JUNE 11, 2021

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-a-week newsletter for content creators who want to be or already are content entrepreneurs. We talk aspiration, inspiration, revenue, audiences, tech, trends, and more to help your content business thrive.

full tilt

What is a Content Business?

The crazy thing about starting a content business is that it’s not like launching a more traditional business. You can’t just make a plan and a few months later open a storefront, stock it with products, and market it to bring in customers.

Nope, a content business requires you to plan your content strategy – your sweet spot and content tilt (steps 1 and 2), construct your base – single format on a single platform (step 3), bring in an audience (step 4), and start earning revenue (step 5).

And that takes an average of 18 months, according to Joe Pulizzi, founder of The Tilt and author of the recently released Content Inc.

– Ann Gynn

To learn the last two steps, which number is the make-it-or-break-it step, examples to help you create a vision for the stage, and how content businesses are like traditional businesses, read the longer story.

Instagram Creator Helps Other Influencers Monetize Their Brands

Entrepreneurs: Lissette Calveiro

Biz: Lissette Claveiro personal brand (agency: Influence with Impact)

Tilt: Honest and inspirational stories to help influencers

Channel: Instagram (51.7K)

Marketing channel: TikTok

Rev streams: Sponsored content, brand partnerships, speaking engagements, coaching

2020 revenue: $201K

Our Favorite Actionable Advice

Look for the spark: Lissette strategizes her Instagram content by asking, “How will this piece of content spark up a conversation with the people I want to attract?”
Get a content mission: Figure out what your mission is and who your audience is. Ask what type of transformation you want for them.
Post frequently on TikTok: It wasn’t until she started posting multiple times a day that her TikTok audience grew exponentially.

Some of the Story:

In 2018, after nine years in PR and social media, including a role as director of influencer marketing at Ogilvy, Lissette Calveiro started her own agency Influence with Impact. But in the process of helping others optimize their influence and content creation, the Latina CEO became an influencer and content creator herself.

Though she started her personal Instagram in 2011, a few years ago, she actively created a content strategy to grow her account. Today it has 57.1K followers. “It took about four years to actually know what the heck I was doing,” Lissette says. “But the moment I started taking my Instagram account more seriously, it took me less than a year to start making money from it.”

When it comes to her Instagram strategy, she focuses on searchable and relatable content. “I think to myself: ‘How will this piece of content spark up a conversation with the people I want to attract?’ I can tell my audience something in 10 different ways. So which way will make someone feel seen, someone feel heard today?”

Before her strategic postings, she created content about acai bowls, expensive clothing, and lavish vacations. Then she opened up about going into $10,000 in debt to keep up with that influencer lifestyle.

Lissette’s Instagram, which only had a few thousand followers, grew by tens of thousands after she implemented her content tilt – honest and helpful influencer marketing advice. In 2019, she joined TikTok (31.5K), which she uses to drive traffic to her Instagram channel.

Lissette’s advice to aspiring content creators and influencers is to get clear about your content mission and audience. “Figure out what your mission is, what type of transformation you want for people, and who you want to make that transformation.”

– Bonnie Azoulay

All the Story: To learn more about Lissette Calveiro, the content entrepreneur, how she balanced two full time jobs and the mix of her income today, check out the longer story.

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us or email [email protected].

quick talk

Caught on … Newsletter Glue

“Every rejection is a tiny piece of feedback to help you improve.” – Lesley Sim

things to know

Money

Sticking to his own: Writer Ben LeFort says no to the recently launched news aggregator platform News Break. Compensation is based not only on content creation but each article’s views in a month and the author’s follower numbers. “I have simply decided to minimize my reliance on platforms that rely on algorithms and ad revenue,” he writes. (Writing for Profit)
Tilt take: When a third party sets compensation based on views and follower numbers, you have to be in both the content creation AND promotion business. And if you’re going to do that, you should do it for your business, not another entity.
Hit me: This week, YouTube star Logan Paul survived eight rounds with the once-great boxer Floyd Mayweather. His payout? Estimated at $250K, plus 5% of pay-per-view revenue. This isn’t the first time the YouTuber diversified his revenue stream with boxing. His first boxing-for-money match came in 2018. (Dexerto)
Tilt take: You probably won’t ever don boxing gloves, but you should think about how to diversify your revenue stream like Logan does. In addition to content and boxing, he has merchandise and a paid member community.

Audiences

Everyone starts at zero: Be your first subscriber. Get two to 10 from your contacts. Find 11 to 50 by asking your fans and followers on social media. To infinity? Include in-newsletter referral messages, write guest content, and be helpful to your targeted community. (Newsletter Glue) (h/t to Inbox Reads)
Tilt take: Don’t start big. You’ll get discouraged. Set reasonable goals, including achievement dates. Figure out how to get your first 50 subscribers, then come up with a plan to get the next 100, and so on and so on.
Facebook smiles on newsletters: This month, Facebook expects to launch Bulletin, a newsletter product that will live outside the Facebook platform but let creators access their targeted audiences within Facebook’s 2.85B users. (Vox)
Tilt take: Right now, Facebook is inviting the creators but expects to open it up later. It’s another newsletter platform option in a crowded marketplace with a differentiator of a big, big audience. We’re hopeful Facebook sticks to its earlier word and lets Bulletin creators keep all the subscriber revenue they generate.

Tech and Tools

Taking a bite out of open rates: Apple users will have another privacy option. The tech company announced it will let them block tracking by email senders. (Morning Brew)
Tilt take: If you have many privacy-concerned Apple users on your email list, reset your open rate goals and start thinking about other ways to measure your newsletter’s success.
Picture this purchase: At Instagram’s Creators Week, the platform said it’s testing a new affiliate-linking tool and allowing the shops feature on creators’ personal Instagram profiles. Plus, they’re going to have new ways to earn cash for using badges on Instagram and stars on Facebook. The goal, Mark Zuckerberg says, is to enable creators to make a living off of the platforms. (Yahoo Finance)
Tilt take: Sure, Instagram and Facebook know content creators are the lifeblood of their business. So it makes sense they want to keep them happy (and making money) so they’ll stay. You shouldn’t put all your revenue eggs in that basket, but they could be good streams.

And Finally

Click for experts: Facebook Group admins can now designate members as “experts.” (Matt Navarra w/ h/t to tl;dr marketing)
Tilt take: The expert designation can be especially helpful in your communities that tackle topics where someone’s knowledge level or experience can boost their credibility. It also can encourage “experts” to participate more actively in the community.
Esports meets crypto: Team Solo Mid (TSM) is now TSM FTX. The esports team-fielding business struck a multi-year $210M deal with the crypto trading platform. Check out the fun TSM FTX announcement video. (Sports Pro w/ h/t to Adam Pulizzi)
Tilt take: Even if you aren’t in the esports content business, this big news is a great reminder to think outside traditional revenue streams for your content business. How much would it take for another brand to attach their name to your brand’s name?

we’re a stan for Corinthius

There are a lot of Minecraft and Minecraft-related streamers in the world. Corinthius focuses their YouTube videos on 100 Days content. To the uninitiated, 100 Days refers to the number of in-game days your character survives. In the game world, a “day” might equate to about 20 minutes of play time. (Also to the unfamiliar, that’s a really long life.)

“(Corinthius) often pushes the creative boundaries with Minecraft and comes up with some of the most unique challenges one can think of,” writes Sportskeeda.

In an interview with Sportskeeda Esports’ Abhishek Mallick, Corinthius (no real name ever given) says: “While people see my recent success, what they do not see is the full year of hard work, posting weekly and then biweekly videos …

“As I began to grow, I made friends with bigger YouTubers, such as xNestorio, who gave me some pointers in how to grow steadily on YouTube and now here we are.”

Based on their YouTube contact info, Corinthius is repped by AFK Partners, a talent management and influencer marketing agency dedicated to esports and gaming.

You also can find Corinthius streaming and posting on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram. (Corinthius hasn’t released their real-life name for security reasons.)

Why we’re a Stan: Corinthius kept their videos unlisted until they found their content tilt – 100 Days content. When they started the 100 Days content, the channel had 800 subscribers. Now, it has over 338K – what great proof that the content tilt idea works.

the business of content

This week on the Content Inc. podcast, an interview with the amazing Ann Handley, who built her newsletter to over 50K subscribers in just a few short years. She details how she did it and what’s next.

In the latest This Old Marketing, Robert raves about the Salesforce 360 movement, while Joe comments on Google knowledge panels.

the tilt team

Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, and Dave Anthony, with an assist from Bonnie Azoulay and Don Borger.

The ‘C’ in Content Stands for Crazy – June 11, 2021