How to increase your newsletter subscriber count

Hey folks👋🏽

I’m baaack! I was out sick the past couple of weeks, and Umber graciously took over writing the newsletter, which I greatly appreciate. I’m doing much better now and excited to get back into it. And while we’re at it, let’s just say January was a trial month, so HAPPY NEW YEAR 🥳 (again)! 

💌 In today’s email:

• 📈 You ask, we deliver! For the latest Ask Buffer question, Umber shares all the best tips for growing a newsletter
• 📱 Mitra recommends replying to comments on Reels and TikTok using video
• 📣 What’s happening in social: Instagram’s OG founders are building something new together, TikTok introduces a strike system for violators of its guidelines, and LinkedIn now lets you add an SEO title and description
• +All the best content from the blog

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next Friday!

Warmly, 

Tami & the Buffer team

P.S. We’re Mastodon-ing it up this week with our latest integration. Read all about it 🦣

🏊🏼 Deep dive: How to increase your newsletter subscriber count

Newsletters are all the rage now — look, you’re reading one right now! So when one of our followers asked, Umber was happy to jump in to answer their burning question: how do you increase a newsletter’s subscriber count? Here’s all the great advice Umber shared:

• Tell people what to expect from your newsletter — then create great content: Most people already have jam-packed inboxes, so you need to incentivize them and prove that your newsletter is worth receiving one extra email. Influencer and small business owner Alison Wu advertises her newsletter as a way to connect with her “away from the white noise of Instagram.” This establishes her newsletter as a more intimate environment where followers can connect with her.
• Consider covering timely topics: If you are hoping to be a newsletter that people are excited about, you should be offering the latest coverage on what’s happening in your industry. Marketer Matt Navarra is always breaking down the latest tech and marketing news – like his timely newsletter about ChatGPT and the potential it has to disrupt the job market.
• Promote your newsletter properly: Once you’ve packed your newsletter with the latest and greatest info, it’s now time to promote it to make sure readers are aware of it. If you have a website, include a CTA to subscribe to your newsletter. Writer and entrepreneur Kat Boogard includes her newsletter CTA at the bottom of her website’s homepage. Also, include your newsletter on your link-in-bio and social media bios. Popular content creator Emily Mariko includes a direct link to her newsletter on her Instagram bio.
• Offer incentives for subscribers: Many brands provide exclusive perks to their email subscriber lists, including discounts and early access to certain products. Lifestyle brand Janet Gwen gives their email subscribers an extra 25 percent off on their website.
• Ask your subscribers what they want to see: We recently revamped this very newsletter, and a lot of the ideas were thanks to a survey where we asked our subscribers what they wanted from the newsletter. Based on the feedback we received, we did the following: made the intro more concise, shared social media industry news, and offered more value upfront so you don’t have to click through to the blog to get our best content each week.

Do you run a newsletter of your own? What do you think we missed? Tell us over on Twitter @buffer!

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👇🏽 The latest from the blog

• Using Buffer to Grow a Paid Newsletter's Traffic: Speaking of newsletters, Phill, a senior product marketing manager here at Buffer profiles Dave Anderson, who has used Buffer to grow his newsletter traffic by 2.5x. Find out how he did it in this case study.
• What You Need to Know about Social Media Security: In this article, with the help of expert advice from Rafael Broshi, CEO of Notch, I explore the potential dangers to social media accounts and ways to keep them safe.
• How to Make the Most of Hashtags for Instagram: Discovery is a big part of what helps creators and small businesses grow on social media, and one of the oldest ways to discover content is through hashtags. In this article, I write about how you can make the most of hashtags on Instagram.

🎙️For your podcast queue

The Science of Social Media is a weekly podcast exploring hot topics, best practices, and insights into social media from the Buffer team and top social media marketing experts.

📱 Social Tip of The Week from Mitra, Buffer’s Social Media Manager 

Have you tried replying to comments with a video on your Instagram Reels or TikToks? This is a great way to engage with your community and an easy way to share more authentic content.

Here’s an example on Instagram from @yoursocialteam when someone asked for an office tour on one of their other videos, and here’s an example on TikTok from @mrmilothechonk (one of my favorite TikTok cats), who is a water connoisseur, and followers were leaving comments with suggestions on different water brands they wanted to see Milo try!

And here’s a tutorial on how to do this on TikTok and an article on how to do this on Instagram!

🤳 What's Happening in Social

• 👀 The OG founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced that they’re working on a new AI-powered project together called Artifact
• 🙅🏽‍♀️ TikTok introduces a strike system for violations of its Community Guidelines. Review them here so you’re aware!
• 💻 LinkedIn now lets you add an SEO title and description which is sure to improve content discovery

Thanks for reading! 💟

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