“There are no secrets that time does not reveal.” — Jean Racine
I’ve been sending out secret emails for a week.
Over in the For The Interested Social Media and Marketing Facebook group I announced a little experiment — a daily email featuring advice, tips and tactics for how to use social media to grow audiences and accomplish goals.
It’s been fun, people seem to dig it, and I’ve decided to extend the experiment.
The emails feature one tip a day and are ONLY about social media so they don’t cover the broad range of topics I feature in this weekly newsletter.
If you’d like me to start sending the daily social emails to you, email me and let me know — I’ll add you to the list.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. TWO WAYS TO WRITE SOCIAL MEDIA CAPTIONS THAT GET LIKES AND SHARES
“Use your caption to give people an additional reason to like, share or comment on your post — don’t just double down on the content of the picture itself.”
The most underrated element of social media posts are captions.
They make a huge difference in how your content performs and in this post I share two ways to write better social media captions that don’t have anything to do with including hashtags or emojis.
RELATED: How to create a social media post 100% of your followers will like.
2. HOW TO BE AN ARTIST
“You must be open to critique but also develop an elephant skin. And remember that nothing anyone says to you about your work can be worse than the things you’ve already thought and said to yourself 100 times.”
There’s a LOT to sink your teeth into with this one.
New York Magazine’s senior art critic Jerry Saltz shares 33 rules to take you from being an amateur to a generational talent in this post about how to be an artist.
The rules include to know what you hate, understand that art is not just for looking at, and that art is a form of knowing yourself.
RELATED: The artist’s journey.
3. HOW TO MAKE A LIVING ON THE INTERNET
“How soon you can earn money depends on two things: the niche you’re writing for, and how hard you push for donations or subscriptions.”
It’s not easy to make money through creative work online — but it’s also not impossible.
Taimur has put together a great overview of how to make a living on the internet that includes breakdowns of what’s working for creators on YouTube, Instagram, blogs, and Twitch in addition to specifics about how much money people are making on each platform.
RELATED: How to make money from your expertise.
4. HOW TO TALK TO PEOPLE
“If you can’t be funny, being mentally organized, reasonably concise and energetic will go a long way in impressing people.”
NPR host Terry Gross knows what it takes to have a good conversation.
In this New York Times interview she shares eight tips for having better conversations including to be curious, pay attention to body language, and use the phrase “Tell me about yourself” as an icebreaker.
RELATED: How to be better at parties.
5. DO MORE OF WHAT YOU LOVE AND LESS OF WHAT YOU LIKE
“Loving the things you do is what makes for happiness. More than money, fame or status. It’s also something almost fully under your control. Your health, relationships or career may be tossed around by outside factors, but doing what you love is largely a choice.”
It’s one thing to like something, but it’s another to love it.
Scott Young suggests the path to happiness is to do more of what you love and less of what you like.
In this post he elaborates on the concept and offers tips to help you discipline yourself to do more of what you love and optimize your life.
RELATED: Nine scientists share their favorite happiness practices.
6. RECONSIDER WHY YOU WANT TO START SOMETHING
“Part of the problem seems to be that nobody these days is content to merely put their dent in the universe. No, they have to fucking own the universe. It’s not enough to be in the market, they have to dominate it. It’s not enough to serve customers, they have to capture them.”
This post is theoretically about how the goals of most tech startup companies have gotten out of whack, but it applies to anybody embarking on any endeavor these days.
David Heinemeir Hansson suggests you reconsider why you want to start something and shares the reasons he set out to create Basecamp — none of which involved world domination.
Instead, he points to simple goals like making a product to sell directly to people who care about its quality and wanting to have a life beyond work.
RELATED: The $100 Startup is worth recommending.
7. NINE USEFUL PIECES OF ADVICE FOR PEOPLE BUILDING BUSINESSES
“Start every all-hands meeting by reminding people why they’re all here ultimately, what is it that you’re trying to change by your work.”
If you collected some of the best business advice you ever received from people and combined it into one post, what would it look like?
For Mathilde Collin, it looks like this compilation of nine useful pieces of advice for people building businesses.
The advice includes to follow your growth, avoid benchmarking against other companies, and ignore most advice.
RELATED: Eight lessons you can learn from Google’s founders.
8. HOW TO SURVIVE THE NEXT ERA OF TECHNOLOGY
“Don’t just consider how well a product works, but look at who is making it and how it is sold. Before you dive into any new doodad, consider a company’s ethics, morals, branding and messaging. If you are not comfortable, look to alternatives.”
There’s an interesting trend happening with tech experts these days — they’re increasingly warning consumers about the dangers of tech and encouraging them to slow down their use of it.
Farhad Manjoo offers a similar take in this breakdown of how to survive the next era of technology.
His suggestions include to avoid feeding the giants and adopt late.
RELATED: The way baby boomers use technology is incredible, not embarrassing.
9. A NOTE TO COLLEGE STUDENTS
“When life starts throwing curveballs at you, and it begins to get in the way of your learning, please let me know. Don’t wait until after an assignment is due to come to me and raise issues. After the fact it is an excuse, beforehand it is a reason.”
In this note to his students, college professor C.C. Chapman shares his approach to teaching and a passion for educating that probably isn’t nearly as common on college campuses as it should be.
RELATED: 14 life lessons college students should be taught.
10. YOU NEED A NEMESIS
“Declaring an enemy of your work — whether a person, product, or idea — gets it noticed, supported, and ultimately helps it succeed.”
The better the villain, the better the hero.
In this post I explain why you need a nemesis and how it can help your product or cause gain more traction because a nemesis rallies your audience, helps you stand out, and makes you better.
RELATED: How brands use laddering to get an edge on their competition.
WHERE I FOUND THIS STUFF
I got some of this week’s ideas from Postanly, Austin Kleon, Sam Altman, and Scott Monty — they’re awesome and worth checking out.
Image via Kristina Flour.