🌊 Expanding the surface area of your ideas

What if I told you that having fewer ideas could make you more influential?

I know. It sounds backwards.

We live in a world obsessed with fresh content. New insights. Original takes. The next brilliant thought.

But there’s something we often miss:

It’s not about having more ideas—it’s about expanding the surface area of the ideas that matter.

The problem with one-offs

Take the typical content creator approach. In the best-case scenario, you have a brilliant insight, you craft the perfect post, you hit publish, and get solid engagement.

Then what?

You move on to the next idea. The brilliant insight gets buried in the endless scroll, never to be seen again. You’ve treated your best thinking like disposable content.

There are two common types of one-off posts I see more often than I’d like.

There’s the “clown car of ideas” type of content. You’re cramming complex, nuanced concepts into bite-sized posts because short-form social formats demand it. Your audience scrolls past, overwhelmed by trying to process everything at once.

Then there’s the “bird’s eye view” type of content. You share high-level insights, assuming people will connect all the dots themselves—filling in gaps, understanding the implications, and grasping deeper meanings from your 200-word post. Instead, it seems like you’re overly abstract and you don’t really bring value to your audience.

Surface area expansion

Our best ideas deserve more than a single moment in someone’s feed.

Instead of treating insights like one-offs, the best content brands expand “the surface area of ideas”—taking one substantial concept and exploring it across multiple pieces of content.

Each post focuses on a single facet of the larger idea, making it digestible while building toward comprehensive understanding.

You might present the core hypothesis in one post, share a concrete example in another, then address common objections, explore nuances, and provide actionable steps across additional posts.

I recently tried this out by building a series of posts as an exploration of AI, authenticity, and trust. I began by addressing the AI-induced trust gap problem, then explored the intersection of authenticity and AI, and shared specific steps to overcome trust barriers. Each piece works well on its own, but builds a comprehensive narrative around a topic I want to be known for.

“Won’t people get bored?”

This is the concern I hear every time I explain this approach.

The truth? You’re much closer to your content than your audience is. While you’re thinking about an idea for hours as you create around it, your audience spends maybe 30 seconds consuming each piece.

Plus, attention on social media is fragmented. Someone might see your first post but miss the second, or need repetition to make ideas stick rather than have them disappear into an endless scroll.

Besides, I’m not saying you should be parroting identical messages. You’re exploring different facets of substantial ideas from fresh angles.

***

The goal isn’t repetition—it’s thoroughness. Giving your best ideas the attention they deserve.

When you expand surface area, you don’t just share ideas—you develop them. You don’t just inform—you teach thinking. You don’t just create content—you build thought leadership.

Audit your recent content and ask: How many big ideas did you introduce versus how many did you revisit?

Repetition matter,

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💎 Highly Recommended

Marketingland Festival is one of the coolest virtual events, and it’s happening again this October. It’s a completely free three-track event that brings together some great industry experts. You should check it out!

​​Register for for free →​​

👀 Just for fun

• ​This speech about creativity​ – I’m a big fan of composer, musician, and writer Tim Minchin and this is a good example why.
• ​Weekly cat​ – not sure what genre they play in, but I’m listening.

🤿 Diving deeper

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