How to Build a Successful LinkedIn Content Strategy in 2024

The 3-part framework for startups to take over the timeline

The best SaaS startups on social media have a Content Ecosystem. Constructing one is how you give your startup the feeling of being “everywhere.”

Your target customer can’t scroll more than 1-2 swipes without seeing a piece of content from you or your team.

Today I’ll walk you through:

- The definition of a Content Ecosystem
- 3 examples of SaaS startups that have built one
- How to manufacture a Content Ecosystem of your own

Defining a Content Ecosystem.

A Content Ecosystem consists of 3 parts:

1. Founder-led content
2. Employee-led content
3. Company-led content

Companies that lose on social and wonder why organic Linkedin doesn’t drive any demand are usually stuck focusing on company-led content. They don’t realize brand accounts are hard to grow in 2024. It’s like playing the video game on hard mode.

Companies who get leads from social lean into founder-led content. They understand that people want to buy from people. People want to engage with other people on social—and that’s why platforms are pushing personal accounts lately.

Companies who absolutely dominate their category using content have 2-3 of these components firing (as you’ll see in the examples in a second).

A well-constructed Content Ecosystem increases the surface area for your ICP to interact with your company.

Examples of a Content Ecosystem.

The first time I experienced the power of a Content Ecosystem was during my time as Head of Social at Triple Whale.

We had multiple team members active on LinkedIn and X—myself, our CMO, our and our Head of Brand. We had a dialed brand presence ran by yours truly. We had 2 of our co-founders active on social as well, mostly around product launches.

You couldn’t scroll far on LinkedIn or X without seeing something from us. So we dominated the conversation around ‘attribution’ in the Shopify ecosystem.

Here are 3 more examples.

Beehiiv

I’ve documented Beehiiv’s social playbook at length before (read here). They’re a fantastic example of a Content Ecosystem executed to perfection.

Tyler, their co-founder and CEO, posts ~daily on social and writes a weekly newsletter called Big Desk Energy.

Their team is hyper-responsive on the timeline. Try asking if you should use Beehiiv or ConvertKit, then wait 15 seconds and check your replies.

Their brand account is locked in with a strong combination of product education, feature launches, and trending humor.

FERMAT

FERMAT is another SaaS in the Shopify ecosystem. They just raised their Series A and are dominating the content game.

They have their founder socials dialed. Compound (my agency) actually support the two co-founders, Rishabh and Shreyas, with founder-led content.

FERMAT also has an insane roster of marketing talent, most of whom have followings of their own. Each of these personalities contributes to this feeling of omnipresence that’s characteristic of all successful Content Ecosystems.

The front-facing team also humanizes the brand. Customers don’t want to engage with a faceless software corporation. They want to engage with friends they trust.

The brand account isn’t as much of a focal point for FERMAT. It doesn’t need to be. The founder-led content and employee-led content is enough to get them 97% of the way there.

Exit Five

Exit Five isn’t a SaaS company, but they are media company for SaaS marketers. It’s no surprise their content motion is on point. Their founder, Dave Gerhardt, literally wrote to book on founder-led marketing—Founder Brand.

Dave has a LinkedIn audience of 167K followers and posts daily on the platform. He’s been able to build a 7-figure media company off the back of it.

But it’s not just Dave propagating the Exit Five brand on Linkedin.

What’s cool about Exit Five is the supporting cast of content creators they’re cultivating around Dave. I recently started following Matthew Carnevale, Exit Five’s marketing manager, on LinkedIn as well.

The approach is similar to FERMAT’s, outlined above, but it’s interesting to note how E5 is building ‘influencers’ from within rather than plucking them from the timeline to join the team.

Neither approach is the ‘correct’ way—the point is that you can do either or depending on your resources. Whatever the method, you want to create a cast of personalities around your company.

How to build your own Content Ecosystem on LinkedIn.

Start with founder-led content. This is the obvious first step.

Then, start to layer in other team members. This could be more formal (i.e. having an agency create content for them) or just more heavily encouraging them to ship their own content.

The single most important factor for deciding who to dedicate content resources to is understanding who on your team wants to make content.

Sure, you might have a VP of Engineering who could be a great SME (subject matter expert) to build an audience for on LinkedIn. But if he scoffs at the idea of posting content, don’t try to force it.

For lots of companies I work with, the next logical step is the CMO or one of the marketing folks. They tend to ‘get’ content, and it’s easier to build momentum. FERMAT is a great example of this. Their most active team members aside from the co-founders are the CMO, Director of Marketing, and VP of Growth.

Finally, layer in brand account content. From what I’m seeing in our client accounts and hearing anecdotally from peers, this will likely have the least impact.

If you ARE going to make push with your brand account, hire internally for it. It’s hard to outsource this to an agency and expect it to go well (beyond a baseline content cadence).

When I was at Triple Whale, I was chronically online and ripping content from the brand accounts. That’s why it worked. I know the beehiiv social media manager and can say the same for her. It’s a full-time job to nail brand socials in 2024.

For most early-stage companies, I’d divert most of your attention into personalities on your team. Just use the brand account to amplify product updates and share case studies.

In short:

• Launch all of your founders on LinkedIn.
• Then launch other C-Suites and leadership that want to be active.
• Then add focus to brand account outside of basic product updates and case studies if needed.

That’s it. It’s not that complex, but it does take time—both to see the results of your output and to get the buy-in from your team.

But I promise, if you nail this, you will have an unfair advantage or any competitor you’re going up against. Think about how sick it would be to dominate the space in your customer’s mind, at all times.

Build a Content Ecosystem and you’ll live rent-free in your ICP’s head.

One more note: If you're bought in on this idea and want to launch your own founder-led content motion to lay the groundwork for a Content Ecosystem, consider using Bluecast to create high-performing, authentic LinkedIn content in a minutes, not hours.