Hey!

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

Hope you had a great weekend. I just got back from a week in NYC. Back home in Austin for a week, then off to SF the next for some in-person client work.

Quick update on the drafting process for my first sci-fi book: currently 15 days and 15,200 words in. It’s coming together! Shared more here.

Today’s essay is a good one. I want to share two, easy post formats that you can build your entire content strategy off of. I’m not exaggerating.

Shall we?

🔎 DEEP DIVE

The only 2 LinkedIn post formats you’ll ever need

Simple, winning content formats that work over and over and over again (without hours spent on research)

Hot take? Standing out on LinkedIn is not all that complex. It’s simple. Not easy, of course. But simple.

If you examine the top-performing founder accounts on the platform, you’ll notice some patterns in the post formats they run. The playbook: find a format that works, run it again and again and again. The key is to make sure the formats are repeatable enough that you don’t need to spend endless hours “thinking of content ideas.”

There are two LinkedIn post formats I see crush over and over and over again. And I come bearing good news.

1. Your day-to-day as a founder—and your career leading up to you becoming one—already provides the material for these posts. No hours spent researching.

2. You can adapt these formats to whatever medium you're most confident in—writing, video, graphics…doesn’t matter.

3. You can rely on these indefinitely. They are resistant to algorithm changes because they rely on fundamentals rather than cheap hacks.

I’ll keep this quick and give you the formats plus a few examples. And remember, you could just rotate between these two angles for eternity, and be totally fine.

FORMAT 1: Listicle

Lists are not new. David Ogilvy is one of the greatest advertising minds—and writers, I’ll add—of all time. If you just skim his writing, you’ll notice he leans on lists quite a bit.

See his writing on how to write.

Lists work well for the reader because they’re easy to skim.

Lists work well for the writer because they don’t require a narrative.

Important to note: lists alone can flop on LinkedIn. If I wrote “3 post ideas for your LinkedIn account,” it would probably not do well. It might…but, probably not.

Why?

The reader has NO reason to TRUST me. Based on that hook alone, who am I to give you advice on LinkedIn content??

The fix: each listicle hook must have a story, stats, or both to establish credibility and create curiosity in the reader.

Check out this updated hook:

“I’ve helped 50+ founders build an audience on LinkedIn. 10,000+ posts. 20,000,000+ impressions. $10M+ in revenue generated. Here are 3 winning post formats I’d try if I were building a founder’s account from scratch in 2025:”

This hook answers the question: Why trust me? Because I’ve written a shit ton of posts and got tangible results to prove it. Duh!

[I wrote more about how to create scroll-stopping hooks here, by the way]

The second ingredient for a winning listicle is the body. The actual list! That has to be good to, or else the reader will feel scammed.

You create a strong list by making each entry its own post. Each entry on your list should be able to stand alone as its own short-form post. I treat every number like I’m trying to write a banger tweet.

Take a look at the Ogilvy example I shared above. Check out each item on the list…one through ten. If he were alive today, David could post those on Twitter—err, X—and have a strong post.

For a more recent example, check out this Adam Robinson post (he’s a master of this format). Notice that each item on the list gives the reader genuine value?

Also, remember the hook! Notice how he starts with a story, and then gets into the list. He doesn’t just write “Here are 7 strategies that SaaS founders can use to grow.” Yawn.

Here’s another example I wrote recently. Notice how I use a narrative hook and then drop a few lines of social proof? Makes the post way more compelling since I’m positioned as an expert. Then, each of the items on my list could stand alone as a separate post.

FORMAT 2: Narrative + takeaway

“Storytelling” might be the most overused, bastardized buzzword in B2B content.

But it is important. And the second post format I’d recommend building proficiency in is the Industry Narrative.

The idea is simple:

1. Take a story from your career or from your current day-to-day as a founder.

2. Lead with that narrative as the hook, tell the story, and then finish with a lesson—or list of lessons—for the reader.

You should not have to do a bunch of extra research to execute this well, consistently, either.

1. Every day as a founder gets you new stories. Customer conversations, team meetings, product breakthroughs…all of it can be material for content.

2. You likely did not become a founder from Day 1 unless you're one of those cracked 17-year-olds building AI wrappers. You had a career, likely in a related industry, that led to you discovering a problem you were desperate to solve. You have stories from that past career that would be helpful for your current customers.

Here’s an example where I lead with a narrative about my experience hiring for my agency. Then, I transition into some lessons, and finally, a CTA to drive readers to my newsletter.

Notice how the story starts with stakes. “It’s been just over 2 years since I left my job to launch Compound. In that time, I’ve learned that recruiting and hiring are my most important jobs as an agency CEO.” Oh shit, he left his job. Hooks the reader in. Way more compelling than just saying, “Here are some hiring tips!”

Here’s another post where I share some learnings from using AI to research & write content. I start with the story—I saw this video and it inspired me to spend the weekend testing—and then transition to my notes halfway through. This one even becomes a bit of a listicle. I love listicles.

The X factor

Whether or not you are successful with these formats is going to depend on how diligent you are with documenting your stories & lessons.

You don't need a fancy spreadsheet.

All you need is the Apple Notes app and 30 minutes per week to document any new learnings, stories, or compelling material for content.

I like to frame this as the Google Calendar Method.

At the end of every day or week, you go through your calendar and look at the meetings.

Were there any learnings, stories that stood out to you either positively or negatively? Those can all be material for lists or narrative content, like we just talked about.

The second piece of advice I have here is to reuse lessons and stories. They don't expire when you post about them once.

Look through the listicles that I use. You'll notice a lot of commonalities. I'll use the same items and intersperse them across different posts on my account. This is on purpose!

You'll also notice me leaning on the same stories again and again and again. For example, I often tell the story of how I landed my last job off of a cold DM because I had built a personal brand.

How you keep track of these is up to you. I like to use Apple Notes. I know Alex Hormozi has a Google Sheet where he literally keeps track of every story that could be compelling to talk about in content.

You can make this as simple or as complicated as you want. Just do whatever is going to be easiest for you.

Your action item coming out of today’s read: try one of these two post formats this week. Both if you're feeling ambitious. I suspect it will be one of your highest performers.

🗃 FILE CABINET

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

• I Studied 200 LinkedIn Creators - This is How You Grow On LinkedIn by Tommy Clark 🎥

• Storytelling Masterclass for Normies by David Perrell and Nat Eliason 🎥

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

As always, thanks for allowing me into your email inbox every week.

More from Social Files:

• Read the rest of my essays

• Work with my agency in 2025

• Try my LinkedIn content writing SaaS

• Steal my founder-led content templates

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark