Beyond LinkedIn
Should founders also publish on YouTube or Substack?
Short answer
Not at first. Get LinkedIn into a steady rhythm, then add a second channel only if your buyers spend time there and you can keep it going. The easy start on YouTube is the same clips you post on LinkedIn.
A newsletter suits founders who like writing in depth. Either works best fed from what you already make.
84%
of US adults say they ever use YouTube, in Pew Research Center's 2025 survey of social media use
Why start with one channel?
Because a second channel doubles the work before the first one is paying off. Each platform has its own formats, habits and audience, and a founder who spreads thin across three of them often ends up posting on none of them for weeks at a time. Getting one channel into a steady rhythm first teaches you what your audience responds to, and gives you a store of material to reuse.
For a founder selling to businesses, that first channel is usually LinkedIn, because buyers, hires and investors are already there in a working frame of mind.
When does YouTube make sense?
When your buyers search for answers in video and you enjoy explaining things at length. YouTube's reach is huge. Pew Research Center's 2025 survey found that 84 percent of US adults say they ever use it, and the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 put weekly use across 48 markets at 63 percent.
But reach is not the same as an audience for you. The easy first step is exporting the portrait clips you already make for LinkedIn to YouTube Shorts once your LinkedIn habit is working. Longer videos that people find through search are a bigger commitment, which suits a founder whose product needs showing, or whose buyers search for tutorials and walkthroughs.
When does a newsletter make sense?
When you like writing in depth and want a direct line to readers. A newsletter lands in an inbox rather than a feed, so it depends less on an algorithm. But inboxes are crowded. In a 2026 Pew Research Center study, 62 percent of Americans who get news from newsletters said they don't end up reading most of the newsletters they receive.
For a founder, the value is depth. A monthly or fortnightly piece lets you set out a fuller argument than a post allows, and the people who read it to the end are likely to be among your most interested readers. It does need a steady flow of new readers, which LinkedIn can provide.
How do you add a channel without doubling the work?
Feed it from what you already make. Your best LinkedIn posts of the month can become the outline of a newsletter. The clips you record for LinkedIn can be collected into a longer YouTube video, or the recording behind them can be published in full. One recording session, by voice or on camera, can supply all three if you plan for it.
Then decide what success looks like before you start. Pick a cadence you can hold for several months, and judge the new channel on whether the right people are finding you, not on early numbers.
Follow-up questions
Can a newsletter replace LinkedIn?
Rarely for a founder selling to businesses. A newsletter deepens the relationship with people who already know you, but it needs a place where new people find you first. For most founders that place is LinkedIn, so the two work best together.
Should I use LinkedIn's own newsletter feature instead?
It's worth trying if your readers are already on LinkedIn, since subscribers there can be notified when you publish.
You don't own that list, though, so if you want to keep your readers wherever you go, a newsletter you run yourself is safer.
How long should I give a new channel before judging it?
Several months of steady publishing. New channels start slowly, and early numbers say little. Decide in advance how often you will publish and for how long, then judge it on whether the right people are finding you.
Talk for a few minutes. Post all week.
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