A post with 60 likes can beat one with 500. Zapier's Ryan Quindlen explains why he stopped reporting impressions and started tracking who engages.

Ryan runs social at Zapier with a team of two, and his top goal for H2 is a sales pipeline number. He joins Barry Weston and Chris Cunningham to talk about measuring LinkedIn by audience instead of vanity metrics, which formats work after the spring algorithm change, LinkedIn's new AI slop button, and the very unglamorous AI setup behind Zapier's executive content. Built for social media managers, marketers, and anyone who has to defend social to a CMO.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Every week Zapier reports what share of each post's engagement came from director-level and above. The target is 40%.
- Engagement is matched against HubSpot data in a Zapier Table, so the team knows which personas, companies, and topics are engaging.
- A text-only post summarizing a video often beats the video. Screenshot reactions to X, Reddit, or TikTok posts are badly underused on LinkedIn.
- "Comment below" CTAs and questions as the last line are getting buried. Stop using them.
- Exec posts start as a 5 to 10 minute recorded conversation. AI strips the filler, then Ryan spends 20 to 30 minutes editing by hand.
- Going from high to max reasoning costs about 6x for about 10% smarter. Ryan stays at high and below, and routes grunt work to cheaper models, which saves him around 60%.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Ryan Quindlen joins Beyond Social
01:15 Why "cool as shit" creator events work
03:26 Selling bold creative to a "boring" B2B exec team
06:30 Stop chasing impressions, track ICP touches
11:31 Boosting weak posts means your goals are wrong
12:36 The 40% director-plus rule
13:08 How Zapier tracks who engages
17:11 The format that's working: text beats video
19:17 Steal from X, Reddit and TikTok (with credit)
21:59 LinkedIn's AI slop button
23:25 Comment bait and closing questions are getting nuked
25:13 When your hand-written post gets called AI slop
31:22 Why Zapier's top 5 posts of the year were on X
33:26 Ghostwriting for a CEO who takes social seriously
38:57 Meet Kevin, Ryan's local AI knowledge layer
43:25 The "that's not good enough" trick
45:18 War council: 7 subagents that argue with you
47:22 Model routing and saving 60% on AI
49:34 Never go above high reasoning
51:25 Inside Zapier's social team of two
53:57 Recorded exec calls become draft one
56:11 Taste is the moat

ABOUT RYAN
Ryan Quindlen runs social at Zapier, where he sits on the brand team and works on content with executives, including CEO Wade.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanquindlen/

Connect with Barry Weston: www.linkedin.com/in/barry-weston

Connect with Chris Cunningham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisclickup/

Beyond Social is brought to you by Vista Social, the social media management platform for brands and agencies. Try it free: https://vistasocial.com


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