In this episode of Distribtuion First, Justin Simon walks you through the three biggest pitfalls of choosing the wrong distribution channels and how you can avoid them.

Justin shares his personal experiences and lessons learned the hard way about spreading himself too thin across multiple platforms. We'll also explore three major pitfalls of picking the wrong channels and how you can avoid them to maximize your content's impact. Plus, you'll get actionable tips to help you focus on the channels that truly matter for your business and audience.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why focusing on key channels prevents burnout & boosts impact.
• How understanding your audience drives better channel selection.
• Why mastering a few channels is crucial over spreading too thin.
• How aligning channels with personal preferences sustains consistency.
• Why a content floor of easy wins ensures long-term success.

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Hey everybody. Before we get started, I want to thank my friends hatch for producing

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All right, let's get in the show.

Welcome to distribution. First, the show where we flip content marketing on its head

and focus on what happens after you hit publish. Each week I

share playbooks, motivations, stories, and strategies to help you repurpose and

distribute your content because you deserve to get the most out of everything you

create.

Hey friend. Unfortunately, I've learned the value of

focusing on a few key channels the hard way. I used

to try and be active on multiple platforms, whether it was

Facebook back in the day or using X and now LinkedIn and

doing email and YouTube. But I found

myself spread way too thin. Even when I had a team. The

more channels we tried to focus on, the harder it became. And I

honestly, I hated what I was doing. I ended up hating what

I was doing. And it came through in the content I was sharing with

the audience. So that's when I knew that I had to make a

change and really start to focus on the channels that

mattered, not just the channels that I thought I should be on, because

somebody told me I should be there. And so that's what we're going to talk

about today on this episode of distribution. First, we're actually going to go through three

pitfalls of bad channels. What are the three main things

that cause you to pick the wrong channel and then how

you can focus in and get better on the channels that you're actually

using. And so that's what we're going to get into today. I'm super excited about

it. Let's get into the show. All right, so three pitfalls

of picking the wrong distribution channels. What I

realized back, and this wasn't that long ago, honestly, and

I've ebbed and flowed through this as I was creating content both for my

own and honestly, when I was working as an in house marketer, too. There's a

lot of pressure to try and do a lot of things, to try and get

as much attention, to get as much reach, to get as much eyeballs

on that content as possible. And I think it's a little bit.

The irony is there, though, that when you actually spread

yourself across all these channels, it actually doesn't always help you. It actually

can be a hindrance to what you're trying to do. And it's not the

type of the decision that you just make once and you

set with it. It's actually the type of decision that ripples out across your entire

content strategy. Because when you go to

pick one channel, as soon as you add on another channel, what you're doing is

you're committing to that channel not only for you, not only for your team,

but you're committing to that channel for your audience. What we do when

we add another channel on the back of our mind is we say, hey, awesome.

Hey audience, here's where we're going to be at now. Here's what we're going to

be doing, and here's what you can expect from us. And it puts a ton

of pressure not only on you and your team to be able to create

that content, but to keep up with that over time.

How I like to think about channels is narrowing your focus down into the ones

that truly make an impact and what you're doing. So let's get into

these pitfalls and see how we can avoid them. So pitfall number one

is not knowing your audience. And this is such a big one. Your

audience, they're probably all over the place. Your

audience is probably on multiple channels doing multiple things. They

might be on LinkedIn, they might be on YouTube, they might like

podcasts, they might like reading newsletters. The reality

is they probably like consuming a lot of types of content and

like consuming it on a lot of different channels. The key for you though, is

to figure out which ones work for you and which ones are going

to make the biggest impact on your audience over

time. It's a tough balancing act, it really is, because the temptation is there

to be on those, but you don't have to be on them all. Instead, what

you want to do is focus on the channels that align with your strengths

and you can be consistent and engage with without feeling

overwhelmed. Because the last thing you want to do is jump

from one content hamster wheel. Creating content, doing all this to another

constant hamster wheel of distributing is the last thing we want to

do when we're creating our content strategies. Knowing where your audience hangs out

is so key. Are they more likely to be on one

place than another? They probably are. It's just on you to figure out where

those places are going to be. Are they more likely to hang out in

communities where you can actually interact with them and spend time with

them? It's a longer term play, and none of this is overnight.

As far as being able to distribute this content and become sort of

overnight, all your entire audience is going to want to buy your products and your

services. That's not how it works. Figuring out where are your best long term

bets to distribute that content across for your audience

and different channels are going to represent different opportunities. For

example, if you're creating content on YouTube, if you're creating content

for Google, that's going to hit one part of the funnel and one group of

folks who are looking for a very particular thing. If you're creating content on

LinkedIn or X or Instagram, it's going to hit a

completely different type of person, buyer and stage at where

they're going to be at. Just coming up with a decent mix to be able

to know where your audience is at and hit them over time. All

right, pitfall number two, not understanding the

channel and this ties back into some of the things we just talked about. But

this is one of the biggest problems I see in particular inside of

companies, is not understanding the channel. But honestly, even as an

individual creator, again, the more channels you add, the

more channels you're going to have to learn. It's not as simple as just

posting and expecting growth. How LinkedIn

works is completely different than how X works, which is completely different than how

YouTube works. And you better know the ins and outs and the nuances, or

at least be in the process of learning all of those nuances

to see success in the content that you're creating. Just posting on a

bunch of channels you don't understand is not going to help you in the long

run. But if you can master a few channels, deeply,

understand them, understand what works, what doesn't work, what type of content, and

this all ebbs and flows and changes over time. So what worked

on LinkedIn two years ago does not work today. What worked on

x two years ago does not work today. But unless you're

constantly learning the channels, unless you're constantly evolving with what you're

doing, it's going to be very, very hard for you to be able to stand

out and to be able to make a real impact when building

audience. It's one thing to post content, it's one thing to hit

publish. It's another to actually understand why

you're there, what you're doing, what the purpose is

of being there and actually creating content

that makes your audience want to do something. Whether that's

learn something new, buy something, hang out, just enjoy your

content. But just posting stuff and ghosting out

of there is no way to build an audience. It's no way

to grow your channels. It's no way to actually do

effective content distribution. I think my advice in this

would be, again, mastering a few rather than, and going really deeply in

what those things are. So at any given time, you're only going to be able

to learn so many things unless you have a team. For example, when I was

at Techsmith, I had a team of folks who were focused on SEO and blog

content. I had a team of folks who was focused on YouTube content. I had

a team of folks who were focused on social media content. And when

you have different groups of different people who can focus on each one of those

channels, absolutely. Let's figure out how to use those best and be able to spread

ourselves across each of those channels and do that in an effective way. And actually,

it was really, really helpful to be able to do that. We got to

510, 100 x the amount of views and in depth things

we were able to do with the content because we were able to spread those

across different channels. But we were only able to do that because

we had experts figuring out the nuances of each channel. Social media

team did not have to figure out how to rank things in Google

and at the same time figure out what was the best thumbnail and

headline to put on YouTube. We had experts for each one of those places. And

I think that's a very subtle nuance, that whether you're an individual

or you're working with agencies, or you've got your own team in house

figuring out how to use those people and those

resources in a way that allows them to really focus in on what they're

doing, I think that is how you start to scale up and add channels and

build upon channels as having dedicated people who can come in and focus

on those specific things. So unless you're able to actually

dive into a channel, learn it, spend time with it, be

consistent on it, I would be very hesitant to be able to add that into

your distribution mix. So number three, choosing channels

you don't enjoy, it's such a low key

thing that we don't think about. But unless you enjoy

distributing content on a particular platform,

you're probably not going to do it. People don't talk about this enough, but

passion does matter. It matters in content creation

and it matters in content distribution as well. Because all you're doing when

you're distributing content is creating micro versions of

really good content and just doing it in a different way.

Unless you're passionate about creating that type of content, it really

doesn't make sense for you to keep on doing it. You're going to

a get bored, b get sick of it,

c just stop doing it all together because you're burnout. If

you don't like making videos, you're not going to create

videos very long again. Unless you're hiring this out and you're going to have other

people do all the work and da da da like, then potentially that can make

sense. But most of us don't have that option. Most of us in

some way, shape or form are going to be having our hands in the things

that we're creating and distributing. Unless you like the

channel, unless you have some sort of passion for

writing, then a newsletter probably doesn't make sense.

Unless you have a passion for video. Being on

a video heavy channel probably doesn't make sense. Unless you have a vehicle

to create video content, it probably doesn't make sense for you to try and be

on there because you're not going to be able to do it consistently and do

it at a high enough level and scale to compete with

everybody else. Because that's the other thing with these channels. It's not just

you out there in a silo. It's not just you talking to your

audience, it's everybody talking to your audience.

And probably in some ways creating better content than you

are. That's why we have to be balanced. You don't want to just show up

and have really bad content. If that is the gateway into your business. If

somebody shows up to your. If you say you're on X or you say you're

on Instagram and somebody and you post a few times on there, but somebody shows

up there and the content is kind of just boring or it's not great, that

could be their first and only impression of you and your content. Even though you

post really good stuff every single day on LinkedIn,

as you think about what you're showing to your audience, or even your

potential audience and your potential customers, just keep that in mind. It's actually

better in some ways for people to type in your company or your brand and

not find you, because then they have to figure

out where you're actually at, or you can figure out ways to use those

channels to try to get them over to where you're actually at. So if you

have an x account but you don't really use it, you could put something in

your bio about that and be able to get them over and say, actually, I

post every day on LinkedIn. Or hey, we are active over here. If you're looking

for help and you're a business, hey, here's where you can actually go get that

and a lot of that. Again, to tie it back to choosing the channels that

you don't enjoy. You have to be genuinely interested

in the channel, because again, these things change all the time. What

works in any single distribution channel, even a

more historical channel that's been around for a long time, like

email, what works in email now is

completely different than what worked probably ten years ago. Everything

is changing so much. Unless you have the time not only to learn that

channel, enjoy that channel, but to be able to

continue to learn that channel, you're going to struggle to be able to

keep that channel afloat and make sure it actually succeeds for your company. And

again, this is true of every single distribution

channel across the Internet, whether you're talking

Google, email, social media,

forums, Reddit, any single thing

that you choose, where you want to distribute, paid ads, anything, whatever you're

doing, there's those levels of understanding that you have to have, where you are going

to commit, you're going to learn, and then

you're going to continue to learn, ongoing as

you build that channel out of just a few key takeaways here

as we wrap up this episode, and this is just a short, kind of off

the cuff episode that I wanted to get out here for you all. So a

few key takeaways here as we wrap up to avoid these

pitfalls, I just want to give you three things to try, because

there's three pitfalls, and let's come up with three things to try to be able

to avoid these. So as a wrap, our three pitfalls. Not knowing your

audience, not understanding the channel, and choosing

channels you don't enjoy. As we try to avoid these pitfalls, here are

three things that I think we can try. Number one, focus only on

channels that work best for your business and your

audience. So understand your audience and

the channels they're using and focus only on those

channels. And I would even go a step further and say, focus on only one

of those channels. Like I said, there could be lots of

channels that your audience are on. There could be lots of places where they're hanging

out. So I would pick one, learn that channel, understand that

channel, be able to be consistent on that channel, build an audience on that

channel. You would be far better off building an audience on one channel than

building small, teeny little audiences that probably

don't really take off across many, many places at once. And

if you're early, maybe you test out a few things. Maybe you take and say,

all right, for the next three to six months, we're going to test out multiple

channels and just see where our people are at and what's working. But after a

certain point, start to focus in on where you want

to build that audience. Number two, choose channels

that align with your goals and your preferences.

So this takes nuance, but understanding what your

goals are is greatly going to determine which

channels you choose. So if your goals are conversion,

if your goals are we need people in the door now.

Your channel should be conversion focused channels,

Google, email, maybe YouTube.

With search, there is only a certain

finite amount of people within your audience, probably less than

3% that at any given point are ready to buy. So

if your goal is conversion, you better figure out how best to get in

front of those people. And typically that is a combination

of search and email to be

able to gather that information, pitch them a product, nurture them down the

line. If you want to build a brand, shoot, you could do

a multitude of things depending on who you want to get in front

of, but that goal is going to be completely different in the channels you

choose or in the frequency and what type of content. All of that is going

to be completely different than if you're goals were.

Hey, for this amount of time, we got to get as many people in the

pipeline as possible. It's just a different goal. Understanding where your

goal is at and how that aligns with the channels you choose.

Massive. Number three, don't try to do too

much at once. When you spread yourself in and

across anything. When you're trying to learn something new, when you're trying

to build a new habit, when you're trying to start a new strategy,

the more things that you try to do, the worse you're going to be at

it. You're going to get overwhelmed immediately.

You might start really, really hot, you might, you know,

first week, bam, we're going. But second week, third week, fourth

week, all that starts to dwindle. And now you're feeling not only

overwhelmed, but you're actually feeling discouraged. Because in your

mind you thought you were going to be able to do something that now you

can't even do. Rather than make yourself go down

that road, pick something that's actually

you're able to accomplish and pick something without spreading

yourself too thin, without spreading yourself across multiple channels. Set up

some goals for those things and then work your goals and you will be able

to find success in what you're doing that way. So again, focus

on only the channels where your audience is at and probably out of that, the

best channel for you. Choose channels that align with your

goals. And don't try to chew too much to spread

yourself too thin. Because if you spread yourself too thin, too fast, you're going to

burn out. And finally, before we wrap, one last

tip here, save the best for last because I think this will help

you be able to truly pick the right channels and to be able

to make sure you're able to distribute your content without burning

out. And that is to create what I call a content

floor. And a content floor is just creating a

consistent rhythm of creating and sharing your

content. What you need to do is prioritize

your easy wins, which are high value, low

effort activities that drive results. So what are your easy

win channels? For me, easy win channels are

LinkedIn and email. I'm pretty good

at creating content consistently when it's in written

form. I've been writing content on the Internet for

15 years. For me to come down, sit down and write content for LinkedIn or

for an email, not that difficult. That's an easy win. That's my content

floor. What that looks like for me as a very basic example of

my content floor would be I am going to post on

LinkedIn every single day, Monday through Friday,

and that's what my audience will learn that I have

to be able to provide to them. Oh, Justin, you

know, even if I don't say it, people will come to learn Monday through

Friday. They're going to see me in their feed with emails. I

send a newsletter. Shout out if you want to get the newsletter. And yeah, on

the newsletter, go to news dot Justinsimon dot CEO you can get on the newsletter.

I send a weekly email every single Saturday morning. I

have sent that email consistently since 2022.

I don't even know how many emails were on at this point, but it's just

become part of my rhythm. Even when I was a full time employee, I was

writing an email every single week to send it out as a

newsletter and it just became part of my rhythm. Recording these podcast

episodes has become part of my rhythm. It's just something that I have started to

do and got used to and enjoy doing at this point to go back, if

I don't enjoy doing these things, that's when I know I have to start either

rethinking the channel or the content itself. Or maybe

I just have to rethink how I'm doing it. Because if it's not fun, if

it's not enjoyable, I'm not going to do it. These are the activities

that they're not going to require a lot of effort. Your content floor,

your easy wins, but they're going to bring in the majority of your results.

It's classic 80 20. Think about the things that are going to bring

in 80% of your results with 20% of your

actions. And that's true of channels, that's true of content, that's

true across the board. So hopefully this episode was helpful

for you as we think about creating channels, as we think about picking the

right channels for your content. If this is something you're interested in, I have

an entire workshop about picking the perfect

channels. It's inside the distribution first membership, which you get as a

part of the monthly group workshops.

Every single month we do a group workshop together inside the community

and we also do a q and A at the back end of the month

as well. If you're interested in watching that workshop, getting all the

past workshops, potentially getting all the future workshops, and you want to join the

distribution first community, I would encourage you to do that to check it out today.

If you go to distribution first club and get all the information,

would love to have you in there as well. So friend, it's been

awesome to have you listening to the show. I'm excited about this

episode and I really think it's going to help you a lot. So until next

week, I will talk to you later.

All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode of distribution first

and thank you for listening all the way through. I appreciate you so,

so much and I hope you're able to apply what you learned in this

episode one way or another, into your content strategy as

well. Speaking of strategy, we have a lot of things going on this year that

are going to help you build your brand ten x your content and transform

the way you do content marketing. Make sure to subscribe to the show and sign

up for my newsletter at Justinsimon Co. So you don't miss

a thing. I look forward to serving you in the next episode as well. And

until then, take care and I'll see you next time.