The Creator Spotlight Podcast

Today’s guest is Caitlin Dewey, creator if Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends, a newsletter she started nearly 11 years ago, when she was the social media reporter for the Washington Post. She wrote it for 2 years, taking a 4-year break before bringing it back in 2020; earlier this year, she decided to go all-in and make it her main gig.

We spoke about the particular challenges of being a creator-journalist, how to write an actually good links aggregation newsletter, and choosing to build a lifestyle business instead of a media empire.

00:00 Introducing Caitlin Dewey

03:27 The Origins of the Newsletter

06:16 Taking a Break and the Pressure of a Rebrand

13:36 Building a Community With Readers

17:53 Building a Good Salary From Subscriptions

19:49 The Definition of Creators vs. Journalists

27:42 Bring Back Comfortable Middle Class Lifestyles

32:59 Collaboration in the Newsletter Community

37:37 The Painful Art of Content Planning

43:21 Substack's Shift in Business Model

50:13 The Craft of an Aggregation Newsletter

53:19 Fake News Is Now Just News

Today’s guest is Tommy Clark, creator of the Social Files newsletter, founder of Compound Content Studio, and a B2B social media expert. He started making content for his nutrition coaching business while still a college student, in 2018 — he never set out to build a career in content. Five years later, he has an agency on track to make over $1 million this year.

00:00 Intro

01:20 Accidentally starting a marketing agency

03:30 Building a team and hiring for content creation

06:17 Growing the newsletter Social Files

13:04 The devolution of Twitter - LinkedIn #1 now?

15:36 How to craft the perfect viral post

20:23 The relationship between the business and personal brand

23:41 Monetizing a creator led business

27:21 What makes someone good/bad at marketing?

29:27 Starting with content creation and rules for posting

39:19 Finding content ideas for viral posts

41:10 Uploading to YouTube but not being a YouTuber

43:55 How you can grow your online brand

Intro music produced by J. and Doug Organ

Ryan Gilbert, creator and writer of the newsletter 'Workspaces' joins us for episode 28 of The Creator Spotlight Podcast.

Workspaces: workspaces.xyz

00:00 From supply chain to tech startups

04:31 Building a niche from scratch

10:57 Monetizing with affiliate links

12:42 Abandoning a career to pursue content

16:32 The acquisition and reacquisition of the newsletter

25:08 Monetizing the newsletter is harder now

28:22 How the newsletter grew to 13k+ subscribers

35:35 The stats

37:12 The best home-office setup so far

40:30 Balancing personal and brand identity

44:12 Strategies for newsletter growth

47:02 Reflecting on success and future plans

Intro music produced by J. and Doug Organ

This week we speak with Rachel Karten, the woman behind every social media manager's favorite newsletter, Link in Bio, and an excellent social media consultant herself.

00:00 Getting started with food Instagram

04:39 Advice for working with brands

09:02 Winning and judging Webby awards

14:05 Building a newsletter for content creators, Link in Bio

25:03 Growing an email audience of 65k+

35:50 Being a good social media manager

Intro music produced by J. and Doug Organ.

This week we are joined by Michelle Curb, co-founder and editor of Gloria (hellogloria.com) Michelle is an expert in leading monetization for online media brands — she's been doing it for most of two decades.

00:00 The Gloria newsletter

05:50 Getting started in online media

08:52 IS it hard to sell a media company?

14:15 Monetization and stats

15:58 Building an audience online

24:52 “I don’t want to be online”

27:38 Day in a life of a media founder

39:21 How to monetize as a creator

45:35 Looking forward and back

On today's pod we talk building a career in soccer journalism, the women's game, producing one of The Athletic's flagship podcasts ("Full Time with Meg Linehan"), and plenty more.

00:00 Why Theo pursued soccer journalism

08:23 How much does soccer journalism pay?

17:24 How to tell the real story

23:36 Newsletters are the future of journalism

39:11 The stats

41:17 Building a newsletter into a sustainable business

47:01 How to get better at podcasting

Intro music produced by J. and Doug Organ

Today's guest is Cole Derochie, creator of theToday in Design newsletter and a multitalented design professional (he's done everything from web design to leatherwork, not necessarily in that order).

00:00 How Cole accidentally became a designer

08:04 The espresso of newsletters

13:43 Evolving and growing the newsletter

20:24 Finding sources for design news

26:16 Writing a newsletter in 1 hour

29:08 Monetizing a 5,000 subscriber newsletter

37:53 Using Twitter to grow your brand

Intro music produced by J. and Doug Organ

Today’s guest is Sean Devlin, a media entrepreneur whose Nice News newsletter has, in less than three years, gone from 0 to 820k subscribers. The company currently has a team of seven full-time employees, plus at least four freelancers — and it’s been profitable for just under one year.

00:00 Building a 800k subscriber newsletter

08:53 The biggest mistakes when designing a newsletter

12:26 Why it’s important to have nice news

19:20 How to find positive content online

22:32 Who subscribes to nice news?

30:51 Building a following of 800,000

39:00 How to monteize your newsletter audience

44:30 What not to do when building a newsletter

47:00 Is it too late to start a newsletter?

Intro music produced by J. and Doug Organ.

Ambreen Ali is a tenured and accomplished journalist as well as Founding Editor of Central Desi, a local newsletter focussing on the South Asian community in New Jersey. She joins us for episode 22 of the Creator Spotlight podcast.

Central Desi: centraldesi.beehiiv.com

00:00:00 Ambreen Ali - putting journalism first

00:05:02 Growing a local newsletter

00:14:07 Why being a journalist is difficult 00:22:02 Is society losing its media literacy?

00:28:53 The best and worst of tradition journalism

00:35:26 Why prisoners should be taught journalism

00:39:39 Making a local impact

00:43:26 Not wanting to be a “creator”

00:52:00 Monetizing journalism is hard

00:57:43 Advice to other creators

Intro music produced by J. and Doug Organ

Today’s guest is Glennda Baker, a real estate agent from Atlanta who has become a social media star over the last four years. After a couple of false starts, her content marketing play has turned into a full-fledged media business.

00:00 Glennda Baker, TikTok's favorite realtor

05:58 How Glennda Baker makes 30-50 videos per month

26:18 Sharing your life online — what about the family?

35:16 Glennda’s newsletter — working with a writing partner

40:57 The business of being Glennda Baker (business is good)

43:57 Creating social media videos is better than creating reality TV

Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.