The X Verified Org Startup Game Plan (Or How To Make Your Brand Go Viral)

By Jason Levin

Sup nerds?

My name is Jason Levin and I’m the founder of Memelord Technologies, a software for marketers to find and create new viral memes.

Sounds silly, I know.  But meme marketing is a serious business.

Startups such as Supabase, Whop, beehiiv, Viggle and more —  and even some public companies like Coinbase and HubSpot — use my software to make memes. Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably seen my memes or memes created on my software across the internet from X to LinkedIn to Instagram — even Reddit.

So how did I get my meme software used by many of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley?

Let me tell you about a little trick called X Verified Organizations.

I don’t work for X.

I’m not paid by X.

But I run a seven-figure marketing-tech company on X and know a few tricks.

Most people don’t even know this exists. But X Verified Organizations is a feature rolled out in 2024 to help brands take advantage of the X network.

Yeah, yeah, I know X is a weird place right now with Elon.

But X is still the No. 1 place for startups and venture capital — it has the highest density of smart, wealthy people in Silicon Valley. Nowhere else on the internet can you find this.

On TikTok, you post and get comments from 17-year-old girls in Albania. On X, you post and might get a comment from Elon Musk or Bryan Johnson. It’s a different level of wealth and if you’re serious about making money as a startup, you should be taking X seriously.

OK, back to X Verified Orgs.

First off, it costs $1,000 a month.

But it’s worth it, trust me! I didn’t raise a $3 million seed. I’m a bootstrapped founder and I’m paying for it. So don’t write it off just because it’s pricey.

Here are some of the most powerful features I use.

Affiliate Badges

When you sign up for an X Verified Org, you can give affiliate badges to employees.

“Uh, who cares about this?” you might ask.

It’s an extra $50 per person, but, if you want your brand everywhere, it’s a small price to pay for the millions of extra views you get on your logo.

I have 20-plus affiliates on X ranging from my employees to business partners to even some of my biggest power users for Memelord Technologies. This lets you build an entire mafia for your brand. You’re literally everywhere.

In February, for example, one of my affiliates was mentioned on the popular tech podcast Technology Brothers. And the host specifically called out the badge saying they’ve seen it everywhere. This is the power of ubiquity.

This strategy is what I like to call the “Barstoolification of Business.”

Love Barstool or hate it, the brand has done a great job building a mafia online. Dave Portnoy is the main mafioso, but he’s got a whole mafia behind him from goofball Barstool characters such as Tommy Smokes and “Fat Cat.” Barstool is everywhere thanks to its mafia.

And it’s not just Barstool.

Morning Brew did the same thing. Founders Alex Lieberman and Austin Rief are the main mafia heads, but they have a whole gang of Morning Brew affiliates such as Dan Toomey, Toby Howell, Kyle Hagge, Macy Killiam and more — The Morning Brew Crew.

OK, I know what you’re thinking: Barstool and Morning Brew are both “media companies.”

Well folks, in today’s age every good company is a “media company.”

Every startup is a media company.

Every founder is an influencer.

— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin) March 5, 2024

One of the best examples of a nonmedia media company is Ramp, a B2B finance SaaS company that has become one of the hottest, most-talked-about startups in Silicon Valley thanks to its Ramp Mafia.

The Ramp Mafia has the main mafia boss Eric Glyman, but then there’s a whole cast of supporting characters like the goofy young engineer on the team, Joowon, who every single day tweets “Day #_ of asking Ramp for a raise”. And the Ramp mafia is everywhere thanks to the little Ramp affiliate badge.

And, oh yeah — the badges are not just a brand marketing play. When someone taps on your badge, they get sent to your company page. Boom: More sales and followers for you and your brand.

X Analytics

With a Verified Org, you get access to a full analytics dashboard.

If you want to check how one of your employees is doing on social media, you can filter for only them (without a verified org, you’d need to ask them to hand over their stats).

Or you can choose the entire company to see how the whole organization is doing.

When it comes to getting a full look at your company’s social data, the X Verified Org analytics tab is extremely helpful and under talked about.

Add in an X scheduling tool like Typefully, a meme-making tool like Memelord Technologies, and post consistently, and boom — you’re gonna grow.

Advertising

X is a notoriously awful place to advertise.

The ROI on X ads is terrible compared to Meta and TikTok. Everyone knows this. It’s a joke in the marketing industry.

The X team is self-aware enough to know this as well. So X gives out $1,000 per month in free ad credits (the same price as the verified org in the first place) so you can make your money go further on X. It’s free money.

I use my $1,000 per month to drive a ton of link clicks and signups. Granted, it’s still a far worsecost per acquisition, or CPA, than Meta, but the X team is literally giving away free money when you spend the $1,000 per month on verified orgs.

If you have a good high-margin software product like most of us here in Silicon Valley, there’s no harm in giving it a try.

The X Verified Org evil startup game plan

OK, are you ready to take advantage of X Verified Orgs?

Here are the steps:

1. Sign up for verified orgs for $1,000/month;
2. Delegate affiliate badges to you and your employees;
3. Set a weekly reminder to go over your analytics;
4. Spend that free $1,000/month on ads; and
5. See revenue growth go brrrrrrrr!!!

Jason Levin is the founder of meme marketing software Memelord Technologies. He writes about unhinged marketing every week in his free newsletter, Cyber Patterns and is the author of Memes Make Millions.

Illustration: Dom Guzman