Reflecting on the Past Month: Building My Content & Distribution Flywheels
As my time at Creator Cabins chugs to a close, I’ve begun reflecting on what I built over the past month. last August, in my application for the residency I said I wanted to publish 5 essays and send out my weekly newsletter.
That was it.
Looking back on September, I’m astounded by how much I achieved with commitment and fanatic discipline. Instead of publishing a handful of essays, I launched my writing challenge and published eighteen pieces of writing, 2 of which were longform essays here on the blog and 1 was an article for CabinDAO.
This essay you’re reading is #19, the 4th and final longform piece I’ll be publishing as part of cohort 3 of the Creator Cabins Residency. I’ll be reflecting on the two major projects that came out of this month — my content creation and distribution flywheels — and what’s next for my writing.
A short message before we dive in: If you’re into DAOs and web3, you’ll probably enjoy my weekly newsletter on web3, creativity, and the creator economy. Subscribe below to get more posts, or check out previous editions to “try before you buy”.
This essay is kinda like an investor memo, but for you, my wonderful readers, and I hope you enjoy it.
What worked: Accelerating my content flywheel
When I began my writing challenge, here’s how I wrote my posts:
Read articles and listen to podcasts, take notes via Readwise
Jot down a rough outline the night before
Sit down and write for 2-3 hours every morning
Publish the post and use ideas from that for next post
This process produced posts around the topics of writing and creativity, areas that I’ve done a lot of work and thinking on. For example, these were the top posts from last week:
“Working in Public as a Writer: Using Blog Posts as Reporting Memos”
“Making the Anne-Laure Challenge Harder with Investigative Essays”
While I enjoy writing about creativity, the biggest personal growth came from writing about what I didn’t know: web3. And because this blog is about open-sourced self-reinvention, moving forward, I’ll be focusing my lens on this space. In addition to my weekday posts, I’m rejiggering my systems to let me publish an in-depth, well-researched essay every Wednesday, beginning next week. Here’s what my new content production flywheel will look like:
Study web3 through articles, podcasts, and participating in DAOs
Publish weekday blog posts and tweets — “reporting memos” to share what I learn
Publish — let’s just call it what it is — a research paper every Wednesday
Get more ideas from Step 1
What worked: Building distribution into the product
Since I started this challenge a month ago, my Twitter following has grown from from 685 to 767. This is small beans for some of y’all, but growth is growth.
What worked for me weren’t crunchy threads like what my friend Amanda writes or punchy tweet like what Dickie Bush does. Instead my Twitter growth came from investing time in online communities off Twitter, specifically in CabinDAO and in Write of Passage. My distribution flywheel looks something like this:
Make new web3 friends in Discord communities, be helpful, and build 1:1 relationships (Ex. Hanging out in CabinDAO’s Discord and joining community calls, then tweeting about it)
Tag my new friends for help with my posts then thank them after publishing it to get engagement and traction (Ex. I tweeted for help here then published my post on DAOs)
Publish my notes from articles, podcasts, and videos and tagging the folks involved (here’s anexample)
The next step is to continue seeking out more web3 contributors, writers, and friends to have online conversations with. In addition to Discord, I’ve signed up for web3 newsletters, both by individual writers and DAOs. I’ll find time to read and respond to them with my thoughts and questions.
I also started adding people to a private Twitter list that tracks movers and shakers in theDAO, NFT, and web3 ecosystems. Soon, I’ll actively start replying and inserting myself into these conversations.
Right now, my Twitter’s pretty quiet unless I tweet something. But it’s only a matter of time before I hit a viral inflection point and things go haywire. I suspect this’ll happen when one of my in-depth web3 essays get traction and the reach is multiplied by the number of industry folks who follow me.
What’s next: Make more friends & growing email subscriptions
While my Twitter account has been steadily gaining steam, my email subscriber count has stayed flat at ~325 (this is after netting out new subscriptions and unsubscribes).
For the next month of writing, I’m calibrating my distribution efforts to specifically grow my email newsletter. This week I spent some time on projects to automate and accelerate my manual efforts. I…
Installed Edgar to automatically pull from my blog’s RSS feed and resurface excerpts of my posts to Twitter
Connected my Twitter to Hypefury to help me write better tweets and automatically plug my newsletter in my popular tweets
Built out my Archives page to make it easier for me to interlink my posts and grow SEO
I’m excited for the moment an essay resurfaced from Edgar gets a ton of Twitter likes, and Hypefury automatically plugs my newsletter link. High leverage in action. 💪
If this all sounds incredibly calculated, it is… And it isn’t.
In his newsletter, online writing master David Perell wrote, “All of audience building follows a simple principle: find people on public platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Then, get them to engage on private platforms such as email.”
As a content marketer, I know how to grow traffic to my blog. I interlink pages, add keywords to my headings, customize my slugs, and write catchy headlines. At this point, that’s all automatic.
As a writer, I know how to write memorable articles. Modesty aside, my writing flows, doesn’t feel long, and leaves my reader feeling smarter. I know, because y’all have told me. ❤️
But beyond my professional skills and creative calling, I’m a human being. And I know that we’re all just looking for fellow humans who challenge us to grow. My audience building strategy is nothing more than me making friends and linking up with folks who like the same things.
In the landing page for my newsletter I wrote,
“Sure, you got me: I'm trying to amass 1,000 true fans who love my work. That's why I plug my newsletter in my email signature. Why I sent you to this page in the first place. But here's the deeper truth: I'm not looking for fans as much as I am looking for friends. I'm looking for 1,000 true friends: growth-oriented, compassionate, open-minded folks who are also looking for genuine connections.”
Spinning flywheels and marketing tactics aside, that hasn’t changed. I’m just happy to spend most of my time learning, making friends, talking to interesting people, and then writing about it.
Thank you for being here.