How many times do you have to share content before people notice?

About seven. Don't assume people have seen your stuff, even people close to you. You have to put it in front of them repeatedly before it registers.

Quick Answer

• Don't assume anyone has seen your content, even your own family.
• The age-old rule still holds: people need to be told about seven times before it registers.
• Months of work on one piece means nothing if your audience never sees it enough times.

Why repetition is the job, not a failure

Ben Hillman, executive producer of the Run the Numbers podcast, gives the most honest distribution advice in the interview: don't assume people have seen your stuff. His own dad is still figuring out how to subscribe to the things he makes.

"It's age-old advice, but it's still true. You have to tell people seven times before it registers in their brain that something happened." — Ben Hillman

He'll spend months on a single episode and still meet people who've never heard of it. That's not a sign the work was bad. It's a sign that one post, or even a few, is never enough exposure.

The lesson for B2B marketers: stop assuming your audience saw the announcement. Plan to show up many times, across many surfaces, before you expect anyone to notice. Repetition isn't spam. It's how awareness actually forms.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many times do people need to see content before it sticks?

Ben Hillman cites the age-old rule of about seven times. He says don't assume people have seen your stuff, because it takes repeated exposure before something registers in someone's brain.

Why don't people remember my content the first time?

Because a single exposure rarely lands. Ben points out that even after months of work on one episode, people he meets haven't heard of it. Attention is scarce, so you need repetition across platforms.

Is it annoying to share the same content multiple times?

No. Ben frames repetition as necessary, not spammy. Most of your audience misses any single post, so re-sharing and repurposing is how you reach the people who didn't see it the first time.

Full Clip Transcript

Don't assume that people have seen your stuff. My own parents, and I think my dad is still trying to figure out how to subscribe to the things that I make. I'll spend months on something like this CFO stock exchange video that I talked about, and I know that people haven't even heard of it. It's age-old advice, but it is still true: you have to tell people seven times before it registers in their brain that something happened.

Full Interview Transcript

Dane: Hi everybody, my name is Dane Frederiksen. I am a B2B video expert and I'm on a mission to help companies get visible, trusted, and build pipeline faster with video. And I'm joined today by Ben Hillman from Mostly Media. Welcome, Ben.

Ben: Hey, thanks for having me, Dane.

Dane: So we're gonna talk today about the mighty world of media and about distribution. So let's stop there and let you introduce yourself about what your role is in distribution right now.

Ben: Yeah, so I'm the director of production at Mostly Media. My primary role is being the executive producer of our podcast, Run the Numbers. It's a podcast for CFOs and aspiring CFOs. And we put out episodes twice a week, for eight episodes a month. And along with that comes a lot of distribution troubles.

Dane: What is the biggest challenge about doing a show like that?

Ben: The biggest challenge is not living and dying by every single upload. We'll make episodes that are more topic-based, like the history of the stock exchanges, and it performs better from a views perspective than some of the interview episodes. But the struggle is to contextualize it, to remember the TAM that we're addressing here, that it's not this massive audience.

Dane: Why is a targeted show an important thing to do right now?

Ben: I think that's always been the play. I remember going to the second ever VidCon, the YouTube conference back in 2011. They were talking about you want to find your niche, niche down. And I don't think that is ever going to change. There's always going to be a specific audience that you can speak to. I live in Burbank, California, and there's a creator whose niche is being the influencer for Burbank, basically. There's always gonna be those niches.

Dane: Why is distribution so important now?

Ben: It's just because it's easy as heck to distribute now. We had a discussion of, let's make a hundred pieces of content off of this one thing. And my pushback is, I liken what we do to playing a baseball game. I want quality at-bats. You don't just want as many times up to the plate as possible. You want to make sure that when you're up to bat, you're prepared, you've done the research. And that comes into play with using these tools, whether that's ChatGPT, Claude, or any other AI software.

Dane: What do B2B teams need to know about distribution right now?

Ben: The age-old question around quality and quantity, it's kind of both. We're on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. But not falling prey to that spray and pray mentality, making sure the platforms you're performing on aren't just a dumping ground. This is an intentional piece of content that I'm trying to give the best possible chance to succeed.

Dane: How do you know if a platform like TikTok is performing well?

Ben: The hardest thing is attribution. We had someone comment on a YouTube video that said, I saw your clips on Instagram. We put out two shorts every day, and they get one to three hundred views. But that one comment tells me there are probably people who didn't comment who came from these different platforms. That legitimizes it.

Dane: Is video content gonna actually help you show up in AI search?

Ben: We've done crude tests of going to ChatGPT or Claude and asking, what's the best podcast for CFOs? And our show will pop up. I don't have a lot of panic around showing up because we already do show up. It absolutely matters. The fact that we're showing up there is one less thing to worry about. So I come from a privileged perspective.

Dane: What's a takeaway for using video content for visibility and trust and building pipeline?

Ben: Don't assume that people have seen your stuff. My own dad is still trying to figure out how to subscribe to the things that I make. It's age-old advice, but it's still true: you have to tell people seven times before it registers. And that comes hand in hand with, take the piece of content, break it up into chunks. It stands alone. Show up where people are and remember they're not gonna necessarily know everything about you.

Dane: When people say CFOs aren't on TikTok, what's your comeback?

Ben: Yeah, they are. But maybe they aren't, and their kid might be, or their spouse, or their neighbor. The next best person you can get, other than a customer, is a friend of a customer. Maybe someone sees it who knows a CFO and says, have you heard of this guy? And it's a validation that this is a legitimate person, and now I'm in play.

Dane: Okay, that's a good one. Well, this has been a great conversation. Thanks again, Ben.

Ben: Yeah, thanks for having me, Dane.

Dane: And we're wrapped.