Hey!

Welcome to Social Files — your no-BS guide to growing a successful B2B social media presence.

Hope you're having a good long weekend. Not gonna lie, I’ve been working today. It’s kinda nice. No Slack messages. Deep work.

Anyway, got a great deep dive for you today.

Shall we?

(BTW - Compound is hiring Content Writers! Apply here)

🔎 DEEP DIVE

How Acquire.com does social content

Mastering the modern B2B marketing playbook

Every B2B marketer should have a ‘swipe file’ full of examples to learn from. I keep mine in a somewhat disorganized Notion table. But hey, it’s there.

And Acquire.com is one of the startups that found its way into that list of inspiration.

They’ve nailed the modern approach to B2B content marketing—founder-led and social-first.

Today, I’ll walk you through:

• How Acquire creates a content ecosystem to make it feel like they’re everywhere on the right platforms.

• The types of content Andrew Gazdecki, Acquire’s CEO, posts to social to get visibility and engagement from his ICP

• How they use their brand account as a way to display social proof and build trust with their audience

• How they’ve used IRL billboards as an engine for social content (this one’s genius)

Shall we?

Smart startups build a content ecosystem.

Founders want their startup to be ‘everywhere.’ Omnipresence, to say it another way.

The typical way marketing teams try to make this happen is by posting across a ton of different platforms. LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc. etc.

Well-intentioned, but damaging. Most early-stage and growth-stage teams will spread themselves too thin doing this.

Savvy founders and marketing teams go hard on 1-2 platforms. Get the founder cranking out content, get your team active, get the brand account humming (in that order, by the way).

Acquire does this well. They funnel most of their social efforts into LinkedIn and Twitter, which makes sense given their ICP is startup founders—and most startup founders are chronically online power users of both platforms.

Andrew has an IG. But it has 903 followers. And his most recent post has 15 likes (posted 2 weeks ago). The brand account is more ‘active,’ but engagement is stronger is meh. Again, LinkedIn and Twitter are the main focus. Makes sense.

Pro tip: LinkedIn and Twitter are no-brainers for SaaS founders because you can cross-post without much, or any, editing. Check this example out. Same copy. Same image. Strong performance on both platforms.

On those two platforms, Andrew’s account is the focal point of the content efforts. His content gets the strongest engagement. Not surprising, given the rise of founder-led marketing over the past couple of years.

That said, the rest of the Acquire team is quite active too.

And of course, their brand account is consistently pumping out content. I’ll get into the strategy there in a second—my point is, a lot of the best companies on social pick 1-2 platforms and stand up multiple accounts. Founder. Team. Company.

This is similar to the play beehiiv runs on social, if you remember from the deep dive I did on their social playbook recently.

Takeaway: When you're launching a social motion, pick 1-2 platforms. For most SaaS startups, this will be LinkedIn and Twitter. Stand up founder-led content first. Then, when you're ready, layer in employee-led content and company-led content. Funnel your resources into these 1-2 platforms and don’t get distracted by shiny objects.

Founder-Content Fit matters, a lot.

Credibility is a multiplier of content performance.

The same post, with the same copy and the same image, will perform far better when the founder posting the content has credibility with the audience.

A hyperbolic example? If Sam Altman where to tweet something about the future of AI, it would pick up a ton of steam on social. If a 19-year old kid who got into AI because of a get-rich-quick YouTube video tweeted the same thing, it would go nowhere.

Acquire’s founder & CEO, Andrew Gazdecki, has inherent credibility with his audience. Acquire.com helps companies get acquired. Andrew’s bootstrapped and sold 2 companies of his own before—an agency and a SaaS.

It also helps that Andrew is his target audience. He is a startup founder. So he knows the pain points that founders deal with. He knows the topics founders generally care about. All of which can inform the content he publishes.

Parlaying your past experience into your current content is one of the ways to accelerate the momentum of your founder-led content strategy.

I see this with our clients at Compound, too. The founders that grow the fastest on social (and start getting inbound leads from it) tend to be the ones who have built up a bank of trust with their audience.

Takeaway: Start a company where you have immediate credibility with your ICP. Lol. But actually, spend time considering how to frame your content in a way that your ICP will want to consume from you. In most cases, founders who are or were their own ICP at some point will win out.

Repetition is a tool. Use it. A lot.

So many founders are terrified to repeat themselves. It’s actually quite funny.

OMG what if someone in my audience calls me out for posting about a vaguely similar topic that I posted about 3.5 months ago????

Dude. Calm down.

1. Nobody cares.

2. Repeating yourself is kind of the point.

You want to be known for a certain topic or line of expertise. You want to have quotes people attribute to you. Do you think Nike is afraid of using the slogan “Just Do It” because it’s repetitive?

Think of it like running your team. Great CEOs repeat themselves a ton to their team. Treat your external audience the same as your internal team.

Andrew nails this. He’s not afraid to double down on his winners. Check this out.

He posted this on 05.18.24.

He posted this on 05.20.24.

Nearly identical topics. 2 days apart. Both strong performance. And just to prove it isn’t a fluke, here’s another example.

He posted this on 06.16.22.

He posted this on 08.27.22.

(Oh, how I miss the glory days of Twitter…)

And another example (am I repeating myself??)

Andrew posted this on 02.24.23.

And he posted this on 05.10.2024.

Both winners. Imagine if he would have though “what if my audience remembers I posted about this 1.25 years ago??” Silly, right?

Takeaway: Repetition is a tool to use—not a hazard to avoid.

Use your company page as a landing page.

Founder-led content is winning in 2024. The age of brand accounts growing like crazy is past us. There are likely a few exceptions, but you get the point.

That said…don’t ditch company pages completely.

I like to treat company pages like landing pages. If someone lands on the account after seeing the founder’s content, they should be able to understand what your company does at a glance. They should also be hit with a ton of social proof.

Acquire.com nails this.

They post multiple times per day with alerts of companies being listed for sale on their platform. I’m pretty sure these posts are automated. Why is this smart?

It shows people are using the platform. The volume of listings establishes social proof that the platform does what they say they do.

Other founders can see if companies like theirs are being acquired. And whenever they’re ready to sell (or buy) a company, Acquire will be top of mind as an option, with trust already established.

Acquire.com also posts traditional testimonials like this, which are no-brainer pieces of bottom of funnel content.

You also want to amplify positive reviews from customers. If you're not doing this, start.

In a previous edition, I wrote:

“Savvy startups reward positive behavior from their customers on social. They create a culture where sharing wins and success stories is encouraged.

One, dead-simple way to do that?

Repost content from happy customers.”

Think of it like adding testimonial quotes to your landing page. When you can show that other, real people in your ICP are using your product (and enjoying it), you accelerate trust-building with your social audience.

Takeaway: When someone lands on your company page, it should be clear what you do and who you do it for (with case studies and testimonials for social proof). Most early-stage companies are better off treating their company account as a landing page for traffic from founder-led content.

IRL → URL

The best companies I see on social have 2 content tracks:

• Track 1: consistent flow of social content that goes out day-to-day.

• Track 2: one-off, ambitious campaigns that are meant to make a lot of noise in a concentrated period of time.

The idea of “IRL → URL” feeds into track 2.

An example of this would be how Acquire.com uses billboards. They have space on a billboard in New York. They use the billboard to amplify stories of companies using their platform to get acquired.

I like how Andrew pairs the image of a testimonial with copy that is more “top of funnel.” He’s not just saying “check out this testimonial!!!” So, the posts actually have a chance at performing well on platform.

This is a great example of giving a “bottom of funnel” post the best chance possible to perform well on social. Not every testimonial or case study has to feel like a hard pitch.

(BTW - more on constructing your own Content Funnel here)

Takeaway: Use IRL activations as an engine to generate compelling social content. Another example of this would be Antimetal’s ‘Slices as a Service’ launch campaign. The barebones version of this is just making sure to grab pictures from dinners and conferences.

To recap.

A few key learnings from Acquire.com’s social motion to walk away from this essay with:

1. When you're launching a social motion, pick 1-2 platforms. For most SaaS startups, this will be LinkedIn and Twitter. Easy to cross post. Your ICP likely lives there. No brainer.

2. Stand up founder-led content first. Then, when you're ready, layer in employee-led content and company-led content. Funnel your resources into these 1-2 platforms and don’t get distracted by shiny objects.

3. Founder-Content Fit matters. Start a company where you have immediate credibility with your ICP. Lol. But actually, spend time considering how to frame your content in a way that your ICP will want to consume from you. In most cases, founders who are or were their own ICP at some point will win out.

4. When someone lands on your company page, it should be clear what you do and who you do it for (with case studies and testimonials for social proof). Most early-stage companies are better off treating their company account as a landing page for traffic from founder-led content.

5. Use IRL activations as an engine to generate compelling social content. Another example of this would be Antimetal’s ‘Slices as a Service’ launch campaign. The barebones version of this is just making sure to grab pictures from dinners and conferences.

6. Repetition is a tool to use—not a hazard to avoid.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful.

If you're new around here, consider subscribing if you want more deep dives on how to use social content in your GTM motion.

And if you did find this valuable, can you make sure this piece ends up in your marketing team’s Slack channel? Cool, thanks.

🗃 FILE CABINET

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

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni 📚

• Should SaaS founders build in public? by Tommy Clark 🎥

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

As always, appreciate you allowing me into you inbox every week.

If you're looking for something to read next, check out this deep dive I wrote on Beehiiv’s social media playbook (and how to steal their strategies).

I’ll be waiting…

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark

PS: If you want Compound to run a founder-led content motion for you… save a spot on our waitlist here. We’re at capacity right now, but looking to partner with some SaaS startups in June or July.