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Planning my income generating side hustle

Planted February 2023·Last tended August 2024

Up: § Blogging Index

Written: February 25, 2023

Having a true side hustle

Things I should do more of, that are truly “side hustle” rather than just “side project”:

  • Prep and writing on Newsletters
  • Filling up my social media

Essentially, anything that builds my own brand outside of Buffer, especially if I am doing activities that will eventually help me monetize.

I’d like to monetize one thing outside of Buffer, that’s not investing. One other income stream than Buffer and investments, basically.

The most obvious thing would be a newsletter that I have ads within. Or a YouTube channel. Basically something content based just makes a ton of sense. Could also be a membership tier, but the problem with that is that it feels like it requires a lot of volume to achieve that. Could also be a course, or a paid piece of content of some sort. Not a book, but something in between a post and a book.

The benefit of a content product:

  • I can work on it within Buffer, as well as outside.
  • Social posting will be complementary to whatever I do that is ultimately more owned and monetizable.
  • It feels beneficial to me, for my own values, and my reputation, to build up a solid owned channel
  • As an example, being an angel investor, I benefit from build up a greater voice and influence. It’s part of what gets me the best deals, due to being able to offer more
  • It’s really important to have my own voice outside Buffer, alongside posting about Buffer
  • This voice should be casual, experimenting, free to do anything, opinionated
  • Something with a regularity I commit too feels powerful. It helps me have a sense of discipline for my time outside Buffer (like exercise does, too)

A content product feels more natural than an app or SaaS product, too. Would be neat to make money a totally different way than Buffer.

Building up a blog + newsletter content product

So it’s decided. I’m really trying to build up some sort of content product.

The closest I’ve been to think is in the past when I was blogging almost every week for a while.

And, I know I want to add in a newsletter to the mix.

The newsletter will be the monetization, through ads.

The blog will be a means of capturing newsletter subscribers.
Social will primarily be a way to get people to the blog.
Social will also be a means of capturing newsletter subscribers.

Goals of this blog + newsletter content product:

  • Post consistently to social
  • Grow social followers
  • Post consistently to blog
  • Grow email subscribers
  • Increase overall page views of blog
  • Increase reads of newsletter
  • With enough reads of newsletter, monetize with tasteful ads

An ideal cadences (long-term):

  • Blog post: weekly
    • Fridays
  • Newsletter: monthly
    • Fridays
  • Twitter, Mastodon: 3/day (21/week)
    • 8:15pm, 12:30pm, 4:00pm
  • LinkedIn: 1/day (7/week)
    • 10:30am
  • Instagram: 4/week
    • M, T, W, T
    • 10:30am
  • TikTok: 2/week
    • M, W
    • 10:30am

Weekly social posts: 34

Initial and fallback cadences:

  • Blog post: biweekly
    • Fridays
  • Newsletter: monthly
    • Fridays
  • Twitter Mastodon: 1/day (7/week)
  • LinkedIn: 2/week
  • Instagram: 1/week
  • TikTok: 1/week

Weekly social posts:11

Monetization requirements:

  • ConvertKit Sponsor Network:
    • 10k email subscribers
    • Post weekly

Options for combining blogging and newsletter:

How I can combine blogging and newsletter:

  • Either:
    • Send every blog post to the email list
    • Send newsletter once a month
  • Or:
    • Send newsletter weekly, include snippet of any blog content

But then again, RSS is now weird:

  • RSS is for blog posts

  • but not for Newsletter

  • Email is for Newsletter

  • but not for blog posts

In reality, you should be able to choose:

  • Subscribe to Newsletter via email or RSS
  • Subscriber to Blog via email or RSS

Or, do I keep it simple and just have one subscription, but send everything out to both:

  • Subscribe to receive all content, via email or RSS

Chosen blog + newsletter combination

To get to 10k email subscribers faster, I should go for the option that combines everything. So:

  • Send every blog post to the email list
  • Send a newsletter regularly, too (weekly if possible)

Tools

  • Bear - writing
  • Ghost - blogging
  • Mailchimp - newsletter
  • Buffer - ideas, scheduling, posting, analytics
  • Fathom - blog stats
  • Google Search Console - SEO / keyword analysis
  • Ahrefs Webmaster Tools - further SEO analysis
  • Canva or Figma - content design
  • Pocket - read later
  • Reeder - read feeds + newsletters
  • Raindrop - bookmarking

Current costs

How to succeed with this plan

The key to achieving this, is to make the newsletter incredibly easy. I should reconsider the format of it.

Types of content I can post / should consider posting:

Types of social posts:

Written:

  • Singular thought: single tweet, single Mastodon post, single IG carousel
  • Longer thought: twitter thread, Mastodon thread, LinkedIn post

I could also consider a paid business brainstorming session. It could be pay what you want initially.

I should consider an email sequence. Easy way to ensure that new subscribers get a consistent flow of emails.

One significant piece of content per week

  • This is the blog post
  • Probably something I’ve shared within Buffer already
  • I repurpose it as a Twitter Thread + Mastodon thread
  • I post it to LinkedIn
  • I create a short form video out of it for Instagram, TikTok (YouTube shorts in the future)

#topic/inbox

#date/2023/02/25

#tag/personal-brand #tag/blogging #tag/newsletter #tag/income #tag/side-hustle