The 4-Step Formula to Go Viral on LinkedIn (2025 Masterclass) | Hala Taha

The 4-Step Formula to Go Viral on LinkedIn (2025 Masterclass) | Hala Taha

Released Tuesday, 15th April 2025
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The 4-Step Formula to Go Viral on LinkedIn (2025 Masterclass) | Hala Taha

The 4-Step Formula to Go Viral on LinkedIn (2025 Masterclass) | Hala Taha

The 4-Step Formula to Go Viral on LinkedIn (2025 Masterclass) | Hala Taha

The 4-Step Formula to Go Viral on LinkedIn (2025 Masterclass) | Hala Taha

Tuesday, 15th April 2025
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Episode Transcript

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0:00

Hey everyone, if you've got a business, an

0:02

amazing place to grow it is on LinkedIn.

0:04

And today we are joined by

0:06

one of the top LinkedIn influencers.

0:08

Her name's Hollah Hollah, and she

0:10

has this incredible, and I mean

0:12

incredible, best I have seen, four-step

0:15

formula for going viral on LinkedIn.

0:17

And she is not only gonna

0:19

break down that formula for us,

0:21

but she's gonna give us all

0:23

the kind of behind the scenes,

0:25

packs, and tips, that. Most people

0:27

don't ever talk about. We're talking

0:29

DM strategy, engagement strategies, how you

0:31

actually bucket time in your day

0:33

to make your posts on LinkedIn

0:35

go viral. And of course, because it's

0:37

our show, she's gonna cover AI and

0:39

how to use AI to do all

0:41

of this. Let's get into today's episode.

0:45

We'll be back to the pod in just

0:47

a minute, but first I want to tell

0:49

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1:55

Hey kept super excited for

1:57

this conversation as well. We're gonna

1:59

talk all. things LinkedIn today because you

2:01

are somebody who has built an amazing

2:04

following on LinkedIn. You've built your business

2:06

from an amazing amount of success that

2:08

you've had on LinkedIn and LinkedIn is

2:10

a remarkable channel that I think most

2:13

people under rate and under appreciate. You

2:15

know, give us a little bit of

2:17

background here for everybody. How do you

2:20

look at LinkedIn? How did you decide

2:22

to go all in on that platform?

2:24

And how does that work for you?

2:26

And then we're going to kind of

2:29

get into the nuts and bolts of

2:31

how we can help everybody do it

2:33

themselves. Yeah. LinkedIn is an amazing underrated

2:35

platform. LinkedIn is so amazing for people

2:38

who want to grow personal brands, who

2:40

are entrepreneurs, who are professionals who want

2:42

to advance in their careers. And the

2:44

thing that makes LinkedIn different from other

2:47

social media platforms is for business, number

2:49

one, people are primed to be in

2:51

sales mode. on LinkedIn. So when they're

2:53

on LinkedIn, they're trying to figure out

2:56

how to solve their problems. They want

2:58

to educate themselves. They're looking up sales

3:00

reps that they might be speaking to.

3:03

They are in the mode of wanting

3:05

to figure out the solution to their

3:07

problem, and so they're more responsive if

3:09

you damn them, if you connect with

3:12

them, and you want to talk business,

3:14

and you want to be... like salesy,

3:16

they're more receptive to that on LinkedIn.

3:18

You've got to do it in a

3:21

way that, you know, shows that you

3:23

have common ground and there's some ways

3:25

that you can do it without being

3:27

spammy, but you can sell really effectively

3:30

on LinkedIn because people are really in

3:32

the mode to learn how to solve

3:34

their problems on LinkedIn. So that's number

3:37

one. Number two is that it is

3:39

really a platform that has low competition

3:41

in general. So for example, I'm an

3:43

influencer on LinkedIn. I have over 260,000

3:46

followers. And on Instagram, I have about

3:48

150,000 followers. But the people that I'm

3:50

competing with on LinkedIn are completely different

3:52

than Instagram. So I'm getting as much

3:55

visibility. as Gary V and Damon John

3:57

and Alex Romose on LinkedIn. I'm literally

3:59

competing with the people that are at

4:01

the top, top, top of my field

4:04

on LinkedIn because there's just less competition

4:06

overall on the platform, right? Where on

4:08

Instagram, I have a decent following, but

4:11

I'm nowhere near competing, you know, the

4:13

top influencers on Instagram, for example. It's

4:15

just so much more competition, okay? The

4:17

other thing is that it's completely, in

4:20

my opinion, a hackable algorithm to a

4:22

point. It's an algorithm that still has

4:24

a lot of organic reach, that if

4:26

you understand how the algorithm works, you

4:29

can go viral. And it's basically a

4:31

formula that you need to learn. You

4:33

just need to learn the rules, and

4:35

you'll do really well on LinkedIn. So

4:38

for these reasons, I really focused on

4:40

LinkedIn. When I first started my personal

4:42

brand and my podcast and my company,

4:45

I didn't worry about any other platforms.

4:47

I knew that young professionals, my podcast

4:49

is young and profiting, would be on

4:51

LinkedIn, and I just focused there. you

4:54

just gave everybody a master class and

4:56

the importance of focus too. I see

4:58

so many people who try to be

5:00

on every platform and just do a

5:03

little bit everywhere and you took the

5:05

exact opposite strategy which is the right

5:07

one which is like hey I'm gonna

5:09

go all in on one particular platform

5:12

and be really successful there. But I

5:14

know everybody watching is just like wait

5:16

wait wait a second she just said

5:18

that she has a viral content formula

5:21

I like formulas I want to know

5:23

how to make my content better. explain

5:25

to everybody the LinkedIn algorithm rules the

5:28

road and then how you use that

5:30

to actually have a formula to be

5:32

successful on LinkedIn. Sure. So really it's

5:34

a four-step algorithm and I learned about

5:37

this algorithm through my own posting. I've

5:39

been posting on LinkedIn for seven years.

5:41

I also run like over 20 influencer

5:43

accounts. I have the number one LinkedIn

5:46

marketing agency and we focus on CEOs

5:48

and influencers and celebrities and I have

5:50

a LinkedIn master class course where I'm

5:52

constantly getting feedback from my students and

5:55

I've had hundreds of students that have

5:57

gone through the course. Now the thing

5:59

that you need to. understand about the

6:02

algorithm is that it does not change

6:04

fast. Okay? So it is a version

6:06

of the algorithm that I was using

6:08

seven years ago and it changes over

6:11

time. And LinkedIn is like

6:13

any other social media platform

6:15

like Instagram and so on.

6:17

There's people that are actually

6:19

on LinkedIn looking for content.

6:22

I say this specifically because a lot of

6:24

people feel like LinkedIn is a platform

6:26

just to get a job, but people

6:28

are scrolling and looking at content. There's

6:30

135 million daily active users on LinkedIn

6:32

who are looking at content. And LinkedIn

6:34

has an algorithm like every other social

6:37

media algorithm, but the thing you need

6:39

to realize with LinkedIn is that they

6:41

have two different business models in the

6:43

ways that they make money. So number

6:45

one is through advertising. So they want

6:47

to keep people on LinkedIn for as

6:49

long as possible. And number two. they

6:52

have a job functionality similar to

6:54

a different recruiter and indeed. So

6:56

they're trying to help people get

6:58

jobs. So those are their two

7:00

key priorities in terms of making

7:02

money. And so they've designed their

7:05

algorithm around that. Okay. So

7:07

there's a four-step algorithm. Number one

7:09

is the spam filter stage. So

7:11

essentially when you first put up

7:13

some content, LinkedIn, tools. their machine

7:16

learning, their algorithm is scanning your

7:18

post, and it's making sure that

7:20

you don't have things that are

7:22

considered spammy in their eyes. So

7:24

what that includes is profanity, nudity,

7:27

things that might be offensive, like

7:29

keywords that are flagged as like

7:31

offensive, if you put your phone

7:33

number, if you put your email,

7:35

then there's some less obvious things

7:38

like tagging more than five people

7:40

using more than five hashtags, putting

7:43

multiple links in your post. Okay,

7:45

in addition to this, there

7:47

are other spam filters where

7:49

basically LinkedIn has different

7:52

categories of spam filters.

7:54

So there's low, high, and

7:57

like medium, right? So it's low

7:59

quality. high quality and like medium

8:01

quality, right? In terms of how they're

8:03

rating your content initially during the spam

8:06

filter phase. So if you have nudity,

8:08

profanity, whatever, it's just like low quality.

8:10

You're going to get very low visibility.

8:13

If you are in the medium quality,

8:15

it's things like the overtagging, the too

8:17

many links, and things like big, chunky

8:20

paragraphs. So that's why on LinkedIn you

8:22

see this line by line style that

8:24

a lot of the influencers use because

8:26

you actually don't want to have big

8:29

chunky paragraphs. LinkedIn knows that people are

8:31

scanning their content. They want to be

8:33

entertained when they're on social media. They

8:36

don't want to be lectured. So if

8:38

you have big chunky content paragraphs that

8:40

people don't want to read and on

8:43

social media, one or two sentences is

8:45

a paragraph. Right? So you just want

8:47

to have line by line. So that's

8:50

a spam filter, right? You get basically

8:52

qualified as low quality, medium quality, high

8:54

quality. So if you're in the medium

8:57

to high, you move on to the

8:59

next stage, which is the user flagging

9:01

stage. And essentially, this is just ensuring

9:04

that LinkedIn didn't catch anything that like

9:06

through their AI and their machines that

9:08

they didn't miss something. And so this

9:11

is an opportunity for like 30 to

9:13

90 minutes where LinkedIn is basically testing

9:15

your post. How many people are engaging?

9:17

Are people reporting it? Are people flagging

9:20

it? Is it getting fast engagement? Right.

9:22

LinkedIn. And at this stage, it's really

9:24

important to get a lot of engagement.

9:27

So you want to get as many

9:29

people who are first connections who are

9:31

liking and commenting on your post at

9:34

this stage. Okay? Got it. So that's

9:36

why engagement pods still work on LinkedIn.

9:38

So I know I'm talking a lot.

9:41

But hold on engagement pods is a

9:43

cool concept. Explain for engagement pods and

9:45

how you get that engagement in that

9:48

first 90 minutes before we go on

9:50

to the next two steps. Yeah. Yeah,

9:52

and sorry I'm talking a lot, it's

9:55

just like a complex algorithm, so I'm

9:57

just trying to get there. Okay, so

9:59

engagement pause. essentially is any sort of

10:01

platform off LinkedIn. Here's the key. It

10:04

has to be off LinkedIn for it

10:06

to be considered an engagement pot. It's

10:08

actually against terms of service to do

10:11

this on LinkedIn through like a group

10:13

chat or something like this. So it

10:15

has to be on like WhatsApp or

10:18

Facebook group or Slack, right? And it's

10:20

another platform that is not LinkedIn where

10:22

you're sharing links with other users. And

10:25

you guys are basically using the law

10:27

of reciprocity. I put my link, you

10:29

like in climate, you put your length,

10:32

I like in common, right? Now, a

10:34

lot of people feel like this is

10:36

cheating, but it's not. No. It is

10:39

not against terms of service and in

10:41

fact I've created amazing communities using engagement

10:43

pods and the key is you want

10:46

to make sure that there's a reason

10:48

why you guys are following each other

10:50

that you guys have similar audiences that

10:52

you're in the same niche in the

10:55

same field you guys actually are going

10:57

to support you're not using AI tools

10:59

it's real humans as long as that's

11:02

the case you guys are first connections

11:04

it is not against terms of service

11:06

and LinkedIn actually likes it because they

11:09

want to bring people from Facebook onto

11:11

LinkedIn from slash onto LinkedIn from what's

11:13

up they want to bring more users

11:16

to their platform their goal is to

11:18

keep as many users on their platform

11:20

for as long as possible so not

11:23

against terms of service and very encouraged

11:25

so for example talking about podcasts on

11:27

LinkedIn. Why don't I invite them into

11:30

a WhatsApp group and start an engagement

11:32

pot? And so we did that. We

11:34

all started liking and commenting on each

11:36

other's links. And then we started hosting

11:39

clubhouse rooms together, going to conferences together,

11:41

becoming friends, sharing notes, and helped us

11:43

in multiple ways starting this community. So

11:46

engagement pods are great. You just have

11:48

to know how to do them right.

11:50

Okay, love that. So to break it

11:53

down to start for the first two

11:55

parts of this, you want high quality

11:57

non-spammy content, short paragraphs, well formatted, not

12:00

too many hashtags. you want to get

12:02

engagement in that first 90 minutes, an

12:04

engagement pod, and that could be a

12:07

what's app, a text thread, a slack

12:09

group, anything to kind of get people

12:11

engaging on your content early on. Like

12:14

if you're doing those things, you're probably

12:16

already ahead of 95% of the people

12:19

on LinkedIn are better, right? Yes,

12:21

100%. Something else that you want

12:23

to consider in these two stages

12:25

is also keywords. Okay, now so

12:27

this is something new that has

12:30

been developed with the algorithm over

12:32

the last two, three years, right?

12:34

So all the social media platforms

12:37

are really moving towards this interest-based

12:39

algorithms. Okay, where every user basically

12:41

has an interest cloud. So I'll

12:43

give myself, for example, they have...

12:46

keywords associated with my account like

12:48

these are the things that hala

12:50

talks about these are the things

12:52

that hala engages with and I've

12:54

got keywords associated with my account

12:56

and that allows LinkedIn to know

12:58

what post to serve me okay

13:00

so based on what I engage

13:02

with based on what I talk

13:05

about it also allows them to

13:07

define me as an expert or

13:09

not which is a key factor in the

13:11

algorithm when they're serving content

13:13

to other users. Okay, so if

13:16

I talk about entrepreneurship all the

13:18

time and I've got entrepreneurship all

13:20

over my profile that keyword and

13:22

I talk about Social media and

13:24

marketing all the time and those

13:26

keywords are also infused on my

13:28

profile There in my title and

13:30

my bio in my job descriptions

13:32

LinkedIn will deem me as an

13:34

expert on a topic, but now

13:36

if I suddenly start talking about

13:38

painting And I have no keywords and I've

13:40

never talked about it. LinkedIn's going to deprioritize

13:43

serving that post to other users who want

13:45

to see stuff about painting because they don't

13:47

think that I'm an expert. So there's little

13:49

things like this with the algorithm that I

13:52

can go more deep on as well and

13:54

kind of give you guys some more insight,

13:56

but that also are a factor in these

13:58

first two stages, okay? you kind of own

14:01

your niche. Yes. Not only are you

14:03

focused on LinkedIn, you're focused on one

14:05

or a small group of topics that

14:07

you're going to really own, not just.

14:09

what your content's on, but who you're

14:11

connecting with, the keywords on your profile,

14:14

all, everything is going to be around

14:16

that, right? Yeah, and you want everything

14:18

to connect, you want congruency, you want

14:20

the keywords that you put in your

14:22

posts to also be on your profile,

14:24

and like you said, it doesn't have

14:26

to be one specific topic, but it

14:29

could be like just a couple different

14:31

topics that you've trained the algorithm and

14:33

your audience that this is what I

14:35

talk about. Okay, love it. Okay, so

14:37

the next stage is the really exciting

14:39

stage. So the third stage of the

14:42

algorithm is content scoring. Okay, so essentially

14:44

this is when your post is doing

14:46

really well, you got engagement in the

14:48

first 90 minutes, you didn't get flagged,

14:50

you went through the spam filter, and

14:52

now LinkedIn is really trying to see

14:54

like, do I want this post to

14:57

go viral? And you are getting judged

14:59

based on the amount of engagement that

15:01

you're getting on your post. Now, here

15:03

was a big aha moment for me,

15:05

is that I realized that every single

15:07

engagement on your LinkedIn post is weighted

15:10

differently. And every single engagement has a

15:12

weight associated with it. Every click. So

15:14

if people click read more, that has

15:16

an engagement metric tied to it. If

15:18

people click the like button, that's counted

15:20

as one point at yat media. A

15:22

comment is two points. A long comment

15:25

is two and a half points. A

15:27

share is four points. A share with

15:29

caption is four and a half points.

15:31

So all these different engagements have different

15:33

weights. And basically the higher the weight,

15:35

the more that LinkedIn will push your

15:38

content in the feed. Okay? So your

15:40

goal on LinkedIn, the highest viral action

15:42

is actually to get a share with

15:44

a caption. And then the second highest

15:46

is a share. So your goal as

15:48

a content creator is to get as

15:50

much shares as possible. If you want

15:53

to go viral and you tell people

15:55

to comment, you're not going to go

15:57

viral because that's actually a... pretty low

15:59

kind of action. It's just a couple

16:01

points to get a comment, but shares

16:03

are worth so much more. And also,

16:06

LinkedIn is still like an organic platform

16:08

where LinkedIn actually shares content with users

16:10

based on their interests and based on

16:12

their connections, kind of like how Facebook

16:14

was back in the day. So if

16:16

somebody likes or comments or shares your

16:18

post, their first connections might get a

16:21

notification like, hey, Mary liked Hollis Post.

16:23

They're more likely to see that if

16:25

the user shared it because LinkedIn has

16:27

deemed that a higher viral action. So

16:29

if you share something, they're like 80%

16:31

more likely for your first connections to

16:34

see that you shared that post. And

16:36

that's why shares go viral. Okay? Got

16:38

it. So your goal in this stage

16:40

is to just get as many high

16:42

viral actions as possible. So to be

16:44

successful on this stage, this means that

16:46

you're following has to take viral action,

16:49

has to be interested in what you're

16:51

doing. And you've got to also understand

16:53

DM strategy at this stage, because by

16:55

far, on the post, the highest viral

16:57

action is a share. But on LinkedIn

16:59

itself, the highest viral action is a

17:02

DM. Okay, so if you DM somebody

17:04

and the DM back, they're 85% more

17:06

likely to see your content the next

17:08

time they log on. Okay? That's huge.

17:10

That's huge. I don't think most people

17:12

know that. No. So like that's like

17:14

the secret sauce that you app media

17:17

is that we do DM funnels. For

17:19

example, on LinkedIn, we're doing DM Funnels

17:21

24-7 on my account. I literally have

17:23

people 24 hours a day, virtual assistants,

17:25

who are in my account, who are

17:27

doing DMs 24-7, driving people to my

17:30

podcast, to my webinars, whatever we have

17:32

going on, and same thing for my

17:34

clients. So DM's... There's a lot to

17:36

go through that so we can table

17:38

that after we go through the algorithm,

17:40

but that's also important in this stage.

17:42

If you want to go super viral

17:45

consistently, you've got to have some sort

17:47

of DM strategy going on. Okay, or

17:49

at least help you. You can go

17:51

viral without it, but it can help

17:53

you, okay? Yeah, I mean, with that

17:55

type of content surfacing rate, it's just

17:58

going to be a huge. boost. It's

18:00

just going to make it much easier

18:02

to happen, right? Yeah. There's also some

18:04

things at the stage, like basically like

18:06

engagement hacks that you should be aware

18:08

of, right? So for example, you don't

18:11

want to over comment on your post.

18:13

LinkedIn will consider that spam me. So

18:15

if somebody is commenting on your stuff,

18:17

you actually want to leave the new

18:19

comments unanswered and you want to just

18:22

start with the old comments and always

18:24

have like at least 30 to 20%

18:26

of the comments unanswered. Okay? Also psychologically

18:28

when people go on your page and

18:30

they see all the comments have replies

18:33

back to them, they think the conversation

18:35

is over. So if you want to

18:37

make it look like the conversation is

18:39

not over, you don't want to answer

18:41

the new comments. Okay? All right. So

18:43

that is content scoring. Basically your

18:45

goal is to get as much

18:47

engagement and the highest viral actions

18:49

as possible. All right. The

18:52

last stage is the stage

18:54

where LinkedIn's editors are actually

18:56

reviewing the top content of

18:59

the day. All right? Now you

19:01

can basically hack LinkedIn to

19:03

a point where you're getting

19:05

2,000 to 3,000 likes on

19:07

every post. And this is like

19:10

something that you have control over

19:12

using all these publishing engagement hacks,

19:14

understanding the algorithm. You've got control

19:16

to basically get every post to

19:18

go from 1,000 to 3,000 likes,

19:21

maybe 300 or so comments. You've

19:23

got the control to do that.

19:25

You're saying literally everybody with the

19:27

first three steps you shared could

19:29

make that happen. Everybody can do that.

19:32

Like my students do that. Okay?

19:34

Yep. Now the last stage of this

19:36

algorithm. is that you need to align

19:38

to LinkedIn's editorial agenda. So LinkedIn

19:40

is actually the one that pours

19:42

gasoline on all the super massively

19:44

viral posts like at 30,000 likes,

19:47

50,000 likes, 100,000 likes. And usually

19:49

they have to do with hiring, recruitment,

19:51

promotions, internships, graduation, anything that

19:53

aligns with their editorial agenda

19:56

of being a top job

19:58

site that competes with. indeed

20:00

and zip recruiter and so on. And

20:02

so strategically you want to think about

20:04

what are the keywords that intersect with

20:06

what you want to talk about and

20:08

LinkedIn's editorial agenda, recruitment hiring and so

20:10

on. The other things that can be

20:12

in their editorial agenda sometimes might be

20:14

like news stories, especially if they're positive

20:17

and not controversial. Women's history month, black

20:19

history month, sometimes they're prioritizing mental health,

20:21

right? So like certain topics might be

20:23

pushed by LinkedIn because that's what they

20:25

want to be known for. But really,

20:27

the only way that you can go

20:29

super massively viral at this point on

20:31

LinkedIn is by aligning with their editorial

20:33

agenda and they literally will like turn

20:35

the gasoline on your post and your

20:37

post will go viral for weeks because

20:39

they've decided that's the post that they

20:42

want the most visibility that they want

20:44

the most visibility with. So you're saying

20:46

you can do really well, but if

20:48

you want to be. Like a total

20:50

game changer and get millions of views

20:52

on a post you've got to Understand

20:54

that the LinkedIn humans are trying to

20:56

surface a very specific set of content

20:58

that reinforce the LinkedIn core business model

21:00

Exactly, and every post has a purpose,

21:02

right? Some posts are made for sales,

21:05

and you want to just get comments,

21:07

and you want to engage your first

21:09

connections. Some posts are made to go

21:11

viral, and you want to get a

21:13

lot of second and third connections, looking

21:15

at your post, you want new eyeballs

21:17

on your post. Those are the ones

21:19

that you might want to think about.

21:21

Okay, how do I leverage the algorithm?

21:23

The four steps that Hala just talked

21:25

about, how do I talk about recruitment

21:27

and hiring and careers and entrepreneurship so

21:30

that my post is more likely to

21:32

get picked to get picked to get

21:34

picked up? Right, so every post has

21:36

a purpose. I wouldn't do that for

21:38

every post because you still want to

21:40

have something that you talk about, you

21:42

need to sell, but every post has

21:44

a purpose. I love that. And if

21:46

you're watching or listening to the show,

21:48

you know, we talk about AI a

21:50

ton on the podcast. One of the

21:52

things I would just say based off

21:55

of what you said, it's very easy

21:57

to go on the LinkedIn. editorial staff,

21:59

you could add those to Claude or

22:01

ChatGPT and basically build a little greater

22:03

and say, hey, I'm about to publish

22:05

this post. Do you think based on

22:07

everything that all the context I've given

22:09

you, it would be interesting to the

22:11

editors on LinkedIn? And if that gives

22:13

you a good grade, then you know

22:15

you've got a better chance, right? And

22:17

if it doesn't, then you could kind

22:20

of reassess and ask it questions as

22:22

to like, is the topic off, is

22:24

I'm framing the topic off, things that

22:26

you might want to do to adjust

22:28

that. But I know folks who watch

22:30

our show are used to using AI,

22:32

and that's like a quick way you

22:34

could use AI to do one of

22:36

the core steps in your content formula.

22:44

Okay, so you just shared that amazing, incredible

22:46

four-step content formula of how you go via

22:48

LinkedIn, and you shared like a bunch of

22:51

hacks along the way, which was really awesome.

22:53

And one of those was the DEM strategy,

22:55

and I wanna go more into DEMs, because

22:58

I think when people think of LinkedIn DEMs,

23:00

they think of like, oh man, somebody's just

23:02

trying to sell me something, and I'm just

23:04

getting a bunch of spam on my LinkedIn

23:07

inbox, I never look at that thing. And

23:09

I think you're here to tell us. that's

23:11

actually not the case and it's a much

23:13

more valuable tool than most people realize. Yeah,

23:16

dams are amazing on LinkedIn and we use

23:18

them every single day to drive all of

23:20

our different initiatives and you have to do

23:22

it in a way that's going to get

23:25

the user to be receptive to what you're

23:27

saying, right? Right. And so there's a couple

23:29

things that you need to think about. You

23:31

need to establish common ground. And usually you

23:34

do that by the way that you found

23:36

them. So if let's say I'm looking to

23:38

target people to listen to my podcast, my

23:40

podcast is an entrepreneurship podcast, let's say I

23:43

just interviewed Alex from Mosie, I might go

23:45

on his page and see who liked and

23:47

commented on his recent posts. Those are people

23:50

who are interested in entrepreneurship. They also take

23:52

viral action. So they're the perfect people to

23:54

invite to my network. So I'll send them

23:56

a note. Hey, I noticed that you follow

23:59

Alex from Mosie. amazing. I just interviewed him

24:01

on my podcast. I think you'll love the

24:03

episode. I'd love to connect to provide value

24:05

on your feet. Then they can respond

24:08

back. Oh my gosh, you're gonna

24:10

read Alex, that's so cool. I

24:12

love him. I'd love to get

24:14

a link to your episode here.

24:16

Thank you. Here's the link. Then

24:18

they might say, oh my gosh,

24:21

your episode was awesome. I learned

24:23

so much. Great. Can you copy

24:25

and paste this as an Apple

24:27

podcast review? Right. So you can

24:29

start these little drip campaigns for

24:32

all of your DM. You know,

24:34

and I mean, I brought this

24:36

person into my ecosystem. And the way

24:38

that I found them is how I establish

24:40

common ground. I noticed you like Alex R.

24:43

Mosie, I found them from Alex R. Mosie's

24:45

page. Another example is, like, let's say I'm

24:47

looking to sell a social media course. And

24:49

I just go on LinkedIn, and I search

24:52

titles social media manager. And it's somebody in

24:54

the US. I just, I'm targeting social media

24:56

managers in the US. Hey, I noticed that

24:58

you're in the social media space like me.

25:01

You look like a really like-minded individual. I'd

25:03

love to give you access to a free

25:05

webinar I have coming in. I'm giving

25:07

them something of value, giving them something

25:09

for free, I'm establishing common ground with

25:11

both in the social media space, I

25:13

might give them a compliment. Right? So

25:16

you're doing things to kind of warm

25:18

them up using the laws of likeability

25:20

I call them. So some of those

25:22

laws include people like other people with

25:24

shared interests that are part of the

25:26

same communities that speak the same language

25:28

that have the same like identifiers, right?

25:30

They like compliments. So you want to

25:32

use all those different types of strategies

25:34

to kind of warm people up and

25:36

establish common ground. I love that and

25:38

you talked before like that you have

25:41

people helping you manage the DEMs because

25:43

the last question I'll ask on the

25:45

DEMs people are like well how the

25:47

heck do you do this like I could

25:49

spend literally 20 hours a day doing

25:51

just that. Yeah so DEMs is a big part

25:54

of it and it does take a lot of

25:56

bandwidth it just depends on you know if you

25:58

have a team if you don't. have a

26:00

team now technically it is against LinkedIn's

26:02

terms of service to have anybody in

26:04

your account but yourself so I do

26:06

want to say that off the bat

26:08

you do not want to use automation

26:10

tools you'll get your account flagged just

26:12

stay away from automation tools unfortunately I

26:14

hope there's a day where it's allowed

26:16

but it's not allowed right now But

26:18

essentially LinkedIn understands that a lot of

26:20

people are busy and they're going to

26:22

have assistance, right? So the key is

26:24

that the person has to be logged

26:26

in from your city or state. So

26:28

long as that's true, you can have

26:30

somebody access your account and manage your

26:32

dams. So it could be an intern

26:34

that you have locally, it could be

26:37

an assistant that works at your office,

26:39

or it could be somebody international who's

26:41

using a residential VPN. So long as

26:43

those things are true and you don't

26:45

have sessions opened up in different cities

26:47

and states. LinkedIn is going to be

26:49

fine. And if you ever get flagged,

26:51

you just explain, I have an assistant,

26:53

I'm running a business, and I need

26:55

somebody managing my messages. As if it's

26:57

not automation, you're not going to really

26:59

get in trouble. Yeah. One last follow-up.

27:01

Let's say that somebody's just getting started.

27:03

They don't have an assistant or even

27:05

the ability to have an intern. What

27:07

would you advise them in terms of

27:09

like, let's say they're all in, they're

27:11

focused on LinkedIn, they're focused on LinkedIn,

27:13

of their weekly schedule would they spend

27:15

focused on dams versus like, you know,

27:17

writing the posts and maybe creating a

27:19

pod for engagement, like a couple of

27:21

the other parts of the formula, whatever.

27:23

I will give you an example of

27:25

what I did when I was working

27:27

a full-time corporate job. I used to

27:29

work at Disney streaming services and Hewitt

27:31

Packard when I first started my LinkedIn

27:33

profile and I had a podcast and

27:35

a full-time job. So I was a

27:37

very busy girl, right? I was going

27:39

to post every single morning. on the

27:41

train. Okay, so I had a 30

27:43

minute commute to Disney every morning from

27:45

Brooklyn to New York. And I said,

27:47

okay, on this train ride, and I

27:49

would batch beforehand in terms of, this

27:51

is something we didn't talk about yet

27:53

that we should, in terms of the

27:55

asset I was posting. So I'd have

27:57

like pictures banked, I've had quotes banked.

27:59

I'd have videos banked so that when

28:01

I was on the train I could

28:04

just focus on the caption and what

28:06

I was going to write. Okay, so

28:08

my job was to put up

28:10

that post on the train ride

28:12

every single morning. The times that

28:14

you want to post are anywhere

28:16

from your local time if your

28:18

audience is mostly in your area

28:20

from 8am to 10am. is the

28:22

sweet spot to post. You want

28:24

to post in the morning typically.

28:26

And you don't want to overpost

28:28

on LinkedIn. So just once a

28:30

day, Max, right? It actually hurts you

28:33

to overpost. So once a day in

28:35

the morning. So my job on the

28:37

commute at 8am was to get

28:39

my post up before 9am in

28:42

the morning, was to get my

28:44

post up before 9am in the

28:46

morning. And that was to get

28:48

my post rock and not do

28:50

comments. and I'd respond back to

28:52

my comments. I would, if I

28:54

was in any engagement pods, this

28:56

is something that I didn't mention.

28:58

At the time I didn't have

29:01

engagement pods, but now that I

29:03

have engagement pods, as soon as

29:05

you post, you don't want to

29:07

post in ghost. So as soon as

29:09

you post, you don't want to

29:11

post in ghost. So as soon as

29:14

you post, you actually want to go

29:16

engage on other people's stuff. Okay? Okay,

29:18

this is why you don't want to

29:20

actually use like a hoot suite or

29:22

something to like auto post your stuff.

29:25

Yeah, media, we hand post everything because

29:27

we want LinkedIn to know that we

29:29

have author stickiness. Okay, there's so much.

29:31

I have like a whole like two

29:34

day masterclass on this. You know, people

29:36

obviously can track you down and take

29:38

the course and everything if they want

29:40

the deep dive. But if you're just

29:42

trying to get a handle of where to

29:44

get started. This is a master class on

29:46

where to get started. you drop your link

29:49

in your engagement pod if you have it

29:51

if you don't have an engagement pod you

29:53

go on like all the people who you

29:55

believe have similar audiences like look-alike profile as

29:57

I call them and you drop comments on

29:59

their stuff. So for me I'd be

30:02

like going on Gary V stuff and

30:04

Layla Hermose and Cody Sanchez and I'd

30:06

be dropping comments on their posts and

30:08

getting some engagement community and just being

30:10

part of the community essentially. Okay? Makes

30:12

sense. Then during lunch time I would

30:15

just spend like 10 minutes responding to

30:17

some of my comments not all of

30:19

them but just like juicing up my

30:21

post. So author comments are basically worth

30:23

some points as well. So right, every

30:25

time you engage on your poster, like

30:28

juicing it back up, okay? And you

30:30

want to just do this every couple

30:32

hours. So it's like every couple hours

30:34

if I had like a break, I

30:36

just go try to juice up my

30:38

post, right? And just keep doing that.

30:41

Now, another little hack is that if

30:43

you like and comment on your shares,

30:45

you like turbocharge your post. So another

30:47

thing that I'd be doing at this

30:49

point would be going on my shares

30:51

and liking and commenting on my shares

30:54

to try to turbocharge my stuff. I

30:56

want to repeat this in a way

30:58

that I want to make sure everybody

31:00

gets, if somebody re-shares your original post

31:02

with or without a comment, you're taking

31:04

a little bit of your time to

31:07

go and make sure that you're liking

31:09

comment on their re-share to give that

31:11

more gasoline to spread further. Exactly. because

31:13

I'm an influencer so the bigger you

31:15

are is an influencer the more that

31:17

your stuff is weighted as well so

31:20

if I like on somebody's post it's

31:22

like weighted more heavily than somebody who

31:24

just started on LinkedIn for example especially

31:26

if I like something that's like entrepreneurship

31:28

based or social media based that I

31:30

have expertise in okay yeah so there's

31:33

so many little factors that go into

31:35

it then on the way home from

31:37

my commute from my commute I would

31:39

do all my dams and I'd respond

31:41

to my dams and I'd re-target people

31:43

in the dam. So something that we

31:46

didn't talk about that's important to mention

31:48

related to the dams is that, you

31:50

know, when you're really advanced on LinkedIn

31:52

and when you're taking it really seriously,

31:54

every post basically should have a re-target

31:56

message. So literally every single post that

31:58

I have on LinkedIn has... some sort

32:01

of retarget message that we DM people,

32:03

especially if they're new, right? If they're

32:05

like a first connection that has like

32:07

not engaged in a while, or they're

32:09

second and third connection, we send them

32:11

an invite with a new DM, and

32:14

we send them a message. So if

32:16

it's about my podcast, we're sending them

32:18

a link to like a free webinar

32:20

to then convert them to the course.

32:22

So every single post has a DEM

32:24

message associated with it that you can

32:27

retarget somebody with. I love that. We only

32:29

have a few minutes left so I want

32:31

a couple other topics I want to make

32:33

sure we cover. One is I want to talk

32:35

video for a second because I'm seeing

32:37

short form video all over LinkedIn. It's

32:39

clear that they care a lot more

32:41

about video than they used to. And

32:43

tell me where video fits into this. Yeah.

32:45

So video is something that LinkedIn is

32:48

definitely prioritizing. I've got some insider

32:50

information. I have a podcast network

32:52

and they are sponsoring our network

32:54

for this like LinkedIn video push.

32:56

Right? So they're definitely investing in

32:58

it. And basically you need to

33:00

train LinkedIn that you're a video

33:02

creator. So for example, on my

33:04

account, videos still aren't doing that

33:06

great. For me, the highest performing

33:08

asset is a photograph, right? A

33:10

vertical photograph of me performs much

33:12

better still than a video. But

33:14

there's other creators that are only

33:16

posting video and training LinkedIn's algorithm

33:18

and their audience that their video

33:20

creators. And I believe that LinkedIn

33:22

is doing something similar to the

33:24

last stage of the algorithm where

33:26

they're reviewing the posts and they're

33:28

trying to find really great video

33:30

creators to kind of push, right?

33:32

So that LinkedIn can be positioned.

33:34

as a video platform. So I

33:36

think that if you have really

33:38

great video content and the key

33:40

is to stand out in the

33:42

feed, so that means don't just

33:44

do like talking head, podcast videos,

33:46

but if you do something unique

33:49

like day in the life videos

33:51

or something that's like really meaningful

33:53

and really helpful. Good visual effects like

33:55

it's got to like pop is what

33:57

you're saying, right? Yeah. Okay. Exactly.

34:00

would say you want to stand out on

34:02

the feed and LinkedIn is pushing certain

34:04

creators. So I don't think it's going to

34:06

just pop off for everyone, but I

34:08

do think that if you train LinkedIn's algorithm

34:10

you can be pushed as a video

34:12

creator. Do you think there is any type

34:14

of video hooks that work better on

34:16

LinkedIn than maybe like YouTube or TikTok or

34:18

if somebody's thinking about those videos what's

34:21

the hook? Yeah, so I think actually thumbnail

34:23

covers matter a lot on LinkedIn. So

34:25

on LinkedIn there's actually a static image that

34:27

it goes on your video. And I've

34:29

noticed that like the better that looks for

34:31

us having it be like a real

34:33

screenshot of what's in the video or that

34:35

it looks like really bright and welcoming

34:37

people are more receptive to that. Also, most

34:40

people on LinkedIn have a job they're

34:42

scrolling on LinkedIn without the sound on. And

34:44

so you want to make sure that

34:46

you have captions and things like that. But

34:48

nowadays, like I said, I think LinkedIn's

34:50

just like pushing certain video creators. So some

34:52

of these rules are kind of out

34:54

of the window so long as you have

34:56

like awesome content. I love that. So

34:58

just a few minutes ago we were talking

35:01

about when you got started on LinkedIn

35:03

and kind of your work that you would

35:05

do basically on the train to and

35:07

from work on some breaks. It looked to

35:09

me that it was basically you were

35:11

spending probably 90 minutes to two hours a

35:13

day on LinkedIn when you went all

35:15

in on LinkedIn. Is that fair? If somebody's

35:17

out there and they're looking to do

35:20

something similar but they want to do it

35:22

even better or faster now in the

35:24

world of AI. What AI tools do you

35:26

use now? Would you recommend to help

35:28

basically maybe do that faster than you had

35:30

to back in the day when we

35:32

were pre -AI? Yeah, AI is amazing. So

35:34

something that I would do is I'd go

35:36

look at all the people that have

35:38

look -alike profiles that are your look -alike profile.

35:41

So essentially it's people who aren't necessarily

35:43

your competitors but have an audience that you

35:45

want. So

35:47

you go to their page,

35:49

get a bunch of

35:51

their posts and use something

35:54

like ChatGBT to create

35:56

posts based on your expertise

35:58

that follow their similar

36:00

format. So you would need

36:02

to upload to ChatGBT

36:05

either. something like a story journal, which is something

36:07

that I create for all of my clients, for

36:09

example, which is like a chronological version of their

36:11

life with every single story that they tell in

36:13

every meaningful milestone that they have. We upload that

36:16

to ChatGBT. You upload some example posts and tell

36:18

ChatGBT. Leveraging the content from this story journal, create

36:20

10 posts using this framework. And the thing is

36:22

that AI is like a really good assistant. Yes.

36:24

So you want to take that content and actually.

36:27

perfect it because it's not going to be perfect,

36:29

but it will generate ideas and will help

36:31

you produce things like much, much faster.

36:33

Okay? Number two is right now the

36:36

high performing asset generally is a photograph.

36:38

So take a couple photo shoots, but

36:40

then now you can use AI and

36:42

use something like insta headshot or something

36:44

like that. It's called insta headshot, I

36:46

believe. And we use that and we

36:49

create like AI generated images that look

36:51

like real photos that are just And

36:53

now I've been doing way less photo

36:55

shoots because we're just using AI to

36:57

create more photos based on all the

36:59

different photos that I have. So you

37:02

want to batch your different photographs that

37:04

you have, and then you can use

37:06

AI to create more photos, which is

37:08

just really convenient if you're strapped for

37:10

time. In terms of videos, we love

37:13

to use OpusClip. So if you have

37:15

a podcast, long form content, if you

37:17

are documenting your journey, which so many

37:19

influencers like Gary V recommend and so

37:21

on, right. You can upload that long

37:23

form content on Opus clip, and then

37:26

Opus clip will actually find the most

37:28

exciting parts, and you'll be able to

37:30

search Opus clip for certain things, like find

37:32

where I laughed, find where I was sad,

37:34

find, you know, you can like basically have

37:36

it search all your different long form videos,

37:39

which is like super cool. And so we

37:41

use Opus clip as part of our video

37:43

development process. And yeah, those are just some

37:45

of the ways that we're using AI on

37:47

social media. Okay, so there's a couple

37:49

quick ways right there that with

37:52

those few tools you can probably

37:54

do a LinkedIn strategy in an hour a

37:57

day or so instead of the two hours

37:59

a day. of pre-Ai, but at the same

38:01

time, I think you're telling everybody that if

38:03

you want to be great on LinkedIn, it

38:05

does take a commitment. And you are probably

38:07

going to need to set aside an hour

38:09

a day for a while, for a year,

38:12

two, three years, because I'm sure it took

38:14

you a few years, so you really shot

38:16

off and got the distribution you were hoping

38:18

for when you started, right? I would say

38:20

one year of focus, you'll become an influencer

38:22

on LinkedIn. One year of focus, couple hours

38:24

a day, again to your point, the content

38:26

creation can be accelerated through AI, which is

38:29

awesome, but the actual posting and engagement still

38:31

needs to be you on LinkedIn. And it

38:33

will also help you understand what's working, what's

38:35

not working, so that you can improve your

38:37

strategy. So you being hands on, I think

38:39

is really important, especially when you're first starting.

38:41

And I loved how you outline how you

38:43

integrated it into your day and just kind

38:46

of made it a habit and I think

38:48

that's what we're advocating for advocating for everybody

38:50

here. Okay, we could obviously go on for

38:52

hours, but unfortunately we are out of time,

38:54

Hala. This has been so amazing. I feel

38:56

like there is so much I want to

38:58

go do on my own LinkedIn now. Now

39:00

I've learned so much from you. Thank you

39:03

so much for joining us at Market Against

39:05

the Green today. Thank you, Kim.

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