TL;DR
Social is your new top of the funnel. For most B2B companies, that platform is LinkedIn. The good news is LinkedIn has its own ToFu, MoFu, BoFu engine, and it rewards the same things search used to: consistency, relevance, and trust built over time. But there are differences. Register for tomorrow’s Zoom to deep dive - luma.com/linkedin-funnels.
1. The Traffic Numbers That Got Everyone's Attention
HubSpot lost a significant portion of its website traffic. Tailwind lost 40% of theirs and has laid off 75% of its workforce. Did HubSpot really lose 80%? They published a blog about it, and it's a bit more nuanced than the viral headline. But the direction is the same.
If you've been writing educational content hoping Google sends you customers, AI is now answering those questions directly. The traffic doesn't make it to your site anymore.
Before AI | After AI |
|---|---|
Publish blog post | AI answers the query directly in search |
Google ranks you | User never clicks through |
Traffic flows to your site | Traffic stops at the AI answer |
Leads find you through SEO | SEO no longer a discovery channel |
2. What the Smartest Companies Did About It
HubSpot saw this coming and built a backup plan early. Their entire leadership team and all market-facing teams started posting on LinkedIn like a media company. The estimated number of Hubspot team members that post daily is over 1,000! Dharmesh Shah, their co-founder, posts obsessively. Not PR fluff. Real takes.
It's not just HubSpot. Clay is another example. Companies across B2B are growing their top of funnel exclusively through LinkedIn right now. Every day you and your team aren't posting, someone else in your space is building that familiarity with the exact same audience you want.
3. LinkedIn Has Its Own Funnel
Most founders think about ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu in the context of SEO and paid ads. LinkedIn runs the same engine. The difference is that on LinkedIn, you are the content, the brand, and the conversion path all at once.
Stage | What It Is | What You Do |
|---|---|---|
ToFu | Discovery | Post consistently. Get your name in front of people who've never heard of you. |
MoFu | Trust | Engage. Comment on others' posts. Respond in your own threads. Familiarity becomes credibility here. |
BoFu | Conversion | Connection requests, DMs, warm outreach. By this stage, they already know you. |
4. LinkedIn ToFu Is Misunderstood… A Lot
Many people treat LinkedIn posts as a place to reinforce what they’re building and why in every post. But in fact, the way to approach LinkedIn presence is similar to SEO - developing clusters of topics that can establish you as the domain expert in the broader area you’re building.
The FinalLayer content pillars exist for this purpose. Put some effort into your content pillars so that your strategy is broader than your exact product positioning while not becoming too broad to be everything.
Discuss trending topics in your area, areas of expertise that apply to your domain, and connect the dots to your company and product.
5. Why MoFu Gets Skipped (And Why That's a Mistake)
Most founders focus all their energy on posting (ToFu) and wonder why nothing converts. The missing layer is almost always MoFu.
Comments you leave on other people's posts are one of the highest-leverage activities on LinkedIn. They show up in the feeds of everyone who follows that person. A thoughtful comment on a post from someone in your ICP does more for your reach than a dozen posts on your own timeline.
The sequence matters. People don't go from stranger to booked meeting. They go from stranger, to "I've seen this person," to "I trust what they say," to outreach. Skipping MoFu means you're asking for BoFu from cold strangers.
6. What to Do With Your Website
SEO isn't completely dead. It just isn't a discovery channel anymore.
Your website is for people who already know you exist. Optimize it for middle and bottom of funnel conversions: case studies, demos, pricing, trust signals. Your blog posts are just placeholder content for credibility. Put your main ToFu energy into LinkedIn.
AI shifted where discovery happens. It didn't kill marketing.
The One-Question Test
Before you post anything on LinkedIn, ask: "Who is this for, and what stage are they at?" If the answer is "everyone," it's for no one. The best LinkedIn posts are written for one specific person at one specific stage.
Build Your LinkedIn Funnel This Week
1. Audit your last 30 days of LinkedIn activity. How much was ToFu (posting), MoFu (engaging), and BoFu (reaching out)? Most founders are 90% BoFu with nothing behind it - this doesn’t convert strongly. Even those that build ToFu skip MoFu. You need all three to build strong conversions.
2. Set a MoFu target. Pick 5 posts per day from people your ICP follows and leave a substantive comment. Not "great post!", an actual take. Do this for two weeks and watch your follower count move.
3. Redirect your SEO budget. Whatever you're spending on content for search rankings, run the numbers on what that same time would produce if it went into LinkedIn instead. You still need quality MoFu content on your website, but the ToFu effort should be on social.
FinalLayer helps you cover all three parts of the funnel. The main platform at finallayer.com handles ToFu posting and MoFu engagement with the Community. And I built final.cx to help with BoFu outreach (merged product coming soon).
When we started building it, we didn't know how fast the shift would happen. Turns out it moved faster than anyone expected. If you're not already running this playbook, this webinar is where to start.
Join the live session:
