This edition is brought to you by our friends at beehiiv.
I have been FLOORED by how fast the beehiiv team ships. We started our partnership three months ago, and in that time they've launched so much.
Case in point: when we started, beehiiv didn't have a podcast platform. Now they do, and all of Content, Briefly is hosted on it.
On top of that, they've got a website builder, webinars, and an industry-first MCP server for wiring into your AI tools. It's really clear beehiiv is building the hub for creator-led media businesses.
As a team of one, that's exactly what I want. Fewer tools, fewer logins, one place that keeps adding helpful features before I even have to ask for them. The entire Superpath media business is now on beehiiv, which I’m really excited about, and was not the plan when we moved this newsletter to beehiiv a few months ago.
Plus, most importantly, beehiiv doesn’t take any cut of your earnings. If you’re trying to monetize an audience, it couldn’t be easier. - Alex
Superpath members get 30% off with SUPERPATH30
p.s. beehiiv is hosting their first-ever Summer Release Event in a few weeks. It's free, virtual, and (from what I've heard) has more than a few huge announcements creators like me have been asking for. You can RSVP here.
Hey folks, it's your content friend Eric here.
I don’t envy any new content marketer growing up in the ChatGPT era. My first ~3 years as a content marketer were essentially:
Learn the basics of on- and off-page SEO
Write SEO blog posts
Write landing pages
That was it. That was the whole job. For years. The only hard parts were (1) convincing clients to have patience as we waited for results, and (2) trying not to lose your mind as you re-wrote the same landing page for a slightly different keyword for the 50th time.
Adding to the simplicity, I worked at an agency, so I basically just had to follow “their way” of doing SEO. I was following instructions. My main KPI was being billable to clients for at least 6 hours per day.
Imagine a content marketer coming up in the industry today (maybe you don’t have to!). They are expected to produce better blog posts with AI than I could back in the day in a single click. That shouldn’t take too long, so you get assigned LinkedIn ghostwriting, too. And you’re supposed to have figured out an AI workflow for that, so you also have to manage a podcast. Etcetera.
Suddenly, you’re (a) managing many channels that you have no experience in, and (b) not being given the time to learn by doing and truly toil in the details. Not easy!
I had a great call with a Superpath member this week who’s just starting their career as a content marketer. They asked lots of great questions (in 30 minutes):
How do you find the unique voice of the people you’re ghostwriting for?
How do you measure the success of a blog post? What do you report on internally?
How do I A/B test a blog before and after I make changes? Can you even do this?
How do you make time for all of this!?
Am I going to be okay!? (Okay, this one was only implied)
I did my best to answer those questions—I don’t have great answers to all of them. But I told this person that, just from the fact that they were discovering all the hard parts of content marketing only 6 months into the job, I knew they were going to be successful in this career.
I think that’s all any of us can do right now. Keep asking the right questions. Struggle through the challenges ourselves. Advocate for taking the time to actually make things and learn things rather than defaulting to ChatGPT/Claude. Stay relentlessly curious.
And as hard as it is, there are lots of advantages to being a rookie in this new world. Those of us millennials who grew up with social media had an advantage when it finally reached B2B. I’m sure the next generation(s) will constantly reinvent what it means to be a content marketer.
So even though all of this relentless change can be overwhelming, don’t forget that it’s an opportunity to carve out a new career path (or reinvent yourself if you’re already along the road).
Cheers,
- Eric
📝 New on the Blog: Where I landed after 3 months on beehiiv
Three months after beginning the switch to beehiiv, Alex reflects on the experience and where he thinks beehiiv is headed.
As a media creator, one of the most compelling reasons to build with beehiiv is the clarity of their vision. While other platforms take big cuts of revenue streams, beehiiv is focused on making great tools for creators. They’ve been consistent in this from the very beginning and that’s why I trust them over some of the other new platforms.
📆 Upcoming Superpath Community Events
Slack AMA (Jun 18): Melissa Rosenthal, co-founder of Outlever, and previously the VP Creative at BuzzFeed, CCO of ClickUp, CMO of Insight Timer, and CRO of Cheddar, will answer your questions about building an editorial or newsroom-driven content strategy.
AI Show & Tell (Jun 25): Our monthly show and tell, where three people show off what they’ve been building with AI. All the past recordings are available to Pro members.
To get the invitations to our virtual events, join Superpath Pro. You get 30 days free, so you can attend all these events!
🎙 New on Content, Briefly: Content Marketing from a Blank Canvas
This week, Chloe and I took a question from the audience (Superpath CEO, Alex Hillary): if you started a content role today with zero baggage about what the job used to be, what would it even look like?
We both agreed that the role has gotten way bigger in scope and more strategic than the old SEO-blog-factory version most of us grew up on.
The job is certainly less "produce posts that convert” and more about building an audience, telling the company story, and working cross-functionally.
We got into:
The "content baggage" most of us are still carrying around
Why social and content keep ending up on separate teams
The broadcaster model vs. the old publisher mindset (h/t Ronnie Higgins)
Trying to wipe 15 years of habits off the canvas turned out to be harder than we expected.
💬 Great Slack Threads This Week
Here were some great questions in the Superpath Slack community this week:
Someone told me that a sign of an AI-generated content lies in the fact that there are colons in the headlines. Did we lose the plot on this whole AI content detection thing?
I’m looking to add content editing as a core service alongside content writing and would love some insight from editors. How do you typically price content editing? What would you consider a reasonable starting rate for someone transitioning from writing into professional editing? How do you scope different levels of editing? Are there any courses, certifications, or training programs you’d recommend that cover content editing from fundamentals to advanced concepts?
I haven't had to offboard retainer clients very often, but I do this week! What's your process or best tips for closing the door well?
📙 The Reading List
Here are some articles that got the Superpath Slack community talking this week:
🆓 Get a free 30-day trial of Superpath Pro
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A private Slack community with 400+ in-house and freelance content marketers
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