Audience Strategy: further reading

A few links and posts I mentioned in today's workshop:

Ryan Broderick on the changing media landscape

Broderick explores how much the US Democrats failed to understand the shifting media landscape:

Which is how Democrats ended up sleep-walking into the election last year, assuming they were still selling a product — former Vice President Kamala Harris — to consumers, i.e., us. While Trump and the Republicans correctly understood that they were platforming an influencer — Trump — to either other, smaller influencers or parasocial audience members (who, of course, would probably love to be influencers, themselves). And I know, first hand, exactly how unprepared many Democrats were for the eventual blood bath at the polls last year. In December 2023, I was invited to the White House to meet with former President Joe Biden’s digital team. The meeting was off the record, which I’ll honor, (and I paid my own way) but I can tell you that while some in the administration were beginning to worry, I did not leave with the sense that Democrats, as a whole, really understood the way the wind was blowing.

Read: You can never truly go back

The FT’s Sarah Ebner on newsletters (and personalities)

Fascinating interview on both their growth, and how their strategy has changed:

What has really changed is the rise of the personality-driven newsletter, showcasing someone who’s really good and making it an extra vehicle for them. They offer massive added value.
I do think there’s still a place for those traffic-driving ones, but for us, I would say our most successful newsletters are the big personality newsletters that our readers really value. The metrics for those are not traffic to the site or traffic at all. They are read in your inbox, with amazing bespoke exclusive content. And I think that’s what’s really changed.

Read: Interview with Sarah Ebner

Anil Dash’s Substack theory

RSS - some getting started advice

Here’s some of the tools I use:

• NetNewsWire — a free RSS readers across Apple‘s platforms
• Feedbin — where I “store” the feeds I follow - and which provides me with an email to RSS service (Paid)