How I Turned One Good Article Into 50 Pieces of Content
Get more mileage out of your best stuff
How can I get people to pay attention to me?
That’s what everyone wants to know.
The only problem is, most creatives don’t put in the time to work on marketing, personal branding, and social media strategy because it takes effort. They just want to create. And that’s why a lot of my favorite writers remain invisible online.
Sure, producing and posting are both important. But content distribution is key.
Through conversations with other aspiring writers, I've learned that people usually resist content distribution due to one of the following reasons:
- They're uncomfortable posting their writing on “personal” accounts where their friends and family can see it.
- They’re lazy and simply don’t want to do any extra work beyond writing.
- They have never done it before and feel like it’s too late.
I can tell you from experience that it’s never too late to get started and it’s so easy to do. Gary Vaynerchuk's reverse pyramid model, as shown below, offers a really straightforward approach to distribution with “micro-content,” using one single article or video as the “pillar content.”
What writers don’t realize is that they are missing out on opportunities to reach a wider audience and bring in more views to their work for the long-term. Adopting the reverse pyramid model is simply a mindset shift that will help you produce way more by writing the same amount.
As an example of how this can look, I’m going to breakdown my article “11 Quotes That Will Help You Become a Better Person” and the exact strategy I used to spread it out over eight different channels to produce 50 different pieces of usable content. Let’s dive in.
Medium: 1
I started on Medium with this post as my pillar content. For a quick breakdown, I compiled 11 of my favorite quotes from philosophers, stoics, comedians, authors, and deep thinkers, and I reflected on how their words can change your perspective on life if you learn to apply them. Medium is perfect as an entry point because you can quickly share the link across other platforms and don’t have to worry about getting in trouble for reusing the article.
How to do it:
This one’s simple. You write the story, submit it to a publication or self-publish, and you have one piece of content live on the internet almost immediately.
Keen: 1
If you don’t know anything about Keen, read this first. In short, Keen is Google’s next attempt at social media. It’s basically an easy way to share and store links. I still view Keen as a mixed bag in terms of results/driving traffic, but it has growth potential once it moves out of the beta version.
How to do it:
The reason I use Keen on occasion is because of how quickly I can share my content. All you need is a link, which I already had from Medium, and you have two pieces of content in a matter of minutes.
Personal Blog: 2
I truly believe that every writer needs an online portfolio. A lot of people don’t want to “market” themselves, but there is simply too much content out there to put off personal branding on the internet. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes.
How to do it:
Everything I write on Medium ends up on my personal website. I like to put my favorite articles as “features” on the homepage to increase visibility while showcasing my best work. It also appears in the actual “blog” section.
LinkedIn: 1
LinkedIn is the “professional” way to share your work, although it is starting to mirror Facebook in a few ways. There are two options with LinkedIn: either share the link as I have shown below, or copy and paste the content from your Medium post and republish it as a separate LinkedIn article. Both approaches are fine — it just depends on your personal preference.
How to do it:
Write an engaging blurb about what readers can expect to find in your post. Then simply supply the link at the bottom with some sort of call to action like “Read on for more” or “Click below for full post.” The link should populate your post with a clickable preview image.
Twitter: 11
Twitter has quickly become my go-to syndication platform of choice. There are a lot of other writers who tweet constantly, and hashtags make it incredibly efficient to find content. In fact, I tend to get more traffic from Twitter than LinkedIn when sharing an article.
How to do it:
Twitter is built to be short, sweet, and to the point. Because my article is written as more of a listicle, I can use each quote as a separate Tweet, spread out over a couple of months. To avoid being overly promotional, I am not going to include a link 11 times. However, I can snip a line from my article and use it to provide more substance to the quote so it doesn’t feel random. You can also be creative and link to different places like your website.
Instagram Post: 11
Instagram follows a similar approach to Twitter. If you are uncomfortable posting content like this to your personal account, consider making a business Instagram. I recently started experimenting with it several days ago and have found it to be a more visually engaging option for readers than other social media platforms.
How to do it:
In the image shown below, I made a simple graphic on Canva and used the same copy as my article, word for word, in my post. Instagram will open your work to a new world of readers who may not be used to engaging with this type of content. I think it’s a really interesting option for creatives to pursue, striking the perfect balance between your writing and your life.
Instagram Story: 12
Every Instagram user knows about stories. But how often do you leverage them to promote your writing? It’s a quick and effective way to make sure your followers see your content if they missed the original post. You can also create an Instagram highlight so the image never disappears. I have several for my writing on Medium, Ladders, health, and marketing.
How to do it:
All you need to do is screenshot the article on your phone and cut it into sections. With stories, I don’t have enough followers to do a “swipe up” link, so instead I send viewers to the splash page in my bio. I count this as 12 because I put the article headline as its own post.
Facebook: 11
Along with a business Instagram account, I also created a business Facebook page to house my new content. I haven’t seen the same results on Facebook as I have on Twitter or LinkedIn, but this could change over time. You can also experiment with Facebook ads to drive traffic to a single post.
How to do it:
With the simple swipe of a finger, you can have your Instagram post go directly to your Facebook page. And that’s exactly what I did in this scenario. If you don’t know how to link accounts, check out this article from the Instagram Help Center.
Final Thoughts
The article “11 Quotes That Will Help You Become a Better Person” didn’t generate thousands of views on Medium. It wasn’t curated. Most people who read it may have already forgotten about it. But it supplied over a month of content, generating 50 unique pieces. Plus, I will probably end up pulling out different sections for Quora answers, to use in my newsletter, for journaling purposes which I can share on social, and in a future video series, bringing the total up well over 60.
This strategy focuses less on the immediate payoff and more on long-term growth. However, by following the reverse pyramid model, you will start to build a real audience with real fans, rather than random people who happen to come across your content.
Next time you hit “publish,” remember that your work isn’t done. In fact, it’s only just beginning.