How personal vs promotional should a founder's posts be?

71%

of hidden buyers say thought leadership is more effective than traditional marketing or sales materials at showing a vendor's potential value, in the 2025 Edelman and LinkedIn report

Why not just promote the product?

Because pitches are not what persuades. In the 2025 Edelman and LinkedIn report on hidden buyers, 71 percent of hidden buyers said thought leadership is more effective than traditional marketing or sales materials at demonstrating a vendor's potential value. In our view, a feed that is mostly pitches gets tuned out long before people need what you sell.

Much of your audience isn't buying this month. Posts that are useful to them now keep you in their mind until they are.

Why not make it all personal?

Because readers follow a founder to learn something from their work. In our experience, personal posts can draw big reactions, but often from people who will never buy, and a feed that is mostly life updates leaves buyers unsure what you do. Personal detail works best as part of a post about the work, not instead of one.

Some kinds of personal story build more trust than others. In the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, 70 percent of people said learning a CEO's personal values matters to building their trust, and 63 percent said the same of obstacles the CEO overcame, against 53 percent for family and 51 percent for hobbies. The survey asked about chief executives, but the pattern suits founders.

What sits between the two?

Useful posts with you in them. That means what you have learned from customers, decisions you made and why, mistakes and what they taught you, and your view on where your market is heading. These are personal in that only you could write them, and useful because a buyer learns something from each one.

They also do the selling quietly. In the same report on hidden buyers, 95 percent of hidden buyers said strong thought leadership makes them more receptive to sales and marketing outreach. A buyer who has read a dozen of your useful posts is likely to be more open when you do talk about your product.

So what is a good balance?

Our suggestion is roughly this, over a typical month, though your own audience should have the final say.

• Most posts useful to your buyers, drawn from your work and experience.
• Some posts personal, where the story connects to how you work or what you value.
• About one post in five openly about what you sell, such as a launch, a customer result or an offer.

Treat that as a starting point. If promotional posts get quiet responses, space them out more. If your personal posts start conversations with buyers, keep them coming.

How do you keep your personality in useful posts?

Write the way you talk. Your opinions, your examples and your turns of phrase are what make a useful post yours rather than anyone's. Talking a point through first, by voice or on camera, keeps those in the draft, and a quick read before you approve it catches anything that drifted into corporate tone.