Hey!

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

I hope you had a great holiday season. I totally wasn’t scrolling LinkedIn on Christmas morning… I swear.

I took a week off from writing Social Files for the first time since its inception. One of the many benefits of independence. Much needed reset.

Honestly though—and call this ‘hustle culture’ if you want—I couldn’t wait to get back to work.

2024 is going to be so fun. I’ll be ramping things up with the newsletter, launching a YouTube channel, and continuing to run up LinkedIn + X.

I’m grateful you’re here to be along for the ride.

Now, today I want to talk through a skill that 95% of the B2B companies I see struggle with:

How to differentiate on social media. AKA… how to stand out.

Shall we?

🔎 DEEP DIVE

How to differentiate your company on social media

5 proven levers to make your social presence stand out

Almost every B2B company I audit struggles to differentiate their company on social platforms.

They have a sterile brand voice. Their timeline is clogged with webinar promos and white papers that social media audiences detest. It’s a snooze fest.

This is a MAJOR problem going into 2024. Organic social belongs at the forefront of your demand generation efforts.

If you’re blending into a sea of sameness on social—good luck.

The good news: bringing some color into this bland content ‘strategy’ isn’t that complex.

Over my years in social & content, I’ve distilled the differentiators down into 5 that are almost guaranteed to make you stand out from your competitors.

(1) Common enemy

(2) Zig while they zag

(3) Feature launches and shipping speed

(4) IRL activations

(5) Founder pedigree

Let’s break each of these down in more depth (with specific examples).

Differentiator #1: Common Enemy.

Nothing rallies a group like a common enemy.

From politics to marketing—having a focal point for your audience to latch on to is a proven way to rally support for your movement.

Now. You’re not forming a new political party. You’re selling B2B SaaS. But you can (and should) leverage the formation of a ‘common enemy.’

A common enemy could be another company (be careful with this). It could also be a more abstract ‘idea’ that you are rallying against (like my crusade against crappy webinar promos).

Example 1 (Company): Sendlane VS Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a behemoth in the Shopify ecosystem. They’ve also given merchants quite a few reasons to be annoyed.

A lot of merchants are fed up with SaaS pricing as it is, so the introduction of a competitor with better pricing and better customer support is a welcome one.

So a startup like Sendlane blatantly attacking them (and promising to fix a lot of what merchants dislike about Klaviyo) isn’t going to offend most people in the Shopify ecosystem.

People love a good underdog story.

A word of warning. Going after a specific company only works when you are punching up. You need to be sure that you’re David in the scenario—not Goliath.

If you’re the incumbent in your space, stay away from directly attacking smaller competitors. The risk-reward is too high. Just keep winning.

Example 2 (Idea): Triple Whale VS iOS 14

An alternative to attacking a specific company is to attack an idea. This ‘idea’ is usually a pain point that your target customers can’t stand.

When I was at Triple Whale, the discourse around Apple’s iOS 14 update and the subsequent attribution nightmares for DTC brands was at an all-time high.

Leaning into this on social proved to be a great way to get attention.

This approach to forming a common enemy is safer than attacking a specific company. The ‘idea’ is abstract, so it’s hard to really upset someone this way.

Differentiator #2: Feature launches.

A lot of social media managers love to tell you how ‘nobody wants to hear about your product’ on social platforms. I used to be guilty of this (just scroll back far enough on my LinkedIn profile).

I still stand by the sentiment that you can’t be overly salesy—but a surprising amount of people genuinely do care about your product updates and new launches.

This gives you a built-in competitive advantage on social media.

Launches a gold mine for social content. Each feature launch is an injection of hype that you can tap into.

This isn't new to consumer brands. Last month, I came across a video by Oren John covering how insane the Skims product launch calendar is. Skims is the shapewear brand founded by Kim Kardashian.

They launch products & campaigns nonstop—and damn near every launch goes ‘viral.’

Again. We’re selling B2B SaaS here. We’re not gonna pull Kim K numbers.

But the idea translates well to tech.

Tech startups can use feature launches in the same way to constantly inject themselves into the conversation. They give your audience the impression that something is always happening at your company.

They’re happening anyway, just coordinate with marketing to amplify them.

This differentiator is especially useful for products with viral potential. The easiest example of this is ChatGPT—though 99% of us aren’t going to stumble into a marketing role for a product like that.

Another example of a ‘revolutionary’ product that’s making good use of launches in its social strategy is this company called Delphi. Their product makes ‘AI clones’ of people. The founder, Dara Ladjevardian has been more active on Twitter lately, using his account to distribute the launch of the product and give updates. His content is super product-heavy, but it performs. It works because of the novel nature of the product.

Let’s run through a few more specific examples for your inspiration folder.

Example 1: Triple Whale

During my time at Triple Whale, the engineering team was shipping features left and right. It was insane. I don’t know how they did it.

And most of those features turned into social content—whether they were whole new products or just minor updates to existing features that our audience wanted.

Example 2: Arc Internet

Arc Internet is building a new type of browser—competing with incumbents like Google Chrome or Safari. Some of my friends swear by it (I still need to try).

A while back, I did a breakdown of their social playbook. One of the strategies that stood out to was their content series ‘What’s New At Arc’ where they ran through… what’s new at Arc. Lol.

Example 3: Shopify Editions

Shopify Editions is a bi-annual update from Shopify, showcasing a massive amount of product updates and new features. The Summer 2023 edition of Shopify Editions introduced over 100 updates.

Shopify takes the approach of less frequent updates—but higher intensity. They rolled out 100 updates at once, not 1 update per week for 100 weeks.

My theory: You earn the right to do these sorts of big update launches as your company grows and gains notoriety. But you earn that notoriety with frequency first.

Pro tip for feature launches (that deserves its own essay at some point): Don’t just rely on the company page for launches. Use your founder’s account. Get the rest of your team involved. Tap investors on your cap table. You can lean into all of the accounts you have access to and create an echo chamber in your corner of the internet during the launch.

Differentiator #3: IRL activations.

If your company is event-heavy, lean into this. Like feature launches, events are one of those more ‘traditional’ marketing motions that are surprisingly good for social content harvesting.

Footage from keynotes can be cut into clips for social content. Relevant guests can amplify distribution and create an air of FOMO + exclusivity around the event (and by proxy, your company).

IRL doesn’t just mean events, by the way. This could include other activations that translate into social media content—like Shopify buying ad space on the Las Vegas Sphere. It could also include gifting assets to customers or influencers that get shared on the social timeline, like the YouTube subscriber milestone plaques. More on these examples in a moment.

The best B2B companies run activations IRL that are worth amplifying on social.

Example 1: Triple Whale x Whalies (events)

Back in January of 2023, Triple Whale hosted an award show for DTC founders & marketers called The Whalies (inspired by The Dundies in The Office).

The event featured keynote speakers from some of the top brands in the industry, and the non-marketing side of it (happy hours, hanging out post-event) was a highlight for many.

The keynotes gave the social team tons to tweet about.

The event photographer supplied us with a near-endless stream of content to post.

The award show element also gave us content to post, and performed well because the winner was incentivized to share (people love to brag!).

We also held a ton of smaller happy hours and events across the country and internationally for customers & prospects. Every event supplied the social team with images and content to post. These usually performed well on social and the posting on social functioned to increase FOMO for future events. The event → social relationship created a virtuous cycle.

Example 2: Shopify x Las Vegas Sphere (activation)

IRL activations aren’t limited to events.

Earlier this year, the Sphere was unveiled in Las Vegas. Shortly after, companies, like Xbox, were able to buy ad space on it.

This wasn’t limited to consumer products, though. Shopify dropped the $450,000 required for the ad slot and displayed their live view of the world’s shopping during Black Friday.

Of course, this turned into social content. Here’s the post from Shopify CEO, Tobi Lutke:

Insane engagement. Bonus points for the timing of launching this on Black Friday.

Now, you might not have the $450K to blow on Las Vegas Sphere ad space. But there are likely ways that you can take things your company does IRL and translate them to social media.

Differentiator #4: Founder pedigree.

Founder-led content is here to stay.

There’s a reason all of Airbnb’s product announcements come from Brian Chesky’s account first, and outperform the brand account by an insane margin (more on this in a second).

This isn’t unique to B2B, by the way. We see it in consumer brands nonstop. Look at George Heaton with Represent, or Marcus Milione with Minted New York, or Nick Bare with BPN. The list goes on.

These founders have created cult-like follows around their companies, and have built way more distribution through their personal platforms than through company pages.

People want to buy from people. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking DTC or B2B.

Now, let’s talk specific to B2B. Certain companies have a competitive advantage with founder-led content.

Does your founder have a track record of success and/or already have an audience of people who are in your ICP?

If you answered yes, this is your company’s ticket to social distribution. It’s far easier to build a ‘personal brand’ when you’ve already done dope stuff than it is trying to build one from scratch.

Example 1: Airbnb and Brian Chesky

If you look closely, you’ll notice that all of Airbnb’s recent feature announcements are distributed on X from Chesky’s account first.

Launches also get rolled out to the brand account, but almost always to the result of much less visibility and engagement.

Example 2: Acquire.com and Andrew Gazdecki

One of my favorite startups on X right now is Acquire.com, a marketplace where people can buy and sell businesses.

A lot of content from the company gets distributed via their founder’s account—from product announcements to memes.

Andrew also has previous experience building and selling SaaS companies, so he has the credibility to speak on the topics he posts about. This experience + the fact that he and his team just get content creation and its value are massive competitive advantages.

Differentiator #5: Zig when they zag.

One simple way to stand out is to just do whatever your competitor isn’t.

If your competitor is super sterile and corporate, lean into humor and entertainment (tastefully). If they are super writing-heavy, do more videos. The list goes on.

I saved this differentiator for last because it’s kind of a ‘meta differentiator.’ You can use this strategy by applying the previous 4 that we walked through.

A hypothetical example: Say your competitor moves a lot more quickly shipping product and is technically superior. Competing with them on feature launches would be hard.

But, your founder happens to be great in front of a camera and has previous experience that makes him or her credible with your ICP. Founder-led content creation is your moat. Lean into that instead of trying to keep up with competitors where you’re weak.

Honestly, just being on social and taking it seriously as a GTM strategy is an example of ‘zigging’ where most software companies zag. A lot of B2B SaaS companies are still stuck pasting blog links to social.

Example 1: Triple Whale

When I got to Triple Whale and did an initial audit of our industry on social, I noticed that none of our competitors were that active on social (advantage #1) and that the content they did post was painfully boring (advantage #2).

So, what did we do?

1. High volume. You couldn’t escape us on Twitter or LinkedIn if you were in the Shopify ecosystem. I was ripping 3-4 posts a day on Twitter, spending hours in the replies, 1-2x per day on LinkedIn, etc etc.

2. Lean into humor and have a personality. A core part of our strategy on social was providing value and highlighting customer pain points in a way that was social-native. One way to do that was through memes + humor. We also made sure to distribute our 2 podcasts, newsletter, & other educational content to social in a way that performed (i.e. Twitter threads instead of a link to post off-site).

It helped that I had a CMO who was already leaning into this approach in the company’s wider marketing efforts, so the social strategy didn’t seem to come out of nowhere. That leads me to my next (and one of my more important) points.

One more word of advice.

One common thread you’ll notice that binds these differentiators together is that done right, these differentiators aren’t just part of a ‘social strategy’ — they’re part of the company’s marketing as a whole.

Crafting a common enemy isn’t a LinkedIn strategy. It’s a matter of company positioning.

IRL events aren’t just a social hack. They’re a way to foster community with your customers and people in your industry.

Founder credibility and experience isn’t a viral trick. It’s a competitive advantage when building a product for a specific audience.

Social works best when it amplifies the positions of the company. It doesn’t work well when the messaging coming from social is fragmented and off-kilter compared to the wider GTM motion.

It’s kind of like that kid in high school who tries a little too hard to be someone he’s not. It comes off as desperate and people can tell there’s something ‘off.’

Get your entire marketing org aligned on how you want to stand out: in content, in events, on social… all of it.

TL;DR

If you scrolled all the way to the end for a quick summary, I understand. Here are the 5 differentiators that will make your startup stand out on the timeline:

(1) Common enemy. Rally your community against a common enemy. This could be a disliked industry incumbent (risky) or an idea/pain point (less risky).

(2) Feature launch velocity. Every new drop is a chance to generate hype and distribution. Lean into this, especially if you have a new & noteworthy product in your space.

(3) IRL events. Do dope stuff IRL. Use social to amplify it.

(4) Founder pedigree. If your founder has niche-specific credibility and an inclination for content creation, lean into it. This is a major competitive advantage in 2024.

(5) Zig where they zag. Is there an angle, a content type, a platform, or another differentiator that your competitors are sleeping on? That might be your unlock for social growth.

Some companies will lean heavily into one of these. Some will tap into all 5. Most will land somewhere in between.

Is there anything you’d add to the list? I’m sure there are some ideas I’m missing here. Reply and let me know—I’m all ears.

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.

• Honestly, didn’t read much social & marketing content over the past week. I did watch S2 of Jujutsu Kaisen though. Fire.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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

I’m excited to show you what we’re up to in 2024.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to start posting more on YouTube. Along with the newsletter, this will be one of my content pillars for the year.

Subscribe here if you want to get more deep dives into B2B social strategy. It’s going to be fun!

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.