How To Maximize Your Content Output Across All Social Platforms (In Less Than 30 Minutes)

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The single most annoying part of writing online:

The tactics:

What time should I post?
How many times per day?
Which formats work on which platforms?
Should I repurpose this or write something new?

I know because I wasted tons of time in the beginning trying to get this right.

And I watch hundreds of writers in our communities do the same, burning their most creative hours on algorithm questions rather than on the writing itself.

So today I want to simplify all of that for you, so you can focus less on the ins and outs of social algorithms and more on creating high-quality content.

To do that, we’re going to walk through:

The 3 rules we follow before building any content cadence
Our complete posting cadence across all 6 platforms — times, formats, CTAs, and some algorithm nuggets for each
Our full production engine — the ~160 pieces of content we publish every week (and how we amplify the 20 “net new” things we write)

Now let’s dive in.

*By the way, I wrote a FREE 13,000-word Ultimate Guide to help you start increasing your content output on X. It has everything you need to generate endless content ideas, go viral with ease, and build a massive audience on 𝕏. Click here to join 100,000+ Digital Writers.*

Before we explore our content cadence, I want to share 3 frameworks that will help you build the optimal content cadence for you:

Rule 1: One platform, one CTA.

We’ve gone back and forth on this over the years.

At times, we’ve had one platform trying to drive traffic to upwards of 3 different email courses/lead magnets:

But this ended up being ineffective, since every content slot ended up trying to cover a different topic congruent to a different CTA.

And as a result, we spread ourselves too thin trying to talk about everything.

So we pivoted back to a simple rule: one platform, one CTA.

The best and most effective way to turn a social following into email subscribers is to have ONE core CTA on each platform, and build your engine around driving subscribers to that one CTA.

Rule 2: Build your cadence first, then fill it.

Most people do this backwards.

They write and publish only when they’re inspired, some weeks publishing multiple times and other weeks publishing nothing. We find it’s better to do the opposite.

Commit to a certain amount of content across all platforms, then do the work required to fill those slots, no matter what.

This takes inspiration out of the equation: the writing simply needs writing.

This is also what makes delegation (to humans and to AI) possible.

Once you know the exact amount of content that you need to create, you can figure out how to create the amount in the most efficient way possible.

Rule 3: Do not try to do everything we’re doing right now.

What you’re about to read is our system to produce ~160+ pieces of content per week.

This is only possible because we have been writing every day, on multiple platforms, for 5+ years. We have an archive of ideas deep enough to feed a machine that is 20% net-new content and 80% repurposed content from the archives that our audience needs to hear again.

We’re showing you this to show you what it looks like at scale.

Once you’ve done that consistently for 90 days, you can dig into expanding to multiple platforms.

And the prompt we share at the end will help you no matter your level of experience.

With those rules set up, let’s dive into our cadence across all 6 platforms:

X Content Strategy
LinkedIn Content Strategy
Threads Content Strategy
Instagram Content Strategy
Substack Notes Content Strategy
YouTube Content Strategy

X Content Strategy

Role X plays:

X is still our platform with the most followers & the biggest number of weekly impressions.

All of our long-form ideas start as tweets which we create from scratch on a weekly basis

Posting Cadence:

2 short-form posts per day — 8:30 AM and 8:30 PM ET. This is down from ~3-4x per day in the past as we have noticed volume is marginally punished relative to the past. We also want to leave more for spontaneous off-the-cuff tweets/quote tweets
3 long-form Articles per week — 10 AM ET. This format continues to receive outsized distribution, with articles consistently passing 500+ engagements relative to short-form posts.
5-7 viral Quote Tweets per week — unscheduled. X has turned a bit into Quora in this way - which means when there is a viral “prompt” or question, you can tap into the distribution by quoting it and adding your take on it. If you do a good job with this, these quotes can explode.
Our “One” CTA: Our Start Writing Online email course. The reason is because X leans top of funnel in terms of people reading & the type of content we post there. Therefore it makes sense for us to have a congruent, “broader” CTA that gets the most number of net new people into our ecosystem.
Weekly Output: 14 standalone tweets. We write these fresh every single week to continue flexing the short-form content muscle. 3 articles. One of these is copy-pasted from our Substack newsletter that week. The other two are repurposed long-form we’ve written in the past. 5-7 quote tweets of things going viral (unscheduled). We let these rip whenever we come across them or someone on our team comes across them

X Algorithm Nuggets:

Volume is marginally less rewarded. It looks like posting 5x per day leads to roughly the same number of impressions as posting 2-3x per day. And it seems like posting more lowers your chances of seeing one of them going ultra-viral.
Articles continue to do well. Posting an Article, quote tweeting your own article, or quote tweeting someone else’s article also receive outsized distribution.
Quote tweets of viral tweets borrow the underlying tweet’s distribution. It seems X is encouraging this behavior to get more conversation going on the platform, so we work this into the cadence consistently.
The algorithm seems to change on a weekly basis. We are getting back into the nitty gritty elements of the algo to iterate our posts & formats with a tighter feedback loop than in recent months.

LinkedIn Content Strategy

Role LinkedIn plays:

Our most consistent, linear growth engine.

Rarely massive virality these days, but a consistent stream of new followers, engagement, and leads. Given the audience skews more toward professionals interested in upskilling or starting a side hustle, we lean into that with our content buckets & CTA.

The algorithm changed heavily around October 2025 - and our growth has been slower since then (along with everyone else we talk to).

We’re still trying to get back on the path of reacceleration, but haven’t quite cracked it yet.

When we do, we’ll tell you about it.

Posting Cadence:

1 long-form post per day, either carousel or long-form + media. Some people avoid posting on the weekend, we post anyway. We have had this posting cadence for 3 years now and don’t have any reason to change it
Our “One” CTA. Our Become A Premium Ghostwriter email course. This has been a recent change for us. We’re fully honing in our content buckets, bio links, and CTAs to just our ghostwriting offer, rather than trying to drive traffic to all of our different email lists. We will run with this as an experiment for the next ~3 months and iterate after we have more data. Our hypothesis is that this platform can be a stable driver of new leads for that vertical, freeing up slots on other platforms to drive to our other offers
Weekly Output: 3 carousels. These are either repurposed from a recent newsletter, or reposted from the archives. 4 long-form + media. One or two of these are pulled from our new newsletters each week. If we have a viral quote tweet on X, we will pull it over to LinkedIn and screenshot the thing we quoted + repost our commentary on it as the text.

LinkedIn Algorithm Nuggets:

Media on the post = clear distribution bump. This has been the case for a while and still holds true.
Comments are mattering less than they have in the past. If you scroll the feed, you will see fewer comments from other people as the main thing being shown. It seems they are prioritizing posts over comments right now.
Putting CTAs directly in the post does not limit reach. This seems to go back and forth. In the past, we’ve posted and then edited an hour later to add the CTA, but now we include it straight away.

Instagram Content Strategy

Role Instagram plays:

Instagram is the platform we have prioritized the least of all the social platforms. And we want to change that starting this month.

If executed correctly, Instagram has the potential for virality + lead capture with its ManyChat 2-step “leave a comment” functionality. We have plenty of content that will do well on Instagram, which means we just need to master the formats.

And that’s what we’re going to do

Posting Cadence

3 trial reels per day. My current hypothesis is getting as much “data” out there as possible will allow us to quickly learn the best content formats. And to do that, we are experimenting with the Trial Reels feature. The TLDR of Trial Reels is they only go to people who don’t follow you, which means you’re testing on new audiences. This lets you post “more” without being penalized by the algorithm. In fact, they encourage you to post more. Then, there is a setting that allows Trial Reels to convert to fully-posted reels if and only if they start to perform well. We are going to run with this for 3-4 weeks to start to gather data around what works and what doesn’t. Then, with that data, we will start to craft more intentional reels aimed at virality.
3 carousels per week. “Posts” on Instagram function a lot like email broadcasts → they primarily go to people who already follow you. On rare occasions, they can break out into non-followers, but it’s less common than reels. Therefore, we will use these less often than Reels & invest more time into each one being educational and share-worthy
3 “stories” posted throughout the day. This one is less structured than the others, but an easy way to build a relationship with the audience we’re growing there. The goal here is to communicate you are a real person actively using Instagram, rather than just using it to repost things you’ve put on other platforms.
Our “One” CTA. This will differ for me and Cole, given we run Instagram ads for PGA from his account. His core CTA will remain PGA which allows us to best capitalize on the ad traffic we drive to his profile. My core CTA will be Start Writing Online or AI Operator, depending on which content bucket we see gaining more traction (broader personal growth / writing tips = Start Writing Online, more AI-focused business content = AI Operator).
Weekly Output: 21 trial reels. The majority of these will be simple tweet screenshots. 3 carousels. Some of these will be full long-form posts converted to carousels, the others will be strings of related & congruent tweets. 21 stories (3 per day). Not overthinking these - just sharing what is going on in our life to build a deeper relationship with our audience

Instagram Algorithm Nuggets:

There is one clear “format winner” on Instagram — and it takes a lot of work. The “ideal scene” for us is one high-quality, 2-step ManyChat “comment for the link” reel every single day. This would take significantly more effort than we are currently putting in on this platform, and we’re aware of that. However, this is something we can build toward, starting with 1-2 of these per week and going from there.
Reels can reach anyone, Posts are more like email broadcasts, and Stories are email broadcasts. This is the way I think about the different types of posts on Instagram. And that lens informs the types of content we put into each one.
This is our current “experimenting” and “paying down ignorance” platform. Relative to everything else, we are the least fluent in the rules of the game for this platform. So I won’t try to do a full deep dive on this algorithm until I learn more.

Substack Notes Content Strategy

Role Substack Notes plays:

Substack is our compounding newsletter growth engine, given the congruence & ease from a Note to a subscriber.

We have 3 newsletters exclusively on this platform:

We post notes from our personal profiles, which lead to subscriptions to our personal newsletters, each of which promote Write With AI after subscribing + in our welcome emails.

Our focus on this platform is exclusively to grow our email lists on this platform.

Posting Cadence:

5 notes per day, every 2 hours from 8 AM to 8 PM ET. This is up from our previous volume of 2x per day as we are experimenting with the increased frequency.
Our “One” CTA. Each of us drive individually to our personal newsletters, then cross-promote Write With AI on subscription & in our welcome emails.
Weekly Output. 35 Notes. 2 per day are copy pasted from our X account (since we have 2 new tweets per day there). The other 3 per day (21 per week) are pulled from our archive of high-performing short-form content. In terms of newsletters, you can find a full breakdown of our email cadence in this post.

Substack Algorithm Nuggets:

Notes have a multi-day shelf life. If you scroll the home feed, you’ll see notes from as much as 14 days ago constantly getting distribution.
2-step “leave a comment” newsletters are the current growth hack. You’re seeing me execute that right now with this newsletter. Getting people to leave a like & comment to get an asset DM’d to them taps into the algorithms desire for comments.
Replying to your own note with a congruent newsletter = extra distribution. We’re finding spots to follow-up with a reply to viral notes with a link to a newsletter edition that further pulls people into our ecosystem.
The audience here leans 1) writer-focused and 2) AI-focused. There is way less “news” here relative to X & LinkedIn, which is good. So on Substack we focus on more timeless posts & content buckets relative to those platforms.

Threads Content Strategy

Role Threads plays:

Threads is our most “copy-paste” platform, and the one we are studying the least.

We’re on this platform because Threads & Instagram are intertwined, so a consistent presence here helps our Instagram grow without any net-new creation.

Posting Cadence:

4 short-form posts per day, every 2 hours from 8 AM to 8 PM ET (except for 10 AM). We mirror our Substack Notes cadence exactly here for simplicity of cross-posting.
1 long-form post per day at 10 AM ET. Either a thread from our X archives or a recent LinkedIn post slightly altered to be a Thread rather than long-form
Our “One” CTA. Our Start Writing Online email course. This keeps my Threads account congruent with my Instagram account since the two profiles are linked and people bounce between them.
Weekly Output. 28 short-form posts. Using the same short-form posts we use for Substack Notes. 7 long-form posts. Repurposed threads or LinkedIn posts from the archives. 100% of this platform is repurposed from other platforms

Threads Algorithm Nuggets

We don’t have any nuggets for this platform. We haven’t studied this algorithm because the ROI on our attention is higher elsewhere. If this platform starts showing signs of life or more distribution, we’ll dig in and report back.

Video Content Strategy

Role Video/YouTube plays:

Video is the best long-term compounding asset on the internet.

Every social writing platform is rented distribution on a timeline. But people will read long-form writing (Substack) and watch long-form video (YouTube) for years into the future after its initial posting.

If I have one thing I look back on over the last few years and regret, it’s that:

We stopped consistently filming Espresso Hour (Cole and I’s podcast where we pull back the current on building our portfolio of digital businesses)
I did not consistently publish a video on YouTube every week

But if the best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago, the second best time is now.

And so that is what we are doing.

The new “collaboration” feature on YouTube is also great for me and Cole. We used to publish our podcast on the Ship 30 YouTube channel, but now we can cross post as collaborators onto our own channels.

Posting Cadence

3 shorts per day. Talking-head clips pulled from podcasts or slices of long-form YouTube videos. We are not running tweet screenshots or other IG-native formats here.
2 long-form videos per week. 1 podcast episode (intentionally done with “segments” that allow us to easily slice out clips).
1 standalone long-form video per week (turning our newsletter of the week into a video, like this one)
3-5 “highlight” medium-form clips posted per week on our highlights channel. We are going to start smaller on this cadence and look to ramp it up over time as we dial in the workflow & team necessary to do so
Our “One” CTA. YouTube is the only platform where we break our own rule of having one CTA per platform. Videos have a long shelf life and can stand on their own. So you match the CTA to the video, not the channel. If we post a ghostwriting video, it will be our Become A Premium Ghostwriter email course. If we post Espresso Hour that is business-focused, it will be to either AI Operator or a business-focused email course. If we post a Digital Writing video, it will go to our Start Writing Online email course. Etc. etc.
Weekly Output: 21 shorts, 1 podcast episode, 1 long-form video, 3 highlight clips.

YouTube Algorithm Nuggets:

Record your podcast with segments to make it easier to pull clips. I picked up this nugget from my favorite college football podcast. He films 2 full-length podcasts per week, but pulls 5 ~10-minute segments from each of them, which means he posts 12 videos to his channel per week. The clips all drive back to the full episode, and they’re “dense” enough to stand on their own.
Match the CTA to the video. People don’t click to your profile like they do on other platforms. They click to the description of the video to see what next step they should take. So put your CTA as the first line item above the fold in your description, plus leave a pinned comment that links to your CTA as well.
YouTube is interest-based, not timeline-based. Videos presented to you on the “For You” page are roughly split between new videos it thinks you will like, plus older videos it thinks you will like. This is a huge advantage relative to other social platforms, as your library compounds with each post.

The Full Production Engine Overview

So when you add all of this up, this is the weekly list of content we and our team create on a weekly basis.

X

14 standalone tweets
3 articles
5-7 quote tweets

3 carousels
4 long-form + media

Instagram

21 trial reels
3 carousels
21 stories

Substack Notes

35 notes

Threads

28 short-form
7 long-form

YouTube

21 shorts
1 long-form podcast
1 long-form newsletter video
3-5 highlight clips

In total, that is 160 pieces of content published every week.

Now, does that mean we are creating 160 pieces of net-new content per week?

No!

Absolutely not. Not even close.

Let’s take this full list and break it down into what is:

Created (net-new)
Produced (transforming what already exists)
Reposted (straight copy-pasted to amplify across platforms)

What we CREATE each week:

14 standalone tweets
5-7 quote tweets
1 long-form newsletter
1 podcast episode
1 long-form YouTube video
A handful of Instagram stories

What our team PRODUCES (transforming what already exists)

21 trial reels (tweet screenshots)
21 shorts (pulled from clips)
3-5 mid clips (from podcast + live sessions)
3 carousels (turning newsletters/long-form into carousels)
4 medium-form LinkedIn posts
3 X articles (1 newsletter cross-post, 2 pulled from the archives)

What our team REPOSTS (across platforms)

35 Substack Notes
35 Threads posts

So in total, we’re able to take ~20 pieces of net-new short-form and long-form and turn it into 160 posts across all platforms.

And we’ve built up to this cadence by writing online every day 5+ years at this point. So again, don’t try to jump here immediately.

Now, let’s build your own content cadence!

The easiest way to get started is with a daily writing habit.

In less than 30 minutes each morning, you can post 1x long-form piece of content here on X. After 90 days of consistency, you can expand to other platforms.

Here’s a FREE 13,000-word Ultimate Guide + email course with everything you need to:

Build a daily writing habit
Start going viral with ease
Dominate a niche you own

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