Social media marketing

It’s that day when I make you all look at this

I'm trying to put together a list of all the distribution "channels" that work in 2026: 1. Organic Short Form 2. Niche Communities (Reddit, Discord, FB Groups) 3. ASO (App Store & Platform) 4. Personal Brand 5. UGC 6. Influencers 7. Engineering As Marketing (Free Tools) 8. SEO & AIO (incl. programmatic) 9. X & LinkedIn 10. Viral Video Launches 11. Organic Long Form (YouTube) 12. Cold Email & Outreach 13. Salespeople 14. Paid Ads 15. Affiliate 16. Feedback/Customer Calls 17. Timing & Trends 18. Positioning 19. Open Source What am I missing?

Everyone is freaking out about what @nikitabier has just said about replies. I mean, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it? Reduce the quantity. Increase the quality. I want replies to be value accrual, not deferral. I want them to be expansive, not redusive. Let's improve the conversations we’re having.

I asked my 430,000 followers for their favorite podcast episodes of 2025. Here are the 10 that came out on top:

Social media 2026-2030 Bullish YouTube Bullish X Bullish Subbstakk Even IG Bearish TikTok Bearish Threads Bearish LinkedIn (our best hires and cofounder are from x)

Marc Andreessen follows a fake VC that we made up. His name is Henrick Johansson. He's a satirical character we created. And now many of the Silicon Valley elite follow him. Here's why we did it: We're a compliance startup. Nobody wants to watch compliance content. But everyone wants to make fun of Europe's over-regulation. Same budget as a billboard. Ten times the reach. If you can't win the normal game, change the game.

Today, we are excited to announce a new experiment in Search Console that offers site owners a unified view of their Google Search performance across their websites and social channels. https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2025/12/social-channels-search-console…

pro tip if you want to grow on here or grow anything anywhere online. when you create you should always craft content that is instantly shareable. this is because in today’s age group chats are the real distribution layer. feeds are just staging area. if something can’t survive being dropped into a chat with zero context, it’s not going to get you anywhere.

JUST IN: X increases creator payouts.

"Value-based content is dead." I've seen this take circulating for months now. And on the surface, it makes sense. AI can generate a "how to" post in seconds. Educational content is everywhere. The barrier to entry for sharing information has dropped to zero. But if value-based content were actually dead, it would mean that it is no longer "value-based," because it is no longer valuable. The content that changes your behavior, that you save and come back to, that you send to a friend still exists. It's just getting pushed out with AI generated BS. What people really mean is that basic educational content is dead. The "5 tips to grow on social media" posts. The surface-level how-to threads that anyone can write (or prompt AI to write for them). Value as a whole hasn't disappeared. Just like with skill acquisition, it's abstracted up a layer into the domain of personal narrative, original thought, and taste. It's the kind of content that can't be replicated by typing a sentence into ChatGPT and hitting enter. This is surprisingly good news if you're just starting out. Because while everyone else is racing to produce more volume, praying they win the algorithm slot machine, the actual opportunity is in the opposite direction. It's in the depth, context, and perspective that only you can provide. If you'd rather watch the YouTube version of this article, watch it here. ## I – The psychology of value > We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. – Anaïs Nin Most "value-based" content feels interchangeable. Anyone could post it and nobody would know the difference. There's no energy signature that is yours. The fault lies in how creators are taught. Be objective. Share facts. Teach proven frameworks. They feel like if they don't do "what works" they won't make it, but they aren't experienced enough to know what works. Value isn't objective. Value is perception, and perception is shaped by the goals someone is trying to achieve. Two people can read the same book and walk away with completely different insights. A student trying to pass a test will notice different sentences than an entrepreneur trying to build a business. The information is identical. The value extracted is not. Your audience is composed of individuals with unique goals, and those goals determine what registers as valuable to them. This means you can't create "objectively valuable" content. You can only create content that's valuable to someone with a specific goal and those someones are randomly scrolling social media and have a brief window in which they can be exposed to your content. Expecting one great post to just magically appear in front of the right people is silly. It takes 6-12 months to see any form of traction start to pick up. The broader the goal that your content helps people achieve, the more likely it is to spread to more people. A more specific goal results in a more niche audience, which is great, but it may be more difficult to get in front of these people. That's why people recommend doing high-ticket products or services at the start and focusing on manual outreach, because it's easier for you to just find and target those specific people. This means you have to pick. You must have a perspective. You must share what you think rather than what you think you should think because some course taught you to think it. The reason "value-based" content is dying is because anyone can ask AI to generate it on the spot. It doesn't require taste or personality because it has been templated and frameworked to death. That said, that doesn't mean AI is the cause. The person using AI is the cause, and I believe most people will be using AI for content in the future, which makes some people upset (for now, let me know how you feel in a year or two). This is where the labor question comes in. Writers get angry when other writers use ghostwriters. "They didn't actually write it." But readers don't care. James Patterson's audience cares about the story, not who typed the words. Patterson provides the vision, the direction, the taste. That's where the value lives. A film director doesn't manually operate the camera. They don't build the sets or mix the audio. But no one questions whether Spielberg "really" made the movie. Value lies in the distinction between labor and direction. Content is moving the same way. From content creator to content director. The people who resist this are the ones who've made labor their identity. They can't separate the typing from the thinking, so they assume no one else can either. But your reader only sees the output. And if the output is good (original, opinionated, and shaped by taste) they don't care how it was made. Create the content you want to see in the world, because guessing that's not more generic AI-generated posts that sound like everyone else. ## II – The slop spectrum > We live in a world without taste because taste requires judgment, and judgment requires hierarchy. We've been taught to reject both. Taste is slowly cultivated over time through exposure, repetition, comparison, and the willingness to say This is better than That. The modern world wants everything to be flat, interchangeable, and instantly gratifying. Real taste excludes. To have taste is to believe in an objective reality. To turn one thing down in favor of another. To say no to inclusion. – Lobo on X There was plenty of slop before AI existed. The generic how-to threads. The recycled tips repackaged with a new hook. The "value-based content" that said nothing original and helped no one change their behavior. That was human slop. We just didn't call it that. The variable that separates slop from signal has never been who created it or what tool was used. It's taste. And taste requires discernment. It's the experience that allows you to say what should and shouldn't belong. Most people won't do that. It's easier to produce content that offends no one, excludes no one, and says nothing. Slop exists on a spectrum. One one end, you have slop and on the other you have art. Artists all have their panties in a bunch right now because people using AI have the audacity to call themselves "AI artists." But it goes both ways. We don't call food "stove art." We don't call books "word art." Art is something that transcends the norm. Art is as subjective as value. Not everyone who draws cool looking doodles on a page creates art. Most of it is closer to slop when we look at the entire spectrum. Most "artists" don't create art. Most "AI artists" don't create it either. But there is absolutely a way to create something with AI that moves the soul of another. If you deny that, you are blinded by ideology. That said, it's not easy to do. Pertaining to content, on one end, you have content generated with zero personal context. You type a generic "write a thread about productivity" and publish whatever comes out. No vision. No curation. No taste. No ideas of your own. The AI is guessing based on the average of everything it's been trained on, which means the output is, by definition, average. It's fine if you're just trying to speedrun an audience that doesn't care about you, but I'm assuming most people reading this want "being a creator" to resemble something meaningful. On the other end, you have signal. Content that could only come from you. Your experiences. Your opinions. Your taste applied at every decision point. The spectrum in between is determined by how much personal context you pass off to the AI. Think about it like directing a film. If you hand a camera to someone and say "make a movie," you'll get something generic. But if you provide the script, the shot list, the color palette, the pacing notes, the references (if you make every meaningful decision and use the crew to execute your vision) the film is yours. The labor was distributed but the taste wasn't. The same applies to content. Most of the famous creators you love and watch daily have teams of people in charge of the production. Hormozi probably just sits down and records the script that was given to him, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable, and it doesn't mean that some of it isn't art. The more context you provide like your past writing, your notes, your curated ideas, your specific opinions on what works and what doesn't, the further you move from slop toward signal. To do this, start by creating an idea museum. If you already have content, go back through it. Pull the best lines, the ideas that resonated, and the frameworks that landed. Put them in a document. That's your context library. That's what you pass to AI when you need help executing. You would be considered a bad leader if you didn't pass off all of the knowledge you have to a team member to succeed at the project. The same applies here. Sometimes you are going to have to get your hands dirty and go in manually if it you need to. If you're just starting out, do the same thing with other people's content. Save the posts that stop you mid-scroll. Save the ideas that make you think "damn I wish I wrote that." Collect the paragraphs from newsletters that change how you think. Build a museum of taste. Over time, you'll notice patterns. Naturally, your mind will take the same shape, and you will notice your own ideas starting to emerge. That's how you develop this skill. Exposure, repetition, comparison, and the ability to curate would should be made vs what shouldn't. The people afraid of AI are the ones who never developed taste in the first place. They were producing human slop, and now they're competing with machines that can produce slop faster. ## III – How to provide your unique form of value > You will never have access to another person's state of mind, and they will never have access to yours. This is the essence of human uniqueness. – P&P Volume never mattered. Everyone said it did. I can hear Alex Hormozi and Gary V (all respect to them) screaming "Post more! Publish more! The more content you put out, the more chances you have!" It can obviously work, just like anything can, please don't be one of those people who comments the exception, but it never really made sense to me, because when I tried it, my ideas started to suffer, and ideas are really the only thing that matter in this game. You can produce a hollywood level YouTube video, but if the core idea followed by subsequent high signal ideas are not there, then the video will not do well. Personally, I'd rather create the minimum amount of content to be consistent and post that across all platforms without worrying about repeating myself. As an example, my newsletters have always been unconventionally long. They range between 2500-5000 words depending on the topic compared to 500-1000 words that marketers say is the sweet spot. Years later and I can confidently say that was my edge. I wanted to nerd out for a long time in my newsletters and videos, and since the ideas were pretty good, they stood out compared to everyone else's. With AI, everyone can produce more volume. Thousands of posts scheduled in advance. Content calendars filled for months. The algorithm slot machine spinning faster than ever. But more volume just means more noise. More people praying for a viral hit without realizing the lottery was never the real game. What's actually happening is simpler. AI is accelerating the death of average content. The baseline is rising. And the things that have always mattered are mattering more. Originality of thought. Novel perspectives. Opinion over fact. Storytelling. Singal. Let me explain that last one a bit more, because I've said it a few times. Your brain notices important ideas. When you read something that clicks, something that feels true in a way you hadn't articulated before, your brain releases dopamine. You feel a spark of excitement. You want to share it, save it, come back to it. That's signal. It's your brain hinting at what is valuable to you. Signal is the thing AI can't manufacture. Because AI doesn't get excited due to a sequence of uncountable events since birth that have led to the mind deciding that something is important enough to notice. AI doesn't have a mission (aside from the one it is assigned) that frames your mind to notice what aids in the achievement of that mission. It doesn't have taste. It pulls from the average of everything it's seen and produces the average of everything it's seen unless instructed to follow the personal process that you've reverse engineered by though reflection. You, on the other hand, have a specific path you're walking. A specific future you're building toward. A specific set of problems you've solved and are solving. That's your mission, and your mission determines what registers as signal to you. In my eyes, the best route to take is mission-based over topic-based. I've discussed this before here. Topic-based is the traditional approach. Pick a niche. Pick a target audience. Become the "go-to" person for that topic. It works. But it boxes you in and is incredibly easy to replicate. If you fail or want to pivot, you're starting over from scratch. That doesn't sit well with people who know that they are going to change over the next 6-12 months. This path is anti-continuous learning, anti-polymath, and anti-human. Mission-based is different. You're not building authority in a topic. You're leading people toward a transformation. And anything that moves people toward that transformation becomes fair game for your content. When I have a clear mission, like helping people become "future-proof" (*cough* the name of this newsletter *cough*), that is when my best work was born. Ideas flood in because I have a filter. Anything that helped people become valuable, adaptive, and free is worth writing about. And that can be anything from philosophy to business to psychology to daily routines. Things I like writing about. Creating in alignment with a mission is taste applied to content strategy. The ideas that excite you (the ones that make you stop mid-scroll and screenshot) those are signal. Lean into them. Write about them. Don't water them down because you think you're "supposed" to talk about something else. Being a content creator is more meaningful now than it's ever been. The internet doesn't have to devolve into a sea of slop you don't want to see. If it did, no one would log on. People are hungry for signal. For original thought. For creators with missions they believe in. ## IV – How to actually grow on social media (from zero) Now, I know it's bad taste to talk about growing on social media on social media. Nobody wants to be the person who grows by telling people how to grow. But surprise surprise, there is value there. People want it. If you don't want it, that's fine, you don't have to continue reading if you don't want to. Every time I talk about this, I feel like it goes over people's heads because when I look at how they implement what I talk about, I do not see this anywhere. And that's unfortunate, because it's the most important part. You cannot rely on the algorithm alone. Everyone is competing for the same thing. Everyone is posting content and praying it goes viral. Everyone is playing the slot machine. Everyone is hoping the algorithm gods smile upon them. And yes, sometimes it works. Sometimes you strike gold. But you can't build a business on sometimes. Actual growth is slow and steady with occasional spikes when the algorithm decides to favor you. The spikes are a bonus, not the strategy. It's better to act like they're never going to happen. If you don't want to rely on the algorithm, you need to work to get your content in front of other people's audiences. That means people sharing or interacting with your content, but if you understand psychology and incentives, doing that as a beginner is as hard as winning the algo lottery. That means you have to network. I know people are allergic to that word. Many get into social media because it feels like something they can do alone. No boss. No coworkers. Just you and your keyboard. But you still have to develop your social skills. The internet doesn't change human nature. It actually amplifies it. It scales it. For over 150,000 years, humans lived in small, close-knit groups. Survival required social cohesion, trust, and cooperation. Those who were more loyal to their tribe had a better chance of surviving. They hunted more effectively, defended against predators, and supported one another through hardship. This is how your brain is wired. Robin Dunbar, the anthropologist, found that humans can only maintain about 150 stable relationships. You can observe this number in hunter-gatherer tribes or military units or modern business teams. When we try to build alone, we're fighting against thousands of years of evolutionary programming. Social media is no different. Every creator you follow is in a group chat with other creators. They talk strategy. They share each other's posts. They help each other grow by using basic traffic mechanisms like replies, quote posts, reposts, DMs. Some groups engage with each other's content every morning. Others share posts in a private chat and everyone reposts. The specifics vary, but the principle is the same: tribes grow faster than individuals. If you think this sounds fishy or weird, I get it, but good luck in business if you aren't wiling to form alliances, find mentors, and play the multiplayer game. These groups are where I met lifelong friends, business partners, and even co-founders. It's kinda like finding a group of friends to play video games with. You party up and strategize how you're going to win. Start by commenting on posts from people you genuinely enjoy. Not for engagement. Not as a "growth hack." But to seed a relationship. Say something worth saying. Add to the conversation. Be a person rather than a bot farming impressions. Then DM them like you would anyone you're trying to meet. Not the LinkedIn corporate pitch. Not "Hey! Love your stuff! Let's hop on a call!" Just be normal. Act like you're texting a friend. Talk about something specific they wrote. Listen to a podcast they were on and comment on something that resonated. Tell them how what you do relates to what they are doing. Share an article that you think they would also like and leave it at that. Tribes form with shared interests and mutual benefit. Aside from building a tribe, the other method is leveraging authority. Quote other people's content with your own insights so they feel compelled to follow you or share you with their audience. Write longer pieces where you discuss someone else's ideas. Bonus points if they have a decent following, because it benefits them to share something that makes them look good. You can write about an idea from Naval or Huberman, tag them, and even if they don't see it or repost it, other people recognize the name. They're more likely to read because they already trust the source you're referencing. You're borrowing credibility while adding your own perspective. That's how you grow without waiting for the algorithm to save you. My last tip is this: Create the content you want to see in the world. If there were any "best strategy" to follow, it would be that. Why? Because you are the niche. There are people like you who can benefit from what you've achieved. There are people who are at a similar level as you who want to join you on your mission. If you create for your past, present, and future self (paired with the strategies we discussed) you shouldn't have a problem making this work. – Dan

I used to hate the idea of being a reply guy. It felt forced, noisy, and kind of desperate. So I tried it anyway lmao, a weirdo indeed.. Not to prove it worked. But mostly to prove myself right. And heyyyy guess what?—I wasn't (lol☹) That's how I ended up committing to it for seven days, just to see what would actually happen. w/ raw knowledge ofc. ## ▨ DAY 1 - Preparation of being a RG. I didn't jump into being a reply guy right away. It was actually intentional and kinda planned out. I already knew one thing going in: reply guying is exhausting if you do it blindly. Endless scrolling, forced replies, chasing views. Thats how people burnout in 2 days and quit on the 3rd one. So before posting a single reply, I paused and organized how I was going to play it. Not to optimize things in a fancy way. Just to make sure I could actually survive seven days doing it. AS A QUALITY POSTING GUY, I FREAKING HATE IT... ## My Stupid Setup That Worked. Instead of replying to everything I saw, I spent time building lists. Simple ones bro, you really dont have to overcomplicate it I grouped accounts into three categories: my style of labeling the categories • small (chick) • mid (chicken) • big (eagle) Nothing complicated. Each group had a very specific role. ## ▷ 🐥| SMALL ACCOUNTS: Signal just emoji so i can glide through tabs without swiping long ahh labels Small accounts were mostly early stage crypto and Web3 creators. I replied to them genuinely. No farming. No trying to be clever. Part of it was just being human. Supporting people who are still starting out. The other part was more strategic, at least in theory. My thinking was this: if the algorithm watches behavior, then mixing genuine, low-exposure replies into your activity makes you look less like a machine and more like a real person. i dont know this for a fact. But I treated it like noise in the system. A way to avoid moving in a single, obvious pattern. ## ▷ 🐔| MID ACCOUNTS: Relevance just emoji so i can glide through tabs without swiping long ahh labels Mid-sized accounts were Web3 KOLs and content creators. This was the balance layer. Replying here meant two things: • the topic stayed aligned with my niche • the visibility jumped up a level When a reply gets liked, quoted, or even just read by people already in the space, it doesn’t just boost impressions. It puts your name in front of the right eyes. At this stage, the replies mattered MORE. They had to add something. Not jokes for the sake of jokes. Not forced engagement. Just clear thoughts that fit the actual conversation. This is where I noticed my own posts starting to get more attention too. Again, theory, but the timing lined up. (proof later) ▷ . | BIG ACCS: Momentum just emoji so i can glide through tabs without swiping long ahh labels The last category was big accounts. Not crypto ones, Ok? I focused on fastmoving, high traffic spaces. Sports, especially football, and general meme pages. Accounts where engagement spikes within minutes. Basically this was all about reach or impressions now. If you’re aiming for monetization, impressions matter. And these accounts move numbers fast when you show up early and say something that lands. That's where momentum comes from. ## • Organizing Everything: Once I had those three categories, I needed a way to move between them without endless scrolling. The easiest setup was using lists: or I either pinned them on X: or used X Pro on desktop: where I could put all three lists side by side on one screen. One column for small. One for mid. One for big. No switching tabs. No getting lost in the feed. Just one screen, three lanes, clear intention. That setup alone made the whole thing tolerable. And more importantly, sustainabl.▨ DAY 1 - OF BEING A REPLY GUY. ## ▨ DAY 2 - Live Strategy of RG. By Day 2, I stopped preparing and actually started playing the game. The target was simple: 100 to 300 replies a day. That sounds heavy until you realize two things: • I already optimized the setup • I wasn’t thinking anymore, just executing Once the friction was gone, the volume became tolerable. Almost boring. Which is exactly what you want. ## How I actually replied I didnt bounce around apps or timelines. I left X Pro open on my screen and worked straight from the lists. Small, mid, big. Whatever popped up first. I replied to all three, but I gave more attention to big accounts. Speed and monetization were the goal here, so that’s where time mattered most. ## The ONLY Rule that mattered: E.S.S. This is the part that made the biggest difference. Every reply followed one rule: E.S.S. • Early • Spaced • Substance Early: If you’re late, it doesn’t matter how good the reply is. Speed beats perfection every time. Spaced: Line breaks matter. Walls of text get skipped. White space buys attention. Substance: This didnt mean smart. It meant one of three things: • dumb • funny • slightly controversial ## What I did while waiting/No New Posts When things slowed down, I went straight to the For You page. I scrolled aggressively. The goal wasnt entertainment. It was hunting: • huge accounts that were clearly active • posts gaining traction fast • early viral tweets I could catch before they exploded If I found something worth keeping, I added the account to my list. If not, I replied once using the same E.S.S. rule and moved on. This part was optional, but it sped things up a lot. ## The First Sign it was Working A little into Day 2, something changed. My impressions stopped being random. They stabilized into 4 digits. Consistently. Nothing crazy yet, but enough to know the system was moving. And when you think about it: 4-digit impressions × 200 replies a day adds up fast. Thats when I knew this wasnt just noise anymore. It was the unexpected momentum lol. ## ▨ DAY 3- Became Algorithm's Friend This was the day things felt different. I opened X and realized I wasnt hunting anymore. The algorithm was handing me exactly what I needed. More early viral posts. More of the same categories I’d been replying to. More Web3 content. And most importantly, more huge accounts that were already moving fast. This didnt happen randomly. It happened because on Day 2, I consistently engaged with the same types of posts. Same behavior. Same patterns. Same timing. So the algorithm adjusted. Thats how it works. You show it what you want, it feeds you more of it. At this point, the move wasnt to change strategies. It was to double down. ;) ## Optimizing/Improving E.S.S. By Day 3, the focus wasn’t volume anymore. It was sharpening the replies. I was already comfortable with E.S.S.: • Early • Spaced • Substance Substance, for me, naturally leans toward the third one: • dumb • funny • controversial But let’s be real. Sometimes you get lazy. Or sometimes you're just not in the mood to be clever. That's where @Grok came in. Yes, I said it. ## Leveraging Grok (and why people misunderstand it) People love saying AI replies dont work. Thats only true if you copy paste them raw. Grok actually works if you treat it like a rough draft, not a final answer. And here's what I did. When I spotted a potential early viral post: - I clicked the Grok icon. - Let it analyze the post. - Then I dropped this prompt: > create a SHORT hilarious controversial comment about this situation that can easily start a debate and get attention. > create a SHORT hilarious comparison comment about this situation that can easily start a debate and get attention. That’s it. ## - WEIRDO DISCLAIMER Lower your expectations. Grok rarely spits out something perfect. And thats actually the point. This is where you step in: • tweak the wording • make the grammar slightly wrong • dumb it down • make it sound intentionally unpolished Perfect replies feel fake. Slightly messy ones feel human. And controversial ones? Those travel FAST asf. If you ask me, leaning into mild rage bait at this stage is part of the fun. ## The Surprising Result By the end of Day 3, the jump was obvious. Impressions werent in 4 digits anymore. They crossed into 5 digit mark There's a Compounding Effect too look at this LATE Day 2 Result: diabolical... That was the first real confirmation that the system wasnt just working. It was accelerating and validating what we're doing. And the crazy part? I didnt add more effort. The algorithm did. (work smart hehe) ## ▨ DAY 4- Compound Effect of the Strategy. By Day 4, our made up system was running smoothly. Grok was handling the rough drafts. I was tweaking, humanizing, and sharpening them into ragebait replies that actually felt diabolically real. The results started coming easier. Not because I worked harder, but because the quality of the E.S.S. improved and ofc we're wise.. I stayed around 300 replies a day. Not more. That part matters. Whyyy? Nonstop replying looks impressive, but its also how you get flagged. Algorithms are good at spotting bot like behavior. You still need breaks. You still need pauses. I never got warnings or spam flags, and Im pretty sure thats because I didnt push it to “reply guy on steroids” levels. Rest is part of the strategy Five digit impressions stopped feeling special. They became normal. 6 digit impressions started showing up more often than I expected. Same effort. Same structure. Just better execution. Thats what happens when you repeat something long enough for it to sharpen itself. (E.S.S.) ## Leveraging Seasonal Trends in RG. This is where timing started to matter more. I noticed Stranger Things teasers were ramping up. Huge audience. Massive engagement. Fast traction. So I added those posts into my hunt. The move was simple: • catch teaser posts early • grab funny replies that already worked • reuse the same idea on other teaser posts with traction • tweak captions slightly so they didn’t feel copy pasted I saved the best ones and reused them intentionally. And yeah, it worked lmao. ## ▨ SURPRISING Result The part I didn’t expect I wasnt watching the total too closely. I knew I was somewhere around 3 to 4 million impressions. I stopped checking and just kept going. Then I realized something important. The progress didnt stop there when I stopped pushing. Everything we built earlier? Remember that? it kept stacking. (fully counted on the next days) Replies from past days kept getting resurfaced. Old impressions kept compounding. By the end or late of Day 4, it crossed 5 million. When I looked at everything together, thats when it made sense. Reply guying is like planting. One good reply is a seed. Give it time, and it grows into reach, impressions, and momentum. (THIS IS A LIVE CASE STUDY AND ALREADY PROVEN BTW)

X just handed you an unfair advantage. Most people haven't noticed yet. But in a few months, everyone will catch on, the opportunity will get saturated with garbage, and the window will close. Right now, X's algorithm is heavily favoring articles. My article yesterday hit 30k views, my best performance in months. Not because the content was revolutionary, but because the platform is actively pushing this format. This is how algorithm changes work. A platform shifts priorities. Early adopters win big. Then everyone piles in, quality drops, and the advantage disappears. You have maybe 60-90 days before this window closes. Here's why you need to move now. ## Why X Is Pushing Articles Elon wants more premium subscriptions. You need X Premium to write articles, so pushing articles drives subscriptions. Simple economics. But there's more to it. X is trying to differentiate itself as a platform for longer-form thinking, not just hot takes and engagement bait. They're competing with Medium, Substack, and LinkedIn for where serious ideas get shared. And the algorithm itself is getting more viral. When something performs well, it goes much farther than it used to. Articles are benefiting from this across the board. Right now, while most people are still posting 280-character thoughts, articles are getting higher reach. The platform wants them to succeed, so they're succeeding. ## The Problem Most People Are Missing Here's what I'm seeing: almost nobody is writing articles. Everyone's still treating X like a platform for quick takes, threads, and replies. They're watching articles get massive reach and thinking "that's interesting" while doing absolutely nothing about it. The people who are writing articles are getting outsized visibility. The people who aren't are leaving opportunity on the table. And soon, very soon, everyone will figure this out. You'll see the same low-quality spam that ruins every algorithmic opportunity. Everyone will copy the same format. The feed will flood with mediocre articles. And X will adjust the algorithm accordingly. But right now? Right now it's open season. ## The Article Structure That Works Here's the framework to follow for your first article: Hook (2-3 sentences): Grab attention immediately. State a problem, share a surprising result, or make a bold claim. Make readers want to keep going. The Problem (1-2 paragraphs): What issue are you addressing? Why does it matter? Make readers recognize themselves in this problem. The Solution (3-4 sections with subheadings): Break down your main points. Each section should deliver specific, actionable value. This is where you demonstrate expertise. The Close (1 paragraph): Don't overthink the ending. Summarize quickly or give them one clear next step. Keep it tight. That's it. You don't need complex formatting or elaborate storytelling. You need a strong hook, clear value, and a structure that makes your expertise obvious. ## Your Next Move Bookmark this article. Then open X and start writing. Pick one thing you know better than most people. Write 500 words about it using the structure above. Focus on delivering actual value to people in your field. Don't wait for inspiration. Don't wait until you feel ready. Don't wait until you have the perfect topic. The algorithm is favoring articles right now. In two months, everyone will be doing this and the advantage will be gone. In six months, you'll wish you'd started today. Write your first article this week. The window is open, but it won't stay that way.

This is 7d chess marketing on Taplio by @GuillaumeMbh

Social media is about to get weird I just built an entirely new Instagram profile with the newly launched Nano Banana Pro. Not one of these photos is real. Prompt below

Highest Engagement Days on X Best Monday ever: Today Best Sunday ever: Yesterday Best Saturday ever: Day before yesterday Best Friday ever: Day before that

"Distribution" is becoming a cope term. It's a very loosely-defined word, and it has this air of unattainability about it. It's too easy to say you're limited by your lack of distribution, and curse those who "have it". Here's a reality check: - You can have 100k followers on X and still nobody gives a shit about your product. Your audience and your customers are not necessarily the same thing. - You can have a mailing list of 10,000 people and still get zero conversions due to timing, messaging, or lack of relevance. - You can have millions of people using your free product but nobody wants to pay for the upgrade. Just look at the number of celebrity business ventures that fail. Restaurants, clothing brands, etc. They all have "distribution" but in the end it didn't make a material difference. Success is down to a matrix of different factors. It's about building a product that solves a problem, marketing that communicates that well, pricing that people find fair but also allows you to grow the business, growing multiple different marketing / distribution channels by being valuable and / or interesting, and the skills to do all of the above multiple times over because you won't be successful the first time. If you are looking at successful people on X and scoffing that they are only there because of their "distribution" you're missing the forest for the trees.

Most highly competent people could replace their salary by talking about one thing they do exceptionally well on the internet every day for 18-24 months.

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marketing is the new cs major

Big news: I've joined @a16z! My focus is on ecosystem growth—building the connective tissue of the firm's network and creating environments where the most ambitious startup founders, operators, and technologists can thrive. This role is a natural culmination of my work over the past 10 years. As a founder, coach, operator, and investor, I’ve long been obsessed with bringing great people together to accelerate each other’s growth. I’ve learned that life isn’t defined by what you do, but by who you get to do it with—and that every great journey accelerates when you’re surrounded by the right people. At a16z, I’m partnering with @eriktorenberg, @david__booth, and the powerhouse New Media team in SF to bring our boldest ambitions and most impactful communities to life. A few weeks ago, we launched the New Media Fellowship which has already received 1000+ applications and will kick off in January with an incredible 8-week program for storytellers, creators, writers, and marketers. This morning, we launched Build—a new dinner series and community for idea-stage founders & operators figuring out their next big thing. http://build.a16z.com And there's so much more to come. Huge thanks to everyone who has supported me in starting this next chapter of my career—I can’t wait to bring you along for the journey.