One piece of content, eight places
The instinct when a post does not land is to write another one. Usually the post was fine and the problem was that four hundred people saw it, of whom nine were the right people, and three of those were asleep.
Before you write anything new, get your money's worth out of the last good thing.
The eight
Take one article or one talk. It becomes:
- The piece itself, wherever it lives.
- A short post built on the single strongest paragraph, not a summary.
- A second short post built on the part you nearly cut.
- An email to your list, written as though to one person.
- A carousel or slide set, which is the same argument with the connective tissue removed.
- A ninety second video, you talking, no edit, no intro.
- A reply, dropped into a thread where somebody has just asked that exact question.
- A line in your next talk, where it gets tested on a live audience.
That is roughly two hours of work for eight surfaces, against maybe three hours to write something new that nobody sees either.
Summaries are the trap
Number two is where people go wrong. They post a summary of the article with a link, and it performs badly, because a summary is an advert for reading and nobody wants an advert.
Take the best paragraph and post it as the thing. Complete, standalone, no link needed. If someone wants more they will ask, and the ones who do not still got something. This feels like giving away the good bit. It is, and that is deliberate.
Change the argument, not the wording
Reposting the same claim with different adjectives is how accounts become wallpaper. Each version should carry a different load:
- One states the claim.
- One tells the story it came from.
- One argues with the obvious objection.
Same source, three genuinely different things to read.
Spacing
Do not do all eight in a week. The same idea landing three times in four days reads as a campaign, and people disengage from campaigns. Spread them over a month and it reads as someone who has a view about something, which is what you want.
When to stop
When you start having to stretch. A piece with two real ideas in it makes four good posts, not eight. Eight is the ceiling, not the target.