Blogging is half writing and half telling people what you’ve written.

I've written for over a dozen technical blogs in the past year, and one thing I keep noticing is that many blogs fail to promote their content adequately.

Case Study: “Alternative Career Paths” on FreeCodeCamp.org

I recently wrote an in-depth, 3400-word article about the alternative career paths you can take as a trained software engineer. It was inspired by my personal experience leaving a role as a CTO to start Draft, and I spent almost 8 hours writing it.

After it was published, I spent about 2 hours promoting it using the checklist below. I knew the intended audience well, so it was relatively easy to translate the blog post into Twitter posts (1, 2), Reddit, Linkedin, Facebook, several email newsletters, and Hacker News (which was then reshared more successfully by someone else).

Partly due to the platform (FreeCodeCamp is a popular blog) and partly due to the promotional work I did on the piece, it took off. I ended up spending a fair bit of time responding to conversations online and answering questions about it. A Chinese publication reached out to ask if they could translate it for their readers, and Code Nation asked if they could use it in their curriculum. I got thousands of views to my Twitter profile and personal website within the first week.

How do you share without being spammy?

This is the part that most new writers are nervous about, so instead of sharing everything just to try it, they share nothing.

The key to getting over this is writing with an audience in mind. Don't write things that purely benefit you - write things that you know will benefit thousands of other people.

Second, you can't worry when things fall flat. I've written hundreds of blog posts in the past 10 years, and only 5 have hit the front page of Hacker News or Reddit. The thing is, the stuff I shared that went nowhere didn't really hurt me...it just went nowhere.

Finally, be disciplined. I use a promotional checklist for my blogging efforts to make sure I invest enough effort in getting the word out. I'd recommend building something similar but catered to your audience.

Hope this helps you, and if you're afraid of letting people know about your writing and need a little encouragement, let me know (karl@draft.dev). I'll offer my thoughts and some ways you might be able to share it without being annoying/spammy. Good luck!