Joe Apfelbaum, CEO of evyAI, explains how to grow on LinkedIn by sharing authentic stories instead of sales pitches. He built a 1,000-person engaged community through paid niche groups, virtual events, and consistent commenting, which generates tens of thousands of views. His core strategy: have a clear plan, target the right people, and feed your audience value.
People that are interesting, it's usually because they're interested in growing and learning about themselves and sharing things that are— I don't know who the person is, but on LinkedIn, I get your first name, your last name, your company name. Where you work, where you worked before, and everything about you. It's a professional social network. If I message you on LinkedIn, it's not weird. If I message you on Instagram, it might come across as sliding in the DM, which is what they call it. There's a level of transparency that makes people have to show up as real. And people often are afraid of their real self being seen because they don't like some of the ugliness that they have in their personality. What they don't realize is that's what makes them beautiful. People that are interesting, it's usually because they're interested in growing and learning about themselves and sharing things that are personal. Most people are not willing to share personal stories. I'm not saying share private things. I'm saying share things that are more personal stories. They say features tell stories.
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What is a strategy? A strategy is make sure you understand your plan, make sure you understand you have the right people, and make sure you underst— have the right promise. The plan, there's a business plan, a marketing plan, and a LinkedIn plan. The people are who are the right ICPs, the ideal client profiles, and who are the right COIs, the centers of influence, and who are the people that are likely to engage on your content. They don't realize that when you post on LinkedIn, it's only showing up on the feed. And the feed is a place where people come to get fed. And so if you're trying to feed people your promotional advertising, your pitches, because you're afraid you're not getting enough, then you're missing the whole point of LinkedIn. And the likelihood of them engaging in my content is very, very high. You're in a pool of 1,000 people. You're not going to get shadowbanned. You're actually going to get tons of promotion. Some of my posts get tens of thousands of views just by having a dozen or 2 dozen likes and comments because I'm doing it through a pool of people that are engaged rather than being in a formal engagement pod.
Okay, so question with the group of people. How did you find this group of people of 1,000 people? Did you create that yourself?
I created it myself. I pay for groups as well. So I find groups that I can pay for, associations, memberships, and so on. And then what I do is I host my own events. I call them parties. And I host these events. Don't wait. Be the one that reaches out. Be the one that wishes happy birthday. Be the one that leaves the comments. So many people are stingy when it comes to leaving comments. Don't be stingy. Be a giver. Every comment you leave is an investment in the relationship. So leave more comments, build more relationships, make more introductions, and your life will get better.
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