It is uncommon {that a} B2B marketer is humorous on LinkedIn.
And never “posted a meme about ChatGPT taking up my job” humorous.
I imply genuinely, “I’d watch this content material in my free time” type of humor.
And she or he’s acquired 20K followers (and a few viral movies with 4M+ views) to show it.
As we speak’s knowledgeable tells us to cease obsessing over high-performing content material, and why your purchaser persona is bingeing Promoting Sundown, too.
Heike Younger
Head of content material, social, & built-in advertising and marketing, Microsoft
Lesson 1: Your purpose should not be high-performing content material. Interval.
When Younger walked right into a convention room throughout her first day at Microsoft (this will have been digital, however for the sake of the story let’s image the Mad Males workplace), she instructed her workforce that her purpose is not to create high-performing content material.
Her purpose is to alter minds.
Each time her workforce creates a chunk of content material, she asks herself: “What can we create that is truly going to alter the hearts and minds of our viewers? And that is a heady activity.”
This is an instance that hits house for us: At HubSpot, we have hit thousands and thousands of views annually on one publish alone — “The Prime Film Quotes of All Time.”
(Yep. About as removed from a product conversion as you may get.)
However this 12 months we took one other have a look at that publish and mentioned, “Does it matter that it attracts thousands and thousands of views if it has nothing to do with… effectively, HubSpot?”
So we (lastly) retired the publish. (I urged a Viking funeral, however we settled on a 301 redirect.)
That is Younger’s motto and driving motivation behind all of her work. She says, “We hope it performs effectively, however actually our purpose is to create affect and to alter how individuals assume and act — and for our model to develop once they do.”
There is a bonus to this lesson: Creating content material that adjustments minds means writing, recording, and posting content material that’s provocative and distinctive. And that is the one kind of content material that may minimize via the noise, anyway.
As Younger places it: “Daring POVs are just about the one content material left that resonates.”
Lesson 2: Your B2B purchaser is identical one that’s bingeing Promoting Sundown.
A few years in the past, Younger took comedy courses in LA at Upright Residents Brigade, which touts previous college students like Amy Poehler, Kate McKinnon, and Nick Kroll.
And she or he’s now bringing that comedy to her LinkedIn movies, a few of which have amassed thousands and thousands of views.
Why?
As a result of her B2B viewers continues to be made up of individuals. And other people prefer to snigger.
“There’s this concept that’s actually necessary to me, which is content material that strikes with the tradition. The identical one that approves the PO to your SaaS firm additionally binges Promoting Sundown or does Twitch dwell streams at evening.”
She provides, “In B2B, we have gotten into this behavior of performing like individuals are so totally different. , they arrive to work and placed on their work outfit and all of a sudden their requirements for content material or leisure are totally different.”
Her comment jogged my memory of Severance: There may be the buttoned-up, skilled B2B viewers, after which there are the individuals we get dinner with and watch motion pictures with and name our mates.
This synthetic separation does not simply make our advertising and marketing really feel stiff — it makes it ineffective.
Younger says, “I personally wish to create content material that’s knowledgeable by the tradition at giant and strikes at that velocity versus content material that feels prefer it was sealed in a time capsule from 2001.”
Lesson 3: Worker-generated content material issues now greater than ever.
Younger goes all-in on personality-led content material in 2025.
Why? As a result of, as she instructed me, personality-led content material might be the core differentiator to your model: “Anyone can reply a bunch of questions. No person can clone your individuals.”
(Take that, AI!)
In her present function, she’s actually targeted on employee-generated content material, and empowering her workforce to create content material on behalf of Microsoft.
And she or he’s strolling the stroll, too. Which is why, a few 12 months in the past, she began posting her personal movies on LinkedIn.
She instructed me, as a frontrunner, she’d been lacking the chance to create content material. To her, it was necessary to get some pores and skin within the sport. “And I additionally actually needed to guess on myself.”
Positive, it may be hella awkward to publish that first awkwardly edited iPhone video of your self and getting seven likes on it.
However you by no means know the place it could lead on.
Coming full-circle to our first lesson, Younger provides: “It is necessary to alter individuals’s minds round deeper matters, to have deeper conversations, and simply to resonate extra deeply. Floor-level, fundamental, one-on-one fashion answering questions — that is not likely the trail ahead.”
Lingering Questions
This Week’s Query
As a advertising and marketing thought chief, how do you see AI influencing strategic considering and the inventive course of in model constructing? — Lise Lozelle, senior director of communications and engagement, Finest Buddies Worldwide
This Week’s Reply
Younger: AI is efficient as a thought associate. Ask it to poke holes in your technique and play satan’s advocate. Additionally ask it to seek out extra analysis and information factors you have not thought-about. These workflows could make your unique concepts even stronger.
All of that being mentioned, I consider human creativity is extra essential than ever, and I really like seeing human fingerprints on the content material I personally eat. As an illustration, I’ve not too long ago been swooning over all of the tiny inventive particulars in Severance.
I consider some AI-related adjustments in advertising and marketing will occur quicker than we count on, and others will occur extra slowly. Solely time will inform what falls into which class. So I am leaning into AI the place it is helpful for me, and never forcing it the place it does not appear useful.
Subsequent Week’s Query
Younger asks: What’s a chunk of selling recommendation you’d have given earlier in your profession, however you’d not give, because of how advertising and marketing has modified?
