LINKEDIN CONTENT STRATEGY That Got her 105,000 Followers! | How to Grow on LinkedIn

Today's guest is Vanshika Mehta. She's a LinkedIn influencer with more than 100,000 followers. I know her when she was studying in the US and she got an interview with the Drift. Using her creative skills. Today, she's a freelancer and she breaks down. What does it take to have a massive LinkedIn following? And she does not talk fluff. She will give you those actionable insights that you're hungry for. Let's hear from someone whose livelihood depends on using LinkedIn.

Come on.

Welcome to Salespin Vanshika.

Thank you so much for having me. It's so lovely to be here.

You're looking very sleepy. Just kidding. Yeah, much better.

I'm just like waiting to go back to bed, but I'm hyped. I'm a hype.

For 14 hours you told me I.

Slept at 2, then I woke up at 4, then I was up till 8, then I went to sleep again.

Wow, such a scary.

I'll tell you the story of that later.

But yeah, okay, I'm pretty sure all Your hundred thousand LinkedIn followers do not need an introduction, but could you like let our audience know who you are, what do you do and why are you here today?

Hey everyone, it's Banshee Hill. I am a brand and communications consultant. I work with style startups who are in their first or second year and I help them basically understand who they are inside so that they can write and convey compelling messages to their audiences and build tribe and build loyalty. So I've worked with over 70 plus startups and all over the world and it's been amazing. I honestly can't think of any industry I've not touched or at least tried to touch till today. So it's been an amazing journey. And Yeah, I mean 2021 was quite a roller coaster year for everybody and totally didn't expect to become LinkedIn's top voice of this year, but here we are and I couldn't be happier. I think it is. It's just been, it's just been such an amazing journey and everybody at LinkedIn has been so supportive, which is, I think so nice. So, yeah, love being here. Thanks for having me and really excited to answer all the questions that you may have for me.

Wow, okay. I think we should actually have like a AMA session with you rather than probably having like a detailed discussion about a topic. But yeah, I think I'm very excited. I think we got connected probably four years ago and when you were still studying or I believe you know, you were Finishing your studying and you were about to get like a job in US and could you talk about that part when you got an interview scheduled with a company which was, which is like a big company. Can we, can we name the company? Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah.

So you got an interview, I remember, with the, with the, with like some top shot at Drift. And you had prepared for that company like you were trying to get that interview like for three, four months. You, I still remember you had like three, four pages of handwritten material which you sent to the interviewer, plus a book that was like disrupting the whole way, you know, disrupting the way, you know, interviewers get the interviews. So talk us over. Talk, you know, talk us through it. Like, how did you think about it?

Yeah, that's, that's crazy. Yeah, it's such a, it's such a amazing story because so I was obviously on my opt. Which is like that one year visa that you get after you graduate. And only if you get a visa from a company that's ready to sponsor you do you get to stay longer. Like, obviously. So, so I came along, Jeff. So I was in Boston. My college was like maybe 15 minutes or not even that away from Jeff's office. And I was David Cancel, who is the CEO I was following. Dave Gerhardt was at that time cmo, started talking to people. A couple of my alumni were also at Drift. So there was this like instant like connection and I felt like I wanted to be there. It was such a hyper growth startup and they were doing such amazing things. So I was obviously looking for a job. And I mean it's, it's so. It's a very sad cycle that everybody has to go through where you interview and then you get accepted or you get rejected or, you know, it's just that cycle of doom, right, where like nothing is happening and you just start feeling really bad about yourself because you're like, I know I'm capable. Why am I not able to do this? So through that, I mean, I closely started following Dave because I really wanted to work at Drift. And that's when I found out that he really likes reading. And at Drift as well, they have a whole like, culture of reading and learning. And so I just kind of watched his profile for a few months and then I, I was like, okay, you know, I might, might not get through if I apply through the candidate portal. So what I actually did was I went to the bookstore in the same mall where Drift's office was, picked up a book, wrote a note like, I Wrote a handwritten, I think it was a two page note, and went to the post office, which was like in between the office and my house and like posted it and said, just deliver it to Drift and sent it. And I mean, obviously, I mean, come on. He had to reply, how could you not? So I got a reply and she got to interview over there. And I remember sitting over there for like, I don't know, like four or five hours. I was like creating a custom cover letter, like, forget resume, Resume alert. I created like custom cover letters. I studied Drift as if it was my 12th grade exam, like end to end, like you asked me any question and I could answer it. And yeah, it was a beautiful experience. Experience, unfortunately, because of the visa and maybe I wasn't a fit for the role, I didn't get the role. But this all stemmed from LinkedIn. Because the thing was at my college, like for about a year, year and a half before you graduate, every two weeks you had this class which was like career class of sorts, where they would give you all the insights on like, what is to happen, how do you go about it, how do you interview all of those basic things. And obviously one of the things on the checklist was create your LinkedIn. And we were all like, yeah, sure. And we just uploaded the regular stuff that we were told and it was only after I was having conversations, a couple of people and recruiters, and it just somehow came up that like LinkedIn was a reckoning team and people were talking about it and I had zero clues. So then I downloaded it on my phone and I started reading and I was like, okay, this is very interesting. I mean, you never know who you can get to talk to, right? On LinkedIn. And generally, I mean, and so far I've never had a bad experience. I mean, everybody's been so friendly and so kind and so welcoming. So that's when I actually started using LinkedIn, which is probably around somewhere around 16 or 17 after I graduated or was about to graduate. And yeah, here we are in 21 and now it's, now it's like literally habit. Like I roll out of bed, I'm eating breakfast, I'm checking my LinkedIn. In the afternoon, post lunch, I'm checking my LinkedIn. So like, it's become a part of my routine. I think it's just a platform that gives back if you're ready to invest the right amount of time and resources.

So that's been quite a journey. I mean, I must say that's been quite a journey. Like in four years from, I don't know, maybe let's say from zero to hundred thousand. Right. 105,000, if I remember correctly, the number I saw last. Right. 105,000. Wow. Okay. I'm like at 1/10 of your number.

It's so crazy because in 2020, Jan or Feb, I was at like maybe 15,000 and 2020, I just completely like dedicated my time to LinkedIn because I was also solopreneurating at that time. Right. So LinkedIn was a source for lead gen, for relationships conversation. So I spent a lot of time in 2020 on LinkedIn. So yeah, I mean, I went from 15,000 to 105 and like year and a half. So.

But I'm sure that's, that's a compound effect. Which kind of page.

Yeah.

In the last 18 months.

Right.

That is amazing. I think that's exactly what we're going to discuss today. So we're going to know all your secrets so that I'm sure everybody who's watching this can probably replicate. I want to replicate that for sure.

Yeah.

So what I want to understand is, and I know that you have a background in marketing, so of course you, you know, things, for example, we salespeople and a lot of other viewers probably who are watching this probably would not know there's a different side to marketing. And I'm always curious about knowing things, like on a deeper level. So while this looks like a great thing, what you did, you got an interview. I think if anybody wants to get interviewed with me, send me a book or. Right, yeah, I mean, I'll give you an interview irrespective of that. But yeah, I think what I want to know is where does this come from? Like, how do you get those ideas? So this is like a sort of disruption. Right, right. And I know in sales also, a lot of people, you know, we do the same thing where we're disrupting somebody's day, cold, calling them, you know, giving fig covering, coming up with lots of different ideas, innovative ideas. Sales leaders are coming up with almost a daily. Daily. They're coming on a new idea every day. So what I want to understand is where does this inspiration come from? And marketeers are always famous for these creative side. I just want to understand where does that come from? Is that from reading, observation? Where does this come from?

Yeah. So I would have to definitely give credit to my parents for that. I mean, they've always pushed me to do better and think bigger than what I always did. Right. So, for example, I was, I think in grade 11 when I was selected from my school, and I think There were only 20 people or so from my entire country from UAE that was selected to go for, like, Global Young Leaders Conference in the US So I got to go for that. And while I was in my high school, right, Like, I recognize that there was a lot of talent and there was nothing being done about it. So the two years that I was doing my A level course, I actually organized a concert called Cambridge for Charity that got published in the newspapers, and we raised money for. The first one was for Red Crescent when the Gaza thing happened back in the day. And then the second was the Dubai Autism Center. So in, like, we did it one year, I think it was around 7 or 8, Dh10,000, and then the next year it was a straight double, and it got published in newspapers and it was all about me, the process, the people, the school. And I think I've always been someone who's not comfortable fitting into a box. Like, even. Even when I was at college, right? Like, I remember, like, going to my teachers after class, being like, you said this, but what about this? And then they would be like, I'm gonna come back to you tomorrow with this. So I have a habit of thinking, what more can be done and how do I do more than what I'm doing? Which is also a huge reason why I quit my job, because I was like, I'm not doing enough. Like, I wanted to do more, which is why I quit my job and decided to become a solopreneur. So I think. I mean, if you just look at any situation or incident or time period, right, and you see things happening that are normal, it's not. It's. It's not a stroke of genius that I sent a book or all of that. It's just the execution that mattered, right? I could have shipped him a book from Amazon and it would have gone directly to them and it wouldn't have been that personal touch, right? But instead it was in the same building. I went to pick up the book, wrote a note, sent it via post, waited for him to reply on email. So, like, it's all those, like, little things that matter, right? If I just shipped it, he'd be like, great, this is just someone else who wants to interfere. But I actually wrote him a very nice note saying, this is why I want to interview. This is what I bring to the table. So it's always about just seeing what's happening around you and then breaking the norm and just. Just figuring out what can you do and execute it beautifully. Because a lot of the ideas that we all have are very easy, very simple. Where we fail is the execution, right? Like, even something simple as, like, say, picking up a bouquet for your loved one, right? Like, you could pick up just any bouquet, but if you know the person's favorite flower and you pick it up, it just makes everything so much better. So it's just about adding that touch of you into everything and executing it beautifully. So I think that's. That's where it kind of stems from, and that's what it's grown out of.

Now, this is. This is beautiful. This is, like, really deep. And, you know, like I said, I'm also thinking from perspective of a lot of people. So let's say to whom? You know, this does not come naturally. So let's say every parent, everybody might not have the same parent parents as you, right? Where they kind of push the kid. Hey, you know, think out the box, challenge the status quo, right? A lot of people did not go grow in those circumstances. So if you have to think about it, and while I understand you said, you know, if things are normal, while I'm also the thought, if things are normal, you know, that means everything is working well, you know, you don't have to disrupt it. But why would you say that, you know, if things are normal, kind of challenge it.

Because normal is boring. Normal is where you get into your comfort zone. Normal is where you get complacent, right? I quit my job because I knew I could do so much more. And every single day is a challenge, right? Like, how do you close it? Like, I'm not from a sales background, right? But how do you close the client? How do you upsell? How do you cross sell? How do you do this? How do you do that? Like, I learned on the job, and I read a lot about freelancing, and not just freelancing, but everything that's adjacent to it as well, right? Like, how do you build your brand? How do you sell yourself better? What do you need to convince clients? What are sales collaterals, right? And then think of how you can innovate and create off that. Because it's just like doing business, right? But at the same time, it's the you that matters when you're freelancing, for example, like I am, and it's a touch of confidence that you bring to the table, which is why someone wants to work with me, right? Like, just a couple of weeks ago, I got a referral through a friend because the client was like, I want to work with Panchaka. And the client knew that we were friends, and the client, like, specifically requested for me, and I was like, I feel very special. And, you know, stuff like that happens, and it's. It's like, if you are comfortable, you're not doing it right. So, for example, like, I am still very uncomfortable doing outbound, right? Because I'm not sure if I'm using the right tone of voice. I'm not sure if they even need branding or something. Like, I mean, you probably get it, right? Like, reaching out to somebody from, you know, from ground zero, point blank is very scary, right? Because here I'm trying to say that I think you need this, whereas I don't know if they need it or not till they reply, right? Or we have the conversation. So I get really nervous doing outbound, but I have to do it because if I don't do it, I can't just rely on my inbound, right? Inbound is comfort zone, right? That's the thing, right? Comfort. I close at least. Like, I think 80 to 90% of my clients come inbound. Almost, like, very rarely do I get set a no. And if it's a no, it has a very valid reason. But everyone that reaches out to me knows that Vanshika can do this. Vanchika is almost going to be at this price range. This is what she can do. This is what she can't do. And like I said, most of them close. But with outbound, I get rejected so many times, which brings me back down to ground zero. It's like, okay, I'm not the shit. Like, I'm just Vanchika. Like, I'm not that cool as I thought. So it's like, it serves as a grounding exercise that you get rejected and then you're like, okay, I'm not that cool. I need to work on this. So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's just about breaking the norm and, yeah, not. Not sticking in that box. Because, I mean, when you're comfortable, things just happen and you take it for granted. Right?

Like, Right.

You don't. You don't count your blessings when things happen when they're just comfortable. Right? Like now, if I tell you that I'm closing a lot of my inbound leads, I know I will choose them, and it's comfort zone for me. So, yeah, I mean, I'm always looking.

Let's talk more about that. Since you said, you know, you have a lot of inbound leads. So for everybody who kind of missed what Oneshika does, Oneshika is a freelancer. That means she does not work for anybody, but she works for everybody. Right. She's not tied to one organization. And you said you have worked with 70 plus organizations so far and all these companies might have come through your own network through. And this is also true for a lot of salespeople. Let's say we're watching this, that you know, when they make their own brand and they're able to establish that a lot of they will also get a lot of inbound where people be like, hey, I like what you're doing. Could you tell me more about your company? Could you tell me, hey, I'm anyways evaluating this product, but I saw you representing this company in this space. Let's chat, right? That's how the conversation starts. So can you give us like the framework since your whole livelihood depends being on LinkedIn, give us a framework to anybody. So let's start from the basic. Okay, number one, I think we've already established that being on LinkedIn is important. We've seen that your whole business kind of runs on it and you are doing, you're incredibly successful, you know, just using LinkedIn alone. Right? So tell us the framework for somebody, let's say, who has less than 500 followers and who decides, yeah, I want to do this and yeah, just tell us like from A to Z, what exactly is required? How can somebody reach where you are?

Yeah, so I mean there's a ton of information online, but it's also confusing. So whenever anyone asks me this question, I just think they're like three main things, right? There's content that you put out, there's connection requests that you send. And then third is the relationship building. So all of these three paired together help you go from point A to point B. So for example, let's break it down. So when it comes to content, right, a lot of people struggle with content. And the biggest roadblock that I've seen and heard of is people being like, oh my English is not good or oh, I don't know what to post. And the answer is if your English is not good, nobody cares. Like, I've honestly seen people post stuff and still get comments and reactions and it's, it's, it's not a place where you have to be perfect. Like even I mess up posts. Like, if you go to my LinkedIn right now, like I guarantee you, like amongst the last couple of posts, you'll see the word editing it. Because even I've made some mistakes. Like I've made A typo. I've made a grammar error, which I realized later, right? So we're only human. So just take that innovation out and throw it in the trash can. Second thing is, don't know what to post, honestly don't know what to post is the easiest to solve because all you need is one dinge of inspiration, right? And I'm a firm believer in the fact that if you consume good content, you'll produce good content. So if you go to, for example, Quora and you just type in like say sales enablement, something, something, right? And say you're in sales enablement, right? So then look at the kind of conversations people are having on Quora, look at the kind of questions that they're asking and then use that as an inspiration, Add on your experience and then post it, right? There's also answer the public, there's Reddit, there is, there's just Google search, right? Like there's so many ways to get Inspired. And on LinkedIn, people don't want to read what they can Google, right? If I can google this out, I'm not going to spend three minutes reading your post. So is not a danger view in the content. It doesn't matter to me if you're.

Just gonna copy paste, sorry to cut.

For example, like, yeah, if you're talking about like say how to close a six ticket, six figure deal client, right? If you just tell me like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I'm just gonna be like, great. But if you tell me one, and then this is how I did it, two, and this is how I did it, at least I'll read and I want to know more. And I probably comment back saying, oh, you know, this is really interesting. I haven't tried it, let me try it. Or I tried this and this didn't work. So think of your content as a, as a source to get conversations rolling and to, you know, build those relationships or at least put out your way of thinking right? At the end of the day now the creator economy is like the next big thing and it is already and it's only going to get bigger. So start putting out content. I mean, a lot of the content that I put out literally has to do with my day to day, right? So for example, one day I'm making a mood board for a client and I'll explain how I did it. Next day I'm doing like vision statement and I'm like, okay, how broad does a vision statement need to be? So a lot of the content that comes on my LinkedIn is inspired by my day to day conversations, right? And you don't even have to give names, you don't have to give specifications. So if you're like sales or marketing and you had this like really say, you know, like really conversation with the prospect conversation, but a challenging one, right? Like nobody wants to hear the normal, like I picked up the phone, client was like, yes, send me this, I'm gonna send you 100 million dollar check. Like that doesn't happen, right? So tell us about the challenges, tell us what you struggled with. Tell us if you did have an incident like this where you just like, you know, reached out to someone on LinkedIn, you stalked their quora, you send them an email, you did this, you did this, you to this. And finally they're like, you're closing the deal on the phone. Tell us how you did it, right? Don't just tell us what you did, tell us how. Because that builds a relationship between you and I. I can only trust you if I know you. Which is why, again, authenticity is the key word over here, right? If you don't tell me how, but you just tell me what happened, you're missing out on the you aspect of it, which you should probably not do. So that is with the content. The second is connections, right? A lot of people don't take this seriously and that's why they don't grow their network, right? I think L in allows you to send, if I'm not wrong, somewhere between 100 to 150 outbound connection requests a day. And that's a lot.

It's 100 per day now.

200 per day. Yeah, that's what it's 100.

No, it's, sorry, it's 100 per week now.

Per week. Okay, Whatever it is. Yeah, but that's, that's still a lot, right? So what I'm trying to say is like when you're building your network, right, and you're building sort of the thought leadership that you want, and you're building the visibility that you want, who you have in your first connections matters a lot, right? You would rather connect with somebody who is active on LinkedIn, is posting, is commenting, and that is visible because you can go to their feed and check are they active or not. Those are the kind of people you want in. And then there are exceptions to the rule where it's like, okay, you know, my. Oh my God, like, you know, Elon Musk connected with me on LinkedIn. Like, I don't care if he posts or not. Like, it's Elon Musk. Right, so there are exceptions to the rule, but generally start connecting with people that want to have conversations and those that are friendly and are public figures. Because then what LinkedIn does is in the algorithm, it basically sends it to your first connections first. If your first connections, a certain percentage of them reply or comment or like, then it goes to the second. If that goes, then it goes third. If you reach third, you've gone by. So there's, there's, it's, it's a very direct. They connect to. Who are you actually connecting with, right? And who are you sending out connection requests to? So make sure you're doing that correctly. Send out personalized requests and be friendly, be open and be direct if you're calling. If you want to connect to this person so that you can talk to them about something about your business, just be direct. Don't be like, hey, I want to connect with you. Let's network. Like, that's just shady. Don't do that. If you want to do that and you're just kind of building connections and relationships, it's okay. But don't be shady and just be like, I want to network, and then just hit them with the sales pitch when they connect, right? Nobody likes that. Don't be that person. Relationships. So that was about the connection request. And then the third one is relationship building, right? If you are not seen building relationships actively on the feed with other people, there is zero reason for them to interact with you. So think of it like a give and take. And we always say, right, give, give, give, then ask. So if you are not giving and you are not active, there's no reason for them to respond to you. So, so I would suggest, like, honestly, if you had to like, say, spend time in, like, say out of the 10 hours or 12 hours that you have in the day to work, slash LinkedIn, what you could do is like maybe spend 30 minutes writing a post, right? Just pick up any topic that is in your domain. Spend 30 minutes or even less if you're good at writing. It'll barely take you five or ten minutes initially, it'll be a struggle, but anyway, I'm giving you 30 minutes. So spend 30 minutes writing a good post. Tell us us why, Tell us how, Tell us what, Tell us a story, right, of the entire journey. Then after that, I would say, I mean, even if you send out five or ten really good connection requests to people that you genuinely want to connect with and that are active on LinkedIn, it might look really small on a daily basis. But you do 10, 10, 10 and it adds up. So do that. And then the third is, I would say spend a bit, about an hour if you can, just commenting. And here's a super secret hack that I use, right? It looks like I'm online all the time on LinkedIn, but trust me, I'm not. The only way that I do it is like I said earlier as well, right? I am eating breakfast. Like I'm chilling alone on the table. Like I'm scrolling LinkedIn and pasting or writing good comments, right? I mean, sometimes when I have a really large thought, I use voice to text and it just transcribe the entire thing out and I post it. But yes, like I'm doing, I'm having breakfast, I'm like, on LinkedIn, want to take a 15 minute break? I'm on LinkedIn, just scrolling. So the thing is, it's about using your time mindfully while you're on the app. Like, there are many times where I would scroll and I'd find nothing to post or comment on. I'll just be like, it's okay, I'll come back later. But if you're there and you see something where you feel like you can add value, definitely go and comment. And it barely takes a couple of minutes to post a comment, right? It's not like you're writing it an essay. At the end of the day you'll be like, oh yeah, I agree with you, this is such a great thought. Or no, I don't think this is great. This is what I think, right? Couple of minutes. It really doesn't take that much time. So it's not about like a lot of people do it wrong by chunking out time for LinkedIn. But that's not the best way to beat the algorithm, right? Because there are people posting at all times of the day and the night, right? Depending on even what time zone you're in, right? So you potentially can't be on top of the feed if you're just going to chunk out one hour a day and then do 20 comments, which is really not the right way to do it. Instead, split it up into bite sized chunks where you're like, okay, I'm having my chai right now, I don't have anything to do. I'm going to jump on LinkedIn and, you know, comment whenever I see something useful. And if you don't find anything useful, it's totally okay to quit the app and do something else, like jump on Clubhouse or whatever, it doesn't matter. But be mindful of the time you spend on LinkedIn and be mindful of your goals. Right. If your goal is to go from 5,000 to 15,000 in say six months, then how are you going to make that happen? Set out a plan and stick to it. Like be your own accountability partner. Right. Like, I remember back in the day when I was just very new on LinkedIn, I had an alarm on my phone every day at 4 o' clock being like, do something on LinkedIn. And that's how I got into the habit of posting. Because once I learned that like you need to post regularly. Yeah, I mean, see, it's not about being there every day. I don't post every day. Like, like I post when I have something to say, but at the same time I'm consistent. Right. It's not about doing it seven days a week. That is again where people go wrong and get overwhelmed. It's not about doing it seven days a week. It's like just doing it in bite sized chunks and you decide what order or what you want to do that day. Right. If you're not in the mood to send connection requests, forget it. Just comment and post. If you're not in the mood to post anything, just comment and send connection requests. So one out of these three you have to do every day, irrespective. So you either comment or you send a connection request or you build a relationship and you should honestly set a target for yourself, like for say, conversations per week or something like that. So generally what I do is every evening, right, when I'm just after work, just chilling. LinkedIn has this amazing feature of the voice note which came up couple of months or years ago. And what I just do is I go down my recent connection and I send them a voice note and I'm like, like, hey, so nice to connect up. I see this, this, this would love to chat, you know, can I help you with anything? And so many wonderful conversations have sprung up from there just by opening the door to conversation. Right. So a lot of times people accept and then forget. Like, you know, I am on LinkedIn at all weird hours. So sometimes I might just accept a connection request but not have time to say hi. So what I do instead is when I'm chilling, I just send voice notes. Hardly 30 seconds. It's quicker than even typing out a message. It's like 30 seconds. Very impromptu.

Voice is something which even I would completely endorse. It's better than text. And I'll give you my reasoning for voice. I'm sorry, didn't mean to voice note, I think has this element of curiosity because you can't see unless you don't play. You don't know what's inside. Okay. So person, other person does not have a choice. So in other cases, when you send it long, long text or short text, people can say, okay, you're pitching in voice note. You can, they cannot know unless they play it. Now that is where your magic comes. That is where your tonality comes into play and you bring your whole personality into their voice note. So recently I think last week I sent like about five or ten voice notes. I think I got like about 70% reply. And in each one of them I did like a lot of research and I tried to make it funny so that you know, for example, one on one of the, one of the sales manager was an actress. Okay. One of the person had something which I used to, you know, bring that funny element. And the response was, hey, I appreciate that was a very funny note, thank you. And you know, but I'm not interested. But at least people, people read it, people actually complimented you. It's not about the compliment, it's about like you touching, you know, you actually bring that whole personality and saying, hey, I'm different. And you know, what we do are different. And when you send the text, you are again becoming one of those other people who are all sending texts.

Yeah. And it's so easy to tell when a text is like copy pasted. I get so many of them like, hi Vanchika. Like you're looking to connect with you, trying to build relationships. I'm like, no, the weirdest is when they have these automated things doing it and it just picks up your like title and it's like, hi Vanchika, I see that this happened this morning. Hi Vanchika, I see that you're a event lead and communication director. I'd like to connect with you and build my professional network. I'm like, you just, you basically just automated this thing. It's so obvious to tell automation on LinkedIn and LinkedIn has genuinely been trying to stop automation. But I mean technology is just way too smart these days. So yeah, I mean you can't, you can't hack a bottle. Personal note. Right. You have to have said it yourself at that time and then sent it. So that's the good part about it.

Now all of these are like fantastic insights. I'm pretty sure anyone who wants to build their brand can copy you. Or maybe you might have like a masterclass they can sign up.

Do you have One, I don't have a masterclass, but I do keep going live on LinkedIn. I keep sharing my insights. Recently, actually, just a couple of days ago, I shared this screen recording. It was actually very cool. So LinkedIn is basically now making it easier for you to post content by saying that if you post a comment right after you hit post, it asks you, like, do you want to turn this into a post? Or something like that.

Oh, yeah, I think I read that somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah, so I did a video on that. And so, yeah, I keep sharing stuff whenever I see something new. And that is super cool because if you spend time writing a good comment, LinkedIn is initiating you to post it as a post, and then that person's post goes under. So it's like a. Answer the question. Yeah, it looks. It looks really nice.

I remember I got that option. I did not, like, exercise that. I did not, you know, act on it. But pretty sure, yeah, that looks great.

Yeah, you could totally.

All good insights and. Yeah, I think we should. You should probably publish a book like, how to Grow.

Something is in the works. Something is in the works. As we speak, digital products are next, like, talking about creativity, right? Like, everybody's talking about digital products and NFTs and all that cool stuff. So, yeah, digital products are the next big thing. And yeah, there is something in the works. I can't reveal too much, but it's coming up soon.

Yeah, we look forward to that. I'm sure we'll all buy it. Let's move on to the most interesting part. I mean, what you said was interesting. Yeah, no, I mean, let's move on to another interesting part. Okay. Which is the rapid fire. And I do have about, like, five or seven questions for you. Usually I have four. Yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna go, like, step. Okay, let me know when you're ready.

Yeah, good to go. Let's go.

All right, give me five brands you admire the most.

Five brands I admire the most. Sugar Cosmetics. Izico. I like Sabyasachi's aesthetics. I like Hermes. I'm going to be buying a birthday gift for myself from there. So definitely have to like that brand. And Apple. Like, how could we forget Apple?

Yeah. Okay, give me one favorite brand now. Like out of the five.

And why out of the five? Apple. Simplicity. I mean, just everything is so beautiful about the way Apple communicates its products. You would just, like, take my credit card and swipe it and send me a Mac right now. Like, it's just so simple and so beautiful. Right? Like We've gotten caught up in complicating things. We humans are great at complicating everything. You put anything in front of a human, they will fight a way to complicate it. But like Apple, the feel that you get, the vibe the way. I mean, the biggest test, right, for me as a brand consultant and, you know, someone who's very involved in comms, is if you hide the logo on the top left corner of the website and I just showed you the wireframe or content bits, would you be able to tell me that this is this brand's website or not? And with Apple, if I hit the name 100%, like, like a majority would be able to tell that this is Apple aesthetic. Just totally in love with the way they do things. And even, I mean, the wwdc, the one that they did recently, beautiful example of storytelling and just, just so beautiful. I wrote an article about it on Mediums. I can send you the link. I wrote about the storytelling aspect of it and how they built a story around their product and their product launches and just. I'm just always amazed at what they do and how they do it.

Wow. Okay, nice. Yeah, we'll check it out. All right, let's move on to the next one. One piece of gadget you can't live without.

Piece of gadget I can't live without my favorite.

Wow. Cheesecake or ice cream?

Cheesecake. Ice cream. Can I have ice cream? Cheesecake? Is that a thing?

Good one. No. Beach or mountains?

Beach in the summer, mountains in the winter. I don't like choosing vine or cocktails. Wine on weekdays, cocktails on the weekend. Do I have.

You can't have everything. Okay. You have to choose one.

Okay. Cocktails, I think.

All right, one. One person you admire the most on LinkedIn.

One person I admire the most on LinkedIn very hard. Yeah. I can't pick one person.

Let's make some enemies for you.

Yeah, it would be very unfair. I can't do one. I could probably do like two or three. I can't do one for sure. One is too hard, man.

And see, you can say three. And what we're going to do is we're going to edit the next two and, you know, make it look like one.

So, okay, so obviously there's my mentor, Saurabh. He's doing amazing things on LinkedIn. Next person I really enjoy even talking to personally is Kaushik. He's the co founder of Sugar. He's an amazing person. And third would be Komal Ahuja. She's Just such a pro freelancer. Like, we are both, like, sailing in the same boat, and yet we're like, very, very good friends. And she texts me when she has an issue, I text her. And her content is just a star. I mean, she's totally killing it on LinkedIn. And she then started Insta, then she started Twitter, and she's just managing to kill it on all platforms. So I think those are the three people that I really, really look up to. If I had to pick, not just one, I can't pick one. It would be very.

I think I've interacted with Komal in the past, so I can totally relate to that.

She's amazing. She's amazing.

All right, final, Final question. Like, final question for you. One final advice for all the viewers to get the, you know, get started on the LinkedIn game.

Just start. I think a lot of us just do it. Just start, right? Because everything seems hard when you begin. That is just the nature of how the world works. But if you start and you get used to it and you believe in what the mission is and you believe in your goal of why you're using LinkedIn, things will fall into place. So, like, like, I mean, initially, for the first three to six months, if you're a newbie on LinkedIn, you're probably going to be talking into an echo chamber. And that happens with everybody. It's not just you. So just start and be consistent. Whatever consistency means to you, consistency does not mean seven days at 5pm Consistency means three times a week, whatever daytime that, whatever works for you. And I think, second tip that I would say is get in touch with people who are active on LinkedIn and learn from them, ask them questions. Because everybody, like I said, everybody's so friendly and everybody's so approachable. And that's how we met as well, right? And then I think I've been lucky to actually meet you twice in person. But, yeah, I mean, there are so many people I know who I've never got to meet and God knows when I'll meet. But at the end of the day, it's that relationship, right, that you and I have, where I can just pick up the call and be like, yo, I need help. I don't know how to close this client. And that's like, that's what, like, LinkedIn gets you to, right? It's like real people, real connections. Set a goal for yourself and just, just, just start. I mean, there's no other way to do it. Just to start.

This is all beautiful. Thank you. So much for sharing your wisdom, for which I'm sure people will be shelling out money soon. So thank you for thank you for sharing all that for free. Great to have you Anshuka. Thank you so much. I hope you have a great Sunday. Thanks for watching this video. If you liked the video a teeny tiny bit, would you like the video? Subscribe to the channel and tell me what you like. Throw your best insult at me. If you did not like any part and you would want me to improve, I promise you will not offend me. Seems like too much work, right? Let's start with subscribing and let me know in the comments what I should cover next. Thanks again.

Come on.