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 might watch this content material in my free time” sort of humor.
And she or he’s bought 20K followers (and a few viral movies with 4M+ views) to show it.
Right this moment’s professional 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 may occasionally have been digital, however for the sake of the story let’s image the Mad Males workplace), she informed her group that her purpose is not to create high-performing content material.
Her purpose is to alter minds.
Each time her group creates a bit 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 process.”
This is an instance that hits residence for us: At HubSpot, we have hit hundreds of thousands of views every year on one submit alone — “The Prime Film Quotes of All Time.”
(Yep. About as removed from a product conversion as you will get.)
However this 12 months we took one other have a look at that submit and stated, “Does it matter that it attracts hundreds of thousands of views if it has nothing to do with… nicely, HubSpot?”
So we (lastly) retired the submit. (I advised 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 nicely, however actually our purpose is to create affect and to alter how individuals suppose 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 sort of content material that can reduce by way of 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 similar one that’s bingeing Promoting Sundown.
A few years in the past, Younger took comedy lessons 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 hundreds of thousands of views.
Why?
As a result of her B2B viewers continues to be made up of individuals. And folks wish to snicker.
“There’s this concept that’s actually essential 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 stay streams at night time.”
She provides, “In B2B, we have gotten into this behavior of performing like persons are so totally different. You realize, they arrive to work and placed on their work outfit and abruptly 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 films with and name our associates.
This synthetic separation does not simply make our advertising and marketing really feel stiff — it makes it ineffective.
Younger says, “I personally need 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 informed me, personality-led content material will be the core differentiator to your model: “Anyone can reply a bunch of questions. No one can clone your individuals.”
(Take that, AI!)
In her present position, she’s actually centered on employee-generated content material, and empowering her group to create content material on behalf of Microsoft.
And she or he’s strolling the stroll, too. Which is why, a couple of 12 months in the past, she began posting her personal movies on LinkedIn.
She informed me, as a frontrunner, she’d been lacking the chance to create content material. To her, it was essential to get some pores and skin within the recreation. “And I additionally actually needed to wager on myself.”
Positive, it may be hella awkward to submit that first awkwardly edited iPhone video of your self and getting seven likes on it.
However you by no means know the place it may lead.
Coming full-circle to our first lesson, Younger provides: “It is essential to alter individuals’s minds round deeper matters, to have deeper conversations, and simply to resonate extra deeply. Floor-level, primary, 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 pondering 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 companion. Ask it to poke holes in your technique and play satan’s advocate. Additionally ask it to search out extra analysis and knowledge factors you have not thought of. These workflows could make your authentic concepts even stronger.
All of that being stated, I consider human creativity is extra crucial than ever, and I really like seeing human fingerprints on the content material I personally eat. As an example, I’ve just lately been swooning over all of the tiny inventive particulars in Severance.
I consider some AI-related adjustments in advertising and marketing will occur sooner than we anticipate, 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 bit of promoting recommendation you’d have given earlier in your profession, however you’d not give, resulting from how advertising and marketing has modified?
