Twitter is genius.
I dumped my old Twitter account to create a new one for learning. I log in once a day, and it’s enough to make me feel 0.01% smarter than I was before.
Twitter is all about the people you follow. I carefully follow marketers and creators who are all more intelligent than I am in many respects.
There aren’t any memes (unless relevant to marketing), but “social stacks” get mentioned a ton on there. I’d never heard the word “stack” used to describe a business strategy.
I figured I better get to the bottom of it. After a bit of research, I’ve found out what a social stack is and how it can be used to develop an idea, business, or side hustle.
Let’s become better marketers together.
Using every social platform is overwhelming
You don’t have time.
I can name a dozen social media platforms, but only a few are worthwhile to me. That’s why I built my social media stack around the ones useful for me.
A social media stack may comprise several tools such as Twitter and include other platform aspects like automated posting tools and Twitter metrics. Different platforms, like Facebook and LinkedIn, have all sorts of third-party tools that can be used.
Adding more tools to the mix takes up time too. It’s one thing to post on Twitter but another to watch the metrics and post at the right times. That’s considered a full-time job these days.
So while you shouldn’t think of posting a piece of content on a dozen social platforms, what works in one place can work somewhere else. It’s your content; you can do what you want with it.
I wouldn’t post my blog posts on Instagram. I would, however, repurpose my articles for Linkedin. The problem is when people try to do too much. They fail when they don’t change their content for a specific audience.
Using every single social media is a waste of time.
You don’t have to be an expert on every platform because it’s better to put 90% of your effort into something you can master and experiment with the other 10% with something new, like TikTok.
Choose 2–3 platforms you’ve seen even a hint of success in, and focus on those. Fund your stream of consciousness with your finite time. Your best work only needs to be done once. Once you put in the leg work, all that is left is to repurpose.
The important thing is to do it consistently.
You don’t have to be the best at anything
I’m a renaissance man.
I’ve never claimed to be the best at anything because there’s very little chance I will ever be. Of course, I want to be the best video editor on the planet, but I’ll probably never make a movie with Christopher Nolan.
But when you accept you aren’t the best, you are free. You may not break the NBA three-point record like Steph Curry, but you could combine your unique skills into something grand.
Aprilynne Alter on Twitter found her niche. She approaches the NFT differently. She takes her videos seriously and uses different social media platforms for various purposes.
She references her portfolio of small bets and even mentions her inspiration from Daniel Vassalo, who proves there are only three income sources you need as a creator.
A social media stack is a web. Each leg of the web is just as essential as the other, but the foundation still holds its shape if one breaks off. That’s what a portfolio of bets is. You don’t have to be the best at any one thing, just pretty good at a few.
With some time and care, multiple, small side hustles can add up significantly. Think about what you learn from one thing and how it translates to another.
Here’s the blueprint for your own stack
Gary V would say, “Just make content.”
So I’ve only been writing for 18 months (excluding my journalism degree from college), but I’ve been creating my whole life.
I sought photography for a bit. I never created my own business out of it and never gained more than 1,000 followers on Instagram. My self-inflicted failure caused led to me writing a blog post, and the rest is history.
Since then, I’ve slowly developed a passion for marketing what I write, to the point where this isn’t a pointless hobby anymore. There’s a purpose to this.
When you find traction, it’s because you know what you want and what to aim for. Making graphic designs and posting them on Instagram is excellent. Followers like your posts, and you hear back from a few of them again in the next post.
You provide artistic value, but that’s all.
The next step is discovering the power of a small group of superfans throw email newsletters and Discord groups. Followers are vanity metrics anyway. What matters, or better yet, who matters, are the ones you can’t get enough of your work.
Here’s my stack:
Write long-form blog posts about social media, marketing, freelancing, and life advice
Take the best bits and post them on BitClout and Twitter
Repost my articles on various platforms like LinkedIn
Steal the idea from me if you'd like. I like writing, but I have an entirely different career from it. I need this to be as effortless as possible for me, or I won’t do it.
Writing, I have locked down. I’m still working on the act of repurposing my content, but there is a process to make him do it happily.
Remember to do the work once, but with that said, make sure the initial batch is top quality because that’s what your audience is truly after.