How an MIT scientist hacked the LinkedIn algorithm

Transcription

Daniel: Oh, my pleasure. Nice to see you all, Matt, Dan. Thanks for inviting me on the podcast. Matt: So Juliana, for the people who don't know who you are, the first time meeting you, can you just give the quick background on who you are? Daniel: Okay, well, I'm a mom of two, based in Singapore. I'm a scientist by training, and I had two career transitions that led to me today being a LinkedIn branding coach. I began as a scientist. I actually studied for many years in the UK and the US. I was based at Boston, did my graduate studies at MIT. And then I returned home to Singapore, where I was raised, to open my own lab. It was about 2018 where I resigned from academia because I had two babies, and I decided to be a media entrepreneur. So I did what I knew, which was to publish books and magazines on science and tech. I have a magazine called Asian Scientist. But you know what, Matt? In 2020, something really bad happened that all of us are still trying to collectively forget, and that was COVID. I'm sure you agree that in a pandemic, nobody wants to see each other, let alone, you know, take a magazine that I printed. So I had to pivot my entire business to the digital space. And it was then that I realized I didn't know anything about branding, about LinkedIn. I had no LinkedIn presence at the start of 2020. So it also happened that it was 2020 that I decided to, you know, I was invited to go to Davos for the World Economic Forum. It was crazy because when we were there, you know, the pandemic was unfolding, and they asked me to moderate the international press conference on the COVID pandemic. And we didn't even have a name for it yet. We just called it a virus, a coronavirus. So I decided to post everything that happened at Davos on LinkedIn. So I met like Sadhguru, you know, I met all the VIPs there, every single one of them, Nico Rosenberg. I met all the presidents, and even Donald Trump, Greta Thunberg was there. I watched all of their speeches, and I posted it on LinkedIn. And it was crazy because people were responding, like, you know, 500 likes, a thousand likes, 500 likes, a thousand likes. And that's what got me hooked. And this really helped as I sagged into the pandemic where we were all in lockdown, and I began posting. Now, it was at the end of 2020 where LinkedIn gave me a top voice batch. So this goes way back to 2020. Daniel: And I really enjoyed it. I posted a lot about my business as a media entrepreneur, but it was 2023 that I became a LinkedIn coach. This is when I really went out, started LinkedIn digital courses. I started boot camps. Now, I have a mastermind. I do corporate training. So here I am today with both of you to discuss, I think, very important 2026 strategies for LinkedIn. Matt: Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on. And first of all, you have a really interesting background, and you've made a pretty interesting pivot as well, which I have so many questions about. But how about we just start with, you know, it almost sounds like, Juliana, you accidentally, like, started posting on LinkedIn because you went to Davos, right? Do you think that if you hadn't decided to, you know, post all that content on LinkedIn at that point in time, would you still have posted on LinkedIn just in a later point or in a different capacity? Or was it really one of those moments where you did not intend to get as much traction as you did? And then when you saw that, oh, lots of people are interacting with this, oh, maybe there's something here, I should double down on it. Daniel: Matt, it was do or die because I had a team, you know, I had a company. I had about, at that time, about eight employees. And we were printing magazines and books. We were in a do or die mission to pivot to social media. So it was my attempt to say, Hey, listen, we are in the B2B professional space. What platforms are right for us? So then Twitter, now X. Twitter is not big in Singapore, in my part of the world. Twitter is maybe big in the media space and maybe in Japan, but otherwise there is no presence here. There's nothing else. So it was LinkedIn or essentially, you know, let a few people go. And I'm proud to say that we didn't have to let anyone go because the business became the priority. LinkedIn became a priority of my business. We started managing lots and lots of corporate accounts. Matt: And Matt, in my early days, I used to ghostwrite for some very senior VIPs. I would have to sign NDAs. You know, you have to kill me before I tell you who I wrote for. So that's how I started my LinkedIn journey. It was do or die. At this time, Juliana, you started as a magazine company. How do you pivot? What does that mean to, like, pivot to LinkedIn? Are you posting a lot of the same articles on LinkedIn? Are you doing them as posts, a website? Run us through that transition as well as you're figuring this out. Daniel: Okay, so historically, before social media, a lot of the content writers, editors, journalists would write for blogs. We would write, you know, 800 to a thousand words, put them on a blog somewhere. You know, we ran major blog accounts for government agencies, ministries, private companies for years and years and years. You know, we controlled the whole database. Social media is essentially that, except it's on a platform like LinkedIn, and it's about 300 to 400 words. Matt: So to be honest with you, it wasn't much of a transition. It was just keeping up with the tides, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. Blogspot.com used to be a big deal, you know, in the noughties. When you said that you were a blogger, it was kind of like, wow, you're so, you know, you're so cool. If you see a blogger now, you know, people would be like, what's wrong with you? Everyone's on the platforms on social media. So I didn't think it was difficult then, really. It was actually easier for my team to do it than to write long-form articles. Daniel: What was the business model at this time that changed? Did it pivot from a magazine to ghostwriting? Matt: Okay, so I have magazines of my own, titles of my own, but I also custom publish lots of magazines for, you know, Big Pharma, for agencies, for ministries, and for academic institutions. So that business still holds, but a lot of it has gone online. So, for example, I do one of the, I publish a magazine for a major science agency in my part of the world. We also run their Telegram, Facebook, X, Instagram, and of course, LinkedIn, and newsletters. So I think it's just, it's the medium that is changing. And my business had to evolve. If not, we would have perished very, very soon in the pandemic. Daniel: Juliana, I'm also curious about, you know, clearly LinkedIn was a huge priority, but did you, at that time, also look at other platforms? Like when we think about B2B marketing, I think LinkedIn obviously comes to the front. You sort of mentioned X a little bit, but did you, even maybe back to the Davos days, like, did you think about other platforms, like even YouTube, potentially, or? Matt: Not really, because I think of myself as a writer more than a speaker. Like I self-identify as a writer. So my spirit animal as a platform is LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn is a place that you go to for long-form writing, you know, with maybe a picture, you know, text plus picture is the best format right now. LinkedIn for a very short time, Matt and Dan, I'm sure you remember, tried to push video on us. They were like, video, video, video. They had like sponsored posts promoting video. And then all our video engagement and impressions went up, and then it's created again. Because we didn't come to LinkedIn to watch video, right? We go to YouTube, we go to TikTok, we go to Instagram, YouTube shorts, YouTube long form, whatever. We didn't come to LinkedIn to look at video. So I think it's not so much the algorithm, it's the user preference is for writing. And I find it really, really good for me because I love writing. And it's really easy for me, Matt, to write posts because I have no, there is no like barrier to, for me to write. It's very easy for me to write. Daniel: I feel like this is a good segue, Juliana, into how you actually write a lot in dollars per movie, it's often called the Pixar arc. Of course, they didn't invent it. Daniel: It's really easy because you start with like an introduction and a context building, and then you introduce the conflict, and then there's a climax and there's a resolution, and there's a new normal, okay? I can walk you through the process, but it's really straightforward, and that's how every single Pixar movie is written. You know, the conflict, the climax, and the resolution, and then, of course, new normal refers to something you've learned, something that has changed, but it's a new normal for your life. So every single post I've written, like, for real, follows this specific storytelling arc, which is as simple as it comes. You know, I came back, my daughter came back from school one day, so I've got two kids, a girl and a boy, and I saw that she had learned the story arc, which she calls the story mountain, in grade two. She's like eight years old. So if an eight-year-old can do it, so can we. So back to how I write those posts. So if I have a story, so for example, it's an origin story. An origin story is a very core story about your identity, okay? So it's how you came to be, how you came to where you are today, what moulded you to who you are. We have many origin stories, not just one. Many, many, many, okay? But let's just take one simple one of how I became an entrepreneur. Because I'm a, I used to be a professor in a medical school. So I would start with the context. I'm a professor in a medical school, and then the conflict, which is I had kids, you know, it was too stressful. I couldn't, I couldn't concentrate. I had too much on me. I decided to quit. So that's like the climax because it's, it's, it's really bad, right? At this point, I quit. I resigned. I threw it. I threw the towel in. And then I found a new career being a publisher, being an editor, writer, and now LinkedIn coach. And therefore the new normal is, you know, some reflections. Well, although it's not where I thought I would end up, but all the things that I've learned before have shaped me as a LinkedIn coach now. And guess what, Matt and Ben? A lot of my clients come from that part of the world, analytical thinkers, innovators, founders, scientists, you know, all these, these people trust me because I'm like them. I look like them. I think like them. And I, I'm not some marketing guru who, who claims to be like, you know, I'm, I'm not from like New York times. I'm not that person. I'm a scientist who learned how to write and market. So they trust me because they know that I came from the same origin as them. So Matt, because I write these origin stories, because they are authentic and they are genuine, people see themselves in me and then they feel that they can trust me. And this is what I call the law of attraction on LinkedIn. It's not woo-woo, it's very scientific. I'm very scientific as they come because your stories act as a magnet. So a magnet can attract, it can repel. And my stories are attracting clients to me every single day. Daniel: And of course they're repelling someone who's like, Oh God, she sounds terrible. So they, they unfollow me. And that's fine because they were never going to pay me or, or work with me anyway. And therefore Matt, as of today, I can tell you, last year I didn't, I didn't do a single sales call. I don't do sales calls. I don't do sales calls. I have an offer and I present it to you through my content and people buy it or not buy it, thanks to my stories. And I can tell you it's the most profitable way to use LinkedIn right now. Whatever everyone else is doing with rage bait, I know you had a recent video on that. I'm telling you, my strategy is profitable. It comes with a dollar sign on it. So no offense to rage baiters, but if I see someone write rage bait, I'm less likely to trust them. I'm less likely to open my wallet to them because I don't see them as, as a, you know, a B2B professional, as an industry expert, as a high quality, you know, collaborator for myself. But that's just my personal opinion. Matt: No, Juliana, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. Not all attention is created equal, right? And depending on what you're is profitable. Yeah, we got to coin that. Not all attention is profitable. You know, you know, I have a favorite saying, Matt, you know, which is, likes on LinkedIn in don't pay the bills. Likes on LinkedIn don't pay the bills. So don't get confused. Just because you get a viral post doesn't mean you're going to make a lot of money. In fact, maybe a post with 50 likes can get you a lot more money. I think that's just really great social media advice, regardless of whether it's on LinkedIn or not. Like same with YouTube. I've heard many times that million views can get you paid way less than a thousand views of like the right audience. And it sounds like it's your, first of all, your audience is the right audience that a lot of those folks would benefit from your offer. And you're also positioning the offer in a way where it's super clear to them what they're going to get, but also they trust you because of the storytelling component. So that's so interesting, Juliana. And I think it's a really relevant topic for the audience who probably wants to build a LinkedIn following. But most people, the reason they want to do that is because they're running a business or they want to build a business from that. So I think this is actually potentially a good transition to like a recent post, even that you made about the new rules to survive on LinkedIn in 2026. You want to give a little bit of context on that? Daniel: Matt, LinkedIn is changing so quickly. I'm sure you have noticed like the algorithm keeps changing. The rules keep changing. I even saw a boost your post on top of my post recently. Have you seen those? Do you see those? Like since when were we supposed to boost our posts on LinkedIn? So everything is changing. And yes, I did write a post on how to survive LinkedIn in 2026. Matt: How should we go about it step-by-step? Yeah, let's go through the list. Daniel: Okay, okay. Let's start. Matt: Okay, shall we? What will get you in trouble? I'm going to go through them one by one. You're welcome to chime in and tell me what you think. Okay, whether you agree or disagree. Daniel: Okay, number one, using third-party bots, so software attachments, you know, to write AI comments. So I think that will get you in trouble right now because LinkedIn is coming down hard. I know accounts that got banned because of that. They got a notice from LinkedIn. Have you seen those? Matt: Yes, I've heard of companies getting banned. So I got a screenshot of someone who got an important notice from LinkedIn. We noticed activity from your account that indicates you might be using an automation tool. This can be caused by browser extensions or third-party applications. Please review any tools you may be using. Our user agreement does not allow the use of automated software. Use of these tools may lead to your account being restricted. So people have been restricted or banned or suspended because of these tools. So I suggest everyone just stop right now. Stop right now. Daniel: One question there, Juliana, because automated comments is one thing. And it sounds like based on the policy that you just read, like LinkedIn doesn't want any kind of automation tool. Because one of the big use cases, I think, for a lot of people who are maybe in sales is outbound on LinkedIn, right? Nowhere else can you have so much information on your prospects and also be able to reach out directly to them, have 100% deliverability. And I think there's also a lot of tools that have popped up in the past that enable people to reach out to many of their prospects at scale. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that as a use case for LinkedIn. I don't know if you've tried any of these in the past, but any thoughts on that? Matt: So I think if used the right way, it could lead to a lot of efficiency and productivity. But the problem LinkedIn has right now, which it has to resolve, and it has actually a squad assembled to do this. I've spoken to a bunch of them in the products team in the US office that they are hired right now to solve this particular problem, which is many of these tools are now contributing to the AI slot on the platform. So yes, it may be useful for a legitimate entrepreneur or HR business partner, HRBP. But at the same time, what we are seeing now is everyone's posting something and there's like 25 AI comments there that are not even legitimate. It's like, it's like, you know the dead internet theory? We're like, we are posting from ChatGPT and AIs are responding to it. So there's no authenticity left on the platform. And if that continues, and people are complaining already, then LinkedIn is going to be in trouble, right? There will be other platforms that come along that may have a better experience than LinkedIn. So it's working on that. Daniel: So Matt, I'm sure there's collateral damage. Matt: There are the good guys who are like, hey, why are you suspending my account? I'm using it just, you know, to hire people or to reach out to potential clients. But so basically, if you're using that tool right now for good reasons, I suggest you just take a break for a couple of months until this is all over and let's figure out what LinkedIn wants or does not want from its users. Sounds fair? Daniel: Sounds fair to me. And I'm sure the audience appreciates that very honest and real take there. Yeah, it's fascinating, and I think anyone who is building a business where LinkedIn is either the primary marketing channel or your business is, you know, somewhat very dependent on your account being active, super important to be cognizant of that risk and to think carefully about, you know, how you want to be using it. Because your account gets banned, whether it's your company page or your personal page, then it's game over. Matt: And you know, it can happen for all kinds of reasons, right? Like, one of my friends had an Excel file. He's like, he's in HR. He opened all 30 profiles together and then he got suspended because it all looks like automation to LinkedIn. So I think I'll be just very careful of like doing like 30 of a specific action, like blocking 30 people at one go, or, you know, like leaving like 30 comments very quickly. You know, don't do bot-like, just avoid bot-like behavior right now. Daniel: Yeah, it's funny because, Juliana, I run a ghostwriting agency right now. And one of the things that we were doing that got flagged as automation, even though it was a human, was sending 30 connection requests every single day on someone's account. Matt: There you go. There you go. You know, we were staying well under like the 200 weekly limit, I think, but because it was like 30 connection requests sent at the same time every day in quick succession, I think it got picked up as bot activity, which was interesting to me. So anyways, this is really fascinating. I want to keep moving through the, because you've got a lot of ideas here, but the next one, it looks like, is outsourcing to VAs. Daniel: Okay, this is, this is my speculation because unfortunately I don't work at LinkedIn, but I have friends there, and I also have friends who are top voices. One of them that could get you into trouble is outsourcing to VAs, you know, virtual assistants, who create inauthentic interactions. So this is something that I think has, is a danger, because one of my clients had a VA who was responding on their behalf as them from a different country. So imagine you're in the US and the VA is in another country and both of you are posting at the same time. Of course you're posting and then they are commenting or, you know, DMing, whatever. And it led to, it led to some challenges on that part, including the loss of a badge. So I just put two and two together. Matt: I'm just, I'm just trying to figure out why did we lose a badge that way? For context, I think all of us are aware in this room that many, many LinkedIn top voices lost their badge on Christmas day. It's kind of brutal, don't you think? It's kind of, it's kind of awful. Like, Merry Christmas, I'm taking away your blue badge. So lots of LinkedIn top voices lost their badge over Christmas overnight. Daniel: Let's double click on that, though, Juliana. Some people may not realize what happened over Christmas. And it sounds like, you know, based on what you're saying, a lot of people lost their badges. Do we have a hypothesis on why? Matt: Yes, I still have my badge, guys. Pray to every, every god that you believe in, every, every, uh the universe or, you know, manifest because I still have my badge, but I'm, I'm not sure how long I'll have it. I just assume that I still have it for the next six months. So, so okay, back to that, right? So on Christmas or Boxing Day, depending where you live, for me it was, it was more like, you know, Boxing Day. I, we woke up to find a lot of kind of visible LinkedIn top voices without the blue badge. And then after a while, it became clear that many, many people lost their badges with no explanation, no warning. And it was like, Oh, no, this is happening at a massive scale. And we don't know why this has happened. We can only speculate because many people have written to LinkedIn. I actually have written to LinkedIn as well. And all they do is to send us to like a best practices page of what they're looking for, what they do not look for. So it seems like, you know, more than 50 to a hundred people have lost their badges. It cannot be all of them made the same error, right? There must be a bunch of reasons. Daniel: So nobody really knows why they lost the badge because there are some very famous and visible top voices like Justin Welch, whom I think is doing a great job, who doesn't have his badge anymore, which is, which is sad. You know, he's working really hard for LinkedIn to get everyone onto the platform. And I thought that it was time that he got his badge, which was maybe like six months ago. And today he doesn't have the badge anymore. So we don't know why. Maybe you should interview him and ask him, you know, if he has any thoughts on it. Of course, it's a bit sore right now. If Justin is here, if Justin, if you're listening, I'm also a bit puzzled what happened. I would like to have answers too. Matt: 100%. I mean, it's sad to hear that and actually, Justin, if you're listening to this, we'd love to have you on. You're one of the reasons why I actually started posting because I was Justin spoke at an event last spring that I attended and he was talking about LinkedIn as well and why it was such a big opportunity. So yeah, but not to get on and off on that tangent. Moving on, what will get you into trouble? Point number three, creating fake reshares and likes using bot accounts. Daniel: So there have been engagement pods on LinkedIn that use fake company pages. So for example, if you go to their post, usually a carousel, okay, a carousel post, like a PDF that you can swipe through with AI comments, uh AI contents rather, like three things you should do to, to get promoted or 10 reasons your boss hates you, you know, those kinds of like, like bait, baity posts. You will notice that you would see like a hundred reshares and on LinkedIn, reshares are a very rare occurrence. To find like a hundred suddenly uh strikes me as manufactured and inauthentic. So if you would go to, if you were to go to check all these reshares and reposts, you'll find that they're all by like weird company pages with like, with like zero followers. They're all like shell accounts. Even the users are all third-degree connections and in, in very sketchy, you know, very sketchy, incomplete profiles. So those are clear signs of an engagement pod using uh bot accounts for fake uh engagement and virality. But the problem, Matt and Dan, is that actually they have successfully gamed the LinkedIn system, which is why LinkedIn is actually stepping in on the crackdown right now because it's a chicken and egg situation with the algorithm. So pardon me, okay, this is the wonky side of me, the scientist in me going to start speaking. Yes, they may have true virality, but it's because they incepted it with fake virality. So the way the algorithm works, uh at least until recently, things have been changing, but the first 60 minutes are what we call the golden hour. Okay, you make or break a post in that 60 minutes. You better have a good 60 minutes. In fact, some people say the first five to 10 minutes are the most important. Regardless, if you don't get a good post in the first good engagement in 60 minutes, your post is throttled. Throttled means it's like, it's like dead, you know, it's dead. So what they do is they start very strong in the first five to 10 minutes with all these reshares and posts and likes and whatever, and saves, and then it triggers the algorithm to show it beyond the first-degree connections to the second degree and to the third. And once it goes to third degrees, it's like, it's like out of the door. So you get true virality with that. So it's not to say, Matt or Dan, that your post is worse or better than their post. It's just that they managed to trick the algorithm to showing it to many people. And then because the post is generic enough, you know, it's usually like a like a screenshot of a, a scenery with like some caption on it. So they get like that whole, like the mass market kind of likes, which is like a billion users get to like it. Of course, you're going to get a bunch of thousand likes. So this is actually what's being manufactured by these engagement pods and LinkedIn is cracking down on that. So if you've been using them and you are a top voice or not, I would suggest that, you know, you scale back on that behavior right now. Daniel: It doesn't gonna pay the bills anyway. It's just, it's probably an ego trip at this point, honestly. You agree? Matt: To give the audience some context too about these engagement pods, like I've been talking to some people who run similar services to Matt for executives, and some of these people are making like $50,000 per month off of their engagement pods doing what you described Julia, like making a lot of money. And that's not something Matt and I want to participate in. We've been invited to so many of them where it's Conversational thread, Juliana. And this is for people who run maybe ghostwriting or media businesses where they are helping their clients build an audience or build some kind of marketing flywheel on social media, like LinkedIn, for example. And I know you also help your clients with newsletters and other stuff as well. Do you ever find that you have to almost educate your clients on, hey, engagement and impressions is not the only thing that we should be measuring as our success KPI. Like even though this post only got a couple thousand impressions, it It's still worth putting out there because of a different reason, or maybe it's reaching the right audience, or it's not designed to go viral even. Daniel: Do you ever find that you have to do that with your clients where it's a lot of like that coaching and educational side of it? Matt: Yes, in fact, I run a mastermind right now. It's called the Brand Builder Mastermind, and we have about 200 members in it. So this is a 12-month virtual community where I train either I or my other coaches train them once a week. In fact, Jasmine Alec, you might know him as Hey Jay, he's quite a famous LinkedIn coach. He's coming in next week to train the community. So if both of you would like to listen, I'd love to have you join us on Zoom. He's coming in to teach us. So all my work, Matt, centers around reminding my clients what really matters on LinkedIn. So if you're a corporate executive, what you want is to signal externally and internally about your contributions, your value proposition. Many times it can lead to invitations to speak on panels, they can win awards, they can be asked to give a keynote, or they can even be invited to write a book, you know, publish a manuscript. And then they might even be, they might get DMs from industry mentors, peers, or whatever, asking them for coffee, for collaborations. Daniel: So Matt, those are the signals that I remind my clients are worth money. that will actually maximize their lifetime earning potential. Like, do you not want to double your income? Like, for real? So if you do want to double your income, let's actually look at signals that lead to you earning more money. Like how many headhunters have DM'd you? You know, I think that's a better metric, right? than how many likes you got. Like, likes don't keep me warm at night. Likes don't pay the mortgage for me. So in my case, because I run LinkedIn coaching, so maybe each post can lead to three DMs for my services. Matt: Just today I did this post about writing, someone calling you cringy for writing on LinkedIn. I'm looking at it right now. I've really got five contract proposals, like, you know, requests for service proposals to work with them. You know, LinkedIn has this particular feature where they can say what they need from me. So I've already got about five of them just from today's post. So that is more valuable than the absolute number of likes and comments and impressions you get. Daniel: Love that. I think the way that you articulated it, Juliana, was perfect. And I think this is a good way for us to then, let's talk about, like, what actually works on LinkedIn in 2026 because we've kind of covered most of the things that you should avoid doing, and it sounds like a lot of it is the automation, AI, inauthentic engagement manufacturing VAs as well. So what actually works then? Matt: Okay, let's keep it tight. We have three things that work on LinkedIn in 2026. First of all, text plus image posts are still the dominant format. Now, some people like to just put text. As a branding coach, I'll tell you that there is a connection that is made if you put your text post as per normal with the image. So that provides a connection between you and your valuable knowledge and someone reading it and assessing whether you are the right service provider for them. So imagine Dan and Matt, if you were just to write, like, lots of amazing knowledge and everyone's benefiting from it, and you were to walk on the street tomorrow, they will never be able to identify you. They couldn't pick you up from a lineup. They have no idea who gave them those nuggets of wisdom. Daniel: Now, in contrast, okay, myself, I always attach a picture of myself next to all my stuff. I can be walking in, to be fair, Singapore is a small place, okay, to be fair. But I can be anywhere, I promise you, anywhere. I can be, you know, with my kids, I can be in the swimming pool, I can be at a cafe, in a restaurant. Someone will walk up to me and say, Juliana, I've read your post on LinkedIn. You see the difference? So with the image, they can connect you with the value you provide, and then the goodwill is transferred upon me versus an anonymous John Doe account, which is great, but nobody feels the same way to them. Matt: So there's a kind of a connection that has to be made between the text and the image. And therefore, that format is still the best format if you want to make a lot of money through LinkedIn. That's all I have to say. And video, as we discussed, is not a dominant format anymore. You can still use video, but don't expect the kind of views that used to predominate in 2023, 2024, 2025. We could even get millions. I got like millions of views per video. So that was crazy. Okay, number two, authentic storytelling. If ChatGPT can write your posts, LinkedIn will downgrade it. Daniel: Yes, because right now they're trying to remove the AI content, the kind of like three things to get a hit at work, five ways to get a promotion. Once the AI picks up that sort of sequence and format or patterning, they will throttle it because there is just no value in it. ChatGPT can say the exact same thing. You probably got it off ChatGPT. So on the other hand, if you were to tell a little bit about, you know, how I got my job, how I passed my interview, how I got into this specific career, then that is a signature content that only I can tell, right? How did I go from scientist to entrepreneur? That's only my story. You know, nobody else can tell that story. Now that story is a human insight that only a true expert who has walked that journey can provide. That format, which I've always preached about, Matt, from the earliest of days as a LinkedIn coach, will prevail in 2026. And hallelujah, I'm so glad I have stuck to this format. I refused to change. I would die on this hill. You know, in 2025, there were so many people moving to that carousel, anonymous, ChatGPT-like format. You've seen those, right? Just to get the anonymous kind of boost and viral engagement. I refused to go down that route, and I'm glad that LinkedIn is agreeing with me that that's all slop. That's all slop. So if you trust in your story, if you trust in yourself to be able to attract the right people, just go online and tell your story. If someone unfollows you, bless them. Let them go because they were never going to pay you. They were never going to support you. They were never going to love you anyway. Let them go. And the people who stay, they are more likely to want to help you, support you, buy from you, hire you, book you, whatever you want from them. Okay, number three, okay guys? So text plus image dominates authentic storytelling. Number three is laser focus niche or niche, depending on how you pronounce it. The problem is that if you write about random stuff, it's that you might actually go viral from it. Like if I wrote about like my hamster, right? I could go viral and it really confuses the algorithm because it doesn't know what niche you're in now because all the people who flood in are there for a different reason. And this happens on Instagram all the time. It really, really messes with the algorithm, okay? I can tell you all about that on another podcast because this is about LinkedIn. But if you were to go viral for the wrong reason on Instagram, it screws up your entire algorithm for the rest of the time. And as a result of that screwed up algorithm, your posts don't no longer go to the right target audience, which will actually cause you more problems than you realize down the road. I'm happy to elaborate if you have any questions on that. Matt: Something that really stood out to me, Juliana, about point number two is really having emotion in your post. And recently YouTube launched a feature where with Gemini, you can summarize a YouTube video. Daniel: Whether it's 20 minutes, an hour, you can, if you're doing a video on one of Matt's consulting interviews, you could hit summarize and get all of the tips. But I think this is important because, you know, maybe LinkedIn could add this button. Maybe it couldn't for a carousel. But it shows us that the reason people really click on a YouTube video to watch Matt's case interviews is because of the way he delivers it. It's much easier to understand and you can connect with Matt that way, as opposed to just reading a ChatGPT prompt. Matt: And I think it's going to get harder and harder to compete with ChatGPT, but it's important to start practicing now because that inevitably will probably be where a lot of social media goes. You can either get it like summarized or you can watch something from someone or read it from someone who you really connect with. Hmm. I think, I think, Dan, you know, after a period of AI AI surfacing everywhere, we will get so sick of it that all we want to read is bad typos, grammar errors and mistakes in our writing, you know, not like perfect, elegant, beautiful posts with pros with M-dashes everywhere. I think, I think we have almost reached that point where the collective fatigue with AI will take over, and then we will completely reject it in writing. And then the people who still write manually, word by word, will take the stage. I believe that they will come, and I'm seeing it more and more in my, in my own content. Daniel: I completely agree with you, Juliana. I think that's definitely where I see things headed. I mean, to take my YouTube channel as an example, I think, you know, anyone who hops onto my channel will instantly see that the videos I make are simpler in the sense of, it's just me standing in front of a whiteboard. There's not a lot of editing or music at all usually. And it's super simple. I'm just writing on a whiteboard, educating people. And at face value, someone might look at another educational YouTuber's video, which has a lot of flashy edits, music, animations, and wonder why people are going towards my video instead of the other one. And obviously, part of that is me, right? My personality and who I am and people connecting with me. But I do think that there is also, what I saw on YouTube was, uh, and I had tried some highly edited videos before that, didn't see as much engagement. I felt like there was maybe an over... People were getting fatigued with the Mr. Beastification on YouTube, so they were gravitating toward these like low-stimulation type videos. And I think the same thing is kind of gonna happen on all platforms with people's reaction to this AI slop that continues to get trimmed out. Matt: I wanted to add to what you said about the Mr. Beast-like videos. They were, of course, he has a huge team and budget. I myself made a bunch of videos that, you know, little short form videos that were well-produced and well-edited. And I got, you know, a decent amount of likes because it was useful. Matt: But then what I did was I made these LinkedInese reels with my daughter. All she would do is she would open the door and say, hey, mommy, how do you say I took a nap in LinkedInese? Which is like a language that we speak on LinkedIn, right? It's a parody, it's a joke. And I would just swivel my chair, this chair, and I'll be like, I'll say it in LinkedIn in LinkedInese. And those videos have zero production value on Instagram and they have gone like extremely viral. It's crazy because Adam Grant liked it. Microsoft, who owns LinkedIn, as we all know, left two comments. A lot of dragons, a lot of sharks, because in all the countries, they have syndicates of those of that series. They have liked it. And guess what? Reid Hoffman, who is the founder of LinkedIn, told me he's seen it. So I'm really, really grateful that I still believe, like yourself, in basic, you know, low-tech, low-fi quality productions. I think, you know, Matt, I've seen videos where it literally looks like a hostage video and they still get millions of views because if the content is good, people will still come. That's incredible. Should we keep moving down? Daniel: Yes. So I want to go on to the next section, which is the second last section, which is engagement strategy. I have five points here I want to share. So first is, in 2026, hashtags are passé. That means they are gone. They are relics. So stop entirely. Do you still use hashtags, Matt, then? No, right? Matt: So the thing is that LinkedIn is now using a new AI model that is called 360, 360Brew, LinkedIn 360Brew. And it is able, it's sophisticated enough to read your post and decipher what is the content about, who's the target audience, what is the niche, without you having to manually put a hundred hashtags below. You know, hashtags are a relic of Twitter, where we really needed the hashtag in order to meta tag the post. You know, we didn't have those models then to help us. So just don't use any hashtags. Now, people have asked me, will it hurt me? It won't hurt you, it's just not necessary. So let's stop using hashtags. Daniel: Next, never add links in the hyperlinks in your post, in the body text of your post. Put them in the comments. Now, I know there's a little controversy on this because many people still like putting the hyperlink in the post, in the body text. But I would recommend that you don't because it really throttles the post and prevents it from being seen by a lot of people. So I don't know if you put hyperlinks in your posts. Matt: That's really interesting because I have put hyperlinks in posts that have performed. I have also tried putting the links in the comments before and in a conversation I had, I think it was with, don't quote me on this, but Jason Pfeiffer, the editor and chief entrepreneur. I think he actually, or it might have been Noah Greenberg. This is so bad. Daniel: I was about to say, someone told me that they didn't believe it actually mattered and that they had- Noah Greenberg definitely said that. Okay. Okay, guys. Okay. Noah, whatever you believe in, it's fine. But here, listen to me. I have seen an experiment that makes me think LinkedIn hates hyperlinks. I think we all understand why they hate hyperlinks in the first place because they make money through the advertising. And as long as they can keep you sticky in the platform, they can make money from the eyeballs. Anyone who takes people out of LinkedIn is a problem, right? And given that most of us don't even pay for our LinkedIn account, so the only thing you can do is to keep people on the account. So that's why, that's what they tend to over-index on. Now, back to Noah or Jason's point. So, as you know, I do not put hyperlinks in the body text because I believe that it's hurting my post. I've done a lot of A/B testing. Things may have changed since, but I've put them in the comments. So I've been on LinkedIn daily since 2020, January, Davos. That's like, you know, a thousand five hundred posts or more. So I have enough data to know what has changed. In the past, if you put the hyperlink in the comments, people would just click through it and go through, go to wherever you want them to go. So it's a bit like you cheated, you deceived LinkedIn, but it wasn't that hard for them to find the link anyway, right? Just scroll to the first comment. Recently, Dan and Matt, this is very important. Hear this. Recently, if you're the author and you put a hyperlink, if someone else were to go and see your post, that first comment is hidden. Okay, hear this. It's hidden. So that means I put, I did, you know, I was quite smart. I'm Machiavellian. I put it in the first comment, right? And then Matt goes to my post, he will never see the hyperlink. It's throttled. You can only see it in the most recent, but in most relevant, it's hidden. Try this, guys. I've, you know, I have so many clients. Many of them come to me. Why can I not see my, they open it from someone else and they said, no, their friends cannot see the hyperlink because LinkedIn has gotten a little bit smarter. They used to throttle posts with the hyperlink in the body. Now they realize that everyone's putting in the first comment, they are throttling the first comment. So the only way to get your hyperlink seen, which suggests that my hypothesis is more likely to be correct than Noah's, is that you have to put it as a nested comment in a comment. So that means I'll say, hey guys, if you want to go to the link that I described, here it is. And then full stop and then publish and then comment on my comment. Here's the link. So to deceive LinkedIn, you have to go one step down. Trust me on this, okay? This is like literally my job right now to figure this out. And I've helped lots of my clients because they go, you know, nobody clicked on my link. I said, well, guess what? Nobody saw your link. Daniel: You know, you put it in the comments. Yes, but LinkedIn has gotten ahead of you. So I believe that if you add links in the first comment in the post, they are actually penalizing it right now. But again, try it, try it and tell me what you think. Let's go on, shall we? Number three, only tag users if you can guarantee that they'll engage with your posts. So I've, you know, I've trained hundreds and hundreds of clients on my six week LinkedIn boot camps and my 12 month mastermind and my corporate workshops. In the past, we would like put everyone we could put in the post hoping that by tagging them, the post would be seen by more people. These days, the more you tag, the more it's seen as, you know, by trust and safety as something very scammy, right? Like you guys know that, you know, Paris Hilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Snoop Dogg are all top voices and on LinkedIn. I could just put all of them in my post, right, and tag all of them. But that is seen by LinkedIn as like kind of spammy behavior. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who clearly doesn't want to be mentioned in that post. So I have any questions on that because this is kind of important. Matt: I mean, I'm so glad you brought that up, Juliana, because one of my clients also runs a media business. It's like a newsletter. And one of the things that we've noticed is, you know, he'll go out and interview a lot of people, and then he'll usually tag them when he posts about it. And whenever they do engage with that post, usually the reach is amplified compared to posts where he tags someone and then they don't engage. So I think it's almost like, you know, in order for someone to engage with a post where you tagged them, they either have to know you IRL in real life, or you have to have some sort of pre-existing relationship in those cases for them to want to engage in that. Now, obviously, there's exceptions, right? And maybe it's just a really, really good post, and they like that you tagged them, and they'll still engage if it's a random person. But in most cases, you do have to have like some kind of a relationship. They have to know who you are to be willing to engage with your post. So my clients ask me then, how many people should you tag in that post, right? Daniel: My answer is always the same. The best number is zero. Because if you cannot convince them to like and comment on your post, then you're going to hurt your own post. Then they say, okay, but what if this is about my company, right? I had a company offsite. I want to tag everyone. Put it in the comments, right? You can do lots of crazy stuff in the comments. Let's leave our post alone. Remove the hashtags, remove the links, and don't tag the people who won't support your post. That's my advice. And that's what I call unforced errors. Like in tennis, you don't have to make these mistakes. They're very simple things to fix. You don't have to become like a Shakespeare writer. You can just don't make small mistakes like that. Matt: Yeah. Daniel: A related question on that, Juliana. What about tagging company pages? Matt: It does even worse, Matt. That's even worse because now you need to get the company employee who runs that social media account to show up in that golden hour and like your post and comment. That's like a bar even higher than getting an individual to like it. So absolutely do not recommend. Unless you absolutely have to. Like, you know, sometimes I do corporate trainings for big agencies. I would then tag it because for me, it's more of a like a, it's like just like putting it, registering in that post. But I know that that post will be severely affected as a result. Daniel: Okay. I understand the logic behind that. Just to play devil's advocate though. What if you want someone to very easily be able to click on your company page and learn a little bit more about like what the business actually does? In that case, is it a good idea or not? Matt: Fair enough. I mean, you mean your own company page. If it's your own company page, you can go. No, but if I run my, you know, find your superpower, I can easily. So I founded a company that focuses on LinkedIn and branding called Find Your Superpower. I talk about it a lot on LinkedIn. I can go in as the moderator of Find Your Superpower and like and comment and share. So I can fix that problem myself. I'm referring to like if you tag like NASA, you know, you can't get NASA to go in and like and comment. That is a problem. Daniel: Got it. Okay. I'm very guilty of this. So I will test that out and let you know. Do you have a page connection accepted on LinkedIn? Do you? Matt: So if you tag yourself, obviously, just switch, just toggle on the LinkedIn post to your company page and then just go and like and comment and then toggle back to yourself. That's it. That's it. Daniel: This is a connection accepted throwback too, but Jason Alco, episode number two, also shared this, that he doesn't tag people, whether companies or people, unless he knows that they'll like the post. So you're not alone in thinking this. Matt: Yeah, I wrote a post on it, you know, about Reid Hoffman liking and knowing about my LinkedIn's reels. Oh, I don't know if he likes it. He just told me he watched it. I wasn't going to tag him on it because I don't expect Reid to like my LinkedIn posts, even though I wish he would. So that's a clear example of how I would do it. According to my own principles. Daniel: See, this is sometimes where I'm like, Juliana, I might roll the dice and be like, you know what? I might tag them just so they can see it. And then something cool may come of it and maybe they aren't online and it gets a few less likes. Matt: Well, interestingly, I DM'd him on Instagram, so you might have a better chance getting him on Instagram. Who knows, right? Maybe he gets like a slew of Instagram DMs after this. Daniel: So anyway, continuing down engagement strategy, personalized connection requests. Daniel: So, you know, I get like hundreds of connection requests and only about one to three percent of them would leave a nice, a nice thoughtful customized note. You know what I mean, right? The one where they go, hey, you know, this is why I want to connect with you. I strongly recommend that everyone leaves a customized note. It really makes a difference. Aligned. I'm not sure, Matt, if you're aware that we only have 30,000 connections on LinkedIn. There is an upper limit to it. There's a ceiling. And I'm now at 29,000, maybe 600. So it's really bad. And I'm nervous because every single day when I look through my connection requests, I tell myself I can only accept like five people today. Matt: Sorry, can you clarify? When you say there's an upper limit of 30,000 connections, what does that refer to? Daniel: So if you have, so anyone can follow you. You can have millions of followers. Like Simon Sinek has like 7 million followers, Gary Vaynerchuk, 4 or 5 million, whatever. But you can only have 30,000 first degree connections that you connect with. Yeah, that's the upper limit of that number. That number may have changed, but it's to my best of knowledge. No, it's 30,000. We were talking about this on the Liam D'Armondy episode, which is like 5 or 10 episodes ago. And he also said the same thing about 360 Brew too. But I'll let you keep going on this thread, Juliana. Matt: Well, I'm glad I'm checking out with other guests. So imagine this, okay, you have 30,000 connections and you're now at 29,600. So every connection now matters more than ever. It's not that I don't want to connect with them. They're all lovely people, but I simply have reached my limit. So now if you leave me a really nice comment and you look really earnest and you say like, hey, I want to do this, this, this, this, and it makes a lot of sense, I would pick them over the other 99. And it actually does apply to many busy people because if they're just scanning through your headline and your name, some of the headlines don't even make any sense. And the photo is too small. You know, the face is, that face is so small in that little dot. Do you know that that little circle on a mobile phone is like two millimeters wide? So nobody knows how you look like. Nobody knows what you're saying. The only thing they can read is that customized note. So just don't sleep on that. It's really, really important to have a good customized note. And I, and I, and I, I've never made a connection request without a note that I can even recall in my entire life on LinkedIn. So let's, let's not, let's not trip up on the most important bit, which is if that person is valuable enough for you to want to connect with, imagine if they clicked ignore, you just squandered a great link. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to try to save time on that. Anyway, I'm onto my last tip for engagement, which is stop posting and running. Do not post and run. In the past, okay, so I'm kind of like an OG on LinkedIn. Daniel: In the past where there were fewer people on LinkedIn and guys, you would not believe this. I would just put a half-hearted post, you know, I write for a living, so writing is not difficult for me. I write like, I didn't even put any effort in it. I expect 500 likes by noon. I didn't try. And then if I put in effort, I want a thousand likes, you know, I want 50,000 impressions. Like these are like a hundred thousand. These are like old, old school numbers. And as the algorithm changed, as more people got on, as the games and the rules of LinkedIn changed, these numbers got harder and harder to reach. So in the past, if you just posted and did a good post, you could just run. People would still flock in and like. Now there is a little bit of nuance to it. If you do not stay around and engage with your target audience. So just to make things simple, 20 people in your industry, your post doesn't get seen by your industry mates and peers. So it's not that easy to get views by the right people these days. So the key is to leave meaningful comments, not just likes. You need to leave a comment, but not This seems to be a pretty powerful strategy for getting impressions, and I know Daniel's gotten God knows how many impressions from just commenting strategy alone. Matt: I'm curious, like, your initial thoughts on commenting strategy. I mean, you just said, don't just comment randomly on any account. You probably want to comment on people within your niche or at least people who you think your target audience would also benefit from. Are there any other rules around that that you follow with comments? Oh, OK. So there is this thing where they say, like, Juliana commented on this post, Juliana liked that post. So if the post is a very, you know, angry, mean-spirited or, you know, political post, whatever, whatever that's not right for your audience, and you were to just comment on it, and it says, Juliana commented on this post, so it goes to your connection's feed, then they might, as a result of that, even unfollow you. You know, I've actually unfollowed people based on the comments they've made, not their posts. Because that post now shows up on my feed, and I didn't want to see that post. So you also have to think about whether your audience, target audience wants to read the post that you commented on, because they're gonna see it too. So just think carefully. Just think very carefully. Now, of course, I think we're all good people here, you know, Jasmine, Alec, often says you should comment on even new creators just to support them, people with zero comments, you know, this is sort of like a good citizen behavior. I think that, you know, I believe in three laws on LinkedIn, just sorry to bring them in randomly, the law of attraction, like a magnet, that your post attracts your clients, no sales pitches, no DMs. Daniel: The law of abundance, that means if you think of helping more people, the more likely that you will be richer, because it is a circular flow of abundance. And the last is law of reciprocity. So like Jasmine is actually following that third law, which is the more you comment on people's posts, the more they will reciprocate, especially people who are not big-time creators. So if you like posts on Justin Welch, comment on Justin Welch's posts, you know, there's a thousand comments, it may not help you very much, and he may not even see your post, but the one, the guy who's only had one comment, he will remember you. Matt: So Daniel, I have that one outlier where I say, strategy aside, let's just be good people. Let's just support people. That means let's be strategic, but also be kind. That means as much as we want to be strategic and, you know, be careful of what gets shown, I am also likely to comment on people's posts if I've seen they've got a bereavement. You know, people post about bereavements on LinkedIn, the death of their spouses, their parents, because I just lost my dad. So if I see you've lost a spouse, you got, you know, someone fell sick, something really bad happened, I will comment regardless of whether it's in my niche or not. Certainly it's not in my niche. I love that, you know. Daniel: Just be a good citizen on LinkedIn. At the end of the day, we're, you know, there's a human on the other end of the post, so I think it's easy sometimes to forget when it's all on a screen, but you're interacting with other people. Yeah, you know, LinkedIn is just networking done online. Thanks to LinkedIn, I could make friends from all around the world during the pandemic lockdown. All of us were glued to our computer screens. Matt: So, um, we should use the same principles of how we would treat others in real life to, to, to communicate on LinkedIn, right? In the DMs, in the comments, and so on. Daniel: Yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is the reason why the three of us are sitting here on January 10th having this conversation, so. Matt: Well, I, is it January 11th in Singapore? Daniel: It's 10, it's 10. We are late at night in Singapore, but morning for you. Matt: Okay, now I want to launch into advanced level strategies for LinkedIn. And if you're from LinkedIn, cover your ears because it's going to be a little bit sad. Number one, diversify out of LinkedIn. So diversify your platforms. Uh, whatever LinkedIn has done for you and me, we are still ultimately renting it, so it's a rented platform. Because some of us don't even pay for LinkedIn, so we are actually the product. We're not even the customer or client. So we can't say, like, why is LinkedIn changing the algorithm? We don't have, we don't have a say. So for me, I have diversified onto Instagram, and I actually have more followers on Instagram right now, thanks to my viral LinkedInese reels. It's crazy. Like, I have like a, I think I have a hundred and 10,000 followers there. Daniel: And I would love to, Matt, also diversify onto YouTube in this year if I, if I have the time. I just think that it's, and some people are diversifying onto Substack, but I still think that Substack is a five to 10 year game. I think it's a long game. The reason I say that is I don't currently know any decision maker, Fortune 500 person, you know, government, decision maker on Substack. Substack is for, like, writers, journalists, media, entrepreneurs, creatives. So for me, in, in the B2B sector, you know, big brands, I need, uh, my, I need them to, I need to be where they are. And that's still LinkedIn. So I don't think Substack is the answer today, but it could be the answer in the future, but not today. So if, if we had to pick, I would pick YouTube or Instagram or any other ideas, but certainly not to stay, not to put all our eggs in one basket. Matt: I agree with you. Video-based platforms for sure. And, uh, yeah, again, apologies to anyone who is working at LinkedIn, listening to this. Uh, I absolutely love the platform. Yeah. Yeah. No offense, no offense, please. Daniel: And then the next one is, uh, build owned media, owned platforms. So remember we're talking about LinkedIn as a rented platform. We now need to own our real estate. It's the same like renting and owning a, owning a house. So let's own our own house. So what do I mean by that? You need to build your own lists, either on email or on WhatsApp. So where I live, Southeast Asia, you know, people love to use WhatsApp. If you can build a WhatsApp database, you can broadcast to thousands of people at once. So I have a WhatsApp community, find your superpower community on WhatsApp. And I also have an email database, which is, which is, you know, people sign up because of the freebies I offer them, you know, blueprints, FAQs, checklists, quizzes. And when they go in, they get even some of them get AI codes. Um, then they, I get that email. I capture that email. But why this is important, guys, is because you can reach a hundred percent of your owned subscribers. Of course, they may not all open it, right? Like, you know, like 50% open rate, whatever. But 50% is still a lot better than one to 3%. And currently, for many of the platforms, the open rate is about, the number of people they show your post to is about one to 3%. Do you have better statistics than that? Because it looks like one to 3% for most people, unless it's an outlier viral post, in which case, let's not talk about that. Because we can't plan for outliers. We can only hope for them. So, okay, imagine this, okay. If I had 50,000 followers and I reached, I reached about 1% of them, that's 500. So I have to get 50,000 followers to reach 500 of them. Why don't I just build up a database on email which has 500 emails or 1,000 emails? It looks a lot smaller, but the end effect is the same. And it's a lot easier, guys, to give freebies to build up 500 emails than to get to 50,000 on LinkedIn. God knows I tried. Daniel: It's taken me years to get here without pods, without, without black hat tactics, without any shenanigans. So I don't know if, if your, your headspace is in this, but if you really think about it, LinkedIn is just the, the way to find new, uh, potential clients. But then tick the post and go in the comments, remember the nested comments, to get them off LinkedIn, your rented platform, into your owned platform. And then now you capture their email, and then you can retarget them as many times as you wish with very long, very precise sales language and present them your offer. So that's how I managed to build my mastermind in 2025 from zero to about, uh, we ended the year with 240 members in my mastermind. 240. All using this, uh, funnel strategy. No ads, no paid ads. The law of the Juliana funnel. Yeah, yeah. And, and that's what I teach people these days. So actually, as much as I call myself a LinkedIn coach, which I, which I'm proud to be, I use LinkedIn as a means to capture emails to then follow up with the She could be useful to me. What does she sell? And then they buy from me. It's almost like a bait and switch, but a very legitimate bait and switch, not a Machiavellian one. Matt: Yeah, I think it's such a good reminder, Juliana. It's so easy to get caught up in, oh, like, what tactics do I need to focus on to, you know, drive the most kind of people to my offer? Like, how should I word the offer exactly so that it's going to like convert the most? And obviously, those things are important, but I think let's not forget taking a step back that at the end of the day, the things that really do matter, it's like that, you know, the, the know, the like, the trust, like if you can accomplish all of those Daniel: Do buy. Then they will buy. They will buy. And I've proven it over and over. I've had posts, I mean, you can scan one of my thousands of posts and you know, I've posted, like, you know, things you need to do on LinkedIn and all that. And yeah, I mean, you can get likes, no doubt, but the number of buys are not as high as surprisingly compared to posts where I actually just talk about my, my dad, my, my work, my pivots, my career changes, and people actually come more, more aggressively into my free offers than if I were to talk about the free offer itself. It's, it's, it's fascinating, guys. It's fascinating. Matt: I've noticed a similar effect happening with every time I post something that's kind of more personal. It's not intended to drive sales, like my intention in writing it wasn't or filming a video, like, was not, oh, I want more customers when I hit post, but then for some reason, maybe it's, you know, reminding people that I exist again and then, you know, getting them to like me. And if it's clear enough, like what they can buy from me, then Daniel: They just come. So law of attraction, it is. And Matt, people do not like being sold to. God knows I hate being sold to. So the more you try to sell to people, the more they will not buy from you. Daniel: In fact, if, you know, there's a Chinese proverb, you take a step back to take a step forward. If you just take a step back and just talk to them genuinely, honestly, kindly, without any kinds of, you know, like games, people will be like, hey, this person looks like they are straight talker. They look decent. They look pretty smart. They look pretty fun. I'm curious now. Then they will investigate your offer. And before they know it, they are in your funnel. You've caught you've caught them like a Pokemon. You heard it here. Matt: Daniel, do we want to transition into good idea, bad idea? Daniel: Oh, why not? Sounds fun. Matt: Instead of good idea, bad idea, I don't wanna hold you too long, Juliana. I wanna just ask one question I'm kind of curious about. And it's that LinkedIn is such a global platform. I mean, we're calling you right now. You're in Singapore. I'm in Boston. Matt's in New York. And you have people in your community like, you know, Justin Welch is in the in the US, but Yasmin Alec is not. And I guess I don't really know the specific question, but like, are most of your followers just global or how do you navigate LinkedIn as such a global place? And what's like kind of in your experience like with that? Juliana: So given that I live in Singapore, I tend to get lots of followers in this time zone. So Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, you know, Philippines, Hong Kong, whatever, right? But because the the center of gravity for social media, you know, 300 million users, English speakers live in the U.S. So actually secondary, my second country of popularity is still the US. And then, of course, there's like European, whatever. I find that because my content tends to be about being a mom, being an entrepreneur, being, you know, so I also do attract a lot of women users on LinkedIn. And I actually have quite a number of posts about women. So it's less about geography. I think it's more of like who who identifies with my post. So it's for that reason, I've got lots of people from Asia for obvious reasons, a lot of women and specifically moms. And I have a lot, a lot of academics. Like I probably with us, I have the most number of PhDs following me right now. It's like all of them would follow me or maybe like Andrew Huberman or something. Matt: Juliana, is there anything that Daniel and I didn't hit on that you want to touch on? Juliana: No, I want to play this game that you described. Are we gonna play it? Matt: Yeah, OK. I wanted to make sure I wasn't holding you too long. Juliana: OK, so. Can you smile? I can take a print screen. Can you like smile at the screen? Matt: Yes. Juliana: OK, got it. So pretty much I have a few ideas that I was thinking about your content with. And you're just going to tell me if they're a good idea or a bad idea. Matt: OK, sure. Let's go. Juliana: The first one is putting more than MBA in your name. So let's say you like got an MBA and all these other certifications and you throw all them on at the end of your name. Daniel: Is that a good idea or a bad idea? Matt: Bad idea, gosh, bad idea, especially if we have no idea what this is. This is the acronym soup on in our headline. No go, no go. Daniel: What do you think about having like just MBA in general? Do you think that's worth it or just not even add that? Matt: I have PhD in mind, so I'm proud of my PhD. I'm sure they are proud of their MBA. So I think it's fine. We all understand what MBA stands for. I think some of the more very niche acronyms are not suitable because we don't know what they are. So they take up a lot of, they take up a lot of real estate and they don't provide the value of being there. Daniel: What about LinkedIn newsletters? Are those a good idea or a bad idea? Matt: Good idea. Good idea because I have 50,000 people who have, who are on my LinkedIn newsletter. And what it does is it sends it to their email inbox. Not everyone has that feature turned on. So of my 50,000 subscribers, about 25,000 receive it in their email. So as much as it's on LinkedIn, it goes in their email and people have different behaviors when they read something on a platform where they are more likely to browse and scroll, doom scroll, and email where they are more likely to take action. So you can put your offer in your newsletter versus putting in your post. So in other words, if people want to do a deep dive, they can go in your newsletter. And if they don't want it, they can unsubscribe to your newsletter without unfollowing you. This is a bit of a nuance. It means that you can cater to two levels of audiences, the very superficial browsers and the very deep, like engaged readers who want you to write long form for them. So yes, yes. Daniel: What about company pages? Because you have a community, but you post most of your stuff on your personal account. So is posting on company pages a good idea or a bad idea? Matt: Okay, good idea because people go to the company page and I call it hygiene. You need to have a certain level of hygiene on company pages. You can't not post for like a month. Is the company still around? You know, is anyone, is anyone working there? So post maybe once a week on the company page for hygiene reasons. But in terms of amplification, because LinkedIn is a for-profit company and it knows companies have budgets. So for company pages, it's very much pay to play. You're not gonna get the same kind of reach an individual gets. So if you just put the same post on your company page and your individual page, now apples to apples, you will find that one has like no views and one has all the views. So it's a no brainer. So I hope my answer made sense. Post it for hygiene reasons, but it ain't gonna go viral, it ain't gonna do more than that. Daniel: That's a great answer. I love it. And my last question is, so you know on LinkedIn how you can either like, you can light bulb, you can heart, you can clap or support, whatever. Matt: What are your general thoughts on all of those reactions to a post? OK, there are some coaches who claim, and none of us know, I wish we knew, but they claim that if you were to put a different symbol, it would achieve a different level of algorithm amplification on LinkedIn. So if you just put the blue thumbs up, it will be like basic. But if you were to put like the light bulb, a good idea, or celebrate, you know, or heart, it might do better for the post. Daniel: It's inconclusive at this point, but for me, I love to choose everything but the blue thumbs up because I feel like that's so like vanilla. So I'm always putting like a laughing face, a heart, a support. Support is my favorite. And celebrate if something good happened. So yes for those. I can't remember who it was, Daniel, but Will Bowman, yes, Will Bowman also had a similar hypothesis around. Someone said it, but I'm not sure, you know, that the jury is out. I have no opinion on this. All I can say is I just don't like to use the boring blue thumbs up sign. Matt: Yeah, it's funny because since that conversation Long click and find the right emoji. I think I would reward you for that. That means you're pretty invested in that, right? A thumbs up is like a bit of like the lowest hanging fruit of the lot. Juliana Chan: Juliana, thanks so much for coming on the show. Juliana Chan: Thank you so much, Dan, Matt. And for anyone who wants to learn more about my work, find me on LinkedIn at Juliana Chan, PhD, and my company Find Your Superpower. I just wanna say, guys, it's my great honor to know you, to know two people who love LinkedIn as much as me, or even more than me. So I wish you all the best with Connection Accepted, and I hope that it becomes a $10 million business. Please don't forget me in Singapore, okay? You know, invite me for another show. Daniel: Thank you, we won't. And you, you shouldn't forget about us either. You're on the HBS in a few months. Juliana Chan: I mean. I'll be there in your hood very soon. Hope we can catch up if you're around. Matt: Yeah. Juliana Chan: All right, happy new year guys. Daniel: Thank you. Matt: Bye.