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Welcome to Volume 59!
Happy Thanksgiving to our U.S. Readers!
We’d love to be a part of your celebration this season.
You should capture the moment and share it with us.
It could be a picture of happy faces gathered around the stuffed turkey. Or something more fun. Just post some of your faves and tag us so we can see how it all went down.
Beyond our personal lives, there have been many harvests and blessings in the business world. This year, we saw Tesla’s valuation rise to $1 Trillion, Rivian’s Blockbuster IPO, several acquisitions & collaborations, and the latest, Grammarly’s surge to $13B from a $1B+ valuation.
Before we jump right into the exciting bits we have to share, here’s a peek at what’s to come:
- Grammarly’s latest funding round boosts valuation to $13B
- Clubhouse Expands Organic Reach
- Twitter Gives Back to its Android Users
Grammarly’s Latest Funding Round Boosts Valuation to $13B
Grammarly is a lifesaver.
We’ve all used this cutting-edge communication platform in some way.
Whether it’s writing emails, reports, blog posts, proposals, texts, or editing transcripts, the digital writing assistant has helped polish the writing of over 30 million users.
Its latest $200M funding round boosted Grammarly’s valuation to a whopping $13B. But that’s just the half of their triumphs.
The other half is Grammarly’s position as the 10th most valuable startup in the U.S, according to Yahoo Finance. Pretty impressive for the privately held company.
Grammarly partly owes its massive success to its well-defined content strategy.
First, Grammarly defined its unique value proposition, which is, improving internal and external communication so people can connect better. Then, the company defined its audience segments instead of focusing on one demography alone.
Even though Grammarly targets people who write, you can see from the app’s sophisticated personalization and suggestions that it caters to students, entrepreneurs, professionals, and enterprise companies differently.
Rather than target one segment, Grammarly learns from each audience segment behavior and iterates their product to ensure their different needs are met.
For example, the “set goals” feature lets users set goals for a particular piece of writing so Grammarly can offer tailored suggestions.
A student using Grammarly for a research paper will have different goals from a freelancer trying to send an email to a client. With this feature, both users can select the intended audience, formality, domain, tone, and intent.
Everyone’s satisfied at the end of the day.
You can also see this thoughtfulness displayed on Grammarly’s blog. The articles on the blog address different pain points the different audiences have: their desire to improve their writing, edit like a pro, and communicate better.
Salesforce also adopts a similar strategy in satisfying multiple audiences.
The company serves many different industries, and like Grammarly, a banker using a CRM has different needs from an event manager using one. Salesforce’s navigational menu, as well as its blog, shows solutions tailored to each audience segment.
Focusing on a single customer persona can be detrimental to the brand’s health, whether in the B2B or B2C industry. That’s because most of these companies serve more than one customer segment.
The secret is to design a content strategy that addresses multiple audiences. It can be a long, tedious process; however, it’s a worthy investment that will help you reach, engage, and connect better with each of your audience segments.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Grammarly is now valued at $13B, with its latest funding round worth $200M;
- The digital writing assistant partly owes its massive success to its well-defined content strategy.
- Focusing on a single customer persona can be detrimental to the brand’s health, whether in the B2B or B2C industry. These brands should invest in designing a content strategy that addresses multiple audiences.
Clubhouse Expands Organic Reach
Clubhouse’s launch in April 2020 was a breath of fresh air for creators amid the pandemic.
The audio social app created a fun, engaging, and interactive way for people to connect, share value, and learn from their favorite industry experts at zero cost. And they’ve done pretty well for themselves since the rollout. Clubhouse has reached 10 million active weekly users.
Even though live audio has many great benefits, people who suffer partial or complete loss of hearing were left out of the fun.
There was no way of accessing the value the app offered since audio chats were the only way to go. But not anymore, at least for iOS users.
Last week, Clubhouse rolled out a closed captioning feature that’d allow live transcriptions during audio sessions.
This feature is a critical accessibility feature that allows users who are differently-abled to enjoy speaker sessions. If you struggle to catch or understand a speaker during their sessions, you can now enjoy them later, become more engaged, and even retain the information longer.
Combined with the replay feature clubhouse rolled out in August, it will be more fun and engaging rewatching sessions and capturing actionable insights that’ll help you succeed.
Of course, Twitter Spaces is already ahead with the live captioning feature.
The pressure has been on since April when Twitter launched Spaces in an attempt to add more value to their users and dethrone Clubhouse as the go-to audio-based social media platform.
It’s great to know Clubhouse is all caught up, and the battlefield is leveled once more.
Another great benefit of this update for creators is the live translation feature.
The feature allows hosts to expand their organic reach and communicate to audiences in 13 different languages.
Guests can use the live subtitle feature in 13 different languages, including English, French, German, Korean, Italian, Japanese, Cantonese, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Yue Chinese.
So, for hosts, this means that you can be delivering a session in English, and people in Chinese can participate because of the live translation feature.
I haven’t tested the translation feature yet, but the word on the street is that the feature is still in beta mode. So, the app might struggle to understand some of the non-English languages listed.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Clubhouse rolled out a closed captioning feature that will allow live transcriptions during audio sessions.
- This feature is a critical accessibility feature that allows users who are differently-abled to enjoy speaker sessions.
- The live translation feature allows hosts to expand their organic reach, communicating to different audiences in 13 different languages.
Twitter Gives Back to its Android Users
Content creators invest time, effort, and money in creating engaging pieces for their audiences on Twitter.
Beyond an increase in the number of followers, there’s no way for users to voluntarily appreciate and support their favorite content creator’s “hustle.”
Twitter changed this in May with its “tip jar feature.”
This feature allows users to appreciate and support creators of their choice. On the other hand, creators can reap the rewards of their consistent content creation efforts.
All creators need to do is to add links of any one of these third-party payment services to their profile to receive money or bitcoin: Band amp, Cash App, Chipper, Patreon, Razorpay, Wealthsimple Cash, and Venmo.
When you turn on Tips on your profile, for instance, your followers (or non-followers) can send you money or bitcoin via the platforms/services you added simply by clicking on the Tips icon on your profile.
The feature was rolled out officially for iOS users above 18 in September, and Tips is now available to Android users above 18.
Tips is now on Android!
You can get set up to receive tips from your profile –– tap the “Edit profile” button then tap “Tips” to start.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 18, 2021
I think it’s great that Twitter has created a way to reward the efforts of conversation drivers on the app’s platforms.
The best way creators can attract tips from users is by giving value and being genuine.
You can keep creating content that helps solve users’ problems, encourage them through a challenging situation, or even make a joke. That way, users can tip to appreciate you and show support for the value you offer.
Think about what moves you to tip a waiter/waitress or a vendor and incorporate that into your Twitter Strategy.
Of course, you shouldn’t manipulate people into tipping you. Instead, look for opportunities to connect sincerely and build a strong relationship with your audience beyond tips.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Twitter’s Tips feature allows users to appreciate and support their favorite creators while these creators reap the rewards of their consistent content creation efforts.
- The best way creators can attract tips from users is by being valuable and genuine.
- You can keep creating content that helps solve users’ problems, encourage them through a tough situation, or even make a joke. That way, users can tip to appreciate you and show support for the value you offer.
OTHER NEWS OF THE WEEK:
📄 Sudowrite raises $3 million from individual investors to eliminate writers’ block and boost productivity.
📱 Instagram’s new rage feature lets you report in-app problems by shaking your phone. You can also delete items from an existing carousel by selecting the image or video that you want to remove.
📥 Download the 2021 Subscription Churn Benchmarks Report to find out what you need to do to grow your subscription business in 2022.
HIRING BRILLIANT B2B MARKETERS:
BRAIN FOOD OF THE WEEK:
Content is the lifeblood of the sales funnel.
At each stage of the buyer’s journey, marketers and sales teams invest in creating masterclass content pieces that drive demand, inspire action, and generate revenue.
Despite the value of content, many content creators and marketers still struggle to brainstorm blog post ideas that scale.
If you’ve experienced the content dry spell, you’d know first-hand how frustrating searching for fresh ideas can be. I’ve had my fair share of struggle as well.
Finding the perfect idea for my next piece used to prove quite challenging.
I’d sit in front of my laptop for days, knee-deep in research, hoping inspiration strikes fast so I can spin that idea into a masterpiece. Sometimes, inspiration struck right on time. Other times, it stayed away, ultimately affecting my productivity.
As content marketers, our job demands consistency.
That means we can’t wait for inspiration to strike. We need to create an environment that inspires a constant flow of fresh, original ideas that users would find valuable, actionable, and share-worthy when developed into a content asset.
One of the ways to ensure you never run out of good ideas is to create an idea bank.
An idea bank is a digital repository for documenting and storing different thoughts, opinions, and ideas you might have during the day and night.
Idea banks are powerful because they let you recognize and appreciate the little inspiration hotspots around you.
You’ll start to value every conversation, article, interaction, data point, and even silent observations, seeing each one as a potential masterpiece.
The idea bank also lets you capture and store your ideas in one place instead of bookmarking or making mental notes. That way, the 6000 thoughts that bombard our minds daily don’t strangle and kill promising ideas prematurely.
A great way to start your idea bank is to choose the software you’d prefer to use for this exercise, preferably one you’re familiar with.
You can opt to use Google Docs, Google Keep, Notion, Evernote, Trello Board, Spreadsheet, or whichever tool works best for you.
After choosing the software, create a new file and start depositing some ideas.
You can source ideas from:
🎙Facebook Groups, Slack Channels, Telegram/WhatsApp Groups
📑 Keyword Research
📦 Customer Feedback
📞 Sales Calls
📜 Internal Meetings
Other sources include forums, newsletters, blog posts, reports, past articles, and a host of other sources.
Quotes, questions, stats, topics, and whatever stands out to you in those documents should be added to the file.
The secret is to be alert and ready to capture ideas as they come, however they come.
While capturing these ideas, you should avoid including too much detail. It’s an idea, not a brief or a framework. Two or three sentences that explain the direction you want the idea to take (or the pain point it addresses) are okay.
Trying to create a content brief at the ideation stage will limit your creativity, making it harder for you to figure out your unique angle.
You can also create a content calendar. Use your content calendar to figure out which ideas you want to prioritize. You should select ideas that align with your unique positioning and solve specific customer pain points based on your content strategy.
TWITTER THREAD OF THE WEEK:
What makes a good Content Marketing Director by Aaron Orendorff
IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE:
- How to Buffer 2x Traffic By Deleting Their Blog
- ShipBob’s Billion Dollar Social Proof Formula
- The Power of Treating Content as an Investment
WHAT WE’RE WIRED INTO THIS WEEK 🎧:
Hall of Fame by The Script ft. Will.I.Am
These round-ups are brought to you by me, Jessica O., every week ✌!
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