Why this YC Founder abandoned 2.5M followers on TikTok for LinkedIn

Transcription

Matt: What is the future of Popple and your personal LinkedIn strategy look like moving forward? Daniel: Not leader ads are like LinkedIn's hidden gem. This post, it looks like an organic post in your feed because it's from me. It's not from a company, but it's actually getting marketing spend behind it. At first I'm like, this sounds great, right? Like I can focus on running the company and they'll help me with actually creating, you know, that 30 minutes per post, they'll help me with that. You made a big pivot with Popple. I think LinkedIn is really our channel when it comes to in-person go-to-market. And so we're going to continue to try and like play towards that human plus AI plus funny kind of thing. That was my first kind of taste of finding passion in working. You heard it here first. The new formula on LinkedIn in 2025. Let's go. Matt: Thanks for, thanks for having us, Jason. Love the, love the office. Daniel: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. Matt: Awesome. So for the audience, we always like to kick things off with just getting a sense of your background, what you're doing, um, what events have kind of led you to today where you're leading Popple. Could you just give us a quick intro on your background? Daniel: Yeah. So I come from Berkeley, California, which is in the San Francisco Bay area. I went to school at Berkeley High, this massive public school. And then UC Berkeley was actually too close to home. My parents really wanted me to go there, but it was, it was too close. I didn't want to spend 18 years and then go to the same college. So I ended up going to UCLA, which was a nice still in California, far enough away, but still in the UC system. Went to UCLA for computer science and that's where I first learned about tech. And I studied computer science, so I was like coding in classes. And that was my first kind of taste of finding passion in working. Right. It's like I actually enjoyed coding and it was also for my courses. So I was like, first spark of like, wow, passion can be also work as well, which I think, you know, I want all entrepreneurs to find at some point. Finished UCLA and I actually, I went to Boeing for about eight months. And Boeing was an interesting experience. That was, you know, when you're at a company with 200,000 employees, it's quite a unique situation. I'm sure you, you know, being a Bains, you know how it is. But that was great because I'm working with smart people and I'm learning a lot, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. And I was working on things that weren't exactly my passion. And at some point I realized, wait a second, I was like at UCLA, I learned all these software skills and I think I should go build something on my own. Like I don't need to continue to learn or, or have this experience and work on something I don't want to do. So sure enough, eight months in, I discovered NFC technology. Matt: Do you guys know NFC? Daniel: Oh yeah. Like the menus. Matt: Yes, sir. Daniel: Like the menus, uh, Apple Pay, all these systems where you, I discovered that technology in 2019. And in 2019, I was like pretty early for NFC. Like Apple Pay had kind of just come out. People weren't really doing a lot of phone tapping things at that point. And so when I discovered that, we created a simple NFC tag product and that's what launched Popple. And 2020, we went to market and then COVID hit and the rest is history. That's, uh, it's an inspiring story. I, I want to get into, you made a big pivot with Popple. Well, not only changing the name, but also changing your market. You started with B2C going so viral on TikTok, right? Now you've got 2 million followers on the company account, even more on Instagram. So what made you make that pivot from B2C to B2B marketing or, you know, really market, not just marketing? Matt: It was, uh, it was over a long period of time. It wasn't just like, oh, overnight we're this other one. And so we started off with NFC tags and that, that grew us to a certain size. Then we went through Y Combinator and YC basically was like, you guys need to find some sort of reoccurring revenue, which is key, right? You going from a one-off revenue model to reoccurring is how you build like a lasting business. And so that was kind of a wake-up call, right? You're like, all right. So we built our first subscription model for individuals. We were still very much B2C. And that was with the mobile app, right? So our first kind of software taste. And then we actually, with NFC, it's a little bit with iPhones. It like doesn't always work. And I think Apple did this on purpose because they kind of like, you know, they had a name drop that was not yet, you know, the, you tap your iPhone. Name drop was not yet at that time, but it's like, I'm, I'm sure they knew that they were going to release that. So they didn't, they didn't make it easy for NFC companies like us. And so we were having users who were like not very happy with the NFC tap functionality because it didn't always work and it was like weird on Androids. So we're like, all right, let's, let's pivot this. And so that was kind of our first like moving from the hardware to like QR code base, which is software. So we had the QR code base, we had the mobile app. And then we started to get a lot of users asking us if they could set up their co-workers. I want to set up my team. I want to set up my department. We want everyone to have digital business cards, not just me. And so we were like, all right, maybe we should do a team's product, create a way to have a dashboard where you're managing digital business cards for multiple people, not just one person. And that was our first B2B product. This was like 2023. And so we released Popple Teams and it's like, okay, create your card yourself and then also for anyone else. And that started doing very well for us. Matt: And so as that continued to grow, we slowly took resources away from focusing on the individuals to being more focused on those companies because our revenue was, was faster. It was better retention, right? B2B versus B2C. It's just kind of the trends you typically see. And so we just continued to go down that route and that led us to being much more B2B focused and closer to where we are today. Daniel: That's awesome. So like during that time when you were making the transition from obviously more B2C type B2B, how has the, the marketing strategy changed over time? I'm assuming, you know, you started on like TikTok short form. Now you've transitioned more over to LinkedIn, but I'll let you dive into that. Have you guys seen the TikTok videos? Matt: Oh yeah. We figured out a formula. The formula was basically like young, attractive people taking the NFC tag, tapping a phone and showing the magic, right? In a, in a less than 15 second, really quick clip that we just posted on TikTok. And this formula works super well for us. We would just do the same thing in different locations around the world. And every time we did millions of views, boom. It's like, okay, just get them up. You just kept posting. And then we also figured out that on TikTok, you can post the same video multiple times and it'll continue to do well. So we posted the same video that was like a viral piece of content. We would do it like three times over the course of a month and it would just millions each time. So it was wild. All free marketing. And that was very much the B2C hardware days. Now being a B2B company, vastly different. You'll see that like our TikTok is basically dormant, right? We have all those followers still, but the people we're selling to and the companies we're selling to now, they don't live on TikTok, right? This is like a big lesson. You want to, you want to spend your time, your marketing budget, your marketing time on the channels where your buyers are living, right? And so if your buyers are not scrolling TikTok, looking for a solution, probably not where you want to spend your time and marketing dollars. And so now that we're B2B SaaS, LinkedIn and in-person go-to-market, which we'll get into. And some of these other channels that like, okay, they're directly to our ICP. That's, what's doing well for us. And so the way you can think about it is like any time spent on the TikTok is kind of like not good use of your time and, and energy. Daniel: So. One of the TikToks, I, I've seen all of them. And what really stood out to me was, you know, the one that got 80 million views and it was like 24 hours or something crazy like that. And you actually did a LinkedIn post about this where you posted the same video and I don't know what the exact impressions were like, but it is definitely well short of a hundred thousand. Matt: Oh, not even close. Daniel: And like, what does that tell you about your LinkedIn marketing strategy versus what was working on TikTok? Matt: I actually, I'm glad you caught that. I tried posting that on LinkedIn to see what would happen, right? Cause we know it's a viral piece of content and other go-to-market channels and how it affects the in-person channel, which is conferences and events. That's fascinating. Daniel: The in-person go-to-market that you keep bringing up. I saw your recent post, you know, writing someone's name on their forehead and then just scanning it and getting all that data downloaded into your CRM. Can you tell us a little bit more? Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So this is our newest iteration of the company, and it's been a long time coming. Really proud to be here. Basically, you guys know how you can go into Zoom info, Apollo, some of these go-to-market tools, platforms, and you can create a list, a lead list, based on certain filters, right? You could say, like, okay, let's say that you're a company and your ideal customer is a massive enterprise, right? So over, let's say, $1 billion in revenue. So you're going to say filter $1 billion in revenue, right? Then it needs to be over a thousand people at the company, right? Filter a thousand plus people. And you can use these filters and these go-to-market platforms will give you a list. You can download the list and then you can give it to your BDRs and your AEs and they could just cold call, they could cold email, and they'll hit this list to generate leads and generate demos, right? That's like kind of the typical go-to-market that a lot of companies do. What we've figured out is that instead of going to that dashboard and getting that list from just like, you know, here's my filters, I'm getting this list. Our companies go to in-person conferences and events, right? But in the end of the day, it's the same concept, right? Instead of getting the list, you're going in person and you're meeting people face-to-face, but when you scan their badges or you scan the paper business card or their forehead in this case, we're going to give them the same data and create those same lead lists. So instead of getting it from the dashboard, you get it from events. Daniel: That's really interesting. And one thing I just want to chime in here as well is like, the data that you're getting from, you know, these in-person events is super valuable because, and I've worked with a number of marketers at Google and there's always a conversation around, okay, it's a challenge to measure attribution from in-person events. So I feel like there's an angle where what you guys are doing can be really valuable for businesses because they'll get more data about who's actually attending their events, who these people are, all that sort of thing. Matt: Yes. That's a huge pain point that we often hear is that these companies, they don't have a good way to actually track how successful their conference was. Right. If you, conferences are expensive, especially if you're exhibiting. Like I'm talking anywhere from 15K to hundreds of thousands per booth. Matt: And actually a mega booth at Dreamforce, Salesforce's conference is more than a million. Yes. And so if you're spending that much for like a couple of days, if you're not having good attribution on the backend, it's very hard to track how that went. And so that's why we're seeing such success because companies like truly want to like, if it's a big part of their channel, they want to see how it's doing. So once you have the info in Papo, I saw on your website, you had 5,000 integrations. How is it possible to get 5,000 integrations? I didn't even know there are other 5,000 things you could do. Daniel: Here's the caveat to that. So we have various integrations that are native, which means we've built direct integrations to like the Salesforce's, the HubSpot's. And that's where we manage the whole connection. The 5,000 actually comes through Zapier. Oh, okay. So that's the caveat, right? Technically, you can connect us to 5,000 platforms through platforms like Zapier, some of these like, you know, trigger-based platforms where you could say, if this happens in Papo, this happens somewhere else. And so that's where the number comes from. Yeah. Actually building 5,000 in-house integrations would take a long time. Matt: So one of, sort of transition to talking specifically more about LinkedIn. You obviously, you post a lot on LinkedIn. Can you tell us over the last six months to a year, what are some, have you noticed any trends or pieces of formats of content that have worked really well? Because like we talked about, something that goes viral, like crazy viral on TikTok, doesn't necessarily do the same on a platform like LinkedIn. Daniel: Yeah, very true. I see that every time that I post something and anyone posts on LinkedIn, they're learning. You learn what resonates, what doesn't. What I've seen resonate at this point is basically like three, let's call it like three pillars. The first one is like straight facts. So, sorry, let me rephrase that. The first one's like straight statistics, like a stat about your business or about your, your company or something, but like an actual cold stat. So like, let's say you said 10 million in RO, right? Straight up, just like, here's a stat first line. And then that generally does much better than just saying like, Hey, we're growing. Or like, you know, we're, we're doing well. And that's why, um, funding announcements, right? Where we raised this amount at this valuation, like those like hard stats really draw eyes. And so that's like the first thing. If you can give a stat and especially if it's like kind of a juicy one, revenue growth rate, those often do better. Have you guys seen that as well? Matt: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think what makes the stats even better is when you have something like series A to compare the stat to, because if you say you raise $5 million, someone's scrolling, it's like, what is $5 million, but it's a $5 million, like seed round. Okay. Then that's even more likely to click on, on the post. Daniel: Exactly. And, uh, we actually, it's funny you mentioned that. We had a joke. If you do a round and you say the number, but you use a different currency. So I'd be a crazy post. Like, what's a current, like a Mexican pesos. You like, you do it like, we just raised some crazy, like a hundred million Mexican pesos parentheses U S dollar. Like that would do really well with eyes because like you see the big number, but then it's like, it's kind of a joke you reach further. Yeah, but yeah, those always do really well. Matt: That's the first pillar. Second pillar, AI topics. Let's be honest. Anytime I'll say anything like the Mark Cuban post, that's like, here's a hot take about AI. Everyone's like, Oh, what is this? Like, let me, let me see if I agree. Like, Oh, where's the world heading? AI is obviously like the biggest topic in tech right now. So like anytime there's an AI in that first hook, right? The first couple of lines that does better. Daniel: I totally agree. I mean, it's, it's what people are talking about. Like you have to almost think about LinkedIn as like when you're talking to one specific person, like when you're at dinner with your family, there's a very high likelihood that ChatGPT is getting brought up. And it's the same on a LinkedIn post. Like you can relate with your audience. Like everyone's talking about it. It's very true. Matt: Okay. So what's the third? Daniel: But you know, it's interesting, real quick on that one. The it's the world that we live in on, on, let's call it like tech LinkedIn. The rest of the world is very much like, I'm not going to like behind is not the right word, but it's like removed. Matt: Removed. Yes. Like everyone knows ChatGPT. Actually, not even everyone. Like, right. Most people know ChatGPT, but like the AI topics that sometimes we talk about, like we see them as like in our world and it's like, Oh, like that's just kind of common to the rest of the world. It's very much not so. I actually realized this, like talking to some family members. Daniel: I, I completely agree with that. I, I had a friend who's like way too deep in the, the Twitter, like tech Twitter sort of rabbit hole. Matt: Yeah. And like, he's talking to me about all these different things. He's talking about like MCP and he's like, Oh yeah. Like everyone knows this. Right. And I'm like, dude, go like, get out of your bubble for a second and realize like, we are, I think the social media ecosystem that we exist in, it's very easy to forget that like 90% of the world. Daniel: It's a bubble. It's such a bubble, especially to Twitter. Like even more so. Matt: Like, um, some terms I'll say that most of the U S doesn't know clearly no idea. MCP grok, right? The, the Nvidia competitor. No one, even like XAI. Like I bet you, a lot of people, especially if you're not on extra Twitter, you wouldn't know what XAI is. Daniel: Right. A lot of people probably don't know what X is. Matt: Yeah. It's true. They, they're like, Oh, Twitter. It's like, they haven't been on there for a while. Matt: Some of these terms that we see as like, this is just part of our world very much removed. So interesting to think about. Yeah. I do think like the trends sort of like piggybacking off of trends within the tech space though. I have seen similar success, like picking a topic that, you know, your ICP, your ideal customer profile would be thinking about or has seen in the news. Daniel: The behavioral scientist in me just totally, that's what I studied at Brown. It's like, yeah, the hot take evokes emotion. And that's gonna be like, you know, you want to click. And that's, I think, what Hulu's done a lot well too. It's evoking that emotion. Matt: Yeah, Hulu is interesting. I'm still, I'm not fully bullish on them yet because I tried them out. I churned like immediately. It just like didn't work for me. But I know they're crushing on the marketing. I'm curious, like, if they're gonna be able to get to a certain size and the certain respect that you need to in the valley in order to be like a generational company. What do you guys think? Daniel: Yeah. I, on the Clowly point, I've talked to a number of more B2B-focused founders and what they do, I think is really, it works in terms of attention and, you know, like we're talking about, like triggering emotion and the hook. But I think there's also a lot of reservations among especially B2B founders where they're like, oh, I don't know if I should be coming out and, you know, saying super hot takey stuff because some 50-year-old exec at a Fortune 500 that I'm trying to reach, what is he gonna think? Matt: I resonate so much with that. That actually, like, every time that I'm about to post a hot take, I'm like second-guessing it. It's like, wait a second, because we're talking to some of these larger companies at Popple and it's like, if they see that and they don't agree with it or like comes off to them as childish or immature, that's it. And so it's like, where the cost reward of like, okay, this is gonna go viral, but like, is that, are those impressions worth potentially losing out on some other things? Daniel: 100%. Yeah, actually, this first happened to us at Popple when we were raising our seed round. I actually really like to talk about this example. We were talking to Octa Ventures and this was right after YC, right? We had done demo day. You guys know demo day? Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love demo day. Daniel: You like give a presentation to thousands of investors. And so Octa Ventures was interested in us. And so I have a really good relationship with this investor from the team. And we were like, we were there. I got verbal. He's like, I'm ready to go. Just give me the wire details. Next day, I'm like, hey, I noticed the, you know, the safe hasn't been signed and the money hasn't been wired yet. And he said, Jason, we've decided to pass. And here's why. We saw your TikTok. Matt: Wow. Isn't that wild? Daniel: He's like, we saw the TikTok. It does not align with us at Octa Ventures. Matt: Dang. Daniel: Crazy, huh? And so it's like this thing, this marketing channel that was doing so well for us at the time, the cost reward right there. It's like, because this is a more B2B focused venture arm and they're, you know, they're looking for a certain type of founder and a certain type of thesis. And it's like that didn't match with their thesis. And so right there was like this kind of like that mix of the B2B and the impressions that you can sometimes get from being risque. I think eventually there will be a balance between this because like I think what kind of what you've done so well, if you're not marketing to these B2B people as a company, you're marketing to humans. And I think that's what resonates a lot in your message. And you don't need to go as far as Clulee is the extremes of evoking emotion. But that's why I think it's really impressive. The middle ground you found to be able to post a lot on LinkedIn, generate a lot of impressions, but not turn off too many Octa Ventures situations. Thank you. And I think that's where a lot of the like opportunity is on LinkedIn right now because a lot of people have previously done B2B selling it like you're selling it to an inanimate object, which is just you're selling it to a human. And that's like what Popple can unlock too. That's like the whole thing. Like you get the human's information, not the company. Matt: Exactly. And I think that's, that's spot on. The, the forehead video, for example, I think is like perfectly on that line where it's like, it's a little bit like, oh wow. I, I scrolled LinkedIn multiple times today and I didn't see a single video, maybe this entire month where someone was writing on someone's forehead, right? Maybe even in a year. So it is like unique kind of risque content, but it's not enough for it to be like inappropriate for B2B. So it's like, you want to be right on that line. And the more we can figure out ways to be right on that line, I feel like the better that the, the better that sweet spot is. And I think that like companies like Clulee, I think they cross the line sometimes, right? Like I saw a video they posted. I don't even know if I want to say this, but it was like, um, like sometimes your boss comes off as like, you know, like, like gay, homosexual. And it was like a video of like Roy, like shirtless, like, I don't know, like in the gym with like his co-founder and they were like, no, no, but millions of views, millions of views. And I'm just like, I would never post that. I would never post that. Right. But like, sure enough, that's working for them. But I do think it's interesting that they are, they're B2C technically, at least right now they are. Maybe they go more B2B, but I think that B2C companies can get a little bit more away with it. Like a Duolingo, more B2C. They're, I think a little bit more unhinged. I think when you're in the B2C world, you can be more unhinged and then it gives you a little, a little more of a free pass. 100%. Matt: I, I agree with you completely. I think with B2C, there's a lot more flexibility and leeway to try like crazy stuff. And even if it's kind of rage baby, like that flies in B2C and B2B less so. Although you're absolutely right. There's kind of like a spectrum. And I think B2B historically has always been kind of like behind B2C in terms of like what people are doing to get attention. It's been like seen as a boring, very logical, like, yeah, just boring corporate video, corporate video style type of marketing. And now people are realizing like, hey, you're still marketing to humans. Like, yes, it's a 45 year old executive at a Fortune 500 company, but still this guy is on LinkedIn every day. He's, he's on social media now. Like, so there, there is an opportunity for companies that are able to. Daniel: For sure. I think it takes a lot of creativity to be able to like come out of the classic B2B boring kind of marketing world, uh, but still be a reputable company. Right. Like finding that balance takes a lot, like creativity. You have to really think about it. How can we push the limits, but still be uh respectable. You guys have any B2B companies that you feel like are, are really nailing that right now? Matt: Oh, I think Carta's doing a really good job with their content. I'm a little biased because Peter's coming on the podcast after. Um, but I think that model is going to be a new way. A lot of the bigger companies are made. Like Ramp starting to do a similar thing where they have like their economist role. Ramp's a good example. Great example. When you're coming up with content ideas for Popple, you have to toe this fine line. How are you coming up with the LinkedIn post ideas that toe the fine line? And then how do you actually execute them? What's your process like to making these posts? Daniel: Absolutely. Well, actually, so Bryce, right, who you guys are just met, our VP of marketing, he's also uh great on these kind of things. And so him and I basically just like brainstorm. And we'll basically say, what are some, what we feel like is a good uh balance is, what are some work jokes, right? Like almost like the corporate Natalies, like the, what's the guy in Varun? Uh, yeah, Varun. Exactly. Another good example. They're like, work jokes. They're like, um, you know, they, they get the impressions and they're funny, but they're relatable in the workplace. Right. And so we're, we're honing in on some ideas there where it's like, maybe the BDRs and the AEs and there's like a battle, right? Like, that's a classic. Like BDR gives the demo or um uh gives a demo to the AE. AE disqualifies it. BDR is upset, right? And then it's like, it's like a battle. Like, that was a great lead. Why'd you do that? And I'm not going to get the quarter. And like, that's an example of like a work, like a work joke. And so I think some of those can play really well. And um I think the forehead video is a good example of that. It's like, it's a joke, but it's safe for work. Matt: It's at a conference. And so you guys stay tuned. Well, we're going to have like a series of these that are coming out over the next couple of weeks of just like those kind of work styles. Uh, Bill And I wonder if people, guys at LinkedIn know that this is happening because I also don't know, I couldn't tell you who in my personal life actually consistently uses the video feed. For example, they've got to know this. Daniel: The one exception is big fundraising announcements with like a talking head video. Like those I see crush. And those are like classic, like, oh, we just raised this money. Here's like me in a podcast-like studio telling you like what we're focused on for the next year, right? Like those, do you guys agree? Like those usually do well. I feel like. Matt: I think like those do well, though, because it's also just like a huge announcement, right? So obviously, the video quality tends to be quite good because like those guys are investing probably like professional studio quality. But yeah, I've also noticed some other things, Daniel. I don't know if you've also seen that. Daniel: Yeah, like even, do you watch the TBPN or Tech Bros podcast? You've probably seen some of their clips, but on LinkedIn, their videos are doing like a fraction of what they can do on YouTube. Brutal. Do you know the Founders podcast? David Senra? He posts, he's got like a top 1% video editor that makes these awesome edits for him. And it's David Senra speaking. I'm like fired up every time I watch one of these videos. And then I just did a LinkedIn post about this. All of his top 25% posts, they're all text plus image. None of them are videos. Crazy. So I'm bearish on LinkedIn video right now as it stands. Very bearish. Matt: Super interesting. I wonder if that will change over time. We'll see. I mean, I think it's such a huge, like if they can figure out how to get people to actually see better results of video, that's going to be a massive unlock, especially for B2B companies, because, I mean, you know, I, personally, like I run a YouTube channel completely separate from B2B marketing. It's more B2C focused, but what I've realized is how powerful even just like a 10-minute video is. Daniel: The amount of trust that you build from, say, like a 10 to 15-minute long-form video versus like 100 text posts, there's just no, there's just no difference. There's no competition. Matt: It's all about watch time. I noticed this on TikTok too. When someone watches all the way through, that is a huge plus to the algorithm. And so if you're making videos that are 10 minutes long and people are watching the whole thing, YouTube's gonna reward you heavily because you're keeping someone on the platform for that long. And so watch time is key. Meta, TikTok, YouTube, across the board. I don't know if it is true for LinkedIn. I mean, potentially. Daniel: But they're obviously like, I feel like LinkedIn, if they hit the more on a text post, that's, that gives you more of like a plus in the algorithm than like any watch time at this point. It 100% is. And I think the meta around that right now is just called dwell time. And that's, I think, why you see a lot of these sometimes huge mega graphics going around with like four different quadrants of everything that you've got to zoom in and you're spending so much time watching it. And that's like, that's what I've seen. I think some of these mega, like, you know, here's like the six steps I followed to go viral. Save this and send it to a friend. I think that helps with some of that meta too to go viral. Matt: You have some great posts that are like very kind of general, meaning that like any person scrolling LinkedIn could see it and be like, that's an awesome post. Like the Chipotle one I found you on. When you post those, are you mostly doing text-based with image, without image? And then are you seeing that, like, a lot of people that don't necessarily follow you are seeing those? One thing I, I wanna say before. Daniel: Okay, actually, most people that see them definitely don't follow me. That Chipotle post went got me like literally 500 followers. Amazing. Most of my posts are in text plus an image. And with the image, I have a template in Figma that I add a little, you know, gradient plus text to make it almost look like a Wall Street Journal article, even though it's not really. And, um, like most of the posts on LinkedIn or, you know, a fundraiser or your friend getting a new job. And I think that's the opportunity right now that we're taking advantage of when we're posting when most people aren't. But I feel like there's a question you also asked me that I totally forgot at the start. Matt: I guess like when you, when you post those, you pretty much answered it. Like you, you have a template that you create in Figma, which is really smart. That it, uh, yeah, I was gonna say, let me get that. Because I've seen this work across different channels, including Instagram, where when you have a post that just like has a, almost like a headline, like a big headline where it's like, if you're on the Explore page and you see the headline without even clicking into it, that's gonna like draw people into it even more. And when you start getting engagement from people that don't follow you, that really helps the algorithm too. And so that's probably a big part of that. Daniel: Yep, it's, I mean, I like to call it hook number two when I'm like spending all that time on the image. And the other thing that I was gonna say that I forgot to say was, I really posted four times a day over the summer to figure out like what formats worked well, just like I'm sure you did the same thing on TikTok. And so I don't think the number of posts impacts your impressions either, just so you know too. Matt: Because it was honestly crazy to me, the fact that I could post four times a day and like not tank my impressions at all. I actually saw the opposite thing happen. Daniel: Okay. This is good feedback because I actually, I feel like I had the perspective of the opposite. I've had a post that's like going viral, and then I'll post like two days later, another one. And for some reason, this one seems to, around the same time, peter out, right? Where it's like, it was going, it was going, it had good momentum. Posted this one. Then all of a sudden it's like, oh, wait, this one feels like it has less momentum now. Matt: It could just have just been like, okay, it's because it's multiple days later. But it also was like suspiciously close to the timing that I posted the new one. So it's interesting that you say that. I love getting into these LinkedIn conspiracies. Daniel: For sure. I think though the shelf life of a LinkedIn post is so much shorter than like a YouTube video. Like Spotter's a billion dollar business. Do you know Spotter? Matt: Yeah. Like they're a billion dollar business built on buying back catalogs of YouTube videos. On LinkedIn, like when I'm looking at my impressions, you know, I've gotten like 3 million or whatever over the summer. I'm not seeing the same like uptick or not, like I'm just seeing a steep drop off when I didn't post for the last week. So I think that's part of what you were seeing. Daniel: I see. So you'll do four a day consistently. Matt: Not anymore because I have a busy full-time job. But over the summer. Daniel: You like posting them like third post of the day. Matt: No, yeah, I would literally post. I mean, sometimes I think I averaged like four and a half posts a day over the summer. Wow. It's sometimes embarrassing, but. Daniel: No, no, I, I think it's great. They call um, have you guys heard this analogy that like every time you post, it's like the lottery, right? Every time you post like you go viral. So why not? Like, you know, spin the slot machine more times, right? More chances of winning. Matt: 100%. One thing like just wanted to add there too on the impressions thing. So Daniel and I, we both do a little bit of ghostwriting for people. So fortunately, what that means is we get insight into the analytics of people who maybe don't post as often. Something I have noticed is that. Daniel: They definitely do give an impressions boost in the very beginning. Every, every single account, first post we put out, they're like, wow, this is doing so well. Like we're getting so many impressions. And I'm like, okay, let's like set the expectations because like, it always kind of comes down a little bit afterwards. Now, that's not to say like, you know, you can't have viral posts after that. Clearly Daniel's been able to replicate that multiple times. But um I think that is one interesting point. Daniel: And the second is, yeah, I think clearly the algorithm doesn't penalize you on impressions, even if you're posting like four times a day, because, and I wish we could show you our his impressions graph. Maybe we'll show, flash it up on the screen for the video. Put up the little graph. Daniel is posting, you know, four times a week on a four times a day on average. And the impressions are just like going more and more up. And um I, I think there is a distinction though between like the algorithm itself pushing you out versus like maybe engagement from people. So when you say, hey, I had a viral post and then the next one, like two days later, petered out, um, were you looking at like impressions? Were you looking at reactions, comments from people? What specifically? Matt: Yeah, when, when the viral posts are up and they're like I used to have the same suspicion with TikTok when I was working on a different business and I'd be like, oh, if I post, then it's going to impact it. And for me, at least, because, you know, if you're posting four times a day, like after that Chipotle post, like I saw it doing well and I must have posted like 10 more times before it hit 200,000 impressions. Daniel: So I think like when there's not as much data to go from, it can seem like that too. Matt: Very true. Daniel: So you posted 10 after while the Chipotle one was going viral. Matt: Yeah. And it continued to go viral. Daniel: Yeah. I don't stop posting. Honestly, I'm not very like tied to that thinking. So if you've seen that, you have more data points than me. I'm tempted to just be like, you're probably spot on. It makes sense, right? LinkedIn wants people to have more impressions. So why would they all of a sudden stop showing your viral one just because you posted more? It doesn't really make sense. How are you actually writing these LinkedIn posts? Like once you have the idea, are you going into your notes app? What's your process? Matt: So they all start from what I like to call shower thoughts. Right, like throughout the day, throughout the day, especially when you're running a company, a lot of things are happening. And for me, I'm like, yes, I'm a founder mode. Yeah. Like I'm very, like, there's a spectrum of like manager mode, founder mode. I'm more on the founder mode side. Some of my employees don't necessarily like that, but you know, being on founder mode side, I'm like looking at all the different departments and I'm very like in the weeds. And so I'll like constantly have ideas of like new things that I learned, new posts. And so when the idea, when the pearl is discovered, I immediately write it down in Apple notes. And I have like this big list of Apple notes. And so what I'll do is like, okay, throughout the week, I'll dedicate maybe 30 minutes in the morning to say, okay, I'm going to take this time and create the next post. Daniel: I'll go to my Apple notes of pearls and I'll say, what am I either, what's the most like trending based on real world events? What's the most relevant or maybe like, what am I most excited about? I'll pick that one and then I'll take that idea and turn it into a full post. And that usually takes about 30 minutes. And like, to me, that's like 30 minutes well spent because there'll be like a lot of impressions on it and it's, you know, continuing my LinkedIn, you know, building that audience and that presence. And so I'll spend that 30 minutes. I'll have a post by the end of it. I'll definitely use ChatGPT to kind of like bounce ideas. I always say like, here's my hook. Can you make it any spicier? It's like, here's some ideas. Sometimes they're great. Sometimes they're terrible. You know, it'll get them. But then sure enough, and in 30 minutes, I have like this post that I'm proud of. Throw it up. Matt: I've got two things. Well, one way you can improve and one cool story about it. I'll start with the cool story. So the way you described coming up with a hook idea, writing it down, whether if it's a shower, walk into the subway, whatever it is. That's the same way a rapper I was talking to you, I can talk to you more about it off camera, but he's got like 50 million streams on Spotify a month. He does the same thing with all the songs. He has a first line that he thinks of, you know, whenever it is during the day, writes it down on notes app. And when it comes to going to the studio, he uses one of those, the hooks and reads off of it. Daniel: Gotcha. Matt: The tip for you is, I don't know if you do this already, but there are a lot of ways once you have that post to write it in what it would look like if it was on LinkedIn. Because the LinkedIn, once you click like post on your computer, that doesn't, you can't see like what would be cut off the more on mobile and desktop and what wouldn't. So I'll show you, there are these free tools like typepro. I wish we were sponsored, but you should check it out for next time, just so you can optimize the hook. So it shows you what it will look like when it's posted. Yeah, so like you can optimize for, you know, maybe you were going to say something about a fundraiser and then if your like last word was going to be chopped off by the more, then you know that. So you're like, okay, maybe I'm going to remove, ask ChatGPT to remove two words. Daniel: That's that's fascinating. I've typically not felt like I had to do that because generally it's three lines pretty consistently. And so I'll just kind of like when I have it in like the notes, ready to go, it's like, okay, the first line that's going to be seen. And then usually I have like a return, like, obviously you want a little bit of space in between each paragraph. And then I know that the second one is also going to be seen, but then there's gonna be the more. And generally that's pretty consistent. So I, I haven't felt like I've needed that level of precision, but it makes sense. Matt: Like if you're like, maybe I'm super dialed, you're dialed right there. The fact that you're like, oh, this word, not this word. It's like, that's dialed. Well, on mobile and desktop, it's different too, right? But it's different. Like if you click off for the more. Daniel: Very true. A question on like the AI usage. So, I mean, there's a lot of people these days that are kind of like angry about AI written content. And I think especially on written platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, uh, there's, we're seeing more and more of it, right? How do you think about incorporating the AI into your, you know, workflow? I know you just mentioned you kind of help it balance ideas off of, but like, are you, you know, feeding it through ChatGPT once you've fleshed out a full post and be like, Hey, like, help me just like tighten up the language or are you doing anything else around that? Curious. Matt: Yeah. So my usual like flow is I'll just like throw my thoughts down, like just typing. It's like maybe might not be the most like elegantly worded, but I'll just throw it down and then I'll take the whole thing, put in ChatGPT and say, make this smoother. I actually really like that prompt, make this smoother. And um it makes it smoother and gets rid of filler words, makes it nice and clear. Uh, and then I go ahead and like remove M dashes and then I like make it in my voice, right? You don't want to just take what ChatGPT put and just say, great. Like then yes, it's going to be clearly like AI generated. But if you take that and you say, okay, make it a little bit more my voice, like change this word, change this word, maybe change this sentence. I actually liked this sentence in my original one better. Take that, replace. I'll pretty much do that every post where it's like at the end, it's this like Frankenstein combination of like this part was me, this part was ChatGPT. I liked the way you worded it. This part was me, et cetera. And I think at that point, it's like, it's very hard to even know that that's AI generated. Daniel: 100%. Like personally, that's very similar to the workflow that I have when I, you know, I'm writing posts either for like clients that I'm ghostwriting for or just my own personal accounts. Uh, usually the idea obviously starts from some random thought that pops up. Maybe one day I'm talking to someone, I have an interesting conversation. Maybe there's going to be a post that comes out of this conversation with you. And you know, think of the hook, spend probably most of the time thinking about how we can make it as scroll stopping as possible since You know, I really believe it drives like 80% of the results of the post. Matt: It's basically the whole post. Daniel: Yeah. It's basically the whole post because it's a whole nother conversation too of like, I honestly think that 10, maybe 15% of people are still reading by the very end of the post. Matt: And I don't know if you guys have seen similar things, but like, I think that's why the hook is so important, obviously, not just because the first thing, but like short attention spans. You have a really long text post. I don't know how many people are actually getting all the way to the bottom. Um, but going back to the workflow, I think, yeah, very similar to yours. Using it to refine, clarify the language, but still making sure to incorporate my own voice into it. So it's not super key. It's like a funny thing that I was reading about. AI like has certain words that it uses a lot more. For example, um, this one that I was reading about delve, the word delve. You guys are used delve in writing. I, I don't even, I haven't heard it in 20 years. Uses of delve as like, because of AI just like loves that word. And so like, that's not typically a word I'd have in my voice, right? And so that's an example of like, okay, maybe if it tries to use that in a sentence, probably replace it. So I think it's key that you don't just take what ChatGPT outputs for gospel and actually make it much more you. There's actually one exception to that, that we've really found at Popple. We have what we call every month, we call it PopStar. So we award a person on the team the PopStar award, which is like, you know, they've exemplified our core values and they did a really great job. And so we choose someone from the company each month, and we award them PopStar on LinkedIn. Those actually do sell. You know, those get like 50 plus likes. So it's like, that seems to be a really good like, okay, you post it from the company account. Everyone at the company obviously likes it, right? Very much like, oh, we're going to support other people at the company. And then people in our ecosystem who follow Popple, they see it too, because it does generally well. So they like it. That's like the one caveat. Every other post, new product announcements, like, you know, we're going to be at this conference. Have you ever thought about, I know you did a PopRap for 2024, and you know, I love PopStar too. That was a great album. I don't know if you're Andy Samberg fan at all. Have you thought about doing like a PopWeekly or any PopMonthly for what? Or PopRap monthly, just like you had a yearly Rap, or on your personal page or anything. Daniel: I have not. I do think that like, if you do a PopRap monthly, each one becomes less special. Right? Anytime you increase the frequency of something, it gets less special. Right? That's what makes PopRap for a year so like, whoa. Like, full year went by. What are the highlights? If you do it on a monthly or even a weekly basis, you're kind of like, starting to lose some of that specialty. So I don't, yeah, I haven't really thought about that or got around to it, but interesting idea. Matt: Yeah, on the point about like, posting on the company page, do you think there's ever a world where it's worth posting on the company page? Because right now, it seems like we're headed towards a direction where like, every CEO or every founder should be posting on their personal account. if you aren't, you're already like, starting from less than zero. So like, yeah, curious just your thoughts there, because posting on company page versus posting on the founder page, I feel like I would always go with the founder's. Yeah. People want to see people, right? It's the same for in-person go-to-market. People want to buy and sell from people. Daniel: So we obviously are a huge fan of that. I'll say that like, companies have money. Let's be honest. So LinkedIn, as a platform, they're like, hmm, if the company wants their posts to do well, you got to pay us. Right? Boost that post. And so I think that's what they've kind of landed on, is like, we're not going to really push company posts organically, because they're just like, if you want that to get seen, boost the post. Or do LinkedIn ads. Right? Like, that's what we do. We do LinkedIn ads. They do quite well for us. And so, like, because the companies have the money, they have the ability to do that. I think, like, that leads to LinkedIn not giving that organic reach. Matt: Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to dive in on that LinkedIn ads point, because LinkedIn ads are probably the most expensive of any platform, right? 100%. Really high cost per click, but obviously, like, for good reason, right? The audience is really valuable. When did you guys start, like, experimenting with LinkedIn ads? And what have you learned from that? Daniel: Yeah. It was kind of around the same time we stopped on TikTok. We're like, okay, so our people aren't here. We're moving to B2B SaaS. What do we kind of move this, these marketing dollars to? And so LinkedIn, you're, you're talking much more to the people that are buying our product, especially now. And, yes, it's higher cost per click, pretty much more than any other channel. Instagram, X, et cetera. But if that cost per click and that cost per demo is still lower than your average contract value, it's a win. Right? Like, let's say you're spending $1,000 per demo on LinkedIn that you, that you acquire, which is like crazy. Like, on meta, right, you could get downloads for $10 per, right? App download, $10 per. And that's like, that's standard, at least with a good piece of content. So going from $10 to $1,000, it's like, whoa. But if every day leads to a $10,000 contract, then $1,000 doesn't seem so bad. Yeah. And so I think the best companies that should be using LinkedIn is if you're B2B and if your average contract size is a big enough amount where it makes sense. Matt: What are the main ads you're running? Because I've seen a lot of video ads on LinkedIn right now. Are you doing video or text? Daniel: So we actually, most of our LinkedIn ads are actually what is called a thought leader ad. Daniel: You guys ever heard of this? Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I've seen a lot of those. And I think that's the way to do it. Because I see a lot of these videos, and if no one's watching videos on LinkedIn, there's no point of advertising as a video. A thought leader ad, that's another. Daniel: No, no, go, go. Matt: No, tell me about the thought leader ad. Daniel: Thought leader ads are like LinkedIn's hidden gem. And I don't know why they don't push these more. A thought leader ad is where you take an organic post from a person, not a company, from a person, and you put ad spend behind it, and it turns into an ad. So we do this. Yes, we do this. Where like, I'll post a piece of content. It does really well. We're like, great, let's turn it into a thought leader ad. So we'll basically say, okay, I'm gonna, obviously, like, it's, it's engagement suicide to put a link in your post. Everyone watching this, don't put the link in your post. Put it in the first comment. So it's, it's suicide to do link in the post, but you post the organic, no link in post. Does really well. Once it's run its course, then you edit the post. You put the link in the post at that point, because it's already done its, it's, you know, cycle on the organic. So you put the link in the post and you edit it slightly to be more like kind of ad focused. And then you make it a thought leader ad. And it takes that post from me, from not, not, but from me, and it starts running it as an ad. And it looks like it's a post from me in your feed, but there's a little promote under the name, but so small. You can barely see it. It's very small. And X is the same thing. X, they just had a, they were under pressure because they removed the little ad. It is so small. And so that it looked like a real post in, in your X feed. And then they got in trouble for it. But anyway, so this post, it looks like a organic post in your feed because it's from me. It's not from a company, uh, but it's actually getting marketing spend behind it. Genius. So we'll do this, uh, for Bryce. If he has a great post for our VP of sales, anytime we post something great, we'll say we're turning into a thought leader. Boom. That's not. Matt: How much do you spend in a day on those? And if you don't want to share, you don't have to. Daniel: Yeah. Let's talk more like on a, on a monthly level, you know, but, but, but, but they're way more than, than your TikTok and meta ads. You're. Matt: Oh yeah. Daniel: Well, you know, meta, we do have some ads, ad spend going towards because meta kind of put in the like in between B2B and B2C. Cause like meta with, especially with Facebook, a lot of B2B buyers are still on those. Right. B2B buyers. I feel like are a little bit more on meta Instagram and Facebook versus a TikTok. So it's like on the spectrum of B2C to B2B, you're a little bit more on the B2B side. So we do have some meta stuff going on. Matt: Yeah. But it's, it's definitely more on LinkedIn. And that's the right call. Daniel: Like if you guys are trying to get like impressions on this podcast or like any startups you guys create, create like a really engaging piece of content that like goes viral and then make it a thought leader ad. Really great way to get impressions. Matt: Yeah. That's so interesting. I never really thought about that, but yeah, now that I, I think I've been seeing certain folks and there's this one guy, I don't know if you've seen it, like the CEO of a company called Haven, Cyrus Shirazi, I think his name is. I've been seeing him, his thought leader ads, where like there was a post that did really well organically. And then I think I saw it again, but this time had a, like a sponsored thing at the top. And I was like, that's kind of weird. Daniel: Yeah. So do you think that's the most effective ad creative ad tactic in LinkedIn right now? Matt: 100%. Because it looks like it's the person. It's not the company, right? You will see some of those company ads. I scroll right past them. Like You like actually made people laugh. So I was like, all right, we're going with that because I wanted to prioritize the content quality over just like, other parts of, you know, benefits that these firms could have. So I went with them and they did a great job. But what I noticed is that the amount of time as a founder that it took to like constantly get them up to speed on what I was learning, constantly get them up to speed on the new concepts that I was like discovering and seeing and constantly getting them up to speed on my voice. It actually started to kind of like take the amount of time that it would have taken just to post. Daniel: And so I got to the point where I was like, all right, maybe I just kind of go back to doing it myself, save the money. And sure enough, like I'm back to just posting on my own and I'm posting about the same amount per week and I'm not spending that amount per month. And I'm not spending that time educating them on the new things that I'm learning because it's like, you know, right here, I'm just kind of directly getting it out. And so it could work well for certain workflows, but for me, that's what it came down to. Matt: So now that you're writing your posts on your own, what is the future of Popple and your personal LinkedIn strategy look like moving forward? Daniel: Yeah, well, I think we're gonna continue to go towards the finding that balance of like, how can we get kind of unhinged, kind of hot takey and kind of viral, but without being, you know, kind of disrespected as a B2B company. So we're gonna continue to try and get that wedge. And so I'm working with Bryce, other marketing leaders on the team, and we're gonna create content and then we'll post organic. If it does well, make it into a thought leader, put ad spend behind it, and continue to drive people to booking a demo with our platform, right? I think LinkedIn is really our channel when it comes to in-person go-to-market. Daniel: And so we're gonna continue to try and like play towards that human plus AI plus funny kind of angle. You heard it here first. The new formula on LinkedIn in 2025 is the personable post plus thought leader ad behind it. Matt: Yes. I think that's a great way to close it. Daniel: What do you think, Matt? Matt: I think that's excellent. Jason, thank you so much. Daniel: Thank you, guys. Great comment.