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SEMRUSH'S CONTENT PLAYBOOK: THE STRATEGY BEHIND THEIR CONTENT MONOPOLY
How SEMrush built one of the strongest content machines in B2B—and what you can learn from it...
Niall Ratcliffe
February 16, 2025
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BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY
When you talk to most B2B marketers about content marketing they instantly think of blogs, SEO, and white papers.
Yet over the last few years, we've seen time and time again that B2B brands who can master social content end up dominating their industry.
Hubspot did it in the CRM space.
Salesforce did it in the cloud computing space.
And now SEMrush are doing it in the SEO software space.
Over the last 12 months, I've been religiously studying how SEMrush approach their social content. I've studied their failures, I've studied their successes, and everything else in between.
Today, I'm going to break down the 5 key principles of the SEMrush content playbook.
If you want to attack B2B content in 2025, this is the playbook you need to be studying:
Principle 1: Talk In People Problems
The main reason most B2B content sucks is that it’s written as if the reader is the CEO making billion-dollar strategy decisions. But that’s not who’s actually engaging.
SEMrush is a brand that is trusted by Tesla, P&G, Samsung and more major brands. But that doesn’t mean they need to talk to Elon Musk in their content.
Instead, they need to speak directly to the individuals inside businesses - and that’s exactly what SEMrush do.
Just take a look at this carousel they posted on LinkedIn a few months back:
This could have been a high-level post on “AI’s impact on enterprise marketing.” Instead, they made it “How to use AI to win over your boss.”
It’s a subtle change, but it’s one that:
Makes the content instantly relatable. Most marketers aren’t thinking about how AI will transform their company in five years. They’re thinking about how to justify an AI tool to their manager tomorrow.
Speaks to a specific pain point. Rather than discussing AI in broad strokes, SEMrush ties it to a real-world challenge that employees face—convincing leadership to try new technology.
Creates content that spreads. A post about “AI’s enterprise impact” might get nods from industry peers. A post about “winning over your boss” gets shared in Slack channels, discussed in meetings, and bookmarked for later.
SEMrush understands that even at the world’s biggest companies, decisions don’t happen in boardrooms - they start with individuals.
That’s why their content wins.
It’s not speaking to “the enterprise.” It’s speaking to the marketer inside the enterprise who actually has to get things done.
Principle 2: Trend Jacking
Most brands see a trending topic and think: "How can we jump on this?"
SEMrush asks a different question: "How do we make this relevant to our audience?"
That distinction is why their “trend-jacking” strategy works.
They don’t just jump on trends - they find a strategic angle that inserts SEMrush into the conversation.
For example:
Squid Game – Instead of a surface-level “Marketing lessons from Squid Game” post (which every other brand did), SEMrush related it back to their target audience’s lives.
Spotify Wrapped – Rather than just reacting to the trend, they turned it into a breakdown of the key marketing stats to know.
Inside Out 2’s viral moment – While Pixar’s film was trending, SEMrush created a meme using the Anger character to capture the chaos of being a social media manager in 2025.
These posts were instantly relatable to marketers, which is why they took off.
Most brands chase trends for engagement. SEMrush uses trends to insert their brand into the conversation.
More B2B brands need to do the latter.
Principle 3: Meme Marketing
Even I wasn’t a fan of memes 12 months ago, so when I saw that 30-40% of SEMrush’s content was memes - at first, I was a little shocked.
Why would a massive B2B company, waste their time posting:
Silly images.
Stupid jokes.
Content with no ROI.
Answer: Because memes are the perfect way to simplify the complexity of SEMrush’s software into 1 image.
Here’s why their meme strategy works:
Instant Understanding: When you're trying to explain why your keyword tracking dropped 30%, you could write a detailed technical explanation... or you could post a meme of a cat knocking a vase off a table with the caption "Google's algorithm update vs my rankings." Everyone instantly gets the meme version.
Relatable Pain Points: SEMrush knows their audience struggles with things like:
- Algorithm changes
- Client expectations
- Competitor analysis
And memes let them say "We understand your daily struggles" without coming across as forced.Community Building: When marketers share SEMrush memes in their Slack channels or repost them on LinkedIn, they're not just spreading content – they're saying "This is so us" to their fellow marketers. It's creating a shared language around SEO challenges.
SEMrush isn't just posting memes for engagement – they're using them as a gateway to their more serious content.
A funny meme about keyword research might lead you to their in-depth guide on the topic. It's content marketing that doesn't feel like marketing.
The lesson? Sometimes the best way to explain something complex isn't through more complexity – it's through finding the perfect meme that makes people say "That's exactly how it feels."
Principle 4: Creating Brand Characters
Every B2B brand says they want “community.”
But most of them are still posting like faceless corporations.
SEMrush has taken a different approach: they’ve made their brand feel like a real person.
On TikTok, they’ve introduced brand characters - like “Chris from SEMrush” - that their audience recognises, follows, and comes to love over time.
Here’s why this works:
People follow people: A logo doesn’t build relationships—but a person does.
Familiarity builds engagement: When audiences recognise a face, they’re more likely to stop, watch, and engage with content.
It creates a retention loop: Instead of every post being standalone, SEMrush’s brand characters create narratives that unfold over time.
This isn’t just SEMrush jumping on this trend though.
HubSpot is making the same move. On the ‘Marketing Against The Grain’ podcast, their CMO admitted that their no.1 goal over the next five years is to invest in personalities who can be the face of their brand.
They’ve even scaled back their SEO team (which used to be their No. 1 acquisition channel) to focus on this.
Their reasoning: In a world where AI will quickly be able to replace any educational content - the only way to differentiate will be through personality.
Principle 5: At The Forefront Of Influencer Marketing
Most B2B brands are still treating influencer marketing like an experiment.
Yet SEMrush is already executing at scale.
Their invite-only ‘SEMrush Influencer Weekend’ in London was a prime example of this in action.
Here’s what they did:
Picked out 15+ B2B influencers based in London (ranging from business CEOs to LinkedIn influencers).
Organised a dinner and day for them all.
Hired a photographer to take a bunch of photos.
Shared those photos with the members.
The result: A day later 15+ massive B2B influencers were sharing about their time spent with the SEMrush team.
I don’t have the stats on the campaign to show for this but my guess is those posts generated millions of impressions for SEMrush and were massive for brand awareness in the UK.
But while I love SEMrush’s approach to this, it’s not like they’re on their own - this is where the industry is heading.
In B2C, influencer marketing is already the dominant growth channel for brands.
In B2B, most brands are still in the “wait and see” phase.
In 5 years, this will be a standard practice.
Takeaway: The best time to build an influencer marketing strategy was five years ago. The second-best time is today.
🌱 THE GREENHOUSE
Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:
TL;DR
Talk to individuals, not companies.
Own trends—don’t chase them.
Memes aren’t just jokes—they’re distribution.
Brand personalities > faceless logos.
Influencer marketing isn’t the future—it’s the present.
If you want to build a brand that people actually engage with in 2025, you need to steal SEMrush’s content playbook.
Found this breakdown helpful, why not send it to a friend?
Until next Sunday.
— Niall
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