That Time We Started @CrapOnLinkedIn (And What It Taught Us About B2B Marketing)

You know that moment when you open LinkedIn and see a post that makes you physically cringe?

The "CEO who made his intern cry and learned a valuable lesson" story. The poem about leadership written in sentence fragments. That definitely-didn't-happen conversation with a taxi driver about disruption. The humble brag disguised as vulnerability.

Back in 2019, I'd had enough. We all had. LinkedIn had become a cesspool of performative nonsense, and someone needed to call it out.

So we started @CrapOnLinkedIn.

How It Started (A Rant Turned Twitter Account)

The trigger was simple: I was scrolling LinkedIn during my morning coffee and saw the third "broem" of the day. You know what a broem is, right? Those cringe-inducing poems written by middle managers trying to sound like Richard Branson.

Something.
Like.
This.
Each word.
On its own line.
For no reason.
Except.
Impact.

I screenshot it. Sent it to a few founder friends. We all laughed. Then someone said: "There should be a Twitter account for this."

So I made one.

The premise was brutally simple: screenshot the worst, most cringey, most obviously-fake content on LinkedIn. Share it. Let people laugh. No commentary needed—the posts spoke for themselves.

Within a week, we had 500 followers. Within a month, 2,000. People were sending us screenshots daily. The floodgates had opened.

The Greatest Hits (Or Worst Hits?)

Some posts were so spectacularly bad they went viral on their own:

The "I made my intern cry" genre:
Posts where executives claimed they made junior employees cry, then turned it into a leadership lesson. Every. Single. Time. it was framed as the executive being "tough but fair" and the intern "learning resilience."

The "conversation that definitely happened" category:
"A homeless man stopped me on the street and said 'You look like someone who understands disruption.' I gave him £20 and learned more about innovation in that moment than I did at Harvard."

Right. Sure you did.

The broetry epidemic:
Middle managers writing poems about KPIs. CTOs waxing poetic about agile methodology. It was like LinkedIn had collectively discovered line breaks and decided they made everything profound.

The humblebrag marathon:
"I'm so grateful to announce..." followed by something that was clearly not humble at all. "Failed startup founder" who sold to Google for £50M. "Rejected by 47 VCs" before raising £100M. You get the idea.

What We Learned About B2B Marketing (Accidentally)

Here's the thing: @CrapOnLinkedIn wasn't supposed to teach us anything about marketing. It was just us having a laugh at performative nonsense.

But it did teach us something important.

Lesson 1: Authenticity Is Rare (And Valuable)

The reason these posts got mocked so relentlessly is because they were transparently fake. People could smell the inauthenticity from a mile away.

The broems weren't genuine reflections—they were calculated attempts to go viral. The "lessons learned" posts weren't real insights—they were humble brags dressed up as vulnerability. The motivational stories were fiction presented as fact.

And people hated it.

The posts that DIDN'T end up on @CrapOnLinkedIn? The ones that were actually useful. The ones where someone shared real numbers from their business. The ones where founders admitted actual failures without turning them into hero journeys. The ones that were just... honest.

Turns out, in B2B marketing, being real is a competitive advantage. Who knew?

Lesson 2: Engagement ≠ Results

The crap posts got millions of impressions. Thousands of likes. Hundreds of comments saying "So inspiring!"

But did they drive business results? Absolutely not.

We spoke to several founders whose viral LinkedIn posts generated tons of engagement but zero pipeline. Lots of "great post!" comments from people who would never buy anything.

Meanwhile, the boring-but-useful posts—case studies with real numbers, technical deep-dives, honest breakdowns of what worked and what didn't—those generated actual leads. Fewer likes, but the RIGHT people were paying attention.

This completely changed how we think about content for our clients. We stopped optimising for engagement and started optimising for the right kind of attention.

Lesson 3: Your Audience Is Smarter Than You Think

The comments on @CrapOnLinkedIn were brilliant. People weren't just laughing—they were deconstructing why these posts were manipulative, analyzing the psychology behind engagement bait, calling out specific techniques.

Your audience knows when they're being marketed to. They can spot BS. They're tired of it.

The brands that win on LinkedIn (and everywhere else) are the ones that respect their audience's intelligence. Don't try to manipulate. Don't try to go viral with fake stories. Just be useful and honest.

Revolutionary, I know.

Why We Stopped (Mostly)

By 2020, @CrapOnLinkedIn had been featured in The Drum, Business Insider, and several marketing podcasts. We had over 27,000 followers. People were sending us screenshots daily.

And then... we mostly stopped.

Not because the crap dried up. Oh no. If anything, LinkedIn got worse. The pandemic brought a whole new genre of performative nonsense: "What I learned about leadership from my cat during lockdown" type posts.

We stopped because it stopped being fun. It started feeling mean. Some of the people whose posts we shared were genuinely trying - they'd just been told by some LinkedIn guru that this was "the algorithm." They were following bad advice, not being intentionally manipulative.

Plus, we had our own business to run. RicochetB2B was growing, and calling out bad marketing on Twitter wasn't moving the needle for us anymore.

The £300 Offer (And Why I'm an Idiot)

Right around the time we were winding down, someone slid into my DMs with an offer.

"I'll give you £300 for the account."

I laughed it off. £300? For a Twitter account that was basically just me screenshot-ing LinkedIn nonsense? Nah.

I said no.

Here's the thing though: I sometimes regret that decision.

Not because £300 would've changed my life. But because that account had genuine value I didn't fully appreciate. It had 27,000+ followers. Press coverage. A clear niche. People were actively sending us content daily.

Someone smarter than me saw the potential. They probably would've monetised it - turned it into a newsletter, created a "LinkedIn Hall of Shame" website with ads, sold "Crap on LinkedIn" merch. Hell, they could've positioned themselves as a LinkedIn strategy consultant using the account as credibility.

I just thought it was a joke account.

This is basically a microcosm of how most founders think about content marketing, by the way. You build something with real value - authority, audience, trust - and you don't realise what you have until someone else points it out.

Would I sell it now? Probably not. It's part of RicochetB2B's origin story. But I do check back occasionally and think "£300... could've at least negotiated to £500."

Why We Still Share Occasionally

But here's the thing: we still keep an eye on LinkedIn. And when we see something spectacularly bad - the kind of post that makes you wonder if the person has ever had a real conversation with another human - we'll share it.

Not to be mean. But because someone needs to hold a mirror up to the nonsense. Someone needs to remind people that this isn't what B2B marketing should be.

The best marketing doesn't trick people into engagement. It doesn't manipulate emotions with fake stories. It doesn't try to hack algorithms with broems.

The best marketing is just useful, honest, and smart.

What LinkedIn Should Actually Be

LinkedIn has potential. It's where our clients' buyers actually spend time. It's where decisions get made. It's where you can build real authority in your space.

But that requires doing the opposite of what gets shared on @CrapOnLinkedIn:

Instead of fake stories → Share real numbers from your business
"We spent £10K on ads last month and got 3 leads. Here's what we learned" is infinitely more valuable than a made-up conversation with a taxi driver.

Instead of broems → Write like a human
If you wouldn't say it out loud to a founder over coffee, don't post it on LinkedIn.

Instead of engagement bait → Create actual value
Answer questions people in your industry are asking. Share case studies. Break down your process. Be genuinely useful.

Instead of humblebrags → Be honest about failures
"We completely botched this campaign and here's what we'd do differently" builds more trust than any success story.

The Posts We Still Mock Today

For the record, these genres are still thriving on LinkedIn in 2025:

1. AI hype without substance - "I asked ChatGPT to write my business plan and you won't believe what happened next!"

2. Fake humility - "I'm humbled to announce we raised £50M..."

3. Performative vulnerability - Crying selfies. Still. Why.

4. The "I fired someone for being smart" genre - Always the employee was "too smart for the company" and it's framed as a leadership lesson

5. Engagement bait questions - "Agree or disagree: [obvious statement everyone agrees with]?"

If you see any of these in the wild, send them our way. We appreciate you.

What We Do Instead (The Shameless Plug)

Look, we're not perfect. We've probably written some cringey LinkedIn posts ourselves over the years.

But what we try to do - and what we help our clients do - is create LinkedIn content that doesn't belong on @CrapOnLinkedIn.

That means:

• Posts backed by real data, not made-up stories

• Content that's actually useful to your buyers

• Writing that sounds like a human, not a LinkedIn algorithm

• Strategy focused on pipeline, not vanity metrics

We've been doing B2B marketing for tech and fintech companies for 15+ years. We've seen every trend, tactic, and terrible LinkedIn strategy. We know what works (real expertise, honest content, useful insights) and what doesn't (everything currently going viral).

If you want help creating a LinkedIn presence that won't end up as a screenshot on a Twitter account mocking bad marketing, book a call.

We promise: no broems, no fake stories, no crying selfies.

Just marketing that actually works.

People Also Ask

Do you still run @CrapOnLinkedIn?
Occasionally. When we see something truly spectacular, we'll share it. But it's not our main focus anymore. We're busy helping clients not end up on there.

What's the worst LinkedIn post you've ever seen?
Hard to pick just one, but the "I fired an employee because they were smarter than me and here's why that was the right call" posts are consistently terrible. Close second: any post that includes the phrase "let that sink in."

Can I submit crap I find on LinkedIn?
Absolutely. Send screenshots to hello@ricochetb2b.com or tag us on Twitter/X. We appreciate your service to the cause.

Have you ever accidentally shared a client's post?
No, thank god. But we do have a vetting process now specifically to avoid that nightmare scenario.

A fun footnote: I asked ChatGPT to generate an image for this blog with Linkedin and the poop emoji but apparently it won't recreate images as the poop emoji is considered explicit?!

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