Curate Your Sources
To curate your sources, opens a world of possibilities
Yes this mostly helps newsletters which are curatorial in nature. But even if you write or editorialize... this could provide you with some inspiration. And drop your newsletter in the comments. Happy to brainstorm some ideas for you.
Reveal Your Sources
List all the sources you go to for your content. Write on medium or your blog, or twitter, or here on IH. Wherever your community is. Reddit, Telegram groups, Whatsapp, HN. anywhere.
The hook here, is that A) you include yourself, B) it's a powerful reason to subscribe to your newsletter. Because readers don't need to scour the web. they come to you! Save Time By Subscribing!
Wrote this 2 weeks after launching my newsletter: How I curate 50+ Sources and it drove in new subscribers regularly.
Compilations and Celebrations
The lists of sources also will continue to grow as your newsletter grows. Use them to celebrate milestones. I've now curated over 1,000 writers and journalists. And I've curated over 2,000 articles. Great fodder for tweets.
Also I put together a lovely infographic with the 50 Top Journalists Covering Influencer Marketing. Each one with links to the articles and editions they are featured in.
Track Writers
You can keep track of the publications and journalists Emails.
Email them each week, that you featured them. They might turn into subs.
And you can create great relationships as a source for them. I got interviewed by a New York Times journalist for a story.
Keep track of Twitter Names
Tag those who write articles in your edition's tweets. they might retweet you. Also use tweets to curate your editions. @DruRiley is doing great work here. I'd highly recommend you check out his Trends.vc twitter threads. (oh and he mentioned me!)
Make a 100 List
Once you get to 100 people (people, writers, and publications) you should make an epic list
I made Influence 100 about 4 months into my newsletter. At the time, I had about 250 subscribers and gained 200-300 within two weeks.
Then did a 2nd version in Dec 2019, gained 750 subscribers.
PR List
Your sources become great lists to reach out to later on when you have an original story, or when you compile information. The 2nd Influence 100 was successful because I emailed 220 journalists I felt could cover the story. And some were on the list.
Again, I'll mention, drop your newsletter in the comments. Happy to brainstorm some ideas for you.
Thank you for sharing this, Andrew! Love how you wrote the How I sourced blog post. I've been meaning to share my sources as well but I wasn't sure on how to go about it.
I run DiversifyTech.co. I have 3 newsletters as part of it. One of them is for Business leaders and recruiters. I share candidates who are looking for new roles and resources on learning about how to make make their organization more inclusive. Here is the latest issue. Would love to hear your thoughts!
What data sets to collect now? Your newsletter is a wealth of info. Do you keep it all in a single place? Every job curated?
Do you have a list of those who got hired through the newsletter? Are there any particular similarities between the companies who currently OVER-hire underrepresented people? I am reminded of how "Unicorn" got to exist. Aileen Lee created a google doc of all the CEOs of $1B companies and found no similarities. They were all "Unicorns". It's a strange story, and commonly told now, because most of the time if you plot these out, there are patterns. There are similarities.
Prior to those answers, Here are some spitballed ideas:
Diversify Tech is coming up on issue #100. Maybe a few stats on all the articles/reading you share. Like most frequently used words. A compilation of the best reading?
Got interviews with ppl you helped get a job? How are they doing now? What was it that got them the job?
Do you keep track of open jobs and what tech they need?
Might be interesting to do a shifting tech report. Where you show from a year ago what the hiring landscape looked like, vs today.
Thanks for sharing @AndrewKamphey. Particularly like the idea of emailing the ppl featured, will start doing so as well. Agree that tagging those ppl via twitter is also helpful.
It's such a nice thing to do too. I once emailed someone saying "I saw you featured in...." (someone else's newsletter) and they had no idea. Suddenly I saw them post on their facebook about it for a week.