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Welcome to Volume 144 👋🏽
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 🎯 5 SaaS brands doing social media right in 2024.
- 🧵Threads snatched up 100m users in 5 days — what now?
- 👀 What’s the latest in B2B SaaS this week?
- 🧠 This week’s brain food.
- ➕ The best content across the web.
Let’s get into it.
Looking for a marketing conference without the B.S.?
You’re in luck — Ross will be in Austin, TX this October 18th to speak at the Marketingland Festival put on by the pros at The Marketing Millenials. With dedicated spaces for everything from branding and content creation to eCommerce and revenue tactics, it’s a day you won’t want to miss!
Check out the rest of the Marketingland lineup and book your ticket before they’re all gone!
B2B SAAS INSIGHTS
📱5 SaaS brands doing social media right in 2024
A quick Google search for “social media strategy” yields over 9.4 billion search results — narrow it down with “B2B SaaS” at the beginning, and you still have nearly 12 million web pages discussing this key marketing channel.
And yet, despite all the advice out there, many tech brands struggle to generate quality leads through social media. If you find yourself included in that category, don’t worry, my amazing colleague, Jessica Tee, just did a deep dive on 5 tech brands that are crushing it on social in 2024.
Here’s a quick glimpse at the 5 brands and what they’re doing:
- Hootsuite: Remixes blog posts into a playbook of content using different formats and social platforms
- Gong: Invests heavily in LinkedIn traffic to hit its target audience with 10-15 posts every week
- Confluent: Leans on interviews with subject matter experts to create educational content that’s chock-full of social proof
- Slack: Leverages its powerful Reddit community to create a two-way dialogue with its most dedicated users
- Shopify: Uses the highly-visual platform Pinterest to create interest-based boards for its audience of retailers
🎧Create Like the Greats 🎧
We are so excited that our podcast, Create Like the Greats, has reached episode 30…and we’re nowhere near being done.
Please leave a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts by visiting this link on your mobile device so that more people can create a life that they consider great.
If you don’t have Apple Podcasts, no sweat, you can also:
- Visit the show on Spotify on your mobile device
- Tap on the pop-up menu in the top right corner of your app
- Select rate show.
Thanks and happy listening!
B2B MARKETING
🧵Threads snatches up 100 million users — what now?🧵
Whether or not you think that Threads truly counts as the most successful product roll-out of all time (I’ve heard good arguments on both sides) or whether Meta’s latest platform has the staying power to dethrone a wounded Twitter, it’s really not relevant at this point. People are showing up — hundreds of millions of people, as a matter of fact.
The question for B2B SaaS marketers is this: what now?
As with any emerging platform, the initial answer is to dive in. Get a feel for the platform, explore how people talk to one another, what they talk about, and what gets the most traction. Major tech brands like Canva, HubSpot, SalesForce, and even Dall-E by OpenAI are doing just this and already have followings in the 7-8 figures.
With the right approach, so can you.
Here are a couple of tips I’ve seen from SaaS, media, and individual brands on how to kick off a Threads strategy:
- If you haven’t already, go grab your brand name ASAP
- Start engaging with your Instagram followers to strengthen your community in a new online space
- You’ve got a whole new audience to distribute all your old Twitter content to — start posting it on Threads now
- Take advantage of Meta’s branded content tools for an influencer and affiliate boost until paid ads arrive on the platform
Oh, and here’s the most important one of all: don’t be afraid to play around and experiment a little. After all, sometimes the best way to get started is to have no set strategy at all!
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week?
🗓️ Google takes a shot at Calendly with a new availability-sharing feature for its Gmail app
💲Startup Lantern raises $7m to build a customer data platform to turbocharge the performance of B2B success teams
🎮 Microsoft’s $68.7b acquisition of Activision Blizzard is still a go after a California judge rules against the Federal Trade Commission
🤖 Anthropic releases Claude 2, an updated AI that generates more helpful, harmless, and honest outputs
📱 Jack Dorsey’s “side-project,” Blue Sky, reaches 1,00,000 users as the race for the top Twitter clone continues
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
I get it, we’re all busy.
The bustling pace of modern life often keeps us in a state of constant activity, where we constantly respond to some kind of stimulus — be it work, digital distractions, or social commitments.
While these are no doubt important parts of work and life in general, it also means we often neglect to block off time for creative rejuvenation. Creativity isn’t just the active state you see in movies or TV shows about artists, writers, or musicians. It also means giving yourself free time to wonder, dream, and ideate.
The first step towards safeguarding your creative time is to recognize its importance. It’s a non-negotiable period that we need to set aside for ourselves. I sometimes like to think of it as a meeting with my inner genius, a rendezvous with my best ideas — how can I miss out on that?
Next, understand that it’s not the quantity but the quality of time that matters. Even 15-20 minutes of focused, dedicated time can produce valuable insights if spent wisely. Time blocking, digital detoxing, or even a quick meditation are all great ways to carve out this dedicated period and tap into creative potential.
The notion of protecting your creative time is not an indulgence but a necessity, a survival tool in the maelstrom of life. It facilitates a deep and meaningful connection with our inner selves, leading to higher job satisfaction, a more profound sense of purpose, and a robust framework for innovative thinking.
So, are you ready to schedule your next meeting with creativity? Remember, it’s a standing appointment that has the potential to transform your work and personal life — don’t forget to show up.
🏅 Twitter Thread of the Week
How Shopify is taking action to reduce “meeting bloat” and free up time for deep work by Peter Yang and Kaz Nejatian
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
The data is in — paying for lead gen on Facebook & LinkedIn doesn’t work by Chris Walker
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- Wired takes a look at how Threads, and others, compare to Twitter on privacy policy
- Three marketing execs explain how to generate more TOFU traffic leads in SaaS
- Prompt engineering: an introductory guide for content marketers and creators
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week:
Digital Mirage (Full Set) by Griffin
This smattering of insights is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to send an email to me at ethan@foundationinc.co. We’re always looking for ways to improve and make sure you’re getting the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend and see you on the other side!
