The numbers, in brief:
Subscribers: 266 (-5 +4 new)
Stories published: 29 (+12 new)
Previous month (you can check it out here):
Subscribers: 267 (-25 +12 new)
Stories published: 17 (+10 new)
People have almost stopped unsubscribing, but there's no subscriber growth either. The goal for new stories – at least 15 a month – hasn't been reached yet.
Promotion
Pinterest. 3 200 views over the month (2 000 last month). Conversion into clicks through to the site is very low. For now I've decided to keep going.
I removed the pin-friendly image and the "save as pin" button from the posts. They take up a lot of space, make it harder to reach the CTA at the end of a post, and I can't see any results. Maybe I just need to keep going and the results will come, but I don't have the patience.
YouTube. 14 Shorts videos were posted over the month. In the second half of the month views dropped sharply, and I don't yet know how to change that. I experimented a little with the storylines, but it didn't produce results. No new subscribers from here.
Instagram. The same short videos from YouTube go to Reels. It takes almost no time, but the results aren't impressive either. Very few views, almost no new followers.
LinkedIn. +150 new connections this month, 275 in total. I publish 3 new posts a week, with 30 to 120 views each.
What (else) didn't work
Nothing worked. The only thing that brings (a little) traffic is the posts that the people in the stories make on their own social media. Across all the other promotion – LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube – post views are low, and since the second half of September they've dropped to the bare minimum.
The number of new stories in September went up a little compared to August, but all of it is the result of my own invitations and outreach. I added a feedback block to the site (screenshot) so that anyone interested can quickly and easily apply to have their own story published, but so far only one person has used it.
The newsletter open rate has also fallen, from 40-45 percent to 30-35.
How all of this sits with me
So far this is the worst month ever (in three months of work on the project). What worries me is that I don't see any real channels for growing traffic, for effective promotion, and I don't understand what can be changed in the project itself (or whether it should be).
I even thought about quitting.
Somewhere I read that early results from working on a new project come after 26 weeks. Many quit sooner – before seeing even minimal success. I decided: let it be 26 weeks, which lands right on January 1. By then I can make some kind of decision, but for now it's too early.
A ray of light
Krister, from the Warenoff story, sent this update a few days after it went live. It meant a lot to me that he thought to write:
Hi Alex,
Just a quick update on the apparent power of tinyfound.
Almost immediately after the Warenoff story went live, I received an order from the UK. At first I thought, well, that worked fast!
Then I checked the delivery details while packing it – and discovered that the Warenoff curly birch bowl is actually heading to the props department at Leavesden Studios. The customer’s email is connected to an HBO production, and it looks like the bowl may end up being used as a prop in a Harry Potter production.
So apparently your article doesn’t just find customers – it gets Warenoff into the movies.
Thought you might enjoy that little follow-up to the story!
I actually have no idea how they came across my Warenoff bowl on Etsy. It could be pure coincidence.
I’ll wait until they receive the bowl, and then I’ll try to find out a little more. But of course, that’s another question entirely – whether they’ll be willing or able to tell me anything at all.
Best,
Krister
Small thing, and maybe nothing. But it's the first time a story lined up with a sale this close, and this strangely.
What I want to do next month
Work with Quora. According to some accounts, you can find an interested audience there by answering questions, bring traffic to the site – not very large, but real – and also attract new stories. We'll see.
Test a few adjustments: the structure of the posts, the questionnaire questions, the concept of the posts, the outreach messages.
Keep experimenting with storylines and formats for Shorts/Reels.
Keep working on LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. It may be that not enough time has passed yet and a critical mass of posts hasn't built up.
In short – I have to work.
And it will all work out.