What's New: Which social media platform is best for you?

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

Axios analyzed the top accounts on each major social media platform:

• TikTok favors individual creators over major entertainment companies, but YouTube is the exact opposite. We break down the top findings, including how you can use them in your own social media strategy.
• Here's a curated list of the best newsletters for founders! From marketing to product management to engineering resources, this list has you covered.
• Founder Andy Cloke taught himself to code, and has built multiple products. Most recently, he bootstrapped an Airtable API tool to $4,000 in monthly revenue. Below, he talks selling a SaaS company, his framework for developing new ideas, and his biggest failure yet.

Want to share something with nearly 85,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

📱 Social Media Platform Selection

from the Growth & Acquisition Channels newsletter by Darko

Axios recently analyzed the top accounts on each major platform (TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook), and the results are out. For founders, the conclusions are quite informative.

Social media selection

The analysis: Axios analyzed the top 50 accounts (those with the most followers) on each major platform: TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

There is (nearly) no overlap: Almost no account that was in the top 50 on one platform was also in the top 50 on another. This hints at the fact that different platforms value different kinds of things and people. Here are some interesting discoveries:

• Sports stars and actors shine on Facebook and Instagram.
• Musicians do better on YouTube and TikTok.
• Twitter is the only platform where politicians and business leads are in the top 50 most-followed accounts.

The opportunity:

• TikTok favors individual creators over heavily-funded entertainment corporations.

• YouTube is the opposite. The top accounts are larger music and entertainment companies.

• Facebook is great for brands. The platform gives them an edge by encouraging people to "Like" a page, even if that page doesn't generate any content.

• Instagram prefers people who show off their lifestyle.

• Twitter favors celebrities, albeit on a smaller scale. Twitter also favors people who are known for their ideas, which is probably why politicians and business leaders are among the top 50 users.

Which of the above best describes you?

Podcast ads

The news: Last week, Spotify rolled out podcast ads to its self-serve platform, Spotify Ad Studio. This means that you can place podcast ads without the assistance of an advertising or sales manager, making them more accessible to indie hackers.

Clix Marketing wrote a blog post that goes into greater detail about this. Here are some of the highlights:

• A $500 minimum commitment is required now. This is much less than the minimum commitment required by most podcast platforms.
• You can target people based on their age, device, and location. For now, it's US only, and you can segment by specific zip codes or cities.

The opportunity: Spotify's ad business is booming due to podcasts. When people buy ads on a platform, it usually means that the platform is flourishing and catching people's attention. Ad power on Spotify will become even stronger as the company's targeting options improve.

Shoppable livestreams

Twitter: This week, Twitter announced its first shoppable livestream with Walmart and Jason Derulo. Twitter also plans to expand its Shop Module to more users, and introduce Twitter Shopping Manager, a central hub for retailers.

YouTube: The platform will enroll some of its most popular creators to host shoppable livestreams throughout this year's holiday season. YouTube also stated that it intends to build the "next generation of live shopping experience," indicating that it's in this for the long haul.

The opportunity: 2021 was the year when everyone was trying to add Instagram Stories and TikTok-like feeds to their platforms. As for 2022, I expect it will be the year when everyone will attempt to add shoppable livestreams.

My advice: Consider adding live content to your content marketing plan. As time goes by, big social media platforms will give more visibility to live content. Twitter already does this with Spaces, and YouTube does it with livestreams, allowing you to reach a larger number of people organically.

The nice thing about live content is that it can be recorded and later repurposed as video and audio clips.

What social media platform works best for you? Let's chat below!

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Growth & Acquisition Channels for more.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

📦 Walmart has launched drone delivery for customers in Arkansas.

🌳 Germany's new government plans to legalize marijuana.

💸 South Korea will tax NFTs starting next year.

🛩 Rolls-Royce may have developed the world's fastest all-electric plane.

🏀 A DAO aiming to buy an NBA team has raised $1.7M in Ethereum.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

📧 Top Newsletters for Founders

by James Fleischmann

Are you a fan of newsletters? We are too! Here's a list of the best newsletters (aside from Indie Hackers, of course!) to help founders stay up to date, learn, and grow their businesses.

Marketing newsletters

• Stacked Marketer: Curated marketing news, tech, and advice. Fun approach and lots of short summaries of marketing news and tactics. Free.
• TL;DR Marketing: Each email includes a ton of links with short summaries. Free.
• Growth & User Acquisition: Analyzes hundreds of interviews to figure out which acquisition channels consistently work for founders. Free.
• Marketer Crew: The latest news, tools, and insights. Free.
• Gene's Weekly: Weekly growth, marketing, and design tips. Freemium.
• Positive Human: B2B SaaS marketing and growth with a really nice, human spin. Free.

Growth hacking newsletters

• Growth Bites: Bite-sized growth tactics filled with practical advice. Free.
• The Growth Newsletter: Each edition has a few super solid growth tips from experts. Free.
• Growth Currency: Curated resources, tools, and courses for creators. Free.
• Growth Unhinged: "An unorthodox take on how to grow a SaaS company." Free.
• Ariyh: An acronym for "Academic Research In Your Hands." Tons of science-backed advice for growing a company in an easily digestible format. Free.
• Kickstart Side Hustle: Focuses on psychology and how to use it in your marking strategies. Free.

SEO newsletters

• SEO Notebook: Tons of great tips, strategies, and tricks from Steve Toth and other experts. Free.
• Ross Simmonds: Essays on how successful businesses do what they do. Great long-form writeups. Free.
• Ahrefs Weekly Digest: Weekly articles from the blog (and elsewhere). Free.

General founders newsletters

• Morning Brew: They've got a few different newsletters, including news, marketing, tech, and finance. People either swear by Morning Brew, or find little value in it. Free.
• The Bootstrapped Founder: Essays by Arvid Kahl on bootstrapping, audience building, and building in public. Free.
• Maker Mind: Neuroscience-based strategies for makers. Free.
• Check Your Pulse: This is a newsletter about tech and startups, but it's designed to make you feel more human. Free.
• For the Interested: Daily tips, articles, and tidbits from Josh Spector. Valuable and entertaining. Free.

Engineering newsletters

• Status Code: Covers the latest ideas, releases, trends, and articles about software development, web operations, infrastructure platforms, and performance. Free.
• React Newsletter: The latest React news, tutorials, and resources. Free.
• Full Stack Heroes: Articles, guides, interviews, and free courses on web development. Free.

Product management and design newsletters

• GrowthDesign: Excellent case studies on product design, UX, and growth. Plus, it's in comic book format. Free.
• Lenny's Newsletter: For those of you looking for info on product growth, this is a really solid resource. Free.
• Product Buff: Comes highly recommended by product managers. Includes content about product management and marketing. Free.
• Mind the Product: For product managers. Distributed weekly (every Monday). Free.
• Sidebar: Five links per day about design. Free.

A few honorable mentions

• TLDR: Daily TL;DRs of the latest news in tech, science, and coding. It's always interesting and a super quick read. Free.
• Tangle: Tackles political issues from all sides. Freemium.
• TheSlice: It's all about ways to improve your thinking. Free.
• Sunday Brain Food by FarnamStreet: Actionable ideas and insights for home and work. Free.
• Hurry Slowly: Actionable ideas on how to be more creative and resilient. Free.

What are your favorite newsletters? Share in the comments!

Discuss this story.

🌐 Best Around the Web: Posts Submitted to Indie Hackers This Week

📝 180 SEO tips. Posted by Roberto Robles.

🤔 Do you plan to use crypto in your business? Posted by Courtland Allen.

😬 I quit everything to go all in on Web3. Posted by Matteo Mosca.

🤷‍♂️ Startup industry leaders? Posted by Tofl.

💭 What Indie Hackers needs. Posted by Pupillary.

💻 Where do you host your website? Posted by Yassine Zeriouh.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

🛠 Andy Cloke Hit $4K MRR With an Airtable API Tool

from the Deep Dive newsletter by Seth King

Founder: Andy Cloke.

Founded: InfluenceGrid (acquired) and Data Fetcher.

Sphere of influence: Persistence.

MRR: $4K.

Broke and unemployed, Andy taught himself to code fresh out of college. Each morning, he watched freeCodeCamp tutorials until he was able to build Verbly, a Spanish learning site.

It got some free users, but made no money. Andy went to work on his next idea, InfluenceGrid, a tool that made it easy for advertisers to identify TikTok micro-influencers. InfluenceGrid quickly found an audience, and within a few months of launching, Andy scaled it to $3K MRR. He later sold it for $60K.

In November 2020, Andy launched Data Fetcher, a tool that lets you create and run API requests within Airtable. Data Fetcher recently hit $4K MRR. Indie Hackers sat down with Andy to chat about his journey. Read on for more!

How did you come up with the idea for InfluenceGrid?

The first thing I did was to learn more about coding and software engineering so I could create a more sophisticated product. As I looked for a project, the terms "micro-influencer" and "nano-influencer" were starting to become popular keywords.

My idea was to create a directory of all these influencers, since I figured that they were becoming the future of influencer marketing. I thought that if I could build a way for brands to find micro-influencers, InfluenceGrid would be a beneficial tool for indie hackers and enterprises alike.

This was at the end of 2019. Around this time, TikTok influencers were starting to get recognized, but in 2019 many people still hadn't heard of TikTok. It was a sleeping giant about to blow up.

The nice thing was that no one had created a product like InfluenceGrid yet, whereas Instagram had this really open API, so there were loads of tools for Instagram. But there wasn't one for TikTok. I set up two phones to scroll TikTok all day, and I was harvesting the data:

*The InfluenceGrid UI

Why did you sell just a few months after building it?

It got to a point where I was really fed up with developing it. It had been an open startup, so it didn't really have any secrets.

In some ways, that meant that I could be super transparent in the sale process, and didn't have to hide anything. At any moment, my data scraper could die. I needed to get cash off the table. We didn't use escrow, which is really unusual. I'd normally go to a third party, but the buyers were quite happy to trust me. They sent me the money first, and then I just handed the stuff over.

I spent a couple of months looking for an idea, and eventually started Data Fetcher. During that time spent searching, though, I worried that I had just sold the only thing I'd ever made that was going to make money.

But overall, I think it was the right move to sell InfluenceGrid. Data Fetcher is more sustainable, and it's been going strong for the last year.

*Data Fetcher UI

What's your framework for coming up with SaaS project ideas?

If you look at a platform that's taken off, whether it's TikTok or Airtable, you should look at some of the tools surrounding its predecessors. Check out the add-ons or extensions, and then build that for the new platform that's about to take off.

I built a directory of influencers for TikTok rather than Instagram. I'm now building an API connector for Airtable rather than Google Sheets. That's the framework I've used to come up with both the ideas.

Building on top of someone else's platform is a good way to go, I think.

What were some of your ideas that failed?

I was messing about with colorizing old movies. Basically, I was taking old black and white films and colorizing them. I was building a Netflix-like application where you could come and watch all these movies.

This idea was the biggest waste of my time. A total failure.

What is your advice for indie hackers?

Don't be afraid to start. It's cliche, but people always email me asking "how do you find your first customers?"

My response is always to stop thinking about it and just start.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Deep Dive for more.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Nathalie Zwimpfer for the illustrations, and to Darko, Priyanka Vazirani, James Fleischmann, and Seth King for contributing posts. —Channing