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#342 · why i'd hide my business on a resume

youtube ↗Marketing

I'm trying to engage on X but haven't had any growth so far. Is X a good platform to target decision makers? What's your take on X versus LinkedIn?

I've had a lot of deliberations about X recently, and I've chatted with a couple of really big brand owners about X and social media growth. The consensus seems to be that you get absolutely destroyed on X. X is the intellectual hunting ground: a lot of people who are, or consider themselves to be, intellectuals, but who don't necessarily have a lot of money to back that up. So if you try to sell stuff on X, you'll probably find it far more difficult than if you applied the same effort to a more visual, spectacle-style platform like Instagram, or to LinkedIn or YouTube. That said, I don't want to encourage you to build a personal brand if you're under $10,000 or $20,000 a month.

xlinkedinsocial media

Related answers

youtube ↗Marketing

Should I focus on building a personal brand through content to boost credibility and outreach, or is it unnecessary?

Yeah, I agree with that. Just keep in mind you're not starting a brand; you're creating content that indirectly lifts conversion rates across your outbound messaging. I recommend this—it's a core part of Maker School. Have people create social media profiles aligned with their brand, and produce some preliminary content so that when they're Googled, everything looks congruent and aligned. This is a fair approach. The problem is when people treat content as the sole way to get customers, thinking they can publish videos all day without talking to anyone and still make money. That's not realistic unless you're exceptionally good at your craft. Content does help indirectly, especially if you're running cold email campaigns, but you shouldn't rely on content alone.

personal brandcontent marketingoutreach
youtube ↗Marketing

How important is self‑promotion and personal branding for building trust in the industry, especially for professionals like lawyers, and should I focus on it or on direct outreach?

I usually tell people starting out to skip personal branding. A simple LinkedIn page and a one‑minute introductory video are enough and only take a couple of hours to set up. Spending a lot of time building a public brand is a poor allocation of resources because it takes months before you see any payoff and can even hurt your career if peers judge you. Instead, focus on invisible outreach: build lead lists, strip out the companies you’re targeting, and send personalized videos or cold‑email messages directly. I’ve reached millions of people this way without any public branding. This direct outreach lets you grow your business quickly and develop a skill—hunting and converting leads—that’s far more valuable than a flashy personal brand.

personal brandingoutreachlead generation
youtube ↗Marketing

Could you break down where you started with your social media profiles, whether you were running them all at the same time and cross‑posting, what specific strategy you use for each platform, and what advice you’d give a beginner making $5‑$10k/month on which organic strategy to grow and monetize that traffic through school?

He runs one of the largest school communities generating about $300,000 per month while working roughly 90 minutes a day himself. He tracks brand growth across major social platforms on a page. He started YouTube on February 1 2024 growing from about 100 subscribers to over 45,900 by February 1 2025. He launched Instagram in early 2025 and LinkedIn a couple of weeks before the video. His daily updates channel began about 194 days prior. His four main content methods are YouTube (oldest highest value) daily updates Instagram and LinkedIn (experimenting). He does not manage LinkedIn himself; a helper creates content based on YouTube videos following a waterfall approach where YouTube is the core platform and other platforms repurpose its content. He does not run all platforms simultaneously; he started with YouTube then added Instagram then LinkedIn. For beginners he advises that YouTube remains criminally undervalued. The key metric is total minutes of content watched: YouTube averages about five minutes per view (≈300 seconds) while Instagram averages around five seconds giving YouTube a roughly 60× advantage in monetizability per view. Consequently his YouTube channel drives the overwhelming majority of school signups with Instagram contributing only about 2–3% and LinkedIn similar to Instagram due to higher consumption time. He also shares that after recovering from a shoulder injury his confidence and gym performance improved dramatically making his life fantastic.

social mediaplatform strategybeginner adviceyoutube
youtube ↗Marketing

What monetary threshold indicates it's sensible to start content creation?

I don’t recommend starting a brand right away because it demands huge time and effort for little or no payoff, often taking months or even years to see returns. Without credentials or a track record, it’s hard to stand out, and you likely lack the foundational habits needed for success. Instead, focus on making money first through direct outreach—cold email, cold DMs, cold calling, door‑to‑door, etc.—which is far more effective than hoping a social media post will go viral. Once you have something that puts you in the top 1% of your field, you’ll have the credibility and results to build a brand and talk about it. Starting too early leads to low success probability and distraction, as you may invest hundreds of hours with zero revenue and then chase short‑term monetization tactics. So, make money elsewhere first, then worry about monetizing your brand after you have a solid financial base.

content creationmonetary threshold