Social and content signals

Social and content signals track what buyers post, like, comment on, and ask in public, on LinkedIn and in communities. Someone engaging with posts about the problem you solve is telling you what they are thinking about this quarter.

9 social and content signals

All B2B signals

Engaged with your LinkedIn posts
An ICP person likes, comments on, or reposts your founder’s or your company’s LinkedIn posts.
Good · Within a week of the engagement · LinkedIn outreach, Ad audience
Engaged with a competitor’s posts
An ICP person engages with LinkedIn posts from your competitors or their founders.
Good · Within 2 weeks of the engagement · LinkedIn outreach, Ad audience
Follows a competitor’s company page
An ICP person follows a competitor’s LinkedIn company page.
Early · Ongoing · Ad audience, LinkedIn outreach
Subscribed to your newsletter
An ICP person subscribes to your LinkedIn newsletter, Substack, or email newsletter.
Early · The first month after subscribing · Content, Ad audience
Posted about the problem you solve
A buyer writes a public post or comment describing the problem your product solves.
Strong · Within a few days of the post · LinkedIn outreach, Email
Asked for a recommendation
Someone asks Reddit, a Slack community, or LinkedIn for a recommendation in your category.
Strong · Within 48 hours of the post · Content, Rep alert
Podcast or press appearance
An executive at a target account appears on a podcast, in an article, or on a conference stage.
Early · The month after it airs · Email, LinkedIn outreach
Joined a community in your category
Someone at a target account joins a Slack, Discord, or online community built around your category or problem.
Early · The 60 days after joining · Content, Ad audience
Executive started posting on LinkedIn
A founder or executive who rarely posted starts posting on LinkedIn every week.
Good · The first 3 months of regular posting · LinkedIn outreach, Email

FAQ

FAQs about social and content signals

“Posted about the problem you solve” and “Asked for a recommendation” are rated Strong, which means worth acting on this week on its own. The rest are worth a play when stacked with a second signal on the same account.

Each signal routes to the channels that fit it. Across the 9 social and content signals, the most common plays run through linkedin outreach, ad audience, and content. Each signal page lists the play it triggers on every channel, with an example opening line.

Understory Agency tracks them in Clay, most often with Clay, Apify, Trigify, Claude Code, HeyReach, and Slack. Each signal page lists the steps to detect it, the tools, and the play it triggers when it fires.

Other kinds of signals

People signals
Who just arrived, moved up or left, at the accounts you sell to.
Hiring signals
What a company is hiring for, which tells you what it is about to build.
Company event signals
Funding, launches, expansion and the other moments that reset budgets.
Tech stack signals
What a company installs, removes or outgrows.
Website visitor signals
Who is reading your pages, and which pages they read.
Product usage signals
Sign-ups, usage and limits inside your own product.
Ad engagement signals
Which accounts see, watch and click your ads.
Event signals
Who is going where, speaking where and showing up to what.
Competitor signals
Your competitors’ customers, audiences and bad weeks.
Public record signals
Filings, permits, contracts and other records anyone can read.
Custom scrape signals
Signals nobody sells, built for one market with Claude Code and Apify.
CRM and network signals
The relationships and history you already own.

Tell us who you sell to

Bring your best customers, and we'll show you the social and content signals we would start with and the plays they would trigger. Signals run through our outbound and GTM engineering practice.