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Episode Summary
“To reach the actual audience you’re trying to get, you have to invest. If you’re trying to be very specific about who you are trying to target, you have to invest in content amplification.”
In the world of B2B social media, there is often a great divide: the “Organic Island” focused on storytelling and the “Paid Powerhouse” focused on demand gen. But what happens when you bridge that gap?
Ask Melissa Dawson, Corporate Social Media Lead at WD, who drove a massive 30% follower growth and over 80 million impressions in just one year.
In this episode of Behind the Post, Melissa breaks down the strategy that took WD’s LinkedIn following from 600K to 800K. She challenges the notion that organic and paid should live in separate silos, arguing that treating them as distinct entities is the biggest mistake a B2B team can make. Melissa shares her “social-first” approach to translating complex topics like AI infrastructure and sustainability into engaging content, while revealing the specific performance indicators, like the nuances of engagement rate, that signal when it’s time to put dollars behind a post.
From leveraging high-level brand storytelling to humanizing a technical brand through employee stories, Melissa provides a tactical roadmap for social media managers looking to justify a bigger budget and reach the right people. Whether you’re a team of one managing both sides of the coin or trying to align with a separate demand gen team, this episode is packed with insights on how to make your audience the true north of your strategy.
Hot Topics:
- Why treating paid media as a distribution channel and organic as “the real work” is a missed opportunity
- How to use engagement rates and content pillars to decide exactly which posts deserve a budget boost
- The type of content that drove 200,000 new followers on LinkedIn
- How to build a business case for social media budget
Meet Melissa
Melissa Dawson is the Corporate Social Media Lead at WD.
She’s been working in the social media space for 15 years and has experience across B2B and B2C industries.
Since taking over WD’s corporate social strategy a year ago, she has driven 30% follower growth and over 80 million impressions.
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