Zoom is the new Twitter

i'm really glad I'm not the only one that feels the same way as you!

I agree that if someone uses #buildinpublic with a singular goal to drive sales, it leads to bad content and can definitely feel slimy (many examples of this).

I think a lot of people either pitch Twitter as a growth hack or a shortcut to marketing, but in reality it's wayyy more work than is worth it if you are just trying to "profit".

The real reason to get on Twitter IMO is to meet cool people and make friends. People are really approachable on Twitter, I've made a lot of new friends just by engaging with the indie hacker Twitter community.

Another reason I use Twitter is to get better at making content, I personally enjoy writing and I want to get better, Twitter is a great way to improve writing online (concise, to the point).

‘Disgusted’ hey. Wow, I guess it is that kind of reaction that is unhealthy and makes more and more of us feel that hanging around within 100 miles of social media is so toxic. You don’t want that feeling when you go about your day to day business. And I don’t want to wake in the morning to find something I might have been doing online makes people feel disgusted.

But sorry, I must be missing something. What exactly do successful startup founders write on Twitter then? So many tell us how they need to grow a big following of fans before they launch. How do they do that without an agenda? Please tell, genuinely confused.

Wholeheartedly agree. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, and especially as a solo founder I think it’s really important that you use whichever platform you enjoy for marketing. Forcing yourself to #buildinpublic when Twitter seems like useless junk to you is obviously counterproductive and is probably going to result in people being bothered by your robotic and boring tweets. And if you hate calls, maybe that’s just not the way for you. I could never do 8 hours of zoom calls every day for a week straight – that would certainly make me want to hide in a darkened room... And LinkedIn feels weird and forced to me, it’s too much like facebook for my taste. Twitter on the other hand – I’ve been using my personal twitter account for over 10 years now, simply because I like the platform and it’s fun for me, so it would be a really natural way of marketing for me as well.

So I agree with Steve’s message that you don’t have to use Twitter just because it’s cool right now. But I disagree with "Zoom is the new Twitter". I’d say whichever channel you enjoy most to make meaningful connections with other people can be your "new Twitter" (including Twitter 😜).

I’ve found clients on Reddit and Discord, simply because I enjoy talking to people on these platforms anyway. Nothing is better for marketing than simply being authentic and approachable.

Thank you Ayush, this is a fantastic response and has opened my eyes about Twitter and got me wondering if I am using it all wrong. Certainly I feel I, and many others, are using it the way Twitter want us to use it. But perhaps, like with Linkedin, we should be ignoring the social part and just using it to make connections and for 1-on-1 contacts. And as you say, as the top of the funnel to lead into the Zoom discovery calls.

Firstly an aside though, I am not sure Twitter is also a place to study and understand how people really think. I think it is the most unnatural place in existence. People do not behave normally or authentically. Many posts simply creep me out.

But putting that aside,... if I understand correctly about how you use Twitter, then, like I do on Linkedin (for new readers, see my other reply in this thread about how I use Linkedin), the main objective is to simply find great contacts and DM them.

So with Linkedin I have a large and growing 1st level pool I can message directly. But I can also reach outside my network to 100 people every week with connection requests to introduce myself and my product (100 is a limit imposed by Linkedin). This works really well. And as long as I keep the messages non-spammy and relevant I get zero complaints. In fact out of 100 I send asking if we can connect and me send more info, I usually get 90% say yes.

But I am not sure I get how this can work on Twitter when most people in my experience have closed off their DM's? Can you give us Twitter-doubters a mini-tutorial on the actual mechanics of how you would get into someone's DM's?

one way ticket to narcissism - I couldn't agree more. Psychologists must be having a field day studying social media usage, and us!

Personally I think social will nosedive as a primary driver. There are just too many people beginning to see the dangers. And not just of the media itself, but the companies behind it all.

You say If you solve problems that nobody knows about, are you actually creating anything of value. This seems to be implying that if it doesn't happen on social then it doesn't happen. Not sure I agree - there are plenty of other ways to get word out there.

Appreciate that, thanks Bob 😊 Would you mind emailing me (or linkedin) as I’d love to understand your thoughts a bit more.

Very often, a lot of luck and right timing is what makes a business go nuts. It happened to me in 2000 selling domain names. I definitely did not plan that the Dotcom world would go crazy. But I just held on for a mad ride. Zoom got lucky too.

hey Paul, I've written a bit about this further up/down this thread. search for primary place I reach out to people is Linkedin to find it 😊

Hi Laura, you make some good points and perhaps you're right that this is more about not using Twitter (or Linkedin) for mass shout-outs and the social stuff.

But I still worry that the dynamic on Twitter is about look at me, look at me and very little engaging conversation and thought takes place. And isn't that what the whole Like and follow thing was designed for; the very design of the UX is about a post followed by lots of serial responses. There is no true mechanism for allowing a deep conversation.

Although that can be said for many forums I suppose. Just look at this thread - it has only gone 1 or possibly 2 threads deep. Nobody wants to pick up a conversation and run with it. Just a quick reply to get our names associated with the OP and then move on to the next.

So mentioning Zoom as I did is as much about trying to say how early-stage growth strategy should be about building 1-on-1 conversations and relationships, not just shouting at/with the crowd.

yeah that's a good idea. keep those personal tweets seperate.

focus! a lot of outreach on Linkedin, followup and a CTA of "I'd love to setup a discovery call".

then sleep for 2 hrs, and start all over again.

Never ending... 😊

That's alright, I don't need paid platforms like that, as I have access to tens of thousands of investors for free. What I do need though is more manpower to contact them all and have the discovery calls.

Thanks for the feedback Adam, it is always great to hear other viewpoints.

In the early stages of a startup, we should focus 110% on selling our product and proving there is a need for it. So I feel posting/liking/retweeting on platforms like Twitter is a longer-term play, to build our brands once we are established.

Just as (another contraversial view),... SEO are three letters that should not enter an early-stage founder's head for at least 6-12 months 😊

I appreciate we need to think in the back of our heads about longer term outlooks, organic inbound, brand, etc. And agencies like yourself can certainly help with this. But I just do not think it belongs in the early stages when everything should be about pure survival.

However, I'm just about to reply in this thread to @ayushchat, who possibly makes some excellent points about how Twitter can be used early on...

have fun 😊

Ok so for me, I need to reach investors, to get them to join the platform (rather than as investors). I scour all sorts of places to get names of them. The research part is rough and ready, googling, finding lists, etc, and there is no pretty way to do this, whatever your market.

But then the primary place I reach out to people is Linkedin - no, not the social posting side of it, for same reasons as I don't use Twitter! Although having said that, I do find that I can almost bear Linkedin posting and get good responses when I reply to posts. Unlike Twitter, I still feel human after posting 😊

For me, Linkedin is about 1-on-1 contacts and connections. My inbox on there is as busy as my email inbox.

I already have 13,000 contacts on Linkedin, built organically since 2007. Plus I find I am quite lucky that when I reach out to them or connect with new people, my history seems to be sufficient to awaken their interest and I get a high percentage agree to a call.

I know this can often be difficult for people with less time in the industry as I suppose targets can be very picky with who they give their time to. So it becomes a numbers game and you need to get the percentage of positive responses up as much as you can. Trial and error. Keep the intro short, polite and succinct and monitor which wording works.

I never go in for a hard sale, it's just about showing them something I'm working on that may be interesting to them. I get the call and even then, it is only a 25-min discovery Zoom call, not a sell. I will follow up (usually on Linkedin messaging because that channel is now proven with them, so do not switch to email).

I prefer the slowly slowly approach, but I am sure some hardened sales people on here will go a bit harder - I'd welcome thoughts on how to convert discovery calls into a cold hard sale. I think for many of us entrepreneurs, even veterans, this bit is always hard. Thoughts welcome 😊

Yeah, Twitter keeps the rowdy kids off the streets at night 😊

I suppose for me, social is branding and phone/zoom calls are selling. And at the beginning, selling is all that matters. Survive your first 2 years with cold hard sales, and then absolutely, start creating a brand.

😊

You are so right. It reminds me though, ...

several years ago, before their IPO, I was at a London b2b tech exhibition and walked up to the Zoom stand, trying to ask serious questions about what opportunities there were for reselling or integrating (I owned a b2b marketing business at the time). The guy looked down his nose at me in such a snobbish manner, as if to say "don't you know we are a big and important business, and we are for big corporations only, we do not talk to little people like you".

And now the kids and grandparents get down and use Zoom like it is just another dumb tool for families.

Indeed! And spending all that time growing a list of fans is pointless anyway. When it comes to announcing your plans, they’ll all behave like your mum who will always tell you ’yes dear, your startup sounds lovely’.

Build and learn fast by speaking directly to potential clients 1-on-1. Zoom for face to face. Or apparently our smartphones have a little-used feature called ‘phone call’ 😊

Agree. Twitter will always remain Twitter. Zoom got on top of its popularity while they pandemic began. No looking at all those https://zoom.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html reviews it seems to me zoom goes back I little.