For most people, the thought process about a blog article is approximately as follows:

1. Write an article
2. Publish it on your blog
3. That’s it, that’s the whole process

In the words of Tom Hardy(‘s character in Inception):“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling!”A blog post that just gets published on your blog is just wasteful. This limits its potential! And as something you’ve poured your heart and soul into (or at least a little bit of time), don’t you think it deserves better than that?Course you do.So, take a little time and give it some extra legs.

7 Easy Ways to Expand the Reach of Your Content

If you’re taking the time to create a piece of content, you want to make sure it gets seen. Luckily, the wonders of technology allow you to disseminate your content in a ton of different ways. Here are seven of them that you can use in any combination you choose.

1. Social media

First and foremost (tada!): social media.Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. All of these platforms are great ways to expand the reach of your content.Create a nice visual for Instagram and include a link in your bio (think Linktree or something similar).Create a thread on Twitter that offers up the key points of your article with a link to the full write-up.Create a summary post on LinkedIn and Facebook.And don’t just use it once. If your content is evergreen (i.e. will still be relevant and interesting in six months), then use it again later.Social media is like Red Bull: it gives your content wiiiiiings.

2. Email

Got a mailing list? Blast that article out to your subscribers by email. My recommendation would be do either:

• Include it in a round-up of interesting curated content
• Feature it on its own and include enough interest detail to get people to click through to the full article
• Add a “New on the Blog” section to your monthly newsletter

If your article is interesting, then people will appreciate seeing it in their inbox.

3. Evergreen content

Break out the defibrillator and bring old content back from the dead.Look back at older content and find ways to update, refresh, and republish it with new information. Add in an “Updated on X Date” at the top of the article and promote it all over again.

4. Forums, communities, and groups

Don’t stop at promoting content to the contacts, followers, and subscribers you already have. There are so many places where you can promote your content to a new-new audience.Think:

• Social media groups
• Slack groups
• Forums
• Online communities

Think about where your target audience looks for information and serve it to them on a silver platter.Here's how to do it:

• Before you create any content, research the exact questions people are asking in these places
• Answer their questions directly first and foremost (this is important)
• Then, take it away, create a piece of content that answers the question, and post it to the forum saying something like, "I recently answered a question here and wrote this article to provide some additional context and insight"

Giving people value for free is a powerful tool (as Vince Vaughan said in Wedding Crashers: "People helping people, powerful stuff!").Pro tip: Don’t make this promotional or salesy. That’s a great way to get banned from these places. Focus on providing value, for free, on a consistent basis. That’s how you get ahead in this game.

5. eBooks

If you’ve got a ton of articles covering related subject matter, consider compiling it all into an eBook (aka a “guide”).Think, “The Comprehensive Guide to X,” (but please don’t actually call it a comprehensive guide), and include all of your articles on that particular subject.Format it so it flows (this is important), put it in PDF format, and use it to generate email subscribers by exchanging it for email addresses and information. If you don’t have a ton of content on a particular topic, you can look through your article for opportunities to expand on particular points in their own blog posts. Look for things where people might ask, “what’s that mean?” or, “how do I do that?” and create new content to answer those questions.Before you know it, you’ll have a web of related content to work with.

6.Infographics and Visuals

Creating infographics makes your content digestible (sorry, I don’t like that word either). Consider pulling the highlights from your post and having a designer put into a visual format.You can also create carousels of key points for Instagram so that people can get the highlights right there on their feed (this might’ve been better suited for point #1 but what matters is that we got there in the end!).

7. Podcasts or Videos

If you’ve got the time and the tools (and the desire), you can take your blog articles and turn them into different forms of content, such as audio or visual.Consider discussing the topic of your article on a podcast or video. That way, people can still take value from it if they prefer listening or watching over reading.The bottom line: if you write a piece of content, publish it on your blog, and leave it alone, you’re wasting a whole ton of potential. Take some time to give your content extra legs and watch how much more successful it becomes in terms of traffic and views.I work with coworking operators from across North America to create compelling content that helps drive membership sign-ups. If you’d like to learn more about how I can help you, or if you’re interested in bringing on some help to hone in on your space’s identity, get in touch with me today.And if you’d like more insights like this, subscribe to my mailing list.