In this tutorial-style video, Nicolas Cole outlines a simple, three‑step framework for achieving significant growth on LinkedIn. He argues that the platform is a means to an end and that success hinges on (1) publishing daily, niche‑focused content that speaks directly to a target audience, (2) embedding a clear call‑to‑action (CTA) in every post or its first comment—options include newsletters, educational email courses (EECs), Calendly links, product pages, or other lead‑capture mechanisms—and (3) maintaining long‑term consistency. Cole explains how to place CTAs both within the post and in the comments, encourages experimenting with both, and stresses that email capture is the primary goal. He provides examples of different CTA types for product‑based businesses, service‑based businesses, and creators without a website. Cole also shares observations on various content formats (carousels, tweet screenshots, YouTube videos, testimonials) and their impression counts, noting that higher production value does not guarantee better performance. The overarching message is that consistent, niche‑aligned posting with a CTA drives 90 % of outcomes, while other tactics are incremental. The video concludes with a promotion for a free masterclass at startwritingonline.com, offering frameworks for writing online, hook creation, distribution channels, and growth‑hacking tips, which has helped over 100,000 writers.
Chapters
LinkedIn is really about one thing: create something every day that has to do with your niche, your target customer, your industry, and then CTA to something. Your CTA, your call to action, could be to your Calendly link. Your CTA could be to your newsletter. Your CTA could be to your educational email course. Okay, it's just I'm talking about this topic intended for this person. Here's where you go next. And yes, Sushil, every single post, every single post, because the social platform, to be very direct, is a means to an end, right? You are creating content not for the sake of creating content. You're creating content to achieve some sort of other goal. So every single thing that you create should move people further and further along. So for example, I want to attract writers. What should I do? I create content for writers. At the end of every single post, there's two different CTA options. I would encourage everyone here to experiment with both. One, you can put the CTA in the post itself. As much as social platforms deprioritize links, we have noticed that this actually isn't like killing posts' reach. So I do think that it's worth experimenting with, but you can put a CTA inside of the post and you link to wherever you want them to go. Okay. The second way of doing a CTA is in the comment. So you can go down and in the comment you can say, hey, and by the way, if you want my help with this, let me know. Click here, send them to the next thing. Okay. So those are the two ways to CTA inside of the post and inside of the comment. And honestly, you could do both if you wanted to. The big idea, though, like literally what is— what's the one thing that drives 90% of the outcomes? One thing that generates 90% of the outcomes. It is this: write about content in a niche that you are trying to target. Whatever opportunities you're trying to generate and link to the next action that you would like people to take in every single post. Can you do other things? Yeah, you could send connection requests, you can do outbound, you can message people, you can DM people, you can do all sorts of stuff. This is the thing that drives, you know, 90% of the outcome. And yes, Sebastian, you absolutely can. If you're doing an article per day on X, can you just take that article and put it on LinkedIn and add a CTA? Absolutely. Absolutely you can. There might be a word count issue because there's different word count constraints for articles on X versus LinkedIn posts. So you might have to adjust it a little bit. But yes, you absolutely can. Should you have a website? You don't need one. You can, but you don't need one. What can be a CTA for someone who's just started ghostwriting and has no website? Yeah. So here, here are different CTA options. If you have a product-based business, so this would be like digital products, SaaS products, e-commerce products, right? If you have a product-based business, you can send people to a newsletter because you want to capture their email. You could send them to an educational email course because you want to capture their email. It's not as good, but you could send them to your website. But these— you always want an email capture when possible, and/or you could send them to a specific product page. In general though, you, you want— you always want the person's email. So generally speaking, they're always going to either a newsletter or an EEC. The same is true for services, except services you could also do a Calendly link, book a time with me, or you could do some sort of like free resource explains how I do, you know, whatever. You can also do YouTube videos or other, other forms of content, but still the priorities I would encourage are either a newsletter or an EEC. And if you don't have either one of those but you're providing a service, Calendly link is very easy. You could also do a website, but I think the goal is either collect their email or get them on the phone if you can. What's an EEC? An EEC is an educational email course. So we use this for all of our opt-ins. If you go to startwritingonline.com, that's an educational email course. If you go to premiumghostwritingblueprint.com, that's an educational email course. So it's really just some sort of free opt-in. What's the purpose? The purpose is I wanna know who's reading my content. I want someone to type in their email. As soon as I have their email, now I can nurture them. And yes, MD, consistency is better than everything. Nothing else tactical matters if you are not being consistent first. If you are being consistent, then you can experiment with other things. You're like, cool, I'll play with carousels, maybe I'll try some custom graphics, I'll do some other stuff. But like, you know, I just noticed this actually. So something I find really interesting. So we experiment with all sorts of stuff. So here we have a carousel and then we have, you know, like tweet screenshots. And then we have full-blown YouTube videos. We also share testimonials every once in a while. Now, look at, look at this. This is a pro-grade YouTube video. Like, this is not cheap to do. I have like a whole video team. Okay. 2,000 impressions. This is a screenshot of a Slack testimonial. 42,000 impressions. And this is a viral repost that I did on X. This is someone else's tweet that I just responded to. 150,000 impressions. So not necessarily— it's not that like the more advanced the asset or the more money you spend creating an asset, it doesn't guarantee that it's gonna perform better. You know, you're— these are all just different content types, and the reality is you don't really know what's gonna work. It's a lottery game, which means the best thing that you can do is just be consistent and try different things. You know, and the meta framework that I really encourage for everyone here is like making iterations doesn't mean that you have to sit down and rethink your entire content strategy and positioning strategy for the next 50 years of your life. Okay. It can be something as simple as you see this, you see me post this on LinkedIn and you go, huh, Cole took a screenshot of a tweet and then posted it on LinkedIn and responded and basically like added text to it. I am going to do that too. You don't need to rethink your entire positioning strategy. You don't need to sit down and do a 7-hour, you know, here's my content strategy pillar framework that's going to power my entire social engine, you know, 7-hour sprint. You don't have to do any of that. All you have to do is go, I saw Cole post this thing, or I saw someone else post this thing. That seems like a really easy content type that I could do tomorrow. I'm going to try that. That's all it has to be. Tomorrow I'm going to try that. And I think, again, it's like we make these things so much more complicated than they need to be. Like, you will always be experimenting with different styles. It's always going to happen. The only thing that you really have control over is you're writing over and over again in a niche, in an industry. You are CTAing to some sort of next step in every single post, and you are being consistent. You're not doing 1 day on, 7 days off, 2 days on, 14 days off. If you do those 3 things, you will unlock 90% of the outcomes. All the other stuff is very incremental, and it only matters if you are doing those things first. Let's crystallize them. The big 3: we are writing consistently in a niche so we have maximum congruence. We are CTAing to some sort of next step in every post and/or in the comments. This, I encourage people to do both. You can experiment within the post, you can do it inside of the comments, and you are consistent for a long period of time. If you are not doing these 3 things, literally Nothing else matters.
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