Hey!

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

I spent my weekend catching up on some reading (more below) and getting ahead on some writing. I’m ~130,000 words into the second draft of my debut fantasy novel, The Shattered Planet.

As much as I’d like to talk about that all day, you're here for marketing stuff.

So, here we go.

Today: all things LinkedIn media strategy. What visual assets are performing best?

Shall we?

🔎 DEEP DIVE

What’s working on LinkedIn? (Media edition)

4 winning visual formats getting distribution in 2026

“Our LinkedIn reach is down from last year, and I have no idea why,” says the Head of Marketing at a Series B AI company who’s so spread thin that their CEO’s LinkedIn strategy (which they own, of course, along with customer marketing, events, and demand gen) consists of five Claude-slopped posts per week. Text-only, of course.

There are a number of directions I could take my advice here.

But for today, let me focus on the last piece.

Text-only.

Now, I love a good text post. I’m a writer at heart. But, in the year 2026, your Executive Content playbook needs—needs—a multimedia component.

A few ideas:

(1) The IRL photo.

Whenever you write a post, ask yourself if there’s a photo in your camera roll that will pair well with the copy.

For example:

• An origin story post should almost always be accompanied by a photo of the co-founders in the early days of the company.

• A New Hire Highlight should be paired with a picture of the founder with said new hire.

• A Conference Recap should have a picture of the god-damned conference!

We’re seeing this make such a large impact on post metrics that we are beginning to roll out monthly, in-office photographer sessions with clients to harvest photos for content.

(2) The Savable Infographic.

LinkedIn users LOVE a good infographic. Especially if your company is in GTM tech or Martech (though this applies across categories.

For example:

• If you’re writing a post about a workflow for your ICP, turn said workflow into a savable infographic. I recently did this in a post outlining our Content Interview Workflow (full write-up here btw).

Vincent Pierri is a great follow to learn how to produce these types of graphics. The team at Cold IQ also nails these.

(3) The Cinematic Video.

These do take more time, and more budget, though the ROI when done well is there.

A few examples:

The Fundraise Announcement.

The Cinematic Case Study.

The Product Launch.

BTW - you don’t have to wait till you raise to launch. Always be launching! Clay’s ‘Summer of Launches’ campaign is a great display of this.

The cool thing about marketing is that YOU are responsible for creating moments. You do not have to wait for business milestones. It’s all about framing.

(4) The X Screenshot

On the complete other end of the spectrum from the $100K launch video is the X screenshot method.

It’s funny. This method was popular years back, fell out of favor with the algorithm, and has since come back.

What to do: find an X post on a trending topic in your category, screenshot it, and post it to LinkedIn with your take.

What I’m noticing: these posts typically get normal-to-low engagement but get far more impressions than baseline.

For example: I wrote this LinkedIn post in response to Brian Chesky claiming hackers posted an AI slop thread from his account. 66 likes (OK). But it got 18,356 impressions (above the median for my usual posts as of this week).

Another post I wrote about the resurgence of X displayed similar behavior. 63 likes. 17,591 impressions.

This is likely a shorter-term play than the other three formats I mentioned, but it’s so low-lift that it’s silly not to use it. You, or someone on your team, should be tapped into Tech Twitter (rolls off the tongue better than Tech X, sorry). If you don’t have the bandwidth, hire an agency that is plugged in. Sorry. Had to plug.

There are plenty more formats.

• IRL stunts

• Product Demos (lo-fi)

• Product Demos (hi-fi)

• Green-screen videos (even these have sub-categories)

• NYC NASDAQ billboard team pic (hyper-niche, but you know what I’m talking about)

Not an exhaustive list (didn’t even mention LinkedIn carousels!). The four I presented today should give you a good starting point. If nothing else, just TAKE MORE PICTURES! You can never have too many pictures.

Media matters in 2026.

You should not be complaining about ‘low reach’ if every post is text-only.

In truth, every post should be paired with a media asset, OR your team should be able to articulate why they chose to omit media.

If you lack the bandwidth, hire creative support or work with an agency that handles it for you.

That’s all I’ve got for today. Hope this helps.

TOMMY’S BOOKSHELF 📚

Current read: Greater Good by Timothy Zahn. This is the second book in the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy, set in the Star Wars universe. Book one was good! Usually, if I get right into the next book, that’s a promising sign. If not…well, you know how I felt about The Way of Kings.

Evergreen reminder: if you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and read Red Rising. This is the gateway drug to fiction reading as an adult.

If you want more book content, I’ve built a little audience on Instagram where I post about fiction and writing.

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 2026

• Steal my founder-led content templates

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark