JANUARY 11, 2022

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs. Each edition is packed with the latest news, strategies, and tactics, plus inspiring creator stories and exclusive education, all to help you create, grow, and monetize better.

Features in this issue (view online):

Full Tilt: Old-School Email Still the Clear Winner
Entrepreneur: Micro-Niche Content Tilt for Translation Content Business
Stan: Authenticity and Openness Help Food Blogger

full tilt

The Battle Between Social Media and Email Audiences

The latest social buzz seems way more sophisticated and advanced than some old-fashioned email subscriber list. Who even checks their email anymore, anyway? Emails are so 2010.

Well, a lot of people still check and engage with email. Emails are one of the fastest ways to convert your audience from a rented location on social media to an owned platform where you control access.

Don’t believe me? Here are some statistics based on industry titans and aggregate research that prove email subscribers are still around and are a powerful tool to expand your current content audience.

1. On social media … According to Backlinko, millennials and Gen Z have a whopping 8.4 social media accounts on average – splitting their time between all of them.

But with email … According to Prosperity Media, an individual averages 1.75 email accounts. (This statistic makes sense, since most people have a personal email address and a professional email.)

2. On social media … According to eMarketer, American users spend less than 35 minutes on any one channel:

33 minutes on Facebook
31 minutes on TikTok
31 minutes on Twitter
29 minutes on Instagram
28 minutes on Snapchat

But with email … According to a 2019 Adobe study, Americans average three hours a day checking work email and two hours a day checking their personal account. That’s 300 minutes total spent checking email every day – 10x the time spent on any other social site.

3. On social media … According to Hootsuite, the average Facebook post organically reaches about 5.2% of a page’s followers. That means only one of every 20 people who want to see your content will.

But with email … According to MailChimp, the average email open rate across all industries was 21.33% in 2021. That means one of every five subscribers not only sees but opens your content. Even better for content entrepreneurs? The average “hobby” email was opened by 27.74% – that’s more than one in four subscribers.

Now, you can see it’s the generation of communities on owned properties rather than the expansion of social media followers on rented land that will drive your content business to the next level.

– Ashley Stryker

To get more stats and some help to convert your fans to subscribers, read the longer story.

CEX Never-Ending Tickets ON SALE

There are now just 80 CEX Never-Ending Tickets remaining. CEX Never-Ending Tickets are NFTs that give the owner access to the Creator Economy Expo (May 2-4, 2022) event forever, as well as exclusive VIP access at ALL CEX events, a private discord group, as well as random airdrops.

Of the 80 remaining, there are still six for a chance to meet our keynote (to be announced soon) backstage and one remaining to introduce a keynote from the main stage. See announced speakers here.

Why are they ON SALE? With the price of Ethereum hitting fresh lows, the investment in a Never-Ending Ticket is around the cost of two regularly-priced tickets. Pick one up today at https://mint.cex.events/.

If you have questions or need help, just reply to this email.

For more information on CEX, visit our website.

content entrepreneur spotlight

Course Creator Gwenydd Jones Targeted a Tiny Audience for The Translator’s Studio

Entrepreneur: Gwenydd Jones

Biz: The Translator’s Studio

Tilt: Build the skills and confidence you need to be a more successful translator

Primary Channel: Website (3.3K monthly; 50 students annually)

Other Channels: YouTube (26), Facebook (573), newsletter (750)

Time to First Dollar: First month

Rev Streams: Course sales, workshops

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

Solve your pain point: Gwenydd’s failure and subsequent success prompted her to question why and create a course offering to address the problems she identified.
Go small at first: Translator’s Studio launched with a single language and a single focus on a certification test.
Go bigger gradually: With their initial offering a success, Gwenydd added another language and a more basic level course to entice a larger audience.

– Kimmy Gustafson

All the Story: To learn more about Gwenydd Jones and The Translator’s Studio, check out the longer story.

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

quick talk

Caught on … Twitter

“Once you realize that you don’t need a mega audience to create an income stream, creating gets really fun.” – Cooper Krauss

things to know

Money

Holiday pie: YouTube is the social channel that got the most money from brands this holiday season. It earned 36% of retailers’ paid social. Among other sharers of the pie: Facebook (25%), Twitter (21%), and Instagram (19%). (Retail Dive)
Tilt Take: Understanding where brands invest their ad dollars is helpful to inform planning for your content business.
Give up: Creators are using their communities to do more good. YouTuber Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo recently set a record for the largest amount raised by a single creator. His recent annual Build Against Cancer online event lifted his audience’s five-year donations to over $10M for St. Jude’s Children Hospital. (Venture Beat)
Tilt Take: Building and growing an audience doesn’t just have to be profitable for your business.

Audiences

Repurpose: Photographer Alex Stemplewski found reposting his TikToks to YouTube Shorts brought in millions more views and hundreds of thousands of new subscribers. (The Publish Press)
Tilt Take: Make the most of the content you create. Think about how to share it on other platforms, break it up into multiple components, etc.
Bigger subs: Creator platform Podia recently crossed 20K subs on its YouTube channel. Top three lessons learned? Get specific with topics. Be genuinely helpful. Be consistent. (Ben Toalson)
Tilt Take: All these lessons center on one thing: Always think about how to serve your audience.

Tech and Tools

LinkedIn Live: LinkedIn’s Live Events feature is doing well. Now, it wants to extend the connections between participants and hosts. It’s testing a feature to let users tune into live discussions, raise their virtual hands, and more. (Social Media Today; h/t Matt Navarra)
Tilt Take: If you use Live Events, think about how to structure your event to allow for live interactions with your audience.
Just a like: Instagram users may be able to just like Stories soon. They’re testing adding the option to its current reaction lineup of laughing, surprised, heart eyes, tear-eyed, clap, fire, and 100 emojis. What won’t change? Only creators will be able to see these reactions. (Tech Crunch)
Tilt Take: Not sure there’s a huge need for a simpler reaction (i.e., like) for Instagram Story viewers.

And Finally

Lots of creators: A recent survey by fintech company Oxygen found of today’s side hustles, most are in the creator economy. Here’s the breakdown of who identifies as a creator or freelancer: Gen Z (93%), millennials (87%), Gen X (91%), and Baby Boomers (78%). (WWD; h/t Brad Heureux)
Tilt Take: Age is not a factor in creating side hustles. (And we already know it isn’t in creating content businesses.)
Ask for backup: “Startups need to have a backup plan to make sure that if they don’t become the next Patreon, the creators who trusted them won’t be doomed.” (Tech Crunch)
Tilt Take: If you set up shop on a startup (or even an old) platform, research what happens if things don’t go as you hope for their business. Then decide if your business needs to be there.

we’re a stan for Abbey Sharp

Registered dietitian and food brand ambassador Abbey Sharp created the Abbey’s Kitchen: Science and Sass on YouTube (505K) and as a blog to debunk unhealthy food myths and feature nutritional quality recipes and cooking tips.

The mom uses her degree in applied science for food and nutrition studies to inform her commentary on the right way to discuss a person’s weight loss journey by using celebrities Adele and Lizzo as an example. Most recently, she’s fact-checked TikTok diet tips, taught her followers how to increase their BMI healthily, and candidly discussed her SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) diagnosis.

In 2018, Abbey released a book titled The Mindful Glow Cookbook and opened her own media school, Sharper Edge Media Training, which caters to dietitians and food bloggers looking to grow within the social and traditional media sphere.

Why we’re a Stan: Abbey’s openness with her personal health combined with her expert insight allows her fans to have a relatable, trusting connection with her.

– Shameyka McCalman

the business of content

Need a Content Tilt? Don’t Be Original (Content Inc.)
2022 Content Predictions Episode (This Old Marketing)
Before You Start a Small Business, You Must Take These Steps (Fast Company)
Quit Your Job? Here’s What To Do About Health Insurance (WJZ)
Advice to Startup Founders; Be Prepared To Fail (Book Review) (Wired)

the tilt team

Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony, with an assist from Angelina Kaminski, Ashley Stryker, Kimmy Gustafson, Shameyka McCalman, and Don Borger.

Email v. Social – January 11, 2022