Hey!

Welcome to Social Files—your no-BS guide to generating demand for your B2B product using social & content.

We’ve reached peak ‘let’s circle back in Q1’ season.

So, if this made it into your inbox and didn’t get parried by an OOO autoresponder—salute to you, my friend.

Today I want to walk you through how you can accelerate word of mouth using content.

Let’s break it down.

🔎 DEEP DIVE

How to accelerate word-of-mouth for your B2B company with social content

A marketing team's complete guide

Word of mouth is the holy grail for B2B founders. Good word about your product getting passed from founder to founder, from investor to investor.

Look, I don't need to convince you of this. At least, I hope not. But here are a few reasons to keep in mind before we get into the real fun stuff:

(1) A strong wave of positive word-of-mouth gets inbound leads knocking at the door to use your product.

(2) Positive word-of-mouth will likely improve reply rates in your sales GTM motion, compared to someone who’s never heard of your company before.

(3) You don’t need to rely as much on paid media (which is tough for B2B). I’m not saying you need to scrap paid completely. I’m saying it’s much better to not live or die by it.

Ok. So TLDR is word-of-mouth lets you generate demand from high-quality leads without trying as hard or spending as much money.

Two problems, though:

(1) Word of mouth isn't ‘scalable’ on its own

(2) Word-of-mouth isn’t predictable

I’ll spend the rest of this piece walking you through how to solve this.

Content is word-of-mouth at scale.

Let’s say you’re considering a project management software for your team. You’re deciding between 2-3 of the more popular options:

• ClickUp

• Notion

• Asana

One of the logical ways to decide which one is best for you is to talk to someone else who used the product in their own company. You’d get firsthand accounts of the pros and cons. You’d understand features your friend couldn’t live without. You’d uncover the quirks that make them want to rip their hair out.

You’d also find out that nobody really stays on top of updating their Asana tasks (if anyone from Asana is reading this, I’m sorry).

Content is word-of-mouth at scale.

Customers can have that exact ‘conversation’ with a piece of content—and uncover those same pros and cons that bring them to a buying decision.

Instead of (or more likely, in addition to) asking your founder friend whether they use Notion or ClickUp to manage their org—you might come across a YouTube video that explains the comparison in feature sets.

During your consideration period, you might stumble upon a product feature announcement from Notion that sways you in that direction.

Or, you might see a version of the midwit meme on Twitter that convinces you that Apple Notes is the superior form of project management and note-taking for the human species:

Think about the flywheel that’s created by customers searching for this content. Getting served content on their social timelines. Sharing the links with colleagues in Slack or DMs. Content spreads like wildfire.

Product is the spark.

Content fans the flames.

And organic social distribution is the giant tub of gasoline you can pour on those flames to engulf all of your competitors in a raging inferno.

Organic social is the fastest way to distribute that content.

‘Content’ is a broad term. Are we talking about blog articles? Webinars? YouTube videos? LinkedIn carousels? Twitter memes?

In my experience with clients and talking with prospects, too many B2B companies are reliant on archaic content strategies.

(In this day and age, archaic means anything from pre-2019)

The ‘build it and they will come’ doesn’t work for product. It also doesn’t work for content.

Too many B2B companies let great articles, case studies, and other high-value sit buried on their site under the ‘Resources’ tab.

You need distribution. And in 2024, organic social is the best way to unlock that distribution at scale in a decently fast fashion—and get your word-of-mouth engine humming on autopilot.

(1) When you craft content that is meant to be saved and shared, you end up in Slack channels at the companies that would make great customers.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sent links of LinkedIn posts or X threads to my Head of Content in Slack with the text ‘This is good.’

Also, as a marketer, nothing (and I mean nothing) is more gratifying than a friend sending you a screenshot of a group chat where your work was shared. Pure bliss.

(2) When someone in your ICP poses a question on social about ‘what software is best for X?’ the company with the engaged community on that platform is going to win out in the comments.

Not only does the content asset itself answer questions—but the literal conversation or ‘what product should I use?’ happens at scale on social media channels.

And instead of 1 person giving their opinion, you have 20-30+ people in the comments section vouching for their product of choice. Word of mouth. At scale.

(3) When you’re loud on social, you end up in more of these IRL conversations at dinners, conferences, etc.

If you run content and/or social for a B2B company, like a SaaS, the industry you operate in is smaller than you think. A lot of conversation still happens offline as well. Always will.

Here’s the cool part. Organic social keeps your product top of mind so it comes up in those IRL conversations.

An example: You’re a B2B SaaS founder and you mention to another founder of a similar company that you’re looking for a CRM to use. Hubspot is an obvious option, but that other founder has seen this new company called Attio on the LinkedIn timeline recently, so it comes up in the conversation.

See how this works?

Organic social distribution gets your company talked about in public forums and private channels.

Frameworks to bookmark.

(1) Think in Slack groups.

I learned this idea from my good friend Alex Garcia (he writes Marketing Examined — highly recommend reading).

Optimize for shares when crafting your content. Ask yourself: Would someone in my ICP share a link to this piece of content in their team’s Slack channel?

Social shares → rapidly spreading word-of-mouth for your product.

Shares are also heavily rewarded by social algorithms, which puts even more energy behind the content flywheel.

(2) Long-form content asset + organic social distribution = insane word of mouth

Earlier in this piece, I wrote “organic social distribution is the giant tub of gasoline you can pour on those flames to engulf all of your competitors in a raging inferno.”

Gas doesn’t do much if the flame isn’t already ignited. This is why I never want to pitch any given marketing channel as an ‘either-or’ scenario for marketers.

My former CMO at Triple Whale, Rabah Rahil, would say that B2B SaaS marketing is an ecosystem. All of the channels—social, content, events, paid, partnerships—work together.

To take full advantage of social distribution and word-of-mouth, you want to give your community a long-form content asset to navigate to when they’re ready. This could be a newsletter, a YouTube channel, or a podcast.

Long-form content builds true affinity more effectively than social-only content. When I think about the brands and creators I feel most connected to (and willing to buy from):

• Yes. I see and consume their social content regularly.

• I also consume a long-form content asset of theirs regularly (like a newsletter).

Long-form assets die a slow painful death on their own, without distribution. But social can lead to a low-intent audience when not crafted intentionally.

A few takeaways.

(1) Content is word-of-mouth at scale. Content gets your company talked about in public forums and private channels. A strong social presence gets you talked about in the comments section, at private dinners, and in text threads.

(2) Content is dead in the water without distribution. In 2024, organic social media is the most effective way to distribute your content to your ICP in a fast-ish way.

(3) Think in Slack groups. Going into 2024, prioritize creating content that can be shared easily, and that your ICP wants to share.

One last thing. If you enjoyed this piece—can you help me build word-of-mouth and send this into a B2B company’s marketing team Slack channel?

Thanks. Much appreciated.

🗃 FILE CABINET

Here’s my favorite marketing and business content I bookmarked this week.

• How To Grow On Social Media In 2024 by Gary Vaynerchuk

• THIS Will Allow You To Make an Unlimited Amount of Content by Gary Vaynerchuk

• Linkedin personal account VS company account comparison by Alina Vandenberghe

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

I have an important question for you before you go:

What’s the best Christmas gift to get a B2B marketer?

Serious question. I’m doing some last-minute shopping for clients and industry friends. Let me know what you think.

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark

PS: My agency, Compound Content Studio is booking up through Q1 and Q2.

If you’d like to get on the waitlist and see if there's a fit, check it out here. A note—our ICP is B2B SaaS companies, not consumer brands.