Q3 2024: Social growth

[jtemperton]

Summary

We want to grow the PostHog accounts on X and LinkedIn to improve brand awareness, increase engagement and, generally, do a much better job of social media.

Goal

Establish a regular publishing schedule on X and LinkedIn, with a clear voice and strategy for social and key metrics we want to track. Update the handbook with a clear, repeatable plan for social.

Context

Top performing posts on LinkedIn in June based on impressions:

Things on LinkedIn are going pretty well. Good range of posts getting engagement.

Top performing posts on X in June based on impressions:

It's a different story on X. Not a lot of posts getting much traction at all. I'm posting similar things on both, though, so either we take a different approach to X and spend more time on it or accept that it's minimal effort currently and that we need more time to judge what works.

Plan

• [ ] Carry out some competitor research. Who does social well, how, and why?
• [ ] Establish a series of social franchises and/or types of posts so there is a consistent voice and feel. We'll post items from the changelog, for example. And chop up blog posts and newsletters in interesting ways for social. I need to work on more ideas here.
• [ ] We currently post once a day to X and LinkedIn. Increase this to two a day without a dip in quality.
• [ ] Define metrics for social success and track them – most important metric is probably tone of voice and approach for social.
• [ ] Figure out a clear and repeatable social approach and document it in the handbook by end of quarter.
• [x] Stay on top of liking/responding to people mentioning PostHog on X and LinkedIn.
• [x] Big push to promote new blog posts and newsletters.
• [ ] Take screenshot essays to next level in terms of design and content.
• [ ] Experiment with paid promotions for posts.

[andyvan-ph]

Some additional thoughts:

• A key output of this goal should be a handbook entry that explains exactly how we do social, covering things like tone of voice, types of posts, dos and don'ts, etc. Would obviously come after some of the work already suggested, but this is how we make this a permanent thing that's repeatable.

• I'd say two a day on X and once on LinkedIn is enough. I think they should be distinct in style and the type of posts we do on each. LinkedIn, for example, seems more forgiving of links posts these days. These should soft goals.

• I like the idea of taking Ian's "screenshot essay" idea to the next level – e.g. we could have a template designed by Lottie for specifically for changelog updates, maybe themed by product? Something similar for newsletters would be good.

• For X, we should probably assume "no links by default" but we shouldn't be too religious about it.

• I'd like to see some success criteria that aren't metrics based. It's good to have those, but a decent part of this about the vibe of our socials.

[charlescook-ph]

We can also pick certain posts to boost with paid ads, probably doubling down a bit on the ones that seem to do well? (I'm thinking mainly LinkedIn here).

I like this plan though!

[ivanagas]

• Make a big, coordinated deal out of publishing new blogs and newsletters. Seeing how serious Jordan took posting and resharing on LinkedIn was eye opening. As soon as a post goes out, posts a large text post + image + Link on LinkedIn. Same thing would probably be good on Twitter too. I feel like I drop the ball here normally.
• LinkedIn listening. Jordan also engages with everyone who mentions him and I don't feel we do a good job at this, mostly because LinkedIn isn't on brand mentions. Might be a quick growth win to start.
• Always down to upgrade the screenshot essay workflow, I have been working on https://www.shotposter.com/ but a custom Lottie template might be nicer. Create some templates for new feature changelog, things you can do with posthog (tutorial), new blog/article
• I feel like no brand does X or LinkedIn well (I basically don't follow any), it's always needs to be a person 😅

[Lior539]

Looks great overall!

Goal Establish a regular publishing schedule on X and LinkedIn, with a clear voice and strategy for social and key metrics we want to track.

This sounds more like a plan/roadmap than a goal. The main problem is that its not clear to me if we will know that the effort spent here will be worth repeating in following quarters. To me , a good goal has a clear success or failure criteria so that we know if its worth repeating in future.

Some ideas:

• Increase number of followers
• Increase engagement on posts
• Increase number of mentions of "Where did you hear about us" in posthog signups

[andyvan-ph]

Slightly disagree with @Lior539. 100% we should decide how we measure progress, but right now I'm less concerned with "we must increase X" than with actually creating an approach we can measure at all.

I think this is a side quest rather than a major goal, so the most important things to me are:

1. We figure out a clear and repeatable approach and document it in the handbook
2. Agree what we're measuring and how + report on progress. We can figure out what "good" is as we go.

[jtemperton]

Thanks for the feedback, all. I'll update the issue up top to reflect some of the points raised in this thread. Aim will be to have a clear approach documented in the handbook by the end of the quarter.

[lottiecoxon]

Not that I'm a massive player in the tech X (aka twitter) world but I find that posts that are quickly absorbed are ones that have a visual or video/gifs as their main focus - more so than, lets say a screenshot. TLDR - being weird on twitter pays off imo.

Also intrigued as to what a screenshot essay is @ivanagas ? Either way I'm happy to work with people on making a template

[andyvan-ph]

I'd 100% like to do start doing PostHog-themed versions of popular memes and posting them on social. We have the drake one, but we don't use it that often. Would be cool to have more of them.

[jtemperton]

I’ve been stalking some other industry social accounts for dos and don’ts. Brief findings below.

Open questions for how we approach social at PostHog.

• Do we want to do memes on main? If so, why and how?
• Do we like the current tone of voice we're using on social? I’d define it as fun but ‘not too meme-ey,’ but also in no way corporate.
• Do we want to do any social video? If so, what and how?
• Where do we get more/more varied social content from? Right now I’m drawing from: the handbook, the newsletter and blog archive, the changelog, the product, and customer stories. Are we missing anything?

Supabase

115.9k followers on X

So many memes. It does well, but this is basically a meme account.

https://x.com/supabase/status/1813909645448430057

https://x.com/supabase/status/1813648416221667549

There’s some ‘news you can use’ product stuff in the mix, but it doesn’t do much.

https://x.com/dshukertjr/status/1813199865264152668

https://x.com/supabase/status/1811663046311379021

Linear

63.9k followers on X

Bias to non-link posts over link posts. Lots of graphics, screenshots – strong visual focus. All link posts have an image, for example.

https://x.com/linear/status/1753090497071948065

https://x.com/linear/status/1747670708476395722

https://x.com/linear/status/1763251424765309278

The content itself is quite dry and product-focussed. But it’s very sleek and consistent.

The Browser Company

129k followers on X

Lots of nice, sleek video promos for new features and updates. Expensive, but good. Team members also tweet/post/x quite a bit and the main account RTs them.

https://x.com/browsercompany/status/1801262038737387932

https://x.com/codeblue87/status/1801273508594356336

https://x.com/chrstnerode/status/1793646277693259852

https://x.com/joshm/status/1793658897242169778

One learning here would be that if we can do video it could be a boost for social. But, as above: expensive. And I think we can be hackier and less polished and still cut through.

GitHub

2.5 million followers on X.

Strong ‘social media manager(s)’ vibe.

Show us your dog! https://x.com/github/status/1804166474807808002

Describe yourselves with emoji! https://x.com/github/status/1813638273987739765

And lots of social video, too. It’s ‘friendly corporate,’ which should probably be an anti-goal for our social plan.

[charlescook-ph]

Some thoughts!

Do we want to do memes on main? If so, why and how?

Personally no, memes are a ton of extra work to do consistently. Throw them up if they come up organically, but sitting down at the beginning of the week to schedule a bunch of meme content is really hard work and better coming from say @jamesefhawkins's account if he wants to do it.

Do we like the current tone of voice we're using on social? I’d define it as fun but ‘not too meme-ey,’ but also in no way corporate.

Yeah I think it's good

Do we want to do any social video? If so, what and how?

We could start with animations? A good place to begin might be in-product animations.

Where do we get more/more varied social content from? Right now I’m drawing from: the handbook, the newsletter and blog archive, the changelog, the product, and customer stories. Are we missing anything?

This sounds like plenty - you could also add our internal Slack for the more fun stuff.

Generally I think a more fun version of Linear would be a good sweet spot to hit, but I appreciate that's subjective - ie. execute well like they do, but the brand will feel very different.

[jtemperton]

Good notes, thanks! Linear but more fun (?!) is kinda where I feel we're at right now, which I like – and it's also a comfortable tone for me to write in. Not too 'zany' but in no way corporate. I'll have a think about how best to use in-product animations, would be a great way to show off new features, etc.

And I share your view re: memes!

[andyvan-ph]

Done some thinking and have broken things down as a bunch of questions.

Who is the audience for each platform?

• X/Twitter: More technical, more "online" users. Core ICP. More likely to engage with new features.
• LinkedIn: Less technical, leadership. More likely to engage with thought leadership / ideas.

How often should we post?

• X/Twitter: As often as we like, provided we have something worth posting.
• LinkedIn: Maximum once per day, maybe every other day?

What do we want people to think/feel when they see our social feeds?

• Wow, this company ships a lot of stuff.
• They have a cool / interesting culture.
• They're very transparent.
• I'd like to work at this company.
• They listen to their community.

This leads me to following conclusions:

• We should post almost every changelog update to X/Twitter. It doesn't matter if some posts get low engagement. The goal should be to demonstrate how fast we're constantly shipping, especially to people who visit our profile randomly.

• Changelogs should always have a nicely formatted screenshot of the feature, rather than a link. A recorded clip of the feature is even better. The quality of changlog images is pretty patchy, so don't reuse ones that aren't great.

• The occasional meme / joke post is fine, but it's too high effort to make this a regular thing. Just do it when it feels right.

• We could/should make a habit of doing a weekly update based on the all hands meeting – e.g. could we share what people demo in the the all hands each week? Doesn't have go into massive detail. Same for the "topic of the week" provided it's not too sensitive. Goal here is demonstrate transparency / our culture.

• We should just post links to X/Twitter when it makes sense to do so – e.g. for a newsletter. Let's not get too hung up on what performs best all the time. We should pin the most recent newsletter / article to the profile to improve visibility. This seems to work well based on tests I've done recently – X is even promoting "pinned posts" in feeds these days.

• Big news should be posted as a longer blog-style piece on X, as session replay pricing. This works really well.

• We should only post major news to LinkedIn, not every Changelog update – i.e. new features, rather than incremental improvements.

• Never post links only for LinkedIn as they look crap. If link post, share with image + link in the post/link as first comment.

• LinkedIn should have great focus on cultural stuff and "non-technical" topics.

[andyvan-ph]

Additional:

• Would be ace if we can turn this concept into something we can create very quickly and easily: https://x.com/IanVanagas/status/1811876574268190992

• Same if we could have something similar just for changelog updates that looks very designed / custom for that type of post.

[corywatilo]

Would be ace if we can turn this concept into something we can create very quickly and easily

It's here. Can whip em out pretty easily.

[DottChen]

Just curious, what social analytics platform are you guys using in this screenshot?

[ivanagas]

Just curious, what social analytics platform are you guys using in this screenshot?

Buffer

[DottChen]

Just curious, what social analytics platform are you guys using in this screenshot?

Buffer

Thanks Ian.