This month in content #1 – October 2024

I don’t know about you, but beehiiv have been allll over my feed this month. I went from never having heard of their brand, to seeing it everywhere.

They’re killing the LinkedIn game.

Beehiiv’s CEO, Tyler Denk 🐝, is super active and regularly shares ‘building in public’ style posts that build hype by giving a behind the scenes look at company and product decisions.

Several other Beehiiv team members also post regularly, building brand visibility and driving that feeling of seeing the brand everywhere.

Beehiiv has also done a great job at turning users into influencers – both by sharing case studies and success metrics regularly across social posts, but also through a referral programme that incentivises users to do the same.

They’ve also been getting attention because of a controversial campaign they’re running to openly target Kit (formerly ConvertKit) customers – with a ton of BOFU content targeting Kit/ConvertKit keywords and discounts for customers that migrate to Beehiiv.

Most people feel Beehiiv are being a touch too aggressive – but hey, all press is good press I guess.

All of this creates a flywheel effect: the more visible Beehiiv’s brand becomes, the more users will want to share about their experience with the platform on LinkedIn – whether to increase their own reach or to take advantage of that referral programme.

➡️ Example of a ‘build in public’ CEO post

➡️ Example of a fan-turned-influencer UGC post ft. referral links

➡️ Example of Beehiiv vs Convertkit content

This one is more of an ad than a content campaign but it still very much deserves a mention (and what really is ‘content’ anyway).

Creative agency Meanwhile worked with parkrun to produce a World Mental Health Day marketing campaign which highlights that that doctors are now recommended to prescribe going to parkrun as part of a treatment plan for anxiety and depression.

It’s a deceptively simple campaign with a huge message to tell, and that makes it one of the best creatives I’ve seen in a long while.

Especially given it’s an awareness day campaign, which so many brands still manage to get so monumentally wrong.

➡️ Meanwhile's launch post for the campaign

Free tools make great content – but only when they’re actually decent.

I couldn’t tell you the sheer amount of times I’ve downloaded a tool or template only to take one glance at it and hit ‘delete’.

But Flow Agency (formerly: Flow SEO) got it right this month with their new LLM Traffic Tracking Dashboard.

It’s a simple Looker Studio dashboard that does exactly what it says on the tin, and is easy to use (all you need is to be logged into your GA account).

It’s also great timing, because more and more marketers are noticing traffic from chatgpt and other LLM sources, and want to understand that traffic and explore how to optimise for it.

There’s been chat in the industry about how LLMs will change SEO over the past couple of years, but Flow Agency have released their tool right at the time when that chat is actually forming into something more tangible.

An actually useful tool, released at a time when there’s a growing need for it, makes for a stellar piece of gated content.

➡️ Flow Agency's LLM Traffic Tracking Dashboard

WePresent, a curated platform of creative stories by WeTransfer is one of my all-time favourite content projects – I could easily include it every single month.

This month I particularly loved an interview with artist Fontanesi by Kyle MacNeill

Fontanesi is internet famous, well-known for Instagram posts which combine two seemingly unconnected photos into a new collages reality. But their identity is a complete mystery, so getting a first glimpse behind the scenes is a huge win for WePresent.

I was hooked from the first paragraph:

“Fontanesi is a true optical illusionist. The Italian image-maker is entirely anonymous, obscured by the mask of his moniker. He has 203,000 followers on Instagram, but has no website or any real biographical information. His captions are left empty, a blank space for the viewer to fill, and he’s never been quoted in an interview—until now.”

It’s a beautifully written article, and a testament to the power of editorial content projects to elevate a brand.

➡️ Fontanesi: Fusing disparate worlds using photography and collage

I’m perpetually on the lookout for ways to weave human voices into content and share insights from experts.

This format by Ahrefs is by no means revolutionary, but it makes certain sure that the advice of experts is front and centre the whole way through.

Plus, it hits a clear pain point – I’m sure we can all relate to the idea of last minute frantic googling to make sure we’ve prepped for all likely interview questions!

(and no, I’m not weighing in on the Semrush vs Ahrefs duel that has also dominated the content scene this month after Semrush acquired Search Engine Land)

➡️ 8 SEO Hiring Managers Share Their #1 Interview Question

This one is here as a reminder that words aren’t always way to explain a concept.

It’s a bit of a cheat one, because the video was actually made way back in 2015 – a graduate project from the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts by student (at the time) Nathan Grossman.

But I did personally see it for the first time this month, thanks to a LinkedIn post by Marcus Feldthus.

In the video, German track cyclist Robert Förstemann rides a specially designed stationary bike which forces him to pedal at 700 watts (equivalent to 50km/hour!), for the duration of the time that a 700 watt toaster takes to toast a piece of bread.

Robert ends up generating 0.021kwh of energy from a huge amount of exertion, putting into perspective the true value of the energy that we use daily without even thinking about it.

It’s pretty common to use comparisons to help explain abstract concepts like this, you see it a lot in the climate communication space with carbon emissions – ‘the equivalent of driving from London to New York in a typical petrol car’.

But in this example the words are entirely stripped back. We are simply shown the comparison. It’s powerful stuff.

➡️ The LinkedIn post by Marcus Feldthus

➡️ The original YouTube video with 23 million+ views