The founder’s LinkedIn is your marketing department.

Their company page had about 400 followers. The founder had more than ten times that.

A client asked me to help with a marketing plan. In their heads, that meant a content calendar for the company page. A few posts a week, maybe some ads. The usual.

But when we looked at what was actually working, the picture was different.

Every time the founder reposted something the company had made, it got real engagement. Comments from people he knew, shares, the occasional message from someone who’d been meaning to reach out.

There was an even better example. The team had built a small community tool on the side. On social, it got a modest response. Then the founder started bringing it up in meetings with people in his network, and it took off. It opened doors a post on the company page never would have.

So we flipped the plan. Instead of a generic social strategy, build around what was already working: the founder’s network and the company’s reputation for really good work.

That meant the founder posting more, with the team helping him do it. It meant giving him things worth talking about. And it meant being okay with the company page playing a supporting role.

I see this at agencies all the time. People trust people, especially early on. A logo doesn’t have relationships. You do.

Build your marketing around what’s already working for you, even if it doesn’t look like what a marketing plan is supposed to look like.