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Ryan To

Ryan To is a creator and marketer who teaches companies how to grow through social content. Their work focuses on B2B marketing, short-form content, and using creator-led campaigns to reach customers.

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At a glance

Ryan To is useful for B2B brands wanting concrete breakdowns of social content, creator-led campaigns, and organic-to-paid testing.

Best for

B2B software or marketing teams seeking strategy and content planning around creator-led campaigns.

Not for

Consumer direct-response campaigns needing guaranteed sales, verified audience conversion, or a standard endorsement package.

Key takeaways

  • Give the viewer value first, and keep product out of early growth.
  • Organic content is testing ground; paid media is the amplifier.
  • Events earn sharing through status and curation, not banners and giveaways.

Check first: Confirm with Ryan To available scope, deliverables, channels, measurement, rates, disclosure terms, and recent audience data.

Main ideas
Give the viewer value first, and keep the product out of early growth · Organic is the testing ground, paid is the amplifier · Teach by breaking down specific campaigns, not with general advice
Audience
160,000 marketers and founders Self-reported audience size
Read first
How Ryan To grew a startup social account from 0 to 125k followers in 10 months
Ways to work together
Creator-led B2B campaigns on Instagram and YouTube · Integrated partnerships with e-commerce and consumer SaaS companies
Sources for this section

What they are known for

Ryan To is a creator and marketer who explains how companies can use social content to earn attention and grow.

  • Their posts cover startup social growth, B2B marketing, short-form content, and creator-led campaigns.
  • A useful starting point is their account of growing a startup’s social presence: it lays out a value-first approach, shows how to write for the viewer, and gives a hypothetical fitness-app example.
  • Other posts apply the same practical breakdown to companies such as Ramp and E.L.F.
  • Beauty, as well as shareable B2B events.
  • Follow their work for concrete examples of how brands can turn marketing ideas into content and distribution choices.
  • In a personal update, they say they were working behind the scenes with e-commerce and consumer SaaS companies while continuing to make content about marketing, advertising, and AI.

To’s distinctive strength in this sample is making marketing tactics easy to inspect and adapt.

  • Rather than simply calling a campaign successful, they break it into specific moves: Ramp’s stunt, media sponsorship, and use of company spending data; E.L.F.
  • Beauty’s sequence of organic testing and paid amplification; and an event’s use of social status and visual presentation to encourage sharing.
  • The startup-growth post offers practical guidance on choosing content for a target viewer instead of leading with a product pitch.
  • They also argue for an authentic, recognizable style rather than copying trends.
  • A short update gives little detail about the behind-the-scenes work it mentions.
  • For a fuller picture of their public profile, ask for examples of a signature book, show, or earlier body of work.
Sources for this section

Ideas and priorities

Ryan To's recurring argument is that social growth comes from giving audiences something they want before the brand asks for anything, and from treating marketing as something to inspect, test, and copy rather than a matter of taste.

Read more

They apply that view to three fronts: founder-led accounts, brand campaigns like E.L.F.

  • Beauty and Ramp, and events that either produce shareable moments or don't.
  • A more recent thread argues that the credible voice for B2B is the founder who builds in public, and that sponsored influencers are being displaced by cheaper operator-led routes.
  • The latest post marks a deliberate change: they say they stopped making content in the earlier format to work behind the scenes with e-commerce and consumer software companies.

Give the viewer value first, and keep the product out of early growth

Ryan To argues that early-stage accounts grow through pull marketing, not push marketing.

Read more

In their account of scaling a startup's socials, the method starts with defining an Ideal Viewer Personal — age, interests, pain points, and desired results — then building content pillars around those needs.

  • Value can be aspirational or entertaining, not just educational.
  • They also recommend writing in 'you' statements instead of brand-centric 'I' statements, and developing a distinct personal voice rather than copying someone else's trend.
  • They say no post mentioned the product during the initial growth phase.

A hypothetical fitness app illustrates the framework: workout routines for education, nutrition recommendations, and transformation videos showing real results. Ryan To says this approach took a startup's social accounts from zero to more than 125,000 followers in ten months, according to a figure in their own post that the posts here do not independently verify.

Read original

Organic is the testing ground, paid is the amplifier

Ryan To argues that brands often split organic and paid into separate teams when they should run them as one loop.

Read more

Their sequence: publish native short-form content tied to current trends and consumer behaviour, use organic signals such as retention, shares, and comments to identify winning formats and posts, then put money behind those winners. Organic earns the right to paid spend rather than running on a parallel track.

The worked case is E.L.F. Beauty, which Ryan To says took its top organic performers and turned them into Meta ads within days.

Read original

Teach by breaking down specific campaigns, not with general advice

A consistent method across Ryan To's posts is the teardown: name a company, list its moves, and point to concrete artifacts and the people behind them.

Read more

This makes marketing something readers can reverse-engineer and reuse, not just a set of abstract principles. The posts offer an argued outside view of other companies' campaigns, rather than first-party data.

The Ramp breakdown lists three moves: hiring Brian Baumgartner to review 600,000 expense reports by hand inside a glass box in New York; sponsoring the TBPN podcast network to stay in front of founders and finance leaders; and publishing spend data from Ramp's own product, including a chart by staff economist Ara Kharazian that fed the '996 startup' conversation. The post names specific Ramp team members.

Read original

Events earn sharing through status and curation, not banners and giveaways

Ryan To argues that most B2B events fail to produce shareable content because they rely on oversized company banners, corporate merch bags, and transactional incentives such as giveaways or free trials.

Read more

What works instead, in their view, is giving attendees a moment they want to be associated with — social status — and creating visuals that look worth posting on their own, not just branded for the company. Curation and the guest list do what signage cannot.

The counterexample is a dinner hosted by the Sweat Equity Podcast for e-commerce founders.

  • Ryan To says founders reposted it to Instagram Stories without payment, reaching 105,000 views in under a day.
  • They identify two drivers: founders sharing proof of association with people they respect, and social-first visuals such as the top-down shot style credited to Daniel Dalen.

Read original

Founder-creators beat sponsored influencers for B2B reach

Ryan To predicts a new category of marketing creator: founders who build in public.

Read more

They argue these people have real authority with e-commerce founders, marketers, and aspiring brand owners, and that audiences are not yet saturated with their sponsored content.

  • A product shown as part of a company's actual decisions reads as an operating choice rather than an ad slot.
  • In a related claim tied to their move to Clay, they say B2B content is moving quickly onto Instagram and YouTube, and the companies that win treat media as a core business rather than a channel.

Named examples are Kirsten (Kiki) C. of Sourmilk, Gene Oh of day-guard, and Leah Marcus and Yasaman Bakhtiar of Good Girl Snacks; the post is pitched at Motion (Creative Analytics) and names James Mulvey and Dara Denney as people to consider. The Clay post cites Ryan To's own figures — a B2B audience of 160,000 marketers and founders, 20,000 email subscribers in under a year, and 210,000 average views — as evidence of the audience a founder-creator can bring.

Read original · Original 2

Influencer marketing is consolidating into a cheaper operator-led route

Ryan To revisits their prediction from a year earlier that influencer marketing is dead, pointing to Accenture's acquisition of the Whalar Group as a sign of consolidation.

Read more

They argue that scrappy e-commerce and consumer software operators use a different playbook to reach very low customer acquisition costs, and that this route will be more sustainable for brands and produce more millionaires than becoming an influencer. The post names the shift but does not lay out the playbook's steps.

The post offers no worked mechanics beyond the Accenture–Whalar consolidation and the claim about operator costs. Treat it as a thesis to interrogate, not a method to follow.

Read original

The output has changed: less published content, more work behind the scenes

In a short post, Ryan To says they stopped making content in the previous format, describing a move from Los Angeles to San Francisco, completion of an incubator, and ongoing behind-the-scenes projects with e-commerce and consumer software companies.

Read more

They say future posts will stay within marketing, advertising, and AI. Alongside the earlier teaching posts and growth figures, this is the clearest signal of their current work.

Ask for examples of clients, projects, or the incubator to assess the current work.

Unlike the earlier how-to posts on growing an account and breaking down campaigns, this signals a move away from publishing at volume and toward operating inside companies.

Read original

Sources for this section

Start with their work

How Ryan To grew a startup social account from 0 to 125k followers in 10 months

Answers the basic question: what does Ryan To teach about early-stage social growth?

Read more

Newcomers should start here for the most complete growth framework in these posts.

Ryan To describes three lessons from growing a startup's social account: focus on value rather than product noise (citing that 40% of people follow brands for useful content), write to the viewer with 'you' statements instead of brand-centric narration, and build a recognizably personal style rather than copying trends. The post includes a worked example mapping content pillars to a target viewer for a hypothetical fitness app (workout routines, nutrition recommendations, transformation videos) and notes that no post mentioned the product during initial growth.

For brands planning a campaign

For a founder hiring Ryan To to scale social presence, this is the core teaching sample: it shows whether they can translate a brand's audience into content pillars and favor organic, value-first growth over early product promotion.

Joining Clay to build B2B creator go-to-market

Answers what Ryan To personally built and which companies and formats they associate with.

Read more

Read this for their self-reported track record and B2B/creator positioning.

Ryan To announces joining Clay and lists their own numbers: a B2B audience of 160k marketers and founders, 20k email subscribers in under a year, 210k average views across content, training creators in marketing, finance, and entertainment, and partnerships with Stan Store, Gamma, Air, and Shopify. The post argues B2B content is moving to Instagram and YouTube and frames Clay's team as marketers from media.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful as a credentials and positioning reference: it names the platforms and partner companies Ryan To claims experience with. Treat the audience and view figures as self-reported; ask for platform analytics during diligence.

Ramp's $300M raise as a B2B marketing case study

Answers what a specific B2B company did to earn attention, with named tactics.

Read more

Start here to see Ryan To's analysis style applied to a well-known company.

Ryan To breaks Ramp's marketing into three moves: a stunt where Brian Baumgartner reviewed 600,000 expense reports in a glass box in NYC, sponsorship of the TBPN podcast to stay in front of founders and finance leaders, and publishing proprietary spend data, including a chart by economist Ara Kharazian that turned the '996 startup' trend into a viral post. The post names specific people on Ramp's team.

For brands planning a campaign

For a founder trying to replace forgettable B2B content, these three formats (stunt, media sponsorship, proprietary data) are concrete options to evaluate. The post also shows how Ryan To turns a company's marketing into a numbered breakdown readers can copy or adapt.

E.L.F. Beauty's organic-to-paid loop

Answers how to connect organic testing with paid amplification on a limited budget.

Read more

Read this for the operational sequence, not just the result.

Ryan To describes E.L.F.

  • Beauty's strategy as a three-step loop: post native short-form content that connects to current trends, read organic signals such as retention, shares, and comments to identify winning formats, and turn top organic posts into Meta ads within days.
  • The post contrasts this with treating organic and paid as separate teams.

For brands planning a campaign

A founder can use the loop as a decision framework: organic as the testing ground, paid as the scaling engine. It also shows Ryan To's focus on measurable signals rather than vanity metrics.

Turning B2B events into shareable content

Answers what gets event attendees to post about an event, with a specific example.

Read more

Start here if event budgets are part of the social strategy.

Ryan To criticizes common B2B event tactics like large logo banners, corporate merch bags, and transactional share incentives.

  • As a counterexample, the post describes a dinner hosted by Sweat Equity Podcast for e-commerce founders that received 105,000 views in under a day.
  • They attribute the sharing to social status (founders posting proof of association with people they respect) and social-first content (an eye-catching top-down shot style).

For brands planning a campaign

For a founder allocating event budget, the post suggests redirecting spend from banners and giveaways toward creating moments and visuals attendees want to post themselves. It also shows Ryan To's emphasis on status and aesthetics over logos.

Build-in-public founders as a new creator category

Answers who the emerging creator partners are and why they might work better than traditional influencers for B2B tech.

Read more

Read this for the named examples.

Ryan To argues that founder-creators are a new category and names Kirsten (Kiki) C. of Sourmilk, Gene Oh of day-guard, and Leah Marcus and Yasaman Bakhtiar of Good Girl Snacks.

  • The post says these founders built authority with e-commerce founders, marketers, and aspiring brand owners, and that product integrations feel natural because they show real decisions inside a company.
  • Addressed to Motion (Creative Analytics), the post names James Mulvey and Dara Denney as people to consider.

For brands planning a campaign

For a B2B tech founder considering creator campaigns, this is a starting list of archetypes and a rationale for choosing founder-creators over traditional influencers: the audience is not overexposed to sponsored content, and integrations can be shown in context. It also shows Ryan To's network and where they direct partnership ideas.

Why Ryan To stopped making content

Explains why recent output may look different and what they are doing now.

Read more

Newcomers should read it before assuming a dormant account means no activity.

In this short post, Ryan To says they stopped making content, moved from LA to SF, finished an incubator, and have been working behind the scenes with e-commerce and consumer SaaS companies.

  • They say they will still make content about marketing, advertising, and AI.
  • Ask which projects, clients, and incubator they mean.

For brands planning a campaign

Sets expectations for how active Ryan To is as a creator. If you're interested in working together, ask directly which e-commerce and consumer SaaS companies they have worked with.

Sources for this section

Topics and approach

Founder-led social growth without product posts

In a post about scaling a startup's social accounts from zero to more than 125,000 followers in ten months, Ryan To sets out three principles: lead with content the target viewer finds useful rather than brand noise, write 'you' statements instead of 'I' statements, and use a distinct personal voice rather than borrowed trends.

Read more

They describe keeping product mentions out of early posts, defining an 'Ideal Viewer Personal' covering age, interests, pain points, and desired results, and building a content plan around those needs, with a fitness app as the worked example (workout routines, nutrition guidance, transformation videos).

A three-point list built around a worked example, framed as the first part of a consumer brand series.

The follower totals come from Ryan To's own account and are not independently verified. Ask for supporting analytics before relying on them.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for a founder or marketing lead who wants a content plan before paying for distribution. Expect a pitch centred on audience definition and repeatable value posts, not launch announcements or trend chasing.

Examples: Source 1

Teardowns of specific B2B marketing campaigns

Two posts examine companies Ryan To rates as effective.

Read more

One breaks down Ramp's approach: a viral stunt in which Brian Baumgartner was hired to review 600,000 expense reports by hand inside a glass box in New York; sponsorship of the TBPN podcast network to stay in front of founders and finance leaders; and publication of spend data drawn from Ramp's own product.

  • A chart by staff economist Ara Kharazian became a widely shared talking point about startup working habits.
  • The other covers E.L.F.
  • Beauty's organic-to-paid loop: post native short-form content tied to current trends, use retention, shares, and comments to identify winning formats, then turn top organic posts into paid ads within days.

Numbered breakdowns naming companies, staff, and collaborators, with concrete artifacts such as the spend chart and podcast sponsorship.

For brands planning a campaign

A brand can test whether Ryan To's read of its category matches its own. The work describes other companies' campaigns, so it suits briefs seeking an argued outside teardown rather than access to first-party data.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Turning events into social-first content

Ryan To argues that most B2B events fail to generate shareable social content because they rely on oversized company banners, corporate merch bags, and giveaway incentives.

Read more

The post dissects a dinner hosted by the Sweat Equity Podcast for e-commerce founders, which founders reposted and shared on Instagram Stories without paid prompting; it reported 105,000 views in under a day. Two drivers: social status, as founders share proof of association with people they respect, and social-first visuals, including a top-down shot in the style popularised by Daniel Dalen.

A direct contrast between a typical corporate event and the dinner, with a two-mechanism explanation.

For brands planning a campaign

Relevant to event budgets: the argument is that curation, the guest list, and photo-ready production drive more unpaid sharing than branded signage or giveaways.

Examples: Source 1

Creator-led go-to-market and build-in-public founders

Ryan To predicts a new category of marketing creator: founders who build in public.

Read more

They name Kirsten (Kiki) C. of Sourmilk, Gene Oh of day-guard, and Leah Marcus and Yasaman Bakhtiar of Good Girl Snacks.

  • The argument is that these founders have real authority with e-commerce founders, marketers, and aspiring brand owners, and that product placements in their content read as operating decisions rather than sponsorships.
  • In a separate post announcing a move to Clay, they apply the same shift personally, citing a B2B audience of 160,000 marketers and founders, 20,000 email subscribers gained in under a year, and 210,000 average views across content, and arguing that B2B content is moving onto Instagram.

A prediction post anchored in named founder examples, paired with first-person audience metrics.

For brands planning a campaign

This is the section closest to a creator-led campaign brief. The pitch is to work with founders who already publish their operations and place a product in a real decision, not a sponsored slot.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

A stated shift in the influencer market

An Instagram post revisits Ryan To's prediction from a year earlier that influencer marketing is dead, pointing to Accenture's acquisition of the Whalar Group as a sign of consolidation.

Read more

The post claims that scrappy e-commerce and consumer software operators use a different playbook to reach very low customer acquisition costs, and that this route will be more sustainable for brands and produce more millionaires than becoming an influencer.

Ask for the steps of the referenced playbook before relying on it.

For brands planning a campaign

Treat this as a market thesis to interrogate.

  • The post names the shift but summarises the playbook rather than laying out its steps.
  • Ask for the mechanics before relying on it.

Examples: Source 1

A change in what Ryan To produces

An Instagram post announces that Ryan To has stopped making content in the previous format.

Read more

They describe a move from Los Angeles to San Francisco, completion of an incubator, and ongoing behind-the-scenes work with e-commerce and consumer software companies. They say future posts will stay within marketing, advertising, and AI.

For brands planning a campaign

This is the clearest signal of current activity and stands apart from the earlier volume of marketing commentary. Check any brief built on a high-frequency posting cadence against this more recent statement.

Examples: Source 1

Sources for this section

Brands and businesses

Ryan To's posts document one named employment relationship: joining Clay to work on B2B creator go-to-market.

Read more

The same post names Stan Store, Gamma, Air, and Shopify as tech companies they partnered with as a creator founder, without stating terms or timing.

  • Four other companies appear as case studies or suggestions rather than clients or sponsors: Ramp, E.L.F.
  • Beauty, Motion (Creative Analytics), and the Sweat Equity Podcast.
  • Ask for confirmation of any sponsorship or affiliate relationships.

Clay

Employment

Ryan To announced they were joining Clay to work on B2B creator go-to-market.

Read more

The post notes Clay's $115M raise and push into creator-led initiatives on Instagram and YouTube, and cites their audience of 160k marketers and founders as the background for the role. The post does not specify scope, title, or start date.

View example

Stan Store

Disclosed partnership

Ryan To named Clay among the tech companies they partnered with as a creator founder.

Read more

Terms and duration are not stated.

Original disclosure

Partnering with the hottest tech companies like Stan Store, Gamma, Air, Shopify, & more

View example

Gamma

Disclosed partnership

Ryan To named Clay among the tech companies they partnered with as a creator founder.

Read more

Terms and duration are not stated.

Original disclosure

Partnering with the hottest tech companies like Stan Store, Gamma, Air, Shopify, & more

View example

Air

Disclosed partnership

Ryan To named Clay among the tech companies they partnered with as a creator founder.

Read more

Terms and duration are not stated.

Original disclosure

Partnering with the hottest tech companies like Stan Store, Gamma, Air, Shopify, & more

View example

Shopify

Disclosed partnership

Ryan To named Clay among the tech companies they partnered with as a creator founder.

Read more

Terms and duration are not stated.

Original disclosure

Partnering with the hottest tech companies like Stan Store, Gamma, Air, Shopify, & more

View example

Ramp

Mention

Ryan To broke down Ramp's B2B marketing as a case study after its $300M raise, covering the Brian Baumgartner expense-report stunt, Ramp's sponsorship of the TBPN podcast, and a spend report post by Ramp economist Ara Kharazian.

Read more

They credit the team but do not state a working relationship with Ramp.

View example

E.L.F. Beauty

Mention

Ryan To analyzed E.L.F.

Read more

Beauty's $1.3B revenue year as an example of using organic short-form content to read signals, then scaling the winners with paid ads. The post presents the brand as a marketing case study, not a stated relationship.

View example

Motion (Creative Analytics)

Mention

Ryan To argued that B2B tech companies such as Motion should prioritize founder-creators, closing with 'Balls in your court Motion team.' The post is advice to the company, not a stated client or sponsorship relationship.

Read more

View example

Sweat Equity Podcast

Mention

Ryan To used a dinner hosted by the Sweat Equity Podcast for e-commerce founders as an example of event marketing that generates shareable short-form content, citing 105k views in under a day.

Read more

The post presents the dinner as a case study, not a stated working relationship.

View example

Sources for this section

Topics and similar creators

Ryan To publishes on LinkedIn and Instagram about how brands and founders earn attention on social.

Read more

To see the working method, start with the multi-post breakdowns of Ramp and E.L.F.

  • Beauty, then the post on taking a startup account from zero.
  • Those posts name companies, specific moves, and artifacts rather than speaking in generalities.
  • For a different angle, the posts on founder-creators and on events as content show their view of what is changing in creator-led marketing.
  • The more recent Instagram post marks a shift toward behind-the-scenes work, so read in date order to judge what is current.
  • The tags below point to the subjects, formats, and audiences that recur across the work.
B2B marketing Social media growth Creator marketing Influencer marketing Content strategy Event marketing Campaign teardowns Founder-led content Creator-led growth Build in public Organic-to-paid strategy LinkedIn posts Instagram content Short-form video Startup founders E-commerce brands Marketing teams B2B marketers

Will Shonn

Both publish operator-level advice for consumer brands on TikTok Shop and social commerce, use numbered learnings from client or brand work, and write for e-commerce founders and brand teams rather than a general marketing audience.

Read more

Will Shonn's posts stay inside TikTok Shop operations, affiliate and live-selling growth, and an agency hiring notice. Ryan To ranges wider, covering B2B marketing teardowns, event content, founder-creators, and market predictions, and writes more about other companies' campaigns than a single agency's own client work.

Read original · Original 2

Shahbaz Akbar

Both argue that TikTok Shop is a discovery and demand-creation system rather than a standard ad channel, and both explain how creator-led content, demonstrations, and trust drive purchases.

Read more

Shahbaz Akbar's posts focus tightly on TikTok Shop content formats and the shift from search-led e-commerce to scroll-led discovery. Ryan To frames TikTok Shop as part of a broader creator-led go-to-market shift that also includes founder-creators, event marketing, and B2B brand campaigns.

Read original · Original 2

Riley Cronin

Both treat creators as central to the marketing funnel and publish detailed methods for working with them, including performance-based recruitment and creator communities that produce organic content.

Read more

Riley Cronin writes first-person company history, with named business losses and decisions from Zeroto1 and a live-selling studio. Ryan To writes shorter teardowns and predictions about other companies and the creator economy.

Read original · Original 2

Sources for this section

Audience

Ryan To’s posts speak to marketers and founders.

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For campaigns targeting a particular profession or seniority level, ask for recent audience survey results or another documented source, plus results for comparable topics and formats.

Self-reported audience size

160,000 marketers and founders

Ryan To, in a LinkedIn post; self-reported, not independently measured audience composition · 2026-09-10

Sources for this section

Partnership options

Ryan To's posts show partnership work centered on creator-led B2B go-to-market, especially on Instagram and YouTube.

Read more

They say they joined Clay to work on creator-led initiatives and name Stan Store, Gamma, Air, and Shopify among technology companies they have partnered with.

  • A separate post says they have been working behind the scenes with e-commerce and consumer SaaS companies.
  • Their posts do not include an official sponsorship policy, rate card, deliverable menu, usage or disclosure terms, or an inquiry page, so buyers should define scope directly.
  • They also argue that traditional influencer marketing is being replaced by founder-led, build-in-public content, which matters for a buyer planning a creator campaign.

Creator-led B2B campaigns on Instagram and YouTube

Buyer requirement

The buyer needs a B2B product aimed at marketers or founders and should confirm scope, content rights, disclosure, and approval process directly.

Integrated partnerships with e-commerce and consumer SaaS companies

Buyer requirement

The buyer should be an e-commerce or consumer SaaS company prepared to discuss behind-the-scenes project work; ask for specific deliverables and examples before committing.

Sources for this section

Campaign fit

A campaign to shortlist

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Brief

A B2B software company selling to e-commerce founders wants a campaign that makes its product understandable through real operating decisions, rather than a conventional sponsored post.

Decision

Good fit to explore, if Ryan To is available for independent work and the company can agree on scope. They argue that founder-creators can show products in the context of real company decisions, and point to e-commerce founders as a source of authority with marketers and aspiring brand owners. Their posts analyze B2B campaigns using concrete examples, including Ramp’s stunt, media sponsorship, and product data, and E.L.F. Beauty’s organic-to-paid process.

Next step

Ask Ryan To to propose a specific founder, use case, deliverables, channels, and measurement plan. Their posts do not document a standard package, rates, or an inquiry route.

Brief

A marketing team wants help improving its organic social content before deciding what to amplify with paid media.

Decision

Good fit for a strategy or content-planning conversation. Ryan To’s social-growth post recommends defining the target viewer, making content useful to that viewer, and writing from the viewer’s perspective. The E.L.F. Beauty breakdown adds a test-and-scale sequence: review retention, shares, and comments, then consider turning strong organic posts into paid ads. They also say the usual content format has changed and that future posts will focus on marketing, advertising, and AI. Confirm what work is currently available before treating this as a creator-posting brief.

Next step

Request a short audit of the company’s current posts and a sample content plan, with the proposed audience, formats, success measures, and any paid-media role specified.

When to choose a specialist

Read more
Alternative

If the brief depends on proven purchases from a defined consumer segment, prioritize creators who can provide recent audience data and comparable conversion results. Ryan To could still be considered for a separate strategy or campaign-teardown role.

Brief

A consumer brand needs a guaranteed direct-response endorsement campaign and wants to forecast sales from Ryan To’s audience figures alone.

Decision

Poor fit based on what Ryan To’s posts say. They discuss brand marketing and organic-to-paid tactics, but provide no independently verified audience composition, conversion results, or documented performance guarantee. The audience size and views mentioned in a post are self-reported. Their posts also do not establish a current standard offer for sponsored endorsements.

Alternative

Use a creator with documented audience composition and a published or directly confirmed commercial offer for this brief. Reconsider Ryan To if the buyer can first obtain suitable audience evidence and agree terms directly.

Brief

A financial-services company needs a campaign aimed at a verified professional or seniority segment, with established sponsorship terms and a fixed posting schedule.

Decision

Poor fit without further diligence. Ryan To describes an audience of marketers and founders, but their posts do not verify occupations, seniority, or audience demographics. They also do not state a sponsorship policy, rates, deliverables, or posting cadence. Ask for this information directly; do not infer it from the posts or from their stated partnerships.

A worked campaign example
Angle

Build a short founder-led series around one real decision: what the founder was trying to learn, how they used the analytics product, and what changed in the next marketing test. Keep the product in the operating story rather than making the post a detached endorsement. This matches Ryan To’s argument for integrations shown inside real company decisions and their recurring use of specific marketing case studies.

Brief

A B2B analytics startup wants e-commerce founders to understand how its product helps them make marketing decisions. The company can provide a founder willing to share a real, non-confidential workflow.

Sample outline

Open with the decision or problem the founder faced, in language aimed at another operator.

Show the relevant product workflow and explain what signal the founder looked at; avoid presenting an unsupported result as proven.

Close with the next test the founder plans to run and a question that invites other operators to share how they handle the same decision.

Test and next step

Agree on channels, number of posts, approvals, disclosure, usage rights, and reporting before production; Ryan To’s posts do not specify these terms. Test the first piece against a defined audience and track relevant responses, such as qualified inquiries or saves, alongside views. If the post earns useful attention, discuss paid amplification separately. Ryan To describes this organic-testing-to-paid-amplification approach in a post about E.L.F. Beauty, but that example does not guarantee the same result for this startup. First confirm their current availability and whether this work would be independent or connected to Clay.

Sources for this section

Who else to consider

Will Shonn

Choose Will Shonn if the software company’s campaign is specifically about TikTok Shop growth for consumer brands.

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The post describes auditing TikTok accounts, running an e-commerce brand, and treating TikTok Shop as a system for discovery, content, live selling, and customer feedback. That makes the example more useful for a buyer evaluating social-commerce operations than Ryan To’s broader B2B marketing analysis.

The available work focuses on TikTok Shop and consumer commerce, with less emphasis on explaining B2B products through founder decisions and marketing case studies. Ask about current availability and campaign terms before booking.

Examples: Source 1

Shahbaz Akbar

Choose Shahbaz Akbar when the campaign needs a clear explanation of how TikTok Shop content can move a shopper from attention to purchase.

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One post contrasts demand-capture e-commerce with discovery-led shopping; another groups content into problem-solution, demonstration, and creator-review formats. Those examples give a brand a more focused starting point for a TikTok Shop content plan than Ryan To’s broader platform and B2B campaign commentary.

The reviewed examples focus on TikTok Shop rather than B2B software marketing or founder-led product integrations.

  • They support a content-strategy conversation but do not show campaign results for a prospective client.
  • Ask for relevant results before booking.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Riley Cronin

Choose Riley Cronin if the buyer is a consumer brand seeking a creator-community model that can supply organic videos and help identify ad creative.

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The post lays out recruiting creators, briefing and coaching them, assessing content, and testing strong videos as ads. That is more operationally specific than Ryan To’s posts for a campaign centered on building a creator program rather than explaining B2B marketing to e-commerce founders.

Riley Cronin’s examples center on consumer-brand creator communities and TikTok Shop, not B2B software campaigns or founder-led demonstrations of a product in company decisions.

  • The post presents expected economics as Riley Cronin’s claims, not verified outcomes for another brand.
  • Ask about availability and campaign terms before booking.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Sources for this section

Build your campaign brief

Editable Markdown templates for planning a campaign with this creator.

Campaign brief: blank working template

Worked example: B2B analytics for e-commerce founders

Worked example: organic content planning before paid amplification

Sources for this section

Research methodology

  • This profile is based on eight posts from Ryan To's LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, observed in October 2026.
  • The posts cover social media growth, B2B campaign examples, creator-led marketing, event content, and a change in publishing.
  • No publication dates are listed for individual posts, and the posts here include no video or transcript, so spoken or filmed work is not assessed.
  • Follower counts, view counts, and campaign results mentioned here come from Ryan To's own posts and are not independently verified.
  • These posts do not establish signature books, shows, or earlier career history.

Brands they talk about