Hey!

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

Had another slight hiatus in the past week. Just brought on a new (amazing) Content Editor at Compound, so was a bit head down with onboarding. We also had 2 clients onboarding in July. Moving.

Today I want to bring us back with a quick rundown of “what’s working now” in B2B social. I like doing these pulse checks just to give you a look into what we’re seeing.

Shall we?

🔎 DEEP DIVE

What’s working now in B2B social?

Insights from posting 200+ content assets per week, that you can steal.

We craft a somewhat concerning amount of content at Compound. Across our clients in B2B SaaS, we’re shipping 200+ LinkedIn posts per week.

I also post daily on LinkedIn. It’s our primary lead source for the agency, outside of referrals.

So, I have a good amount of insight into what’s “working.”

Here is a stream of consciousness of what I’m seeing.

Founder-led is still the front runner.

No surprise here. Won’t spend a ton of time on this section. But worth noting, founder profiles are outperforming company pages on LinkedIn for our B2B clients. Not even close.

If you're an early-stage startup—seed, Series A, or bootstrapping $0-5M ARR—wanting to launch a content motion, get your founder posting on LinkedIn.

If you are a founder, post more.

If you want the full (un-gated) playbook, read here or watch here.

Media is mandatory.

Ok. Mandatory is a bit of a stretch.

But we are seeing content with relevant media outperform text-only posts quite a bit.

In order of performance, here’s what I would test:

• Video. If you're good on camera and can produce simple talking head videos like this one, run it. LinkedIn is rolling out a short-form video tab. Video helps your audience see and hear (and trust) you.

• IRL photos. Aside from video, IRL photos that are relevant to the post copy are the best media to use. For example, if you're writing a post reflecting on a recent offsite, include a team picture from that off-site. Here’s an example from a client.

• Relevant infographic. These can be strong performers, but the lift to produce great ones with relevant data is a lot. Often not super repeatable.

• Tweet screenshot assets. These are my go-to when I don’t have a relevant photo or a video to go with a post. They’re easy to produce, and they tend to do well. Think of the tweet copy as a secondary hook. The more the image can stand on its own, the better the overall post will do. Here’s an example.

• Overly branded graphic or quote card. Don’t use these. They perform like crap.

I mentioned media and video in my last “What’s Working Now” post. A lot of those thoughts still apply.

Bottom-of-funnel posts do surprisingly well.

A lot of people tell you not to shill your product on social.

I used to be one of them. God, I cringe when I look back at some of my old takes. But that’s personal growth, right?

You still shouldn’t make every post about your product. But you can position “bottom-of-funnel” posts in a way that makes them perform quite well.

Here are a few of my favorite post templates to test.

(1) Periodic company updates. Post these monthly, and quarterly. Share your top 3 highlights. Then share your top 3 learnings. Then share what’s next on your roadmap. This works well when you include an eye-catching growth metric in the hook. Here’s an example.

(2) List of every feature launched in the first 6 months of the year. This is a good one for displaying shipping velocity. Position this type of post more as a “milestone” than a product shill. Give props to your engineering and product teams. We ran this with a client and the post drove ~5 high-quality demo requests. Here’s an example.

(3) New hire posts. LinkedIn originated as a hiring platform. People, and the platform, still eat new hire announcements up. Lean into this in your content strategy. Especially as an early company where every hire is especially significant, make a post to announce. Here’s an example.

(4) Case study posts. Tried and true. Narrative case study posts always hit. Like the feature list, position the case study as a milestone you're proud of as a founder, not a sales pitch. Generally, including the most compelling metric in the hook is best practice here. Here’s an example.

My recommendation? BOFU content should make up ~20% of your content output as a founder of an early-stage SaaS company. So, if you're posting 5x per week, 1x should be BOFU.

• 1x case study per month

• 1x new hire post per month

• 1x company update post per month

• 1x feature highlight per month

There. Just gave you 25% of your content calendar.

[If you're new around here and want a primer on how to build a Content Funnel, check this series of essays out]

Fundamentals never go out of style.

An NBA trainer who observed one of Kobe Bryant’s workout was shocked that he spent the entire session drilling the same, basic move. Over and over again. To perfection.

Same approach applies to social content.

Sure, there are trends to keep an eye on. But a lot of your success on LinkedIn—or any platform—will come down to nailing the fundamentals for a long enough time.

I’m sure my team is sick of my obsessing over minor details in a hook. Or the variation in sentence structure. Or the flow of a story. It all matters more than any shift in platform trends.

But it’s helpful to have a finger on the pulse of what’s working. So that’s why I write these. Hope it helps.

If it did, I hope this ends up in your marketing team’s Slack channel.

PS: If you want more reading, a lot of what I covered in my last “what’s working now in B2B social strategy” essay still hits. The only note I’d make is I’m not seeing as many carousels on LinkedIn.

🗃 FILE CABINET

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

• 5 things smart SaaS founders should NEVER do in their marketing by Tommy Clark 🎥

• pov: a 26 y/o entrepreneur speaking FLUENT Chinese in China by Daniel Dalen 🎥

• The right way to think about outsourcing founder-led content by Tommy Clark ✍️

• Light Bringer by Pierce Brown (fiction, but please do yourself a favor and read the entire Red Rising series) 📚

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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

If you want more deep dives on B2B SaaS social strategy, check out my full library of essays or my newest YouTube video here.

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark

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