WORKWEEK

Here’s the ‘minimum viable social strategy’ I would use to take your startup from 0 → 1000 followers (and start generating leads) on LinkedIn/Twitter:

STEP 1) Decide between personal or brand account

For most startups, building the founder’s personal brand is an easier lift.

Your company has no brand recognition, so it’s going to be hard to stand out on the timeline. Plus, even companies that do have brand recognition have a harder time than personal accounts.

Both assets (personal and company page) are necessary long-term, but to get your social presence off the ground, I’d build your personal brand first.

STEP 2) Pick your platforms.

This one’s simple. Just use LinkedIn and Twitter.

This is where most B2B startups’ ICPs hang out and consume business-related content.

These two platforms also allow for easy diversification because you can create a post for LinkedIn and then copy it over to Twitter as a long-form post, and vice versa. There are some nuances, but generally super easy to repurpose.

STEP 3) )Pick your content pillars.

In short: WHY is someone going to follow you?

Are you going to lean into entertainment/humor or education? Or a combination of both? What topics are you going to educate or entertain around?

I usually break topics up into 3 buckets.

A) Broad ‘business-related’ content (top of funnel)

B) Industry-related content (middle of funnel)

C) Product-related content (bottom of funnel)

The exact ratio of each type of content depends on the goal of the social strategy and the maturity of the company’s presence on social.

Assuming this is a 0→1000 strategy, I would recommend making most of your content either ‘broad’ or ‘industry-related.’ You have no audience to start, so nobody really cares about your product yet.

Fill the room first, then try to sell.

STEP 4) Decide on your cadence.

5x per week on LinkedIn 5-10x per week on Twitter 30min per day of engagement and outreach

Example schedule:

Post 1: Personal story about solving a hard problem related to your industry

Post 2: Breakdown post of a strategy used by a popular brand or person in your industry (this allows you to ‘borrow credibility’ and stop the scroll)

Post 3: Listicle breaking down 5 common myths about your industry (bonus points if they’re a bit controversial)

Post 4: Personal story about why you started your company

Post 5: Customer case study that highlights a major pain point in your ICP (here’s where a direct CTA makes sense)

Post 6 (Twitter only): One-liner, slightly polarizing statement

Post 7 (Twitter only): Meme highlighting a pain point our ICP faces

Post 8 (Twitter only): Engagement prompt related to your ICP

This isn’t a perfect calendar. That’s going to depend on your company and what ends up working for you as you test. But if you stick to this for like 7-8 weeks, I’d be surprised if you didn’t get some traction.

STEP 5) Engage on LinkedIn and Twitter for ~30min per day.

This is the secret sauce. I wrote an entire post on this that you can read here, but the idea here is simple.

Get into conversations with your ICP. Send personalized DMs to relevant people (to actually build relationships, not spam).

There’s no magic time or # of comments, but having a set target (like 30min per day) helps to build consistency early on.

Hope this helps. Forward this piece to your marketing team or your founder if it is helpful.