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How to reach more people (real examples from 9 creators)

You might think that hitting publish is the end of the journey for your content, but it could be just the beginning. Chapter 9 explores new ways to distribute your content can get your work in front of more people and open up opportunities you never knew existed.

After you've made amazing content, how do you make sure people see it? You may think of hitting publish as the last step in your content creation workflow, but you can get a lot more out of your work if you find other ways to distribute it. 

Distribution is an extra step you can take after publishing to get your work in front of more people, and it can help you rise above the sea of noise online. 

Check out these distribution ideas from nine successful creators.

#1 Reshare your content across multiple platforms

First, don’t be afraid to reshare your content across multiple platforms. I know it sounds simple, but Veronica Green from Cultivating Confidence notes that your followers might only see your work on one channel. It’s worth spending a few extra minutes to promote new content anywhere you have a presence. 

Veronica Green

“I just created a YouTube video. I just put a new one up finally. I share stuff on social media about it. I take out clips, I take out quotes, I just post the pictures, I made carousels, and then I emailed my list about it, even though some of them may have seen it. I don’t know who has and who hasn’t and not everybody opens your emails.”

#2 Engage on online forums and communities

Some creators distribute their knowledge–and links–by commenting on forums like Reddit, Facebook groups, and other speciality online communities. 

Veronica used this strategy to give her blog posts an extra boost. When people in Facebook groups ask questions relevant to her work, she provides a valuable and supportive response. If she has a blog post that can help them, she also shares a link to her article. 

Veronica Green

“The key is to provide value in your response, and only link a blog article if it’s allowed and appropriate to the post. And make sure to comment without posting a blog link sometimes too. I try to do this once a week at least, sometimes more if I have time.”

Robert Williams from Folyo found some of his earliest customers by brainstorming product ideas with fellow creators in online communities. Many of the community members were also potential customers. He says, “The people who were giving me feedback on my idea and helping me improve it also ended up signing up and paying for it.”

#3 Collaborate with relevant brands in your industry

Other creators extend their reach through collaboration with similar brands in their niche. When you connect with a creator who has a relevant target audience, you get in front of more people who might be interested in your offers. 

Branding coach and content marketer Vivienne Okafor is the brand strategist and digital marketing expert behind The Vo Guide , where she sells digital products and coaching for digital entrepreneurs. She realized that her audience had a lot of questions about content creation, Instagram growth, and storytelling, so Vivienne invited other creators and experts to be interviewed on her Instagram live. Vivienne says, 

“This did three things for me:

  • It put me in front of their audience, earning on average 20 followers every time I went live.

  • It crushed my scarcity mindset because I was bringing in my competitors.

  • And it shifted people’s perspective of me because, as the host, I was seen as someone in the know.”

Podia creator and Odunife founder Tamkara Adun also grew her audience by guest posting and connecting with other creators in her space. While this strategy takes time, Tamkara ultimately built a community based on reciprocity where she would share work that inspired her, and other creators would repost her content in return. 

Tamkara Adun

“There were a lot of people already doing the work that I was doing, and it was me reaching out to them, either commenting on what they were posting or reaching out to them and saying, ‘You know, this content you shared really resonated with me. I really love it.’ And then re-sharing what they shared. Trying to amplify their voice.

In a spirit of reciprocity, they would also check out my page and say, ‘You’re doing equally good as well.’ And they would follow me.

I did a couple of guest posts on other really big accounts that were in my niche. When I did the guest posts for them, they exposed me to their audience as well, and some of their audience would come to my page and see that the content there was also engaging and they would follow me.

So it was more like building relationships of reciprocity where both people say, ‘I really believe in what you’re doing. I value the work you’re doing and I want to support you.’ Focus on posting good content and people would naturally want to share that content with others in their community, and that would put you in front of their community as well.”

If your target audience doesn't use social media, you can still do outreach by meeting your ideal clients where they are. For Kaye Carroll from Zea Mays Printmaking , this meant reaching out through academic networks.

“Our video tutorials are useful for printmaking students who don’t have access to a press or studio themselves, so we’ve been getting in contact with printmaking professors and offering a special rate for them to subscribe to our videos and share them with their students. This allows us to grow our audience outside of our local sphere and also attract younger subscribers.”

Kaye Carroll, Zea Mays Printmaking

You can also distribute your work through workshops, conferences, virtual summits, or in person talks with your content being the foundation for your presentation. 

Michael Done from Formatmythesis teaches PhD candidates in universities around the world how to properly format their thesis documents. He’s built his audience by working with local universities to present on-campus and offer online training events centered around his services.

“These events generate heaps of interest and buzz, give me a lot of visibility, and cement my identity as an authority in the field."

Michael Done

Ashley Chow teaches copywriting and launch strategy for online entrepreneurs and course creators. She successfully distributed her content by hosting a workshop on her own platform. This workshop was so successful that it opened the door to other speaking opportunities in front of a wider audience.

“The feedback from that workshop gave me the courage to create and launch my digital product. It also scored me an invite to speak at my first ever conference.”

Ashley Chow

#5 Learn about blog post and YouTube SEO

Finally, if you create long-form content like blog posts or YouTube videos, it may be worth spending some time learning about search engine optimization, or SEO. SEO isn’t for everyone, but if you’re looking for a long-term distribution strategy that can enable your content to attract an audience long into the future, it’s worth investigating.

Becky Mollenkamp optimizes her blog posts for search, and now, clicks from search engines are the number one source of traffic to her website. 

Becky Mollenkamp

“I try to write what you would call epic blog posts, or pillar blog posts that are lengthier blog posts. This is what I’m shifting to. I haven’t always done this, to be clear, but when I do it works well. And then I will have smaller posts that are related so that they are directing to different blog posts.

So I’m moving traffic around my site, but I’m really focused on keyword research. And that’s the biggest piece of SEO is really understanding what are people searching? And what do you have the potential to rank for?

Spending time on that, for me anyway, has been the far better use of my time than worrying about what I’m putting on Instagram. If social media isn’t working for you, you might think about looking at SEO. It’s a longer game because it takes time.

It takes time for those things to build up–that traffic to build up. But for me now, the number one referral source to my website is organic traffic–people who are finding me through just searching.”

Classical piano instructor Joseph D’Amico found that writing SEO articles attracted an entirely new client base for his music business, which he loved.

Joseph D'Amico

“Most of my students were high school students and younger students who were going to naturally age out because the best that a teacher could hope for students is that they’ll stick with you until they go off to college.

I wrote up some SEO articles and whatnot. I started attracting people all over the world that were interested and I didn’t get any kids anymore. I got just a handful. Now I just teach working professionals and it’s a totally different animal, and I like it a thousand times more also. So the demographic’s totally different. And then you’re teaching them to be self-sufficient and it’s just, it’s a win-win. It’s awesome.”

SEO is an entire course in itself, but we do have some resources linked below to help you get started.

Bottom line, when you publish a blog post, upload a YouTube video, create a social media post, or send a newsletter, don’t stop there! 

Whether you share advice in online forums, collaborate with other brands in your industry, offer related workshops, speak at events, or dive into the world of SEO, it’s worth giving your content many opportunities to shine.

Take action

If you’ve been taking notes, you should now have some fun ideas for ways to distribute your content.

To go a step further, pick a creator you admire. Take a look at their website, social media channels, newsletter, and other places where they share their work. Can you find any other interesting distribution ideas?

Think of it like a treasure hunt and see if you can track down the different ways they promote their content. You might be surprised by what you find.

You can download the worksheet that goes along with this activity in Podia’s free Get Noticed! course.

Up next, we’ll discuss how consistency can be a super power when it comes to growing an audience — along with examples and suggestions for making consistency more attainable.

Next chapter

Consistency is hard, this makes it easier

Just because you know you should be consistent doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s a struggle that causes many creators to stall out. Luckily, you’re not alone. Chapter 10 covers tips and strategies to help get your content engine up and running.

Start reading →