Hey!

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

Hope you’re new year is off to a great start and those resolutions are holding up.

Last week I published this YouTube video where I went through my ‘personal branding’ system for B2B founders. I got a lot of responses about the ‘Content Funnel’ I went through at a high level (how I organize content types and topics for personal brands).

So, I wanted to put together an ‘ultimate guide’ of sorts.

Turns out, there’s too much detail to fit in one piece. So, I’m going to to a full 3-part mini-series breaking down how to construct your own social media Content Funnel. This will show you all of the content types required to build an audience that leads to revenue (the good stuff).

Let’s get into Part I.

🔎 DEEP DIVE

Building a social media Content Funnel that generates leads (Part I)

Creating top-of-funnel content that generates a ton of eyeballs for your company.

I speak to a lot of B2B founders who are excited about organic social as a GTM channel. Maybe they’ve tried it before. They usually run into 1 of 2 problems, though.

Problem 1: They only post product-related content like feature highlights and case studies. Maybe they saw some initial traction, but then momentum fizzled out.

Problem 2: They only post broad content that generates a ton of ‘attention’—but low-quality attention. This happens a lot when companies hire a crappy ghostwriter or content agency.

The solution?

A Content Funnel.

This concept isn’t ‘new.’ The content funnel is a concept heavily used in other types of content, like SEO. Some content is used to generate traffic. Other content is used to convert that traffic.

Today I want to walk you through how to apply it to social. Once you master this, you will have the skills to build an audience—and you’ll also have the confidence to convert this audience into newsletter subscribers, demos booked, and ultimately, pipeline.

Within a Content Funnel, there are 3 parts:

• Top-of-funnel content (acronym: TOFU)

• Middle-of-funnel content (acronym: MOFU)

• Bottom-of-funnel content (acronym: BOFU)

Note: Going forward, I will mostly use the acronyms. Why? They’re easier for me to type over and over again.

In Part I. of this series, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about creating TOFU content for LinkedIn & X, along with examples of content that fits into this part of the funnel.

Top-of-funnel content.

TOFU content is meant to garner attention. The goal of this content is to generate impressions.

Yes. You want it to be the ‘right’ type of impressions. But, it’s okay to treat your content more like a shotgun than a sniper rifle here.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

(1) You cannot sell to an empty room. TOFU content fills the room.

(2) ‘Pleasing the algorithm’ is important on social media.

I don’t think I need to convince you of that first point. Remember ‘Problem 1’ above?

They only post product-related content like feature highlights and case studies. Maybe they saw some initial traction, but then momentum fizzled out.

When founders start posting on social media, they usually have some connections who are considering buying. So when they post super salesy content and see some initial traction, they are tricked into thinking that spamming the timeline with product features and webinar links ‘works.’

Once they burn through those warm leads, the flame goes out. TOFU content helps to prevent this.

Let’s talk about that second point, though. ‘Pleasing the algorithm.’

This isn’t one of those BS LinkedIn posts where some 3rd-rate ‘social media expert’ says they got on the phone with someone about Meta who revealed how the algorithm works.

In my experience on my accounts and client accounts over the past 5-6 years, momentum plays a role in social media growth. When you’re on a heater, you know. It also takes time to get that momentum going. So once you have it, you want to make sure it doesn’t fade away.

Periodically injecting TOFU content into the mix is a good way to keep momentum going. I’ll discuss the mix between each of the content types later in this piece.

What type of content works as TOFU content on LinkedIn and X?

Here are a few general themes that work and are evergreen:

(1) Business-related personal stories.

Stories work across the entire funnel. They are the most compelling way to communicate.

At the top of the funnel, the best types of stories are usually a bit more ‘broad.’ This usually just comes down to how you position the angle & the hook.

Take these two examples of an angle for the same story:

A) Here’s how I scaled and sold my online business for $100M (5 lessons I wish I knew before starting)

B) Here’s how I found a buyer for my niche DTC wellness brand and sold for 9-figures

One of these angles is more broad than the other. One speaks to ‘business owners’ as a whole. One speaks to ‘DTC wellness founders.’

A knee-jerk reaction to this comparison would be to opt for the second angle because it’s more specific.

The trick here is I’d end up using both of these angles (that second one would rip too). You just need to understand the ideal outcome you are aiming for with a specific post. Content angles & hooks are just levers you can pull to influence the outcome.

(2) Broad business breakdowns and stories.

Telling business stories using popular companies & business people is a classic way to garner attention on LinkedIn & X.

This is essentially the same idea as when YouTubers use MrBeast in their title or thumbnail to get people to click on their video. They’re ‘hacking’ MrBeast’s credibility.

We can apply to same idea to well-known businesses and business people and leverage their credibility with our audience to stop the scroll on X or LinkedIn.

An example of this would be a breakdown of a ‘little-known story about Nike’ or something like that.

The breakdown should be business-related, but at the top of the funnel, it’s acceptable if the topic isn’t 100% aligned with your product or industry. For example, the Nike example I outlined above could work fine, even if you’re a B2B SaaS exec.

(3) Breakdowns related to broad trends.

Remember that recent TikTok that went viral where a Stanley cup survived a car going up in flames? And then the Stanley CEO made a response video offering to replace the car?

Do you also remember how the LinkedIn timeline was flooded with hundreds of marketing thought leaders sharing their ‘unique’ take on the marketing lessons to be learned from that?

Tapping into a trend like this and putting out content with your thoughts tying back to your industry is a great way to fill the room, given you’re not the 71st person posting about the damn thing.

For example, this post by my friend Alex Garcia was one of the first ones up about the topic (and was actually well thought out)—and it went crushed on X.

Another example of this was my viral Twitter thread about the Minions TikTok trend that went viral around the time the movie came out (that feels like so long ago). Is that related to B2B marketing? Nah. Did it get a ton of eyeballs? Yeah.

1 note here: When there is a trending topic that is both viral and relates directly to your product or service—jump in on it ASAP. These don’t come around very often. They are a godsend.

Here’s an example from my friend Cody Wittick, where he wrote a breakdown of the Blenders X Deion Sanders sunglasses partnership and how it ties into influencer marketing (part of the value prop of his marketing agency).

What’s the ideal amount of TOFU content in the Content Funnel?

Understand: you don’t want to overdo this type of content.

It’s easy to get hooked on the dopamine drip of ‘virality.’ Your goal isn't virality. Your goal is revenue. Virality is just one lever to pull for us to get there.

Rule of thumb: TOFU content should make up 10-20% of the content in your Content Funnel.

This is enough to keep momentum and ‘audience growth’ going while making sure that you're not losing yourself in the wrong type of goal.

This split will also be a sliding scale depending on your goals. If your goal does happen to be ‘audience growth’ for the sake of it, then just rip broad TOFU all day. That's fine.

But if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’re a B2B founder or marketer whose priority is to generate pipeline from content. In that case, be mindful not to let the pendulum swing too far towards impression-chasing.

One more thing. If this was helpful, share it with your marketing team in Slack. I always appreciate it.

That’s all I’ve got today.

🗃 FILE CABINET

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

• Full personal branding system for B2B founders explained in 21 minutes by Tommy Clark (my first YouTube video!)

• Mastery by Robert Greene (my current read)

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

As always, I appreciate you letting me into your inbox every week.

I don’t take it lightly!

Let me know if you have any questions on this piece.

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark

PS: If social is going to be a part of your GTM motion in 2024, apply for Compound’s waitlist here. We may be opening up some capacity soon, so if you want to be first off the waitlist, get ahead now.