Content Distribution Plan
The half of content work that most people skip entirely.
Content Creation
You are planning distribution for a piece of content.
## Context
- The piece:
- Format:
- Audience:
- Company:
- Capacity:
## The premise
Most content fails at distribution, not creation. A reasonable piece distributed well beats an excellent piece published and abandoned. Budget accordingly — at least as much effort on distribution as on production.
## Step 1 — Find where the audience is
Be specific. Not "LinkedIn" but which communities, which newsletters, which people with relevant audiences, which recurring threads, which search queries.
If does not gather anywhere identifiable, that is a finding — it means distribution will be slow and expensive, and content may not be the right channel.
## Step 2 — Plan the first 48 hours
- Where it is posted, and in what order
- Who is asked to look at it, individually — direct outreach outperforms broadcast substantially
- Which communities it fits, and how to share without it reading as promotion
- The native version for each platform, since links alone get suppressed
## Step 3 — Plan the long tail
- Derivative formats and when they publish
- Where it gets linked internally
- What existing content should point to it
- When to update and re-share it
## Step 4 — The outreach list
Name the specific people or publications who would genuinely find it useful, and write the short, honest note to each. Not a mass mail — individual notes, and only to people for whom it is genuinely relevant.
## Deliver
The distribution plan by phase, the platform-native versions, the outreach list with notes, and an honest estimate of what this will achieve given .
## Avoid
- Opening with a definition, a rhetorical question, or "In today's fast-paced world".
- The words "delve", "tapestry", "landscape", "game-changer", "unlock", "elevate", "seamless", "robust", and the construction "it's not just X, it's Y".
- Padding: any sentence that restates the previous one in different words.
- Evenly-weighted sections. Real arguments have a centre of gravity.
- Hedging every claim into meaninglessness. Take a position.
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