useful for others building their content distribution strategy.

Quick Start

Key principles of this distribution strategy:

1. Content Hierarchy: More complex content formats are preferred

   • Video > Article > Social Media Post
   • Each format requires its own distribution approach

2. Distribution Process:

   • Choose the primary platform for original content
   • Decide on content republishing strategy (exclusive vs cross-posting)
   • Utilize initial traffic sources if additional reach is justified
   • Update permanent content archives:
     • Complete Archive: Add all content links, maintain sorting
     • Short Profiles: Only add/update with best performing content

This document details each step of this process, providing specific platforms and guidelines for different content types.

Original Content Placement

Video Content Distribution

• YouTube main videos
  • When posting YouTube videos elsewhere, prefer sharing links to the original video rather than re-uploading, unless there's a specific reason to do otherwise
• Reddit, subreddit specific videos
  • When creating videos for specific subreddits, keep them exclusive and ensure the content clearly shows it was made specifically for that community

Initial traffic sources and permanent content links follow the same strategy as described in the Articles section above.

Video to Text Content: For each distributed video, create a high-quality article version of the content and distribute it following the Text Content strategy described above. This maximizes the reach and allows the audience to consume the content in their preferred format.

Text Content (Articles)

• Media publications (reach out to relevant journalists and industry publications)
• Reddit personal posts: Profile
  • Remember to approve after publication
• LinkedIn Articles: Newsletter
• Personal website articles: Articles

Content Republishing Strategy: When content is published in media outlets, keep it exclusive to respect the journalist's work and maintain good relationships. However, for content originally posted on Reddit or other platforms, always cross-post to LinkedIn Articles to maximize reach and engagement.

Initial Traffic Sources

Link Sharing Strategy: Share links to original content only when there's potential value in redirecting the audience (e.g., YouTube video links for channel subscriptions). For text content, prefer native posting on each platform rather than sharing links - this maximizes readership as users prefer consuming content directly within their platform of choice.

• LinkedIn feed posts (personal + company + contractor reposts)
  • When sharing external content, put the link in the first comment
• Personal Twitter feed: Twitter
• BlueSky updates: BlueSky
• Company Twitter profile
• HackerNews submissions: News
  • Follow posting guidelines
• IndieHackers posts (with images): Profile
• Instagram stories and highlights
• Facebook stories
• Telegram stories
• Telegram channel updates with friends
• YouTube community posts

Permanent Content Links

Complete Archive (all links)

These profiles should contain all content links:

• Personal website media section (Personal): Website
• GitHub website media list (Personal): Profile
• LinkedIn Publications section (Personal): Profile
• LinkedIn Services media (Personal): Services Page
• Professional portfolio (Personal): Profile
• Qwoted profile (Personal): Profile
• Publito profile (Personal): Profile

Short Profiles (only top links)

These profiles should contain only the most important content:

• Google Official Profile (Personal): Search Profile
• Crunchbase updates (Personal): Profile
• Pinterest board (Personal): Board

Short Form Video Content Distribution

Note: This section is preliminary and needs further consideration. The strategy for short-form video content will be developed later.

• YouTube Shorts
• Instagram Reels
• TikTok
• Facebook Stories/Reels
• Twitter short videos
• LinkedIn short-form video content

Understanding Different Content Distribution Sources

I've sorted my content channels into three buckets based on what they actually do for me, not what they claim to do:

Discovery Sources: Bringing in New Audiences

These are the channels that put you in front of people who've never heard your name:

• Search-optimized articles: When someone Googles a problem you've solved, your article pops up. They weren't looking for you, but they found you anyway.
• YouTube algorithm: This thing is magic when it works. I've had complete strangers message me saying "YouTube suggested your video and now I've watched everything you've made."
• TikTok and Instagram Reels: Love 'em or hate 'em, they'll show your face to people who never asked to see it. That's marketing gold.
• Reddit communities: Post something genuinely helpful in a subreddit, and suddenly thousands of people in that niche know you exist.
• Podcast interviews: Someone else spent years building an audience, and they're letting you talk to them for an hour. What's not to love?

What makes these channels special is they keep working for you long after you've moved on to other things.

Credibility Sources: Enhancing Your Profile

These might not bring many new people your way, but they make a huge difference when someone's checking you out:

• Media mentions: Being quoted in Forbes might not drive much traffic, but it makes people take that second meeting with you.
• Conference appearances: Sometimes the value isn't in the room - it's in being able to say "As I discussed at [Important Industry Event]..." forever after.
• Academic or industry publications: Boring? Often. Impressive to the right people? Always.

These are the sources that turn "Who's this person?" into "Oh, THAT person." They don't build your audience, but they upgrade the quality of the audience you already have.

Retention Sources: Staying Connected with Your Existing Audience

These platforms mostly reach folks who already know you:

• LinkedIn feed posts: I sometimes joke that LinkedIn is where my posts go to be seen by my mom and former colleagues.
• Email newsletters: The digital equivalent of inviting yourself into someone's living room - they've given you permission, but you still better be interesting.
• Twitter/X updates: The town square where you chat with the same dozen people while occasionally someone new walks by.
• Facebook page posts: Remember when these reached people? Me neither, but my existing fans still check in.
• Telegram channels: My personal favorite for the "true fans" - they get the unfiltered stuff I wouldn't post elsewhere.

I've stopped expecting these channels to grow my audience. Instead, I use them to nurture the relationships I've already built. They're more like a coffee catch-up than a sales pitch.

I try to balance all three types, but I won't lie - I'm obsessed with discovery sources these days. Nothing beats the thrill of reaching people who didn't know they were looking for you.

My Content Distribution Evolution: Lessons Learned

My approach to sharing content has taken some sharp turns over the years. I've made plenty of mistakes that hopefully you can avoid.

The Social Media Illusion

When I started out, I did what everyone said to do: post consistently on social media. I'd craft these careful updates, share links to things I found interesting, jump into comment threads. People engaged! Success, right?

Not exactly. After a few months, I noticed something frustrating - the same 50-100 people were interacting with everything. My audience had flatlined. No matter how clever my posts or how consistent my schedule, I couldn't break past that ceiling.

What nobody told me was that most social platforms are built to connect you with people you already know, not to help you find new audiences. My follower count basically matched my real-life network size. Without a deliberate strategy to break out of that bubble, I was just talking to the same crowd in a digital echo chamber.

The Conference Circuit Phase

Once I figured out I needed to meet new people, I went all-in on the in-person approach: speaking gigs, industry meetups, showing up at every panel discussion I could find. This definitely worked better than just posting into the void.

My network grew from a handful of connections to several hundred. People started reaching out based on talks they'd seen. But then I hit another wall. Unless the conference was being recorded and that recording was being promoted (rarely the case), my reach was capped at whoever was in the room that day.

After six exhausting months of pitching, preparing, traveling, and speaking, I did some back-of-napkin math. If I spent 20 hours preparing for a talk that reached 200 people, each new connection cost me 6 minutes of work. At that rate, reaching 10,000 people would take me... 1,000 hours? There had to be a better way.

The Discovery Platform Revelation

The game-changer was when I started thinking about platforms built specifically for helping people discover new content:

I posted a YouTube video that got picked up by the algorithm and reached 3,000 views without any promotion - and it's still growing. (Watch it here) I wrote a detailed Reddit post answering a common question in my field that racked up 55,000 views. (Read it here) I experimented with short videos explaining complex topics simply, and the views rolled in. I published articles targeting specific search terms people were already looking for.

Suddenly I was reaching thousands instead of hundreds, with less effort than my conference circuit days required. The key difference? These platforms were actually designed to show your content to new people if it performed well with initial viewers.

This led me to the three-category system I use today. Now when I consider where to put my content, I first ask: "Is this platform actually willing to show my stuff to people who don't already follow me?" If the answer is no, it goes straight into the "retention" bucket, not the growth strategy.

The hard truth I've learned: platforms that actually want to introduce you to new audiences are rare and precious. Everything else is just maintenance work.

I wasted a year posting content nobody saw before figuring this out. Don't make the same mistake.