Where Should You Apply Your Voice? The Question Experienced Experts Should Ask Before They Post
By Dr. Trudy Beerman, DSL — Published August 28, 2026
Finding your voice is only half the challenge.
Knowing where to apply it may be the more strategic question.
Someone recently asked me this after seeing a short coaching clip I shared on LinkedIn:
“I think often my challenge is where should I apply my voice. Any tips there?”
That is a deceptively sophisticated question.
The easy answer would be to recommend a platform. Post on LinkedIn. Start a YouTube channel. Get on podcasts. Create short-form video. Write articles. Get on television.
But if you were my client, I would not give you that answer without first doing a deeper dive.
I would want to understand your expertise, audience, objectives, existing authority, resources and what you ultimately want your visibility to accomplish.
Because the question isn't merely, “Where can I speak?”
It is, “Where will my voice have the greatest strategic power?”
1. Understand the Power of the Platform
Every platform has power, but they do not all have the same power.
A 45-minute, wide-angle conversation can allow someone to experience the depth of your thinking, hear your stories, understand your methodology, and develop a sense of who you are.
A 30-second vertical video has a different job.
That does not make one superior to the other. It means the format and platform should serve the objective.
YouTube itself acknowledges that viewer preferences can differ not only by subject but also by format. Someone may enjoy a creator's Shorts without necessarily consuming that creator's long-form content, or vice versa. Its Shorts discovery system also considers viewer interests, watch and search history, performance and other signals when deciding what to recommend.
That matters because simply resizing the same message and throwing it onto every available platform is not necessarily a distribution strategy.
Written content has another kind of power. An article gives you room to articulate an argument and creates a durable piece of content associated with your ideas.
A podcast appearance provides a conversational environment and can introduce your thinking to an audience another person has already cultivated.
Television creates a different kind of media experience and authority evidence.
This is one reason I built PSI TV into my own authority ecosystem. It gives experts room for substantive conversations about what they know while also creating a media asset that can become part of the larger body of evidence surrounding their expertise.
So don't begin by asking which platform is hottest.
Ask:
What does this platform allow my voice to accomplish particularly well?
2. Go Where the Right Audience Can Hear You
Imagine you have developed the most insightful message in the world for competitive cycling athletes.
Then you stand inside a Dunkin' Donuts and deliver it.
Your message might be brilliant.
Your delivery might be exceptional.
But if the people who need that message aren't in the room, very little may happen.
That isn't necessarily a messaging failure.
It may be a distribution failure.
Content Marketing Institute describes the importance of matching content with the channels where the intended audience is actually active, rather than distributing content indiscriminately everywhere.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
This is where many experts get trapped by the pressure to “be everywhere.”
Everywhere is not a strategy.
You need to understand who needs to hear you and where those people already gather, search, watch, listen, learn and make decisions.
That may be LinkedIn.
It may be YouTube.
It may be industry podcasts.
It may be conferences.
It may be television.
It may be a niche publication with a much smaller audience than a major platform, but an audience made up almost entirely of people you need to reach.
Audience relevance can matter more than raw audience size.
The goal isn't simply to make noise.
It is to put the right signal in the right environment.
3. Scripture Gives Us an Interesting Lesson About WHERE
There is a fascinating example of this principle in Acts.
Paul and his companions had a message they were specifically commissioned to share. Yet Scripture tells us:
“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been prevented by the Holy Spirit from speaking the message in the province of Asia.”
Acts 16:6, NET
Think about that.
The message wasn't wrong.
The messenger wasn't wrong.
Yet that particular place was not where they were supposed to deliver that message at that time.
They tried another direction, Bithynia, and again the Spirit did not allow them to proceed there. Then Paul received the vision calling them toward Macedonia.
That introduces an important principle for those of us thinking about influence, communication and visibility:
Having something worth saying does not mean every available platform is where you should say it.
Sometimes the strategic decision is not about changing the message.
It is about changing the room.
4. Pay Attention to Open Doors
Paul gives us another useful picture in 1 Corinthians 16:9:
“because a door of great opportunity stands wide open for me, but there are many opponents.”
1 Corinthians 16:9, NET
I love the realism of that verse.
An open door did not mean an easy door.
There was opportunity and opposition.
That distinction matters in business and media too.
Sometimes people abandon a platform because it requires work, because growth is slow, because competition exists, or because the algorithm doesn't immediately reward them.
But difficulty and misalignment are not the same thing.
The strategic question becomes:
Is this a difficult door I should walk through, or simply the wrong door?
That requires more thought than looking at follower counts.
5. Decide What You Want Your Voice to Do
Before choosing where to speak, decide what you want speaking to accomplish.
Are you trying to become known? Demonstrate expertise? Build trust? Start conversations? Attract clients? Earn speaking invitations? Develop searchable evidence around your expertise? Build an audience you can reach repeatedly?
Those are different objectives.
And they may require different platforms.
This is where I believe many experienced professionals make an understandable mistake. They begin with content production:
What should I post today?
I would move that question much further down the list.
First ask:
Who needs to hear me?
Then:
What do I want them to understand, believe, remember or do after hearing me?
Then:
Where are those people already paying attention?
Then:
Which platform gives this particular message the greatest power?
Only then would I decide what content to create.
Your Voice Does Not Need to Be Everywhere
Your time is finite.
An established expert could spend an extraordinary amount of time producing content for six platforms and still fail to build meaningful authority on any of them.
Content distribution guidance repeatedly cautions against assuming that brands need to publish everywhere relevant conversations occur. Every additional channel also increases the complexity of producing, tracking and measuring content.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
More content does not automatically produce more influence.
Strategic concentration matters.
A 30-second clip may introduce you.
A podcast may let someone hear you think.
A television interview may demonstrate your expertise in a media environment.
An article may document your ideas.
A stage may establish you before a concentrated audience.
Your website can bring those scattered pieces together so someone investigating you can understand the larger picture.
The assets can reinforce one another rather than compete for your attention.
That is the difference between simply producing content and intentionally building an authority ecosystem.
Ask a Better Question
“Where should I apply my voice?” is already a better question than “Where should I post?”
But I would sharpen it even further:
Where will my voice have the greatest strategic power with the audience I need to reach and the outcome I am trying to create?
And for the person of faith, I would add another:
Which doors are actually mine to walk through?
Not every available platform deserves your time.
Not every large audience is your audience.
Not every open door will be easy.
And not every closed door means your message is wrong.
Finding your voice matters.
But influence grows when the right message, right messenger, right audience, right format and right platform intersect.
That is where your voice has the opportunity to become authority.