DECEMBER 3, 2021

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: Behind the Mic on 300th Episode of This Old Marketing
Entrepreneur: Financial Advice Platform To Ease Your Stress
Stan: Intersection of Femininity and Race Content Niche

full tilt

300 Episodes Later: We Go Behind the Mic with This Old Marketing Creators

On Nov. 20, 2013, Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose started a conversation that has stretched over 18,000 minutes. Today, the dynamic duo celebrate their 300th episode of This Old Marketing podcast.

Let’s go behind the scenes with the guys who have been behind the mic.

You mostly talk about newsy items, so why call it This Old Marketing?

The classic PBS show This Old House was the inspiration. The original hosts, Bob Vila and Norm Abram, had a playful banter and really seemed to enjoy geeking out on the details of building a house. That was kind of what we were going for – just two guys who loved what they did and would gossip and talk about trends in the industry. Even though marketing was changing, it’s just the same old stuff we’ve been doing for years.

It’s always been the two of you. Are there any pros and cons to a host-only format?

The blessing is that it makes it much easier to schedule. As a news show, we record the last possible day (Thursday prior to Friday release), so that we don’t miss anything that’s breaking. Adding guests into that mix would be quite difficult. It also allows us a certain level of control over the audio quality, which you don’t have with guests.

On the con side, you lose a bit of the “networking” aspect of having guests on which can help you find new audiences. I suppose it can also be a bit of an inhibitor to our recurring audience who may get tired of “just Joe and Robert.” But, honestly, in today’s world, with the number of podcasts focused on guest interviews, I think we’ve made the right choice.

For many creators, the need for that much content every week could be a struggle, but you never seem at a loss for topics.

There are many times when it’s a slow news week and we are digging deep to find the news that we think is interesting, but we could literally riff on one topic for the entire hour.

It’s always been just an audio podcast. And yet, neither of you is shy in front of a camera. Why not add video?

Honestly, because it’s two different mediums, we believe that to have a good show, you should focus on producing a good audio show and/or a good video show. Most podcasts with video are simply just recordings of the hosts interviewing other guests. And, these days, it’s often just two Zoom windows. We don’t think that’s compelling video.

Now, that’s not to say it can’t be done. Howard Stern has managed to really make his podcast good in both audio and video formats. But both are produced as such. He’s got a studio, lighting, multi-camera formats, etc. So we felt that unless we could produce a truly great video show, that we’d stick with what the show was always meant as.

– Ann Gynn

PNR Image courtesy of Joseph “JK” Kalinowski

Read the full story to find out the topics in their first episode, favorite moments from the 300, if they have any regrets, and if they’ll get to 400.

content entrepreneur spotlight

Subscriber Feedback Adds Up to Better Business for Finance Education Platform Creator

Entrepreneur: Gabi Slemer

Biz: Finasana

Tilt: Easy-to-understand advice to reduce stress around financial investing

Primary Channel: Website and app

Other Channels: Instagram (562), Facebook (100)

Time to First Dollar: Six months

Rev Streams: Individual and business subscriptions

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

Hone your writing: It can be easier for creators to write lengthy explanations and prose. Work harder, though, to craft content that’s easier for your audience to consume.
Don’t do overwrought development: Creators often overdo getting their content product ready for the marketplace. Don’t wait until it’s perfect; release it as quickly as feasibly possible, Gabi says.
Talk to your subscribers: One-on-one calls and emails with customers led Gabi to create a new feature where subscribers could pose their personal questions to a financial expert.

– Kimmy Gustafson

All the Story: To learn why Gabi Slemer launched Finasana and how her business operates, check out the full story.

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us or reply to this email.

quick talk

Caught on … Twitter

“Great curators are as powerful as creators in a world clouded by noise.”

– Alex Lieberman

things to know

Money

Tip Tok: The Tips test went well at TikTok. The platform has launched the feature for all creators over age 18 in good standing with at least 100K followers. It’s also launched a new monetization hub, a dashboard of sorts, called Creator Next. (The Verge)
Tilt Take: It’s great for creators because they get to keep 100% of their tips (minus the credit card processing fee). (Hear that, Apple?!)
Square Block: Payment service Square will be known as Block as of Dec. 10. The name change is rooted in the company’s deeper embrace of decentralized and blockchain tech. (The Block)
Tilt Take: The rebranding indicates they see enough positives to a blockchain future that it changing their established brand identity.

Audiences

Make it fresh: Influencer and singer Taylor Holder nurtured his audience to 20M on TikTok. Among his advice? Use fresh content to keep fans engaged. “If you’re dropping a new YouTube video every Monday at 2 p.m., you can get that core fan base. They will all come back Monday at 2 p.m.” (Entrepreneur)
Tilt Take: Set expectations with your audience, then make sure to meet them.
Talking time: Maria Popova of The Marginalian blog says she decides to write by answering one question: Is it both timeless and timely? That’s helped her build a library of content that doesn’t depreciate.
Tilt Take: We’ve been a Stan of Maria since the days her blog was called Brain Pickings. Her question is reasonable to ask, but don’t dismiss ideas that may be timely but not timeless. The key is just to make sure it’s relevant to your audience. (The Writing Collective; h/t KatrinaF on Tilt Discord)

Tech and Tools

Audio discovery: Clubhouse creators now can tag their rooms and profiles with their topics – and they’ve added more granular topic choices, too. (Social Media Today)
Tilt Take: Getting your audio content discovered is hard; this will help. But you have to make sure to add the tags.
Write like Sondheim: The three tenets of writing according to Stephen Sondheim: Content dictates form and style. Less is more. God is in the details. (Dramatists Guild Association; h/t Annie Sch1ff in Tilt Discord)
Tilt Take: We can’t think of a better tribute than to follow Sondheim’s advice.

And Finally

Subscription decisions: Netflix’s first CEO Marc Randolph says you should answer these questions to determine if a subscription model is good for your business: Will a subscription make your product easier to use? How often does your customer need the product, and how often are they willing to pay? Should you offer a variety of membership options? (Business Insider)
Tilt Take: While these questions are designed for a more traditional consumer product, they work for a content product too.
Constitution chaos: The lessons from the ConstitutionDAO are still being learned. The founders never set up the voting infrastructure necessary to create the quasi-democratically governed Web3 organization. Now, the community can’t use its governance tokens to vote on the future of the governance tokens. (Vice; h/t Heath Dingwell on Tilt Discord)
Tilt Take: It’s expected that issues will arise with a new model like a DAO. Could it have been done better? Of course. That said, ConstitutionDAO has motivated creators all over the world to take a fresh look at the DAO business model.

we’re a stan for Felicia Stiles

Before uploading videos to The Feminine Fancy YouTube channel, blogger Felicia Stiles taught dance at The Salvation Army and opened an after-school program geared towards uplifting girls in middle school. She later took this passion for motivating young girls to become the best version of themselves and poured it into her online community.

Her 171K YouTube subscribers can browse through an archive filled with day-in-the-life vlogs, motivational chats, femininity talks, and financial planning content. The California native also pens TheFeminineFancy.com blog.

Felicia has garnered a lot of attention from acknowledging the lack of Black women in the femininity community online.

Why we’re a Stan: Felicia’s candid discussions on femininity-adjacent topics have helped her cultivate her online community. She is addressing a niche that isn’t addressed by many other YouTube creators – the intersection of femininity and race.

– Shameyka McCalman

the business of content

Creating Your Content Training & Education Program (Content Inc. podcast)
Special Episode 300: From Apple to Disney and Why We Still Hate Facebook (This Old Marketing podcast)
Startup vs. Small Business: What’s the Real Difference? (Nerd Wallet)
The Top 12 Small Business Startup Costs to Budget For (Fora Financial)
How to Name a Business (Truic)

the tilt team

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

They Just Can’t Quit – December 3, 2021