How to make B2B social work

B2B Social: How ClickUp Cracked The Code By Taking It Seriously

I wrote that headline on purpose. "Taking it seriously."

Because when I was thinking back to my conversation with Chris at ClickUp about their success with social, I realized that was the big secret. Simple, not easy.

They went for it. They developed a real POV about what they should be doing on social and they went and did it. VS. just doing the check box marketing version of social and wondering why it's not working.

Most B2B companies are still underinvesting in organic social. I get why. It's hard to measure, the ROI takes a while to show up, and for years it was something you handed to whoever was junior on the team while the "real" budget went to ads and events.

But I think all the AI stuff makes social a more important channel than ever. The way I see it you're either going to get your information from the LLMs or from social media. And not to go all Gary V on you but you really are just one video away. It just takes one hit. Could even be a bunt or a single. But social media allows your content to spread and reach more of your ICP. Don Draper would have killed for what we have with social media. I'm sure the LLMs will all be crawling social for signals if they aren't already.

Anyway: I think in a world where AI is eating everything, social might be one of the last great channels where marketers can be placing confident bets heading into the future.

You always ask me for examples of B2B companies doing this well and that's where Chris comes in. Chris Cunningham is one of the founding members of the team at ClickUp and after a decade of working there now his full-time job is running social media — and they do it like an agency, not like a software company.

You're probably not going to copy this whole playbook. You don't need to. The point is to see what's possible, then pull the pieces that make sense for your team.

Here's what stuck with me from our conversation about B2B social (and the full conversation is here on my YouTube channel if you want to check it out)

1. They run a writers' room every week.

Mondays at ClickUp are pitch days. Chris, the actors, a few employees, and sometimes an outside writer (he's brought in a Jimmy Kimmel writer to freshen things up; of course that one is not one of the "no budget" ideas but Chris made it sound like it's not as big of a cost as you might think) all come in with three ideas each. Everyone votes. No ego. Winners move forward.

Tuesday they fine-tune scripts. Wednesday they prep. Thursday they shoot 12 to 15 videos in one day. Friday Chris reviews everything that posted the previous week.

That's the operating system. They have 80 videos in the bank right now. If they stopped shooting tomorrow they'd be fine for two months.

Great social isn't lightning in a bottle. It's a recurring meeting on the calendar. Even without Hollywood writers on your team I bet you could pull this off. Have a group of 2-3 people plugged in on the marketing team with taste. Meet every week, come with a few ideas to pitch each. Why not?

2. They A/B test every video before it goes to followers.

Maybe this is why my Instagram sucks… ClickUp uses Instagram trial reels for almost every video. Same content, three different edits. Different hook on screen, different opening, different text overlay. They post all three as trial reels (which don't go to followers), see which one performs, and only then push the winner to the main feed.

Takes the editor about four extra minutes per video. Chris said the variance is wild. The version he thinks will win usually doesn't. One video went from 60k views on the cut he liked to 10-20 million on a different cut. Same idea, different opening five seconds.

If you're posting one version and hoping, you're leaving most of the upside on the table. This is more of a note to self than anything else I guess…

3. They hire creators with 4,000 followers, not a million.

This was my favorite insight from chatting with Chris. People are always asking how to find influencers, how to hire them, and how to do it without a huge budget. Chris said his trick is to go find people that have low thousands of followers but maybe have one or two videos that have done pretty good numbers. That shows that they have the ability to create a video that pops off, but they haven't grown their account big yet.

Chris doesn't go after big-name creators. He goes after people with 4,000 followers and one video that hit big. They have talent. They want to break through. They want more reps. But most importantly they want to get paid for their work! And for most people this is their side thing. So now all of a sudden a brand wants to pay me each month to make a few videos? Good deal all around.

Chris's first hire, Luke, was running TikTok at a small media company. Chris had been watching his work for years. When Luke became available, he brought him on as a contractor for $3k a month. Eventually hired him full time. Same story with Adam, the second guy on the team.

And I don't think this is that hard. I see people on my For You page all the time that have viral videos but only have a couple thousand followers. Their accounts haven't "made it" yet. I might have to try this one. Thanks Chris. OK, next…

4. They bet on real humans over AI (gasp).

I asked Chris about AI in content creation, expecting him to be all in. I expected him to be the optimizer. Or to be the type of user AI avatars and AI audio to make content for social and he was completely against it. ClickUp messes around with AI for some experiments (they did an AI Santa Claus interview at Christmas), but they don't use it to write scripts. Like Patagonia (and we did this at Drift) they are only using real actors, real employees, real people. Smart.

His take: when people see AI content, they scroll. They can feel it. The reason short form is surging right now is because people are craving real life. Look at what's working on Instagram right now (at least in my feed) it's all just people out there doing stuff. We love social media and reality TV and seeing real people live life for some reason. I don't know why but we're wired for that.

Chris says that the companies betting on AI to churn out more content are missing the point. The scarce thing isn't volume. It's a real person saying something true. I like it.

5. It's actually driving pipeline.

This is the part most B2B marketers want to know. Does any of this drive revenue? Dave you can't just make cute little videos for Instagram as your job if it's not actually "working." This is true.

Chris was honest. The first four or five months were hard to prove. And I think he had some runway because of his role as an early employee in the company — he was able to mess around a bit without the CRO breathing down his neck for leads.

But it just took one big deal (as it usually does, there's one big obvious signal): they were spending around $7k a month on social at the time when VaynerMedia became a major customer because their CEO (Hi again Gary) saw ClickUp's social content and decided to give them a shot. Then sales reps started reporting it more and more that social was coming up as a discovery channel.

This also gives you a sense of the type of things Chris does with social: he just found out that the CEO of McDonald's follows ClickUp Comedy on Instagram. So Chris had his actors film a video DM'ing him to set up a call. No response yet, but I'll have to follow up. Chris is you're reading this let me know?

Build a brand people actually want to watch, and the pipeline becomes a byproduct. But you have to get up there and actually present a social strategy. The leadership team need to hear you articulate how social can help you grow the business. Show them how people buy today. Show them what good looks like and how you'll measure it. These people (execs) need to be LED. They don't sit up all night thinking about B2B social strategy; that's your job. So lead them. Teach them.

Alright my editor is on me. I'm bumping up against my word cap for this edition. I'm outta here.

Go and listen to my full conversation with Chris, we talk about everything — including how they create 15 videos every week, how they manage 35 different accounts and more on my YouTube channel.

^ is that too long of a link? I like to really be explicit. GO HERE! Type of energy. Please. Every subscriber matters. Smash that like and subscribe button.

– Dave

P.S. Are you going to invest more in B2B social because of what's happening with AI, or less? Let me know. I want some replies about what you're doing with B2B social right now.

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