Sarah Rav: Why smart creators are quietly moving to LinkedIn

Transcription

Daniel: Imagine this, you're a McKinsey consultant who also happens to have over a million followers on Instagram. Now, there's a lot of different directions you could take your career, but instead of building a business leveraging your one million followers on Instagram and instead of going and trying to get promoted to partner at McKinsey, you decide to leave completely and build a new business on LinkedIn. Sound crazy? That's exactly what Sarah Rav did. In this episode, we're gonna dive into why she made that leap and more importantly, what she sees in LinkedIn that makes her so bullish on the platform in 2026. Let's get into it. Matt: Welcome to Connection Accepted. Today, we've got Sarah Rav on the podcast. Sarah, thanks for joining us. Sarah: Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited. Matt: Awesome. I'm so glad you're excited. We're also so excited to get into this conversation. For the people who don't know who you are or it's their first time seeing you, can you just give us a quick background on who you are, what you're working on, where you're from? Sarah: Sure. I'm Sarah. I am based in Melbourne, Australia, and I am a former doctor turned consultant turned creator. On social media, I've got over 3 million followers across my platforms, and I really started building this when I was 14 years old. So I've had over 13 years of experience now. Daniel: Since I left consulting, I am now doing content creation full time, and that's through offering a service where I help other people grow their personal brands as well. Matt: That is awesome. And I can't wait to get into the second half of that in a bit. But starting with sort of your interesting background, right, you have a unique set of experiences. And let's go back to the very early days, even, you know, when you just started posting content, what actually initially got you into content creation in general, right? Because you had a pretty successful career already. Daniel: Yeah. So mind you, I was 14 years old. I was in year nine, still in high school. And I was really interested in going to the gym at the time. So I was learning about working out. I was learning about eating well. And one of my friends in my science class, I like remember this day very well. She essentially said, why don't you start Instagram? Like, why don't you start posting on there because you know so much. Matt: And so I did. And the account started off as more of like a faceless, inspirational, motivational account with tips and stuff. But it grew to about 200,000 followers by the time I was in year 12. And along the way, I realized that people were benefiting from the advice I was putting out. So I ended up writing an e-book and then ultimately launched an online store. And so that was like the extent of my content creation at the time. But I had always been on this path. Matt: Like, you know, I had always set my eyes set on medicine. So after year 12, I dialed it back a little bit and ended up following the whole medical school route. Daniel: Gotcha. And was there a point where because, you know, eventually you ended up going all in on content. And I think there was probably a step in between there where you were at McKinsey as well for the audience. Yeah, talk us through like that journey going from, you know, medical school to McKinsey and then where you are now. Matt: I'll focus on this sort of like in steps. And keep in mind throughout the journey, content and like socials has always been going on in the background. But I think in about in fourth year medicine, which is the second final year, I realized that I probably didn't want to do clinical medicine. I loved medicine. I loved med school. I loved the friends and the connections I made from medicine. But I really struggled to accept the system that I was going to be working in. And I think a big part of that as well was by that time, I had grown to over 3 million followers on TikTok and Instagram. And so I was really and I was doing education and study tips and productivity tips. And I think I just had experience with impact across, you know, a really widespread level. Daniel: Like I was impacting millions of lives and then to have to go to the hospital and work one on one with a patient where I didn't really always feel like I was able to do as much as I could because of how the system prevented that was really hard for me. It was really, really hard for me to deal with. And so that's why I then decided that the next best step, because I wasn't sure yet and I was definitely not brave enough to commit to content creation full time, was to go to McKinsey because McKinsey does a lot of public sector work, you know, government work, healthcare reform, all that sort of stuff. And I thought that that would help me get closer to that impact on such a wide scale. Then I loved my time at McKinsey, loved the work, loved the people, loved everything that I learned, but it got to a point. To a point where I think the pull was too strong. Like, content was always my priority. It was always the first thing I thought of when I got up, the last thing I thought of when I got to bed. And so, I think after a while, you burn out because you're constantly being pulled in one direction, but like, fighting to stand in another direction. And once I hit that stage where I was so burnt out, like, I dreaded going to work on a Monday. I was just exhausted and, you know, disproportionately exhausted to how much I was sleeping and resting. I knew that it was probably time for me to take the leap. There was a bunch of other external factors going on as well. Matt: Like there was a really bad relationship that I got out of and my grandma passed away. And so I was like, I think it's time that I just, you know, can I swing or not really? Okay, sounds good. I got through that and I was like, I think it's time I just fuck around and find out because, you know, like, I've already survived some of what could potentially be the worst days. And there's not really anything that's gonna be worse than when I made it through. So, and then I just leaped. Daniel: Wow. First of all, that's an incredible story. And I can also relate on a few different levels. First on the point about burnout in consulting. You know, I spent a couple of years at BCG and can 100% relate to that feeling of burnout. And this is kind of a separate topic completely, but I think it is, especially when you're working so much on something that you're not actually passionate about or doesn't feel aligned to your longterm goal, that I think contributes the most, at least in my personal experience, to those feelings of burnout because then you're wondering, you know, it's like 11 p.m. in the office on a Thursday night and you're, you're working on a slide deck for a partner and you're just kind of like asking yourself, is this moving me towards my long-term goal? And if the answer is yes, then absolutely. That's that's great. Daniel: But if it's no, then it feels almost like there's a sense of urgency or cognitive dissonance almost between your actions and the way your life is headed versus where you, you ideally wanted to be moving in. So that's the first point. And then the second point is, you know, I have a YouTube channel. I've been doing it for the last two and a half years. And I tell this story sometimes where one of the things that actually got me to start posting initially was the, the childhood pet that my family had. We had a cat. His name was Snowy, super cute pet that I grew up with. He passed away a couple of years ago. And for me, I'd always been wanting to post online, but I was a little bit too scared, worried about, you know, coworkers seeing it. What would people think? And, you know, I think there's something very profound about loss, especially when it's something that affects you deeply, makes you realize, you know what, we all have one life to live. So if there's something that we want to do, like, why are we holding back? Right. And so it sounds like you went through a similar thought process and journey with your grandma. So that's incredible. And so that then transitioning to today, how long have you been doing the personal branding business for? Matt: So I started in May, which is when I left. It took me a while to come to the conclusion that this is ultimately what I'm very good at and what I should do. Um, I, I experimented a little bit. Matt: Essentially, when I left and, you know, in hindsight, I probably could have been smarter about this, but I think I reached that point where I was like, I'm not wasting another day and I need to do this. Um, when I left, I was still posting study content and like study and productivity tips, which is what I had essentially built my following off. But I'd been seven years out of the uni, so it didn't really make sense for me to still be doing that. I didn't resonate with that anymore. It wasn't my identity. And so I tried a couple of different things as well. I tried, um, career tips. I tried some like big sister advice and I ultimately came to the conclusion, and this is now also like what I teach a lot of, uh, my clients is that you just should do what you are very good at and what you already know really well. Like even if you don't have a qualification in it, if you've studied it, you've lived it, you've breathed it for the last couple of years, it makes sense. And, and so I started on LinkedIn and I started posting about personal branding and people just loved it because I think it just comes very naturally to me and I have a lot of insight that you get with 12 years of doing it. Daniel: Yeah, Matt, your career experience is honestly the perfect proof and examples because that's exactly what you've done. You've tried literally everything from being a doctor to a consultant to studying. Matt: And now, personal branding, I think that makes you such a qualified person to be giving actionable and good advice on personal branding. Yeah, I think, so I think that and I think everybody has their own version of personal branding, right? Like the word means different things to different people. I think my specific take on it is that not everyone is aspiring to be a content creator. Not everyone wants to be a quote-unquote influencer, but your personal brand still shows up for you no matter what you do. Like even if you are a professional and you want to be a doctor or a consultant or any other, like a lawyer, an engineer, having a strong personal brand will take you further in places that will take you to places that you never even thought imaginable. And so that's sort of where I come in. The more like professionals who want to develop their personal brand, not necessarily in the hopes of becoming a famous influencer, but just to move them forward in life, which is essentially what my brand did for me. Daniel: I absolutely love that. And for the audience's benefit, Sarah, can you just tell us a little bit more about what the actual service or business looks like? So if someone comes to you and they want to build their personal brand, what are you guys doing with them? Matt: Yeah, so I help professionals essentially turn their expertise into income by building a personal brand. So specifically, I'll talk about two different sort of aspects. Matt: The service that I offer and the clients that I work with are those who want to sort of escape that nine to five, that feeling of, you know, working for somebody else and putting in really, really long hours, but then not really getting the reward in return. You know, it goes to someone else, so you're putting in those hours to build somebody else's dream. So I help professionals take the leap, essentially like I did and commit to their dream and build their dream. And often this is right in front of them. It's something that they've been learning for the past couple of years. It's like, and it could be their profession. Like if they're a doctor, it could be healthcare consulting or healthcare services. Or if you maybe you're a doctor, but you love running marathons, it could be helping people, you know, run their first marathon. And so it's like, how do you build something that you're really interested in? And then how do you use your personal brand to sell that and build something that is your own and earn the income that is directly proportional to the effort that you put in? And then on LinkedIn, which is sort of where my personal brand is, I take that a little bit wider and I just help anybody who's interested in building a brand, whether that's to build your own thing on the side or to just further your career in the industry that you're currently in. Daniel: Got it. That's really helpful. Matt: And so is the personal branding aspect of it like very focused on LinkedIn specifically as a platform, or are you helping them, you know, leverage Instagram, TikTok, video-based formats as well? Daniel: Yeah, so in my service, it's pretty much everything, because, and we do, we have a session or a module where we weigh out which platform you want to start on, because, you know, each platform is different. LinkedIn is very much professionals who want to further an aspect of their business or an aspect of their career. And so if your service or what you're ultimately going to sell is for that demographic, then it makes sense to go on LinkedIn. Sometimes with Instagram, there's a much more wider niche that you can catch up. And so if your service that you're offering is maybe more lifestyle oriented, like a fitness service or a wellness service or, you know, mental health, then that could be the avenue that you go down. So pros and cons of both, but ultimately you want to build an ecosystem that works. And that is very client dependent. Matt: That's really fascinating. And I have so many questions for you, Sarah, about that. Just for some context, I recently left my job at Google to run a LinkedIn lead generation content ghostwriting agency. And so kind of similar to what you're doing, except very just much just focused on B2B founders on LinkedIn specifically. Daniel: And I think essentially what we do is quite similar, probably as first developing the content strategy, thinking through what their goals are and then coming up with some content pillars and then also helping them as well to craft the content because a lot of them don't have a ton of experience with that. But I'm curious, you know, over the last, you said since May that, so what's that been? Maybe six or so months since starting, what has been the biggest or any of the like the biggest challenges that you've faced with building personal brands for other people? Because it's very different from building your own personal brand, right? Matt: Yeah, it is. There's a few challenges. I think the biggest one that I come across time and time again is that people know the power of a personal brand and know that they should be investing in their personal brand, but they're very scared to do it. And a lot of that fear comes from judgment, from putting yourself out there, right? I think a lot of the clients that I work with are very highly ambitious professionals. They're high performers. They do well in their fields. And so the thought of them doing something that might not be perfect on the first go, but public on the first go is really scary. Then there's also, and I feel like this is maybe more of an Australian thing. You guys can tell me if you feel it as well. It's like this thing called tall poppy syndrome. Daniel: In Australia, we tend to shoot down others who put themselves out there or, you know, like achieve more, basically. And so sometimes even feeling that, it's really hard for us to overcome that fear of like putting ourselves out there and celebrating our achievements or even sharing stuff that might make us like, might even paint us in a positive light, which is, I think, so wrong. Because if you have the skills and the qualities, there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be sharing them. And the way that I overcome, this is my clients say, bring it all back to what I call value, which is essentially everybody posts content to provide value. The most obvious form of value is through advice or education. You know, people post insights, tips, analysis, all that sort of stuff. But you can also provide value through entertainment, which is, you know, your classic like TikTok dances or artists. You can post, you can provide value through inspiration, where you share your own story and you inspire other people to act. Or you can provide value by just providing comfort, you know, being a safe space for other people and helping them feel understood and heard. So ultimately, if you are posting to provide value in any of those forms, there's not really any ground for people to criticize you because that says a lot more about them than it says about you, who is really just trying to help other people. Daniel: I just want to react to that because I completely understand where you're coming from. And I've also run into this issue a few times because when it's my own personal brand, I, yeah, I'm willing to post all sorts of stuff because I've been doing content for a while. And just as you have, you understand at a very deep level that, you know, not every piece of content is going to go viral. That's just the name of the game. It's impossible to have every single piece of content go viral. But two, showing up imperfectly is you almost have to develop the ability to just feel okay with with recognizing that if you are someone who's a perfectionist or you're a high achieving consultant or doctor or lawyer, you're naturally going to be inclined to feel like whatever you're posting is never a hundred percent there. But it's better to show up, you know, with 80% content 100% of the time than, you know, trying to get a hundred percent perfect content 0% of the time because you're not even posting it. And I actually find that with this, you know, with the ghostwriting that I do for folks, a lot of it comes down to just coaching them into being like, It's okay to post something like this. And actually you have to take a perspective because if you just post very safe, very, you know, I'm not saying like mainstream takes are, are bad, but you're not going to start a conversation on LinkedIn if you are posting very safe content. Daniel: And so, you know, I think there's a balance, but what I'm trying to say here is I completely hear you on the point about getting people who have not posted previously comfortable with putting themselves out there publicly, imperfectly is, is something that is, is so important and also a little bit difficult to do. So yeah, completely, completely hear you there. Yeah, I think also sometimes the biggest benefit of my service is not even the technical knowledge of how to write a post. It's just having somebody there to read it through with them and be like, this looks good. You should post it. Because I think they doubt themselves so much. Like, how are people going to react to this? Is this even worth posting? And just me being like, this is brilliant. I wish I could write like this. Post it. Matt: I totally agree, Sarah. Having Matt as a co-host and thought partner for everything I post on LinkedIn is so helpful. I mean, I'll send them an image and say, you know, which color arrow? Should this be red or a white arrow? Or I'll send them two different hooks and see which one, you know, resonates. Or should I use McDonald's or Wendy's? And all these sorts of things help so much when you have someone else to think it through and that's not ChatGPT either. Sometimes that person to me is ChatGPT. Other times it's my best friend. But yeah, I totally agree. Just having somebody to test with you. Daniel: How do you get most of your clients for this business? Matt: Yeah, so primarily through LinkedIn. And I'm yeah, I'm super thankful that I've not actually had any issues getting inbound leads. And there's a whole deep dive we can go down into like the power of LinkedIn over Instagram. But I think a big part of that as well is that my LinkedIn is very specific and focused. It is, you know, specifically targeting a certain target audience. I post about one sort of topic, which is personal branding. Whereas my Instagram on the side, I've sort of been working out what it is that I wanted to do with that. And so it's been a bit all over the place currently. But I'm hoping that I can sort of take Instagram in the same direction and ultimately get more leads from there. Daniel: And Sarah, I'm curious, because I also get most of my leads through LinkedIn. Do you, when you're posting on LinkedIn, do you follow a certain posting schedule or are there like a, you know, are you posting like case studies on one day of the week and then, you know, more like top of funnel posts on Tuesdays and then like mixing up the types of posts that you're doing? Matt: Yes. Yeah. So I post five times a week on LinkedIn every weekday. And at a high level, usually three of those posts are personal branding related and two of those posts are my personal story related. That's like the very high level. There's a whole sort of system that I use where I talk about different types of objectives of posts. Matt: So one post is to, like one objective is to attract, and those are usually the very high level posts designed to go viral. The second post is to nurture. That's, you know, the post that speak directly to my audience and help them realize that I understand exactly what they're going through. Third would be to position myself. And that's maybe more of the case studies and the results that I've gotten or even my own experience. And then the fourth is to convert, which is a very like, sort of direct, this is my offer. This is why you should buy it. I cycle through those. There's, you know, and I teach my clients how to cycle through them as well, very methodically. I'm sort of at the stage where I've done it long enough that I know that, you know, I haven't done this post in a while or my audience is wanting a post like this, or I've heard this come up a lot in client conversations and therefore it's probably a point that I should address. And so my structure sort of cycles between those four objectives. I also then have like a backend system, which is, you know, starting with a lead magnet that gets people to sign up for a newsletter. And then that whole sort of system repeats itself in the newsletter, but focusing more on the nurture, the position and the convert because that's more of a tight audience. Daniel: When you're writing these posts, Sarah, how are you going from idea all the way to hitting post? Are you writing down stuff in your notes app throughout the week and then using a LinkedIn post editor and scheduling them? Or what's, what's your process like for writing posts on LinkedIn? Matt: Yeah. And I will preface this by saying that it's only really increased in complexity since I left McKinsey. Prior to this, it was literally everything existed in my notes app. It was not, I wouldn't say a shambles. It was like organized chaos, right? But the reason I'm saying that is that like, nobody needs a system that's insanely complex. It doesn't, it doesn't like content creation doesn't have to be complex. My system currently is throughout the week, and I'll just talk about LinkedIn. So throughout the week, I'll think of ideas. A lot of these ideas come from when I'm on my morning walk or if I'm in conversations with clients and I'm hearing what they're struggling with, or I'm hearing what their questions are. And I will jot down any ideas that I have. Usually the way I think, my ideas come to me in hooks. So they usually come to me as like the first line of what I'm going to say for the post. And then On Friday morning, I'll sit down and I'll plan out the next week of posts based on those ideas that I had. So I'll pull them and I'll say, you know, this one, I haven't talked about in a while, so let's do that on Monday. Daniel: Tuesday's going to be my personal story, so what aspect of that do I want to share? Wednesday, okay, I like this idea, let's put it in. Thursday, Friday, something and so forth. And then either on the Friday or the Saturday, depending on how much time I have, I'll write out those posts. And usually as I'm writing them, the hook gives me 90% of what I'm going to write about because I already know what topic I'm speaking about, but I may then like to think about the different formats. And an example of that is the very classic, you know, here's what I, I don't know, like, here's my content creation process, and then it's like one step, one, two, three, like a list. Another format could be like a before and after. Here's what I used to think, now here's what I think. Another format is like a case study. This is what I did with my client and these were the results. Or a classic carousel, like a timeline from when I first started content creation to now. So I'll also then try to cycle between those formats so not every single post is like a three-step list. Matt: And when it comes to the post formats, do you cycle through different formats as well or are you sticking mostly to, you know, your typical text or text with an image? Yeah, good question. And this is why one of the tips that I give my clients, I use myself. So I'm a big fan of studying what works on the apps and especially studying top performers on the app. Daniel: So, you know, like give a shout out to like Lara Costa, Yazin Alec, you know, the big names. And so when I started posting LinkedIn, I thought that LinkedIn was supposed to be favoring video content. Everyone was saying like, oh, like nobody's posting video on LinkedIn. If you post video, you're going to get ahead. It's going to boost your posts. I started posting videos and they didn't do that well. And so then I said, okay, let's have a look at what the others are doing. And I found that they were mostly posting text and photo. So that's what I did. And impressions went way up. Along that time, I've refined my content and refined my message and I've brought video back in, but I know that video plays a very certain role and that's usually to establish credibility. So I'm not going to get like 10,000 impressions on a video that I post, but that is a very good way for me to, you know, sit there and like get clients to see what it is to interact with me on this, like what it is to be on a call with me. So I do cycle through the formats. My preference is always text and photo. And then like secondary is video. I haven't yet done a text-only post. But, and I will occasionally do a carousel if it calls for it. Carousels tend to do a lot better just on average, but they also take more work, so it's pros and cons. Matt: And when you're doing videos, you know, is this vertical? Is this horizontal video? How long is the video? What are you talking about in the video? Daniel: Okay, I will tell you guys. I will let you in on a little secret. Any video that I post usually comes from my Instagram. So it's like, it's like a repurposed video. A lot of the videos I post usually will be vertical. So me standing, talking about a certain topic, plus advice. I will, on the odd occasion, do a storytelling video or a silent story video, which is more of like B-roll plus a training sound. That's very like personal and if I'm sharing my own story. I think a lot of my videos are about 30 to 45 seconds. I haven't yet done anything longer than that, but I have seen a lot of people share snippets of podcasts or tutorials with a bit of a longer sort of duration. And I think they don't do, they have a very certain place, which would be more of the like establishing authority and really helping people understand how much expertise you have. Matt: Sarah, I think a lot of what you described on videos has been exactly what all of our previous guests have said about video. We were just talking to Jay Carls, the co-founder of Midday Squares, and he said the same thing about video just earlier today. And the same thing with Matt and I. We've tried video and it hasn't worked for us on LinkedIn, even though a lot of people on LinkedIn seem to be pushing it. Daniel: Yeah, I, it's interesting. Daniel: I think what I've noticed from my video content and what makes it do better is if I often just repeat myself in the caption. So I almost make the assumption that the people, that not everyone's going to watch the video, and therefore, can you get as much out of just the text post or the text accompanying the video as you can from the video? And then usually that tends to do all right. What about commenting on LinkedIn? Are you spending a lot of time commenting? What are you advising your clients to do with comments? Matt: Yeah. So what I advise my clients to do is to comment at least for 15 to 30 minutes after you post. I know a lot of people say to comment before as well. I haven't noticed any difference if just when I just comment after and I post pretty early in the morning, so it doesn't make sense for me to like log on earlier just to comment. That I've noticed has worked really well. And I think that's a big factor in why I've managed to grow so fast. I will say that I am a certified people pleaser, and I've sort of gotten myself stuck because I now have like lots of people commenting and engaging on my posts, which I love and I am so grateful for. But then there's like a part of me where it's like, I have to return all these comments because I, I want to thank them for, you know, and then I'm stuck there commenting for like hours and responding to comments. So I'm like, okay, I need to be better about this. Daniel: And like I can't be on LinkedIn for hours and hours just responding to comments. So I think it's, I think it's good if you set yourself a timer and you're like, I'm going to do as much as I can in these 15 to 30 minutes. And then I'm going to be okay with that and leave it knowing that, you know, I've done it. One of my qualms with the LinkedIn comment section is I wish there was a way to easily go through every single comment, almost in like an inbox, so you can reply to the unread ones, almost like you can reply to an email or in superhuman if you've used that before. That to me would make commenting so much easier because sometimes I'll only see them if they tag me in the comment. Matt: So I, I think I handle this by sorting by most recent and then I make a very deliberate effort to go from bottom up. So I always know where I have left it and then where I start again, rather than, you know, uh, top, almost relevant. Daniel: That's a very smart idea. And I'm going to have to start doing that. Sometimes the LinkedIn app takes forever too, to load all the comments and everything. Matt: I would not, I don't use the app. Yeah, I don't, I don't need the app. I have very strong opinions throughout the app, which I will not share publicly, but I'm very much a desk, I'm very much a desktop user for LinkedIn. I use, I use the, I use apps like all the other platforms, but LinkedIn is primarily, like if I don't have my laptop, I'm not posting that day. Daniel: Really? That is fascinating. Um, all right. Daniel: So I'm curious then as a primarily desktop user, is there anything that you would wish that they added to the platform that doesn't exist today or anything that you're like, come on guys, like clean up the inbox or, you know, improve the, the commenting? Is there anything like that for you that you wish they would add? Matt: Um, I think I'm limited by my imagination, but the one sort of like pain point that I have, and it's a very tiny pain point, uh, is that, you know how sometimes you open your inbox on the laptop, uh, and it like marks your very top message as read. Uh, but sometimes I open my inbox and I don't have time to respond to everything. So I'm looking for like a specific message. But then because it's marked that top message as read, I then miss that sometimes because it's no longer like unread. So that would be my first fix if I were to have a chat with LinkedIn HQ. Um, but otherwise, like, I think, you know, you can always take hints from Instagram and TikTok on how to improve the experience overall. But I, I feel like it is very different and people who are on LinkedIn have a very set purpose. So they don't need to optimise for like dopamine and like doom scrolling as much as the other platforms do. Daniel: Sarah, I, we have a product for you that may or may not be sponsoring the podcast soon. Update from the editing booth, not a sponsor. Let's get back to the episode. Thanks for watching so far. And that is Kondo. Have you seen it before? Matt: No, I haven't. Daniel: So essentially, it takes your LinkedIn inbox and turns it into a superhuman like. Have you used Superhuman for email? Matt: I'm, I like, I stick to what I said before. My systems are very low tech, but I'm always more than happy to learn because I could definitely be more efficient. Daniel: Okay, well, we'll make sure to send you this so you can try it out. Essentially, it is a LinkedIn inbox that looks like your email, but essentially on steroids. So you can control it totally from your keyboard and there are shortcuts, just like there are shortcuts in Excel back in the management consulting days. And the same with Outlook too, there are other shortcuts you can do with like copy and pasted messages and snippets and all of that kind of stuff. Matt: That sounds really good. And as you say that, I just thought of another thing that really annoys me, which is like, if you write a message and then you click out of the message and then it doesn't save it as a draft. Daniel: Yeah. So that would be helpful if that fixes that. Mitchell, you need to sponsor this podcast. Like I was DMing Mitchell this morning. I'm like, Mitchell, we gotta make something happen. Anything else, Sarah, or are those the main ones? Matt: I think those are the main ones that I can think of for now. Some others that we've heard that have been pretty interesting are just a better interface when it comes to scrolling through your old posts. Daniel: So if you're trying to find a post that you made from six months ago, it's kind of difficult to do that these days. You have to just scroll all the way down vertically, you know, post by post. But if there was something like, even like an Instagram style feed of three in a row, that would allow you to get through things quicker. Also, creator monetization doesn't seem like there's anything really incentivizing people to create on LinkedIn as there is on some of the other platforms like YouTube or Instagram. So yeah, I could go on, but those are some of the other ones we've heard. I think the interface thing would be really good. Like almost like a profile page, because what I noticed as well is when you go on people's profile, you have your banner and you have your feature section, but you only really see one or two posts. Matt: And having like almost a grid where you could see posts at a glance could be really good to help people see your old posts, but also just like more of a portfolio. Like this is everything that I've done and you can just like click on a random one. Yeah, something to think about. We've talked about this with many other guests. We think the Instagram layout would be the best way to display LinkedIn posts. It's interesting because I feel like on LinkedIn, a lot of the, there's no set, like there's no set, how do I go, dimensions. So it could be really good, but it could also be really bad if people are posting like everything a different size. Matt: I'm curious, Sarah, you have 3 million followers on across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, but you're spending a lot of time and we've just been talking for the past 20 minutes about LinkedIn. So what motivates you to post so much and spend so much time on LinkedIn? And what makes you excited about the platform? Daniel: So I prioritize LinkedIn because it is my current baby. And also because it is where I get a lot of my leads from. I would say that with Instagram and TikTok, I built those with sort of the idea to grow big and fast before I knew really what I was doing. And so I have lots of followers, but you know, it's in a niche that is no longer relevant to me. My positioning is very broad. And I, I would say like, I have a lot of legacy followers. And then also I posted a lot of my content just to go viral rather than to showcase my expertise or to build trust. Daniel: On LinkedIn, I'm taking everything that I've learned and applying it. And so I have, you know, a very like super tight, clear positioning statement. I know exactly who my target audience is. I'm creating posts across all of the four pillars that we discussed earlier. And therefore the return that I get is much greater than TikTok or Instagram ever gave me. And that's why I'm prioritizing it. And then I think there's also an element of the people that I want to target are on LinkedIn, right? It is like, I feel like the audience on LinkedIn is very much a professional audience that is looking to improve and open to learning. Matt: And they also understand the importance of investing in your learning. And therefore are more likely to, say, reach out and want to learn more. I love that. And I think what I'm hearing is the, well, one, the audience on LinkedIn, I personally also really resonate with because, you know, it's more professionals. It's more people. Daniel: That are looking to learn, the reason why you go to LinkedIn is usually different than the reason that you open up TikTok, for example. And it's a higher intent audience when it comes to potential leads. So, you know, similar to you, what I've observed is the, there's just a much higher likelihood of someone that I message on LinkedIn or who messages me inbound after seeing a post, there's a much higher likelihood that they will convert onto like a sales call and maybe potentially become a customer than, you know, if I were posting the same kind of stuff on TikTok and hoping that someone would, you know, turn into a lead there. I think it's also a little bit different because, you know, short form content is great for upper funnel brand awareness, but for the type of business that you're running and that I'm running, I think LinkedIn makes the most sense. And yeah, I just completely agree with you there. I think it's a different feel to it. Matt: And that's one of the reasons that actually drew me to LinkedIn because, you know, I first and foremost was on YouTube and the audience that I've built over there is also interested in learning, but it's a very different audience. It's an audience of people that I do career advice to, people trying to get jobs, which, you know, they also exist on LinkedIn, but it's different from building a business for founders or for business owners that are looking to build a personal brand. So, you know, pros and cons, but I'm really enjoying LinkedIn and the community there and people are super supportive. The LinkedIn community especially is like, every time someone posts a win, I feel like they're very, very supportive about it. Daniel: So, yeah, that definitely doesn't hurt either. I honestly agree. I think I, some of the connections I made on LinkedIn in such a short time have been amazing. And unfortunately, most of them are international, but I feel like if they weren't, we'd be almost best friends already. I also think that if you have experience posting on other platforms, you are almost at an advantage on LinkedIn because a lot of the people that do post on there aren't necessarily like they, they perhaps like, aren't trained in fighting for that attention as you would have to do on another platform. And so you are already at an advantage. Daniel: And then being able to inject a bit of your personality into your writing or, you know, being able to use really strong hooks already sets you in the like top 1%. So I think there's like this. I've read a couple of posts where it's like, this is like the time to get onto LinkedIn if you're a creator because it's just about to explode. And if you get in early, then you can sort of take advantage of that first movers. Matt: I couldn't agree more, Sarah. And I could talk forever about why I think LinkedIn is the next TikTok. Because, I mean, you're on TikTok in 2020, right, Sarah? I mean, I know you were on long before, but on 2020, it was a totally different app than it is now. It was much easier to go viral and it was a very niche thing that I was cringed to be on. And I think LinkedIn is kind of the same right now. Like, you know, it started as this niche job platform, but you've built an entire personal branding business off of it, a very successful one, while most people think it's cringe that you're still posting. And that's most of the work you're doing. Now there's the whole TikTok shop and it's this, you know, billion, trillion dollar, whatever it is, business. Daniel: And that's why I believe, and I think Matt does too, that LinkedIn is going to undergo a similar shift. Matt: 100%. Like, I will say, I've always, I've always said, you know, I just got lucky and I got onto the platform at the right time. I think that undermines a little bit of the work that I put in. Daniel: So I try not to say that anymore, but I think timing is a big part of it, right? Like I started Instagram when it was just about to take off and there was a time where I was growing a hundred K followers in a day. Like it is very hard to do that now. Same with TikTok, you know, I started in, I really started posting in 2020. And in that, in that year, it's just like I grew to a million in a couple of months because there wasn't many other people doing it. And so if you were on there and you were actually creating, you had a very high likelihood of growing and feeling something very similar with LinkedIn at the moment. So I do think that it is likely going to undergo that expansion. I think the, and therefore I think the people who are in it now are going to benefit the most because as you know, once it reaches a certain point, they start introducing things where you have to like pay for exposure or they limit the algorithm, that sort of stuff. Matt: Yeah. I couldn't agree more with everything you said. I mean, I, I've literally, Sarah gained a thousand followers last week. Like that's crazy. When you're starting with like eight or seven thousand and it's, it's nuts. Daniel: Sarah. I was just going to jump in and say, it's so interesting that you mentioned the paying for exposure piece of it, because I don't know if you've been noticing, but we've definitely been seeing LinkedIn trying to push the paid boosting of posts a little bit more. Matt: So now, you know, when you hit post, immediately after you get a pop-up that kind of says, like, hey, do you want to, do you want to boost this post for more reach? So it almost feels like they're slowly trying to get people to pay for more exposure, but I'm curious if you've run into that with your own account or any clients. Daniel: I actually haven't noticed that, but that's probably more like it is there, and I just took note. So I hadn't, like, like, consciously taken note of that. I haven't paid for anything on LinkedIn yet, and I probably, like, I've never actually paid to boost on any social platform ever. Matt: I have noticed, however, that, like, people have been complaining about their impressions dropping in the last week or so or last month or so. I personally haven't noticed that either, but there is talk, like the algorithm has changed a little bit. Daniel: That boosting thing could be a US thing, Matt, because I don't know if you have this in Australia or not, Sarah, but when I was in Dublin for work a few weeks ago, the, so LinkedIn has a video feed in the US where you can scroll literally just like TikTok. It's not, it's really not like TikTok at all. It's a lot different in the con. It's a lot different. I think it's more like hand selected than more of a TikTok. But when I was in Dublin, I didn't see that. So maybe, Matt, in Australia, they might not be pushing, boosting as much either, and it might just be a US thing. Matt: I think that might be right. Matt: All I see on my feed is like sponsored. Like there are a couple of like sponsored posts, but not heavily leaning that way. And I don't think I've like gotten a notification where it stood out to me where I've like, I should do that. I definitely get that on TikTok though. Like I definitely get every time I post, I'm like, your post could get this many views if you paid this much. And I'm like, no, thank you. Daniel: I'm gonna show you right now, Sarah, real quick, so you can see what, uh, what we're talking about. I'm gonna check mine as well because like it's just, yeah. So I don't have a video feed. I just have my normal feed. So like, if you look at these posts at the top of them, like, you see how it says promote this post? I'm gonna check now if I have that. I like, sometimes I just like, you know, blocking out. Um, but I, yeah, if you see it a million times. Matt: Yeah, right. Um, but I'll, I'll see if I have it. How often are you checking your impressions per day? Daniel: Ah, it is there, it is there. No, I do have it. It says promoted. I just, I just scroll past it every single time. Um, I actually don't check that much. I check, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard because, like, it's not that hard, but you can tell when a post is doing well, because you're getting lots of comments on it and you might be replying to those comments and you're like, oh, this post is getting lots of impressions, but it's not something that I like routinely or systematically check. Matt: Um, because I, my thing is like, if you've already, my actual thing is that, like, no matter what you post, even if it doesn't do very well in your mind, it's still building trust and it's still establishing your brand. So no post is a failure, um, if you get it up. But I do keep track of my metrics a week later. So I have like this Excel spreadsheet where I type in my metrics. The reason why I do that, and I never did this before I left McKinsey, but I have time to do it now. Is that like, it's really easy for me to then scan which posts did really well and then either repurpose that into a new post or a newsletter or even like an Instagram post. So I, I would say like I, I check my posts a week later to see how they've gone. I feel like that's the perfect management consulting answer, having an Excel track which posts have done the best. I will say, I, it just came across to me too, between us three, Sarah, we have BCG, McKinsey, and Bain. How about that? Proud to represent. One thing I also wanted to say is I just, I think it's really, it's really healthy that you don't check the impressions that often because I think a lot of people who create content kind of obsess over those vanity metrics that you really don't have that much control over. Matt: Like, yes, you can try to write the, the most curiosity and inducing hook, or you can try to pick the best photo for the post and the best idea, but at the end of the day, is it going to get 50,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 impressions? That's not up to you. Daniel: And do you think that you've sort of developed the ability to not really think as much about that because of your past experience as a content creator on Instagram? Or, you know, or were you just always like, oh yeah, I don't really care that much about the impressions. I'm just going to check them once a week. Matt: I definitely have not always been like this. And I, like, because I started TikTok, like before we went into COVID, right? And I was growing at during, that was my peak prime time during COVID. So, and in Melbourne, we had one of the longest lockdowns. So there was a time where my entire mood and self worth was dependent on how well my videos were doing on TikTok because it was like the only thing that I had going for me, right? And so that was a really, really hard time for me. As much as, you know, as successful as I looked on the outside, emotionally, it was really tough. So I learned my lesson then. And then I've learned it again now on TikTok and Instagram. And I've done this rebranding thing a couple of times where If you switch niches, your content just doesn't do well. Like it flops for a long time because your algorithm is still pushing out that content to your old audience. Daniel: So I think I've gotten to the stage where I understand that not every content, not every piece of content is going to do well. And also how to be okay with it not doing well. A couple of things that I tell my clients are one, make content that you are proud of so that it doesn't matter, like, I mean, so that it matters less what other people think of it. So for me, that means, you know, really high quality storytelling or like a really informative, helpful post with photos, that sort of stuff. Stuff that I can look back and be like, I like that. I like, I really liked this, even though it didn't do that well and that's fine. The second thing is, um, I, I always teach this mindset of like, not every post is intended to go viral, right? And that comes back to those pillars before. Some of my biggest generating lead posts didn't even get that many impressions, but often the posts that bring in the income and bring in the clients aren't designed to go viral because it's a different objective altogether. And then the third thing is, I have this mindset of like every failure gets you closer to success. If I had to teach somebody who is starting out from scratch one thing and one thing only, it's like, just try, just try and fail and try and fail and try and fail because that was essentially my whole system when I started on TikTok and Instagram. A million flops until one randomly went viral, couldn't have predicted it. But then once it does go viral, you double down on it. Daniel: You do more like that. And I think it's very much the same for any algorithm. You try, you try, you try again, you see what works, and once it does, then just double down on it. Yeah, that's, you know, I could go on for hours about this topic, but it's almost like there's like a Maslow's hierarchy of content creation. And like, every creator is somewhere on the journey to like self actualizing as a content creator. But when you start at the very bottom as a very early creator, you know, just getting into it, maybe you're only on one platform. Like the things that you care about at that stage are just like, I want to go viral. I want to get as many views as possible. And like you tie your self-worth and your happiness to however your content is performing. And then, you know, over time, you know, you start to realize, wow, it's such a roller coaster. Okay, maybe, maybe I need to care about not just the vanity metrics. Like maybe there's something else I should be measuring by. And man, you know, maybe you learn to measure success by the inputs. Like, am I staying consistent or am I, you know, showing up every day and maintaining a certain quality in my content? And maybe that's like the next level. And then I like to think that the highest level is probably something around, you know, just doing content for the love of the game and realizing that it's not, it's not something where you necessarily arrive one day and you're like, all right, I've succeeded at content. I'm done. Matt: I can, I can hang it up. The best content creators, I mean, ideally you would want to continue doing this, right? Unless, yeah, I mean, if I think about my own content journey, I, I would like to think that in 10, 20 years from now, I'll still be making content. Maybe if it's not on LinkedIn, it's on some other platform. But, you know, sharing the lessons that I learned from my career and from my life with someone that would benefit from it, I think that's like the mission. For me, and so you know, we were just talking to Jake Carl's, the co-founder of Midday Squares, as Daniel mentioned earlier today, and I feel like his approach to content creation is very similar to that because he creates content purely with the, not even the main intention of making money for his business. It's just to be authentic and to share a lot of the stories that he's learned from building a $100 million CPG brand. And people can feel that in the content when your intention is not just to extract as much value as possible from your audience. But that was kind of a long rant. That's kind of how I think about it. And what you were saying kind of got me thinking about those different stages of being a content creator. And I feel like you're probably further up the hierarchy. Daniel: Yeah, it's, I, so I often get this question a lot, like how do you not burn out if you're posting every day and that sort of thing. Matt: And I think the moment you detach your self-worth from how well your content does, it makes it a lot easier to enjoy the process. Um, I'm probably not at the stage where I would do it if I was making no money from it, mostly because the only, only because, like, I have to pay my bills. I think if that was covered, then I would probably do it just for the love of it. Um, because there's not, there's no reason why I would ever stop. Awesome. Daniel, should we, is it time? Daniel: I think it's time. So Sarah, I have some awesome ideas prepared for you that you're gonna give us your honest feedback on if they're a good idea or a bad idea. Matt: All right, and do I get to expand? Daniel: Yes, please, please explain. Okay. The first one I have for you is selling a course. Is that a good idea or a bad idea? Matt: Good idea. Um, very easy, like probably like the easiest thing to get started with. Very low overheads. But also, I feel like we're in an economy where people want knowledge more than they want just physical products. So I think that's a good idea. I think though that you would want to make it, like I think that there's an element that you might want to make it a bit like interactive. So it's like an online course with like one on one sessions every week, um, rather than like purely just an online course. And you wanna make it as interactive and as like immersive as possible with weekly activities that your audience or your student can implement. Matt: I honestly just thought of a million different course ideas and things for you because I think a lot of your study content can translate well into content creation. And when I was watching a lot of your content to prepare, one thing that really stuck with me was a mini must and I don't know if that's, I actually didn't even Google it. I don't know if that's an Australian thing. I'd never heard of the word before, but I, I just love it. And I'm kind of obsessed with like, you know, the five to 10 minute just compounding. And if you could just give like a mini must of like one idea per content every day, like a little, like, you know, brainstorm or something, that'd be a cool course. Daniel: There may be a course coming. Uh, but it's, it might, it might be not on Mini Musts. I forgot about that a little bit. I will give credit to my best friend from uni because that's his idea. Um, but there may be a course coming. So those who are interested, and it would be sort of like the, the services that I provide, but more of a lower ticket entry point. What about coaching people in a group versus one-on-one? Matt: Good idea. The reason why is that, uh, in a group there's a sense of community, a sense of accountability. Um, and I think sometimes people have problems that they can't articulate and other group members do that really well. It's also easier to scale for the person running it. Daniel: What about a whiteboard that has AI integrated into it and reads out what you write? So like there are apps that already exist for that. Like, like, like notability. I'm like, I'm pretty sure you can type that in notes and then get it to dictate it to you. But like, it would be cool. I just, I'm not sure that it would be new. Not to shoot any of these ideas down. No, listen, some of these ideas need to be shot down because sometimes when you have a lot of these ideas, just like with content, I'm sure Sarah, you'll have this idea in your head and you're talking to yourself up and you're like, this is the greatest idea I've ever had. And then I'll text it to Matt and I'm going to be like, oh my gosh, Matt, we've got to do this new whiteboard that has AI integrated into it and then says it, and then you, and then I say it out loud to Matt and I'm like, Matt's like, Daniel, what were you thinking? Matt: Now I have, I have one for you guys. I don't know if I'm allowed to do it like reverse, you know. Daniel: Okay. No, yeah, you are. Let's hear it. Matt: This is something I've been thinking about for a long time, but never actually actioned. So I was thinking that I should get... Like a bot that like scours your feed and like data scrapes like millions and millions of videos and publishes a weekly like newsletter of what's trending. So, and this is more relevant for like TikTok where trend, it's like trend heavy. Matt: And so like, you would get your bot to scrape like the feed and then it would come up with like, these songs are trending or this color is trending or this particular like filter is trending or this topic is trending. And then you could like sell that as a weekly subscription to people who are interested in making TikTok content. Daniel: That actually sounds, and sorry, just to clarify, is this for TikTok or is this for LinkedIn? Matt: I think it would be more for TikTok because TikTok is more trend heavy, but I think it would definitely work for LinkedIn as well, but it would be more, it would be a little bit more limited because really the only thing that would like trend on LinkedIn is like topics. Daniel: Yeah. I was thinking if there was something like that for LinkedIn of like trending topics, that could be pretty, pretty useful. Matt: Well, you can steal my idea if you'd like. I mean, there's the LinkedIn newsfeed, but I make a joke sometimes about living in Kentucky where, like, Aviator Nation was super popular, Lululemon was super popular in the coast, like in LA and New York. But then it takes like two to five business days for it to get to Kentucky, like, you know, culture wise. And it's the same thing on LinkedIn, I think. Like, something will hit TikTok, like this Warner Bros. story on Netflix, and then it'll eventually hit LinkedIn, like a little bit later, and then everyone's giving their takes to it. Daniel: So if you could get ahead of it with this bot and be one of the first to have that, you know, your content posted, that could be pretty cool. Matt: Yeah. Yeah. I do. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you could also just like scrape other platforms and see what's trending and then bring it over. My last one, I think I'm not as bullish on it anymore, but I'm still gonna throw it out there to see if we can get any good ideas from it. And a lot of, and it's from a lot of your study tips that have talked about not being on your phone in the morning. And my thought here was an alarm clock that somehow wakes you up with the light rather than the alarm. Daniel: Okay. I'm not gonna shoot this down, but I will point out that the light is probably less effective than the sound, so people might not wake up, which would be bad for them. And then I think that you can do that with like a Google light as well. You can just set when it should come on. Unless it's like a really like bright, flashy light is what you had in mind. But yeah. Matt: No, I, I think we're gonna shoot this down. This one might get cut out of the pod because I feel like this is just not a good idea, and not even worth it. I shoot this down kindly because I would never shoot down an idea, but I'm just thinking that there may be better ideas. Daniel: Oh, no, I'm totally shooting this one down. Matt, do you have any ideas to save me here? Matt: Unfortunately not. I was just gonna say that I'm on, I agree with Sarah on this one. Daniel: Awesome. Matt: Sarah, is there anything else that we haven't talked about today that you want to share with the audience? Anything at all? I think my biggest takeaway, and I hope that the audience takes away as well, is like LinkedIn is probably the place to be right now. And you can always try and engineer it and, you know, think of a million hacks to go well on there, but ultimately it is going to be just showing up consistently and providing valuable content. Daniel: Amazing. Thanks for coming on, Sarah. Matt: Thank you for having me. It was really good. One final bonus question, Sarah. Who's someone that you're really looking up to right now on LinkedIn? Daniel: Oh, this is gonna be a weird answer, but like I, and I, I've had this answer throughout my entire life. Like I, I don't generally look up to people. I respect their craft and their art, but I always feel like everyone's different in their own way and therefore I would never aspire to be like someone else. Like if I give an example, like I think Lara Acosta is killing it on this. She's absolutely killing it. And I have a lot of respect for her, but I have a very different approach to her. Like her voice versus my voice is very different, and therefore I know that I would like never aspire to talk or post in the same way that she does. Matt: Lara actually commented on one of my posts a few days ago. I was pretty hyped about it. Daniel: Same, she commented on my post. I was like, oh my God, I love it. That's awesome. Matt: That's all I got. That's actually all I got. Daniel: All right. That's a wrap.