It will definitely help me to make more out of our blog posts, but I was wondering about the promotion / distribution.

I’m trying to reuse your 44 point blog checklist (publish back in 2013) and was wondering how did you manage promotion? Especially the “relationship” building with relevant opinion leaders?

I want to add another thumb rule: great content is long form. Not only is most of the content on this blog which performs well and gets shared the most long form, data shows that contrary to the “people have low attention spans online” chant you hear everywhere people DO read and share massive blog posts.

Even outside of the bubble of corporate world , extremely long form content like the sabotage of Iranian nuclear infrastructure by Stuxnet (https://www.wired.com/2011/07/how-digital-detectives-deciphered-stuxnet/), life inside a privately run prison (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer), or the story of the statue of David (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/magazine/davids-ankles-how-imperfections-could-bring-down-the-worlds-most-perfect-statue.html?_r=0) works gangbusters.

As long as you have something interesting to say, and as long as you tell a decent story, don’t be afraid of taking up some space to flesh out your ideas, is what I say.

I’m curious… for a piece like this, roughly how many hours did you spend writing it, and how many drafts did you go through?

Cheers!

The part about backed up with research is really interesting. I never would have suspected it would make such a difference.

Adding actionable takeaways is something I need to really do. I’ve seen other sites do it effectively.

Great post.

– Andrew