build in public marketing, kept beside the diary

build in public marketing works best when it does not bend the diary. underway keeps it on promote, its own tab beside the diary, with videos to film, ad answers, marketing assets and reach, and nothing there ever takes an episode number.

the short version

underway now has two sides, and they have two names. document is the diary. promote is the shop window.

the diary is what underway has always been: you, on camera, saying what happened today, numbered, in order, nothing reordered for a hook. promote is the other half of building in public, the part that is openly marketing: the clips you run as ads, the films and graphics you made for a launch, getting featured, and what your posts did.

they used to be scattered. ad answers and reach were cards at the bottom of account. the assets shelf was a filter in the vault. get featured in our ads was a card on today, between your topics and your context. now they are one page, promote, and today has one door to it.

where it is

promote has its own tab at the top, and that is the way in. it is not on today: today is for the diary, which is what underway is built on. the same door sits on account, under beyond the episode.

on the phone promote is in the bar at the top, and it opens on the web, as ad answers and reach always have. settings has it under beyond the episode too.

today never asks you to choose between them. there is one record button, it is still the first thing on the page, and the diary is still the ritual. promote is a door you open when you have the energy for it: never a fork you have to pick a side of before you can film.

what is on the page

promote opens on four choices, each its own page: videos to film, ad answers, marketing assets and reach. get featured in our ads sits under them.

• videos to film: what your audience types into youtube, checked against what ranks for each now, in two lists, the ones you could rank for now and the harder ones, with what to cover and ways to open.
• ad answers: once a month, a few questions about what you are building, asked out loud, and each answer you keep cut into its own captioned vertical clip to post or run. part of series.
• reach: every post you sent from an episode, one line per network, with reach, engagement and clicks. part of series.
• get featured in our ads: once five of your episodes are public on your page, your build can be featured in the facebook and instagram ads underway runs to the directory. the bar counts your public episodes out of five, and the card goes once you are in.
• marketing assets: your ads, launch films, demos and graphics, uploaded from your desktop, with show on your page and post to, exactly as in the vault. the vault still has its assets filter; it is the same shelf.

why build in public marketing gets its own name

building in public is marketing, and underway says so plainly. a founder documenting their build is building an audience and a reputation. that is the point.

but the diary only works if it stays a diary. the moment what performed starts deciding what you film, the episodes stop being what happened and start being what you think people want. so the two sides are kept apart, and now they look apart too.

the diary is chronological, numbered and honest about gaps. the shop window is chosen, labelled and openly selling. they serve each other: someone finds a clip, follows it to your page, and lands on eighty episodes of the real thing.

the walls between build in public marketing and the diary

• nothing on promote is numbered. an ad answer or an asset never takes an episode number and never sits between episode 47 and 48.
• nothing on promote counts towards your streak. the streak is the diary habit.
• nothing on promote reaches your interviews. the questions you are asked come from your day and your season, never from what an ad did.
• nothing goes on your page by itself. an asset shows there only when you switch show on your page on, in its own row, below your episodes and never among them.
• everything made with ai is labelled wherever it shows.

what did not change

ad answers, reach and the assets shelf work exactly as they did. the questions, the clips, the numbers and the uploads are the same, on the same plans. only where you find them changed.

the diary did not change at all. what to film, today's context, ask the vault and the record button are where they were.

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