I don't know about you guys but last week was a doozy and my updated audience stats are showing it. I didn't put out much content or ship anything new, so today's updates are going to be focused on my client wins, audience growth, and a teaser into my content distribution strategy.

🌱Talking Growth

Antonio Gary Jr. Consulting - Despite not releasing too much content last week, I still managed to have some solid wins and land new clients. One of my current clients grew across the board and we're gearing up for a new product release.

Client Growth + Wins

• TikTok following grew from 465,700 followers to 552,200 followers
• Instagram went from 21,200 followers to 21,300 followers
• Newsletter subscribers grew from 1190 to 3679
• Course signups from 0 - 793 enrollments in 4 days

The above wins were achieved through a revised content distribution strategy, customer development, an updated newsletter strategy, and better analytics/tracking to make sure we're focused on the areas to move the needle.

I'll be sharing more on the content distribution strategy and how you can apply it to your business.

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‍🎤Audience Learnings/Insights of the Week

Twitter growth this week went from 81 followers to 86. The election threw me off, and I just realized that I didn't publish a Tweet on Wednesday (facepalm). Nonetheless, I made up for it with 7 Tweets on Thursday.

TikTok growth somewhat returned to normal levels; however, It's back into digging into my analytics to see what else I can do to help expedite this growth. I grew from 1105 followers to 1182.

📊Talking Strategy - Content Distribution 101 (Intro)

This is part one of a larger resource; however, as more people realize that content marketing is the best way to cut through the noise (I will proudly die on this hill), they often misunderstand the importance of improving their distribution. Your goal with every piece of content is to develop a systemized approach to how you can turn 1 asset into 5+ pieces of content.

The advice you usually hear about whether your goal is to grow an audience or increase your number of customers is to focus on a single platform. That recommendation is partly true; however, depending on your goals, one platform isn't sufficient. You're going to need to focus on multiple platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc. The channels you focus on ultimately depend on your goals however, at a bare minimum I recommend prioritizing TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and niche-specific forum (e.g. Indie Hackers or Reddit)

The above channels are what I like to call distribution channels. While you may create long-form content on your blog, podcast Twitch, and YouTube. The channels you distribute them on are going to be the above. The goal of these channels is to tailor the short-form version of your content based on the pillars of your overall content strategy. If you don't make long-form content, your goal is to maximize the reach of your short-form content.

For example, say your write a long blog post every week and you're looking to grow your email subscribers. Take a portion of your blog post and repurpose it as a Tweet. Once you post it to Twitter, screenshot, and edit in Canva and use that photo as an IG static photo. Now use that same IG photo as an IG story, Facebook story, YouTube short, Facebook post, and Snapchat story. In your caption include the full post is available via a link in bio. You've now just turned a blog post into 5+ pieces of content and you can see which channels are driving the most email signups.

💡 Inspo

"Imagine things are happening FOR you instead of TO you." - Carving Thought

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What a week. Unlike last week where a majority of my work fell by the waist side, this week has been pretty productive. To recap, the .5 edition of Talking Growth is focused on news around the creator economy from a creator and platform POV.

In Tuesdays send of Talking Growth #9, I covered updates on my audience growth and shared a high-level free version of my content distribution strategy. You can catch up on that here.

Today we're covering Mirror, a new crypto enabled platform to give writers more ownership of their work, Patreon expands into private podcasts, TikTok is on a trek to reach 1B users, and the battle for the link in bio heats up with Direct.Me raising 2.2M.

📰Talking Creators

Amazon suing two influencers - Counterfeit goods aren't a new problem for platforms. Amazon and Facebook have "loosely" tried to curb the promotion of counterfeit goods with little success. I say loosely because regardless if a good is counterfeit, Amazon still benefits from the transaction. So, it's surprising that they have decided to pursue legal action against influencers and third-party merchants.

TikTok Creator Fake Viral Video - Halting the spread of misinformation was the biggest priority for platforms in this election. While some platforms were "winners", others were the definition of losers. Yes, we're looking at you YouTube. It's still unclear whether TikTok can be classified as a winner in this scenario. Especially when a video of a TikTok creator ripping a Donald Trump ballot went so viral Rudy Giuliani shared it across social.

Creator of Python Joins Microsoft - Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python, dusted off his keyboard (jokes) to come out of retirement and join Microsoft's Developer Division. While it's still up in the air what Guido will tackle, it'll be impressive nonetheless.

🤳Talking Social & Platforms

Patreon Exclusive Podcast - Patreon, a massive player in the Creator Economy, is looking to grow its solutions for creators with the announcement of their new partnership with Acast. The partnership will enable Patreon creators to share private and subscriber-only podcast episodes.

TikTok 1B Users - TikTok continues to push forward despite a bumpy year.  Even while losing its India userbase, a large portion of its userbase. TikTok is still on track to surpass 1 billion monthly active users.

Direct.Me Raises 2.2M to help Influencers - According to Andrew Chen of a16z, the link bio is the new battlefield for creators. I wouldn't go that far; however, clear tracking across platforms via link in bio, is still a land grab. Direct.Me looks to compete with giants such as Link Tree with their recent 2.2M round.

☂️Talking Drops From Creators

While Mirror hasn't officially dropped (still in closed beta), I stumbled upon it earlier this week in my research. Unlike platforms like Substack, Mirror is a crypto enabled platform that helps writers monetize and have more ownership over their work. I'm not on the platform; however, it's incredibly interesting and shows the growing opportunities for new platforms to leverage crypto. Additionally, it shows that platforms that truly value and empower their creators will have a competitive edge. I expect more platforms to follow this path, but in the meantime, get a glimpse behind the scenes via live stream tomorrow.  

🏄Things you want to know

• Today was the day TikTok was supposed to be banned. But it's not.
• Gen-Z hates Linkedin influencers just as much as everyone. Maybe not as much as Linkedin influencers.
• Gumroad is a favorite of mine and you can see their roadmap of what's next.

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