Why this 200k+ Youtuber is bullish on LinkedIn (interview)

Transcription

Daniel: Kevin, I have to ask you, what does your employer think about you posting on LinkedIn or do they just not know? Matt: You know, I, the thing is, I think that with LinkedIn, I try to be very careful because I am at a big company. So for context, I'm at Atlassian right now, which, you know, it's not like a tiny startup where you could kind of just post whatever you want to. And you guys definitely know this as well. Like when you're at a big company, you need to have a little bit more guardrails up. And so that's why I try to make sure that I'm very like witty, but also stuff not self-deprecating too much in the sense that I'm just putting down my work ethic. So I think that there's a fine balance that I need to have. However, you know, most of my coworkers like it, to be fair, like my current manager, she used to be like a film student and he was making a bunch of documentaries and everything. And so he's like a cool guy. So he understands these type of things quite well. I know there's like some people within the company that like, are like a little bit confused by what I'm doing on LinkedIn. Daniel: Like they sometimes don't completely understand the, I guess, the intent of it being like, Oh my gosh, Kevin, are you really like hating on stuff that much? Or like, Oh my gosh, like, are you really having that bad of a week? And I need to clear up with them that it's all fun and games, but, you know, it's a great time. I think that people typically approve it, which is, I think, you know, speaking of the culture that I have right now, it's a tech company, so it's more chill, hopefully. And so typically quite approving. Matt: Gotcha. And, and just to be clear, what is your role at Atlassian? Daniel: Yeah, my role is, I'm a content program manager. So I make a bunch of YouTube videos for Atlassian. I run this series called Atlassian Answered. And I'm not going to lie, right? Like my role at Atlassian has kind of just been a do it yourself puzzle. Like, you know, there was originally my role, which was a program manager. So I was just, you know, launching a bunch of different learning programs. And I realized that I just had a lot of extra time. And so I pitched my manager that I wanted to just do some learning video content and he approved of it. I started posting it out. It started doing really well. And then they started telling me to do it more. And so I'm basically just doing my hobby as my full-time job. Matt: And so when you say you're doing learning video content, like, is that related to Atlassian's products where you're like teaching about it or is it something else? Daniel: Yeah, exactly. Teaching about Atlassian's products. So for example, like Jira, Confluence, Rojo, a lot of people have this like understanding, like they have a good recognition of what the product is, but they don't really actually know what it does or what it's used for. And so what we try to do is explain it in a way where even like a six year old could watch the video hypothetically and understand what our products are. Matt: That's fascinating. And it sounds like your role is pretty flexible in terms of what you're able to do. Obviously, as long as your manager is on board, it sounds like you almost have the ability to go and pitch, Hey, I want to do this content series on YouTube or, Hey, I want to try this new thing. And usually, they give you flexibility. Is that, would that be an accurate statement? Daniel: Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. I think Atlassian is one of those companies where it's big enough where there's at least some rules and guardrails. However, it's small enough, you know, it's not like a Microsoft or Google where you could just pitch random new things as a relative new grad and you know, make an impact. So, you know, the way that my team is structured, we just have a set of different goals across our organization. You know, there's like 40 people on the learning team. And then from there as a program manager, I'm giving a lot of flexibility on whatever programs I want to develop and launch. And then I just full send it and see what happens. And sometimes it does okay. Daniel: Sometimes it does really, really well. I think with the Atlassian Answered series, that one did really well. And so that's why I'm continuously doing it. But, you know, hopefully different programs looking, moving forward also continue to perform as adequately. But you know, it's, it's a difficult landscape. Like it's hard to know exactly how something's going to perform until you do it. So you know, a lot of the times it's just, you know, do it first and then see how it does. If it doesn't pivot, if it does do well, then keep on investing more resources into it. Matt: Kevin, a common theme we've talked about with a lot of other people on the show with similar roles like you, whether it's insights, which is a more, you know, LinkedIn focused version of what you're doing, trying to explain the product or the data they have about a company in a more simple way. A big problem that these employees are having is trying to justify the ROI or the return on investment of their job to their employer. How do you think about that and defend it at Atlassian? Because it's tough to justify that, you know, this YouTube channel is driving X amount of sales. You'll never know for certainty. Daniel: Totally. Well, I think it's just creating as much validation as possible so that it becomes almost impossible to argue otherwise. And so for me, I, you know, put together the first couple of videos. Um, the, the way that I was able to justify doing that was just referring to a bunch of other content that other companies have made and say, Hey, well, it looks like they're doing something similar. And so we should have a little bit of something like this as well. Posted the first five videos. And then afterwards I basically just started inviting a bunch of people to my company and have them do a focus test, like focus group where they watch the video, fill out a survey before and after. And then just say, you know, how much they want to buy the product before and after, or, you know, they're understanding the product. And what we found was that there was like major increases in both viewer interest in the product, viewer understanding, and also in decrease in their perceived complexity of the product. And so from there, that's basically all the justification I needed to show to other people like PMM, PM across the organization that these videos were valuable and the people, you know, were more likely to become customers after watching it. And it doesn't really hurt as well that, you know, my CMO ended up seeing the videos and just really liked it. And so she actually had me come in to present with my director and we basically presented the entire series and why it was really cool. Um, so presented in front of her as well as, you know, 30 other VPs or head of product marketings within the organization. And so that doesn't hurt when I'm trying to, you know, make a case for a video series. Matt: However, yeah, I think just creating as much validation and whether or not it's your own focus groups or your own research, um, you know, just trying to be as convincing as possible because at the end of the day, like all your coworkers are human. And so, you know, not every single person's going to need, Oh, like what's this like UTM driven, you know, data increase of yada yada yada. Like they're going to be. The quality of feedback as well was very lovely to have. So Kevin, you're doing all this great work on, you know, the video side, and, you know, I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile, you know, it got you promoted in another 12 months. So congrats, super impressive. But LinkedIn, it feels like, is less related to Atlassian, at least right now. Do you see it eventually being a part of the work that you're doing for Atlassian, or do you kind of want to keep it separate and more of a personal channel? Daniel: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, so the LinkedIn network has, it kind of stems at Atlassian, I'm not gonna lie. You know, I, before I was just like your average LinkedIn bro. Like I made my profile really pretty and then I just had, you know, random posts here and there if I got a new job. But then once I started Atlassian, I just said, hey, why not just make a post about Atlassian Answered, once the video series came out. So I did a post, ended up getting, you know, 4,000 impressions, around 2,000 engagements, and it drove a ton of viewership towards the series as well as a lot of internal awareness as well. And so, that worked out really nicely. I got a bunch of followers from that. And then I continued posting afterwards, just, you know, whenever I post a new video. And then over time, I thought, hey, you know, I'm really enjoying this posting, however, I want to now just kind of create my own brand. And so, well, how about I just, you know, post things that are completely unrelated to Atlassian, but then whenever there are things that are related, then I could post that and then just send it all out, you know, get more of a follower base just through my non-Atlassian content, and then I could gain more awareness towards my Atlassian work as well. So for me, like I want people to, you know, just like be engaged with my content in general, but also be somewhat involved with my career. I think that my career is so public facing, being, you know, video content that goes out online, that it's really important to have some type of external viewer base. Like I think that Chloe Xi, for example, I really like the way that she kind of has managed her career while also being a public figure, where, yes, she's vlogging a little bit about her career. She's explaining what she does. Sometimes when she has certain pieces of work, she posts about it. But then at the same time, a lot of her content is things that are completely unrelated and just about her herself. Matt: Yeah, it's uh It's fascinating you bring up Chloe Xi. Daniel: I mean, we, we were in LA a couple of months ago talking to Eric Wei on her podcast co-hosts. And, yeah, like, he also mentioned she's, she's done a really great job. And now she's, I think, transitioned fully out of like the corporate side. But um she's done super, super well for herself. And even while she was still at Discord, she was, she was doing a good job of managing kind of like the, the content side of things while still being a full time employee. Which I think is a common question that a lot of people have, at least the question that I got a lot when I was at Google and still creating content is like, how do you... How do you like toe that line between like being a creator and obviously posting about stuff that's unrelated to work? And in your case, like if you're also creating work, uh, content at work for the company, then it's like how do you balance those two, those two sides? And it feels like you've found some sort of a balance on LinkedIn. Matt: Yeah, well, that's a great question as well. I mean, I think that's like the question that everyone's trying to understand is, you know, they're trying to grow a following as well as their career. Um, for me, I'm just thinking, I'm just gonna do whatever I think feels right and just full send it. You know, if there's something on my mind that's about work, I'll put that out. If there's something on my mind that's not about work, I'll put that out. I think like my internal calibration in my mind is very non-work focused most of the time, and so that's why I'm just throwing out whatever is out there. But, you know, I, I do try to do a good job. And so sometimes I will think about work, and that's gonna be what's going out. And so, I think as long as I'm just like following my general feeling of what I want to post, it tends to work out quite nicely. Daniel: When you say, you full send it, I, I love that. Where do you think that mindset or mentality comes from? Matt: Dude, it comes from doing YouTube ever since I was like a 10 year old. I, for example, you know, when I was doing YouTube, I just wanted to have some type of following. However, I think for the first couple of months when I was like 10 years old, there was kind of that nervousness of, oh, I'm not sure if I'm ready. Oh, I need to make sure that like my camera setup is perfect. But then I think once I was like 11, I was like, you know, I was like the ripe old age of 11 years old. I became wiser. So I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna full send it. I'm just gonna start like recording on my phone and then just like start putting out content. Obviously it didn't do very well at all, but at least it was out there and now I have something to improve upon. And I think the story of my channel is that, you know, whatever you post, it doesn't really need to be good. Like it doesn't, it needs to be far from perfect. It doesn't need to be anything that's up any quality. However, what you should do is try improving a little bit every single time. Matt: And so I would post, you know, one super shitty video back when I was like 11 years old and then the next week I would post another one that's still pretty shitty, but it's like 2% better. And then I'll continue following that 2% rule until eventually the videos actually become quite good. You know, if you improve two things about the video every single time, eventually you'll actually improve the video. And that's kind of what I, what that's kind of what I found to be very helpful, which is that a lot of times we kind of get in our own, like analysis paralysis, but if we just throw it out there and then just, you know, think about it later, um, it tends to do quite nicely. Daniel: We've all been there. And I think we all still have this today of analysis, paralysis and imposter syndrome, whatever you wanna call it. How do you go about this 2% rule and improving your content on LinkedIn? Because just like video editing on YouTube, you can't, well, you can, but it's hard to tangibly measure an improvement of a LinkedIn post. Like maybe one day it's the graphic or the photo you're, some day it's your writing, but like, how do you go about improving your writing when there's not a step ladder like there is in investment banking where it's clear what you have to do in order to get the promotion? Matt: Yeah, totally. I think that, you know, obviously it's gonna be vague. However, um, you know, I think that you could always try to improve the writing, you know, just like identify a couple of things of a last post that you think aren't the best and also try learning from the posts that do do well. And then I think another big part of it is just understanding what topics end up doing really well. Like Daniel, I saw that you, for example, you love screenshotting other profiles and pointing a gigantic red arrow and circle of something. And I think that you found that that type of content style does well. And so I think for most people, it's just tried to, you know, if you post a hundred things, eventually one of them is going to hit and do slightly better than the others. And so if you post those hundred things and you have that one that's kind of a proof of concept, start posting a hundred of the ones that, you know, did somewhat hit. And then from there you'll maybe have a group of like 10 or 20 and then just keep on like, you know, narrowing it down until you find your niche. And so for me, honestly with LinkedIn, I don't think I found my niche at all yet. Like I'm still putting things out there. Some things do well, some things don't do well. However, I have a better, I'm getting a better and better idea of what does do well, which I think has led to me to grow like really quickly. I think that just a couple of months ago, I had like a couple of thousand followers on LinkedIn and then now it's at 6,000. Daniel: So I'm hoping that over the next, you know, year or so, I could hit a solid amount, but, you know, I don't wanna put exactly how much here because if I don't hit it and then I look back at this like a year from now, I'll be disappointed. So I'll keep that number to myself. Matt: Uh, just a reaction. I completely agree with you, Kevin. The, the point about like, you put out a hundred things. One of them, or maybe two, uh, are likely to, to resonate with the audience or to just hit it off. And I think, personally, people go into content creation with too high of an expectation of what's going to happen, especially in like the first six months. So, you know, I think most people's, in general, like, they're thinking, they think in like shorter time horizons. So maybe like, they want to see something happen in a month. But just because, you know, my own experience, it took me, I think, six months to get to 2,000. And then, you know, I remember those first six months were absolutely brutal. And every day I would, I would wake up, open up my YouTube Studio app, refresh it, and see that it had gone up by like one or two subscribers. And that was, that was by far the hardest period, but that kind of trained me to like, like anything that's like very difficult that you want to do, you should at least give it like a six to 12 month period of time before you can expect to see any kind of result. Because if you quit before that, it's kind of a little bit too early, I think, especially with content. Like, it's, you're lucky if it takes off before that, but I also think too many people expect that it's going to take off sooner than it actually does. And as you know, content takes a long time. So, it's tough if you've never experienced that before. Daniel: Totally. And I think the other thing as well is that a lot of people, they don't enjoy making the content in the first place. Like, I think people perceive content on the outside, which is that, oh, you're like just talking to the camera. You're like talking to brands or whatever. You're like thinking of ideas. It's sick. But like 90% of being a creator is just sitting in front of whatever editing software you are and just moving little clips around and then clicking on upload and waiting 30 minutes. Like, that's basically what a content creator does. And so, I think luckily for me as a kid, I came to love that process. Like I came to really, really love videography, video editing, all that good stuff. You know, that the social media aspect of it, like talking to a camera or, you know, growing an audience. I didn't really care about that kind of stuff. However, I think, you know, my biggest tip for people that want to get into content is try to understand, like, try to understand whether or not you actually enjoy the process of it. It's like saying like, oh my gosh, I love science, but I only like the flashy big parts of science and I'm not actually into like the nerdy, you know, small stuff, which I'm most definitely not. Daniel: So, I can't say I love science, but some people who actually do want to, like, read research papers, they can most certainly say it, rather than me watching like random Neil deGrasse Tyson's talks. Matt: I totally agree, Kevin. And I don't think this is anything really unique about content, actually. Like, if you were to start a new job at Atlassian, Kevin, you're not expecting to become the CEO within six months. Or if you all of a sudden want to be a doctor, you're not going to just go to med school and be like, okay, where's my, you know, lab coat? Like, it's not, no industry works like that. And if you can get to something where you're enjoying the work like 70 to 80% of the time, because there's going to be that 20% where no one's going to like, like there are going to be late nights where you're editing and you just don't want to do it. But that's also part of it. Daniel: And yeah, I think you're so right, Kevin. A lot of people just think it's, you know, posting without editing and it's just so easy to get a million views. Yeah, I think you'll see like the flashy, sexy part of content creation, but then they don't see like the weeds level work of just digging in front of a stupid little editor and like moving something like 0.1 seconds over just to make it sound a little bit smoother. Matt: But I totally agree. And don't get me started when the audio messes up and then that's so frustrating too, setting up the equipment, but you got to love it. Exactly. I want to switch gears a little bit now, Kevin, to more specific to LinkedIn. How long have you been sort of like actively posting on LinkedIn now at this point? Has it been like six months or only a few months? How long? Daniel: It's been like a couple of weeks, honestly. Matt: A couple of weeks. Daniel: Yeah, like I think that I was like, I obviously had LinkedIn for a while, typical LinkedIn bro, sending out connection requests and everything, making it look good. And so I think that alone just got me to like, you know, a thousand connections or so, maybe a thousand two hundred. And then once I started at Atlassian, I started posting maybe like once every one or two months about my work. And so that got me to another couple thousand. And so I realized I was like, wait, if I posted like 12 times this last year and I was able to like grow that much, I feel like I could do a lot more if I was actually consistent. And then so more recently, like two weeks ago, I started just posting every single day and that alone has like increased it by like 1.5K, like in the last couple of weeks. And so that's why I feel like there's something going on here that's like a good trajectory, but I don't want to jinx it one way or the other. So I'm not going to say exactly how many I want to have soon, but I definitely want to continue growing it. Again, it's the whole lot of fun. Daniel: I find it to be, you know, I realized that now I'm actually posting consistently, I'm actually able to learn a lot more about the platform, you know, before I was just posting aimlessly and I think there's just very little to learn. Like, and even if you do learn something from posting, one month later when you're posting again, you kind of forget about everything. Whereas now I'm starting to get a better idea of like, okay, so what kind of photos do better? What kind of like text do better? Do I like longer, longer posts or shorter posts? You know, what kind of topics do I want to do? Is it going to be like more controversial or is it going to be more chill? Is it going to be just kind of like shit posts of being funny or is it going to be more formal? I think there's just been a lot of different learnings. And so, yeah, like I feel like I'm right now kind of like a, I would consider myself a LinkedIn rookie that, you know, has like a pretty okay follower base, but I still feel like I'm just starting. Matt: Kevin, what attracted you to post on LinkedIn in the first place? Because you've got over a hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube, 70,000 on TikTok. You're so successful at content, but what draws you into LinkedIn specifically? Daniel: Dude, I just realized, because I was, I was scrolling LinkedIn every single day for like hours, not hours. Like that's a little bit, that'd be dangerous, but I was spending like at least like 30, 40 minutes on LinkedIn every single day, you know, just like scrolling through posts, like checking out different companies. And so I was like, you know what, if I'm on LinkedIn every single day, I might as well just be posting something. Like all this content that I'm consuming, why can't I be contributing as well? What I also realized is that, you know, from posting on LinkedIn, a bunch of different opportunities come up. Like, you know, like going to maybe speak at an event or maybe like, you know, join a creator program or even like small sponsorships or, you know, startup consulting opportunities. I think just a lot of different things start to pop up when you have a LinkedIn presence versus having a YouTube presence. Now these things really pumped up besides brand deals. And so, you know, it was a mix of me really enjoying the platform and also feeling like there was going to be some like tangible improvements. Also, I think the fact that my will is so publicly facing where every single thing I work on ends up going live to the public made it a very clear choice that I'm going to, you know, have at least some type of presence on LinkedIn. Matt: Damn, you look like you're about to ask something. Oh, you jump in, Matt. Daniel: Yeah, I was just going to say, Kevin, completely agree with you. Matt: It's interesting because I think the audience that follows you on LinkedIn is probably different from the audience that's watching you on YouTube and, you know, for obvious reasons, right? Like a Rubik, your channel is focused on like Rubik's cube stuff. So probably a very different consumer-facing audience on YouTube versus the people that follow you on LinkedIn, probably maybe also content tech focused other professionals, things like that. And I've also completely agree. There's been different kinds of opportunities that come through LinkedIn, more business-focused opportunities than the ones that come through YouTube. Daniel: Yeah, no, it's super cool. Like there's a lot of professional opportunities. I mean, I mean just like from your guys like posting on LinkedIn, like what has kind of popped up? Is there anything that's been unexpected? Any unexpected opportunities from having some type of LinkedIn following? Matt: Yeah, I mean, I think number one thing for me that I like about LinkedIn is just like the networking. And I know it's cheesy, but really, most of the guests that we get onto There's like one or two interesting events that, you know, I find through LinkedIn that are pretty interesting, but yeah, I would say it's probably like the networking, number one, for me. Daniel and I met on LinkedIn. We never would have if... Daniel: Oh my gosh, really? Matt: Yeah, we did. So we never would have met if either of us were not posting. I saw a post that Daniel made about, I think it was about ghostwriting, and then I sent him a connection request because of that. And the rest is history. Daniel: Whoa, I thought you guys were like buddies from high school or like buddies from college or something like that. That's crazy. Do you think that? I never heard of like a LinkedIn, you know, friendship story. I've heard of people like, oh yeah, like they maybe like started working together through LinkedIn or they start becoming like acquaintances, but like homies, like that's That's a wonderful story. Daniel, how about you? Any, anything interesting from LinkedIn besides becoming, you know, buddies with Matthew? Daniel: Well, I'll first say that, you know, Eric and Chloe, that's another LinkedIn friendship story. Kevin, I don't know if you knew that one either. Matt: Really? Daniel: Yup. LinkedIn, LinkedIn DM friendship. Maybe I just need to go on LinkedIn more if I need more friends. Yes. And so, yeah, I mean, similar with Matt, the networking has been crazy. When I worked over the summer on a startup, we got 10,000 users in eight weeks, literally just from posting on LinkedIn. It's nuts. And you never know who's watching your content on LinkedIn. I've literally have gotten already two six figure job offers that, you know, I'm very happy with my situation right now and other ghostwriting opportunities and like the CEO of LinkedIn even like connected with me, which is nuts. And he DM me, like, that was really cool. Daniel: I'm definitely gonna, I'm definitely gonna cut this out, Matt, but I just wanted to flex on Kevin a little bit too. That's funny. Oh my God. Oh my God. What did I say? He, so he sent me a connection request and I was like, I was like, Matt, like, what is going on? And then... Dude, time to switch up on all your day ones. Matt: And then I was like, you know, so thankful for, you know, the opportunities that platform has gifted me. I love posting here and can't wait to see what it turns into. And he just like sent a nice message back and that was it. I felt like it was heinous to like ask for an interview or anything. I was like, but eventually maybe we'll get there. Daniel: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. Now you have like, yeah, the, the, the steam, okay? This is the spark that starts a revolution. Matt: Exactly. Okay, we could continue back to it. Um, so Daniel, I'm interested and like Matt as well. When you guys are doing LinkedIn, I mean, you guys both work in consulting and so what is that balance like? Because for me, I realized I work in tech and so kind of no one really cares and a lot of people have those public presences. But I feel like if it's consulting, it's a little bit different where it's, well, obviously a lot of hours, so you probably have less time to post. But also on top of that, it maybe be, might be very like rigid? I don't know. My perception of consulting is probably very different from what it actually is like, but I'm curious to see if you've noticed any differences between, you know, trying to be a LinkedIn creator while working in tech versus being in something like consulting. Matt: I mean, I guess I can go first because I actually didn't, I didn't post when I was in consulting. So there was never like an issue for me. For Daniel, he can comment on this in a bit because he's still at Bain. But I left BCG, which is where I was, to go to Google. And then I didn't start posting on LinkedIn until I was at Google already. And I think the culture is already a little bit more flexible. And, you know, there's other like content creators. Um, I, I definitely, I don't know if I should say this, but I, I think I definitely have the mentality of like... Just like, ask for forgiveness later or like act now, ask for forgiveness later. And obviously I still, you know, use common sense, right? I'm not gonna post anything that's like criticizing my employer or criticizing Google if I'm still working there. But yeah, I mean, now I, I left Google a couple of weeks ago, so that's not an issue for me. Daniel: Heck yeah. That's crazy. That's, that's awesome. I will first start, Kevin, with the fact that When you're posting something on social media as an employee, I am vigilant and constantly thinking about the fact that what I would think if my manager and if the CEO of my company saw this. And I just think you have to assume when you're posting on social media as an employee that you have to think about this. Matt: And like we're talking to Eric Wei about this on our pod because, you know, when he was working at Instagram McKinsey, these were the same things he had to assume. And it is tough. When I tell most people, I post on LinkedIn, they're like, they don't believe me at the start. I'll be like, hold on, I'm like, no, like I actually post on LinkedIn and it's awesome just because it's a foreign concept to a lot of people. But you, there is a sense of responsibility where you can't like, I can't act like I'm speaking on behalf of my employer or any of that stuff either. Daniel: Exactly. No, that definitely makes sense. I think that's super important. Yeah, I'm just curious to see, like, more, you know, corporate people that are doing social media content, kind of what their experience has been because I do think it's a very tricky line to to wear on. And even when I'm just trying to like go through it, I'm like thinking, okay, yeah, like my manager sees this, CEO sees this, anyone on my team sees this, is it possible for them to misinterpret this to be more negative? Matt: Um, and so I think that just trying to make things that are very like tongue in cheek and just more, you know, unrelated to work at times is really important. Or, you know, just talking about things that are completely unrelated to my company, like the startup AI SF ecosystem at the moment is the way I even try to go. Daniel: Yeah, it's tough. I mean, when we were talking to Jason Alvarez, our previous guest, he lost his seed round from Octa Ventures because of a TikTok. And I'm not saying in the other part of the coin is so like, yeah, if you're too controversial, you can lose opportunities like that. But then also if you don't have enough emotion or like, you know, stuff in your post and you're just posting something that sounds like it was written by ChatGPT, just so it's okay to post, no one's gonna see that. So you're constantly walking a fine balance between showing emotion and trying to go viral and also trying to, you know, not aggravate anybody and really just be positive. Matt: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that, you know, where I've seen people who end up doing very well on LinkedIn, a lot of times because they're working at startups, maybe they can kind of just post whatever they want to and it's okay. However, I think that, you know, coming from a big company, then you have to be a lot more careful. You have to be more conscious of different things. But if anything, I see it as a challenge where it's like if you could, you know, get some type of following by only creating value-added content and not trying to be controversial, not trying to, you know, be like brain rotty for lack of a better word, um, and able to still get a following from that, I think that just shows your skill and like, you know, expertise of being a content creator. And so to me, I think it's a suitable challenge. Daniel: Like, what do you think the, what do you think characterizes the, the best content creators? Um, and, and maybe this is getting a little bit off topic, but I was just thinking from what you guys were saying that in a way, social media is, is performative because you, you kind of do need to be a little bit controversial or like you need to write your posts or film the hook of your video in a certain way that you know is going to like hook people and get that engagement. Um, but you're also trying to be authentic, right. And you're also trying to like say things in a way that sounds like what you would be like in real life. So like, there's that tension and, um, In my view, I feel like the best content creators are, are, they understand both sides of that. so they're able to like still, I know, optimize for engagement, but like, they don't lose their voice by purely just optimizing for engagement. Like, I think, you know, I'm not gonna name names, but like, there's probably people out there that only optimize for pure engagement and they'll do whatever to just like engagement farm. Matt: Yeah. And it just ends up being pure slop. That's a great question. I mean, just in getting your guys' opinions as well, for me, what I've seen with really successful content creators is that one, they are so like, abnormally obsessed with their craft to the point where, You are super energetic in real life, but then online, they just can't capture that. Or I think there are some people who typically in real life are just like more subdued and more maybe like boring people, but then if they're able to translate really well where they're talking about the right topics, they're, you know, showcasing their personality in the right way, they become really successful. Like I think, for example, like PewDiePie, for example, he doesn't have this outlandish personality where it's like super out there and he was built for YouTube. I think in reality, though, he translates well with his personality super well to YouTube where it feels like you're talking to a friend. So I think that that's super important. Daniel: Yeah, and just hearing your guys' perspectives of, you know, meeting other content creators and seeing what works for them. I really like that point about being able to translate what you are like in real life into social media, which is a different medium. And that's like its own skill, almost, to be able to do that. I think one thing that I've noticed among content creators that are successful is also they're, they're introspective in the sense of they... Like, you have to, you have to be introspective about like, why you've taken certain decisions or made certain decisions in the past, or why you've chosen to go down a certain path. You have to like understand your motivations behind it well enough before you can even hope to translate those experiences to an audience in the way that you want to. Matt: So I think a lot of them, I, I feel like actually spend a lot of time sort of just like reflecting and thinking about like, you know, it depends on the content that you're making, but like if you're making content talking about like what you've learned from an experience or from a job, then I think like, being, having that level of introspection is, is super important. It's something that I've noticed with a lot of the the content creators, especially in like the career space, for example. Daniel: Totally. Yep. To me, What I think a lot of the best content creators have is a, I don't know the best way to describe it, but like, they're okay with rejection. And what I mean is, It's not normal or probably not even healthy either, to see no one care about 99 of your videos or see hate comments and be like, you know what? I wanna wake up tomorrow and keep trying this. Most people, that's why, you know, you see the crypto, you know, rise and falls and the same with the stock market. People are emotional investors. They're also emotional with like, their time. So if something isn't giving them a return or that dopamine hit, they're gonna stop. But the best content creators know that they've got to keep going. And as they're keeping going, they're learning these things like you're talking about, like being able to communicate effectively and in a way that resonates in a lot with the audience, which is typically talking at like a lower reading level so everyone can understand. So through being able to deal with a lot of this rejection is what I think makes the best content creators to me. Matt: Yeah, no, I think that rejection is really important. I'm curious, like, what is your, what's been like the biggest piece of criticism or like the, the I guess the highlight of your guys' hate comments that you guys have ever had in your social media journeys? And I could go first. Like one time, I had this person who he basically did like a one hour live stream talking about my YouTube channel and like talking to like his viewers about how, like, oh, this was like, you know, he like doesn't like make long videos because he's lazy or like he's very clickbaity. This was back when I was like 17 years old. And so I remember when this stream came out, I was like in shambles and everything. I had the whole like response and everything to it, just being like, hey, I understand the criticism, but also at the same time, you don't understand the situation. You don't understand a lot of the context. So I think that that like kind of threw me for a loop. And I think that getting hate comments for the first time, it made me, it made me like shake and I'm like, I didn't know how to handle it. I felt like I was like, everything was over. Now I forget hate comments, I literally couldn't care less. But yeah, I think that it was a very interesting situation where like, There was a whole like hate live stream, which I found to be very funny. Matt: But yeah, what about you guys? Any, any interesting ones? Any interesting comments or, you know, Reddit posts or anything? I mean, to be honest, after hearing your story, I feel like I've actually gotten off pretty, pretty lightly, knock on wood. I mean, I, I get comments on videos all the time that are I don't know if they would be like hate comments, but it's like, it's like someone took a minute out of their day to, to comment something negative. Um, I think like a specific example is like, I've gotten ones where people, well, one, there's like ones where people just like comment about my appearance, which is completely unrelated to what the video is about. I've gotten comments about people saying like, oh, those who cannot do teach. Have you heard that? Have you heard that before? It's basically the idea that like, if you're not good at the job that you do or you're not good at the actual craft, instead what you do is you go and teach. And, uh, you know, my, my channel is like, essentially me teaching stuff. So that, you know, it's kind of like a, a negative comment there. That's probably like the top five like dumbest things I've ever heard in my entire life. Like that's just me hating on the haters. Yeah. And you know, it's also like, you can't satisfy people. So I've, I've gotten comments about, um, you know, some of my videos are about like corporate communication and like how to like give a presentation and stuff. And so in the beginning, I would have a lot of cuts in these videos because I wanted to like cut out uh slow moments or pauses and you know, kind of like keep the, the engagement high. Daniel: And then I started getting a lot of comments of people being like, how can you be teaching communication if you're cutting your videos so much? So then I, I, I was like, oh, okay, like they kind of have a point there. Let me, let me slow it down. So I started publishing videos that had less cuts and then comments would be like, Oh dude, you talk so slow. Like this is so boring. Like you've lost me in like minute, minute two. And so anyway, like you can't satisfy people is what I've learned. There, there's always gonna be someone that's unhappy. Uh, and don't get me started on like the people that like to mansplain in the comments section. Like, oh yeah, no, actually, like you should do it this way. Like this guy, he, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Like, yeah, you should listen to me, some random, random person in the in the comments section. But uh not, not to get sidetracked, but those are kind of the comments that I tend to get. And, you know, normally I just ignore them. I, I never respond to any of them, to be honest, because it's just not worth my time. And uh yeah, it's uh I think it's just par for the course. Matt: I totally agree. I'm gonna steal a line from Alex Hormozy here. And it's that hate's hate's a fixed cost. Like Kevin, if you were to have 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, obviously you're gonna get hate comments. Daniel: But if you were to have zero and it were just like working in Atlassian in content, you would still get hate comments of people like, why are you throwing your job away? What are you doing? And the same, like, you know, people will judge you either way. So it's just a fixed cost of doing not just content, but anything in life. Matt: Totally, totally. I, I fully agree. You know, it's interesting. I think that at the end of the day, you just gotta realize that all people are different. And if anything, it's like, you know, criticism, if you could understand like the root of the criticism and think, okay, well there may be some of insecurities coming out of this commenter or this commenter, like this, you know, person's still talking about my content and understand that that may be insecurity is something that you don't really resonate with or you don't really see as something that I guess is, is a value, then yeah, you just ignore that stuff. And I mean, for me, like I was thinking of it as like, okay, this person, like a lot of people that were commenting on my stuff, there were some things that were quite valid. Like I think that I should have made a little bit longer videos because some of them were like three minutes long and so I could see that. Um sometimes a little bit clickbaity. I could see that also at the same time. It's just business. But at the same time, like I could, I could see it. Um But when it comes to stances on topics that I'm very passionate about, like, those are the things that I think are really important to like hold your base, you know, hold your damn base when it comes to that kind of stuff. Daniel: Kevin, I want to finish up by asking you some questions about LinkedIn. And writing a LinkedIn post is much different than making a YouTube video and much different than making a TikTok. So it is something you could do anywhere, and you could be as flexible as you want to be with it. I'm curious, what do you guys think is a good posting cadence? Because I've been posting like once a day, but I've seen, like I know Daniel, you post like every single like couple minutes, and then other people will post like every single week. And so I'm curious as to like, what's the strat? Matt: I mean, I can give you my strat. My strat is whenever I have good content, I'm gonna post it. It doesn't matter if it's Saturday at 11 p.m. or Monday at 8:30 Eastern. If there's good content, I'm going to post it, and what I do now is because I'm pretty busy during the week is I schedule it all. So I'll schedule two posts a day for the next week. But I really think it, it does come down to post quality. It's not, and I don't think timing or any of that stuff matters, but I can let Matt go too. He posts a lot, a lot less than me. Daniel: Yeah, I would say, I agree with Daniel. I think, again, quality matters. So if you can do five quality posts a week, then 100% you should do it. Matt: But if you can only do like three a week at that quality, then I think that's also completely fine, as long as there's some sort of regular cadence. Because there's no point in, you know, putting out seven posts a week if they're all kind of trash or just not the level of quality that you want to portray to your audience. So for me, like, yeah, I would say I post a lot less than Daniel. It's probably like three times a week. Trying to do more actually, probably closer to like Monday to Friday, but usually it's just the constraints with like my time and then, yeah, honestly, I don't have a ton of excuses, to be honest. I should be, I should be posting more consistently. Daniel: Hey, you know, no, no, no, this is strategic, you know, five times a week, high quality every single time. That's like your, that's your equilibrium for success. Don't worry. No excuses. No need for an excuse out here. Matt: Oh, Kevin, I'm going to post three times just today. I've already got my posts scheduled and ready to go. Yeah, I need to, I need to, I'm interested. I'm definitely going to try experimenting with different cadences because I think that once a day, that's what worked best on YouTube. You know, that was kind of like the, the secret to success when it comes to YouTube, where if you're posting every single day at the exact same time, eventually your viewers just start expecting your content to come out at that exact time. And, you know, they're right on it, right when it's out. And then it just creates this like super, super healthy recurring, recurring playlist. Daniel: Whereas with LinkedIn, I think it's a little bit different. And so I think sometimes I kind of take a lot of like my other content experiences and throw into LinkedIn when it's faring a level of success. So we'll, we'll play around with it. We'll see what works. Matt: What has been working so far? What's been working so far, I think, it's just talking about topics that resonate with people. Like the, the posts that I send out that I think do the best are the ones that I know for a fact are quite topical, or I know that there's like an existing audience for it. And so for example, you know, whenever I visit a new city, I, you know, like I visited New York City, for example. I just did a post about it. And so now people from New York City are going to see that and be like, oh my gosh, I want to read about what this person has to say about my city. Same thing with SF. I also did the one about how like LinkedIn is getting weird. That one got, you know, 100,000 impressions. And I think a lot of people are resonating right now that LinkedIn is becoming kind of a strange place. Daniel: So. No, that's what's been working so far. I think the ones that aren't working as well are the ones that are a little bit too random or just kind of like random, I don't know, intrusive thoughts that I have in my mind. Matt: I think I need to stay a little bit more topical, but it's just continuous learning, right? Maybe I'm completely off base here, or maybe I'm, you know, right on target. So just continuous learning. I want to ask Kevin before, do you have any LinkedIn conspiracies that you're following, like posting at 9 a.m., making sure the hook's under 63 characters, or putting a selfie with every post, like not putting more than one image on a post, anything else like that you're following for good or bad reason? Daniel: So I think this one is very vain, where like I need to make, like whatever post I have, I need to make sure that I look good in the photo. Like I'm not going to have an ugly photo of myself. I don't know. I just need to like have a photo that I'm proud of and put it out there. One, it's for my own insecurity. But two, I feel like if you're just scrolling and then you see like someone that like, I don't know, it's like a well pose and like good scenery and everything, and it's like a good fit and everything. I feel like that will have a higher likelihood of stopping scrolls, but I don't know. I just like, I basically have like my girlfriend, like whenever she takes photos of me, she always takes the best photos of me. And so I'm always just like using those photos as the thing to post. And actually, like the posts that do the best are always the ones that she takes of me. And so I think there's something here where I just need to continue doing it. But also to be fair, it could be topical. But that's my conspiracy. I don't know if I'm just, I'm making stuff up or I'm just insecure. Matt: You are not alone. When we talked to Akhil Reddy, who's a YC founder with like 20,000 followers on LinkedIn, he said the same thing. When you post with either himself in them, or especially with other people as well, those will do better than posts of just pure text, typically for him. Daniel: Totally, totally. Yeah, so I don't know. I just need to make sure. Yeah, I just need to make sure that like the fit's okay and everything. Now I need more photos of myself because I'm starting to run out. I like, I'm like scrolling through my camera roll and being like, okay, I don't like any of these photos. And so I don't think I can post right now. But yeah, I'll play around with it. I also realized that it's always the ones that are specific type of framing where, like the ones where it's just like a normal selfie or just like me kind of doing a little 0.5. That doesn't do well. It's always the ones that are like beautiful scenery in the background. Like, you know, pose where I'm like, you know, like having a side profile or something. I don't know. But yeah, I'll keep on trying to get more photos and I could put it out. It'll be like my personal Instagram with text. That'll be awesome. What do you think about comments? Are you commenting a lot? Is that working? Matt: I am, I am not too much, but I'm interested. Daniel: Like, do you guys find that comments are a good way of gaining, gaining engagement or not? Oh, come on, Kevin. We got to put you on. Oh my gosh. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm writing this shit down. Kevin, you got to get on the comment game. You can get like literally the same amount of impressions from comments as you would if you were to make like a standalone post for just like way less effort, especially if you comment on a viral post that someone else made. Matt: So interesting. Yeah, Daniel, I don't know what like your numbers are, but I've definitely gotten like tens of thousands of impressions before off of, off of comments if they're, if they're well-written and if they're on somebody else's post, that's also doing really well. I echo everything Matt said and more. I've had comments get 20,000 impressions, comments on my own posts that go viral. Like I just, one that I put of the Sampar stop, stop doing this, the ultimate meme that like I had a comment there with like 5,000 impressions. I left, I think this week, 450 comments, which is definitely excessive. But every time I'm on, I'm commenting every post I see pretty much. And because of that, like last week, I think I had 60,000 impressions just from comments, which is way more than my average post. So it's definitely worth it to comment. And I think it's a great growth strategy because especially when you comment and then tag the author, it gets pops up in their notification feed because those are most of the comments that I'll always respond to because I see them first when I check the app. Daniel: And do you find that translating to like followers and stuff? Matt: You know, I think it's hard to directly attribute it because social media is like, it's kind of a black box. Like, I don't know, is it the post? Is it the comments? Whatever. But I can tell you with podcast guest for certain, because when we had Peter Walker on the show, he's the head of insights at a company called Carta. I'm not sure if you followed Peter. If you don't, you 100% should, Kevin. And he was like, yeah, I mean, when people reach out to me, he's got 150 First idea, and so I guess for context too, what's going to happen is I'm going to give you an idea and you're going to tell me if this is a good idea or a bad idea. And why. So the first one is doing a series of being CEO at Atlassian for it, of CEO of Atlassian for a day. And I see this going one of two ways. I think it's either you following around the Atlassian CEO for a day and making a series about that. And also maybe, you know, acting like you are the CEO of Atlassian and seeing the decisions you would actually make on a day-to-day basis. Do you think those would be a good idea or a bad idea? Daniel: I like it in spirit. I do think that putting it out, I'm not sure how some people in my company would feel about it, but I like it. I'll say good idea for Kevin, bad idea for some people at Atlassian. The next idea is writing, you writing LinkedIn posts for other colleagues at Atlassian. Matt: What do you think about that? That's actually something, good idea, good idea. That's actually something I've low key been doing right now where a lot, like even, you know, a couple days ago, like a senior PM reached out to me saying, hey, I see you bring a posting a ton of different things about Atlassian on LinkedIn. Would love to learn about from you. And so I think what we're probably going to start doing is just like this employee advocacy hub where I give strategy on how employees could show up on LinkedIn, what type of posts do well, and just teach people how to like, you know, spearhead like their products. And I feel like I could get, I'm getting way too deeper into this, but very good idea. There's lots of different things that could be done with that. Daniel: I also think that it's a really good idea because Matt and I have talked about this on previous episodes, but employee-generated content is definitely going to be a thing moving forward. And I think it's really smart that you and Atlassian are going to get ahead of that by posting, because even if someone at Atlassian, that senior PM, maybe she has 2,000 followers on LinkedIn. If she's posting once a week, you know, 50 times 2,000, like that's a hundred thousand impressions that are great impressions. So, you know, that can definitely add up and make a business impact and also a personal brand impact for the employee as well. Matt: Totally. Now, the third idea is a growth hack Olympics. And the thought here is you have an internal either social media or growth competition to see who can get the most impressions or likes on a video in a certain amount of time or sign up a certain amount of customers. And you can also make a series around this, of course. Gosh, and I think the issue is that I would win the competition. Like it wouldn't be fair. No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, I think very fun idea. I think that gamification and making things a competition is a fun time. Daniel: Daniel, are you just like the type of person where whenever you're with your friends, you're just like the hear me out guy or you're just like, hear me out, and then you just like throw some random wacky idea on anything that you're doing. Matt: Pretty much. I think Matt understands this too, that I, just about anything I will throw out a crazy idea about it. Daniel: Okay, yeah, that, I can just imagine, like, you're seeing, like, the Daniel Greenberg LinkedIn profile picture coming up into the DMs with a smile and just being like, Yo Matt, hear me out, just throwing like 10 random things in that thing, like, okay, this one, yes, this one, no, this one, maybe this one. I'll do it, but only if you do it harder. Matt: I don't know. You know, Kevin, what you described is pretty much what we do. I might send Matt, like, 10 things and then it's like, eight of them get ghosted, but one's like, okay, let's definitely do this, though. A match made in heaven. The power of LinkedIn. Daniel: Actually, are there other people at Atlassian that do content or is it just you? Matt: Yeah, there are a few different people. Like, I think there's this one product manager I who I worked with who I think she has like 10,000 on LinkedIn where, you know, I think a lot of her following on though just comes from being incredibly cracked up. So she doesn't even need to post that much content. It's just people see her profile and see that she worked at like Microsoft, Apple, Atlassian. I'm not sure if she worked at Microsoft, but like worked at a bunch of different huge companies and like moved up super quickly. So I think people just see that and just be like, okay, wow, that's really impressive. There was this one intern last summer that came in. Her name's Arlina. She had like 30,000 followers. And so she would be posting a ton of different things about like both her work, but also just like, you know, teaching other people within Atlassian how to be better at LinkedIn. She was interning on the social media team. And so that's kind of where a lot of her learnings kind of came out. And so there are a few other people out there, but I definitely think that more people should be posting on LinkedIn. Like, I think that if the entire company, especially the entire marketing team, was just understanding how thought leadership works, understand how employee-generated content works and, you know, putting a lot more awareness towards our campaigns, the company could be doing much better. So, you know, we'll work on that. Daniel: I totally agree, Kevin. Is there anything else that Matt and I didn't hit on that you want to say or questions you want to ask us? Kevin: Dude, honestly, like, I'm just interested in hearing like more LinkedIn tips. Like, what are there any like underground hacks besides the commenting that I don't know about? Because I'm just trying to, and then also for the viewers as well, you know, like what are other, some other things that you only realize after doing it for a while that, you know, you start to pick up? Matt: I'll go first and Daniel, I'm sure you've got a bunch of ideas as well. I don't know, just basic stuff, like making sure, you know, after the hook, you, you maybe like hit an extra space or line so that they have to click see more to see the second line. That's something that I think not too many people give too much thought to, but because like, I think the number, the two, if I were to guess, I don't work at LinkedIn, but like the top two engagement signals that the algorithm would look for is like, do they, do they hit see more number one, and then how long, what's the dwelling time on the actual post itself? So I try to force them like to click see more. And then trying to think if there's anything else. Like, I think fundamentally the idea for the post has to be good because if you have a bad idea, it doesn't matter how you're going to write it. I just don't think it'll be that interesting to people. Daniel: So making sure that the idea is really good. And then like the writing of the idea itself, that's like the second part. But I think I try to spend more time thinking about like, is this idea even something that's interesting to begin with before I put a bunch of time and energy into writing the post. And I think I got that tip from just like YouTube because every YouTube video is so much work that you want to make sure the idea is actually good. But on LinkedIn specifically, I think, yeah, making sure that the hook is really good. It opens a really strong curiosity loop. Making sure that, you know, you're forcing them to hit see more. And then like with the photos, you probably already know this, but like having a really good photo is something that I think definitely has a huge impact on engagement. At the end of the day, you're just trying to, I mean, it's just people on LinkedIn. So they want to see faces and they want to see other people. Matt: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I have a different question for you. So I think there is an interesting rise of teenagers on LinkedIn that are like in high school. So you'll see in their profile, it just puts their age like 17. And to be fair, this is my little brother as well. He's 17 years old posting on LinkedIn. Good idea or a bad idea? Daniel: To me, and I'm obviously biased, but I think it's a great idea because, let's just think about it. If you're your brother, for example, how old is he? 16, 17? Matt: Yeah, 17 years old. Daniel: He's 17. That's what, a senior in high school? Like you can either be, but like, he's learning how to communicate better on LinkedIn. He's throwing his personal brand at his career. He's standing out when applying to other colleges and he's not just doom scrolling TikTok, which is probably what he would be doing if he weren't posting on LinkedIn. So like, to me— Matt: He does both, to be fair. I won't lie. He still do a little bit of both. Daniel: I'm sure we all do. And there's time to post on LinkedIn and also doom scroll. But to me, that's why I think it's a great idea. And I'm proud of you, little brother. Matt: I absolutely agree. Yeah, that's good to know. I'll tell him to continue. It's so funny as well where like, he's, and he's, his Daniel: I know, I've got a speed cube too. Honestly, I'm gonna show it to you right now. Matt: Okay, okay. All right, let's get a little bit of a demonstration out here. Matt, do you do Rubik's cube from time to time? Daniel: I do know how to solve one. I'm not a speed cuber, so you guys are probably faster than me, but I can hold my own. Matt: Oh, Daniel, you got the collection. Daniel: Oh wow, Daniel. Back in the day, I was super into it. And now, obviously, not as much. Matt: That's awesome. To be fair, for me, I still Rubik's cube for like two hours a day, and so I haven't grown out of it. I'm still like a little teenage kid playing Rubik's cubes. Daniel: That's awesome. Well, you should maybe solve one on LinkedIn. That'll be fun. Matt: I'm gonna have to do a LinkedIn post about the Rubik's cube. You know what, I'll put that out. Matt: I'll just like send out a... I'll post a video and then I'll have a random, you know, shit post about Bing, how like, what solving Rubik's cubes has taught me about B2B SaaS. And so I'm sure it'll be great. Daniel: Great. Well, it was so fantastic being on the pod and, you know, love getting to know you guys and chatting through different things. Matt: Thank you. Well, Kevin's LinkedIn will be in the description below, and thanks again for coming on, Kevin. Daniel: Perfect. All right, thank you so much, guys.