In 24 Monaten zu 200.000+ LinkedIn-Followern I Interview mit Jasmin Alic

Er hat sich über LinkedIn Follower aufgebaut, seine Post kriegen über Likes im Durchschnitt und er kriegt so viele Inbound Leads jeden Tag, dass er kaum hinterherkommt. Richtig. Die Rede ist von Jasmin Alec, den ich bereits einmal im Interview hatte und ich mich extrem freue, ihn auch ein zweites Mal ins Interview bekommen zu haben. Und wir über neue verrückte LinkedIn Strategien sprechen, die er entwickelt hat in den letzten Monaten und die dazu geführt hat, dass er von seinen ersten Followern jetzt bereits zu über zwei Followern gewachsen ist. Wir reden über den Algorithmus, wir reden über Content Strategien und wir reden über die neuesten Hacks, um so schnell wie möglich über LinkedIn zu wachsen. Diese Folge solltest du dir unbedingt bis zum Ende angucken. Ich habe fleißig mitgeschrieben und jetzt wünsche ich dir ganz viel Spaß mit dem neuen Interview.

I'm super excited for a new interview. It's been a while, Jay. And I'm super excited to have you back. Good to have you here.

Hey man, thanks for having me back. I was surprised to hear from you, but I was even more surprised at the response from the first video. So many people reached out, so many people reached out, man. So thanks for having me back.

I'm really happy about it, because I remember this interview and we did it. I moved from Spain to Germany and everything was packed in boxes and the last thing I had was really my Mac and this interview with you and I think we both had this setup and it was all like, yeah, not very professional, but the content was I think it made it up and it was one of the most popular interviews on my channel and so many people said I never heard of this guy. Thanks for sharing all that stuff. And a couple of days ago I checked back and I saw, oh man, you said it several times. In the beginning. It's my first one hundred K of followers and now I saw you hit the second one hundred thousand. So congratulations. And I would love to dive a little bit deeper. How you did it. So maybe we start there when you look back to. I think in September, last year it was the first interview.

What changed September? It was really that quick that fast.

Yeah, really it was last September, I guess, yeah, because it was the month where I was moving.

Yeah, awesome. I feel like you know. I always joke around with you know first, whatever. First ten K, first, you know one hundred K, whatever. It's it's this, it's this thing that I do when I congratulate others on their successes, because a whole lot of people, whenever they reach a Certain threshold on LinkedIn, like I just hit my, I just hit one, you know one thousand followers, I just hit five thousand followers and I always I have this thing that I do to congratulate people. I always write my comment with the words correction and then I say the first one thousand, the first five thousand, the first, you know, whatever. So it was, it was kind of the same thing with me. I joked around in our first interview. I said it was the first one hundred K and now we're at two hundred K plus you know going up to three hundred K. Whatever I feel like this. This might sound very not not good. I feel like the journey from one hundred K to two hundred K is not like. Not a whole lot of things change, man. I feel like when you reach a certain level of just having fun with the content of people trusting you of building your own community, right like there's not a whole lot of difference between one hundred thousand followers and even half a million followers. There's not a whole lot of difference just because it's way too many people than you can handle. It's way too many comments that you can respond to it's way too many DM's and you can give back you know to so I feel like I'm just enjoying the moment and to tell you the truth. I'm having more fun with my content than I've ever had. I'm just sharing my heart on my sleeve. I'm sharing what I think, I'm sharing my open and honest thoughts. I'm very vocal about supporting others. I'm very vocal about sharing it all sharing everything that I know a whole lot of people disagree with me on that. By the way, a whole lot of people feel like no just share twenty, you know ninety percent leave, ten percent for like a newsletter for a course. I'm like no. So yeah, I feel like not a whole lot of things have changed other than the numbers which I don't know if that's you know, the best start to the show, man, but to the people listening and watching. That's the honest truth.

But there is something I remember, I think I remember pretty clear the part on content and you said very like open. I'm struggling with that and I'm doing it always in the last minute I come up with a great idea and then I post it But on the last interview I felt really like you were very focused on this Commenting Strategy and Content. Was something like yeah, I do it on the side, but it's not really like something I'm very focused on. Did this change because you just said that you really enjoy content right now. Is it something that you put more effort into or how does your content strategy look like now for me, my.

Approach on LinkedIn has been absolutely more or less the same. The last three years man. Commenting is still the number one strategy I have for growing the following for getting clients, for growing my authority trust among people. That's still number one. That's not gonna change. I feel like that's probably never gonna change, because you need to be in front of people. You need to be engaging with others. You need to be supporting folks. You know, you need to be out there if you want people to also come back to you. But the one thing that has changed and this is fairly recently, man, I started creating content in advance. You're actually the first people person I'm telling this to just because it's always last minute, last minute, last minute and people know me for this like they know I'll wake up and if I post at twelve, thirty, they know I'll write something at twelve, fifteen, they know I'll write it at twelve, twenty five, right Like just before I hit publish most recently. I've kind of just optimized a whole lot of business processes. I've moved to a new place and I kind of have a more flexible timeline during my date. So I figured, you know what let me practice right even more when I say practice right. I mean, I'm going to write a whole lot of posts and probably out of every ten I'm only going to publish one. And that's quite literally what I do I practice right right now, probably even more than at the beginning of my copywriting career, which was fifteen years ago. I'm getting older in this business man. I write a whole lot just for practice and what that leaves me with is just the best posts, yeah, ready for prime time and all the other ones I'll use them for like pinned comments I'll use them for comments. I'll use them for for for copy like on a landing page somewhere or I'll use them down to line for parts of another post or something. But yeah, I feel like I'm writing a whole lot more. That's changed only because I've managed to grow to a certain point where the business operates a whole lot more smoothly and I have a whole lot more time to myself and to the family. Therefore I'm you know much fresher when it comes to just dumping my thoughts down.

So yeah, I would like love to die in deep dive into this topic, because I have the feeling I remember when I started posting on LinkedIn, so I had no clue about copywriting and I was posting, posting, posting and there was this period I think where I posted like for three months daily and nothing happened, I didn't get any likes, I didn't get any reach, I didn't get any comments. I think my wife liked my posts and my team and that's it. And then I don't know, I stumbled across a copywriting book. I read this book and I was like, okay, my content sucks, I don't know anything about copywriting and I have to learn it. And I ordered all the copywriting books that there are. Available on Amazon. But I have this feeling that a lot of people that are on LinkedIn never had this. Moment of reading something about copywriting and realizing that their content isn't actually really good. Because I think, unless you have read something about this topic, you don't really know that you're not that good as you think do you have some like tips or teaching hacks. Or stuff like that to teach people copywriting so that they really get the essence because I really struggled to tell people that I'm always like you need to learn copywriting and I'm teaching about like do headlines. This are like types of headlines you could try and stuff like that, but do you have some principles for copywritings that you can share?

Yeah, for sure, one of the biggest things I always say in my content is that writing ninety percent of it is psychology. Ten percent of it is just adapting the text to the medium like to the platform. Might be LinkedIn might be a certain format. You know whether it's a PDF carousel, whether it's an infographic, whether it's just text only whatever it is that remaining ten percent is just the technicalities, but ninety percent of it is psychology. So whenever I tell people if you want to learn more about copywriting, learn psychology, go out there, go to YouTube, find Podcasts, find those books that are really diving deeper into human behavior, into what triggers the human brain to cause a certain reaction. I have become almost obsessed with studying psychology even more and more, even more so again than in the beginning of my career right now, So I feel like the one thing I can give you, if you're looking to learn copywriting, really focus on understanding human behavior. And here's why platforms will change naturally. Every platform, every social media platform will evolve. That's out of the question no doubt about it, right? But the one thing that hasn't changed for hundreds of years is human behavior. We react to certain things a certain way for a reason because that's how our brains are developed. That's how our brains are built. That's how we are wired as humans. So once you understand that you start to write a certain way, but if you've never come across any sort of psychological principles, especially when it comes to writing, you will never know about it like you will just continue to write. However, you write and you will feel like. Yep, this is good enough. Yeah, this speaks to my target audience. No, you need to understand that on social media attention is everything, but that's only step one of the process. I always say that attention is nothing without retention. You have to figure out a way to retain that attention. It's easy to grab someone's attention, right? I can just move around like this. And people are going to be like what's this guy doing? Imagine if a video clip started with just me doing this, everyone would probably stop, even if they're just scrolling, right? But how do I then say something that makes you listen to me? Even more, even more, even more. So there's different things you can do on LinkedIn. Specifically one of the biggest psychological hacks if you will that I use, is, I don't leave room for interpretation. My whole thing is the very first line needs to tell me what the post is about The opposite of that is, you know the science, the science of clickbaiting, right? But I have a different term. It's a it's a popular marketing term called bait and switch. When you say something in the first line, just for the sole purpose of grabbing someone's attention and then, as they're reading through the post, they figure out, the post is about something entirely different. This is called the switch part, right? You bait them with something like a fish, like that's the hook, the first line, and then you switch the focus, you switch their focus, their attention onto something entirely different psychologically. This is the easiest way to lose trust. This is the easiest way for someone to become so uninterested in your content, especially long term so the really good way and I've tested this out. You know a bunch of times in my own posts, saying whatever the post is about in the very first line that builds, trust immediately because the first line acts as a promise, so you have to deliver on that promise. And as people are reading, they get more and more promises delivered results and more trust. That's one thing. Another thing is visually by the way, I feel like this is such a long answer, so whoever's listening bear with me please, so one of the other really crucial things. And I will die on this hail man a whole lot of people, also like to pick fights with me over. This particular part is the visual formatting.

Of text like aesthetics, right?

Aesthetics, exactly. I always say that what you say like the information you deliver is great. It's super valuable. But how you say it, how you deliver the information, it's even more valuable. Just imagine, if you just handed me, I don't know a book, right? Like let's pretend this is a blank piece of paper, right? If this was just a giant slab of text. Just zero spacing, zero empty lines, no line shorter than the other, no line longer than the other. Would I bother to read this? Even if this was the greatest bit of information in human history? Probably not no one would read this, no one. But if you structure it a certain way, where the first line is its own unit, right? The first line has the gist of the post and then there's an empty line and then you give me three more lines that kind of lean into the story, right? You start to build up the story and then you give me another empty line. Think of your text as a human heartbeat, right? As human behavior essentially, whatever you're doing, you have to take a break. Whatever you're saying you have to breathe, you have to take a breather. Your readers have to do that too. A whole lot of people creating content on LinkedIn never think about. This. Your content needs to breathe The information that you're delivering can just be like this from top to bottom, right? Whereas just you're hammering down one line after the other, no, there needs to be structure, there needs to be visual hierarchy, there needs to be beautiful aesthetics. And I'm not saying this is everything. I'm not saying this is going to revolutionize the way you write, but this will definitely impact the way your readers consume your content and how they understand it. Because if they're not reading it best believe they're not understanding it either so visual aesthetics I call it formatting matters a whole lot it matters. I don't want to say it out loud because I know a whole lot of people will get mad man. But I feel like it matters even more than the information itself.

Yeah, you're right. Especially with the example, if you have like a full block of text, no one's gonna read it, so you can read really the best stuff in the world. I think that's the reason why I don't know LinkedIn articles move to background because people are not reading anything.

Also I did the amazing paper throw just now.

That was an effect, that was a.

Good moment.

In regards of content. We got to talk about the algorithm and I'm super interested in your opinion, so we really saw it like in the beginning of this year. So I think in the last three years we found our formula, we did really like single image, so we did an image and a story, a good headline and everything went well. And we built this content strategy for our. Clients that we focus on social content for reach that we do like expert content to teach people something and some conversion content to I don't know get people into webinar or to I don't know book a sales call or something like that. But then something at the end of last year changed and my expert posts, so the most more stuff I was talking about LinkedIn were getting more reach than my social content and I was like, okay, maybe they implemented that stuff that they talked about like six months ago, yeah, and I was like good for us. I can teach more people about stuff and it gets more reach now like I don't know four or five months later I'm back to square one my social. Content. Every time I share a personal story I get most of the reach, I get most of the interaction and my expert content is back to normal. How did you like, yeah interpreted all this stuff. What happened in the last months? Because there were a lot of people I think that really got anxious and didn't get any reach at all anymore. We had so many people complaining. I don't know what's happening. Robert what should I do? And I was like I don't know, I'm fine. Yeah, how did you really question?

And it's a discussion worth having. Yeah, I have a unique perspective on this first off. If you're worried about LinkedIn reach being lower than last year and the year before and the year before. I have one bit of advice for you. Stop caring about it. Just stop. It's the easiest way to start. Hating LinkedIn when you just.

Focus on is right?

Yeah, Honestly is I've had so many clients, so many followers, so many people I'm working with. Come to me with the same sort of complaint. Hey, reach is low. Hey, I'm not getting as many impressions as usual. Hey, and I'm like, well, are you getting enough business? Well, they're like, yeah, and I'm like what's the problem like?

Is it get really mad about it, right?

Yeah, is it just ego right? Like, who cares about the likes, But they're like. Well, you haven't been affected. I'm like, I got two hundred freaking thousand followers, right? And I have a different take on this. So whenever people come to me and say LinkedIn reaches down, I disagree because I noticed One thing on LinkedIn. That's happening this year. In particular the last three or four months. It's a pattern, right? Last year and The year before LinkedIn used to show me the same exact post three, four, five times. Especially if it was a viral post, just remember last year, the year before. If a post went viral, like for example, you reacted to something in the morning, you commented on it, you would see that same post again. If it popped up, you would see it again in the afternoon, you would see it again in the evening, you would probably see it again tomorrow. That's no longer happening.

Yeah.

Like I see posts just once in my feed and it doesn't even matter if I react to them or not. LinkedIn just doesn't show them to me multiple times. Which is why I feel like a whole lot of people are missing the point. I have a hot take on this. I don't have any proof. This is just a theory. This is why I said I disagree, because from a business standpoint nothing has changed. The only things that have actually changed are the impressions, the views. But if you really think about it, for example, if in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, you had twenty five thousand people viewing your post, It was probably ten thousand people who were served that particular post two to three times, like two and a half times, right? Right?

Okay, got it this year.

If you're saying to me like, Hey, my reach is only ten thousand. It's like almost so, it's unique emotions, right? Yeah, it's only because LinkedIn is distributing the content differently again I don't have any proof of this. This is just a pattern that I'm noticing in my own feed and in a whole lot of feeds of other people I've asked about this. I've asked other experts. The truth is, LinkedIn is not distributing the same post multiple times during the day. Which is where I feel like the impressions you know are going down. It's not necessarily that fewer people are viewing your posts. It's that they're seeing your post fewer times. The audience is more or less the same. It's just that the distribution is different. And that's where I feel like. A whole lot of people are just they're stressed about the wrong thing, man.

It's like if you're getting enough, if.

You'Re getting enough, DM's reactions this and that. Like who cares, who cares about how many impressions you're getting so yeah, I gotta, I don't know. Maybe I'm just a fool and I'm being a little bit too optimistic here. But for now I feel like it's a theory worth exploring and I and that. This is how I've convinced myself that the reach is not a problem. So maybe again I'm delusional. If anybody's listening to this watching this tell me in the comments. Am I delusional about This is this theory like does it, does it hold any weight? Let me know what your experience has been like so anyhow the algo doesn't hate you. That's my message.

Yeah. And I really like that because as long as you, I don't know, Look at your business and everything is fine or didn't change you don't have to. I don't know. Obsess about like your reach in the in the content and you really had a good point before the interview talking about that A lot of people really like always chase the newest trend. And this is something that I also see a lot in content and I don't know. I do the same stuff in formats like for a couple of years now, because they are like proven, I think people that are trying this stuff and this is really funny. This is something. Yeah, maybe we can put into this discussion. I see a lot of people I think that came across your content and they tried to I wouldn't say copy it. They try to model it.

Yeah.

And I think you have a really unique style of content. Like very like, straightforward like tips in there and stuff like that. And they do it like one or two times and it does work because I think my hypothesis is their audience is not used to this style of content. But I would really love to take your hear your take on this really. Like what people are making wrong in content and how to be I don't. Know consistent or how you think about this thing.

I see three key problems that people are making in their LinkedIn content. One they're not experimenting enough. You would be surprised how many things I experiment with on a daily basis. Whether it's using a particular phrase in a hook that I've never used before like something very negative. And every single time I've actually had this theory multiple times. And every single time I've tested using negative words in my hooks. Every single time without fail, those posts have performed worse on apple, really specifically. And then i and then I had to create patterns of my own thing. Like the things I was testing and experimenting with was okay. So I know negative hooks in this particular case aren't as effective, but there was one post that went super viral and it. Had a negative word in it. The word was not right, it's a negative word. But I'm like why did this one pop off and the other ones didn't I look back at the other ones and I noticed three words I'm showing the number four, because sometimes there is a fourth word. So three words Stop don't quit. You see, these are almost like orders. They're very imperative, but psychologically again we're talking about psychology psychologically. Humans hate being told what to do, even worse Robert people hate being told what not to do. So it only makes sense that if you use stop don't quit. Like all these orders, imperatives shouts in your hooks.

You don't tell me shit exactly you.

Can'T who are you right? You can't tell me what to do. It's just a natural human reaction. So when I noticed the pattern in some of those posts, I'm like, even though it was a technically negative hook, I didn't have those words. The post still did somewhat well. But as soon as I included stop don't quit, the posts did thirty percent worse on average compared to my usual engagement, thirty percent worse. I kid you not. So that's one thing you have to experiment with certain things right? I'm also experimenting a whole lot with asking a question in the PS every single time versus not asking a question at the PS like I'm relying on the strength of the post itself, without asking a question, like I'm just hoping. Yo, this is a strong post, right? I just told an amazing story. I know this is going to give many, many comments, man Again a twenty three, twenty four, twenty five percent difference whenever I ask a question versus not asking a question in the PS. And it's very simple, people need permission, right? Sometimes it's psychologically it's a permission, but you're essentially just giving people reasons to comment on your post. Because if they just read something and you're not inviting them, you're not even asking them. They're not gonna stay. It's very simple, right? You're sitting at a cafe, someone is passing by and it's a old friend, right? You haven't seen each other in years. Hey, what's up, Robert? And they're like. Hey, you want to sit down? You have fifty minutes, right? They're probably going to sit down, But if you never invite them, they're not going to do it. Yeah, you know, it's the same with. It's The same with LinkedIn content. You have to invite comments the simplest way. Ask a question in the PS again. This is why I always encourage folks to use aps first, but also do not use your PS as a call to action, where you push people to a link, where you push people to a newsletter or worse, where you tell people Hey, I'm USB, I'm a copywriter. I work with fortune five hundred companies. This is my service. Here's how you can book me. That's like two different posts, man. It's like you told me something and then in a PS you're switching on, you're selling. I'm never going to comment on that post. No one is so asking a question in the PS definitely a huge thing, but this is all number one. So I said, I noticed three things that people are doing a experiment, not experimenting enough. Point number two is people are treating LinkedIn like their diary. I told you at the very beginning of our call, I practice write a whole lot. I do a whole lot of practice writing, meaning I take the post that I'm going to publish finally, very seriously, I make sure that out of ten posts that I write, I pick the best one. A whole lot of people don't do that. They'll just sit down in the morning, write something and it's like oh, this is good to go. This is something I want to share today. Why not write version number two. Why not write version number five. And then pick. Out the best one. Make sure that what you're saying today is actually worth posting. A whole lot of people are Just Like Brain Dumping and a Lot. Of the times. It's very random stuff and it sounds like a diary. I was just crossing the street and I saw this guy holding up a sign. This is great marketing, okay? Like what do I comment on that?

But thanks for sharing.

Just taking a step back, right? If you had told me a story, right? Sometimes the best thing you can do is stand until you're noticed. That's a great hook. And then you tell me a story about standing in the same place, not being a slave to the algorithm and just doing your thing, doing your thing, Repeating the process, right? Until someone notices like you can give me a whole story, like that would be a much better pose than just oh, I was crossing the street, I saw a guy here it is see, yeah, like one sounds like a diary entry. The other one has storytelling in it. It shows that there was time put into it. And the third thing is, Robert, People are just too negative. I see a whole lot of negativity in the feed and never thought about it.

Yeah, good point.

When you think about it. There's a whole lot of posts out there that start with LinkedIn Gurus are telling you to do this, Don't do it. Here's a better way. And in my opinion, if you have to tell me that something is bad just so again, I'm highlighting this part. I'm emphasizing just so you can tell me my way is good. I don't think your way is that good. If you have to tell me something is bad before you tell me yours is good. Is it really that good? Why not just skip the first part? Yeah, why not just like? Let's just think about this? I've actually written several posts about this. There's a nice phenomenon in marketing. This is called combative marketing, right? You're in a combat with someone else And usually people pick an enemy, right? If someone has a certain approach within your niche, Like for example, there's a whole lot of LinkedIn coaches out there. Some focus on outbound and cold outreach, right? Some focus on inbound and really good content. Some focus on niche topics. Some focus on broadcast. It doesn't mean that the other person's approach is wrong, right?

But it's easy marketing.

I think things can be good, right?

Yeah, right?

Like you're right. I'm right It's just a matter of preference, not a matter of who's better. And I feel like that's exactly where that trap is. You are so keen on proving. My way is the best way that you start to sound negative. But the thing is. And I've actually had conversations with people about this. The more you do it, the more you start to sound anxious, angry, hard to work with, hard to speak with. And I know it impacts people's businesses. Then again there's the whole other side of the coin where people prefer that sort of communication. They love someone who just doesn't give a damn and just wears their heart on their sleeve and just calls it how it is right. They don't like sugar coating. And again I'm not saying that approach is bad. I'm just saying it impacts your business. Like you just have to think about how you want to be perceived as someone who attracts a negative thinking audience versus someone who's actually going to put the thought into creating a really nice relationship with you. And that doesn't happen through negativity. I've seen this trend a whole lot on LinkedIn, where people are just you know left and right, saying this is bad, this is good, this is bad, this is good. My advice to everyone. If you've ever been a victim of this, just skip the first part. If you want to say this is bad, you've probably heard it before. Here's why this is good. Just skip that first part immediately start your post with I have something good for you. Here it is, see all of a sudden very different perception, very uplifting, very positive. And you're actually not splitting the attention where the attention is first on something else and then on the thing you actually want to promote, You're immediately putting all the spotlight, one hundred percent of the attention on the thing you want to promote. So this is not just you know, negativity versus positivity. It's just you know human psychology and marketing. So yeah, yeah, that's like, this was a super long answer, yeah, but I.

Love it because the point that you made, yeah, I see it every day and especially like negativity. I don't know. I tell our clients that LinkedIn is a happy place and every social media platform loves it. When it's a happy place. Because people stay longer and so they reward people that do like nice content. Yeah, And there is always, I don't know. I also get attacked like I don't know a couple of times per week, where people like hate on stuff and I'm like, yeah, thanks for sharing, I will block you and I'm like, yeah, a lot of people are really frustrated and that's okay, but you don't want to do it. I think I will say one more thing.

This is not to say that we shouldn't have discussions like that we shouldn't have a difference. This is totally fine.

We're not talking about constructive discussion exactly.

But those things have a reason right? We're just trying to share our different points of view. But if you're definite that my way is the only good way and I hate everything else, That's when it becomes a problem. And a whole lot of posts are like that exactly everything is wrong, only my way is good.

This is the real.

There's a clear distinction between very constructive discussions and people providing different points of view, which is fine and it's necessary. But if you're just out there to pick a battle with other people, especially competitors, it's like you can do focus.

On so much mind space. Also I'm always like, I don't know, we get copied a lot, so I make a post and it's it's really a fun game. My employers like post every time in slack when they see a copy of my post and it's like, it's sometimes, it's crazy, but I find it really funny. I'm like, yeah, keep them going and I'm like, yeah, I gotta stay innovative, I gotta do good stuff, keep always be ahead and don't start like I don't know hating on competitors and be like stop copying my stuff, but we gotta jump into your best, like discipline commenting, yeah, so when I scroll through my feet, yeah, and I'm reading a post, I'm like poo poo. What can I comment there so can you, can you walk us through Like how many comments per day? How do you come up with ideas like where do you comment? Do you comment like on everyone? Or how does it work So what.

I'm doing in the background is, I'm finding a post that I'm supposed to publish on Thursday, so in two days of record of us recording this, yeah. And I have so here's the I.

Want the magic formula, yeah, just the.

Backtrack, OK, just a backtrack. If you have any one of these complaints, like I'm scrolling through my feed and it's not inspiring enough or I don't know which people to follow right or my feed is just not optimized. I don't know where to comment. I don't know how to comment. Chances are it's not that you don't know how to comment. It's that the content you're seeing in your feed is not prompting you to comment. It's not you.

It's them usually perfect. I'm relieved.

Yeah, so I wrote a post about this and I can read it to you out loud. I don't mind I'll read the entire post. It's a short one. So here's the post and feel free to include the screenshot Like for The people on YouTube for example. So every time I share this advice, you guys get mad. Unfollow more people quotes. I don't know which people to follow. I don't know where to comment. My feed is not that optimized. Close quotes. Chances are. You already follow enough people. Which means chances are you also follow a few of the wrong ones. Unfollowing someone lets you. Number one have a much more relevant feed, number two comment way more plus more effectively and three tell the algorithm. What else to recommend to you plus enjoy LinkedIn that much more. Thank me later psychological My rule is out of ten posts in my feed. I need to be able to comment on at least nine. Is this true for you?

And it's really like that your feed looks like this. You really log in and you're able.

To comment on given time during the day I kid you really I can log in. I'm happy to share my screen right there. I can log in first, ten, twenty thirty posts. I can comment on at least twenty five of them.

That's that's such a but that approach and I never heard it like this.

Looks like and it really happened with again. Me unfollowing a whole lot of people and I always say to people if my content is not inspiring to you unfollow me please. Yeah, like unfollow me. It's actually going to help me because I like to make this argument of you know red and green. Like negative impressions and positive impressions or views that are good or views that are bad. Like for example, if you see my content, but you're not reacting to it, you're not leaving a like. You're not leaving a comment. You're not doing anything. LinkedIn's going to count that impression, but it's going to be in the negative one. They saw it. They didn't react to it, meaning they didn't find it interesting. But if you never see the post, that means I have one less negative reaction now. Imagine, if you know a whole lot of people who are not engaging with your content ever, they're just you know reading it and they're like, ah, this is not for me, why not? Just unfollow the person. If you never actually engage with someone's content, it's okay to unfollow someone, also down the line, it's okay to refollow them again, right? Like just it's it's a cycle. A whole lot of people will go through these content cycles. It's not every single year that they're going to be in the same mind space, right? That they're going to be in the same stage of their business. The content strategy is going to change, People's topics are going to change, people are going to sell more, they're going to sell less, people are going to be more informative, they're going to be more angry in their content, less angry in their content, people change and that's totally fine. But that doesn't mean, you have to follow someone forever, just because you're connected with them or you've been following them for years again. Unfollowing people allows you to have a much more relevant feed and it also tells the algorithm. Hey, this person does not want to see this. So let me recommend them more content that they might want to see. So in the end, what you get after a couple of weeks or months most most likely, What you're going to get is a much more optimized feed. So that anytime you log into LinkedIn, almost all the posts in your feed are actually worth commenting on. So that is where I would start this discussion around commenting, So the first problem is, I don't know where, like I don't know who to comment on this. Probably why you need you need better content in your feed, or when I say better, I really mean more relevant.

To you, more relevant, right?

And then commenting is easier like commenting at scale commenting really well, like leaving super insightful comments or cracking jokes with people, really letting your personality shine, Like you know, humor is a great way to let your personality shine and let people see more than just the business person behind the profile, right? They start to connect to you on a more human level, so yeah, But it all starts with an optimized feed.

To be fair and do you have like, How does it look like and your day look like? Do you have like blockers for commenting? Or how do you manage to? And how many comments do you do per day? Do you have like average.

That's a great question, man. That's a great question. I recently actually published a post. We can probably include it in the show. I recently published a post that walks you through my ENTIRE Schedule on LinkedIn. Like from the morning till the you know late evening. And again my sort of devotion to LinkedIn is probably different. Than yours or like the second person, the third person. Because I'm running A business on LinkedIn and to make matters more interesting. It is a LinkedIn coaching business, right? So me being on LinkedIn helps my business, right? So me spending two three four hours per day commenting on LinkedIn, engaging with my community under my own posts and sending DM's and actually talking to people privately, It makes sense for you. It doesn't have to be three four hours. It could be one hour, it could be forty five minutes. But time blocking, as you mentioned earlier, is a crucial thing. I wrote a post late twenty twenty three. It went super viral around the topic of LinkedIn hour in your work calendar. A whole lot of people talk about consistency, consistency, consistency. But it's very hard to stay consistent on LinkedIn.

When you don't have it on your.

Don't have a schedule, Yeah. Especially again if you want to stay consistent, that means you have to do it daily, you have to do it repeatedly. There has to be a pattern where you're doing something day in and day out. And if you're just doing it ad hoc randomly, it's not going to happen So what I tell people is put LinkedIn in your calendar, quite literally. Pick a time when you're supposed to publish a post. It could be daily, it could be three times per week. It doesn't even matter, right? But pick a time for me that time is twelve thirty everyone in my home knows, everyone around me knows at twelve twenty. I'm sitting down. Behind my laptop. Do not touch me, right? I got to show time. Yeah, it's showtime, quite literally. And I have a whole hour dedicated only to commenting under my own post. Meaning responding replying to people and actually building those relationships, so that down the line. When you consistently see thousand comments, fifteen hundred comments, two thousand comments on every single post. It's not a fluke, it's not luck. It's me actually having invested hours years of my time-building relationships with people. So that they keep coming back and they know they're always going to get something valuable under my posts, whether it's from me or someone else so many. And this is, this is the amazing thing about community. Robert When you're building something great where people support each other, where people respect each other something that's not built on negativity, you kind of start to become this catalyst for people to do more things than just read your posts. People are landing jobs, people are landing clients, people are meeting their peers and you know, friends and competitors. People are getting free information, free materials, free access to things all because they know every single day, if they read that post, they're going to find so many other people engaging, so many other people willing to share just because they know, if they follow this particular creator, they're probably a certain type of person and me promoting sharing everything being kind to people, being positive at all times, it's going to attract a similar type of persona as well. So this is the beautiful thing about community, right when you're somewhere every single day supporting others, there is no way that they don't keep coming back to you to support you back. And this is how you, also you know, grow your following, but also grow your engagement. You always have it consistent. It Doesn't fluctuate with algorithm. Changes like it's. Just there because people know when to come there, I always give the example of the news in most countries on TV the news, the big news on TV Start at seven PM and you. Know everyone and their mother, your grandpa, your grandma, your family, everyone is sitting in front of the TV at six fifty nine. Why? Because they know the news is starting to everyone wants to watch the news. Same Goes for your LinkedIn Hour. If you're there at a specific time, publishing at a specific time, You're going to build this culture of engaging with people. Not just for them, but also for you. You're going to have a much more enjoyable LinkedIn experience. When you just go in you're consistently doing it and you go out. And it also really helps relieve your mind because you're not connected to a particular metric. You're connected to impacting people, you're connected to connecting with people. I know that sounded like a wordplay. I didn't plan for it, but it's yeah, it just came out like that.

But it's really, it's really. I have the feeling that you're at. I don't know, I don't think that you weren't at a happy place last time, but it sounds like that you're.

Right now at I was happy last time as well.

Yeah, you were. But it's really nice. I have the feeling that what you just said before you realize this community aspect of your being on LinkedIn, I have the feeling I think yeah, this is something that is really nice, because most of people really like push their content, their commenting and stuff like that. But I think you really realize that you're touching lives with the stuff that you're doing and I think that's the best thing that you can realize as a creator to nurture really this and keep going growing right.

Most most definitely man. And thank you for introducing a new topic in my world, which is community. I'm actually launching, see how I just went into it. Yeah, there we go go ahead. I'm learning my sales process as you see I've improved as well. So I'm launching my own Community on LinkedIn. Private, exclusive to all my followers. It's going to Be a paid subscription model. So all the things we share on LinkedIn. I try to make it as short and as actionable as possible right? But in the community I'm going to be focused on making it super long and super detailed as possible. But also you're going to have a very exclusive group of people, so if you feel lost within thousands and thousands and thousands of people engaging, you're going to feel more connected to the people, especially in your niche, because I'm going to have subgroups for people in different niches. I'm going to have challenges. I'm going to have different topics, different presentations for different types of groups. So I'm really looking to create something unique where people are not just mentored by me, people are not just you know there to just. Have access to my information or whatever my insights. You know, you can get that probably somewhere else. My whole thing with the communities, man just to take it to the next level, because I feel like we're also limited with the things we can do on the platform, just because it's posting and you're out posting and you're out with the community. It's twenty four, seven We can create something beautiful. Everyone has access to everyone and it's just something that's for the long term right? And I'm very much looking forward to it. You know, all the trainings, all the sessions, all the workshops just helping people reach that next stage man, I feel like it's going to be coaching on steroids. I coach people one on one, I coach teams, I travel the world, I go to conferences, I host these workshops, but I feel like I'm so excited about the community aspect of it, Just because I know all the things that I still haven't shared, even though I'm sharing everything. There's just, you know so many things I can only put in one post, so there's so many things I still want to share and teach people so yeah, man paid community, it's coming. If you're listening to this, just shoot me a message, check it out, I'll tell you more.

Yeah, from my own experience, I think for almost a year we have a paid community for these topics and it's one of the most fulfilling things that I have done in my life I think, because it's such cool people. We do great workshops, we do great experience with the people they really like. Do so much stuff together and it's so nice to see that you don't have to do all this stuff, but they teach each other all this stuff and give each other feedback and stuff like that. Do it. Yeah, it's really happy that you finally make this step and this is something, Jay, I really want to dive into because you have now today a really like lean setup for getting clients right People go on your profile and I think they book a call or they write and they shoot you a message and say, hey, I don't know. Jay, I have the feeling that you can help me. Do you have a feeling when do you get the most like bookings? Is there a correlation between like is it in the messages where you convert people most of the people or is it really if you go, if you have like a viral post, a lot of people go on your profile and book a call or do you have a feeling like when people are like have enough trust to book you that would be really interesting?

I feel like with me it's a mixture of things, just because I apply all the strategies. I'm not just leaning on one in particular. So I know for a fact, I get a whole lot of clients only through my commenting bits, just because people might see something super insightful, which is how I strategically make it out to be right? I'm not just out there commenting for the sake of it, for the sake of just boosting my comment count during the day. Like for quantity, no, I'm actually focused on writing these super insightful, sometimes super long comments and that gets people interested to come to my profile and then the profile super optimize the banner speaking right to you the link right there in front of you, you scroll a bit down the featured section beautifully designed the link again right there, super clickable, so you know the profile optimization. That's always number one. But I feel like when I'm commenting, I'm strategically approaching it. I know people are going to see it, prospects are going to see it. So I want that to feel like a preview of the coaching. I also feel like content itself. It has to be related to the coaching that you're doing so, even though you're sharing a free bit of advice. Kind of just want to make it feel like. Damn if this is what I'm getting out of someone's free content like imagine if I just pay for an hour of their time or for the coaching program, how much like how many other things I'm actually going to learn how much I will still be able to improve and that's what's happening actually like people are paying for the coaching for the power hours or for the full coaching program or for retainer coaching and then I'm just their brand coach for months. And years.

Yeah, nice.

They're learning a whole lot more than just in the in the posts, but I'm also utilizing the DMs, which is you know method. Number three we're talking about number one commenting number two you know the content itself. Number three DM's I start myself like I initiate a whole lot of conversations with people based on either the connection request that I receive. I don't send that many connection requests just because. I'm too busy responding to my own. I got like twenty thousand I kid you not every single day. I'll just scroll. I'll try to accept like ten fifteen new people into. The network just because there's so many. I can't possibly accept everyone. So I'm very cautious about you know accepting, you know the right prospects, people that are relevant to my niche, you know peers and things like that. So yeah, me initiating those conversations will either lead to a networking opportunity, maybe a sponsored you know post, maybe a sponsorship opportunity, maybe a speaking gig, maybe something else down the line or it may result in a client. But I'm also very much focused on the people who are asking the questions under my posts. So I'll sometimes just tell them Hey, you know we can talk about this furthermore like just shoot me a DM and they do, they really do like they'll shoot me to Hey, I'm coming from your post, we talk about it. Blah, blah, blah. One call is all it takes. They book a call and then they end up, you know booking another one Or they jump into the coaching program. But I feel like if you're, if you're putting all your eggs into one basket, it's always going to be a hit or miss strategy just because I don't know. I kind of have this unique take on LinkedIn, where I don't feel like. One approach is necessarily better or more effective than the other one, Just because every single one, all three of these that I've mentioned you know, commenting strategically writing content, strategically dming people, strategically. All of them have you know good and bad sides. So it's really more about doing all the things, but doing all the things right, Or choosing what to do like. Some people don't want to focus on a whole lot of posts, they just publish one or two posts per week. Some people don't leave fifty or you know one hundred comments per day. They'll just leave five or ten, fine, but make sure that whatever you are doing to convert followers or people, regular people into clients, make sure you're doing it right, because a whole lot of people are just doing it for the quantity do not ever follow that path, just because quality will you know. I mean, you know I don't, I feel like we don't even need to say it, but quality over quantity one hundred percent, one hundred percent.

Yeah, we had some people that really like get approach from agencies and these agencies offered to don't do any content at all and we shoot like five hundred messages Per week on LinkedIn to cold people. And I'm like there is so much.

What'S the return on that? What's the return? Exactly like everything has a drop.

They were so frustrated because they were like, I don't know they made like three appointments or something and these people were ice cold. Yeah, they didn't know where they were and they didn't buy obviously. And I was like there is so much wrong and they figured like LinkedIn is not working. For us. And I'm like you're doing everything wrong you could do wrong on this platform.

Absolutely, man, absolutely same goes for writing posts right. It's like with cold DM's you can send. Five hundred messages and only one might work, yeah, and you'll be spending hours. I don't care if you're doing it or if you know a VA is doing it or an agency is doing it, Someone is going to be spending those hours, right? But let's say you spend fifteen twenty minutes writing a post. And that particular post brings in a client. You're like. Oh, let me just do this every single day, sure. But after a while like certain posts won't work, like they won't bring in a client. So you always have to focus on doing a combination of all three of the these things, right? Commenting strategically, posting strategically and dming people strategically. And again there's a strategy for all these things. I like in my keynotes, I have this one slide, where I always say, everyone's trying to sell you a solution, like a quick hacker something, a tool that's gonna solve all your problems. I'm not here to sell you a solution. I'm here to sell you a strategy. That is my approach. I don't care about solutions. I care about strategies because I feel like solutions, their bold promises, usually for the short term strategies are very trustworthy for the long term and you learn it as a skill. So you know, it's always going to serve you, whether it's LinkedIn or some other platform down the line strategies, not solutions for sure.

Yeah, I'm with you on the last like note. I would love to see your perspective on a little bit more on content because I have the feeling. And I had a discussion with a client of and he was doing really like good content. I would call it like good content, but it was not really standing out. So I made a post for example. And he said, I don't know how you did it. Robert I shared a story that I ate like I'm still eating meat and eggs for a whole month, just that nothing else. And I don't know if it's a huge trend in your country. But in Germany, if you're eating meat, you're like one of the worst people. And I was like, yeah, I'm just eating meat and eggs for a month.

Is the meat country? No problem? Barbecue pies, yeah.

But in Germany, it would be like. All our clients would be afraid to share it because of the negative response. And I'm so, I'm so, yeah, I do it for a long time now. I'm really easy with it. But I have this feeling. These posts really stick with people. So they remind me of this he's that crazy meat guy or something? And he lives in Spain and has a dog? And stuff like that. Do you teach something to your clients? Like to be more like dry, three dimensional or something Because I have the feeling a lot of people lack this. Like these personal facts that people want to hear.

Oh, absolutely man. There's a simple trap you can fall into as a personal brand or as a creator, especially on LinkedIn. If you're writing posts solely for the purpose of informing others, educating others, you're gonna fall into this trap of becoming an informational brand. No personality, no emotion, nothing to connect with, But if every, now and then you throw in a personal story not just informational personal, right? Something that happened at the office, Something that happened on a client call, something that happened out in the world randomly, and you had a lesson from that. You want to share it with the world That's going to connect you a whole lot more to the other person on the other end of that screen, Just because stories are relatable. Information oftentimes is new and you can't necessarily relate to it just because it is new. But stories, chances are. It's happened to many, many people out there. Or they can just create their own version of that same story in a different scenario, in their own lives, in their own businesses. Stories make you more relatable, but stories also make you more personable. Which when you really think about it personal brand, the word personal is in it like it has to get personal at a certain point. You have to give your brand not just information. You have to provide people with a certain level of emotion, a certain level of person ability, a certain level of relatability, right? And there's so many different ways you can do this. There's storytelling techniques. One of my favorite ones is always going to be transformation. You know, I went from this to that, and this is how I went through it, right? Or this is how I got to it. This is what happened at the very beginning. Here's a lesson from the very beginning. This is what happened at the very end. Here's a lesson from the very end, right? Ten years from now. Here's what I wish I would have done differently. All of these things, Yeah, here's, here's the kicker. Though psychologically speaking, you can't find these anywhere else. You can't google this stuff. Information you can google it. You can ask AI. But these personal stories they keep people glued to the screen more often than not. Just because you can't possibly Google that it's your story and it's yours to tell, right? So don't just become an infer informational brand. Just don't fall into that trap. Try to give your brand some more personality. And this goes The same for business pages on LinkedIn as well.

A whole lot of things right?

Have zero personality. Zero personality whatsoever. So no tone of voice whatsoever. It's like drab Bland content, very AI written.

Just like PR content on Tuesday.

We had another successful event. I'm like goodness, right? Just at least give me something, at least give me some sort of emotion, one phrase like just say something you know, But yeah, person ability, you know, It has a lot to do with relatability and I have this quote and has been quoted left and right in a whole lot of podcasts, magazines, newspapers that I like to say, which is on LinkedIn. People may come for your content, but they stay for you. So give them that they stay for you for sure, especially for the long term.

So yeah, I, that's really the best word to end this interview. I think, yeah, I'm really excited. There were some nice tips in there and jay tell us when and where to find this community and where can people like get in touch with you? Where is the best place? Maybe IT starts with LinkedIn.

Yeah, thank you. So I've only made one announcement so far. I don't know when this is airing by the way. So I've only made one announcement on a LinkedIn Live Event that I've done. I had three thousand people there and those are the only people who have actually had like a link where they could have gone and they had to fill out this questionnaire, you know this? And that I'm yet to make a final announcement like an official announcement on LinkedIn. So you can either dm me right away and I'll send you the link or you can wait follow me on LinkedIn and then wait. For the official announcement. You're going to get all the details. Either way the community is going to be awesome. I'm very excited about it. I already know. Just because people are asking and they've been asking for ages and years now I already know. There's going to be a whole lot of people in it. Good people, good business people, great learners, great students, you know? And yeah, again the word excited. I'm just excited about it, man, you know, just it's it's it's it's things coming full circle for me And for my brand and for my community people have been asking for this, wanting this. So I'm just here to give the people what they want and then more of it. So follow.

The official official announcement and then we put it under this interview. Thank you so much for your time. I learned a lot today It was.

A pleasure, always a pleasure, man. And let's hope we do part three very soon.

Absolutely we'll do that.

Thank you, man. Good luck.

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