How to make B2B content people want — Renée Shaw @ tl;dv
Episode notes
B2B marketing doesn't have to be boring.
Renée Shaw from tl;dv has turned humor, personality, and relentless experimentation into one of the company's most recognizable growth channels. Instead of treating social content as something marketing teams have to “do,” tl;dv built a culture where creators are given the freedom to experiment, fail, and figure out what makes people pay attention.
We talked about why a B2B company decided to put creators and comedy at the center of its marketing, how to measure something as messy as brand attention, and why trying to attribute every view to revenue can actually make your content worse.
Renée breaks down how their team comes up with ideas, why TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram require different instincts, how trends become original skits, and why volume matters when you're still figuring out what works.
And then there's the AI question. Renée explains why she's skeptical of AI-generated creative at scale, why she thinks human-made work is becoming more interesting, and why sometimes the best creative strategy is simply to stop optimizing everything.
Plus: the mistakes that taught her the most, the dangers of over-engineering content, creative burnout, why your ideas aren't as precious as you think, and what happens when you stop performing for an imaginary audience.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Welcome to Sounds Good
01:20 — How Renée became “CEO” of tl;dv
03:33 — Why tl;dv hired creators before it was cool
04:58 — Taking a risk on unconventional B2B marketing
07:00 — Can you actually measure brand-driven growth?
09:48 — LinkedIn vs TikTok vs Instagram
12:50 — Why TikTok became a place to experiment
14:28 — Where do viral content ideas actually come from?
15:55 — Why volume beats perfection when you're learning
17:21 — The philosophy behind tl;dv's content
19:32 — How a remote team maintains culture
21:43 — Trust, ownership and psychological safety
24:09 — How to hire a creator for your company
25:57 — Why you might find your next creator in comedy
27:24 — Do creators need to understand your product?
30:33 — The actual process behind making a video
34:47 — Taking content seriously as a growth strategy
36:45 — Why tl;dv survived a crowded market
38:38 — Culture, optimism and surviving competition
42:01 — How to avoid creative burnout
44:46 — The content experiments that completely flopped
47:07 — Why trying to be someone else doesn't work
48:32 — What exciting things are happening outside AI?
50:46 — Stop optimizing everything
52:40 — Why old sitcoms are surprisingly good for your brain
54:43 — Why human creativity might matter more than ever
Renée - https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneeeshaw/
tl;dv - https://tldv.io/
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