Hey,
Hope your week has been the perfect combination of productive and fun so far.
On the way back from NYC as I’m writing this, with Red (Taylor’s Version) playing in my AirPods. Had a great time (clearly), and will definitely be traveling more in the coming year.
If you’re new around here, Thursday newsletters are different than my Monday articles.
These are meant to be a conversation, not a case study.
A conversation about what I’m learning, what I’m having success with, and what I’ve been struggling with in the past week — because odds are, you can relate.
And don’t worry, it’s all still marketing and business related. You won’t have to hear any rants about my dating life, though those tweets seem to perform well…
Here’s a quick breakdown of the V1 structure of these Thursday newsletters:
1 marketing insight (that you can use for yourself)
1 marketing resource that was most impactful for me this week
1 account you should follow to get better at marketing
Like I said — V1
This will evolve over the next few weeks, months, years.
And real quick… if this piece was forwarded to you by a friend, take less than 11 seconds to subscribe here:
Now, let’s get into the good stuff….
1 simple mindset shift that will lead to more followers, more views and more revenue from your content
Chances are, you’re making a grave mistake with your content
(Don’t worry, I’ve done it too)
You think the work is done once you hit “publish.”
You think the work is done after you’ve filmed the video, written the email, sent the tweet.
What you don’t realize is this mentality is slowing your audience growth drastically — thus, limiting your brand’s ability to garner attention.
Luckily, there’s a fix. Here’s the truth:
When you hit “publish,” the work has only just begun.
Creation is only one piece of the puzzle, distribution is the other.
Your content strategy will be effective if, and only if, distribution is taken into consideration. This is how you make audience growth a science, and not a matter of luck.
“But Tommy, how do I distribute my content??”
Relax, I got you. Keep reading.
The simplest way to do this, and where I’d recommend you start, is by sending it to your fam and friends.
Don’t be on some MLM shit spamming them left and right. But if it’s genuine, they should appreciate the hustle and show some love on your piece.
Especially on platforms where watch time and engagement matter for reach (like YouTube), getting that initial view velocity can make a difference.
For written content like Twitter and email, this isn’t *as* important, though it’s still nice. When content already has engagement, people are more likely to engage on it.
Think about when you see a TikTok video with 1 like on your FYP — you almost always scroll. The same video with 10,000 likes would at least intrigue you.
Next, push your core content all over social media.
(Well the 1-2 platforms that your target audience is active on)
Post the YouTube clips to TikTok, pull excerpts from articles as tweets, post podcast soundbites.
And don’t just do it once.
Be a relentless SOB about it.
If your content is good, you’re not annoying anyone. And if you happen to trigger someone by posting your content, they aren’t in your target audience anyway.
Do this for the week after you drop the piece. And then do it again later once your audience has already forgotten about the post, because they will.
You put all that valuable time into creating the piece — don’t you want to squeeze the most ROI you can out of it?
Here’s how I promo my articles on Twitter:
Tweet: Tease the article topic 2 days before release
Tweet: Build hype 24hrs before release
Tweet: Drop article
Retweet article tweet ~3-6hrs later
Tweet: Post excerpt from article
Retweet article tweet ~12hrs later
Tweet: Post excerpt from article
Retweet article tweet ~24hrs
Thread related to article (will implement this one on my next article)
And then throughout the week, I’ll post more tweets and excerpts from the piece — though it’s not as structured as the first day. I’ll also retweet the OG announcement tweet a few more times.
It just comes down to priorities, and at that point I find it more productive to spend time working on other things. Though if I see the piece is getting more traction than usual, I’ll push it some more.
This works for Twitter bc the shelf life of content is extremely short.
Most of your audience isn’t going to see your tweets at first, so you need to consistently be putting it on the TL again.
This general approach can, and should, be applied on whatever platform you post on. Of course, it’ll look different depending on the specific context.
Right now, don’t overthink it. Your distribution strategy won’t be perfect. The most important part right now is that you start prioritizing it.
Happy to discuss this with you if you reply to this email with a question :)
Resource of the week:
Usually I would use this segment to curate other creators’ work, but… I’ve been enjoying myself in NYC for the past few days.
So, content consumption hasn’t been a priority.
But I think you’ll like this even better.
If you want to get on a call for 30 minutes and ask me questions about marketing, content strategy, etc for your brand (or personal brand) — just shoot me a DM on Twitter.
These calls are totally free, and I have nothing to sell you.
Selfishly, I’d like to get an idea of what marketing problems you’re running into most often. And I just wanna build relationships with some cool people in the space.
In return, you get some free game. I like that trade.
Not sure how long these will be public (or free), so I’d recommend booking soon.
Account to follow if you want to get better at marketing:
If your brand is creating content on YouTube, titles matter.
Like, a lot.
Like, more than the editing of your video (at first).
When people don’t click on your video, they don’t watch, and the algorithmic overlords at YT won’t push your content.
An underrated creator I’ve come across on Twitter that’s helping solve this problem is Jake Thomas.
He’s actually been writing 30 threads in 30 days (on day ~19 now I think?) on how to improve your YouTube game.
Here’s one of my fav threads from him:
Go show him some love: [follow Jake here]
One more thing
If you enjoyed this, and want to stick around for future editions, you can sub for free here:
Talk to you on Monday,
Tommy
PS - I put a lot of time into these pieces, so if you enjoyed it and want more people to see these emails, it’d mean to world if you shared this :)