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Acquisition Channel Opportunities #001 (Should I continue writing this?)

Hey guys, there are a few acquisition channels most of you are targeting (Facebook, SEO, Twitter, content marketing, I actually did a report on this).

If you're familiar with the law of shitty clickthroughts, you'll know that over time, the effectiveness of those channels/strategies goes down (as they become more saturated). As a founder, some of those strategies can be out of reach when you start (too expensive, too much competition, etc.), because you're too late to the game.

The solution? Be early to the game. How?

Platforms like Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Google release new business features all the time. When they do that, they are actively looking to promote them by integrating them into their existing products/giving preference to creators who use them, etc.

That's great news for you. This is the first (and hopefully not the last, please upvote this post if you think I should continue doing this) issue of a weekly newsletter where I plan to explore some of these news/opportunities and how you can make use of these new acquisition (sub)channels/strategies. So here are the latest acquisition channel opportunities that happened over the past week:

YouTube Launches Audio Ads (Opportunity: Get Lower CPCs)

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What this means for you: Every time a major platform launches a new type of ads, there's an opportunity to get exposure for much cheaper as compared to their "traditional" ad formats (for YouTube, it's in-video streams). This is one such opportunity.

Do you have a domain name that's easy to pronounce? You can try and create an audio ad & see how many people you drive to it.

Twitter Launches Their Version of "Instagram Stories" (Opportunity: Get Better Exposure to Followers)

It's called "Fleets" and I'm already seeing it on my Twitter mobile app

What this means for you: People notice new things. Millions of users are going to notice their Twitter feed looks different & will pay more attention to it. This is an opportunity for you to reach more of your Twitter followers. Also, the media is going to keep covering this. If you can think of a viral format of a Twitter story / get people to share it / get media to cover it, that's extra free exposure.

Instagram May Turn into a Mini Search Engine (Opportunity: Use this early to appear first)

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Instagram recently made "guides" available for everyone. "Guides" are basically articles inside Instagram. There are speculations that they'll soon change their search bar, so you can actually find those guides...turning Instagram into a mini search engine.

What this means for you: If you thought that you can't post informational content on Instagram, you were right...until now. You can try this "guides" feature by creating a sample guide and share it on your story (yes you can do that). If things go the way they do, Instagram will also soon enable people to advertise their "guides", which will be pretty interesting.

Content Marketing: Get Viral by Making Fun of Twitter's "Disputed" Footers (Opportunity: Interesting angle to create engaging Tweets)

Some brands are already starting to do this. No need for "what it means for you" for this one :D
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Monetization Opportunity: Make $ on Facebook When People Share Your Videos

Facebook Rights Manager is a tool where, if someone posts your images/videos, you'll get notified of it & you can decide what to do (block it, add an attribution to the picture/video and so on).

Facebook has recently announced they'll offer creators an ability to also "collect ad earnings" from things like in-stream ads if someone posts a video that was originally yours.

What this means for you: If you have a Facebook page with 10k+ followers & have generated at least 30k 1-minute video views in the past 60 days, you may want to enroll into this program. Having the power to see who re-posts your stuff can open a lot of opportunities (you can potentially get in touch for partnerships/ask for a small mention in exchange, and so on).

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  1. 4

    This is neat. Some feedback:

    • It would be nice if the whole content rather than just the intro was included in the newsletter you sent to your newsletter subscribers. Of course, you can still include a link at the bottom to the discussion here on IH.

    • As you acknowledged in one of your replies, since you have no control over when new features will be announced by the tech giants, you might struggle to meet readers’ expectation of a weekly cadence. So how about a bi-weekly cadence? Twice a month should be enough to see where this MVP will lead. Afterwards, you can decide to double-down or decide to include it as an extra to your other weekly newsletter.

    1. 2

      You should say twice every month instead. I get the point here but there's a lot of confusion around "bi-weekly".

      1. 1

        Haha 😁.

        Twice a month is a mouthful which is why I opted for a single word.

        I’m fully aware that bi-weekly is polysemous—it can mean twice a week or twice a month—which is why I added twice a month to clear up any potential confusion as to what I meant.

        Now that I think of it, “fortnightly” would have served the same purpose without the potential to confuse, so thanks for the observation.

        1. 1

          Bi-weekly and twice a month are not the same. There are 52 weeks year and 12 months in a year. So bi-weekly comes out to 26 a year and twice a month comes out to 12 a year.

          1. 2

            The problem with pedantry is that you can end up making a mistake in your supposed correction, as you have done in your reply ...

            So bi-weekly comes out to 26 a year and twice a month comes out to 12 a year.

            • once a month in 1 year will amount to = 1 x 12 months = 12 times
            • twice a month in 1 year will amount to = 2 x 12 months = 24 times.
            1. 1

              You are correct, I had a typo there. I did mean to type 24.

              However, the point is still valid. 24 and 26 are not the same.

              1. 2

                Sigh. I didn't argue that 24 == 26. You are essentially arguing on a point I never made.

                All I said was that bi-weekly can mean "occurring every two weeks" (aka twice a month) or "occurring twice a week".

                I promise you I am not making this up. Honest. These two differing definitions can be seen in Merriam-Webster and other reputable dictionaries out there.

                1. 1

                  But when you try to use it as a synonym as you have, that is what you are saying, whether you intended that or not.

    2. 1

      This is amazing feedback. Here's the thing about including the whole issue: When I put 5+ links, Google puts me in the damn 'promotional' folder. And yeah, I think I'll be doing a bi-monthly newsletter in case the last week is slow in terms of "growth opportunities".

      1. 1

        Glad you found the feedback useful!

        I did away with the promotional tab long ago as it was giving me too much unease. Having my Gmail browser tab maintain its own sub-tabs (Inbox, Promotions, etc) was too much for me cognitively so I removed them.

        BTW, what's your ESP?

  2. 2

    Continue this for sure.

    I can see the future. "You're being sponsored and profitable in your fifth issue."

  3. 2

    You should absolutely continue with this, great idea!

    1. 1

      Hey, thanks, is there anything particular you liked/didn't like about the content?

  4. 2

    This is great, @zerotousers! I do hope to see this again next Monday. Thanks for sharing!

    Eivind

    1. 1

      Glad to see you liked it.

  5. 1

    A lot of value here, thanks for sharing, and something I'd definitely like to see more of.

    Honestly, I'd even consider paying to have access to new traction channels (e.g. the YouTube/Instagram examples you provided).

    Knowing about these new methods as early as possible allows you to place little bets within each of them which could compound at a substantial rate.

  6. 1

    Fantastic idea. I'm in.

  7. 1

    Have you noticed that everybody says "Facebook groups", but never talk about any specifics?

    1. 1

      You can easily get the specifics by taking a look at the posts. For example, posts where they say something like "Hey, built X, comment to get in" do pretty well.

  8. 1

    useful, keep going!

    1. 1

      Thanks! Is there anything particular you found useful about this issue?

      1. 1

        latest news and releases + impact&benefits

  9. 1

    Looks promicing. Maybe talk a bit more about Monetization :)

    1. 1

      I have some interesting pricing pivot examples, but 80% of my content is about growth. Want to specialize in this area (which is hard enough to get right) and be a "generalist" in other areas (google: "T-shaped marketer").

    1. 1

      Thanks! Is there anything you found particularly useful?

  10. 1

    please keep going :D

    1. 1

      Hey Victor, thanks for the encouragement. How do you think a weekly newsletter like this would contribute to growing MakeSales?

      1. 1

        @zerotousers by cutting down the fluff and showing in 3 minutes what I can achieve in 15 minutes that will help me generate traction

  11. 1

    Thanks for the article, I like what I see here.

    Didn't knew about Instagram Guides, sounds good, looking forward to that feature (not available yet on my device or my girlfriend, possibly not available in Europe, dunno).

    1. 1

      It seems what FB says and what they do doesn't always match. From the article, they say it's available for all the publishers. Btw, curious what you think about the Twitter Stories feature, it's all the rage these days.

      1. 1

        I don't use twitter, so I have no opinion on that.

        1. 1

          Oh I see, my guess is your main product is B2C (e-commerce, etc.), correct me if wrong.

          1. 1

            I have no product as of now, but yeah, my main area of expertise is B2C.

    1. 1

      Which part did you like the most?

      1. 1

        The whole concept is really useful and helps me stay on top of things. I hope you can keep it going.

        1. 1

          Oh I see, makes sense. I hope I'll be able to make #002, but it really depends on the amount of news. Not the same with the series I already do on weekly acquisition channels. Those are more about past behavior, this is more about future predictions.

  12. 1

    Can confirm #2 about Twitter stories. Def started dabbling with them out of curiosity.

    1. 1

      Have you found them useful/interesting?

      1. 1

        Seem a lot of people using them for promotion, so hopefully they won't turn into a spam wall.

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