Many B2B brands have used social media as a one-way distribution channel. You could generate decent engagement for a long time by summarising an article in a sentence or two, pasting a link at the end, and adding a few relevant hashtags.
But today, algorithms favour content that keeps people on-platform, without external links, that provides value without visiting your website.
Zero-click content is its buzzy name—and in reality, it means using things like image carousels, videos, images and all-text posts more, and pushing pe
While the term is pretty new, the idea isn't. Agencies and experts have told us for years to repurpose our content for each platform rather than just distribute links. But now, the algorithms favour it.
An example of zero-click content from Starling Bank
In this article, I'll cover:
Why zero-click content needs to be a growing part of your content and social strategy
The straightforward way to implement it
How to overcome challenges like tracking and design.
Why should B2B brands create zero-click content?
Because algorithms demand it. Google answers your questions right from the results page. TikTok is linkless. Instagram doesn't allow links in captions. YouTube cuts off descriptions with links. LinkedIn creators put links in the comments for better reach.
Platforms are pushing this because
It's good for their business. The more time people spend on a platform, the more ads they see.
It's a better experience for the user. And we need to keep the user– real potential buyers of our products–in mind. If it provides a better experience for them, then we should consider it.
Using a zero-click approach, we can deliver whitepaper summaries, announcements, interview snippets, case studies and product updates to our target audience through platforms like LinkedIn, X and Threads. This helps to build brand affinity and establish a connection with potential buyers, which is often the reason we're creating content in the first place.
Building zero-click content into your strategy
Typically, B2B marketing teams create content for their website and then use social media to push the right people to that content. But zero click requires us to think about distribution earlier in production. We need to ensure we have a way for content to be viewed natively on each platform.
On X or Threads, that means writing your key points in a series of pithy posts that are threaded together. On LinkedIn, that means summarising your blog in an all-text post or creating a PDF carousel for people to swipe through, like high-level slides. Nothing really changes on YouTube or any other video-based platform.
I love using zero-click content because it helps me stress-test every idea. Do we need a 1000-word blog, or do we just need our audience to know how we approach a particular problem? The answer will often be both. However, the speed and repeatability of zero-click content mean we can push something live quickly rather than wait for a long-form article to be finished.
To work zero-click content into my day-to-day without it becoming a burden, I spend a little less time on the long-form version to carve an hour or two to repurpose it for specific channels. And sometimes, I realise we only need a short-form version, which is a huge timesaver. Here's an example:
We need our target audience to see our latest data on changing consumer behaviour. We need people to see it this month, as the sales team are doing outreach on this topic, so it has to support their efforts.
Focusing all my energy on the website is a hit-and-hope strategy because it requires people to search for the subject I've created. So, instead, I would focus my time on building a carousel for LinkedIn with the key messages and asking the sales team to repost it once live.
A longer blog or downloadable becomes a secondary action when there's more time rather than the primary focus. Not everything we create needs to start and end with a blog or a downloadable.
Challenges with zero-click content
Tracking and design are the two biggest challenges I've encountered with zero-click content. But neither need to be blockers.
Tracking engagement
Social platforms only give you high-level engagement stats, which are helpful but nothing compared to what we can track on our websites. However, measuring anything before a potential customer engages with our marketing or sales channels – a phase of the buyer journey known as the 'dark funnel' – is a challenge due to the anonymity of buyers.
By distributing zero-click content to platforms that we know our target audience hangs out on, we can start to push content to them – even if we can't track back who saw which posts and how much attention they paid. It requires a shift in thinking from traditional attribution models and a willingness to explore new, less trackable ways of working beyond the big focus on marketing qualified leads.
Buyers don't take a linear journey. Even though we can't track everything, we can optimise our content for every channel using a zero-click approach. This will increase reach and engagement and give us the best chance of getting the right eyeballs to see what we create.
Design
Giving more attention to short-form, social-friendly versions of our content requires different skills. Carousels need graphics. Podcast-style interview clips need to be shot and edited.
To get around this, work with an in-house or freelance designer to create a set of branded Canva templates you can reuse for zero-click content. That way, writers aren't tearing their hair out in InDesign, and designers aren't expected to churn out 5 new social graphics each week.
The future of zero-click content
Given how algorithms have changed, zero-click content needs to become a day-to-day part of our content and social strategies. But this isn't the end of long-form content or external links on social.
Zero-click content acts as an introduction to ideas, arguments and solutions. It's a way to build interest without expecting too much attention from our target audience. In time, as your audience gets to know your key ideas and how they can support them in doing their jobs better, they are more likely to research your company in more detail and seek out more in-depth content.
If you need help with content strategy or creation, one of our GTM HIVE fractional experts can help you. View our experts and their rates here.
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