Tony Napoleone

Today, we’re digging into one of the most powerful (and underleveraged) growth plays in the audience toolkit: collaboration. We’re talking about partnerships that expand your reach, deepen your credibility, and drive sustainable audience growth — without burning through budget.

Let’s talk about something that still gets misunderstood in audience development: social media. Yes, it’s noisy. Yes, the algorithms change. But when used intentionally, social media can be a high-leverage extension of your audience strategy — not just a distraction.

we’re tackling a fundamental — but often misunderstood — piece of the audience growth puzzle: content. More specifically: how to make content actually matter to the right people — and drive lasting engagement, trust, and growth.

we’re digging into one of the most underutilized growth engines in modern media: community. Not just a comments section. Not just a Slack group. We’re talking about intentional systems that turn passive readers into active contributors — and audience members into advocates.

Today we’re tackling a big one: How to actually use AI to power audience development. Not the hype. Not the buzzwords. We’re talking about real, operator-level use cases across your audience funnel — from acquisition to monetization.

Data used to be a nice-to-have. Now, it’s the backbone of every sustainable growth strategy. But most publishers still under-leverage the data they already collect. It’s not a volume problem — it’s a velocity and application problem.

A new resource for media pros building smarter, more sustainable audience strategies. In this kickoff post, I share the “why” behind this project, what I hope it becomes, and what you can expect as a reader. It’s for the people doing the work — and it starts here.