You post on LinkedIn now and then, you send prospecting messages, and replies are rare. The problem is often neither the wording nor the targeting: the person receiving the message has never heard of you. A "media first" LinkedIn content strategy reverses the order: first a substantial piece of content that gets around, and only then the outreach.
I am writing about it because it is the kind of work I scope on marketing assignments, and because I built a small LinkedIn post machine, with its own rules, for Moonworkers, my own company. Here is how I approach it, the figures behind it, the production chain, and its limits.
01What I mean by a media first strategy
The idea is to behave a little like a publisher before behaving like a seller. You produce one long piece that has value on its own: a filmed interview with a founder, a customer willing to talk or a specialist in the field, or an in-depth article. You then cut it into short formats for LinkedIn. Prospecting comes last, aimed at a list of chosen accounts, with something worth sharing rather than a sales deck.
The idea is old. What makes the difference, in my view, is the order of the steps and the discipline of production. Many teams do all three at once, with no link between them, and wear themselves out on each.
02Why talk to people who are not buying today
The argument that convinces me most comes from the LinkedIn B2B Institute's 95-5 rule: 95% of your potential buyers are not ready to buy today. In the research carried out with the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, 75% of companies buy computers only once every four years. The same page notes that 96% of the B2B marketers surveyed expected the main effect of a campaign within two weeks.
In a filmed conversation with John Dawes, a researcher at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, the sum is done out loud: a two-year buying cycle means roughly 4% of the market moves each month. He adds two points I have found useful. The first exposure to a brand counts for more than the fifth. And in B2B, the shortlist holds two or three suppliers: a small company mostly loses because it is not on it.
The practical consequence is simple. If you only prospect the small share of the market that is buying now, you arrive at the same time as all your competitors, in front of someone who does not know you. Content is there so that everyone else knows you before they start looking.
03From a long interview to short formats
This is the part that needs the most method. A one-hour interview can feed several weeks of posts, as long as you treat it as raw material rather than a finished deliverable.
The chain, step by step
- Prepare the interview around three or four questions your buyers genuinely ask. I look for them in Google's suggested questions, in keyword tools and in sales conversations.
- Record the whole thing, with clean picture and sound, without stopping. Editing comes later.
- Transcribe, then find the passages in the transcript that stand on their own: one idea, one example, a sentence that makes sense without the context.
- Edit those passages into short subtitled clips, because I never count on the sound in a feed. On YouTube, a Short can run up to three minutes; on LinkedIn, I aim shorter.
- Write a post for each clip that explains the idea, and publish the full version on YouTube for those who want more.
The bottleneck is not where you expect
On one content operation I worked on, the bottleneck was not the writing but the publishing, done by hand. Video is the same: recording is easy, then the footage sits on a drive. Before adding more interviews, I check how many clips are ready but not published. I explained this reasoning in the article on automating publishing before producing more.
04LinkedIn posts that explain something
A video clip without useful text around it does not do much. For Moonworkers, I built a LinkedIn post machine whose brief requires three fields to be filled in before a single line is written.
The first is the mechanism: the payroll concept the post explains, named the way the tax authority names it. Without that field, the post ends up describing the product instead of explaining something. The second is the figures: at least one, with what it measures and its source. The third is the reader's action: what they can do once they have read it.
A check then rereads the post and confirms the mechanism really appears in the text. The link goes in the first comment. And posts are created as drafts in the scheduling tool, never scheduled automatically, because the date and the slot are not mine alone to decide.
I suggest the same template for posts drawn from an interview:
``` Clip: [start minute, end minute] Mechanism: the concept the clip explains, named the way your buyer names it Figure: value, what it measures, source Reader's action: what they can check or do in their own business Link: the full version, in the first comment ```
If you cannot fill in the "mechanism" line, the clip is not a post yet. Feedback from whoever reviews the posts becomes written rules in the template, not corrections made again each time. I go into more detail in the article on my content machine and its human review.
05LinkedIn prospecting comes after, and within the rules
Once the content has been circulating for a few weeks, LinkedIn prospecting changes in nature. You are no longer writing "I am reaching out to you", you are sending a specific person a clip that answers a question from their own work. The list stays short and hand-picked: accounts that look like your best customers, with a name and a reason for each.
Two rules are not up for debate. LinkedIn prohibits software and extensions that automate activity: adding contacts, sending messages, commenting or liking through a bot. An account that uses them can be restricted or shut down, and it is often the founder's account, the very one carrying the content.
If you follow up by email, the CNIL sets out the rules for electronic prospecting in France: between businesses, the person must be informed and able to object, and every message must say who sent it and offer a simple way to refuse the next ones. I would rather know that before building the list than after.
06What it costs, and when I would not recommend it
Media first takes time before it brings anything back. If the company needs to sign deals this month, it is not the right answer: better to go straight to the few accounts that are buying now. The 95-5 rule itself says to keep both, one share aimed at today's buyers and a broader one at tomorrow's.
It also costs the time of the people being interviewed, and a minimum of equipment and editing. If nobody in the company wants to talk on camera, I do not push it: an in-depth article written with the founder can play the same role as raw material.
Finally, I do not promise any number of meetings. What I can do is build the chain, write the rules, and set up tracking that says honestly whether it is producing anything.
07Where to start on Monday
Start small, and in order:
- write down the accounts you would like as customers in two years, with a reason for each;
- pick three questions those accounts ask, and one person who can answer them for an hour;
- record, transcribe, find five clips, and fill in the template for each before writing;
- publish for six weeks, then check what share of your list has seen at least one piece;
- only then, write to the accounts on the list, one message at a time.
For tracking, a monthly meeting with the people who decide is worth more than a dashboard. I described that format in the article on the monthly marketing committee, and where this work fits in an SME marketing plan. If you want to see how I work, my projects and services are online. And if your situation does not fit any of the boxes, we can talk it through.