The New "Calm" Media, Amazon Email Links, Community Training Wheels

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

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

Is “Calm” Decentralized Media the New Trend?

There’s an excellent piece I read last week on the backstory behind Reddit. While it’s very suddenly jumped on to many publisher’s radars… it’s actually a long time coming.

A surprising takeaway for me was how YOUNG the demographic skews, 44% Gen Z, followed closely by Millennials.

This is the same demographic group that embraced Snapchat, TikTok, “Stories” and “Shorts”… or at least that’s what marketers thought they wanted.

So how can we explain the inexorable rise of Reddit, a “low tech” comment and discussion platform?

My working theory is that we may be “post peak” pattern interruption. As a newfound power user of Reddit, I feel so much agency exploring (and discovering) rabbit holes.

And while Reddit does have it’s fair share of spam and trolls, there’s a greater requirement for logical & well thought out statements. The community holds you accountable!

The commenter (or reader) has almost as much power as the poster.

And while moderation is a patchwork of confederated rules and frameworks, these “laboratories of democracy” manifest a remarkable decentralized governance model. An end state that blockchain bros could only dream of.

As disruptive as Google updates have been for publishers & content creators, the bi-directional nature of Reddit (and potentially other UGC platforms) may actually yield a “better internet” over the long term for indie thought leaders.

There’s still thorny issues to work out. Reddit is far from perfect. It’s a very different structure than other big tech platforms.

But, barriers to entry - or traction - have never been lower.

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!

Amazon Updates TOS: Add links to Email!

For a long suffering Amazon Associate, this is a LONG time coming…

I honestly missed this one, but it’s fairly big news. For the longest time we had to send users to awkward intermediate landing pages if we wanted to leverage Amazon Associates to our email lists.

I’m curious if this might lead to a rise in “consumer reports” style email newsletters, especially with publishers facing Google headwinds.

Reddit as Community Training Wheels

Longtime readers know that I’m a big fan of “owning the list” and - more recently - “owned” communities.

The challenge with community is that there’s always a “chicken or egg” problem. You need quality members and engagement to attract new members.

One hypothesis I’m circling around is that Reddit is the JV league for community building.

1. Reddit’s algo & search visibility makes it easy to attract members

2. Reddit users already engage in “forum-like” or community-minded content generation (unlike an email list which is generally passive, one direction).

3. Reddit isn’t fancy, so users don’t need to be “wowed” with a platform

4. Reddit allows you to place outbound links and CTAs in a variety of places

The friction point (yet to be seriously tested by me) is getting engaged Reddit community members to step off their familiar platform, even if what you’ve built, off Reddit, is similar.

There’s likely some atrophy here. Not everyone will cross over, but I’m thinking Reddit is more adaptable to this strategy than any other mass audience platform today.

Make Some Noise, Get Paid?

Most content creators still don’t have their AI rev sharing agreements….

Advocacy and trade associations aren’t a business plan, but I fully endorse, support, and co-sign the efforts of WPA here!

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:

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.

We also cover the latest MarTech trends and deep dives with a monthly newsletter for B2B operators:

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