Brooklin Nash 💡

Beam Content 💡

Don’t remove that—it’s a load-bearing em dash.

Chief Em Dash Czar

Beam helps B2B SaaS companies create expert-driven content based on interviews and original data so that they can build trust with their buyers.

Working with: Outreach, ThoughtSpot, Freshworks, Metadata, Dooly and more.

Co-Founder

Peak Freelance

Freelance writing is hard. We've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. Peak Freelance is the support group we wish we had back then: courses, private community, and A+ advice included.

I joined Elise and Michael to help guide the community, to make connections and introductions wherever I can, and to just generally be an open book.

Partner, Freelancer Champion

LeadrPro

Go-to for all things community-led, expert-driven, and data-backed content marketing.

Expert

Dear Freelancer

A weekly advice column for freelancers, by an ex-freelancer.

Writer

Pavilion

Executive Member

Outreach

Manager, Community Content

Managing content for SalesHacker.com and outreach.io/onoutreach.

Content Marketing Manager

Sales Hacker, Inc.

Sales Hacker is the leading community for the next generation of salespeople. Together we aim to elevate the sales profession by uncovering and sharing the innovative sales strategies, tactics, and hacks being employed by the the fastest growing companies in the world.

Head of Content

Wiza

As the first marketing hire, I oversaw content strategy and execution across SEO, outbound email campaigns, customer marketing, partnerships and more. In six months I increased Wiza's DA from 9 to 49, increased organic traffic by 135% and landed Wiza as a "High Performer" on G2 with 40+ reviews.

TrustRadius

https://www.trustradius.com/buyer-blog/author/brooklinnash

Content Writer

Your B2B content. But better. 

Boost your organic traffic, social engagement and conversions with winning B2B SaaS content marketing.

B2B Content Marketer, Strategist and Consultant 

Let’s be honest: most B2B content is boring AF. 

It’s often general statements and regurgitated info and basic definitions, wrapped in faux authoritative lingo. 

Before you pull out your pitchfork, let me clarify: this isn’t entirely, or even mostly, the fault of content marketers. Content teams face high publishing cadences and lead gen expectations, low bandwidth and budgets, with little leeway to lean on leadership, partners, and customers. (Not to mention peanut gallery questions like “can we optimize this?” and “can we make this go viral?”) 

All of that, if you’re not careful, can lead to an “it’s good enough” mindset.  

This mindset affects the reader—and in turn your pipeline. But it also diminishes the role of content marketing within a company. 

Content marketers can be storytellers and interpreters. They’re not just here to serve lead gen. They’re here to make their customers and audience the stars of the show. To do that, they can’t be relegated to keyword research and ill-conceived gated assets. 

That’s an issue worth fixing.

That’s why I started Beam Content with two co-founders who know their sh*t. 

With nearly a decade of experience in B2B marketing, the #BeamTeam focuses on long-form content and social assets that resonate with your audience. 

We work with clients like:

Outreach
Typeform
DocuSign
Coursera 
Metadata
Bird 
Mixpanel
Dooly

Are you looking to elevate your content? 

Shoot me an email! brooklin@beamcontent.co

“per my last email” = eff you

“apologies for the delay” = eff me 

“cc’ing for visibility” = you’re effed

“checking in on this” = i’m effed

“let’s revisit in Q4” = eff this

“i’m not sure that’s aligned” = eff that

“respectfully yours” = eff all y'all

"please advise" = what the eff does this even mean

"respectfully" = eff no

Talk to me about content backed by original research.

Editing is not just:

“You’re missing a comma." 

Editing is mostly:

“You never revisit what you mentioned in the intro." 
"We need to lay out the pain points more clearly." 
"Is this what the audience really thinks?" 
"Add this resource from the brief."
"This section is unnecessary."

What I'm not using AI for:


Topic ideation (it misses a lot) 
Brief creation (we have a template) 
Data analysis (it still just makes things up) 
Outline creation (if you want a paint-by-numbers take, go for it) 
Writing (no)  
Editing (no)  
Emails (because people can tell. and because...why?) 
Social posts (ew) 

What I'm using AI for:


Generating financial reports (Quickbooks) 
Summarizing interviews and documents (Marvin) 
Surfacing past insights for future topics (also Marvin) 
Queries from my 8-year-old (ChatGPT) 
Spanish lessons (ChatGPT) 

But that's just me.

When you share the Google Doc link and they open the doc before you can close the tab

No alternative text description for this image

Content marketing: where you have either 2 or 20 hours of work in a day, depending on if your boss opened the Google Doc or that partner approved the proposal or the demand gen team greenlit the campaign brief.

GenAI like "okay, I will use a human voice to write like a human. Excellent idea."

In raising daughters 
I think too often 
Of the big moments 
The what-ifs
The is-this-bests 

I too rarely remember 
They are not a jetty 
To be constructed and painted as 
A bulwark above the waves 

No
They are wild sprites 
On a wild beach 
Playing at the edges of 
What I remember and 
What I can’t imagine 

So
I watch the fire 
I watch them 
I pick up their detritus and their treasure 

As they tumult and sputter and dance

I've never built a sales team.
I've never presented to the board.
I've never trained custom AI models.
I've never set up a paid ad campaign.
I've never created a skills training program.
I've never improved PLG using product analytics.
I've never designed commercial properties with BIM.
I've never set up the infrastructure for omnichannel marketing.

And yet the Beam Team has written, authoritatively and extensively, on all of these topics this past year. 

How?

We spent quality time with subject-matter experts—you know, the folks who HAVE done those things. The people who know their shit.

Sometimes it was the leadership team.

Sometimes it was the technical IC.

Sometimes it was the customer.

Sometimes it was the partner.

Sometimes it was the community.

As content marketers, we can: 

(a) spin our wheels and pretend we know what we're talking about,
(b) ask AI to spin its wheels and pretend it knows what it's talking about, or 
(c) take time to talk to people who actually know what they're talking about.

It's the difference between "this content is bullshit" and "this content is the shit."

As community-led, creator-led, product-led, and AI-led growth all converge in 2026—taking time with the experts is going to be a big differentiator.

After talking to hundreds of GTM pros, I’ve realized there are three types of people in any organization:

1. People who 
send slack 
Messages like This,

2. People who send Slack messages like this, and 

3. People who say "We use Microsoft Teams (sorry, I know)"

I thought this was an interesting blip on the media landscape: 

CBS News garnered 50k views in under 24 hours on this full Mamdani speech on TikTok. Comparitively, they see less than 500k in-demo weekly viewers. 

(It’s a stretch to say all 50k viewers are in-demo, but given the targeting power of social, not a big one.) 

Everyone’s talking about AI, but I think one of the most fascinating things to watch is the slow change of old media, from NYT’s digital push to Getty’s licensing deals. 

Since I should probably tie this back to B2B, all this shows me is that what people have been saying is true: it’s time to partner with creators, it’s time to give prospects specifics instead of platitudes, it’s time work with customers on more “how” content, because the generalities from the talking heads won’t cut it anymore. 

(And it’s time to turn the volume up. :)

When the founder starts speaking at the all-hands to announce the new AI-first brand

And now for something completely different: 

Rough Draft Thursdays. 

These are two stories I've started, because not everything is about SaaS marketing. I've joined a few subreddits and a local writing group here in Antigua this year. But I also have 40,000 connections here on LinkedIn, so why not.

I got into marketing because I liked writing. Now it's time to get back to that, at least sometimes.

So every Thursday (er, most Thursdays) I'll post some of my fiction. 

If y'all are here solely for the marketing and sales talk, scroll on by. If you like fiction and writing, maybe send me a DM. 

I'm not looking to be glazed. I'm looking for real critique. Where can I make it tighter? Where are you left with questions? Where does it get too pretty? 

For this week, I have the start of two different stories. Typos and all. You let me know which one you'd like me to continue next time.

Tongues, and Between the Blue Rocks

Sharp Pen Media

Sharp Pen Media helps adtech and martech companies with marketing strategy, PR, and content. We take a content / thought leadership-driven approach to PR and have also redefined major adtech brands. Clients include TTD, Viant, AppLovin, Scope3, tvScientific, Transmit, and many more.

Founder and CEO

WIT Strategy

WIT is an adtech- and martech-focused PR agency. I helped clients with marketing strategy, content, and PR.

Content and PR

Street Fight

+ Spearhead Street Fight's editorial operations, shaping newsroom's coverage of digital marketing with an emphasis on location data
+ Architect and sell subscription product for enterprise contributors
+ Assign and edit news stories and columns, including guest contributions by C-suite executives of companies such as Foursquare
+ Write news coverage and commentary on digital marketing, business ethics, privacy, and AI
+ Compile daily newsletter

Managing Editor

Compile daily newsletter on the latest in hyperlocal tech, marketing, and journalism
Manage Street Fight's social media presence
Report on companies innovating in the hyperlocal tech, marketing, and journalism spaces
Write biweekly roundups of venture rounds raised by tech startups

News Editor

Brown Daily Herald Inc.

Spearhead management of editorial operations for daily newspaper, weekly magazine, and blog, overseeing more than 100 staff members 
Shape coverage ranging from long-form features to breaking news stories, editing articles and guiding writers on reporting
Run production of the paper four nights per week in the newsroom, approving all content before publication

Managing Editor and Vice President

I help adtech companies including Scope3, Viant, tvScientific, AppLovin, TTD, and many others with marketing strategy, content, and PR. 

If you want to talk about ad/martech marketing, send me a message at joe@sharppenmedia.com or DM me on LinkedIn.

If you're here because you like my content, sign up for my weekly newsletter, where I talk about ad/martech GTM strategy and best practices: https://shorturl.at/celmR

Joe Zappa

Viant reported earnings yesterday and is up 20% today. Here are 3 things I like about the story they told on the earnings call:

1. They clearly enumerate three differentiators / reasons to believe: neutrality (they don't own or preference any particular supply), AI investments, and addressability (rooted in the Household and Iris IDs).

2. They ground these differentiators in a huge recent business win: Molson Coors. Always make the customer the hero of the story.

3. They repeat over and over their desired new positioning: "With multiple wins in place, the broader market is increasingly recognizing Viant as the autonomous advertising platform for the open Internet." Translation: We want to own the next generation of AI-driven adtech.

3 lessons others can follow: repeat 3 key differentiators, ground your story in customer wins, align your positioning with market developments.

Helping ad/martech companies with marketing strategy, content, PR

Generally I'd advise against trying to create a category UNLESS:

+ you are going to do a huge marketing push with lots of money behind it.
+ you have some unique advantage, e.g. an extremely well-known founder who can create movements out of thin air.
+ you are genuinely doing something so unique and innovative that no existing industry terms apply to it.

If you don't meet 1-3 of these conditions, creating a category will probably flop. Instead:

+ use the terms your best customers use to describe you. Don't outsmart the customer.
+ embrace and copy the terms of larger competitors. If you tell me you're something totally new, I'm going to wonder if it's legitimate at all. If you tell me "We're like xyz well-known incumbents but better in these 3 ways," I immediately have context for you.
+ define clearly how the category has failed in the past and how you're improving it to better serve the customer.

Don't create ex nihilo. Imitate to build understanding/trust — and then differentiate.

What if the next wave of commerce doesn’t start with a search but with a story?

On this week’s Open Market, Eric Franchi and I are joined by Bryan Quinn, President of Shopsense, to talk about the rise of content-to-commerce and what it means for advertisers, publishers, and platforms.

We cover:
+ How Shopsense is pioneering content-led shopping experiences
+ What their partnership with The Trade Desk unlocks
+ Lessons Bryan brought from Amazon into startup leadership

If you’re thinking about the future of retail media or performance on the open internet, this conversation will be a great listen.

Now live on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and wherever you get your pods.

Yesterday I opened an entry-level writer role on Handshake (hiring new grads) and got 40 applicants on the first day.

It made me think about what I actually value in these applicants — versus what I would've thought mattered when I was 22.

What I care about:

+ Attention to detail: Any employer is probably getting too many applications. So you're looking for reasons to exclude people. Typo in the subject line? Immediate disqualification.

+ Personalization: Almost every application I receive could’ve been sent to any agency, anywhere. I get it. Folks are sending hundreds of apps. But if you’re in the 10% who personalize, you will stand out. You're better off choosing 2 jobs per day and customizing the applications.

+ Credentials: Some won’t like this, but I need shortcuts. As a small business owner juggling clients, sales, marketing, management, AND now hiring, I can’t read every word of every app. Strong school/GPA, relevant experience (e.g. comms intern, student paper editor) — I want to see something that signals high potential.

What I don’t care about:

- Perfect GPA: As a student, I thought a 4.0 mattered. As an employer, 3.7 vs. 4.0 makes no difference to me.

- Laundry list of extracurriculars: If it’s relevant, great. If not, skip it. Less is more.

- Formalities: Most apps lean hard into long sentences and fancy verbs. As a writer, I love a fancy verb! But I don’t want to feel like you're cosplaying a businessperson. Just speak plainly.

What advice would you give new grads on the job market?

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The Battle

Brooklin Nash 💡

Joe Zappa

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