The Steal Club - Would you sell your newsletter?

Hey fellow thieves, and welcome back!

Today's content:

➝ Decoding the Youtube shorts algorithm (Read time: 1min 36s)

➝ The secret to growing an audience (Read time: 29s)

➝ Don’t use these words on Instagram (Read time: 20s)

➝ Selling a stake of your newsletter (Read time: 23s)

Let's dive into it!

Decoding the Youtube shorts algorithm

Paddy Galloway, a highly regarded YouTube consultant, and his lead analyst, Chris Gileta, analyzed 5,400 YT shorts to understand how the algorithm works.

Although he goes into much more detail in this thread, here’s the TL;DR for you:

On shorts length

→ Most shorts were between 20 to 40 seconds

→ Despite that, the best performing shorts (views) were the longest (50-60 seconds)

💡 Paddy’s takeaway: The shorts algorithm favors longer videos that retain viewers. Makes sense as YT wants to keep people ON the platform.

***

On retention

Youtube has added a “how many people decided to view the short vs Swiping” metric.

→ The best performing shorts were typically between 70-90%

→ There wasn't a strong correlation with guaranteed success though.

💡 Paddy’s takeaway: Try to hook your audience in the first 3-5 seconds so you avoid "swiping".

***

On Subscriber growth

→ On average, long-form content still converts better to subs than shorts.

→ BUT, this changes when they filter the results to channels over 1M subs. In that case, shorts outperform long-form in terms of sub conversion.

💡 Paddy’s takeaway: Shorts are worth it for sub growth because, even if they bring less subs than long form, they are also easier to produce.

***

On Money

→ RPMs ($ per 1000 views) are not crazy right now, but they are improving

→ Unlike long form, the length of the short doesn’t lead to a meaningful difference in RPMs

💡 Paddy’s takeaway: Shorts aren’t money makers, however there’s an expectation that RPMs will rise over the next year.

***

Are shorts worth it?

Chief Thief take: if you can produce shorts without sacrificing your content efforts, go for it.

It’s still early and the algorithm is favorable - shorts creators will soon see more $$$ coming their way!

🕵️‍♂️ Stolen from Paddy Galloway and Chris Gileta. Subscribe to Paddy’s newsletter for more bit-sized Youtube breakdowns.

3 Quick Thefts on audience growth and $$$

#1 -The real secret to growing an audience (on any platform)

Does this sound familiar?

→Your positioning is strong.

→Your profile is optimized.

→Your content is high-quality.

→Yet, your audience isn’t growing at all.

The reason for this is that you’re missing one vital piece: You’re doing it alone.

George Ten @GrammarHippy Growing an audience can be stressful and exhausting. So I’ll give you one tip. Everyone who I know and has ignored this one tip in the past has suffered. Here’s the tip: Don’t do it alone. Get 5 friends. Reply to each other’s tweets. Grow together. At least at the start. March 11th 2023 33 Retweets 425 Likes

Whether you're on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram, George's advice rings true: find 5 people in your niche who genuinely interest you and support each other.

Don't be afraid to create a chat group and engage with their posts.

But do it genuinely!

People can smell fake engagement from a mile away.

Extra Chief Thief free business idea: Build a platform that connects people to these groups. Charge a fee for the service or for facilitating.

🕵️‍♂️ Stolen from George Ten​

********

#2 - Don’t use these words on Instagram

Even though I have my instagram account on pause (ideas welcome as to what to do with it), I still pay attention to the platform as creator.

Apparently, there are “forbidden words” that can tank your engagement on Instagram.

Avoid:

→“DM me”

→“Link in bio”

→And using link stickers

Steve Mellor stopped using all these CTAs on his content and claims his IG engagement skyrocketed. So if you are having reach problems, this might be it!

🕵️‍♂️ Stolen from Steve Mellor​

********

#3 - Selling a stake of your newsletter

In the past few days, these two newsletters were partially acquired 👇

Mike Cardona {Automation Alchemist 🧪} @CSMikeCardona Pretty crazy considering just yesterday I sold 10% of the newsletter for the same amount to @gjsequeira what are the odds? 😳 This is going to be fun 😎 @AnthonyCastrio pic.twitter.com/9AsvL9I7aQ April 13th 2023 3 Retweets 32 Likes

How it works:

→These are “silent partnerships”

→This means the original owners retain 100% of decision power

→The person buying the stake gets a cut of the profits

It’s like an angel investor but for newsletters.

Pros: You get some revenue upfront so you can focus on growing

Cons: If your newsletter ends up succeeding, this % can be worth way more

With the right partner and approach, this could be just what you need to take your newsletter to the next level.

Would you do it?

🕵️‍♂️ Stolen from Mike Cardona​

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That's all for today!

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See you next week!

Alex Llull, Chief Thief

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