Hey!

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

I’m writing today’s edition from Nice, France. Just got here from Monaco. A much-needed escape from being stuck in the same home office in Austin for the past few months.

Today, I’m sharing an internal document with you. I send this to every new client when they onboard. The piece runs through the characteristics of founders who win with content—and the traits of those who fall flat.

You don’t need to be working with Compound to do this. If you internalize the message of this document, you will lap 95% of founders posting content (or trying to).

Shall we?

🔎 DEEP DIVE

Read this before you try ‘founder-led’ LinkedIn content, please.

A running list of a few habits and traits of founders who win, and those who lose, with content.

I don’t know if I should be sharing this. I might get an upset Slack message from my Head of Content in a few minutes. I’m sure some other agency will rip it and add it to their onboarding flow. But…I think it’s worth it.

1. If you end up working with us (or make a full-time hire to run your content), you’ll be better positioned to succeed.

2. If you try your hand at content on your own (this is a viable approach), you’ll still be better off than before reading this document.

Now, let’s dive in.

Compound Onboarding Quick Wins & Mistakes to Avoid

This is an overview of what makes a client engagement successful, and some common mistakes to avoid as we ramp up our work together on your content.

Mistakes to Avoid

Just don’t do this stuff, and you’ll be ahead of 95% of startups trying founder-led content.

MISTAKE 1: Going dark on Content Interviews.

Content Interviews are the foundation of what we do. They are where we harvest relevant source material–your stories, takes, frameworks–to turn into valuable content. If you consistently ghost these, the engagement won’t work.

One other note on Content Interviews. We record the video for these, and can use them for social clips. So try to take your Content Interview in a place that is quiet and where the video quality is good. For example, taking the call from a noisy coworking spot may not give us the best material for video.

MISTAKE 2: Slow, day-by-day approvals.

When we work with clients, we deliver content in batches–1 week at a time. We highly recommend batch-reviewing content. Spend ~1hr reviewing the posts, approving, or leaving comments.

This allows our team to get any edits turned around in a timely manner for you.

It is easy to slip into day-to-day edits. You wake up, log in, and review the one post for today. I get it, but this is not a habit we want to fall into. For our team to make truly high-quality edits, lead time is necessary. The easiest way to accomplish this is to edit the entire batch at once (more on this in the Success Habits section).

MISTAKE 3: Overthinking edits.

This one requires a delicate balance. One of our top priorities in Month 1 is nailing your tone of voice and writing style. We welcome your feedback and edits.

That said, there is a line where edits become counterproductive.

Overall tone edits? Of course. These are needed as we get to know you and your style.

Agonizing over one word that’s buried deep in the post? Overkill, and it will slow us down. This is especially important to understand in the social content game.

One of our clients, the CEO of a 700-person company, recently told me: “The more I edit the posts your team writes, the worse they seem to perform.”

MISTAKE 4: Vague edits.

You don’t want to overthink edits, but there are going to be edits–that’s normal!

One mistake you’ll want to avoid is giving vague feedback. An example of this would be saying the post needs to ‘flow better.’

Of course, you’re not a professional editor. That’s ok! And it’s why we’re here. But when you can, give the most specific feedback possible. This will allow us to get every post to a place you are happy with.

MISTAKE 5: Fear of ‘repeating themselves.’

This is a big one. Almost every time we work with a client, we need to remind them that repetition isn’t something to avoid–it’s a tool for us to use.

Think about how you manage your team.

Do you just tell them a direction once, and never speak of it again? Of course not! You have to consistently reinforce the message. You mention it in 1:1s. You run through it in All Hands meetings. You write SOPs. Over and over again.

Content marketing works the same way.

Also, re-using successful post topics and formats is Social Strategy 101. When we find something that works, why wouldn’t we reuse it over and over? Of course, there is a way to do this without reposting the same thing every day–don’t worry.

Lastly, when you post something, only a % of your audience will see it. And assuming your audience grows, you’ll also be welcoming new folks into the fold. So, you’re doing your company a disservice by not hammering the message you want your ICP to believe.

My point is, don’t worry about posting about a slightly similar topic in the same week. Repetition allows us to reinforce winning messaging. It’s not something to fear.

MISTAKE 6: Fear of ‘posting too much.’

This is related to Mistake 5, but unique. A lot of founders I talk to are afraid of posting ‘too much.’ What if you annoy your audience?

I get it. But it’s misinformed.

1. Remember, not everyone in your audience sees every post. Social platforms serve your content to a subsection of your audience each time.

2. Posting 5x per week helps you stay top of mind and cement yourself as a go-to resource for your ICP. Especially early on, this repetition is important. This is the Mere Exposure Effect–the more they see your content, the more they will associate you with being an expert in your field.

3. As long as the content is high-quality, you’re not going to annoy your audience. Nobody’s ever been annoyed by receiving too much value. Promise.

Posting 1x per week is not going to cut it. We recommend 5x per week as the ideal cadence for LinkedIn content.

Habits and Characteristics of Successful Clients

On the flip side, these are the things you want to do–and think–to win with founder-led content. All of our most successful clients are like this.

SUCCESS HABIT 1: Never miss a Content Interview.

Okay, maybe ‘never’ is a strong word. But our best clients religiously show up to their sessions. We will schedule a recurring session with you, which will happen every 2 weeks.

On top of that, they show up prepped. Our team will send the Content Interview prompts over ahead of time, so you have time to review them.

We don’t need you to spend hours prepping–you shouldn’t. But take 5-15 minutes to review the prompts and think of any relevant examples or anecdotes. This goes a long way.

And on the Content Interviews, our best clients give us the most specific, detailed answers. They present stories and data whenever possible. Unique stories and data are the best differentiators–nobody can copy this.

SUCCESS HABIT 2: Set aside some time each week to batch-edit your content.

Like I said earlier, we send over content one week at a time.

Our best clients pick 1hr per week, on the same day each time, to review their content.

This allows us to make any edits and get each post dialed and ensures we never miss a day because a post hasn’t been reviewed.

This also makes your life easier. When you batch edit, you don’t have to think about content every day. You can keep the ‘lift’ associated with this strategy contained.

SUCCESS HABIT 3: Don’t overthink the edits–not too much, at least.

Like I’ve mentioned, this is a delicate balance. Feedback and edits are important. Needed.

But, a lot of our best clients follow a similar pattern:

They provide specific direction in their Onboarding Document and Kickoff Call. Then, as long as that direction is being followed, they are generally good with trusting the writing decisions made by the content team.

This is helpful for a few reasons. One, it saves you time. You don’t want to be spending an hour every day editing a post–remember why we’re working together. You have enough tasks to worry about as a founder.

Two, it allows us to keep posting velocity high. When we don’t overthink edits, we can get posts live daily, which allows us to build momentum on LinkedIn faster.

SUCCESS HABIT 4: Give specific directions when making edits.

Specific editing is effective editing.

For example, saying a post needs to ‘flow better’ isn’t productive. What does that mean?

But, saying “It’d be helpful to add a customer anecdote that highlights this talking point” is productive. See the difference?

Now, this isn’t to be confused with overthinking edits. We still want to avoid that. Like, the difference between “let me give you an example” and “let me give you an anecdote” is not enough to influence the actual performance of the post. See what I mean?

SUCCESS HABITS 5: Trust us to work with social content best practices.

This should go without saying, but we have your best interest in mind. Any decisions we make around topic selection, formatting, etc. are to move you in the direction of getting leads from LinkedIn.

We’ve had experience doing this for 35-40+ founders, and we post 200+ assets per week as of now, so we have good insight into what is working on the platform. Our best clients operate with trust in our approach to content strategy.

An easy example is the idea of repetition we discussed earlier. This is an intentional decision, to reinforce winning messaging–it isn’t laziness with topic selection.

We are always happy to explain our rationale behind content decisions, so please feel free to ask. But know that whatever we are doing is meant to move your account forward!

Final Thoughts

I promise, if you are able to internalize this document, you will be in a great position to succeed with founder-led content.

Work the success habits into your routine.

Avoid the common mistakes like the plague.

And we will be set up nicely to grow on LinkedIn, and get you leads.

If you have any questions or concerns at all, shoot us a message in your Slack channel. Happy to clarify anything.

…and scene.

Hope this was helpful. If you actually listen to this, you’ll see more success with your content, faster.

🗃 FILE CABINET

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

• 6 steps to write the perfect LinkedIn hook by Tommy Clark 🎥

• How to Write Fearlessly (like Scott Galloway) by David Perrell 🎥

• Adam Robinson: $1M ARR in 16 weeks with Founder-Led Marketing by Liam Dunne 🎥

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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

If I can ever help, or answer any questions you have about content marketing, just reply to this email. Can never get enough of talking about this stuff.

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark

PS: I just released a template pack, with 50+ of the prompts we use with B2B CEOs at Compound, plus some bonus resources.

PPS: If you want Compound to run a founder-led content motion for you… save a spot on our waitlist here. We’re at capacity through August, but looking to partner with some SaaS startups in September.