Founder's Story
The Path to 200 Million Impressions: Chris Cunningham’s Secrets to ClickUp’s B2B Success | S2 Ep. 151
Mon, 18 Nov 2024
In this episode of Founder's Story, host Daniel Robbins sits down with Chris Cunningham, one of the original founding members of ClickUp—a powerhouse in project management software. Chris shares his insights on building engaging social media strategies for B2B SaaS companies, overcoming challenges, and crafting content that connects with audiences across platforms.Highlights:Chris’s Introduction to Social Media Marketing: Chris discusses the importance of focusing on creating content that resonates with people emotionally rather than simply pushing a product.The Rule of Three: Chris breaks down his golden rules for content: make people feel something, teach them something, and deliver clear and concise messaging.Testing and Iterating Content: Chris emphasizes the importance of testing content, analyzing results, and iterating based on performance.B2B on TikTok: Learn why Chris prioritizes TikTok and LinkedIn for ClickUp’s social media strategy and how he leverages short-form content for maximum reach.Overcoming Challenges: Chris shares his journey of pivoting from a failed app launch to building ClickUp and the perseverance it took to thrive in a competitive market.Key Takeaways:Avoid overproduced content; raw, authentic videos often outperform high-budget ones.Focus on hiring the right creators or hosts to drive your brand’s voice and engagement.Know your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to ensure your content aligns with your target audience.Connect with Chris Cunningham:Email: [email protected] & TikTok: @CunninghamLinkedIn: Chris ClickUpJoin us for this inspiring and informative episode as Chris dives deep into the strategies that propelled ClickUp into the spotlight and shares actionable advice to help your business succeed in the ever-evolving world of social media.Our Sponsors:* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com
Chapter 1: What is ClickUp and who is Chris Cunningham?
Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder's Story. Today we have Chris Cunningham. And Chris, by the way, you were my first intro that I ever ordered from somebody. I've been wanting to get intro, which is a great app. You advertise like you are now on intro and I... Suggest to anyone, check out Intro. If you don't know what I'm talking about, make sure you look up Chris Cunningham.
But we're going to dive in, though, because it was the best 15 minutes that I've spent with somebody in a long time. But you are one of the four original founding members of ClickUp, which has become like a juggernaut powerhouse. You're also a sought-after speaker at different conferences around the world. And your goal is to get 200 million organic impressions worldwide.
But what you do that I don't think I hear a lot of is you're focused on social media with B2B companies and specifically B2B SaaS. Because most of the time it's about a product, B2C, and it's TikTok shop. But I think a lot of our listeners, viewers, myself too, we want to know what's the secret sauce to really building social media content when you're B2B?
Chapter 2: What is the secret sauce for B2B social media content?
Yeah, happy to be here, Daniel. This is a shout out to intro. You were my first intro call too. I just set it up. I did one just before this. So I'm having a lot of fun with that. I'll go ahead. I'll start off by giving away the secret sauce.
I think the biggest thing that companies are not doing in B2B is they're just, well, one, they're just following what they think they're supposed to do, right? They're listening to what everyone's told them. Everyone's like, hey, let's post on the holidays. Let's use a lot of hashtags. Let's put our brand first and foremost. And everyone's just thinking too much about selling.
But no one wants to be sold to in their own social media. That's the biggest problem. The biggest thing you have to shift, and you have to have a big mindset shift, is away from just doing what everyone thinks you should do. Away from just talking about your brand. And into making content people love. So the first rule I have for you is the rule of three.
If it doesn't do one of these three, you're not going to post it. If it doesn't, number one, if it doesn't make them feel something, right? Like your content has got to make them feel something. And I choose laughter. I choose comedy. But it doesn't have to be that. You can make them learn something. That's really rule number two.
Rule number two is you got to teach them and you got to make them learn something from you. I think that's another really big part. And then the last rule is to really be clear and concise in your messaging. So make sure that whatever you're saying, you're just being clear and concise. You don't need to over fluff it.
For example, when ClickUp launched ClickUp Chat, I could have went all into the product and all the features it had. But instead, all I did was I built this campaign. I went to Salesforce during their biggest conference of the year, which they own Slack. And I let everyone know that, hey, we're cutting the Slack. We now work with ClickUp. ClickUp has chat.
The goal is just to let people know we have chat. They will come to your site and they will learn. But you need to have a clear and concise message. Don't try to put so many things in one video or so many things in one campaign. Have one goal, make it clear and concise. And then back to the make them feel something.
Again, your content should, as they scroll, they should stop and be either curious or they should be like, oh, this is going to be funny. It should peak interest. And if it doesn't, they're just going to scroll and you're just going to lose to others. So I think that's the beginning of the secret sauce, but I can dive deeper as we go.
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Let's dive into that because I think people are like, OK, how do I make entertaining content when maybe what I'm doing is considered kind of boring? Right. Like you're not like earth shattering revolutionary. I'm not a comedian myself. How do I create entertaining content?
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Chapter 3: How can you make entertaining content in a boring industry?
Chapter 4: What are the key rules for effective content creation?
The goal is just to let people know we have chat. They will come to your site and they will learn. But you need to have a clear and concise message. Don't try to put so many things in one video or so many things in one campaign. Have one goal, make it clear and concise. And then back to the make them feel something.
Again, your content should, as they scroll, they should stop and be either curious or they should be like, oh, this is going to be funny. It should peak interest. And if it doesn't, they're just going to scroll and you're just going to lose to others. So I think that's the beginning of the secret sauce, but I can dive deeper as we go.
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Let's dive into that because I think people are like, OK, how do I make entertaining content when maybe what I'm doing is considered kind of boring? Right. Like you're not like earth shattering revolutionary. I'm not a comedian myself. How do I create entertaining content?
So first off, you got to start testing something, right? So if entertaining is the route you choose, and I'm not telling you have to choose entertaining. You could choose informative. You could choose something different. But if you do choose entertaining, you're going to start testing. You're going to see what your audience likes. And trust me, I get it.
My software is, you know, project management is not the most entertaining thing from a bird's eye view, right? It's logging tasks. It's keeping up with work. It's being productive. But I do think there's a cool message in there. And that is that work is cool. You know, getting your work done is awesome. Doing it in a great way that you're proud of is cool.
But there's also another route you can take. And that's where I just, I just make fun of work, right? Because I still just want people, my goal of this content is to be top of funnel. My goal is for you to know about ClickUp. Because as big as we are, there's still people who haven't heard of us. There's still people who might not have tried us out for project management.
So my goal in this top of funnel content is just for them to know about us, to be like, oh, I really like ClickUp's content. Because then when it comes time, they will still check us out. They'll still be curious. Do they have a good product? I understand what they do now. So that's why you have to have middle of funnel and bottom of funnel as well. So the goal is to cast a wide net at the top.
And just get people hearing about you. Be like, okay, what is ClickUp? You know, start asking questions. Like this company makes me laugh every day, once a week on my social media. I'm going to learn what they do, right? Eventually you're going to click the landing page that I have in my bio. And I have designed that for you to learn what we do, to be able to set a demo.
So the secret sauce is really not to oversell at the top of the funnel when you're creating the content. It's just do something they like. And to do that, you need to start testing. And that's, this is, I guess, the second part of the secret sauce is how you test. So you need to, in my opinion, you got to hire a creator.
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Chapter 5: How do you test and iterate content for better engagement?
Maybe turn your brand into news for what's going on for the week, like give weekly updates, give daily updates. But find a creator who can do it in a funny, cool format. Find a different format. Maybe it's man on the street. Maybe you're going on the street at these conferences or just going through New York, wherever, big cities, and just interviewing people and keeping your brand alive.
at the forefront of the pulse of what's going on. People are stuck at home a lot. So when they pull out this phone, they want to either learn what's going on, they want to see what's happening in the news, or they want to laugh, right? So you need to position yourself as one of the few. And there's other things you can do.
You can do kind of game show type, you know, something fun where people can come hang out. That's more long form and a little more challenging, but there's tons of options you can do. But the first thing you got to do before you do any of this is know your ICP, right? Who is your ideal customer profile? Who do you want to like this content?
Because if you don't know that part, you don't even know why you're creating content. So I highly recommend doing calls like you and I are doing now and ask these people, like ask the people you're trying to sell to, what do you watch? What do you enjoy? What do you learn from? You know, like, what is it? Is it a certain podcast?
Is it a certain, you know, they might be like, hey, there's this creator XYZ who just breaks down, you know, project managers and how they work. There's something like that. You never know what it's going to be, but there's always something, that you can go down to. So maybe the beauty is niching down. There's a friend of mine named Shiv. Shiv made this content on humans.
He has a podcast on humans of multifamily and it's taking off. And the reason being is I think no one's done that yet. A lot of people love real estate and are trying to learn multifamily and things like that. But now there's a direct place. They can do it. And so he just got there first and he's doing a great job.
So I think you really can niche down if, again, you know your ICP and he knew his ICP.
How do you look at production value? I feel like in the beginning it was like low production and then everyone was like, OK, now we need high production. Mr. Beast, big stuff. And then I feel like it's kind of going back to maybe like a lower production, more raw video. How do you feel about that?
You're on it. You know, look, a lot of our most viral videos are shot off the iPhone, right? And I'm not saying every video. Sometimes we still shoot with the camera and we're doing like a music video or something where we feel, you know, having that higher cinematic touch will help. We'll use a camera. We own Sony's, you know, we can do that. But I agree with you. I think you've nailed the trend.
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Chapter 6: Why is hiring the right talent crucial for social media success?
The trend now is And content got so overly done that people are tired of it. And they kind of just want more raw. People just want to feel that they know you. People just want to feel that they're inside of your life. So I think now it is going back to that raw content. And some people are even mixing the two. But again, I think anyone who's overthinking content, shoot it with the phone.
It's all good. I'll still use a camera for some stuff, for certain videos I'm trying to make. But a lot of it gets outperformed by my stuff I just shoot on the phone. So yeah, don't overthink it. Set the phone up, turn it around, and shoot.
When I think about platforms, the obvious go-to B2B is LinkedIn. However, you and I were talking about TikTok and the power of TikTok and what that can do. So what are you seeing when it comes to platforms? Because I think this is always a big thing. Where do I go? Where do I put my content? Do I put it everywhere? Do I make specific for each platform?
What are you seeing when it comes to platforms?
Look, naturally, the answer should be you should be omnipresent, right? You should be on as many platforms as possible. That gives you the most chance. But what I also argue back is choose the platforms you're good at because if you try to make the most best and most perfect content for every single platform, you'll lose, right? You only have so much time.
Even me today, I'm making content for two platforms, and that's TikTok and LinkedIn. And everyone used to laugh at me at TikTok. They're not doing that now. But everyone used to laugh at me for TikTok. But I'll tell you my reason for it. One, there's no platform where I can get more reach. There's just not. TikTok can just get a major reach with a new account.
Instagram Reels sometimes can pop off, but it's just not like TikTok. Secondly, there's nothing else where I can learn if a video is good or not if I need to change it. TikTok, I get very fast results. I know pretty quickly if the video is going to do well or if it's not. If I need to change it, re-edit it. etc.
So the goal for me is I'm creating content for TikTok, but I'm also posting on Instagram Reels. I'm also posting on YouTube Shorts. I'm also posting on Facebook Reels. And some of those videos I even post on LinkedIn. I might just make a few different tweaks for each platform so it's still kind of new for that platform. But I'm creating it mostly for...
And then I create my other content for LinkedIn being my carousels, being my more written content, because the beauty is when I post it on LinkedIn, I can still post a carousel on Instagram, right? I can still post, you can post a carousel on TikTok now, but you know, I really kind of create for those two platforms and then repurpose, but it's not really a repurposing as I still change it around.
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Chapter 7: How can you understand your ideal customer profile?
and he's like he has a lisp and he's like in your dreams sweetie you know and he's like he's this overly confident it guy that you've never seen before and and he's almost like you know she wants him you know it's kind of like it builds this tension and she like puts her hand she's like why do you tease me like this why do you why do you do this to me and he's like sweetheart one your router's not connected so then maybe there'll be a better connection you know he has like these funny one-liners and people i think and i think it also related with a job title so people in it were like oh my god i love this guy
So the points we hit were that we humanized the video. We made a character, Vic, that everyone can love. We made this IT guy cool. Two, we had him in a funny situation where this girl is hitting on him and she wants him, but she's attractive. He doesn't want her. And it's just kind of funny that it builds this tension. It's a different scene than what you'd expect.
It's something different than what you're seeing on B2B content. No one else is kind of building that. And it has that kind of The Office feel. It's actually shot in higher quality. But it feels like you're watching a scene from The Office. And it's kind of hard to put away. It's hard to skip. It's hard not to laugh. It's very funny. I suggest checking out. It's maybe like a week old.
But yeah, I think we really nailed a lot of big things. That's why I worked on TikTok. It worked on Instagram. And it really worked on LinkedIn.
That's unique. So a dream of mine is I want to be an actor. And I think you've given me the confidence and inspiration. I am going to become my own actor. It's not a love dream. No, thank you for breaking down. Let's just circle back to you, though. My final question here. Business, there's tons of ups and downs. And I think people are really inspired by the journeys and stories of others.
During building ClickUp and any of the other things that you've built as well, what has been a challenging moment that you've overcome and how did you?
I think one of the biggest challenging moments for me in my career was ClickUp wasn't big at the beginning. No one knew who we were. No one cared about who we were. And I think it was tough because we had failed just before this. We had created an app called Memory that was a Snapchat competitor. Snapchat erased all your best memories in seven seconds. So we created an app that didn't do that.
And we thought we were going to be a big hit until Snapchat came out with Snapchat Memories. And that really hit us, you know, and that was a big hit.
So I think coming back from that failure and coming at it again, you know, because there's nothing tougher than telling everyone you love, everyone that respects you, like, hey, I'm building something that's going to be big and then failing, failing publicly.
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Chapter 8: What is the current trend in production value for content?
So for me, I'm Chris at ClickUp.com always. I'm never changing my email. For Instagram, I'm just at Cunningham, my last name, and TikTok. And then on LinkedIn or Twitter, I'm just Chris ClickUp. So please hit me up. I'm very responsive in all my social media. I'm posting all the time. I'm really focusing on LinkedIn and I'm about to start picking it up on TikTok and Instagram as well.
So thanks so much, man. I really enjoyed the convo.
Yeah. Thanks so much for joining us today on Founders Story. Thanks, Chris.