The 5 sacred beliefs that stop tech companies from creating viral content

In collaboration with Logan Goldberg | Content Marketing Iconoclast

We’ve all heard the cliché that “content is king.” It still amazes me that anyone with internet access can become a celebrity overnight, using platforms like LinkedIn to reach millions of strangers around the world.

But here’s the truth: most tech companies will never create viral content. As teenage travel bloggers and amateur fashion gurus make social media look easy, these well-capitalized tech companies pour big money into webinars, blog posts, reports, and case studies that reach, approximately, no one.?

Successful influencers and tech companies are playing the same game; however, their beliefs about the game differ dramatically. According to Logan Goldberg — who’s led content marketing at AI unicorns Darktrace and Moveworks — the sacred beliefs of tech companies result in conformity across the industry, which makes it impossible for them to achieve outlier performance. Logan’s found that the differences between outlier content and ordinary content are surprisingly small. The real barrier to entry is admitting that the conventional wisdom doesn't actually work.

I sat down with Logan to discuss how tech companies can unlearn these 5 sacred beliefs:

1. Our content should directly promote our products?
2. We should obsess over our target personas
3. Our brand should be the face of our message
4. We should avoid offending potential customers
5. We need to educate our audience about how our tech works

Before we get into the beliefs, can you explain how small changes can make such a massive difference in performance? Why are most companies hesitant to change their strategy?

It’s always a battle to challenge the status quo. I like to start from a place of empathy. There are 800 million videos on YouTube. There are 730 million LinkedIn posts — every single year. And according to Google, there are more than 30 trillion web pages. Standing out on these platforms is a mathematical miracle, since the vast majority of content gets buried.

Once we acknowledge that the odds are stacked against us, we’re left with the big question: “How do we get outlier performance?” That’s where small changes matter. If we’re competing to rank for a popular query on YouTube, we can 10X our video views by moving up a handful of positions in the search results. And because the YouTube algorithm is picking from almost infinite videos, that ranking boost might come from increasing our clickthrough rate by just 1%. We’re talking about adding an emoji to the video thumbnail, in some cases. Of course, we’ve now committed the cardinal sin: violating the brand guidelines.

Content follows an extreme long-tail distribution, which makes failure the norm. But when you do win, you’ll win big. And already, you might be much closer than you think.

Let’s get into the beliefs. Why shouldn’t companies use content to directly promote their products? Does that only apply to organic content, or to paid ads as well?

Like most consumers, I’ve become quite a skeptic of conventional advertising. The average American sees 5,000 ads per day, meaning that we’re experts at ignoring anything that smells self-promotional. Clearly, there’s a time and place to talk about our products in detail, but it’s not at the top of the funnel, where most of our content marketing happens.

Instead, I recommend the opposite approach: “What value can we provide for free?”?

First of all, it’s incredibly refreshing when we encounter content without an ulterior motive — content that helps us without expecting our time or money or contact information in exchange. By providing genuine value, companies earn lifelong fans, rather than just one-time impressions.

A great example of a tech company providing free value is Gong, whose LinkedIn strategy has become the gold standard for marketers like me. By leveraging insights from its own platform, Gong shares educational posts that help salespeople win more deals, along with less serious posts that provide entertainment value. In short, its content spreads because it exists to serve, not sell. And today, when I think about innovative tools for sales teams, it’s Gong that comes to mind.

Many tech products are only relevant to a small fraction of professionals. Should companies have different expectations for their content, based on their target personas?

As a contrarian, I’m tempted to say no. I believe that every company can create viral content.

Of course, it’s important to understand our ideal customer profile, our target persona, our economic buyer, and so on. But these can be limiting concepts for content marketers. My last two employers, Darktrace and Moveworks, are typical SaaS vendors in that they both sell to enterprise CIOs. However, only 1 in 16,000 Americans is the CIO of a large enterprise, so content that’s hyper-targeted at them will never go viral.

In fact, considering the metrics that influence AI algorithms — clickthrough rate, engagement rate, number of reactions — I argue that our audience should include everyone to whom we can possibly provide value. This is the strategy that HubSpot follows with its blog, which is full of free templates for marketers, objection-handling tips for salespeople, and tutorials for developers. Most of these professionals aren’t in a position to procure HubSpot’s products. But by turning them all into fans, HubSpot has built a website with more than 40 million monthly visitors.

You mentioned that most consumers are skeptical of content marketing. How can companies establish their credibility and their good intentions?

Great question. For me, the answer is simple: Give our message a human face.

Most of the corporate content we see is shared by companies themselves, from ads on their LinkedIn accounts to sponsored articles that list the brand as the attributed author. Yet we don’t care what companies think. Companies, as legal entities, aren’t even capable of thinking.

We do, however, care what other humans have to say, especially when they’re charismatic subject-matter experts. A perfect example here is the Revenue Vitals podcast from Refine Labs, which is hosted by marketing wizard and Refine Labs CEO Chris Walker. The podcast has built a massive audience through organic growth, since it allows Walker to personify his firm’s unique perspective. In fact, Walker himself now has 3.5X as many LinkedIn followers as Refine Labs — strong evidence of our preference for real people.

Everyone knows that “the customer is always right.” Why do you think tech companies should risk offending people who might otherwise become customers?

Risk is a prerequisite for successful content, and that’s especially true for brand messaging. Buzzwords like “increased efficiency” and “reduced costs” are almost invisible.

Bold messaging is twice as crucial for tech companies, most of which only exist because the status quo is broken. I can’t count the number of AI, machine learning, and automation startups I’ve seen that are too afraid to admit the ramifications of their own product, much less fully embrace their vision to change the world. Whether we agree with a message or not, we respect those who have something of substance to say.

Maybe the most famous example of a tech company taking a stand is Salesforce proclaiming the “end of software.” Whatever the accuracy of this prediction, and whomever it risked offending, it’s impossible to argue with the company’s meteoric rise since then. Now more than ever, technology buyers are won with brave ideas, not safe platitudes.?

Okay, last belief. I think this one is the most counterintuitive — why shouldn’t content marketers worry about product education? How can they beat the competition if they don’t explain what makes their products the best?

Please excuse the following Simon Sinek impersonation. Having written more than my fair share of technical blog posts and product datasheets that died in obscurity, I’ve witnessed Sinek’s Golden Circle firsthand. People don’t care what it does or how it works — at least, not right away. They care why it matters. And if we start with our why, we’ll attract prospects, journalists, analysts, and candidates who share our vision.

Again, I’ll give a major caveat here: we should know our product features and differentiation like the back of our hands. We should arm our sales team with the detailed collateral they need to take down the competition. Tech buyers, as I said, deserve respect.

But, when it comes to content marketing at the top of the funnel, logic doesn’t drive behavior. Only emotions can do that. Despite my track record of marketing sophisticated AI solutions, by far the most impactful content I’ve ever created was emotionally driven thought leadership. “How can we trust anything in the age of deepfakes?” “Is your digital workplace fair to non-English speakers?” These are the kinds of ideas that define a company’s reputation, and reputation — not product — builds the brand.

So, if we throw away our most sacred beliefs about content marketing, what should we believe instead??

Not by coincidence, my approach to content marketing reads more like life advice: Talk less about yourself. Favor taking risks over following rules. Help everyone you can, without expecting anything in return. Rely on real experts to shape your ideas. Be bold, even if it might ruffle some feathers. And above all, say what you believe. You’ll find others who believe it, too.