Creating Engaging Content for Your Tech Brand

Demand gen is utterly broken. It's overly complicated & lacks the soul and creativity that consumers deserve. I promise there's a better way. Here's the 3-pronged content engine we're building for companies at storyarb: Principles: - Treat your content as the product, not as marketing for another product - Unique insights + Unique voice + Unique packaging = Unique content - Pick topics that make your Market of 1 better at their job Channels: 1) Deeply researched long-form content Purpose: create data-driven OR interview-based website content that is deep enough & insightful enough such that a reader feels the need to bookmark & reference later. Good examples: Lenny Rachitsky: "How the biggest consumer apps got first 1,000 users" - Lenny interviewed hundreds of founders, identified patterns, and broke down the seven strategies consumer apps used to grow. Carta: "State of Private Markets: Q3 2024" Report - Using tons of internal funding data by Carta customers to pull together trends in startup funding for the quarter. HubSpot: "My First Million's Business Idea Database" - Aggregating & organizing 57 startup ideas shared by past MFM podcast guests into an e-mail gated database 2) Editorial email newsletter Purpose: create the best industry read for your market of 1 that allows you to build an owned audience of current/future customers. Good examples: - Content Examined by Alex Garcia: the best read for consumer content marketers, which acts as a perfect nurturing tool for his community, course, and agency - Big Desk Energy by Tyler Denk 🐝: a window into building a high-growth startup as it's happening by the founder of beehiiv - Exploding Topics: a snapshot of 4 emerging trends (based on google search data) that founders & investors should be aware of. 3) Personal brand social content Purpose: allow your market of 1 to build a parasocial relationship with your company through 1-4 personalities (execs, founders, etc) who enable connection with your faceless brand. Good examples: - Adam Robinson: fully transparent monthly breakdowns of his companies' (Retention.com & RB2B) performance with lessons learned & plans to fix key issues - Peter Walker: Head of Insights at Carta uses first party data from the company to share unique startup ecosystem trends + his own POV - Kieran Flanagan: AI & GTM expert who shares deep marketing insights, playbooks, and predictions that help build his & HubSpot's brand If you want help building this 3-pronged engine at your company, shoot me a DM or email at alex@storyarb[.]com.

If your content isn’t doing as well as you wish it would, it’s probably because you’re focused on the wrong person…. You. The biggest mistake I see on social media is that many people use it like a megaphone instead of a mirror. They shout their news, their wins, their updates, but they never stop to think about what their audience actually needs or wants. If you want people to care about what you post, you have to make it about them. Here’s how to do that more consistently: ✅ Speak to a pain point: Instead of posting “I was promoted,” say A lot of people ask how to stand out and get promoted faster. Here’s what helped me the most. ✅ Be useful: Share what you wish you knew sooner, what others ask you about, or what you’re learning in real time. That’s the stuff people bookmark and come back to. ✅ Lead with the takeaway: Don’t bury the value under three paragraphs of background. Start with the point. Hook them early. ✅ Be generous with what you know: If you learned something the hard way, say so. If someone else taught you something, give them credit. This builds trust and it travels farther. ✅ Stop announcing: You’re not a PR firm. You don’t need to “announce” every event or accomplishment. Talk about what it means and why it matters. ✅ Talk like a human: Banish the corporate speak. If you wouldn’t say it out loud to a colleague, don’t write it in a post. ✅ Earn attention: We are never entitled to engagement. If people are scrolling past your content, ask why. And then fix it. You can still share your story. Just make sure it actually connects with the people reading it. Which of these do you need to start doing? #PersonalBranding #LinkedInTips #LegalMarketing

I built demand by talking less about myself. Wild, right? Turns out, most “authentic” content pushes people away. I learned this the hard way when I started building my brand. I used to think personal branding meant being real— So I shared my routines, behind-the-scenes pics, life updates. People liked it just fine... But they didn’t buy from it. Then I learned this: People don’t follow you for who you are. They follow you for what you help THEM become. So I stopped talking about me— And started talking to the version of THEM I used to be. Here’s what changed: 1. My posts stopped being digital diaries.        They became mirrors.        My litmus test for posting became, "Does this story connect with how my client feels NOW and where they hope to be?" (versus, "Will this be popular?")     2. I stopped trying to sound smart.        Instead, I focused on making people feel seen.        Sounding smart is an ego pursuit. It's about you, not your audience. Connecting is where the real value is.     3. I shifted from “here’s what I did” to “here’s what this means for you.”     That’s when I went from crickets… To DMs saying, “I feel like you wrote this for me.” The first article I got this about was a detailed one discussing how to build a brand without pissing off your employer. People LOVED it. I've since repurposed and updated it annually. (Let that be a lesson, too. When people say you really "got them" with your content, bookmark that post and repurpose it again and again) Don't forget: 1. Mirror your clients. Help them see themselves in your story. 2. Focus on being relatable, not just "smart." 3. Always keep the benefit to your reader front and center.

3 lessons I’ve learned from building my brand and audience on LinkedIn: 1. Consistency creates momentum, but it’s about strategic consistency, not volume. Strategic Steps: → Build a content cadence that integrates long-term themes. → Use “anchor content” (thought leadership posts) and mix in “conversation content” (questions, polls, stories). → Create patterns—whether it’s posting every Monday or focusing on specific, repeatable ideas. Consistency is about showing up with intentional, relevant content that reinforces your brand's authority. Over time, you become the trusted voice, not because you're constantly posting, but because your value is unmistakable. 2. Engagement is a system of positioning. Strategic Steps: → Build an “engagement matrix”—identify 10-15 key people or companies that align with your brand. → Become a regular, thoughtful voice in their comments by adding data, insights, or thought-provoking questions. → Advance conversations instead of reacting to them. Engagement means becoming a recognized, trusted voice in the right conversations. The goal is to increase your influence where it matters. 3. Authenticity + Expertise = Magnetic Authority. Strategic Steps: → Tie every personal story back to a broader industry insight or challenge your audience faces. → Share experiences that offer solutions, lessons, or clear takeaways, showing both your authenticity and expertise. → Highlight market trends or solutions through the lens of your journey, making your content actionable. Authenticity draws people in, but pairing it with clear expertise is what builds authority. The balance of real, personal stories and practical, actionable insights is where brands scale and become magnetic. These lessons help you build a brand that delivers real value and builds influence. The ones who follow through and stick with it are bound to succeed. Ready to take your personal brand to the next level? Send me a DM!

Building a LinkedIn personal brand can mean pushing through months of zero engagement. Your first posts will flop. Friends might judge you. Growth feels like failure. But the payoff is 100% worth it. Here's the strategy that actually works for getting off the ground. 1. Master these 5 hook formulas (steal them). "In [timeframe], we went from [A] to [B]. Here's the playbook:" Gets 3x more clicks than generic openings. Also crushing it: "I turned down [big opportunity]. Here's why:" and "Everyone thinks [common belief]. The data says otherwise:" and "[Big company] does X. We do the opposite. Our results:" NOTE: there's no right or wrong answer for a great hook, but these will put you on the right track. In any case, spend an outsized amount of time on making it as interesting as possible. 2. Lead with expensive mistakes and hard-earned lessons. How you lost your biggest customer. Why you fired your co-founder. The feature that almost killed your startup. Before: "We scaled to $10M." After: "We burned $2M building the wrong product because we ignored user feedback. The pivot that saved us:" Stakes create urgency. Failure creates trust. 3. Write posts worth $10,000. People should feel like they owe you money for reading your posts. Imagine a founder DMs you and says "Your post about our marketing strategy saved us $500K - thank you!!” That's the bar. Share the framework you'd charge for. The lesson that took years to learn. The templates you use internally. If you wouldn't pay $500 to read it, do NOT post it. 4. Get uncomfortably specific in your content. You think being technical/specific limits your reach. Wrong. When you're uncomfortably targeted about the exact pain points your market experiences, you resonate DEEPER. Don't say "scale your startup." Say "here's the exact board deck slide that got us our Series B." Technical specificity creates momentum. Generic advice creates crickets. 5. Aim for 2-3 great posts per week. No more. Don’t post daily. Even 5x per week is possible, but very brutal to do well (especially starting out). Quality at 2-3x/week beats noise at 7x. If your posts aren't resonating with the right people, your content is too generic. Go more specific. — You might post 47 times before anyone important notices. But if Post 48 gets someone from Harvard Business School asking to share your story in their class, that’s all that matters. The difference? Specificity. Stakes. Actionable advice that your target market can steal. Most quit posting on LinkedIn 3 weeks in because their generic ChatGPT advice isn’t getting them any attention. The ones who DO get momentum and quality followers share the exact frameworks and expensive mistakes they use to win in their market in their day-to-day work. Which kind of creator will you be?