Ross Simmonds' unfair advantage is treating distribution as the product
Most marketers obsess over the next piece of content. Ross Simmonds obsesses over what happens to the content you already made.
Ross Simmonds is the CEO of Foundation, a content marketing agency that has worked with brands like Bitly, Canva, Eventbrite, Paychex, and RBC, and the founder of Distribution.ai, a tool built to put content distribution on autopilot. His LinkedIn headline states the whole philosophy in one line: 'Putting Marketing Back Into Content Marketing.' Where most creators chase a bigger next post, Ross has spent a decade building a reputation as the person who called the channel shift early: Reddit for B2B in 2018, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) in 2024, and now AI-agent-native marketing workflows in 2026.
That track record comes from one belief he repeats in different words in almost every post. Create-once distribution is the discipline of treating a single idea as raw material for every channel it can survive on, then republishing it on repeat instead of moving on after one post. He does not write six new posts a week. He finds six more places to put the idea he already had.
Ships a post, watches it for a day, then starts from a blank page tomorrow. The idea dies after one channel.
Ships the same idea as a LinkedIn post, a Reddit thread, and a repost eight months later. The idea gets a career.
“Distribution is king.”
— A line he has repeated, word for word, every year since 2017 (83 reactions)
Five findings that repeated across 100 posts
- Distribution beats creation, always. His headline literally reads 'Putting Marketing Back Into Content Marketing,' and he built a company, Distribution.ai, around the idea that most teams have a distribution problem, not a content problem.
- Reach is modest. Conversation is not. Across the 100 posts we analyzed, he averages 81 reactions, but comments run 25.9% of reactions, more than four times the roughly 6% LinkedIn norm.
- Reddit is his signature channel. He calls himself early to 'Reddit for B2B back in 2018,' and it shows: Reddit strategy, citations, and case data appear across dozens of posts.
- He posts almost daily. About 8.4 times a week, more than one post per day on average, with Tuesday his heaviest day.
- No post in the window cracked 1,000 reactions. His account runs on volume and discussion, not virality.
The numbers behind the account
A comment-to-reaction ratio more than four times the platform norm is the real headline here, not raw reach.
Across the 100 posts we analyzed, Ross Simmonds averaged 81 reactions a post, a modest number for an account north of 61,000 followers. But the number that actually explains the account is the comment-to-reaction ratio: 25.9%, more than four times LinkedIn's roughly 6% norm. His posts do not go viral, they start arguments. Every fourth reaction is a comment, the signature of a practitioner account built for debate inside a niche (SEO, GEO, AI visibility, Reddit strategy) rather than a broadcast account chasing scale.
When he posts
The content-type mix
Where the engagement comes from
The top posts
| # | Post | Reactions | Comments | Reposts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 'Prioritizing EEAT was worth doing in 2020...' | 481 | 38 | 52 |
| 2 | This is what our planning week looked like | 287 | 36 | 5 |
| 3 | 'My mind is blown.' (on Ahrefs Agent A) | 267 | 61 | 7 |
| 4 | 'Go back to the basics.' | 206 | 37 | 7 |
| 5 | 'Marketers... sleep optimization is 100x...' | 157 | 43 | 0 |
| 6 | Spotted in Google AI Overviews | 152 | 26 | 12 |
The six content pillars
Every post is one of six repeatable moves, most of them built to start a conversation, not to go viral.
EEAT, LLM citations, and how brands get cited inside AI answers, his highest-performing theme.
Case studies and data on why Reddit ranks and gets cited, the theme he says he called first in 2018.
The philosophy behind Distribution.ai: one idea, republished on repeat, across every channel it can survive on.
Planning weeks, hires, and client wins that turn the agency itself into proof of the playbook.
Where he draws the line on AI: use it to move faster, never to replace judgment and taste.
Direct-address pep talks about showing up for months before anyone notices.
Pillar 1: AI visibility & GEO field notes (the reach engine)
Why it works: His biggest post of the window isn't an argument, it's a receipt. Seven identical lines, one word changed each year, and it reads as proof he called EEAT early. 366 of the 481 reactions were plain Likes, this is a credibility flex more than a debate starter.
Pillar 2: Reddit as a distribution channel (the signature niche)
Why it works: A five-step numbered playbook plus a real brand result. It's the format he repeats across dozens of Reddit posts: a concrete outcome, then the exact steps to copy it, which is also why 24 of the 122 reactions registered as Interest, well above his account average.
Pillar 3: Create once, distribute everywhere (the core thesis)
Why it works: The plainest statement of his whole account. Two three-word columns and a five-word verdict, then a plug for the product built to automate the second column, distribution, for you.
Pillar 4: Foundation, the team behind the feed (the proof)
Why it works: His second-biggest post of the window, and it isn't a marketing take at all. Photos, paella, and a promise kept turn a team offsite into proof that Foundation practices the culture it sells, and it doubles as a recruiting pitch.
Pillar 5: Contrarian AI-craft takes (the high-comment pillar)
Why it works: He is not anti-AI, Foundation runs on it, he is anti-outsourcing your voice to it. Naming the exact things AI can't replace (the craft, the quirks, the taste) is what turns this into one of his most-commented voice posts rather than a generic hot take.
Pillar 6: Consistency & personal-brand mindset (the pep talk)
Why it works: A two-line contrast with no hedge and no hashtag. Reframing six months of silence as the actual filter for who earns the follower count is why it pulled a 41.5% comment-to-reaction ratio, well above his own 25.9% account average.
The hooks that earned the comments
The pattern across his top posts is the same: state the thing, in the fewest words possible, then stop.
Repeat one line, once a year, unchanged except the year. 'Prioritizing EEAT was worth doing in 2020' through 2026.
Two or three words, no explanation needed. 'Go back to the basics.' 'RIP CONTENT FARMS.'
Name the audience, then the uncomfortable truth. 'Marketers… I'm telling you.'
Emoji-flagged like an alert. 'SPOTTED IN GOOGLE AI OVERVIEWS 👀' / '🚨 NEW AI VISIBILITY REPORT 🚨'
Open with the reaction, then the evidence. 'My mind is blown.'
State the common move, then the smart one, no connective tissue. 'Most marketing teams: Create -> Create -> Create.'
For the mechanics of building openers like these, our guide to writing LinkedIn hooks goes deeper into why the first line decides whether the rest gets read.
His top hooks, by the numbers
| Hook type | Opening line | Reactions |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-year receipt | 'Prioritizing EEAT was worth doing in 2020...' | 481 |
| Stunned reveal | 'My mind is blown.' | 267 |
| Blunt imperative | 'Go back to the basics.' | 206 |
| Direct-address confession | 'Marketers... I'm telling you.' | 157 |
Strong opens vs weak opens
- State the finding first
- One idea per line
- End the sentence, don't trail into a CTA
- Let the years or the numbers do the bragging
- Warm up with context before the point
- Ask a rhetorical question and wait
- Bury the number in paragraph three
- Explain why the post matters before making it
A voice that reads like a practitioner arguing in a Slack channel
Not a guru delivering a keynote, a marketer telling you exactly what he thinks, with a stat attached.
- Talks directly to the reader. 'Marketers…', 'Dear Social Media Managers,' 'Hey B2B Marketer ->' open a large share of his posts.
- Heavy on emoji as punctuation, not decoration. 🚨 flags breaking news, 👀 flags a reveal, ✌🏿🇨🇦 signs off a milestone.
- Short, single-idea paragraphs, often one line long, with a blank line between each.
- Ends on the belief, not a call to comment. Posts close on a verdict, 'Distribution is still the hard part. And it always will be,' rather than 'thoughts?'
- Cites a real number or study before an opinion. 'Across 8,566 keywords, Reddit outranks every vendor...' arrives before the takeaway.
- Uses hashtags sparingly and only at the very end, never woven into a sentence.
The recurring word is 'distribution,' used as a noun, a verb, and a company name. It shows up in his headline, in half the pillar posts, and in the name of the product he built to automate it.
What he does, and doesn't
- Address the reader by role ('Marketers…')
- Cite a stat before the opinion
- End on a belief, not a question
- Repeat his best lines across quarters
- Name the channel, not just 'content'
- Burying the point in a long windup
- Asking for comments without saying anything
- Posting a polished, hedge-everything paragraph
- Treating every channel the same
- Letting a good line retire after one post
The systems underneath the posts
A distribution funnel that treats every post as a candidate for a dozen channels, and a repost flywheel that makes 'once' a lie on purpose.
Ross has his own words for the philosophy: 'Create once. Distribute forever.' CaptureFlow's tagline is one word different: 'Capture once. Distribute everywhere.' The overlap isn't a coincidence, it's the same bet on where the leverage in content actually lives, one idea, reshaped for every channel it can survive on, instead of a fresh idea for every post. CaptureFlow is an AI content agent that turns your expertise into weeks of on-brand content for every platform. Where Ross runs that thesis with an agency team and Distribution.ai, CaptureFlow runs it for a solo founder: capture one idea in 5 minutes, and the AI content agent reshapes it into a LinkedIn post, an X thread, a carousel, and a quote image, on repeat, the way he argues every post should already work.
The distribution funnel
This is the funnel behind almost every AI-visibility post in the sample: he argues that citations outside your own domain, not more content on it, are what LLMs reward.
The repost flywheel
- 1Publish the idea oncea post, a stat, a client result
- 2Distribute it natively per channelreformatted for LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, X
- 3Repost it, on purpose'your best post from 8 months ago hasn't been seen by 95% of your audience'
- 4Each repost reaches a new slice of the audiencethe 95% who missed it the first time
- 5The compounding reach becomes the moatand feeds the confidence to try the next idea
He put a number on the habit himself: 'normalize distributing one piece of content 50 times before creating a new one.' That's the same instinct behind our guide to capturing once and distributing everywhere, and you can turn one post into channel-native versions with the free post repurposer. It's also the mirror image of the publish-everywhere instinct we mapped in the Gary Vaynerchuk playbook: different voice, same conviction that the channel is where content either lives or dies.
Choosing the channel
Text post or numbered list, built to be screenshot and reposted.
Short video clip, cut for the feed the same week it happens.
Real photo, named people, posted while it's still news.
Data post with the study linked, built for third-party pickup.
Numbered playbook plus a real brand outcome, built to be saved.
Two-line contrast, no hashtags, built to be argued with in the comments.
Your 30-day challenge
Run the playbook for a month. Treat one idea as the unit of work, not one post.
- Days 1-2: List your last 10 posts and where else each idea could have lived
- Days 3-4: Pick one channel you've ignored (Reddit, YouTube, or a subreddit you've never posted in) and post there once
- Days 5-7: Publish a multi-year receipt post: one line, repeated, with the year as the only variable
- Days 8-9: Cite a real stat or study before making your next opinion post
- Days 10-11: Write a numbered playbook post from a real client or personal result
- Days 12-14: Post a two-line contrast: the common move, then the smart one
- Days 15-17: Post a real photo from a team moment, named people, no stock graphics
- Days 18-19: Write a contrarian take on how your industry is using AI, and where the line is
- Days 20-21: Publish a blunt, two-to-four-word imperative post and see what it pulls
- Days 22-24: Repost your best-performing post from 6+ months ago, unchanged
- Days 25-27: Reformat one idea for a second channel it has never appeared on
- Days 28-30: Review which pillar earned the highest comment ratio and double down there
The metrics to track weekly
| Metric | Benchmark to aim for |
|---|---|
| Comment-to-reaction ratio | 15%+ |
| Reactions per post | 60+ |
| Weekly posting cadence | 5+ per week |
| Channels an idea reaches | 3+ |
| Reposts of past content | 1+ per month |
| Comments per post | 15+ |
This is the exact system CaptureFlow builds for marketing teams: capture one idea, and let the content agent reshape it across every channel your buyers are already on. See pricing for the plan that matches your flow.
The takeaways
- 01Treat distribution as the product, not an afterthought. Ross built an agency and a tool, Distribution.ai, around the idea that most teams have a distribution problem, not a content problem.
- 02Comments beat reach as the health metric. His posts average 81 reactions but a 25.9% comment-to-reaction ratio, more than four times the ~6% LinkedIn norm.
- 03Repost on purpose. 'Normalize distributing one piece of content 50 times before creating a new one' is a rule on this account, not a slogan.
- 04State the finding in line one. His top hooks never tease, they open with the number, the imperative, or the reaction itself.
- 05Pick the channel on purpose. Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn each get their own posts, because he argues different LLMs and buyers prefer different sources.
- 06Post almost daily. About 8.4 times a week is the cadence behind the compounding reach.
Frequently asked questions
- How did Ross Simmonds grow his LinkedIn following?
- By treating distribution, not creation, as the strategy: publishing near-daily (about 8.4 times a week), repeating his best lines across years, and pushing the same idea across LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube. Across 100 recent posts he grew past 61K followers while averaging 81 reactions per post.
- What makes Ross Simmonds' LinkedIn account different from a viral growth account?
- The comments, not the reach. None of the 100 posts we analyzed cleared 1,000 reactions, but his comment-to-reaction ratio sits at 25.9%, more than four times LinkedIn's roughly 6% norm, the signature of a practitioner account built for debate.
- What kind of post performs best for Ross Simmonds?
- A repeated, receipt-style hook. His top post, seven identical lines about prioritizing EEAT from 2020 to 2026, earned 481 reactions, and a team-offsite post about Foundation's planning week earned 287.
- How do you apply this playbook without a full agency team?
- Capture one idea and let a content agent handle the reshaping. CaptureFlow turns a single 5-minute capture into a week of native posts across platforms, so a solo founder can run the same create-once, distribute-everywhere system Ross runs with a team.
