If you were at IMEX Frankfurt, I made you a promise...

I promised to send you a chunky Q&A of all the questions you asked.

I got so hyped up hearing how many of you wanted to start posting on LinkedIn... whether you were in a company, running a company or a solo operator.

And your timing couldn't be more perfect.

LinkedIn is going through an exciting change right now.

It started, as you know, as a dead boring graveyard of job posts and corporate vomit.

Then around the pandemic, creators came over and started to build huge audiences (100K+).

People took note and flung together digital products, newsletters and followings around the best hooks to go viral, frameworks to get the likes, breakdowns to study.

Then with ChatGPT and Claude, those same people started stuffing AI prompts with 'here is my viral post structure, now write me a post'.

Surprise, surprise, every post started sounding the same.

I mean how many 'brutal truths' have you read about lately or '[not so interesting thing] stopped me cold'..... I mean who even says that.

I'm not going to lie, I became obsessed with these frameworks and post structures and fed them into AI too.

I thought they'd get my clients (and me) the best results. They kinda did, but not for long.

Now things are very different.

You know what content is killing it?

Personal storiessssss.... the scrappier the better.

For example... instead of sharing 5 leadership lessons (that most people have heard 237 times), start with something like....

The other day I said something to my team that I instantly regretted.

Now doesn't that sound more intriguing than a boring list of lessons?

So that is my first piece of advice.

(1) Lean into your own stories. And if you think you don't have any or yours aren't interesting enough, you are wrong.

Take 5 minutes at lunchtime to write down a few ideas, thoughts, things you're working on, feedback you just received. Your next post lives in there somewhere.

(2) Write to one person - the person you want to attract. Maybe that's the person you want to hire you, the decision maker who'll say yes to the sale, the investor you want onboard. Feel free to even call them out in your post like I did here.

(3) If you do 'lots of things', you have to pick one. Probably not what you want to hear, but the last thing you want is for someone to come to your profile and go 'wait... what?... wtf do they do?'. Because they're not sticking around to figure it out. Pick a lane and stay there.

(4) There is no wrong or right time to post. Don't listen to the people who say you have to post at 8am CT every day. Post whenever you can at a cadence you can manage for months, not days.

(5) If your posts have paragraphs chunkier than Ben & Jerries chunky monkey, start to split. You don't have to have one sentence per line, but at least create short, 3-4 line paragraphs so your readers don't run at the sight of your essay.

(6) Do not, for the love of god, use AI pics or stock images. This was cool for about 2.34 seconds, but now it's cringe. The best photos you can use are scrappy, in the moment pics like these. It's about being real and relatable.

(7) The hook is your first 220 characters (basically first 3 lines of text). This is where you should spend most of your time writing. Because if you can't grab a reader in those 3 lines, they won't read any further.

Now that you know this, pay attention to the posts you personally read in full. What did they say in their hook that made you stick around? Try something similar in your next post.

(8) Write casually. Don't say 'thrilled to announce' or use fancy words like juxtaposition. Think of the person you want to attract and pretend you're telling them the story at a coffee shop. Write the way you would say it out loud to a friend.

(9) Your 'about section' is your chance to be memorable. Do NOT list every award, milestone or certification you ever achieved. Keep it to about 200 words and just tell a story.

Why you got into the work you did, something crazy that happened that got you the job, how you help people today. My favourite of all time is Cole Schafer's. So much so that I modelled my own off his.

(10) Don't get caught up in likes. It'll be your biggest downfall. Likes aren't the metric to measure anymore. LinkedIn is full of lurkers. You never know who's reading your stuff and when they'll eventually reach out to you.

For example, this post got 3 likes. You might look at that and think 'can't be a good post then!' But you know what this 'failed post' got me? It got me 3 inbound DMs enquiring about my services and one client closed — a 5-figure deal. This is now my 'best' post.

(11) Last and most importantly, don't overthink it. If reading this email has already stressed you out, just forget it all.

You have one goal.... just post!