Take your social media game to the next level with Future Social.

The digital world often feels like it revolves around one thing: social media.

Whether it’s personal or business, everyone’s on it. All. Day. Long.

Understanding how to master social media is one of the most sought-after skills today.

With a passion for teaching brands and marketers how to optimize their social media game, Jack Appleby decided to take the plunge and start his newsletter in this very competitive niche (and he’s crushing it).

In less than one year, he built and grew his newsletter to over 45,000 subscribers! (Note: Future Social has grown quickly since we did the interview which is why the image says 43,000, fyi).

We sat down with Jack Appleby, founder of the Future Social newsletter, to discuss how he fast-tracked his audience growth and built a full-time income from his newsletter in less than one year.

Jack was eager to share how he leveraged his expertise in social media, strategic partnerships, and passion for educating and elevating others to also find success in this space.

In today’s Creator Spotlight, Jack shared a gold mine of advice for creators looking to break into social media, newsletters, or any other medium to run a successful business.

• Leveraging different platforms at the same time.

• Newsletter growth tactics.

• Standing out.

• Monetization.

• Top advice for new or growing creators.

If you’re thinking of launching your own newsletter, looking for new growth tactics, or you’re curious about what it looks like to live as a creator in today’s digital world, read this.

Let’s get into it.

The Future Social Origin Story

Jack Appleby’s passion for newsletters started with his passion for social media. Before he ever started offering his own advice to marketers, he was working hands-on in the social game for years.

He shared, “I worked in advertising agencies for about ten years, specifically in social media. I’ve worked on social AORs—agency of record accounts—for brands like Beats by Dre, Microsoft, Verizon, the TV show “Community,” and a whole bunch of video games.

When Jack first began talking about social media, it was not for the purpose of build a business. He just wanted to connect with others in the space. But, one thing led to another, and soon enough he started getting job offers and opportunities.

He shared, “Somewhere along that journey, I wanted to meet more people who did what I did for a living. So I started tweeting about advertising and then started posting on LinkedIn about it, strictly just to make some connections, and maybe meet my next boss. Somewhere along the way, I grew an audience for myself, which turned into my own newsletter for them called Future Social.”

In 2022, Jack launched social media newsletter built on his decade of experience in the space with the goal of teaching marketers expert-level social media strategy.

He continued, “I'm now an independent operator, independent creator, and we're off to the races just teaching social media weekly to 45,000 marketers.”

Choosing Newsletter Formats: News vs. Actionable Advice

When launching a newsletter, there are typically two routes to go. One: offer a daily or weekly newsletter roundup of recent events and breaking news. Essentially, a modern-day newspaper in a particular space.

The second: offer practical, actionable advice, including deep dives into specific tactics in a space to teach people new skills.

Jack wanted to help people grow their social media skills, so he decided to dive head-first into the second option.

Jack shared, “When I started the newsletter, a couple of things were really clear. People want to learn how to make a professional social media, whether you’re a young social pro who wants to know how an experienced person's done it or you're a traditional marketer that wants to know more about a very important discipline within marketing. Now people want to know how, and there's a lot of newsletters in the space that are amazing social media news newsletters.”

Jack wanted to make sure his newsletter wasn’t just full of fluff. His goal was to offer advice people could take action on immediately.

He continued, “With what I do, I wanted to use my social strategy background to teach people how to actually do this kind of stuff. So the most important part of Future Social is I always want someone to have an actionable takeaway. You should learn how to do something by reading it, and that can vary.”

“[For example], Elon Musk drops a new feature on Twitter, and I'll write the ‘How to Use 4,000 Character Tweets’ article with very nuanced, ‘Here's where you might want to plug in an emoji so you click on the show more button,’ to average reader length, to something that's maybe a larger brand initiative. For instance, when a global crisis happens, how do you know when to shut off your social media? Can you use social media sentiments to judge that type of behaviour? So I always want to teach someone an actual how-to within my newsletter.”

Building a 3-in-1 Audience: Newsletter, Twitter, LinkedIn

Before Jack dove into the newsletter space, he had years of experience—not just as a social media practitioner working directly with brands—but as an individual creator.

By offering short-form advice in the social space, Jack has earned hundreds of thousands of followers across his social profiles. So, launching a newsletter was a natural extension of his business as a creator. But, instead of offering short snippets, he shares deep dives on different social tactics.

He shared, “I view my social media accounts and my newsletter within one ecosystem, whether you wanna call it the Future Social Ecosystem or the Jack Appleby ecosystem, that's up to you. I have a LinkedIn following of 50,000. I have a Twitter following of 60,000. I've got a newsletter of 45,000 that functionally cover the same space. For me, the newsletter is (for lack of a better phrase) the premium product, the most long-form version of that where it's a full 800 words, teaching you something.”

Jack shared how his Twitter, LinkedIn, and newsletter aren’t three separate entities. Rather, they’re different mediums he uses interchangeably to build one another up

He shared, “My social media accounts—they certainly work with each other and with the newsletter to drive traffic back and forth and to continue coverage of certain things. I view my social accounts as a place for me to offer the same type of perspectives more frequently with maybe less depth. So I actually don't promote my newsletter a ton through my social.

I view them all as equally valuable places for me to just share the information I want to share. And then I've seen all three grow individually by focusing on that. Depth is definitely the big separator between the newsletter and my social.”

Growth Tactics

While most newsletter creators launch on their own, Jack shared how he was fortunate to partner with one of the top newsletter businesses in the world to kick things off.

“I hit 45,000 newsletter subscribers within a year, and some of that came from the Morning Brew audience. Their ecosystem was so strong. I want to be realistic about that. They have so many people interested in social. They came in right away. That said, [over half the subscriber base] I grew completely organically. I've never spent a dime promoting this newsletter.”

But don’t fret. Even if you don’t work with Morning Brew, partnerships are still incredibly powerful. Focus more on the partnerships and not necessarily the logo.

Jack explained that his newsletter has a few main traffic sources: his social media, top newsletter lists, and beehiiv Recommendations.

He shared, “I usually do a post a day or two ahead of time before my newsletter drops to announce what the next newsletter is for. I’ve found getting on people's top newsletter or top marketing list has also been a large driver. So in the ‘5 Marketing Newsletters You Must Read,’ I traditionally can get on one of those lists.”

Jack recounted how beehiiv has been a great help in boosting his organic subscriber growth thanks to beehiiv’s referral program and recommendations.

He shared, “I can see my beehiiv referrals are driving subscribers for me. As well, recently, beehiiv Recommendations. There's another creator who I really love named Matt Navarra who's on beehiiv, and he publishes Geekout, which is one of those news social media newsletters.

Matt's wonderful. He and I talk about how our newsletters are so complimentary of one another quite a bit, and we have our beehiiv Recommendations attached to each other, and we're both growing from that.”

How to Stand Out: Practitioners vs. Journalists

As mentioned above, something Jack wanted to make sure of was that his newsletter offered practical advice. The way he’s able to do this is because he himself is a social media expert. He’s developed a decade-long career in the field to offer practical advice to his readers based on firsthand experience. He believes that’s what separates his newsletter from other more journalistic publications since many offer second-hand advice.

He shared, “When I started the newsletter, what I told everybody was, ‘I want to write the articles that the executives forward to their agencies and their teams and go, ‘This is how we should be doing things.’ Because so much of my early advertising career was a client sending me an Adweek article or an Ad Age article and going, ‘What about this? What about this? What about this?’ So much of what I wanted to write was to be able to help teach and influence the industry from the angle of a practitioner.”

He continued, “That's one of the other big pieces I think that separates my newsletter and even someone like Matt's newsletter is, we're not reporters. We're practitioners. We have done this work. I've worked for brands where we spend $2 million annually just on creative, and that's my whole career. This makes it different from a journalistic endeavour into social media.”

Jack’s approach to growth is centered on his ability to offer those tactical golden nuggets that only a practitioner would know.

“For me, good content is—Does someone have a takeaway from it? Did they learn something from it? And, did they learn so much from it, they feel the need to either save it or share it?”

Passion = Success

Jack accredits his newsletter's success not only to his expertise in the space but also to his passion for it. The reality is that someone may have the expertise, but if they don’t have a real love for their industry, it’ll be an uphill battle to create a business out of that expertise.

He shared, “I’ve definitely gotten the emails back where someone's like, ‘I've sent this to my whole marketing team’ and, ‘I've sent this to my juniors.’ I've had buddies who are like, ‘I make my whole team subscribe to your newsletter,’ which is always very cool and very flattering. For me, I'm genuinely just fascinated by social media. The reason I've worked so hard in this space is because I really like it. I think that there are a lot of really talented social media pros who don't nearly get the advocacy within their companies for their own ideas.”

“So one of the reasons why I wanted to start this publication from a how-to perspective is it becomes a resource for the mid-level marketer and even the senior marketer to go, ‘Okay, this is someone else who's validating a way to do this.’”

Monetization: Diversifying Income Streams

One reason Jack has been able to create a full-time income for himself as a creator is because of his ability to monetize his content.

He shared, “I'm in a unique spot in that I'm one year into working in newsletters and I'm two months into running my own newsletter. A lot of what I'm doing, I'm making it up as I go, and a lot of what I'm doing is intentionally not learning from the traditional newsletter playbook. Because [of my background] I am using the advertising model for sure. Since my audience are marketers looking to me to understand how to do social media or branded content, many of the partnerships I pursue are very creative branded content opportunities.”

Jack explained how he doesn’t just have a single source of revenue for his business. Instead, he has a variety of income streams he’s set up to create a three-pronged approach to monetization.

He shared, “I do sell advertising in the newsletter and speaking opportunities. And then brand opportunities through my social. They’re the three most monetizable points right now in my newsletter ecosystem.”

Jack pointed out that monetization isn’t just something he has to do. For him, it’s one thing that makes running a newsletter business so fun, thanks to strategic partnerships.

“What really excites me are the brands I work with, where they want to do very creative executions. Like, ‘Are you a creative services company where we partner up and you actually make the creative for all of my social for a week?’ Or, ‘You do the header image of my newsletter for a whole quarter.’ If I work with a company that works with a small business payment platform, ‘Do you want to give your customers free consulting from me, and I'll write about that free consulting on your blog and link back to it through my newsletter?’”

He continued, “There are different ways where I can use my expertise to help more people and just do odd creative executions. I love making branded content and because my writing is about marketing and my readers are marketers. I want to make sure it's not just advertising. I want to do interesting things for marketers.”

Advice for Creators: The #1 Driver for Business Success

We asked Jack what he thought was the biggest driver of success in his newsletter. And he didn’t mince words. He believes it’s all about the quality of your content.

He shared, “So one of my core beliefs is if you want to be successful within content, whether you are a creator, or you're working for a brand, or you're a marketer, your ability to generate really incredible hooks and really incredible content—that's what ultimately drives your business.

While Jack shared how having the right technology and tactics to build a creator business is important, it’s ultimately the content that will keep carrying your business forward.

“So there are lots of features and lots of different tech that I'm looking to use as I go forward, but my eye is always on, ‘Do I have the right topics identified and am I consistently delivering—not just good content, but—great content that people are getting called upon for?’ You can use all of the tools in the world, but if your core content's not fantastic, eventually people will stop reading you. Eventually, your open rates will change.”

He continued, “There's lots of [tech] I'm looking into. But, I hope—everyone who writes, or everyone who makes video, or whatever else—that they always stay most focused on that.”

Coming Up With Newsletter Topics

For Jack, creating quality content is everything. How does he come up with topics to ensure his newsletters always land on the mark? His answer is quality over quantity.

He shared, “This is one reason why, as I look to expand my business, I'm only doing one newsletter a week. I think I can deliver one really strong essay a week that has a very clear takeaway.”

One way Jack comes up with ideas is by leaning on his pool of resources, one of which includes reading a beehiiv newsletter by a friend and close business connection, Matt Navarro.

Jack shared, “I literally use another beehiiv newsletter to help me select topics. I will read Matt Navarro's newsletter and Matt's Twitter account to decide what the hottest thing is right now and what people are talking about on top of some other resources that I look into. If I'm being honest, Matt influences my content quite a bit because he has all of the news about what's happening in social. And then, I pick one thing to write one really strong how-to, per week.”

Jack admitted that he’s still working on optimizing his content strategy, but he’s always focused on the plumbline which is to keep offering practical takeaways every time he hits send.

He shared, “Don't get me wrong, I'm looking into all kinds of different things for my future. I'm still trying to figure it out, even a year in. Is it most helpful for me to write case studies and how other brands have done this? Is it better for me to write theory pieces on how to structure a social media team? I think that's where learning how to do social media better—as long as that's the takeaway from this—my audience has been pretty receptive to whatever the concept is.”

Looking Forward: The Next 6 Months

With 45,000+ subscribers and multiple brand deals ranging in the six-figure mark within a year, Jack has certainly impressed us with his quick success in the newsletter space. When asked what his plans were in the next few months, he shared how he will keep learning the business side of running a newsletter before hiring others.

“I'm completely solo, hopefully not for much longer. I put that on myself just because I wanted to learn the business. I've never ran a business before. It's been incredible. The opportunities that came my way right away were spectacular. I'm sleeping five hours a night and I'm figuring out how to do everything when I can. And two months ago I was Googling how to send an invoice. But, I think it's great. I think it's important that I learn how to do everything before I hire someone to take over a lot of that.”

Jack also shared how he plans to continue focusing on growth, not just in his newsletter, but in his entire creator ecosystem including his social profiles.

“For me, I really want to double down on my core business right now. My first year of making things should be growing the newsletter, growing the Twitter account, and growing LinkedIn. I'm very fortunate that I have my audience across those three platforms.”

Jack spoke on how it’s been easier to connect with sponsors since his ideal partnerships are often found within his audience.

He shared, “The type of people who read me are also the type of people who want to sponsor me because they usually work for companies that want advertising within marketing. Over the next six months, I’ll really just be stabilizing the business of what this is. That’s what's most important to me. And then, just getting more efficient as a content creator.”

Alternative Goal-Setting: Building a Lifestyle

Jack was eager to share his different goals, especially regarding business growth. But he clarified that his goal isn’t to be as big as possible. Instead of being a little fish in a big pond, he plans on being a big fish in a little pond.

He shared, “General growth is the biggest [goal]. Being at [over 100,000] followers across my socials and 45,000 from the newsletter—those are great numbers, especially because I'm focusing on marketers. The goal is not to have a million followers. That's never been the goal. It's to be very targeted and to be high value for everyone who reads this. I don't promote this to my personal Instagram because my pals aren't marketers.”

In Jack’s view, success isn’t maximizing the size of his audience, revenue, or (eventual) team. Instead, success looks like creating a newsletter about his passion that gives him the autonomy to live the life he’s always wanted.

That means making enough money to thrive, sharing his passion for social media with others, and building others up in their careers. In Jack’s case, it also means having the freedom and flexibility to join a travelling 3v3 basketball team to shine in his other passion on the court.

Jack shared, “A big piece of how I view success for this is my personal happiness, my fulfillment, and of course, the income that this thing earns me. I've now become full-time (doing this). This is a wonderful business that'll earn me significantly more than I ever earned working strategy for brands.

He continued, “For me, it's about what type of lifestyle it's building for me. If I can get to 40 hours a week and still be excited about this, that's the dream. I know what my life costs, I know what my financial goals are in the future, and I know what level of success I have to have to do that. I would encourage people to think about their creator life under dollars per hour whenever they possibly can. What kind of margins can you make if you're thinking about it financially? And less about your overall earnings that year.”

Jack closed the interview with advice for anyone looking to start their own newsletter that has some doubts they could make it a success.

He shared, “One of my core beliefs is everyone has expertise that's worth sharing. And this is just my spot where I share mine.”

If you want to learn expert-level social strategy from Jack, subscribe to the Future Social newsletter.

Or, you can read some recent newsletters like 4 award-winning social campaigns to learn from or Every brand should make YouTube Shorts.

You can also learn from Jack on his social accounts: Twitter and LinkedIn. And, if you ball, you’ll want to follow Jack’s personal Instagram, where he shares some mad basketball content.