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Most platform advice tells you how. Almost none of it tells you why. Substack and a traditional newsletter platform are not the same thing. And using them interchangeably means you’re trying to solve the wrong problem. Using the Jones Soda X Crayola collab as an example, here's what it looks like to run one launch across a newsletter, social, and Substack — three different jobs, working together instead of duplicating each other.
"My buyers don't need social media." "It's full of noise and nonsense." I've heard versions of this sentence from a lot of smart, experienced people - and most of the time, it's a personal opinion cosplaying as a strategic decision. Here's how to tell bias from data, and why it matters.
"My buyers don't need social media." "It's full of noise and nonsense." I've heard versions of this sentence from a lot of smart, experienced people - and most of the time, it's a personal opinion cosplaying as a strategic decision. Here's how to tell bias from data, and why it matters.
A business is a kitchen. HR is the fridge. Operations is the oven. Finance is the plumbing. Sales is the sink. Marketing is the counter - the surface everything moves across. It's not the heaviest appliance in the room. But take it out and suddenly nothing has anywhere to land. You don't realize how much you need the counter until you're trying to prep a meal over the sink.
“Influencer” has become a murky catch-all for folks who contract with brands to promote products or services. Depending on your marketing strategy and sales goals, contracting with Influencers, Ambassador, and/or Affiliates can help further brand awareness, attract and educate new and current audiences, and increase sales.
As someone who has crafted numerous editorial calendars based on an strategy, posting outside the plan can be tough. On the flip side, with more and more people changing up how they view brands and use the platforms, involving HR can be both an incredible recruiting tool and a refreshing way to share a brand’s story. And you know what? Boom. Content made and problems solved all in one.
It doesn’t have to be an exact match - introducing new voices can be very helpful in reaching new audiences, but you should feel confident you can slide their content into your feed without causing a massive jolt to your audience.
I take three actions with his posts: 1) swipe through the pics or watch the watch the video, 2) tap to read all the content, and 3) ‘like’ the post. Three points of fairly consistent engagement and I’m delivered his new posts in a very consistent manner whenever I hop into the app. This is the algorithm working and working well. (And note: no saves, no shares - just watching, reading, and liking. Basically the algorithm thinks we’re friends - and who am I to correct that?)
The key difference from the social platforms: we ‘google’ with an idea of what we want or need, or have a question we’d like answered. Using the market example: we go to a farmers market to get food and support local farmers and producers; not to buy an airline ticket. Same goes for when we use a browser - we have a general idea of what we’re looking for or a question we’d like answered.
A friend paused mid-scroll to ask if a post's "low" likes were being throttled. It had 15K likes and 2K shares — that's not low. That same night, a Ted Lasso episode showed the exact same problem: a commercial with massive online support yet a less-than-desired attendance at a match. Here's what 100,000 likes actually look like translated into a real crowd — and why the number that matters isn't the one everyone's counting.