Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter – read by over 52,000 revenue professionals weekly to scale their companies and careers. GTMnow is the media brand of GTMfund – sharing advice on go-to-market from working with hundreds of portfolio companies and the insight of the top 1% of revenue executive operators, including 350 executives behind the fund. They have been there, done that at the world’s fastest growing SaaS companies.
This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Vanta.
Your deal is almost closed, and all that’s left is the security review. But when it comes to those lengthy security questionnaires, the endless back and forths between you, your security team, and the customer can often cause deals to stall out, leaving your deal at risk and dollars on the table. With Vanta Questionnaire Automation, go-to-market teams can complete security reviews up to 5 times faster, helping you close deals in less time than ever. Over 8,000 global companies like ZoomInfo, SmartRecruiters and Noibu use Vanta to streamline security questionnaires and close deals fast. Learn more about Questionnaire Automation.
7 Unexpected LinkedIn Algorithm Insights
Navigating the LinkedIn algorithm can often feel like cracking a black box.
A huge thank you to Samantha McKenna for dropping a wealth of knowledge in a recent private session with GTMfund portfolio companies and their executive teams. Sam’s insights were helpful and at times, surprising. Below are seven surprising tips on cracking the code to LinkedIn’s algorithm that stood out most – let’s get into it.
Post directly on LinkedIn, not through third-party tools
Don’t use third-party auto-sharing tools for LinkedIn. For example, Hootsuite or Sprout Social. These tools can reduce the visibility of your posts because LinkedIn’s algorithm favors content that is posted directly on the platform. Using tools might save you time, but they’ll cost you engagement.
Avoid reposting with comments, just repost
When resharing a post on LinkedIn, avoid using the “Repost with comments” option. Instead, just hit “Repost” to share the content. Reposting with comments can cause LinkedIn’s algorithm to throttle your post, limiting its visibility. I shared this on LinkedIn and people’s responses echoed my own personal surprise to this learning.
Don’t edit the post in the first hour
Don’t do it. As painful as it is to stare at a post for an hour with typos in it, hang tight. In an hour, you can go back to edit with no penalty.
Limit hashtags to 5 or fewer
Use no more than five relevant hashtags in your LinkedIn posts. Using more than five signals to LinkedIn that you’re not sure who your audience is, which can reduce your post’s visibility.
Be careful with tagging multiple people
When tagging people in your posts, avoid tagging too many. If you tag multiple people, and they don’t engage with the post within the first hour, LinkedIn may throttle its visibility. Focus on tagging only those who are likely to engage quickly.
Ensure your videos have captions
If you’re posting video content, make sure it includes captions. Most people watch videos with the sound off, so captions help convey your message even when the video is muted.
Don’t worry too much about spelling. At GTMnow, I used to obsess over every tiny spelling error, leading to endless revisions for a single video clip. Then, devised a system around preventing grammatical errors. A quick tip to speed up caption fixes: use all caps to avoid capitalization errors altogether.
Create vertical videos for LinkedIn’s video tab
If you want your videos to appear in LinkedIn’s video tab (which is similar to TikTok’s vertical video format), make sure they are shot vertically. This increases the chances of your video being featured. Stick to vertical, rather than square or horizontal.
Learn more about how LinkedIn is experimenting with a TikTok-like video feed here.
If you share on social, make sure to tag GTMnow so we can see your takeaways and help amplify them.
📹 Upcoming digital live events
The Future of Outbound: An Ecosystem-Led Approach – September 24th at 10am PST / 1pm EST
The $1B Sales Leadership Methodology – October 10th at 9:30am PST / 12:30pm EST
👂 More for your eardrums
The GTM Podcast – subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
GTM 109: Behind the Scenes on Building Braze and Incubating 2 Companies with Mark Ghermezian
Mark Ghermezian co-founded Braze (BRZE) and led the company as it’s founding CEO, pioneering a new category. He is also the Founder and General Partner at m]x[v Capital, and Co-Founder and CEO of Gynger and Tildei, two companies that he incubated through the venture firm. He is a serial entrepreneur and successful investor with 20+ years of experience in founding, building, and investing in early-stage SaaS startups.
👀 More for your eyeballs
Dan Westgarth unpacks the operational and organizational structure that has taken Deel from v1.0 to 150+ countries. Primary shares Dan’s break down Deel’s framework of splitting the org into “change-the-business” teams and “run-the-business” teams, why configurability is a core competency, and more.
Pavilion and Crossbeam are gathering insights from 500+ GTM leaders to identify trends, strategies, and revenue-driving tactics for 2024. Want to reshape the future of GTM? Share your insights, and get early access to the report before anyone else – take the survey here!
🚀 Startup to watch
SecurityPal – launched Assurance Profile trust center to provide critical value during the final stages of your deals. The Assurance Profile is designed to support early-stage companies in polishing their security posture and speeding up growth, and is available at no cost.
🔥 Hottest GTM jobs of the week
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Director of Strategy and Operations, Customer Experience at CaptivateIQ (Remote – NA)
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Demand Generation Lead at Magical (Toronto – San Francisco)
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Revenue Operations Strategy Manager (UK) at Writer (Hybrid – San Francisco)
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Enterprise Account Executive at Clarisights (Remote – Europe )
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Director, Business Development at Owner.com (Remote – US or Canada)
See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.
If you’re looking to hire incredible startup talent, reach out to our search firm partner as a resource: Integrity Power Search (IPS). They are also available to support candidates looking for their next startup opportunity.
🗓️ GTM industry events
Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:
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SaaSOpen: September 5 – 6 (NYC)
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GTMfund + Operator SaaStr Happy Hour: September 11 (San Mateo, CA)
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SaaStr Annual: September 9 – 12 (Bay Area, CA)
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GTMfund Dinner: September 17 (Boston, MA)
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INBOUND: September 18 – 20 (Boston, MA)
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GTMfund Annual Retreat: October 4 – 6 (San Diego, CA)
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GTM Summit: October 14 – 16 (Austin, TX)
The LinkedIn insights were so helpful for those attending the internal portfolio company session live that we wanted to open it up to everyone else and share – check it out for more tips and subscribe to the GTMnow YouTube if you want more content like this directly.
This has been a bit of a takeover edition as the algorithm insights were too interesting to keep behind closed doors, which worked out well as Scott is traveling this week. T’is the travel season – see many of you IRL over the next couple of months!
🤝 Sophie