Who and Where to Build in Public With
This strategy leverages platforms where your audience is most active—LinkedIn for professional insights, Twitter for quick updates, and Instagram or YouTube for visual storytelling.
Identifying Your Audience
Understanding your audience is crucial. This group could include potential customers interested in your product's value, fellow startup founders who can offer insights and support, and industry enthusiasts who keep up with trends and innovations. To effectively reach them, it's important to research and identify where they are most active online. LinkedIn is a powerhouse for connecting with professionals and thought leaders, Twitter offers a platform for rapid engagement and dissemination of ideas, while Instagram and YouTube cater to a more visual form of storytelling, appealing to those who prefer engaging content.
Engagement Strategies
Engagement goes beyond mere updates about your journey; it's about creating a two-way dialogue with your audience. This can be achieved by asking open-ended questions to spark discussions, soliciting feedback on new ideas or product features, and actively participating in conversations relevant to your industry. Engagement is about listening as much as it is about sharing, providing you with direct insights into your audience's preferences and concerns.
Choosing Platforms
Selecting the right platforms for building in public is pivotal. Each platform has its strengths and caters to different types of content and audiences. LinkedIn stands out for professional networking and industry-specific discussions, making it ideal for B2B startups. Twitter's broad reach and real-time interaction capabilities make it suitable for quick updates, engaging with a wider audience, and participating in trending conversations. While many founders, build in public and write it in their own blog on their own site, I believe, as founders to capture as much audience as possible, we need to explore different social platforms.
For startups with products that benefit from visual demonstrations or storytelling, Instagram / Tik Tok and YouTube offer platforms to creatively showcase the product and share behind-the-scenes content.
By deeply understanding your audience, engaging them meaningfully, and strategically selecting platforms, you can effectively build in public, fostering a community around your startup's mission and progress.
When choosing platforms, consider the following:
- Your Audience: Where do they spend their time? What type of content do they prefer?
- Your Content: What format does your content naturally take? Is it visual, written, or video?
- Your Goals: Are you looking to build community, establish thought leadership, or showcase your product?
Twitter (X)
Known for its real-time updates and global conversations, X is a powerhouse for quick interactions, engaging with trends, and reaching a broad audience. It's particularly effective for sharing short updates, participating in industry conversations, and directly engaging with customers and influencers.
A visual platform perfect for storytelling and brand aesthetics. Instagram allows startups to visually showcase their products, culture, and milestones, appealing to a wide audience that values aesthetics and narrative.
Offers a broad reach and diverse tools for engagement, including groups, pages, and targeted advertising. While X excels in immediacy and public conversations, Facebook provides a more comprehensive suite of features for community building and targeted marketing.
This platform is unrivaled for professional networking and industry-specific content, making it particularly advantageous for B2B startups. Unlike X (Twitter), which facilitates broad, real-time interactions, LinkedIn provides a more focused environment for professional growth, networking, and sharing industry insights. Its audience is primely composed of professionals seeking to engage with content that can aid their career development or business growth, making it ideal for startups looking to establish thought leadership and connect with potential partners, clients, or employees.
TikTok
This app has emerged as a powerhouse for viral content, appealing to a younger demographic with its short-form video format. TikTok's algorithm excels at pushing content to a wide array of viewers, making it possible for startups to achieve significant visibility quickly. TikTok can introduce a startup's content to users who have never interacted with the brand before, based solely on the platform's content discovery algorithms. This makes it an excellent choice for B2C startups looking to engage with a broader, younger audience through entertaining, informative, or viral video content.
Best for visual inspiration and discovery, making it ideal for startups in design, fashion, food, and lifestyle sectors. Pinterest focuses on evergreen content that can drive traffic over time, appealing to users seeking inspiration and ideas. But it doesn't have much of a social element here.
YouTube
A platform for in-depth video content, YouTube allows startups to share detailed explanations, tutorials, and stories. It is the 2nd most used search engine to find content and information. While X is suited for brief interactions, YouTube offers a space for longer-form content that can establish thought leadership and provide value through education.
Medium
Medium focuses on long-form written content, offering a space for startups to delve into industry insights, share detailed progress updates, and establish thought leadership in their field. However, the biggest issue is that many of the content is behind a paywall.
Snapchat
With its emphasis on ephemeral content, Snapchat caters to a younger demographic, offering creative ways to share behind-the-scenes glimpses and updates. Unlike X's text-based focus, Snapchat's strength lies in visual storytelling and informal engagement, making it ideal for brands looking to connect on a more personal level.
KakaoTalk
Primarily a messaging app popular in South Korea, KakaoTalk also offers a platform for businesses to connect with users through branded channels. KakaoTalk provides a more intimate way to communicate and share updates but is limited by its regional popularity.
Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book)
It is a popular social media and e-commerce platform in China, often compared to Instagram due to its focus on lifestyle and beauty content. It has grown significantly, with over 1 billion registered users. The platform allows users to post and discover product reviews and lifestyle content, making it a key site for brand discovery and e-commerce within China and now all over the world too.
Often referred to as the "Chinese Twitter," Weibo is a microblogging platform with a vast user base in China. It combines the brevity of X with the ability to share multimedia content, making it suitable for startups looking to tap into the Chinese market. Weibo's extensive reach in China makes it an essential platform for startups targeting this region, offering opportunities for wide exposure and community building.
LINE
Popular in Japan and other parts of Asia, LINE is a messaging app that also supports brand pages and content sharing. While it provides a direct line to consumers similar to KakaoTalk, its broader Asian user base makes it a strategic choice for startups aiming to engage audiences in this region. Compared to X, LINE offers a more personalized communication channel but with a geographic focus.
In summary, while X (Twitter) is unparalleled for real-time engagement and broad reach, platforms like KakaoTalk, Weibo, and LINE offer region-specific advantages. Snapchat and Instagram allow for creative visual storytelling, whereas Facebook and Pinterest provide tools for building community and driving long-term engagement. YouTube and Medium round out the landscape by supporting video and long-form written content, respectively. Understanding these nuances can help startups strategically select platforms to maximize their public engagement efforts.
Each platform offers unique opportunities to share your journey, connect with your audience, and grow your startup's presence online.