a16z: How should entrepreneurs use social media to build their image?

Original Title: “Social media for startup founders: A practical guide to building an online presence”

Author: chandan

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

People often liken the use of social media to satisfying a sweet tooth, but for most startup founders, establishing a social presence is a crucial task. The platforms we choose not only help us research our audience, drive organic growth, and build our brand, but also effectively disseminate information—thus, the necessity of formulating a social media strategy is evident. However, creating an effective and practical plan is not an easy feat.

Great creators seem to do it effortlessly—a low-quality post might garner a million views, and a blue dot emoji could spark months of hype—but mastering it all is full of challenges. First, the rules of social media are constantly changing. The X platform may affect the visibility of posts linking to external sites; Instagram may start prioritizing new types of content; although we think cryptocurrency can help in this regard, changes in rules often undermine even the most forward-thinking plans.

Algorithms are constantly evolving, popular platforms are emerging, and new viral content is continually surfacing. There will always be new accounts to create or new experiments to conduct. So, how should resource-constrained startups determine where to start? Once they begin, how can they assess what is effective? This field changes rapidly, but there are some practical tips and best practices that apply in any situation.

This article will introduce some time-tested guidelines to help startups build a social presence from scratch, including setting goals, identifying target audiences, and measuring success. Additionally, it will provide tools and frameworks that founders can use to understand when, how, and what to post, especially when time is limited.

Getting Started: How to Set Realistic Goals

Like any large product project, setting realistic goals before diving in is crucial for driving momentum and building confidence. Different startups and founders will have different goals, but here are some questions to start thinking about:

• What role will social media play? A customer service-oriented social presence will be very different from a founder's personal account. Accounts focused on content distribution require different approaches than those managing decentralized communities. Defining all of this before starting is important.
• What is the ultimate goal? The company may want to build social awareness before a project goes public, so they have a highly interested audience at launch. Alternatively, they may want to rebrand. As a founder, what are you striving for? How will the social presence support your plans?
• What is the timeline? Create short-term goals with specific dates to build momentum. For example, increase followers by 100 in the first month, 200 in the second month, and so on. Be realistic and stick to the plan.

Let these goals form the foundation for all subsequent work. Once the goals are established, the team can shift from what they want to achieve to who they want to reach.

Identifying Target Audience: How to Find Your Target Group

Posting content to new social accounts can feel like shouting into a black hole. The team must start building an audience early, even if their product has not yet launched.

Before sending posts into the void, first consider the target audience: who do you need to reach to achieve the above goals? Are they potential customers, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, investors, or completely different people?

Many crypto teams often need to explore entirely new audiences—especially when launching innovative or experimental products, or still pursuing product-market fit. That’s okay: the target audience is not everything, but it is a useful input to help decide which platforms to prioritize and what type of content to create.

To start focusing, you can try using this framework of six questions:

1. Which accounts are part of the target audience? Connect this answer to the overall strategy: for example, early-stage crypto startups—even those with broad consumer products—may want to prioritize specific crypto-native audiences. A smarter, more engaged group of early adopters can help the startup refine its product roadmap before a wider release.
2. What social platforms do they use most? If a team wants to engage in conversations happening on X, then focusing all efforts on Instagram is clearly a mistake. But the answer to this question is not always straightforward. For instance, some highly niche audiences (including some driving crypto innovation) are best reached through email and face-to-face meetings.
3. Where is the audience located in the world? This can be tricky for web3, as many people are anonymous, but the more data you can gather about where your audience is located, the better. If you find that half of your audience is in the UK, you might not want to post content while they are sleeping. Tools like Twitter Analytics can help you gather this information. However, a very simple growth hack is to go directly into your Discord and invite everyone to show their flags in the chat.
4. What other accounts does the audience follow? Look at the popular accounts, influencers, and brands your audience follows to understand the types of content and brand voices. Then consider what your content will look like in your followers' feeds: will it stand out, or will it blend seamlessly into their information diet? A quick market research can provide a good benchmark for early posts.
5. What topics do they like to engage with? Research accounts that post high-performing content. Look at their last 50 posts to see what works and what doesn’t, then use the best-performing themes as inspiration.
6. How do they use social media? Everyone uses social media differently. Different platforms may serve different functions in users' lives, whether for relaxation, connection, or learning new things.

This is just a basic framework. Consider these questions as a map to help you determine where to start. Specifically, which platforms should you begin building on, and what types of content should you start posting?

Knowing Where to Post: How to Prioritize Platforms and Accounts

Clearly defining the target audience helps make several key decisions, especially which platforms and accounts to prioritize.

It’s not uncommon for users to switch between multiple platforms daily. However, for content creators, trying to be present on all platforms at once can severely impact social strategy. This is especially important for founders, as maintaining more than two social platforms simultaneously is difficult to sustain.

Our goal is to start small and gradually build the capability to create great content. After that, you can expand to more platforms (possibly by hiring staff to help you create and manage content). In the meantime, we generally recommend that founders focus on 1-2 platforms, do them well, and then consider expansion.

For example, founders should not limit themselves to brand accounts on LinkedIn and X. It’s equally important to consider how their personal social media accounts fit into the overall strategy (which will be discussed in detail below).

Leveraging Personal Accounts

Founders often ask us what type of accounts they should use to promote their work. Should they invest more time in their personal LinkedIn to build their brand? Or should they start from scratch with a startup account?

The answer will depend on their specific goals; however, we find ourselves increasingly advising founders to leverage their personal accounts for several reasons.

1. People want to hear a human voice, not a brand voice. Brand accounts often feel promotional for marketing purposes, while a founder's voice feels more authentic and less purely marketing-driven.
2. Personal accounts tend to perform better than brand accounts. We’ve also found that personal accounts outperform brand accounts in terms of engagement and reach on platforms like X, as the algorithms currently favor individual voices.
3. Building a personal brand can create an audience that is not tied to the product. Regardless of what idea the founder is pursuing or what stage of the product lifecycle they are in, having strong performance on social platforms can create an inherent audience for future projects, upcoming products, or even new social accounts.

Founders don’t need to choose between the two. In fact, operating both accounts can allow the company to communicate more effectively with the community (as only a portion of each fanbase will see each organically posted post). For more information on founder accounts versus brand accounts, see here.

Deciding What to Post: How to Test Content Types and Find Your Voice

We often hear founders say, “I know I need to have a social media presence, but I’m not sure what to post.”

The goal here is to create a social feed that people want to follow because it provides valuable insights and expertise that cannot be found elsewhere—whether it’s an insider look at a popular project, an interesting take on industry trends, or niche tips and tricks. In short, great accounts have a unique perspective that sets them apart.

So, how do you find your perspective? First, we typically tell founders to focus on their personal life experiences, interests, and obsessions, as well as their unique expertise. Then, tell educational, inspiring, and teaching stories from these aspects. They can objectively reflect on their careers, how they spend their leisure time, the books they are passionate about reading, or the creators they follow. Then refine these into a niche area.

To gain more inspiration, there are several different themes and topics that apply to most companies and serve as good starting points for adding value:

• How-to content (showing people how to do something)
• Behind-the-scenes (giving people insight into how your company operates)
• Industry insights (sharing macro trends that the audience cares about)
• Product updates (sharing products and their new features)
• Company announcements (sharing a significant achievement, for example)
• Community questions (sharing a question that the audience might be interested in discussing)
• Founder reflections (sharing what you’ve learned, recommending books you’ve read, or sharing your thoughts on topics of interest to the audience)

What’s the bottom line? Find a niche. Accounts with a unique perspective and that try different content types and formats can add a lot of value.

What Happens When the Metaverse Changes

We have all witnessed how changes in social platforms reshape how people interact with and engage with their content. A recent example is X starting to lower the ranking of external links, especially those pointing to Substack. This change forced those promoting their Substack on the platform to rethink their strategies—from burying links to cross-posting entire newsletters on X.

But while the changes on X have garnered much attention, the reality is that this happens frequently, as social media platforms continually experiment with new ways to keep users on their apps and websites rather than directing them elsewhere. Creators can learn how a platform operates and optimize content that can rank well, but the rules can change at any moment.

Therefore, as the environment shifts, it becomes increasingly important to remain flexible and willing to try new types of content. While these changes may bring discomfort, they also provide opportunities to think outside the box and test new ways to engage with followers.

Now that we’ve discussed what content to start posting, let’s talk about the frequency of posting.

Establishing a Rhythm: How Often to Post

For those unfamiliar with social media, a common misconception is that the more content you post, the better—if a post doesn’t resonate, it’s often assumed that the reason lies in the quantity of posts made by the account.

This is a common misconception. In terms of posting rhythm, the order of importance should be:

Quality > Consistency > Quantity

First, focus on quality, using in-app analytics tools (which will be detailed in the next section) to measure which posts are gaining user engagement, comments, and shares.

Then consider consistency. You can start by posting one high-quality post per month, then gradually increase to two. Check the data, and if things are going well, increase the posting frequency to daily.

A common mistake people make is flooding their feed with a large number of posts, expecting to connect with their audience. Our goal is to gradually build social media skills, including processes, taste, timing, etc.—all of which take time.

Quick Start Guide to Establishing a Rhythm

Don’t rely on inspiration. Creating a backup of evergreen posts—content that resonates no matter when it’s posted—can help fill the gaps between significant product updates and timely posts.

Instead of waking up every day hoping to come up with good content ideas, spend a few focused hours and a bit of creativity to create a reliable backup. Here’s how: first, write down as many ideas as possible, then select a few favorites. Write them out and schedule them for posting over the next few weeks. To maintain momentum, ensure you spend about 30 minutes each day engaging with comments in your feed.

All this upfront work may seem like a huge time investment, so how can the team determine if their efforts are paying off? Let’s quickly review some success metrics…

Measuring Social Media Success: An Introduction to Social Metrics

Ish Verduzco:

“Social media success ≠ follower growth

It also includes:

• Driving leads
• Converting customers
• Improving brand sentiment
• Increasing email subscribers
• Expanding brand reach
• Building relationships with KOLs
• Growing your closed community
• Gathering product feedback”

When measuring the success of social posts, there are two basic and complementary approaches:

• Qualitative: measuring sentiment (how people feel about your company/brand). This includes feedback, replies, and questions, as well as quoted tweets, mentions, and DM content.
• Quantitative: measuring growth. This includes engagement, impressions, reach, shares, conversions, followers, and referrals.

For most founders, the value of quantitative data is evident—just like a set of product metrics, measuring audience growth, shares, and likes is straightforward. On the other hand, qualitative feedback is harder to assess; however, it is one of the best indicators of how people (especially which people) connect with the brand.

So first, let’s look at some very basic quantitative data metrics.

Quantitative Data

When people first start their social strategy, basic tools like in-app analytics (Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Analytics, etc.) will provide all the data they need. Professional tools like Sprout Social and HubSpot can be used to schedule posts, but they may be overly complex for advanced analytics. Regardless of what tools the team chooses, here are some starting points for key metrics:

Engagement

Engagement is often the most important qualitative metric in your hands. Increasing engagement can boost the number of times content is displayed, i.e., how often users see a piece of content. An increase in impressions can also lead to more profile visits, increased follower counts, and so on.

Most analytics tools, including in-app analytics, will provide some formulas for quantifying engagement, typically expressed as total interactions / total followers or impressions x 100, but this may vary between platforms. The accuracy of specific formulas is often less important than using consistent benchmarks, and different assessment methods should not be mixed.

An effective way to utilize in-app analytics is to look at the best and worst-performing posts over the past 30 or 60 days, sorted in reverse chronological order, and try to analyze why those posts performed well or poorly.

The team may find that certain emojis perform exceptionally well, or that posts linking to blogs received no clicks, or that certain topics can stimulate or suppress engagement. Over time, tracking this data can help you better understand audience expectations for specific channels.

It’s also a good idea to track total shares, feedback, retweets, and other metrics weekly. There’s no need to focus too closely on specific numbers; it’s more important to observe trends in the data over time. For example, if the numbers continue to rise, it means more people are seeing the account’s content, thereby expanding its reach and connecting with more potential followers.

Conversion Rate

Assuming the team has a product in the market, another key statistic is the conversion rate, which is the number of people who click on social posts to enter the product website, newsletter, podcast, etc.

The team can also use Google Analytics, UTM links, and other tools to track conversions from organic posts (as opposed to paid ads), from clicks to sign-ups or purchases. However, in the early stages, this level of detail is often optional rather than necessary.

Audience

Understanding which content drives spikes in follower counts is more important than merely tracking total follower numbers. If a certain type of post can reliably increase a specific audience, that’s very valuable information. As mentioned earlier, tracking the best and worst-performing posts and trying to understand what made a post successful or unsuccessful is also a good idea.

Growth in follower numbers is a good indicator that the account is reaching more people, but it doesn’t provide deep insights into whether the account is reaching the right people. This is where qualitative data becomes important.

Qualitative Data

Don’t overlook qualitative data. In fact, spending time thinking about qualitative social insights can be more helpful than quantitative data, even though this mindset can be hard for some data-driven founders to accept.

For example, countless businesses rely on the power of “influencers” to spread the word. Shares from people with extensive networks and trusted brands are often more impactful than hundreds of shares from smaller accounts. Just as reaching higher-quality potential customers often drives business growth more significantly than reaching people who have no need for the startup’s product. When follower growth occurs, asking “Are we reaching the right people?” is just as important (if not more so) than merely asking “Are we reaching more people?”

The tricky part of extracting actionable insights from qualitative data is that it’s more of an art than a science. The best approach is to do it manually, at least in the initial stages—while there are many different sentiment analysis tools, this analysis is not entirely precise. The goal is to extract themes from the feedback and DMs received, paying particular attention to the language people use and whether it is positive, negative, or neutral. Then, over time, continue to track this information.

All this material helps the company understand how people perceive them—this is key information for improving customer service, identifying gaps in product offerings, and even finding product-market fit.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative

Each measurement strategy should evaluate performance from multiple angles. This is because relying too heavily on one metric can distort your view of post performance. It can also create harmful incentives for social strategy in the long run. A familiar example is the excessive focus on views and impressions. Posts that garner the most views and impressions (arguably clickbait) do not necessarily contribute to building a beloved or trusted brand.

Instead, the focus should be on a more diverse mix of metrics. For novice teams, there’s no need to measure everything from the start, but qualitative performance should be combined with broader quantitative metrics (like impressions) and quality metrics (like engagement and click-through rates). This very basic framework can provide a more accurate picture of post performance.

The Challenge of Silent Supporters

One of the biggest challenges in accurately gauging sentiment is the emergence of “silent supporters,” who consume a startup’s content without leaving comments or likes. Some people consume a lot of content but do not interact in the feed for various reasons; for example, to avoid publicly expressing reactions on social platforms like LinkedIn.

Don’t be discouraged by the missing pieces—content creators can try several different approaches to encourage interaction and help refine overall perception.

1. Start conversations: Engage with those who do and do not participate in your content, asking for feedback to replicate effective practices and discard ineffective ones.
2. Host events: Organize virtual or in-person events to deepen relationships with the audience (content creators may find that their followers become more openly supportive after attending events).
3. Focus on community management: Try to engage in more outward community management (for example, interacting with 5 different followers each day).
4. Test different types of posts: Sometimes people support you but are just not interested in the content format. Try different formats, such as videos versus photos, short content versus long content, or introduce new interactive methods like polls, questions, and AMAs (Ask Me Anything).
5. Don’t be discouraged: Success on social media can take many forms, including leads, email subscribers, brand sentiment, one-on-one relationship building, product feedback loops, etc. Just because you don’t see the desired level of engagement doesn’t mean your social media efforts aren’t having an impact.

As people are inundated with social media, creators need to find different ways to measure their influence (and come up with ideas to keep their audience engaged).

Understanding the “Growth Flywheel”

There’s no magic way to grow a company’s social account tenfold overnight. However, over time, a reasonable social strategy will create a virtuous cycle where increased engagement leads to greater reach, attracting more followers, which in turn brings more engagement, and so on.

Here are a few ways to accelerate this cycle:

• Community management: Posting content without responding to feedback misses a lot of growth opportunities. Replying to comments on posts can elevate them in feeds, allowing more people to see them. Every time you reply, like, or otherwise engage with a comment, you’re reaching new audiences.
• Encourage shares and replies: Take community management a step further by creating posts that are easy to discuss. Ask questions (What’s your favorite crypto meme?), create curated lists (10 must-have resources for zero-knowledge proofs), or solicit opinions (How would you explain web3 to someone unfamiliar with cryptocurrency?).
• Maintain a consistent voice: This is why personal accounts created by founders don’t completely mirror the tone and themes of company accounts. Distinguishing them can give people a reason to follow both the founder and the company account.
• Cross-platform promotion: The idea here is to leverage an audience on one platform (like Discord) to encourage them to follow another platform (like a newsletter). It’s simple.
• Try to avoid links: Because social platforms want to keep their audiences on the platform, their algorithms often deprioritize posts that contain external links. One way to circumvent this issue is to post screenshots of the content you want to share. “Links in bio” is another common workaround.
• Don’t rely on AI: One of the biggest mistakes we see (on social media) is people completely outsourcing their social presence to AI. AI-driven accounts lose too much context and personality. For many, it’s obvious that the account is not run by a human—which can lead to distrust, lack of engagement, and overall awkwardness.

What’s the bottom line? Be helpful, focus on your niche, and (especially at the beginning) limit yourself to two platforms. Over time, you will expand your audience.

Social media can feel like a side job for founders juggling multiple responsibilities. The good news is that starting small not only aids in time management but also fosters growth. With some practical prioritization, even small teams can build a feed that people want to follow, and they might even have a bit of fun along the way.