OCTOBER 14, 2022

Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

In Friday 5s: It’s time to have an audience ownership strategy, personalize your new YouTube handle before the bots do, and get ready for Halloween.
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Whenever Joe Pulizzi tweets, “Don’t build on rented land,” the volume of positive responses amazes us.

Creators get it – to create a long-term, sustainable content business, you need to have direct access to your audience. But the allure of third-party platforms, especially social media, is great, given their huge audiences.

Here’s how to have the best of both worlds:

• Use social media primarily as a marketing tool. (It’s the most popular outreach tool used by 77% of creators in The Tilt’s research.)
• Use your owned platforms to have direct contact with your audiences and monetize your content products.

These five ideas can help you do just that.

1. Create a content extension: Accidentally Wes Anderson’s Wally Koval built an Instagram following of 1.5M with once-a-day images and captions of a global locale. Then, he extended that Instagram week with an email called the 8th Post – the same format as Instagram but only accessible by email. (He has since evolved to a biweekly AWA non-newsletter to capture his audience’s emails.) That bonus gave fans something they wanted (more content) and AWA the opportunity to own their audience.

2. Include calls to action: Audiences on your rented land might not be aware you own land or that they could visit it. Use calls to action to publicize your owned land and invite them to join you there.

Design low-key CTA for awareness of your brand’s owned land. Blippi, a kids’ educational video provider, includes its website address in the about section of its YouTube channel. Black Forager mentions her link page in her Instagram bio.

Develop specific CTAs for your paid and free content products. Ask your podcast listeners to subscribe to show notes. Ask audiences for their mobile numbers to receive a weekly text message with a helpful or inspiring note relevant to your content tilt.

3. Make an offer: No matter how people find your owned site, they are still just visitors. When they arrive or after they’ve consumed some of your content, present them with a gift. The Broke Black Girl does that with a pop-up offer made to visitors within a few seconds of arrival. She offers a free guide – The Top 5 Money Mistakes Most People Make – available to those who provide their email addresses.

4. Host a contest: Everybody likes to win something. Brainstorm what would motivate your audience to enter a contest. A user-generated content contest can be a win-win method because you get content to repurpose on your site and the email addresses of entrants. However, this type of contest limits responses only to those who have and want to contribute content. Simple prize drawings usually elicit bigger audiences because they only require a name and their email address. Their success usually depends on much the audience values the prize offering.

TIP: Note on the entry form that the contestants agree to have their names added to your brand’s database and receive future emails from you.

5. Don’t abuse the privilege: Welcoming the audience to your owned land is only the first step. They’ve trusted you enough to give access to their inbox or text messages. Now, it’s up to you to keep earning that trust so they don’t unsubscribe. Deliver what they signed up for without bombarding them with promotions and other things they didn’t agree to receive. Make it clear on how they can opt out – that means don’t try to hide or make your unsubscribe note so small they can’t find it. Invite them to be among the first participants in new launches, products, etc.

What do you do to attract an owned audience? Share in The Tilt Discord community.

Resources:

• ​Building Your Audience on Social? You Better Make a Plan​
• ​How To Market To Your Subscribers​
• ​Every Content Entrepreneur Should Learn From OnlyFans’ Content Ban​
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• Check out the brand new The Business of Creators Report from The Tilt and HubSpot.
• Last chance! Get your CEX Call for Speakers submissions in. Open submission period ends tomorrow (10/15). Also, don’t forget to nominate a speaker by tomorrow as well!
• ​500 to 1000: Driving Early Revenue [10k Creator Podcast]
• ​Social Media Giveth, then Taketh Away [This Old Marketing Podcast]
• Looking for tech solutions? Check out The Tilt Tech Stack.

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• New feature means you have until Nov. 14 to pick a custom handle for your YouTube presence and forgo its default URL system. [instructions]
• ​The Washington Post social guy talks how they create the content and grew its Instagram to 6M. [Q&A article]
• Alex Garcia shares a nine-step plan to ultimately build an owned audience and thriving business. [Twitter graphic]
• Read these five profiles of the savviest creator economy investors. [article]
• ​Will you get rich in the creator economy? This entrepreneur says no. [article]

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Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Pam Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony.

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