(highlight:: Resonant Newsletters are Anticipated, Personal, and Relevant to Their Audience
Key takeaways:
• Anticipated, personal, and relevant messages are more likely to resonate with people than spam.
• Email delivery of blogs has been in practice since the 1990s.
• The speaker had a blog on TypePad before transitioning to email delivery.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Before I had my blog on TypePad, I used to deliver it by email. And I've been doing that since the 1990s. What I discovered then, what I wrote a book about, is the simple idea that anticipated, personal, and relevant messages are more likely to resonate with people than spam.)
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Newsletter Strategy: Reach the Right (Not a Lot of People and Make Them Glad You Showed Up
Transcript:
Speaker 1
The goal isn't to reach a lot of people, the goal is to reach the right people, and to reach them in a way where they're glad that you showed up. Anticipated, personal, and relevant means that they would miss you if you didn't show up. That's my definition of permission. Earning the privilege, you can't take it, it's not a right. There's no such thing as free speech when we're not talking about the government. This is earned speech, showing up with a message that people want to get, drip by drip, day after day.)
- Time 0:02:32
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(highlight:: Getting Found: The Challenge of SEO in the Age of Google
Key takeaways:
• Most people don't go past the first page of Google search results.
• Getting found for generic terms on Google is a challenge.
• Early on, cheating was a common way to manipulate Google's algorithm.
• The sedimentary approach of website rankings is based on SEO rather than worthiness or verification.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Most people never get past the first page of results on Google. Well, it's so popular, so many billions of searches are done that everybody who makes a thing, who has a service, who wants a job, who needs or wants to be found, wants to be found by Google. There is a haystack, the biggest haystack in the history of the world, and each of us, each of us who wants to make a difference, who wants to be found, were needles. And so there's a problem. There's a challenge. And the challenge is getting found for a generic term. Right? If I search for John Jacob Jingle, Heimer Schmidt, and Google does its job right, I will actually find John. But most of the time, that's not what people search for. Most of the time, people aren't sure what they're looking for, and they want Google to find it for them. And so in every town, there are a thousand plumbers with sharp elbows, hoping that they will be the first match for the word plumber. And in every industry, there are consultants, or there are freelancers, or there are companies big or small, waiting to be found. At the beginning, Google's algorithm was pretty primitive. It wasn't particularly difficult to cheat your way to the front of the line. To play in ways that the Google algorithm liked a lot, and get more than your fair share of visits from the hordes of people searching for the likes of you. And so we began this striation, this sedimentary approach, people at the top, people in the middle, people at the bottom, not because they are worthy, not because Google has done a site Visit, or the Department of Health has verified them, but instead, because they got good at getting found. This is often called SEO, Search Engine Optimization.)
- Time 0:06:40
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(highlight:: How to Win When Someone Searches for You
Key takeaways:

• You cannot trust that your needle will be found in the haystack, and you cannot rely on generic words to get you found.
• You need to engage with people specifically so that they want to share your work with others.
  Transcript:
  Speaker 1
  And I think the key insight is this, you cannot trust that your needle is going to get found in the haystack. You cannot trust that any generic word, the word you seek to own, but your shop, shoe store, pick whichever one you want, is going to end up with you on top. And if you're not on top, if you're number 20 or number 50 or number 100, you might as well be invisible. The alternative is to win when someone searches for you. So if you look for Seth, you'll find me. If you look for Seth Godin, you'll definitely find me. If you look for Newton running shoes, you'll find the people that make Newton running shoes. So the game goes from, how do I persuade Google to find me when someone is looking for the generic, to how do I persuade the public to look for the specific? And so as we enter this post-Google age, where clearly there's room for more than one winner for every noun, how do we have a chance to change the culture? And the answer is this. The answer is change the people you engage with so much that they want to tell other people. Have them want to tell other people in this specific, not in the general. You may have heard me talk about one of my favorite examples, the Poulan Bakery in Paris, run by Apollonia Poulan, the daughter of the late Lionel. This bakery is extraordinary. Lines out the door, a premium product enjoyed at most of the fine restaurants in Paris. If you search for Bakery, you will not find it, not easily. But if you search for Poulan, P-O-I-L-A-N-E, there it is, right up top where it belongs. So that's the mission. The mission is to write things, create things, post things, engage with things that people choose to share. To earn the permission of people they share them with, the permission to follow up, the permission to teach, the permission to engage, and then share some more, and then teach some more. And do it in a way that people will share it again.)
  - Time 0:13:22
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(highlight:: Creating Things that Are Influential and Shareable in the Post-Google Age
Key takeaways:
• Generic words may not lead to top search results and being further down in ranking could be equivalent to being invisible.
• Winning the search game involves getting the public to look for specifics instead of persuading Google to find you.
• Changing the culture involves engaging with people to make them want to share specific details, thereby making it easier to find in search results.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And I think the key insight is this, you cannot trust that your needle is going to get found in the haystack. You cannot trust that any generic word, the word you seek to own, but your shop, shoe store, pick whichever one you want, is going to end up with you on top. And if you're not on top, if you're number 20 or number 50 or number 100, you might as well be invisible. The alternative is to win when someone searches for you. So if you look for Seth, you'll find me. If you look for Seth Godin, you'll definitely find me. If you look for Newton running shoes, you'll find the people that make Newton running shoes. So the game goes from, how do I persuade Google to find me when someone is looking for the generic, to how do I persuade the public to look for the specific? And so as we enter this post-Google age, where clearly there's room for more than one winner for every noun, how do we have a chance to change the culture? And the answer is this. The answer is change the people you engage with so much that they want to tell other people. Have them want to tell other people in this specific, not in the general. You may have heard me talk about one of my favorite examples, the Poulan Bakery in Paris, run by Apollonia Poulan, the daughter of the late Lionel. This bakery is extraordinary. Lines out the door, a premium product enjoyed at most of the fine restaurants in Paris. If you search for Bakery, you will not find it, not easily. But if you search for Poulan, P-O-I-L-A-N-E, there it is, right up top where it belongs. So that's the mission. The mission is to write things, create things, post things, engage with things that people choose to share. To earn the permission of people they share them with, the permission to follow up, the permission to teach, the permission to engage, and then share some more, and then teach some more. And do it in a way that people will share it again.)
- Time 0:13:22
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(highlight:: The Discipline and Benefits of Starting a Blog
Key takeaways:
• Having a blog is important for the discipline it provides, not necessarily for making money or gaining a large audience.
• Writing consistently improves thinking abilities, including making predictions and connections.
• Sharing ideas through blogging helps to get them out of one's own head and into the world.
• To change the culture, it's important to focus on serving a specific, smaller audience rather than trying to win at generic Google searches.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
But way more important than that, I'm encouraging each one of you to have one. Not to have a blog because you'll make money because you probably won't. Not to have a blog because you'll have millions and millions of readers because you probably won't. But to have a blog because of the discipline it gives you. To know that you're going to write something tomorrow. Something that might not be read by many people, it doesn't matter, will be read by you. And that if you can build that up 10 at a time, 20 at a time, a month at a time, day by day, you will begin to think more clearly. You will make predictions. You will make assertions. You will make connections. And there they will be in type for you to look at a month or a year later. This practice of sharing your ideas to people who will then choose or not choose to share them. Helps us get out of our own head because it's no longer the narrative inside. It's the narrative outside. The narrative that you've typed up that you've cared enough to share. So SEO is fine. If you win at SEO, congratulations. I'll send you a postcard, maybe a medal and a ribbon. It's great. Someone needs to win at every single noun anyone could search on. But it might not be you. It probably won't be you. The odds are against it being you. A 12-year-old probably shouldn't grow up saying, I will not be happy unless I am the champion of the world at this sport or that thing. Because the odds are too long. It's not worth betting your happiness on that. That if we're going to change the culture, we're going to have to figure out how to bypass the generic Google search and instead reach a few, the smallest viable audience, the group of People we seek to serve, to connect those people with each other and with our ideas in such a way that we become the specific, not the generic. Because if you are specific enough and generous enough and consistent enough, it's worth the journey.)
- Time 0:18:07
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