We interviewed a LinkedIn top voice about LinkedIn

Transcription

Daniel: Okay, I treat my LinkedIn kind of like a personal CNBC. Like that's how I imagine it. Everyone says to do that, and that's just not the way that my mind works. It takes a lot of sparring with AI to actually get it right. There's no way we could have done it without AI. So the investor thing is interesting because I think to get attention and to make noise, you have to be slightly controversial. Matt: I'm so glad you brought that up. Okay, well, trick question because I don't believe in that. If you're going to advertise on one billboard, you shouldn't buy billboards at all. That's not the strategy. So it's like, I mean, just, it's just, you know, all of our business at Outlouver comes through my LinkedIn and through, you know, you know, LinkedIn flew out to me like six months ago to do like a profile on my career. Daniel: Welcome to the Connection Accepted Pod. Today, I'm really excited to have Melissa Rosenthal. Melissa, thanks so, so much for being here. Matt: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Really looking forward to chatting. Daniel: Awesome. So Melissa, you have a really impressive background, and something that I do with every guest, though, that we bring onto the podcast is I look at the first LinkedIn post that they ever made. And for you, and maybe I'll just share my screen here so you can kind of throw back here. This, I believe, was the first post that you ever put out on LinkedIn eight years ago when you were still at Cheddar. And so you said, you know, you can't be successful without a strong mission and vision. Proud of the Cheddar core values hanging in our office and inspired every time I walk by them. So take that all in. And then I'd love to ask you, like, what has changed since you made this post? Matt: So two things. One, I think LinkedIn might cut you off because I was posting when I was at BuzzFeed as well. So I think, I think maybe the cutoff date is eight years. But when I look at my records, my first post was probably like 12 or 13 years ago. So, yeah, so a long time I've been posting on there. I definitely saw value in it, like, immediately. Like, kind of, there was a lot there that was really interesting to me and it's evolved in many ways. What would you like, should we shape the conversation on what's evolved in my, in my career or what's involved on LinkedIn? And I mean, like, there's so much, so there's so much there. Daniel: Yeah. So happy to take it. For the audience's benefit, why don't we start with your career and just give them like the high level overview of all the events that have led you to founding Outlouver today. Matt: Sounds good. Yeah. My early days, I was at a company called BuzzFeed. I ran their global creative department and I started out actually as an intern. So my, it was pretty interesting. My, when I was in college, I wanted to go into the music industry and I was interning from kind of freshman year and I was interning at very cool magazines and record labels. Matt: And I saw this writing on the wall that like the internet was going to kind of change everything. Like it really was like, like the internet was an experiment at that point. It just was. And people were trying to figure it out. And the one thing I did notice was that it was changing everything. There's a lot of speculation on how it would change things, but it was one of those moments where for me I was like, if I take a job at a traditional record label or publishing company or someone that's like legacy, it just felt old. And like everything I believed in was about disruption. So I looked inside myself and said, what am I spending my time doing when I'm not at school or working? And it was on BuzzFeed. And I was just like a huge fan of this really cool technology they had built, which was a viral predictor and a viral measurement system that showed you effectively for every time you made a post where that post had taken off, who had viewed that post and how the virality was actually tracking your post across the web. And I was like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. So I could create a post and in real time see who was picking it up, how many viral views it was getting and where it was cited. So you could click on any piece of that and see, oh, it was cited on Reddit. Oh, it was on Yahoo. And I was just like, this is amazing. So I, you know, looked, I was like, I'm spending 24 hours a day on this when I'm not, you know, at school. So I applied for an internship and the rest is kind of history. The company really started to take off and it was a really amazing time for digital media. And, you know, I think it was pretty, pretty cool to be at the forefront of that. Flash forward a few years after that, my boss at BuzzFeed, John, started Cheddar and I joined him to do that. We kind of had this contrarian view at the time, which is a very wild contrarian view to like even say it's a contrarian view. But our contrarian view is that people would cut the cord with cable and that streaming services would be the primary way that people would watch their content. It was on demand viewing at appointment, what we called appointment viewing rather than through a cable subscription. And that turned out to be very right. So we built Cheddar and we sold Cheddar in 2019. And then I was sold to a cable company, ironically. And then I went to decided I was like, okay, I really like digital media. I don't know if that's the future for me. I see the decline in a lot of what's happening here. What it was 10 years ago, isn't what it is today. Where do I want to be? You know, tech and was at the forefront of that. And I was like, I need to, I need to be working at a company that I like believe in. And I looked at the tools that I was using and I was like, okay, if any of these companies like are a good fit, like I would love to do that because if I'm not a user, I'm not a believer. That has treated me very well in my like my career. Daniel: So I kind of wanted to stick with that. And ClickUp just happened and it was perfect timing. It was series A. The company had big aspirations to go up against Atlassian. My consumer and digital media background was like a really good marriage to Zed the founder and kind of what he believed in his brand and how to grow ClickUp because it's such a, you know, your ICP is one to thousands and it's every ICP kind of across the board, you know, every, any team can use it of any size across any industry. So it worked really well to align that to a more consumer focused strategy than B2B. So I ended up at ClickUp, honestly, like life changing for me. It's that was kind of like, I learned so much so fast and saw the company, you know, hyper scale to 4 billion in, in valuation. And, you know, now they're looking to go public, which is super exciting. And then, um, after that, I was like, all right, I think it's time to take all the things that I've learned over the course of my interesting career and build something that I believe is the future of, um, of go to market. And, uh, that's, that's where you find me at Outlover. Matt: That's awesome. And man, so many thoughts just going through my head right now, even looking back at your Buzzfeed experience, I read in an article somewhere, you were 25 at the time when you were leading a team of 30, 40 people in the creative department. That's super impressive. I mean, I'm 26 right now. And I can't imagine doing something like that. Um, and it's cool that it, I feel like you were at the company at such an interesting time in digital media. And like you were saying, cable shifting over to streaming services. That was another trend that was happening. And so you kind of got to see all of that firsthand. And then of course at, at ClickUp, that company was a company continues to be a rocket ship. So I feel like you've, you've had a set of really unique and really interesting experiences that now almost like uniquely positions you to launch this new venture with Outlouver. But let's talk a little bit more about Outlouver now. Where did that idea sort of come from? And when were you like, okay, this is, this is what I want to do after ClickUp. I want to help businesses become the number one news source in their industry. Daniel: Kind of, it's like this productization of my brain over the past, you know, 15 years or so. And what it really is, is, you know, when I was at BuzzFeed and Cheddar, we were predominantly making money through advertising, through partnerships with B2B companies, especially at Cheddar. Daniel: And I was always thinking in the back, back, back of my mind, like, why can't these companies build their own authority through kind of the same motion that we're doing to build these media companies? Like, why would they not do that when they're spending millions of dollars with us a year to advertise? Why wouldn't they just invest that in, in building this themselves? And I think that was like a wild thought at the time because like media was such a, it was its own model, right? Like you're building this authority, but really you're doing it at the end of to be able to shape our product moving forward. That's a little bit about why I kind of started Outlever, and I don't know if I stated this, but basically what we do at Outlever is we create a hybrid newsroom approach. We build companies into standalone media organizations and build them a credible, basically, news motion that then also connects to their onsite motion. So we're creating this kind of hybrid network approach to building them authority in their space, but it's also a lot of other things. It's really great for building relationships with prospects. It's really great for creating a ton of noise on LinkedIn using your ICP and your customers basically as your own megaphone. And that's what we've built. Matt: That is fascinating. And I have a few questions, but let's start with just LinkedIn. You post a lot on LinkedIn, and I'm assuming for your clients, you're probably helping them to produce content on LinkedIn as well. Was it always clear to you that this was going to be like the main platform we wanted to focus on? Or did you look at other platforms? Daniel: It is and it isn't. So the media companies that we're building them or the newsrooms that we're building them are not on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is the predominant way that people, there's two ways that people are sharing the content and the distribution vehicle for the stuff that we're producing. One of those is LinkedIn and the other is direct, which is really what I believe in. It's like, where do people find content? They're not going to xdomain.com. That's just like not a reality anymore. Even for those media organizations that are left, like no one's doing that. So how does content find the person? And that's through people in your like network sharing it to you, like seeing it on LinkedIn, right? And then the other piece is through Slack, through dark social, through email, through people you're connected to through WhatsApp. And those were the ways that we were like, okay, when we build the distribution vehicle for this motion that we're creating and this product, we have to incorporate LinkedIn. So how do we do that? So effectively, like LinkedIn, I mean, also like I made a post about dogfooding your own product. We dog food our own product. We have our own publication, but the entire, like a lot of what, a lot of where our leads come in right now are predominantly both our motion and LinkedIn. Matt: So we're like, okay, well, we have to tap into the two things that are working for us, for our customers. And one of those is definitely, is definitely LinkedIn. 100%. That makes a lot of sense. Daniel: And so what if I were to come to Outlever and say, I'm like a brand and I want to turn my brand, I really want to amp up my presence on all these platforms and really create my own newsroom with Outlever. How, what's the process? How do you guys go about it? Yeah. Tell us a little bit more. Matt: Yeah. So we've built a really amazing product and media listening algorithm. So we're listening to hundreds of millions of signals every day or every month, rather. And those signals are, they're everything. They're companies' websites, press releases, newsletters, product updates, changes they're making on their site, things they're saying on LinkedIn. Like it's this kind of like all-encompassing listening algorithm. So what we do is we align with our customers, hey, like where do you see yourself headed? Like what do you want to own? Do you wanna be the agentic call center company? Like where can we like place you that can capture and be kind of like that net for everything that you want to own within that space and all the conversations happening in that space? Where it's a catch-all for the ICP that you wanna attract. It's a catch-all for your current customers and any partners that you might be working with and also like influencers in that space. So we align on that. We build out a brand new domain. It's a gorgeous news site. It's super legitimate. It's real news site. And then we go out the door and we do interviews with folks in that specific vertical or ICP set. And we talk to them about the things that are happening in that industry. We publish those articles on the news site. We've also published pieces of those in a new content format on our customers' sites. And then there's an amazing distribution network that we have where we see a lot of people sharing out their articles because they're really proud of what we've written with them. And it's all on a megaphone on behalf of our customer. So we've created this like very interesting network effect of like using our customer's platform as a megaphone for what these people care about. But it also ties very closely back to what our customers care about. So it's a really nice loop within that kind of space. Our team, we have journalists internally, but our product has really made them more efficient. Like we've productized journalism effectively. We've built a ton of tools internally that allow us to do this. It's a mix of task management, a CRM. We've rebuilt Fireflies to effectively learn and be trained off of interviews so that when journalists are on the call with subjects and sources, it makes them smarter. It understands what they're going to ask, how to discuss certain things. So we can make people really great interviewers. We can speed up the editing process. Matt: So it's really like, it is when I talk about like my view of AI, it is kind of that perfect marriage between like using, utilizing AI to do the things to make them faster. But the core piece of this is that these pieces are journalistic and the sources of the interview also have to be thrilled because our customers basically twofold. It's the people that we're speaking to on their behalf and also our customers. So it has to kind of like, you couldn't do this with like AI slop, you know? So it really is like utilizing AI to make our journalists more efficient, more effective. Daniel: And yeah, there's no way we could have done it without AI. Like that does, this would not exist. This would be like a very unprofitable thousand person company, but we're able to do it with the tech. Yeah. The AI slop comment, man, there's a lot we could go into there. Clearly, you know, there is more and more AI generated content these days, especially on written platforms like LinkedIn. And I think there's people on both sides of the spectrum. Of course, there's gonna be people that are saying things about how AI is ruining content and there's so much AI slop that's being churned out on a daily basis. But then there's also people that are on the completely other side of the spectrum. And they're like, we shouldn't use AI at all, or sorry, we should use AI. And these are like the people that are very on board with it. Now I personally fall somewhere in the middle. I think it can be a very excellent enabler. And similar to what you guys are doing, it's helping the journalists. It's helping people to be smarter and to be more productive. But I wanna dive into that a little bit more, actually, because I know you also posted a little bit about it on LinkedIn before. Tell me, tell me your thoughts around AI slop and as inevitably people are using AI more and more for their content. Where do you think things are headed? Matt: Yeah. I mean, like AI, it's getting smarter every day, right? But it still has tropes and it still has things that it goes back to that are just not human a way of speaking and articulating. And it doesn't form its own perspectives. So our take on that is that how do we get the human perspective out of the person and shape that using journalism and end AI? So like, there is a really interesting thing in which like, there are really great people that we speak with and their initial, let's just call it, their initial touch point for us or their initial signal is really not great. It's like, they've written something using AI completely. And you're like, wait a second, like, this is a great person. Like maybe it's like a CISO at a company, but it's completely AI generated. And we're like, well, they have a good thought. It's just not written correctly. Like it's not, it's not bringing out their true like version of what this is. What we'll do is we'll speak to them. We'll have a 30 minute interview with them. And we'll spin that into a really great article. Daniel: And now all of a sudden they're posting about that article for a week because it really like showcases their actual views. They just couldn't articulate it themselves and they used AI and leaned on it too heavy. So I think it's interesting. I think like, but there's a little bit of that like dead internet thing going on where people are treating it like a brain, but it's just a database. And it's utilizing and being trained off of all the other now, you know, repetition of what's happening and what other people are posting. That's also AI generated. And you see that like chain start to happen and it's not good. So like I'm definitely very fearful of that. Like, I think our motion is like the complete opposite. Like I'm betting on people. I'm betting on human perspective. I'm betting on journalism mixed with that. I'm, you know, betting on a lot of things in that area, but I see it happen all the time where like we're getting dangerously close to like, it's just regurgitating old things and like AI content. Cause there's nothing new that it's being trained off of that's human instead of AI. Matt: Yeah. That's a really interesting thought there. And yeah, as they train it on more and more, or as they almost like run out of human content to train it on, then what is it? That's the entire theory of dead internet. It's that you've run out of the models to be able to Like, okay, this is like the kind of what I want to go for. Like, maybe I'll write two sentences and then later on, I'll try to like write in the rest as like the thought comes to me. And then I use AI to shape it into a post, but like an actually well thought-out piece. But it takes a lot of sparring with AI to actually get it right and a lot of removing of things that I wouldn't say because it still has to be my unique perspective. AI is just the thing that's like cleaning it up a little bit and maybe adding some meat to it. But it, it certainly takes a lot. Like it, it's not, it's not like one and done, throw it in there and it's perfect. Even if I have a pretty well, like thought out framework of what I want to write about, it still takes a lot of massaging right now. Daniel: Yeah, 100%, I, I can relate as well. For me, it's, I try to start with the idea and usually the idea for me comes from maybe a conversation I had with someone or something I read, something else I, someone else posted something I saw and I liked it. And then I try to put my own take on it. And then I try to use AI as kind of like a, not a thought partner, but someone to sort of bounce it off of and be like, hey, what do you think? Matt: Yeah, like a sparring, yeah, like a sparring partner, exactly. Daniel: Yeah. I think you put that perfectly. I'm going to use that going forward, sparring partner, because you're not totally dependent on it, but you're kind of still using it and pushing back and it takes, I think, a level of nuance and, of course, attention and not just taking what the AI gives you. Daniel: And like understanding of like what you're, like, there's nothing more cringe-worthy to me when then, like, someone is making an announcement and it's just like, you could tell it's like, I saw someone do this like a few months ago and it was like, the cat's out of the bag. Would you really say that? Like, you're not really saying that. Like, you don't speak like that. Most people don't speak in like cliches and tropes. They speak in actual thought. So how do you distill it down to thought and not just tropes? Matt: Yeah. Melissa, I'm also curious. I know you kind of have started talking a little bit about the process, but how do you come up with your ideas for your own LinkedIn account? And then when you do have an idea, what, what takes place from idea to post? Daniel: Yeah, it's kind of what I mentioned. The way that I come up with ideas is really like I'm talking to marketing leaders and executives across every single vertical, every single role, every week. So, and also I'm reading LinkedIn and I'm reading, like, I'm ingesting so much. I'm my own media listening algorithm too. Like we all are. And some of these things like really resonate or they're things that are very close to my own experience. I feel like the best way that I can write and when my posts do the best and when it's more the most authentic is when I can relate it back to a real lesson or something that I've experienced and make a statement about that and like things that I actually am passionate about and believe in. Like I don't believe in writing for writing's sake. So some things that I'm like, oh, this might be an interesting topic, but then I'm like, I don't really have any real world experience with it. And maybe I'll pose it as a question or a poll, but I can't really write a piece about it because it just doesn't make sense to me yet. So I park it. But you know, some of the ideas, like it's kind of this just like free flowing, like a mood board in my mind of things that are like, all right, like I'll write a headline here and then I come back to it and flesh it out. And then I rework it with AI and I try to cue things up. Like the best thing I can do in my LinkedIn capacity is cue things up for the next two weeks so that I have the free enough mind to not worry about having to post content every day, but so that the content just kind of builds in its own library. Matt: That's impressive, cueing things up for the next two weeks. I was going, I was going to also ask you if you follow any sort of framework or structure. If you're, say, posting five days a week, do you try to get two of those to be thought leadership and then maybe one is like a case study and, you know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Daniel: Everyone says to do that. And that's just not the way that my mind works. Like I need to lean into, also I'm running a company. Like this is a part of what I do, but it's like 99% not what I'm doing. Matt: So it has to be like really easy for me to do it and I don't want to stress out about it. So following like a framework of like how, like I, I would never be able to do that right now, which is like, oh, I'll do three case studies a week and this and that. I try to strike a balance between things that are self-promotional and things that are just like my own thoughts and like authentic observations about the things that I care about and am passionate about. So I think it's like a balance between being like overly self-promotional and shouting from the rooftops, the things you believe in and trying to do that in like a non, like just a very authentic way, I would say. Um, so I do try to balance that, but in terms of like every Wednesday I post this, I can't do that right now. But, and my brain isn't really working that way. So I wanna lean into what makes it easier for me. Daniel: Yeah. Authenticity has been crushing it on LinkedIn lately. Although, although sometimes people are a little too much, you know. Matt: Yeah. It takes a Little too much of anything, I think is, is not good. Yeah, I mean, the other thing I'll say is like I, I think I was talking to someone about this on another podcast. Actually, maybe it was Anthony in Canada. And it was like, um, what like level of yourself, like how much of yourself do you share? And I, I was saying, okay, I treat my LinkedIn kind of like a personal CNBC. Like, that's how I imagine it. And it's like, if I'm going to go on CNBC, will I, would I speak about this thing? Like, am I comfortable enough talking about it? Is it, does it make sense in a forum for business? Um, and if the answer is yes, like I will do that. A part of that can be a part of my story, sure. But I think there's definitely boundaries that I have in which like I don't think things are appropriate to post on LinkedIn. This is not your close friends network on Instagram. And like, I don't love when people use it that way. I think it's a little much. Like this is still a business platform, but you know, to each their own, but that is definitely like kind of the way that I think about it for myself. Daniel: 100%. Yeah, I was talking, I mean, I've talked with a number of founders recently and I tell them like, Hey, if you wouldn't want your investors seeing this, then don't post it. Right. And uh, yeah. Matt: I think there's also, that's actually an interesting point because there's, there's also a balance of like overthinking that because like what will actually get traction are things that like are a little bit controversial. Daniel: 100%. Like you have to have some sort of take that like people are going to want to create a dialogue around. I also hadn't said this earlier, but I think if you're not creating content that people want to have a dialogue around in any capacity, like from a content marketing strategy to your own LinkedIn strategy to what we're producing, don't create it. Daniel: Why would you create content that no, that people don't have a perspective on or that could be a little divisive? Like I think that's very important. So the investor thing is interesting because I think to get attention and to make noise, you have to be slightly controversial. Like with Buzzfeed, I learned this, like this is 101. And how do you create social viral content? It's creating something that sparks dialogue and some of those things are slightly divisive. So I don't know about the investor thing. I mean, luckily we don't have investors, we're self-funded, so I don't have to worry about that. But I certainly do think that way. Like, obviously I wouldn't do anything that would like completely turn our customers off. Like, I'm not going to say crazy things, but do I want to like be a little controversial sometimes? Yeah, absolutely. Matt: Yeah. No, I agree with you. I think like, and maybe there's more of this in B2C marketing and only B2B marketing is starting to see more of this, but in B2C, we see people doing all sorts of controversial stuff to get attention and it works, right? Like it works. Daniel: Yeah. Agree on that. But in B2B, I think historically it's been kind of seen as more boring, you know, more logical. You're appealing to other businesses, so not as like emotional. But then the thing is you are trying to reach people. So I think more and more people are realizing that and there is a space, maybe not to the extent of some of the B2C marketing tactics we see out there today, but there is a, there is room for B2B marketers. Matt: Yeah. I mean, the reality, like and people have contacted me because they're interested in what we do at Outliver, that's way more valuable for me. So I think it's more like, I believe the most important metrics are, are you getting the right people to engage with your content versus, like, how many impressions did you get? But of course, people love vanity metrics. They all want to look at how many impressions something got, but I don't believe in that. I believe in, like, are the right people sharing it, engaging in dialogue with you, like, questioning it. like, how many impressions something got, but I don't believe in that. I believe in, like, are the right people sharing it, engaging in dialogue with you, like questioning it, like, are you building a relationship with them? Like, that to me is the number one thing you should be focused on. Impressions are just vanity metrics. Daniel: I completely agree with you there. I think, obviously, getting impressions is great for reach, and if the post is meant to be kind of like, just a pure awareness, let's reach as many people as possible play, then, yes, that's useful to look at, but is it reaching the right people? Yeah, I mean, I'll give you an example. I wrote a post, which I didn't want it to go viral, but it was about our hiring practices at Outliver. And the second line was like, I don't like to BS people. There's no seven rounds of internal interviews here. Daniel: We ask you to do a short project, and that's it. It's like an hour, and it's a thought piece. It's like an exercise. And a lot of people had a big problem with that. It was like a lot of the, I don't know, it was like a crowd on LinkedIn that I think, like, doesn't like that type of way of, I don't, I don't know, exactly. But I ended up on, like, LinkedIn lunatics on Reddit, and the post got, like, 500,000 views, but it was really bad. Like, people were sending me, like, pretty nasty messages. And, you know, like, I would have taken it, like, I don't, like, who cares about that reach? Like, that reach is, like, absolutely meaningless to me. It's all the wrong people. So, 500,000 of the wrong people. You know, it's like, great, sure, like, people will see me in the feed, but like, it's just not, that's not, like, valuable. Matt: That's, that's fascinating. I think I may have seen that post as well. It didn't trigger me in the way that I think it triggered other people, but yeah, it's interesting. Virality is a double-edged sword for sure, and I feel like for most businesses that are posting primarily because they want to attract the right kind of customer to them, then virality is not really as necessarily as effective. I don't want to say it's not effective because look at the astronomer thing, but that shouldn't be the priority. Daniel: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't really know that many, like, I've never seen a B2B company that's really outside of, like, ClickUp, what we were doing and, like, what Chris is doing at ClickUp now, like, that's optimizing for virality. Like, no other B2B company is really doing that. So, I mean, there's also, like, there's kind of this in-between, right? There's, like, optimizing for pure virality, which is like the ClickUp model of, like, how they advertise. And they also have, like, obviously ClickUp has a very well-oiled go-to-market function where they're creating all types of content. So I don't want to just say they're optimizing for virality, but that is one of the plays. Then you have companies that, I'm being very honest, they're creating, like, really bizarre, very, like, inner circle, inner monologue content that might sound good between, like, the two co-founders of the company, but it lacks the self-awareness that no one else cares. And I think, like, there's like a level of, like, you have to have awareness about, like, what you're putting out there because it, it, a lot of it just falls flat. Like, content, like, content isn't created equal. Like, all content isn't created equal, and they kind of know that. But, like, there's an, like, just because you're creating a video doesn't mean it's a good video. So I think there's like an element, and people are all, like, talking about this term these days, but taste. Like, there is an element of taste. And, like, why are you creating this and what is it doing? Like, you're creating, like, what, like a game show about something and hoping, like, people tune into it. Daniel: Like, maybe, maybe, maybe, but I, I mean, I really see it as, like, our approach at ClickUp was much more like, how do we, and Outliver too a bit, is like, how do we tap into, like, the, the water cooler content that people within the industries and verticals care about enough to reference us when they're speaking about it? Like, how do we trend jack? How do we think about the really, the things that, like, they are going to want to bring up within, like, their, like, meetings because they saw it and it was funny or it had an emotional impact on them in some way, right? That's how we thought about the frameworks of, like, what we created at ClickUp and also making noise, for sure, but it was never like, so, like, wow, did those guys just sit in a room and, like, all laugh and thought it was a good idea? Because that's a lot of what I think, like, I see on LinkedIn is a lot of B2B companies putting out content that, like, no one else is gonna find valuable. It's just, like, good to them. Matt: Yeah, and taste is tough because it's something that it's hard to teach. It's sort of acquired. Daniel: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely, like, my, my thinking on that is, like, a lot of that, like, in why it feels, like, kind of innate to me is the BuzzFeed, like, growth, right? Like, I grew up with BuzzFeed. So my way of thinking about how people communicate and why they share and engage with content was kind of built on this framework of, like, different emotional pillars and how you actually reach people and, like, what makes sense and, like, how to connect with people. And this is, like, I feel like I've trained my own brain models on hundreds and hundreds of thousands of viral posts that, like, we've created at BuzzFeed. And, like, that's been, you know, the, the kind of layer of my thinking, and I've carried that through to every other career and everything that I do, how I write, how I think. And, you know, not everyone has that background, but the background is, like, insanely valuable in understanding why things work and how they work. Matt: 100%. Melissa, I know you also post on LinkedIn video content occasionally. I'm curious your thoughts on where LinkedIn is headed with video versus text. It feels like they're pushing it, video, a lot. And I think it was the, I don't know if it was the VP of product or someone else recently posted something about how creators that post video on LinkedIn are seeing three times the amount of growth. I personally don't really know that many people in my personal life who engage with the video feed on LinkedIn, but, you know, occasionally you'll see, like, a viral startup video launch, but besides that, do you think video actually gets that much more engagement? Daniel: Really? I think it's probably on par with or below, slightly below text in aggregate. Like, I think if you were looking at, like, a web of, like, everything that's posted, I'm sure that it would come in and fall probably pretty far below text-based posts. Matt: That's definitely my personal, like, observation on, like, the, you know, I, I don't like to look at, like, anomalies unless it's, like, statistically significant. So it's the same way of, like, when people are like, well, look at how Harvey and Cursor grew. They grew to a hundred million in revenue in, like, two weeks, and that's, like, that's an anomaly. It's not a repeatable thing, and there's not a ton you can learn from it to any other company. It's not like that applicable. Same thing here. It's like if there's a viral video or viral startup video or liquid death post something and they're using that as like the statistical significance, it actually isn't that accurate. Um, the answer, the short answer is no, I actually don't think video content performs as well as text-based content does. Like I post, um, mostly I just post, like, clips of podcasts that I'm on. And I find that that actually does really well. It's really like quick videos. I find that I drive a lot of people to the, the longer podcast through those clips. Um, and it's just more content for me. Like, it's mutually beneficial. It's good because I'm on this podcast, but then I get the clips and I get to share it out. Uh, kind of just like works very well. No, I don't, I don't like, I'm not like a, I think video is the future of LinkedIn. Don't think it is. Daniel: Yeah, that's really interesting. And, of course, we'll definitely get you lots of clips for, from this podcast. I want to really quickly also get Matt: Okay, well, true question because I don't believe in that. If you're going to advertise on one billboard, you shouldn't buy billboards at all. It's not the strategy. So it's like, I know you weren't expecting that, but that's what I will say. The only other thing I'll say is that airport billboards are insanely, insanely effective. Like airports, like by and far, like business travelers, you know, I guess depends on who your ICP is, but valuable real estate. But yeah, you can't just buy one. It doesn't work. What would I put on it? Something like really controversial or something that would make people mad. Not like offensive, but controversial. If you're not going to make people mad with a billboard, then don't don't put the billboard up. Like, I, I don't know if I believe in this company. Like artisans billboards are perfect. Yeah. Like, yeah, talk about replacing people and get people really angry about it. Like, that is a great strategy. Whether they hate it or they love it, they're going to talk about it and you win. Daniel: That's it. I love that. It's, it's thought-provoking and it, it sparks conversations. Matt: Yeah, it sparks conversations. Again, like you're spending all this money to put like yourself on this, the largest like stage that people are going to have to like drop what they're doing to like look at this. Matt: If it's not, if it's not forcing you to take an action, whether it's making a post about it or commenting on it when you see it or referencing it or doing or going to the site to check it out, like then don't do it. Yeah. I have one other question as well before we get into our last segment, which is measurement. Do you guys track the ROI on the work that you're doing for your clients? If so, how do you do it? Because one of the things I think that marketers kind of struggle with is like with content, it can be a little bit tough sometimes to track the attribution. Daniel: Yeah, we, I mean, we do like ROI is also like in the eye of the beholder a little bit. Like ROI across every single company we work with, like is sort of different and they don't all understand how they look at it. And they all look at it very differently. So we track very specific metrics and then we're like, make, make them out to be what you want to be. Like in many instances, we are like, companies are selling deals, right? So there's like actual dollar for dollar like ROI and if you sell one deal, most of these companies, this pays for itself. But everything else, like we are sharing impressions, of course. We're sharing engagement data on everything. We're sharing how many C-level executives within your ICP set we're speaking to, the quality of the content, how many shares, who's actually looking at these articles, what they're doing. Like we're tracking like a lot. And I think it's like, there's so much data that we're continually refining, like how to, how to enable the data to tell the better story and actually make it really actionable for our customers. Like that's the toughest thing. Like it's not, it's not like tracking metrics. Tracking metrics is easy, but it's outcomes and stories that enable them to do what they need to do to sell deals. Like at the end of the day, that's, that's the best way that we can operate. So we're continually like evolving ourselves towards that, but we track, you know, a ton of different metrics, a ton of different things that ROI is, is different for different people. Some people just want us to show up in search. They don't care about selling deals as a result of this. Some people really care about that. So kind of just depends. It's really interesting. Like, I think in, when you're in your own world within a company, you live in that company's world. And now that I have customers in every single, effectively, like every single industry and across a lot of different ICP sets, everyone thinks about things so differently. And I didn't realize that. I think I, I expected like what we did and how we thought about things that click up to be kind of uniform across like most companies. And it's, it's very not. So I don't know, that was, it's just been a very interesting learning for me that like companies, even companies in similar spaces, just think about things like completely differently. Matt: And I think it's all like, it's definitely like, you know, founder, right? Like it's founder influenced. Like how does the founder view this? Like, I mean, that trickles down to probably every department within the organization, but just a very interesting insight. Daniel: Yeah, no, that's really interesting. And it's cool that you do get almost a bird's eye view of how all these other companies are doing it. And how it's, It's the best thing you can ever do as a founder. Like that is, even if our product like, you know, shape-shifts in the next few years and we become something completely different or it evolves, like it's all because we're just internalizing everything that all these different customers are telling us. And we're like, we want to sell up your problems, right? So it's yeah, it's a wealth of knowledge. It's a goldmine. Matt: Amazing. Cool. So now we're going to move into the last segment, which is good idea, bad idea. So Melissa, I'm going to give you rapid fire, a bunch of different ideas, and you're going to just be completely honest with me whether you think it's a horrible idea or the best idea you've ever heard. Sound good? Daniel: Are these, are these like, what kind of ideas are these? Matt: They're mostly related to LinkedIn. So. Daniel: Okay, yeah, let's do it. Matt: Our first one is vlogging on LinkedIn. Daniel: Depends. Depends how it's done. Vlogging does work. I, I think it's like, no one wants to see you at the grocery store. Like no one wants to see you like at the gym, but if you're videoing yourself talking about something important and you're actually creating like a really great narrative and talk track, I think there's nothing wrong with that. I actually like it when people do that. It feels like very honest and authentic and like you're in the room with them. But no, I don't want to see you like at the supermarket or at the gym. Matt: Fair enough. Next one, posting five times a day on LinkedIn. Daniel: Don't do that. Don't do that. I mean, like, like, first of all, I think LinkedIn, like, I don't know this for sure, but I think it definitely starts to ding you after you post like three times for sure. And there's something that happens. I don't know exactly what it does in the algorithm, but it definitely triggers something. But also like, I don't know who, who that's good for. Like, why, why do you need to post five times? Also, like optics are horrible on that. Like, do you have nothing else to do but post on LinkedIn? So if you're doing, saying that you're doing anything else, I think people start to doubt that you're even doing that thing because all you do is post on LinkedIn. So don't do it. Matt: That's that's funny, man. I wish Daniel, my co-host, was on this call because over the summer. Not five, but there were days over the summer where I think he may have posted three or four times and it was interesting looking at the data because the algorithm didn't seem to necessarily penalize him. Daniel: He continued to get more impressions, but I think there may be a question around like post fatigue. Post fatigue. Also, like, it's not, it's not, I'm not going to call it X. It's not Twitter, right? Like it's just not, it's not meant for that. So I think like, yeah, don't do it. Valid. Cool. Next one is a little bit less controversial, but LinkedIn reposts. Depends. I would say like, they're kind of not that valuable. Like reposting feels a little like a cop-out unless you're adding your own thoughts to it. I think if it's something that's highly visible and you want to cite that person, it's okay, but I think you're not going to certainly get as much share of voice if you make a, an organic post and then just tag that person and tag their original thought. So anytime I'm going to repost something, if it's like, if it's important enough for me to repost it, I'm going to take that and I'm going to create an organic post around it. And then I'm going to tag the people that I'm quoting or I'm referencing as their original thoughts. So I would, I would do kind of like anything to avoid a repost. I just don't, I've never seen traction with them. It's not like I, it's a bad thing necessarily. I just don't see like a ton of value there. Matt: Yeah. I've also tried reposts and also reposts with thoughts. And I've just always, the engagement for some reason has never been as good as if I just decided to write up a standalone. Daniel: To post it yourself. Matt: Yeah, exactly. That's why I always optimize for doing that. Also, if it's important enough for me to want to repost it, I can figure out something to say about it. Daniel: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm totally on board with you there. Cool. The next one is a little bit different. So connection requests. LinkedIn has a limit and it feels like this limit is kind of like a soft ceiling because I've noticed some people with premium can send more than others without it. But like, what are your thoughts on maxing out the number of connection requests that you send every week? Matt: Yeah, do it. Do it. I mean, I, I don't do it. I don't know if I have time to do it, but anyone that comes into my network that I'm like, oh. That people seem to sometimes forget the fact that compared to other social media platforms, LinkedIn's actually done a very good job in terms of the fact that they have a massive base of subscription revenue that Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. I mean YouTube has subscription revenue now, but- Daniel: What was, do you remember, did LinkedIn say that they just crossed a billion dollars in LinkedIn revenue? I think I read that like maybe a month ago. It was like astronomical, like what they've built with subscription. Matt: Yeah, I think it was, I think it was a billion. Wow. Daniel: Yeah, that's incredible. I'll have to look that up after this, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. They've done a really good job at that. Matt: And of course the fact that they've been able to be, I think the only, I mean, there's probably competitors, the only social media platform where it's like primarily people doing business and networking, very professional focus. I think people forget that fact. I mean, it's like they evolved quite well in understanding that it was becoming a social platform and to feed into that because it wasn't like when I was, you know, when I made that cheddar post, like it really like wasn't like 99% of the people that post on there every day today didn't do that eight to 10 years ago. So I think for them to be able to have fed into the fact that they saw it evolving in that way was super smart. I mean, like that was like a very, it wasn't a fast evolution. Yeah, I mean, it's really, really, really smart what they've done and the creator tools they've built and the experimentation, like not everything works for sure, but like they've experimented quite, quite a bit. Like I did on actually LinkedIn flew out to me like six months ago to do like a profile on my career. And yeah, like they have a whole like content team internally to tell people stories and people that like, you know, are on LinkedIn and have great career stories. So they've definitely like, they have an entire editorial team and I mean, they're really like heavily invested in it, which is great. I mean, that's why it works so well. Daniel: Yeah, that's awesome. And we're actually trying to get Daniel Roth, the head of content, I think at LinkedIn to come in the pod at some point. So stay tuned for that. But Melissa, I guess last question then, is there anything we haven't talked about today that you want the audience to know about LinkedIn or about OutLover? Matt: Yeah, I mean, I would just say like, you know, my parting thought is that people are going to be what drive your business forward. Like it's, it's people, it's trust, it's personality, it's authenticity, it's having a clearer voice and having taste. And I think like all of that starts with taking an action. And I think you can be pretty deliberate and intentional every day on like what that action is. And for me, it definitely is like posting a thought, like using it as like a journal, like a business journal of what's happening within my own company. And when I think about the amount that I've gained from LinkedIn and content posting over the years, it's like, it's not really measurable. Like it's, it's in a good way. It's given me so many amazing opportunities. I've connected with so many great people, speaking engagements. Like, um, I mean, just, it's just, you know, all of our business at OutLover comes through my LinkedIn and through, you know, you know, podcasts like this that I then post on LinkedIn. Daniel: So I would say like, It's wild to even think that like this is a question at this point, but if you are in business or you like want to stay in business and want to stay employed and employable, it doesn't matter who you are, you should be posting every day. I think like the one thing also that you can take away with from any company that you're at. And obviously we know how volatile the job market is now and will continue to be. It's your personal brand and having a voice and a unique and clear perspective, because that's why someone's going to hire you when they're looking at a pool of a thousand candidates and you stand out because they understand exactly what you're going to bring to the table because you've been speaking about it and showing examples of it. So the best thing you can do is start posting every day, having a clear perspective. Just do it. It might be painful at first, becomes a muscle, but I think optimizing for that in your life is a really great stepping stone to wonderful things. Matt: Yeah, I can't recommend doing that like enough. Couldn't agree more. Awesome.