Multipolar Search, How Reddit Matures, Pinterest Bombs

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Welcome to this week's issue of the Niche Media Publishing Newsletter.

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Let’s get started with this week’s topics.

Multipolar Search (and Digital) is Good for Us All

The last year has been brutally painful for many publishers. Especially the smaller niche players.

But there’s reason to be excited for the future.

I absolutely agree with this sentiment. Let’s inventory some of the multiple paths here for multipolar search

• Apple Launches Search Engine: With the antitrust ruling in the rearview, could Apple move in on search? They have a captive audience with their hardware.

• SearchGPT Gets Liftoff: Promising a more generous visibility and attribution for publishers.

• Perplexity Partners with Publishers: Their announcement of publisher partnerships and rev shares, evangelizes the next era of AI + search.

• Bing Increases Market Share: At least evening the playing field with Google.

• Reddit Refines a Search Product: Reddit bills itself as the “start page” of the internet and many users already de facto use it as a search engine. In recent earnings calls, they’ve hinted at added advertising options within their INTERNAL search navigation.

How Reddit Matures

I don’t want to spill too much extra ink here on Reddit. I have a whole separate newsletter for that.

But as Reddit relates to publishing, there are some relevant takes from Reddit’s recent earnings report.

Reddit is considering “adding paywalls” as an option for communities:

“Paywalls” may not be the right word to describe this, but I do think adding a susbcription or “premium” membership option for Reddit community operators is a next level maturation. This puts it more squarely into the territory of platforms like Substack, Beehiiv, and Skool.

And all that “community tech” (Circle, Heartbeat, others), may face some knock on effects as well.

There are still many questions to be answered:

• Can anyone sign up for the paywall / subscription model, or just larger groups?

• What cut does Reddit take?

• Do community moderators / operators get access to subscriber info? Is it portable?

• What additional premium tools & features does Reddit add to support a paywall model?

Overall though, this is one more reason to be cautiously excited about Reddit as growth driver for publishers (and really ANY brand).

Need Traffic? Want to Build Community?

I’m “all in” on Reddit right now as the fastest way to acquire users and build community.

As such, my course is a fluid, evolving project. I’m adding new modules weekly!

Last week I added new modules on “Pillar Content Strategy” and “Brand Squatting” for the course.

Pinterest’s HCU?

Lots of rumbling on the former SEO Twitter channels about a significant Pinterest algo update.

This is painful setback for many publishers as Pinterest was one of the winning transitions after Google’s HCU for many blogs.

Specifically, this - along with Facebook - were mainly geared towards programmatic advertising sites looking for gobs of clickbait.

I’m don’t think the party is over. BUT, this is a big reminder that all of these platforms have the same ability to wreak a channel dependent publisher overnight.

Do you run a media publishing business? A blog? Or a Google / Pinterest / Facebook satellite arbitrage.

To engage a subscriber or community member (and keep them), you have to refine your value proposition and build a true brand. And probably know what you are talking about.

There are hundreds of traffic hacks (and I love them too), but at the end of the day, what are you building towards?

My problem with the current Pinterest and Facebook “viral traffic” articles is that they are highly leverage (from what I can see) on the basic clickbait arbitrage.

Convince the algo that your content gets clicks > monetize with overly leveraged display ads on your site.

This is just a very low value, low alignment type of cycle.

I’m sure some brands are doing this well and truly building incremental long-term, repeat value from each subscriber. I don’t think this is the majority.

Other Things I Read Recently

These are some articles I enjoyed, but don’t really have anything to add to!

Other Newsletters Worth Following

Here are some other publications I subscribe to, author, or co-sign.

If you are operating a newsletter (or even just interested), this next one is one of my “must opens” every week as a newsletter operator myself:

For some of the best breakdowns of creator success stories:

If you want to go deeper with Reddit (one of my favorite creator ecosysystems right now), check out my sister publication:

And don’t miss Amy’s excellent insights into wants happening in the world of content marketers.

Interested in Booking an Ad?

I’ve put together a resource sheet over at Passionfruit here.

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OK, that's it for this week...

Please do reply to this email with any feedback or suggestions.

Ewen