# [[Module 4 - Distribution]] Course:: [[How to Write Thought Leadership Content]] ## Summary > [!abstract] Summary > Distribution isn't about bombarding people with the same information on every social media channel; it's more of a surgical process of creating content that fits for every channel. Distribution isn't something you should only think of after content is created. Instead, you should let the channel you intend to distribute content to indicate what kind of content you create. > > Participating genuinely in a community and giving more than you ask for is still the best way to grow an audience. ## Log - Distribution is not a post-hoc process. - You should determine it at the ideation stage. - *Where* you share an idea can determine how best to formulate it. - Traffic is not the goal. We care more about visibility and awareness. Building an audience from scratch: - Distribution flywheel - Participate in a community - Use that community as a source of ideation - Fuel discussion with content - Siphon long-term audience - (It's a flywheel because it's self-replenishing) ### Participate in a community - Participate genuinely - Connect with people - Join in existing conversations - [[Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook]]: add value without an agenda ### Community ideation - Follow and learn from existing thought leaders - Identify popular topics - Emulate successful formats ### Fuel discussion - Share - Deliver all the value without teasing (summarise when asked on Twitter, instead of sending them to your website or elsewhere) - Seek feedback and interaction ### Siphon permanent audience - Create incentives to follow you - Promote a 1:1 engagement channel - Use native platform features ### In practice (for Twitter) - Participate in a community - Follow 1000 people - Use your bio to answer "Why should you follow me?" - Be generous with likes and comments - Tweet about ONE primary topic - Share 90% of your tweets without any agenda - Community ideation - Use Twitter's advanced search operators: `topic min_faves:X min_retweets:X min_replies:X from:username` - Bookmark tweets to respond to. - Use Drafts as an ideation inbox - Periodically revisit your most popular ideas - Test out big ideas with little tweets - Fuel discussion - Share something every day - Ask questions, share polls, solicit feedback - Respond to tweets from popular accounts - Tag other people who might be better able to help - Siphon permanent audience - Single CTA on your Twitter bio (one link) - Use Twitter's native newsletter integration, [[Revue]]. (Except it's defunct now...) You could even just use it as a passthrough to get to your "real" newsletter tool. One article, one channel - Distribution != sharing one thing everywhere - Content that performs well on one channel *looks different* from content that performs well on another. - Think about the kind of content that does well on each channel and go from there. - You can still repurpose ideas, but make sure you actually think about how you change it to make it fit for each channel - Ex: - one article for the blog - visual for twitter/LinkedIn with the shortened version ## Related - [[Community building]] - [[Publishing and distribution]] - [[Trends in publishing content]]