LinkedIn in 2025: 10 Essential Tips to Grow Your Network, Career & Personal Brand

Hello and welcome to this special one-off episode of The Market Maker. Whether you are looking for a job, trying to break into a competitive industry like finance, or just want to build your network, LinkedIn is where it starts. But here's the thing. Most people are using LinkedIn really passively. They scroll, they lurk, maybe they post every few months, and then they wonder why it's not working for them. The truth is though, LinkedIn can unlock career-changing opportunities if you know how to use it. Properly. That's why in this episode, we're covering 10 top tips to maximize your LinkedIn account, from optimizing your profile and building a personal brand to using comments to get noticed and creating content that actually adds value. So to unpack it all, I'm joined by Dani Markovits, a creator and community manager at LinkedIn who works with the platform's most successful creators and knows exactly what gets traction and what doesn't. So whether you're just getting started or looking to level up in your career, this episode is packed with practical advice that you can start using today. So let's get into it. So I thought a good structure to do this would just be to go with, with 10 top tips so we could cut straight to the chase. And so why don't we get up and running with the first one, which I know is around actually your own profile to start with?

Yeah, let's do it. I thought that was a good way to start. I think there is a misconception that the success on LinkedIn is based solely on a profile, but I think the profile, it's only one part of LinkedIn, but absolutely an important one. So I always tell anyone who I support or I speak to, you know, make sure you have a strong profile. If anyone wants to see who you are, they're gonna go directly to LinkedIn, or even before that, they're gonna Google you and LinkedIn is gonna appear first. So that's how you want to, you know, introduce yourself to the world. And a strong profile is super important. And by that, I mean, make sure the basics are in place. You have a good profile image, a good banner image in the back, that the quality of the images are strong, are new. Do invest some time or even money on having a good image. It's so, so important. Even when I speak to big known experts or voices or even CEOs and you go to the profiles and the images are bad or there's no images at all, you kind of neglect it a bit unconsciously. So again, make sure you do have good images. They don't need to be the most serious or like be you, be authentic. LinkedIn is not the most serious place anymore. You don't need to be with a suit, but good quality really matters. And of course, Make sure you have everything in place, the about section, the experience. LinkedIn is a really good piece of real estate to showcase that we're much more than just, I always say, professionals. We're fathers, we're mothers, we have hobbies, especially for young professionals or students. This is a really good, again, piece of real estate to showcase maybe your hobbies, your interests, your curiosities. What are you studying? Really allows you to stand out. Just a quick example here. When I did my About section, I think a few years ago, it was along the lines of, you know, I support creators during the day and change diapers during the night because I had just become a dad. So that was the truth. But that was also, I think, a really good way for me to showcase what I'm doing, where my life is. And so, yeah, just an example of You don't need to be generic, talking first person, be you. And a good segue to where we're coming after, the profile is only part of it, you know, but what you do outside of your profile in the LinkedIn ecosystem will allow people to actually go to your profile and see what you're doing.

Yeah, I see a lot of students, actually early careers people, they often get the photo wrong. And I always say to someone, as someone who Let's say a lot of people are trying to connect with me, let's say to do outreach and network with me. Often when I have loads of connections to accept, if there is no face or no photo, I'm really unlikely to actually engage with your profile because I just skip over it really. And then sometimes as well, the proportions of a photo, because I always explain to students, it's like human psychology. We are by definition very judgy people. We judge by what people look like. So, you gotta invest some time and get a good photo, even if it makes you cringe, it makes you feel uncomfortable in front of a camera. It's almost like your key portal, it's the COVID of your book that's gonna entice people in to want to get into your story.

So, and I think that's just table stakes now, just having a good image. And I think the ROI of going and even paying someone, you don't need to, right? With all the tools nowadays, but having a good image, it's a must. And as you said, I think we didn't want to, I didn't see it that way, but we are judgy. We do feel attracted with people. I'm not saying you have to be good looking or not, but A good image really sells. So I think that's the first thing I suggest anyone to do before really, you know, going deep on LinkedIn. Okay.

So, so number one, you got to start strong. You got to have the foundations in place and that's a good profile. So what's number two?

Yeah, number two, I think it's the mindset, meaning you don't need to be ready to start posting on LinkedIn. You don't need to be the biggest expert. I think that's something took me a while to understand, meaning I thought that in order to share post or knowledge, you had to be like, you know, you had to have a fancy title or you had to be like a CEO, a founder. Something I always like to tell people, especially again, young professionals, is that you don't need to be a 10 out of 10, let's say in the marketing range of expertise to share something about marketing. You can be a 4 out of 10 and still teach someone that it's maybe a bit earlier in their marketing journey or someone that it's not in the marketing world. Something about marketing, meaning there's no perfect timing, there's no perfect, you know, post. It's more about being ready, having the mindset and just getting started, you know, bias for action. You know this more than me, Ant. And I think it's just how you approach LinkedIn, that mindset of just adding value. And we all have value, something we're gonna speak a bit more today. We all have something to share. But just knowing that that's the case, I think it's really key.

Yeah, I always think with new people, you can almost lean into your naivety. You look at things really fresh. You're like, this is my observation on something. This is a learning or an experience I've had, and I'm sharing what my interpretation was. What do you think? And then it's like, you're not trying to be super clever. You're not trying to be polished in a finished product. You almost embrace that opportunity when you're in your early career, for sure.

Love that. And I think that's an advantage. It's exactly to the mindset, turn it into an advantage, ask questions, be curious, just talk about something that you're currently maybe, you know, learning, watching, reading. It doesn't need to be, again, based on your experience as a 20-year-old professional. It's more about, again, that what angle are you coming from? So yeah, definitely important, especially on LinkedIn, people are a bit more hesitant to post. It's maybe a bit more frightening than maybe, you know, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram. We are connected to your real identity, to our professional identity. What are our colleagues going to think? What are my peers going to think? We've all been through that. I've been through that. Even when I speak to, again, CEOs, they go through that. So knowing that we all go through that, and also I wanna be completely honest here, took me a while to understand, nobody cares about us. And I say this in a good way. We all think people are worried about what we think or waiting to see what we say. That's not the case. So knowing that, being conscious of that really helps getting over that imposter syndrome or getting over that friction to be active, putting yourself out there. But you're gonna see the opportunities, we're gonna speak more about that, you're gonna benefit from it. So knowing that really helps at the beginning.

Okay, so we've got our solid foundation in place, we've got a fully complete profile, we're now in the mindset that we want to be sharing, but it's not just about outbound posting content, right?

Yeah. Now we have the foundations, we have the mindset. Let's get a bit more tactical. Something I tell people, and it's such an underlooked strategy, is comments or engaging with other people's posts. And this is especially the case for those of you who haven't started properly, who have not posted. I think the best way to get into that world is by leaving comments. I tell people comments are your best friend on LinkedIn. They're a very good way to build connections, to build relationships, but also to get into that habit. I always also like to say comments are content on itself, especially if it's a good comment, that's creating content. We don't see it that way, but you're already creating content. You're already sharing value. You're already sharing insights. And in LinkedIn especially, a lot of the connections and magic happens in the comments. And comments, by the way, can allow you to grow or get exposure even more than actual posts. So a very good strategy and tip that not many people leverage is tapping into others, other people's audiences, other people's, you know, engagement and kind of hopping on top of that and leveraging that. So To give you, to put this more into perspective, let's say you follow someone you really like. This person has 200,000 followers. Leave, get notified when this person posts. As soon as this person posts, leave a comment, leave a good comment, right? Go beyond saying good post or I agree or spot on and add nuance, leave more, you know, context. And that's a great way, first of all, to connect with the actual author of the post, but more importantly, to get to be seen by the audience of this person. So it's such a great strategy that not many people actually put in place. And yeah, I think leaving comments. What I also tell people is whenever you wanna engage with someone, whenever you wanna ask someone, whenever you wanna pitch something to someone, if you have engaged in the past, if you have given in the past, that likelihood of that person getting back to you or, you know, getting responded is gonna increase by 20x, by 100x. So such an obvious one, but not many people do it. So go and comment, leave 10 comments a day. You can be methodical about it and you're gonna see this compounding.

Yeah, and I, and I can say this to anyone listening, like, if you ever engage in an Amplified comment and I see a post or someone who I know, a student who's done something, or someone in early careers, I would always comment on them to help use my community to lift their presence, because that's what I'm here to do as part of my job, which is working with young people, helping them their feet in their early careers. So yeah, absolutely. And for me being on the receiving end, if I do get like a question, like you said, sometimes it's like not just a, I like this post, it then leads to me replying, that brings even more and it doubles down on that strategy. So yeah, absolutely. I think it's a really underutilized thing.

Yeah. And I would say even some of my biggest levers of growth have come in through comments. Some of my comments have gotten 20K impressions and have gotten followers. So now you can actually see also how your comments are performing. There's more analytics behind the comments, which is a good signal. So definitely do that. And to your point, and I get a lot of, you know, requests or messages. And if I see some of those requests or messages from people that have engaged with my comment, you naturally feel compelled to answer, to give back. And it's at the end of the day, it's a social platform. We forget that, you know, you want to converse, you want to connect, you want to give love. And I think commenting is a really good way to give love and support. And I think it's such an obvious one that again, I would say 99% of the people don't do it.

Okay. So people are now commenting on posts, they've got their notifications on. So number 4 here, you had titled Curiosity is a Superpower. So what does that mean?

Yeah, I think we kind of going to the point before of using your naivety as a superpower. You know, LinkedIn is a blank blank canvas. You can do all sorts of things with it. Use it as a research tool. Follow people you want to connect with. I always get asked a lot, I'm graduating soon and I want to get into the e-commerce world. What's the best way to get in that industry? How can I really leverage LinkedIn? And I would say just follow your curiosity. Start connecting with people that you admire, maybe execs at e-commerce companies, creators that talk about e-commerce, start learning from them, start seeing what they're talking about, start maybe if you want to really go deep, start measuring what content works well, what formats are performing. Content is all about, we hear this a lot, Ryan, and about copying but adding your own spin. So it's totally fine to really imitate what the best creators or experts are doing in that space. And adding your own spin. So be curious about that, about who you follow, who you connect, study what they do. And I think that's key, especially when getting started. You need to find your voice, but it's totally fine first to really understand and, you know, get immersed in that world you wanna, you know, be a part of. So definitely lean into that. And I would say connected to the next one, start creating content, right? We nailed the profile. We nailed the commenting bit, we nailed the mindset, and now I think it's start creating content on LinkedIn, right? I always tell people LinkedIn is the oldest platform maybe amongst the big ones, but I still think the potential is, it's more untapped. It's much easier to stand out on LinkedIn than on X, on Instagram, on TikTok. I believe just as a very small percentage of our members, which by the way, we crossed the billion member threshold. So LinkedIn is a big platform. Only 1 or 2% of our audience is actually creating content, whereas in other platforms, the number is much, much higher. So that's first, know that you can really stand out in any niche. I don't think that's the case in most platforms, and I think that's the beauty of LinkedIn. It can be about, of course, the sexy industries, marketing, tech, AI, but it can be about supply chain, nanomanufacturing, You can be a student in the most technical, you know, area of physics and you can still find your tribe, your audience. And I think that's the beauty of LinkedIn, but approach it as a platform where you are, you know, think like a learner, not a lecturer. Try to teach less and more add value, uh, what you're finding interesting, what are the unique insights, takeaways. Um, I wanna give a few frameworks on creating content on LinkedIn cuz that, that's a question I get a lot. It's like, Dani, I do see the value of LinkedIn. I do understand that point, but I'm struggling to come up with ideas and with content, you know, formats. And this can be approached in a million ways. I think content is subjective. That's part of what I really like, you know, the content bit. But I think two frameworks are really helpful. One, just talk about what you're doing on your, you know, careers. That could be as a student or as a professional. If you're a student, Talk about, you know, the lectures you're learning. How do you approach creating your homework, your thesis? What tools are you using? How are you navigating this new AI world? Basically, give an inside peek as to what being a student looks like. You're gonna add value. You're gonna connect with fellow students, with fellow professors, with recruiters. People wanna hear from you. Second and most important one, it took me also a while to understand it. I thought you had to come up with the most original idea or concept to create content on LinkedIn, uh, which you can, but I think that's super hard. Whereas you can just hijack the news, as I say it, and just talk about something that's happening in your world, in your industry, in your area of study, in your area of, of curiosity, and add your unique spin. I think that's Ultimately what matters, it could be something that's happening in the economy, in, in finance, in AI, in sports, something that's timely. I think that's a really good way to approach LinkedIn and add your, again, your spin and maybe connect the dots. What are the second order effects of this specific announcement or piece of news? What are the implications? Um, that's how I've been approaching LinkedIn. That's what's working for me at the intersection of sports, creator economy, media. and I always try to give a unique spin that not many people are thinking about it, and that has allowed me to stand out. And that's how you should approach LinkedIn, right? Not as a promotional platform. You do wanna promote yourself. You wanna announce to your network that you got hired, that you got promoted. That's part of the game. Do that. You have to do that, but not only that. And that's, I think, a huge mistake that most people do. And by the way, that's what I think it's changing on LinkedIn. Back in the day, most of the content was only, right, and you know, I got promoted, I got hired. Yeah. But now we're trying to change that and I think it's happening slowly, but I am seeing better content in my feed. I'm seeing more content that is not promotional. There's no agenda besides adding your expertise. And another phrase I like to throw a lot is that the best way to be promotional is by being non-promotional. So really try to, you know, follow that approach.

Yeah. And I think just to make that tangible, if there is any entrepreneurs or business owners out there, or even young people, when you're trying to foster mentors or find connections, like the following that you have just means that the chance of them reciprocating and responding to you goes up. So it's such a powerful relationship tool for that good stuff. But a couple of things I was thinking here when you were talking from my own experience was I definitely, if it helps, if I share is that I need to consume content to make content. So often what I'll do is, you know, rather than sit there going, hmm, I wonder what I should post next. What I'll do is I'll just read different websites. I'll read newsletters. I'll look at LinkedIn itself. And LinkedIn is great because basically it's a curated feed of the people I've chosen to follow. So it's all people within my industry, within my niche, as you said. And so therefore, when then I'm seeing what's having success, what isn't, what's in the news and what's not. And then basically then the idea comes. So true.

And I should have included this on my list. I didn't, but yeah, curating your feed is such an important one. I think most of us didn't know how to use LinkedIn back in the day. I used to accept all requests, you know, 10 years ago, and my feed was all over the place. So I would definitely recommend you to dedicate some time, a day or two on curating your feed. Maybe unfollowing people that are not adding much or that are, you know, not the people you wanna follow and you're gonna have a much better experience and you're gonna get, you know, as you said, motivated or inspired by their content. And I think something that I've been feeling more lately as I've been creating more is you start connecting the dots and I really like that. You see something, you hear something, you read something and you're like, oh, this is how I wanna, this is a content, this is a post, a potential post. And that only happens when you consume a lot and consume good content. So go niche. Don't try to follow— I always tell people, follow small creators as well, up-and-coming creators. I think it's like the analogy of investing in a startup. Maybe it's a bit more risky because it's not proven, but the potential is bigger. You're gonna find out things before others. Whereas if everybody feels the same influencers or the Stephen Bartlett, who is amazing, you're not going to be able to stand out or come up with, you know, non-obvious takes. So that's also a recommendation I have.

Yeah. And a lot of the time I always try to build it around my normal routine. So if you are a busy person studying, working, so on, I used to commute is where I consume the content. And then actually I write most of my posts. I have a door-to-door hour commute. That's enough for me to consume and write something and post something. and then before my day's even begun, I've already done my, my kind of post that I wanted to. Um, so yeah, you can kind of build it in so it's not becoming a drag or a nuisance. It's the highest value time efficiency that you have for the goals that you're setting out.

And I think finding that, not only that space, but like a constraint, it's also something I recommend people, because even though LinkedIn is, as I said, easier than other platforms, you still have to dedicate time, energy, you need to commit. It's not, you know, it's not, there's no secret formula. So even having, like you said, in this commute I'm gonna post, yes or yes, you know, there's no other way. Even if the post is not perfect, that's a solid strategy. Or, you know, just block some time on once a week and we're gonna, I think one of my other points in the coming, it's kind of consistency, but really kind of force yourself to get it out there. Because if not, if you're gonna just keep coming at it, rethinking about it, you're never gonna post. And that's something I felt it, you know, very closely.

Yeah. And don't stress out. Like the amount of times, like I read the FT, it's part of my job, right? In finance. And so on the commute, I read the FT and half the time I've been working finance for 20 years, I'll read the FT and there'll be a point of terminology they use. I'm like, what the hell are they talking about? Because I don't have a clue what they're talking about. And then I just use, adopt that mentality and just go, okay, so what is this? Because if I don't understand it, and I've been doing this for two decades, well, then there's a whole bunch of people, you know, who also probably feel the same. So you can add value in lots of different ways. I'm not trying to be clever. I'm actually just trying to demystify, simplify, and make things more digestible for people. That's all. Like, that's the niche, if you like.

Love it. And last point on this, which I think is relevant, hopefully, to the audience, I have like younger cousins who always tells me like, yeah, I wanna post more, but my only interest or hobbies or expertise is around, let's say in his case was, you know, Pokémon cards or trading tradables. And I'm like, listen dude, this is the perfect, like back in the day maybe it's like, ah, this is useless. Nobody cares about this. But now, you know, there's hobbies to be, there's, there's niches to be made out of anywhere and out of anything. So start talking about maybe you're an expert in trading cards, in Pokémon cards, in this world that I have no clue about, but talk about that, right? That's a perfect way to stand out, be associated as an expert maybe in this domain. And I think at some point he was approached by Pokémon for some sort of, you know, coverage piece. And that's how opportunities start to come about. So the more niche, the more weird, the more crazy your hobby is, the bigger the potential it is, especially nowadays in the creator economy. So lean into that, lean into what makes you weird, the quirks, and take it from there.

Okay, we're halfway. So number 6 now is being generous. So how do you be generous on a platform like LinkedIn?

Yeah, and I think we speak a bit, I spoke about this quite a bit, but, you know, going back to the commenting piece, and it's not only through comments, but people always forget that, and I think it's just human nature, you want to give, you want to be that person that, you know, doesn't ask anything back. I'm always one that truly believes, and not to get too emotional, that the people that I really connect with are the ones that, you know, don't care who's on the other side, meaning it's easy to give or to be nice if you're doing that with someone that's senior or with someone that's important, but you wanna do the same with someone that's maybe junior, with someone who you don't necessarily immediately will get any value from it. But that's how I, I approach the world. And I think the same is on LinkedIn, you know, give, leave comments. If someone maybe reaches out, you know, respond as much as possible, you know, add value, respond to questions. If you see someone asking for advice or asking for a connection, try to make that connection. I always try to connect people without asking anything in return. One, I think it's a nice thing to do, but also in terms of a strategy, things come back. You will get those, that karma back. But besides that, and most importantly starting, you wanna start being associated as a positive person, as someone who contributes, who gives, and then you have an ask. It's much easier to, to get that ask responded. As mentioned, if you have given before, so yeah, build relationships before you need them. That's maybe my biggest takeaway, especially on LinkedIn. Let's say if you see someone, someone that works at Meta and you wanna ask for a referral, if you send them a message and they have never heard from you, maybe they will not respond, right? But if you in the past have engaged with their content, have given them something, have connected, then you ask for that specific favor, you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna do it. So I mean, lean with that and, and that's the best place to, when, when you don't need some, something where you, when you're studying, when you're in a good position, that's the best place to start building those relationships. You don't wanna be that person that, you know, is always selling. You wanna be the opposite. So, so yeah, that's a very important aspect of LinkedIn.

Yeah, I always say to the students I interact with that what's the cornerstone of any good relationship? And it's trust. So then the question comes, well, how do you foster trust? And to do that, you need to build a relationship. And the relationship can be built on a platform like this, as you described. It doesn't have to be, you know, a whole series of coffee chats, just these little nudges, little comments, little interactions here and there. They accumulate and compound, and then you're not such a stranger. Uh, and then there's a bit more trust.

And I think this even goes to, to big, to ex, to, to, to any expert. I think giving is also creating content that's valuable, um, without, you know, promoting anything. Uh, and I always tell people the same, you know, if LinkedIn is a place to do business, to grow professionally, I think that, that's, that's clear. But if the only thing you're sharing is, you know, selling your courses or, or selling your business or trying to get leads, that's not gonna cut it. Whereas if you do 20 posts about your industry, about your expertise, about what are you excited about, and then on the 20th post you promote something, your newsletter, your podcast, your company, it's gonna be much more effective. So I think also when it comes to creating content, give, give, give, and then ask, 'cause you wanna promote, you wanna sell. That's obviously a part of LinkedIn. But if I see a feed or someone that is just sharing or promoting their podcast, their newsletter, their digital courses, like, I'm not going to engage. So it's just the nature of things and people don't want to be sold to, to your point. I think trust is the most important thing nowadays and that's how you build trust.

Okay. Number 7, possibly the hardest one and maybe the biggest block or barrier for a lot of people. And this is consistency. So, so what, what's your take on that with all the creators and people on LinkedIn you deal with?

Yeah, I have a more non-BS take. We always hear, you know, about consistency is super important in platforms. You wanna post every, you know, every day. I think naturally platforms, and not to get into the algorithm, do reward consistency, and I think that happens everywhere, but I think it's more a matter of you, where are you in that journey? So if you've never posted and you start posting once a month, That's already like a win. That's already a huge progress. So you don't need to go from 0 to 100. It's more where you are in your journey. I'm trying not to post 2 times a week, which has been hard, but I wouldn't say go and go all in from 0 to 100, post every day. It's what works for you, what works for your structure, for your specific, you know, where you are in life. But more importantly, the more you post, forget about the algorithm, that you get better, you start finding your voice, you start finding your formats. And like football, you know, if you shoot 10 times to goal, you're gonna score more goals than if you never shoot. So that's how I would see it. But I honestly think it's more about quality than quantity. It's not necessarily about going viral. We all wanna see numbers, we all wanna get those, you know, followers and engagement. But I think especially on LinkedIn where you're not getting paid, let's say, for, for the amount of views you get. Like YouTube, where it's a different monster, you wanna reach the right type of people. The example I always like to give, I've seen firsthand how some of my creators go viral and nothing happens on the back of that. Whereas that same creator, the week after shared a post, had that classic LinkedIn engagement of, you know, 50 likes, 10 comments, But out of that post, I think he got, you know, a few podcast invitations, a few partnerships. So again, virality is not a measure of success. It's the type of people you're connecting with, the type of conversations you're having, the type of DMs you're getting, especially on LinkedIn. So that's another important aspect that we forget. We forget.

Yeah, it's such an interesting one because, you know, even now, being human and having posted consistently now for a few years, even if I don't get the certain, I think this is a really good post and I just think, yeah, this is going to go and it doesn't. It's okay to feel like that for a few seconds, but then you just check that self-awareness, that feeling, and you go, look, this isn't what it's about. You'd be lying to say that that isn't there as a desire to a certain extent, but Yeah, the one thing I can absolutely attest to, like you're saying, is that it's more if you can do a post that speaks to that core audience that you're really interested in, that it doesn't, it doesn't need a lot of engagement actually, because it only takes those one or two good connections you get on the back of it that can really mean business or whatever it might mean, a job opportunity. So yeah, it comes in different, different shapes and sizes for sure. Okay, so We've got 3 more. The next one is about direct messages, DMs. So how would you recommend using direct messages?

And by the way, to the last point, last thing I want to say is that LinkedIn is, I think we're trying to do a better job at matching the right content to the right audiences. So we do hear a lot of, you know, people saying, you know, engagement has gone down. My numbers are not as good as before, but it might be the case that the quality of the people that are seeing your content, it's actually much higher. And at the end of the day, I think that's what you want. And also we can talk about the lurkers, people that are not engaging with your content that you've never heard about, but they're seeing the content. They are, you know, seeing you as an expert and someday they might come with an opportunity. So we also forget about that. About sending that DM, again, I would definitely, I put it on purpose really down on the list because I would suggest doing this after you've done all of the above, you know, after you have a good profile, after you've consistently created content adding value, you've given, right? Send that DM. And by that, I don't mean spam people or sell whatever you wanna sell to 100 people. Is if you wanna speak to someone, send a DM. I think people on LinkedIn are much more positive, are much more willing to engage and to give as well. I think I've seen that. So if you look up to someone, let's say an entrepreneur, a bigger creator, an expert in your space, a recruiter, you know, send that message, do it well, of course, you know, add value, be mindful of their time and of the ask, but take the risk. First of all, it's not a huge risk. I'm a big believer of, you know, what's the worst that can happen type of mentality, but it took me a while to approach this and now I'm speaking to footballers, to You know, people that I've never imagined having conversations, and, and a lot of that is because you just sent that message. And of course not all of them will, will respond, but, uh, go for it. Um, ask for a question. Maybe people are willing to dedicate 10 times for mentorship. Um, I think it's, it's, it's a big part of, of, of LinkedIn. So definitely go ahead and do that. And hopefully in the future when the other way around happens, you're also going to do it with a younger generation. So send a DM. It's my advice here.

Yeah. And I'd just to manage expectations, you know, as well, because I think that's something you can get quite deflated about. You'll send lots of outbound messages and you'll be like, oh, like what's wrong? Is it my profile or the content? Or, but that's just the nature of this that, you know, you know these people to a light extent. You might've had a few interactions. More superficially. So they might respond, they might not. And actually, like, someone might just be busy and you might miss, and they might have just missed your comment. It might have just got lost in the inbox and then you follow up 2 weeks later and then you just hit the right time at the right moment and that person responds. So, you know, again, it's like one of those things that I think not to get too bogged down.

Yeah, absolutely. And of course, who are you sending the DM to? But my point being is that if you don't send a DM, you for sure are not gonna get an answer. Whereas if you send it, you know, there might be a chance. And, and of course this sounds obvious as well, but make sure the message is, you know, how are you standing out? Similarly to the content piece above, maybe, you know, do proper research, send a joke, send something, you know, out of the box, not just say, hey, I wanna get 5 minutes of your time. It's, I, we can do a whole other session on, on, you know, cold DMing and, you know, how to sell. And I think Anthony knows more than me, but of course it's an important consideration as well.

Two more left. So experiment with different formats. So what are we talking here?

Quickly on this, I think LinkedIn really lends itself for more formats than other platforms. I love YouTube. It's my go-to for, you know, watching content, but I, I don't, I wouldn't even know where to start creating a good YouTube video, right? It's so hard. It requires, you know, much more. Whereas LinkedIn, you can just, you know, do a text with an image. You can do video as well, but it in a less polished way. Actually, you can write an article if you wanna go into a deeper dive. You can do a poll, you can do LinkedIn Live if you wanna do some sort of, you know, broadcast. So there's a lot more flexibility when it comes to creating content. I'm still a big fan of the old traditional text-based post. That's actually the one that works the best for me. But again, just knowing that that's the case, you can play, you can experiment. Maybe some format will resonate more with you. You'll enjoy it more. Play with it, you know, throw pasta to the wall, as they say, whereas in other platforms, you don't have that flexibility.

Yeah, for sure. I sometimes do play around with carousels and different things just to see how they're performing and also through those observations we talked about earlier when you're watching on your created feed of what's working, what's not in that moment. Okay, so we've come to the end, number 10 of the 10 tips. So what do we have, Danny?

Yeah, I would say start finding your niche and your premise, what you want to be known for. I think when you are known as the guy or the girl of X is when you made it. So, uh, he's the, you know, the guy that does funny law videos or the girl that talks about, you know, funny work, you know, stories. You want to start being known as something. And I think that's how you want to approach LinkedIn. Maybe find intersection of some of your curiosities, expertise. In my case is, you know, the overlap of sports, the creator economy, and, you know, different ideas. So that's how I'm trying to position myself on LinkedIn. And you wanna, you know, strive for that. But yeah, you need to follow all of the previous tips and hopefully you'll get there.

Okay. That was fantastic, Daniel. I really appreciate those, those 10 tips and all your insights and yeah, hopefully some more active users on the platform, but do drop us a, a comment if you have any questions, things like that, wherever this podcast is shared. I'd love to interact with those comments to live true to what's just been said on this episode. And I'll also add chapters so you can just skip to any of the 10 points that you need to look at. All right, Danny, take care and all the best.

Thanks for having me.