Why push social media followers to a newsletter instead of a story link?

When a newsroom posts a story link on social, they get one read. When they post a newsletter signup, they get the inbox every issue after that. I push publishers to the signup every time.

"Newsletters should be the thing you always want to push people to, because you get permission once and you can hit them up over and over. A link is just, oh, they're going to read something once. You didn't capture it."

What's wrong with building on social?

You don't own it. Meta owns that audience. An algorithm decides who sees your content, even on YouTube. You can have 100,000 followers, post something, and have it reach 600 people. There are brands with millions of followers whose posts nobody sees because the algorithm decided people wouldn't like them.

Even a killer post doesn't protect you. The next one might reach 45 people. And the platforms keep changing the rules, which makes them less valuable to businesses every year. Apple's privacy changes make ads harder too.

Email works differently. If someone asked to be on your list, they get your newsletter. That's why it's called an owned audience. Once you have their email, you own the access, and you know exactly when they'll see your content.

So what is social media for?

Discovery. People rarely find newsletters on their own. Paid Meta ads bring a lot of them in, and a strong Instagram does the rest. When people find you there, you push them to the newsletter. Social is rented. The newsletter is owned.

Instagram matters for one more reason. Your subscriber count is a hidden number, like the money in your bank account. You could have 50,000 subscribers and nobody but them would know. Instagram followers are your brand's public number. Businesses see 10,000 followers and assume you're doing well. Every operator I know with a big Instagram says it's huge for selling ads, and it's the funnel that gets advertisers to come to you.

It's real work, mostly custom video. A lot of people I've had on my podcast, me included, ignored Instagram for too long, and I now think it's the most important channel for discovery. On my show, Nick Hageman of KC Daily shared that he has about 45,000 Instagram followers and about 26,000 newsletter subscribers. He uses ManyChat, at $15 a month, to move followers over.

Should ads go to a Linktree?

No. A Linktree confuses people. When people see multiple options, they take zero of them. Send ad traffic straight to the newsletter signup page.

Once they subscribe, the newsletter becomes your Linktree. Every link you care about can live inside the emails. If you keep a Linktree for organic posts, put the subscribe button at the top.

Aren't inboxes too crowded?

In the tech and entrepreneur world, yes. For most people, no. Most people don't sign up for newsletters, so a good local one can be the only newsletter a normal person gets, or one of two. Good local newsletters open around 50%.

That's also why the list is what makes you a brand. I tell new local operators to get to about 5,000 subscribers as fast as they can. Then you can say, we have 5,000 subscribers and a 50%-plus open rate, so we know people read us. Without subscribers, what is the brand, really?

Don't move slowly, either. People are starting to figure this out. If someone else throws real money at a newsletter in your town first, you're in second place, and readers will say they already get a local newsletter for that.

Where do donation asks, stories and videos go?

Inside the newsletter. Don't try to collect a donation from a social post. Get the subscriber first, then put the donation ask, the story links and the offers in front of them in every issue.

Creators should do this too. I talked about a creator with 2.5 million YouTube followers and no newsletter. Even a 100,000-person list would let him email people when a new video drops, because plenty of them aren't checking YouTube. Readers flow from the video to the newsletter and back. It doesn't hurt anything. I do a version of this myself: every podcast episode becomes a summary I send through Beehiiv.

I told a YouTube-first realtor that a weekly email works like a digital billboard he controls. When it's time for someone to buy a house, why would they Google "realtor"? They already know the guy. Most local businesses haven't woken up to this yet. It's also why so many of the top eight- and nine-figure online entrepreneurs call newsletters their number one strategy.

How do you move followers over?

• Post the signup link instead of story links when you're growing.
• Use an Instagram auto-DM to invite every new follower.
• Think of the brand as channels: newsletter, website, social, events, a local podcast. The newsletter grows steadily with Meta ads. Social grows with effort, the website with SEO.
• Run the reverse too: send new newsletter subscribers to your Instagram after the survey. About a third follow.