Reader-First Marketing | June 11, 2026

Hello everyone,

This week's edition is back to offering lots of practical tips, such as how to write better YouTube titles, what to do when you send a newsletter with an error, and why putting a review at the top of your shop page might increase your book sales. Of course, there are also some social media platform updates at the beginning and end.
 
Happy reading!

Josefine

Instagram Subscriptions - Update

I already mentioned it in last week's Reader-First Marketing newsletter but now, we have more details on what at least Instagram Plus entails.

Directly from Meta, here is what's available now for $3.99/ month:

• Story Spotlight – Give your story priority for your friends.
• Super Hearts – Send vibrant, animated hearts that burst across the screen to celebrate stories from friends.
• Multiple Story Audiences – Create as many audience lists as you want, so you can share exactly the right story with exactly the right people.
• Story Extend – Set your story to last 48 hours so the people you care about have more time to see it.
• Story Preview – Preview stories without the pressure to react.
• Story Rewatch Insights – See how many times your stories were rewatched.
• Search Viewer List – Quickly check if a specific person viewed your story.
• Custom App Icon – Choose your own app icon from a curated selection designed by Instagram and Instagram creators.
• Custom Bio Font – Customize the font of your profile bio to match your style.
• More Profile Pins – Pin up to 6 posts to your profile to highlight what matters most.
• Post Directly to Profile – Post to your profile or highlights without it appearing in friends' feeds.

To summarize "The Instagram you know and love today isn't changing and will always be free; this new subscription is simply an optional upgrade for people who want more control, deeper insights, and premium features."

Initial thoughts: Features like Story Priority and Story Rewatch Insights will be interesting though, because they could give paying users an advantage by showing their stories higher in their followers' feeds and providing more details about how their viewers interact with their content. I will keep an eye out for new information about this subscription and its potential impact on user experience.

Social Commerce Growing 4x Faster Than E-Commerce

Social commerce: refers to users buying products directly on social media platforms
E-Commerce: refers to users buying products on the author's website or sites like Amazon
 
What Does That Mean?
Readers who are active on platforms like TikTok are increasingly staying on TikTok. They're not just using it to find new sources of entertainment, they're also using it to buy from you.

There's a general trend in buyer behavior that is moving away from the traditional "search - become a lead/ newsletter subscriber - buy" flow and instead has readers discover and purchase new books directly via social media. That's why, on channels like TikTok, it's important to focus on building a community. In return, this community will build trust and show potential new readers what you and your book are all about.

Translate YouTube Analytics to Better Titles

Nadine Sykora shared a video where she's going through three different reports in her YouTube Studio analytics to see which of her videos could use a boost and then shows how a change of the title can help YouTube understand who the video is for.

Her tips:

• Cut vague words and say what the video is about. Example: Instead of "why I love this book" say "the depth of the main character made me fall in love..."
• Add who the video is for. Example: "recommendations for Fantasy beginners"
• Don't use broad categories. Example: use a specific trope instead of the overarching genre -> "enemies-to-lovers" instead of "Romance"

To summarize: Be more precise with your titles. Stop using vague, clickbait titles that don't tell viewers what the video is about 😉

An Experiment for More Book Sales

I've read this article about how to increase the conversion rate, which is the percentage of visitors to a site who click "purchase." In other words, it's about getting more people to click "buy" when they are on a shop or pricing page. The article is specifically about subscription products, but I'm wondering if the same idea would work for an author's product page.
 
The article explains that most shoppers want to see "social proof," such as reviews from past buyers, before making a purchase. It then describes an experiment in which adding a review to the top of the pricing page convinced more people to sign up.
 
This is what it looked like for their site:

This logic should apply to any product.
We already know that book reviews are a great driver for new sales. The more reviews a book has, the more people trust that it's worth their time, so having one or more of those reviews at the top of the shop should solidify a reader's purchase decision.
 
Are you going to try it out?

One More Tip: Email Oopsies

You just sent your monthly author newsletter, but then you realize there was an error: the wrong link or the old subject line.

Mistakes happen, and most of us have been there. Instead of panicking, use this opportunity to show that you're human. In a world dominated by AI, this is definitely needed.

For example, if you used the old subject line, refer back to last month's newsletter and share what that was all about (here is an example from a company that did that).

Or if you included the wrong link, blame the internet box.

What's New on Social Media

01 Instagram: Reorder grid is a new feature allowing you to reorder the images and videos on your Instagram profile.
Announcement on Instagram ->
More Details and Why You Should Think about it ->

02 Instagram & Facebook: Meta is testing serialized content for Reels, allowing you to create individual episodes that are then part of a bigger, connected story.
More on TechCrunch ->

03 YouTube: A new feature allows users to personalize their feed to match their mood or specific interests.
More on YouTube Help ->

04 Reddit: Reddit adds video replies to comment threads.
Read the Reddit Thread ->

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