How I hit 3.3 million LinkedIn Impressions in 12 weeks | #11

Transcription

Daniel: Putting yourself out there is the most emotionally draining thing you will ever do. Whether it's asking a girl out on a date, applying to a club, applying to a college, trying out for a sports team, asking someone for help, or posting on social media, which is just as hard and if not harder of them all. I know this because I've done these things and I've posted a lot on social media. We're talking a thousand LinkedIn posts and enough to get over 300,000 followers on TikTok. But this video is about LinkedIn, not TikTok. In this video, I'm going to break down how I got 3.3 million impressions in just 12 weeks. And I'm going to break this video down into two categories, LinkedIn-specific things and non-LinkedIn-specific things. So let's get right into it with the LinkedIn-specific things. The first LinkedIn-specific thing you should do is to comment a lot. I'll get 20% of my weekly impressions from comments. That's 50,000 impressions a week from sending comments on LinkedIn. It suggests that you take three post actions per week, knowing most people will probably take zero. I'll send 20, 50 comments per week, showing people that I support them, showing empathy to people in my circle. They appreciate that, and that will also give you a lot more impressions. I mean, I have comments with 15,000 impressions. It's much easier to spot a viral post than to write one yourself. Daniel: So you might as well comment on that viral post when you see it, and you'll be able to grow with that viral creator. The next LinkedIn-specific thing is to send connection requests. And one step further is to send those to the ideal people that you want to meet on the platform or the ideal people you want in your audience. If you're a founder starting a software company, targeting Series A companies, or if you're a YouTuber chef and you want to get a deal from some cook, Hexclad, then you should connect with people at Hexclad. Or if you want a sponsorship deal from Canva and you're a design YouTuber, connect with people at Canva. Because on LinkedIn, the feed isn't as built out yet. So connecting with those people is going to give you one more chance to land on their feed. Because once you connect, it's almost like Instagram in the early days. Most people accept their connection requests. And then for that week, your content is flooded in their feed. So it gives you one more chance to get in front of them. So when you eventually send that DM and that message, you'll be top of mind for these people. The next LinkedIn-specific thing is to update your profile. For humans, change is really hard. We want to stick with what you're used to, but you need to make your profile as crisp and as good as possible. You want to think of it as a movie trailer. You want to show just enough to get people excited, but not the full story. And you also want it to look professional. Daniel: You want to give people a reason to follow you. And you want them to know what to expect. If they see your profile and see a bunch of buzzwords without a title, and it just doesn't paint a clear picture, there's no reason they're going to want to follow you or connect with you. It's your first impression is your profile. So you want it to be flawless. Because if the person is taking enough time to look at your profile, you want it to be worth their time to look at your profile. And you want to make that sense of urgency to connect with you and hear what you have to say as well and join your community. Matt: The last two things are kind of LinkedIn-specific, kind of not. But the first one is to post a lot. Over the summer when I hit this 3.3 million impressions, I was posting four and a half times a day on average. And this leads me into the last point about LinkedIn-specific things. Don't listen to the LinkedIn gurus. And I know this is ironic saying this, but there are so many things from when to post, post frequency, etc. When you think about the algorithm, replace that word with human. On LinkedIn, the algorithm is made up of humans. If you can connect with a person and get them to like your content, that's going to push it and make it do well. No one remembers what time the Taylor Swift engagement was. It doesn't matter what day the Super Bowl is. It's good content, so people are going to watch it whenever it's on. There are NFL games at 9 a.m. Matt: and people still wake up to watch them. With F1, that's also in the morning and people wake up to watch it. At least in the United States, it's in the morning. So don't listen to the gurus and just focus on making good content. So this honestly transitions well into the non-LinkedIn-specific things, which are, first is to have a partner or some sort of support network in this. Posting on LinkedIn and any other social media is mental warfare. It's not normal for humans to deal with this much rejection at scale. I mean, you're going to post maybe 100 times and 99 of them are going to flop. One post, even one post might go viral. On TikTok, I've probably posted a thousand videos. And my success on TikTok that made me hundreds of thousands of dollars was wrapped up in like 20 posts max. That's a really low percentage hit rate. On LinkedIn, it's the same. I've posted over 600 times and maybe 20 posts have most of my views. The same thing is going to happen with you. And if you don't have a support network to help you through this, you're going to be cooked because on social media, it's a power law. A few posts are going to drive most of your return. So you need a support network to keep you motivated to keep going through this. But if you don't have that support network, there's still something you can do. And that is to have a mission and to have a goal. The first one is a mission, and match something bigger than yourself that keeps you motivated, like a partner in this. Daniel: For example, my mission is to make content I wish I had when I was on LinkedIn. There are some things that I wish I knew starting out that I've now learned from interviewing all these top creators, like this, like you should have a mission. And the second one is to have a goal. And that goal is to make something bigger for your audience to have them on board as well. Because LinkedIn is such an emotional platform where when you like something, it projects to your entire network. So if I'm liking your content, I want to associate with you and help you achieve your goal. So for example, my goal with this podcast in this show is to make a $10 million podcast with Matt. So every like that the audience, like you, gives on this video or LinkedIn post or whatever it is, helps Matt and I achieve those goals. For John Hu, it's a billion dollar business. And every time you like his post, it helps him achieve that goal. Some people have different goals, like Stephen Bartlett wants to make the Disney of the creator economy. And this is a tactic politicians often use as well. They create movements. They don't just create content because we're emotional creatures at the end of the day. And having something to latch on to and be like, Oh, you're the guy that's making a $10 million podcast. Or you're the guy that talks about LinkedIn. Those are the things that you want to be known for. The next non-LinkedIn specific thing is to use emotion. Daniel: And this kind of ties in well with the goal, the mission, etc. And as we're getting more and more AI, etc., the one thing AI can't do is emotion. When you're talking to a human, like I am with this camera, there's an emotional connection between us right now, whether you realize it or not. And that's why you're listening. The same goes with LinkedIn content. We can all tell when something's generic, AI written, etc. No one wants to read that. But when it's written like a human, you know, maybe there is a typo or, you know, I can't make perfect eye contact or, you know, I'm gesturing. You can tell I'm an actual human. And the more you can connect with people and not sound like AI, the more you're going to stand out in this content landscape. I think using emotion is one of the most important parts of connecting with people at scale on social media. You'll often see when people are being interviewed, whether it's politicians, news, etc., they'll often say to you, act like the camera's not here. Because as soon as you're on camera, people think that you're supposed to be perfect, be buttoned up, etc. And that you're not supposed to be yourself when it's actually the opposite. The best people on camera are ones that aren't playing characters. They're being themselves because then they can authentically connect with an audience, just like hopefully I'm doing right now. The next non-LinkedIn-specific thing to do is to cloud chase. Daniel: Look at Airac, what he did with Logan Paul's couches, buying them and making a whole series out of it. A lot of other YouTube videos came out of that. I can talk about this from my experience. What I've been doing recently is tagging other big creators that are mainly YouTubers and saying what I would do if I were them on LinkedIn. For example, this Brooke Monk one I did, I got 100,000 impressions from it saying how I'd redo my LinkedIn strategy if I were a Brooke Monk. Or I did one with Samir where I actually got Samir to comment. It was a little embarrassing because he ratioed me and his comment had more likes than my entire post. But that post about Samir's content led me to drive so many more followers and meaningful conversations than a lot of my other posts combined. That's a format that I'm going to stick to because I can get on the radar of a lot of these creators. Samir comments. I get on some of his network and it helps us both grow because we both have more content to work with and I'm providing actual value to the celebrity. That's the key with cloud chasing. It doesn't work unless you provide value. Eric actually bought Logan Paul's couches. Kim Kardashian was actually Paris Hilton's assistant. And for me, I actually provided value to Colin and Samir where I wrote out their LinkedIn strategy of how I would do it if I were them, providing actual value. So that's the key when cloud chasing to provide actual value. Daniel: And this works across all platforms, not just LinkedIn. But again, you have to provide actual value. And then once people see your content, you have to give them a reason to stay. And my reason is that you want to learn more about LinkedIn, learn tangible takeaways to help you grow on LinkedIn and learn why you should post on LinkedIn. And then you'll want to like my content as you help Matt and I build the $10 million podcast. And the last non-LinkedIn specific thing is to understand that it's a muscle. The first time you did laundry, it was hard. You didn't know what to do. The first time you download an app, it's hard. How do you use it, etc. The first time you cook, it's hard. You don't know what to do. Where do the pots and pans go? How do you clean a dish? How do you use a microwave? All these things were hard at first, especially fitness, starting to get into running, starting to eat healthier. All change is hard at first, but just like anything, content creation is something that you can practice and get better at over time. It's just a muscle. The more you run, the better you get at it. The more you film videos, the better you get at filming videos. The more you cook, the better you get at cooking. The more you microwave, the better you get at microwaving. The more you email, the better you get at emailing. So don't expect to be perfect at it over time. Content creation is a muscle that you're going to get better at over time. Daniel: And as you get better at creating content, you will know that LinkedIn is the next TikTok. And I think my biggest... This reason is because the use cases are expanding. TikTok started as this platform where a lot of middle schoolers were just dancing and it was cringe to be on. And then more and more people started going on it. And now the whole TikTok shop is a thing, people are building entrepreneurial empires on it. And there's no doubt that if you're trying to market your company, you're on TikTok. The same is happening with LinkedIn. It first started as a place where you just go get jobs and maybe post a career update or two. Then it started to be a place where you could search and look at other corporate employees. Now I literally got 3.3 million impressions over the summer. And I was doing this to promote a travel startup that ended up getting 10,000 users because of my LinkedIn posts, which is a separate point on how yes, you can build B2C businesses, not just B2B on LinkedIn, but the use cases are clearly expanding beyond just posting job updates and getting a job. And as these transitions happening, I know because I was on TikTok in 2020 and made hundreds of thousands of dollars by being a first mover. The same is gonna happen with LinkedIn. And that's what motivates me a lot to make a lot of this content because I wanna help you get on in the advantage with me because there is so much opportunity to go around. If you make good content, it's gonna go viral. Daniel: And the odds of that on LinkedIn are so much higher because there's less competition and it's a growing market. So there's one takeaway from this video. It's to post on LinkedIn. These aren't just my takes though. I've interviewed a bunch of other LinkedIn creators, 10 times more successful than me. And you should check out some of those interviews too to hear it from them. Thanks for watching and I appreciate your time.