Not good at memes? Steal this strategy instead

Welcome to another edition of PROse, where we explore the science behind building a brand.

In today’s email, we discuss:

• Building a brand without memes

• The power of design

Yo! I’m Darien from Antidote 👋🏾. Every week I share what I learn about the science of building a brand. If someone forwarded this email to you or you’re reading this online, welcome to the fold! What you're about to read is an unconventional view on B2B marketing.

If you enjoy it, join 250+ other B2B marketers on the journey to build a standout brand.

Last week I broke down the three brand archetypes. Check it out here if you missed it.

One of the brands I highlighted as part of the Product archetype was Linear.

It’s a developer tool—the kind of company most people would automatically label as boring.

Except Linear is far from boring. In fact, they’re one of my favorite B2B software brands right now, because they violate a ton of social media best practices. The biggest one being they only post about their product.

No memes, no engagement questions, no trendy dance videos. They don’t even post every week. Just straight product shilling and vibes. Yet it’s working.

So if you don’t feel like memes are a right fit for your company (or your personal style), Linear is a great brand to study; they prove it’s possible to grow a large social account and brand without posting a single meme.

Let’s break down how they do it.

1. Focus on the narrative

If you’re not a household name, or the category leader, you have to get people on board with the problem you’re solving before they’ll want to hear about the value you provide. This is the exact strategy I recommend clients use in their first 30-60 days, if they’re a new brand or just went through a rebrand.

Even if you are the category leader, there will always be people who don’t know exactly what you do/are about yet. So regularly weaving your narrative into content is always a good idea.

That narrative should also continue through all marketing assets, not just your social media content (this is a newsletter about brand, after all ;)). It should also be in your homepage, ads, blog, etc.

Here’s a best-practice-breaking truth: good content performs well no matter where it is or what format it is in. In both these cases, Linear posted a website link—a big “no no” because platforms supposedly depress views for linking out. That didn’t stop this from performing really well (I mean, just look at the comments).

A cohesive and coherent narrative gives your audience something to rally around. And that leads to sharing and more attention.

2. Invest in good design

Seeing well-designed content on Twitter or LinkedIn is pretty rare. Mostly because they’re both text-heavy platforms. But in that lies an opportunity for your brand to stand out.

It’s common for brands to prioritize message over design, but in a hyper-visual world (thanks IG and TikTok), people notice the design of things. Even this email is “designed” to be more visually appealing through the line breaks and colors.

So you might ask: “can we just have our marketing intern whip up a quick graphic in Canva?” To that I’d say: if it’s at least a 7/10, it’s better than nothing, but anything less than that, no. And most importantly, if you can have the budget to have a professional create something, do it.

If you scroll your LinkedIn and Twitter, you may see a lot of desktop screenshots or Loom videos recorded in someone’s living room. I get it—they’re quick and easy to do. And, not everything needs to look like a commercial. But if your strategy is to focus on educating your audience and product advocacy, appealing designs make you seem more trustworthy and do a better job at getting people to stop scrolling and pay attention to what you have to say (isn’t that the point?).

Some ways to elevate your product-related content:

- Use CleanShot to create better looking screenshots

- Show your product in action with a gif instead of just talking about a new feature

- Most of all, get a contract designer on retainer (or hire FT if you can justify the need). It will go a long way

3. Post less… no seriously.

Quality > quantity is cliché, I know. But it is true.

Linear doesn’t post multiple times per day. They don’t even post every week. That doesn’t stop them from getting a ton of engagement. Why? Because their content is just that good.

If you’re not running a strategy that requires high frequency content (i.e. a Media brand that needs to be on top of trends and current events), you should consider posting only when you have something big to say and can “say” it in a way that’s intriguing (e.g. accompanied a well-designed visual asset or using platform-specific formats).

Now, there’s a balance here. You don’t want to go ghost for 3 months. But if you don’t post anything for up to a week, you should be good (on Twitter at least). That also means you’ll decrease the chance of you or your audience becoming content fatigued.

Not every is, or even needs to be, funny. Find what archetype and tone that works best for your brand—something you can do naturally—and lean into it.

That's a wrap, folks! But before you go...

Let me know what you think about this newsletter. Your feedback goes a long way (seriously, I read & respond to every email—good or bad!)

See you next week,