I share my experience growing from zero to 145,000 LinkedIn followers in 14 months, generating millions in revenue. I detail specific strategies for LinkedIn growth, including leveraging the new video tab, creating engaging story posts, and utilizing infographics. The presentation explains how to properly monetize a LinkedIn following through strategic content posting and lead magnet implementation.This talk was given at Andrew Wilkinsons IP2 conferenceLearn more about IP3Andrew's Newsletter: https://neverenoughnewsletter.kit.com/signupAndrew's Twitter/X: https://x.com/awilkinsonAndrew's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NeverEnough2024Episode Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro02:05 - The ACP Funnel Explained02:50 - Case Study: BoringMarketing.com04:42 - Tactical Tips for Going Viral on LinkedIn06:10 - Leveraging Video Content on LinkedIn08:10 - Crafting Compelling Stories for Engagement09:46 - Using Infographics to Boost Engagement10:31 - Monetizing Your LinkedIn Audience12:16 - Creating Effective Lead MagnetsKey Points:• LinkedIn in 2024 is comparable to Twitter in 2020 for viral growth potential• Three main strategies for LinkedIn growth: video content, storytelling posts, and viral infographics• Monetization through strategic lead magnets and post-editing techniques• Building the ACP (Audience-Community-Product) funnel for business growth1) The ACP Framework:• Audience first• Convert to Community• Build Product for themExample: Boring Marketer → Free community → $8M ARR SEO tool business2) Why LinkedIn in 2025?"LinkedIn right now is 2020 Twitter - it's fishing with dynamite"Greg grew 125K followers in 14 months with just 15 hours of work 3) LINKEDIN HACK #1: Video Content LinkedIn just added a video tab. Nobody knows this yet.Two options:• Faceless content with AI voiceover (use @elevenlabs)• Record yourselfPro tip: Videos are getting INSANE reach right now4) LINKEDIN HACK #2: Stories that Convert• Get someone to interview you• Extract 15 career stories• Focus on vulnerable moments• MUST pair with photo of yourself• Use storytelling frameworks5) LINKEDIN HACK #3: Viral Infographics• Find previously viral infographics• Repost with credit• Add universally agreeable caption• Example: "This year's gonna be great" → 151K likes6) THE MONETIZATION STRATEGYDon't put links in original posts!Secret sauce:• Post content• Wait 4 hours• If more than150 likes, EDIT post to add link• LinkedIn won't suppress it7) LEAD MAGNET MASTERY:Don't sell directly. Create valuable free content.Example:• Made startup ideas database• 5,000 downloads in 30 days• Segment in ConvertKit• Nurture → Monetize later8) KEY TAKEAWAY:2025 will be HUGE for LinkedIn.Start now while organic reach is insane.Even 15 hours can build a massive following that drives millions in revenue.Notable Quotes:"LinkedIn is fishing with dynamite right now." - Greg"I grew from zero to 125,000 followers with probably like 15 hours of work in 14 months." - GregLCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.coFIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/
I went from zero to 145,000 followers in about 14 months on LinkedIn. Now I know what you're thinking. LinkedIn is mega cringe. And I was like you too, until I saw all the value I was getting from LinkedIn, literally millions of dollars of revenue flowing into our businesses. I think you should give it a shot.
And okay, maybe you don't need to give it a full shot, but you can give this episode a full shot. Learn how to grow really big on LinkedIn, a bunch of hacks that are not being shared anywhere, like how to create LinkedIn video and why LinkedIn video matters. Someone's going to listen to this podcast and make millions of dollars, so that's for sure.
It's a in-person podcast that was filmed at IP2, which is Andrew Wilkinson's event. People paid thousands of dollars to be there. You get the benefit of being there, but you didn't have to fly to Victoria, British Columbia. So hope you enjoy this episode. And if you did, comment below and let me know what you think. Enjoy. A little bit about Greg.
So started and sold three VC-backed companies, was an advisor to Reddit, TikTok, and now I run a cash-flowing holding company like some of you here. What's in the cash-flowing holding company? Where do you make money from? We've got four agencies. Three of them are productized agencies that use AI, of course. AI-assisted SEO, AI-assisted ads, design agency, internet communities.
Sweet. You have talked a little bit about buying communities and building communities. Can you talk about why you think that's kind of an arbitrage or what you've shared online?
So my whole thesis, like what I'm betting my entire career on, is this one funnel that I call the ACP funnel. So it's basically A stands for audience. You build audience up top. Then you convert that audience into a community. And then you build a product for that community. So when we start a business, most people start a business, they build software. They'll go and build a CPG product.
We don't do that at all. We start a Twitter account. And if the Twitter account gets traction or an Instagram account or the TikTok account, then we know that there's something there. We'll create a community and then we'll build up that product. What's a specific example of a product that you've built to sell to a community like that?
So we built a business called BoringMarketing.com, which, you know, will probably do seven, eight million dollars in ARR next year. And it started off as a Twitter account called at Boring Marketer. Yeah, you have people like, I know you're friends with Cody Sanchez, talking about boring businesses, right? But no one was talking about boring marketing.
So we said, okay, let's just grab the Twitter username Boring Marketer, simple as that, and just give people tips on boring ways to grow your business. Turns out a lot of people wanted to talk about SEO. So we just kind of pivoted it to SEO. And then it started getting 10,000 followers, 15,000, 30,000. And then we built a free community for people interested in boring marketing.
And then we built the AI-assisted SEO tool. So that's kind of how it works. So you built a SaaS tool that you sell to them instead. Exactly. Sweet. Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas.
Now they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is.
And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas, or it's for people who have a startup but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So You can check out the link to StartupEmpire.co in the description.
What advice do you have that is specific and tactical and practical for this audience about perhaps going viral online or simply creating better business content?
So let's talk about something a little cringe. So I'm obsessed with LinkedIn right now. Good. And I talked about this in my session. And I'm obsessed with LinkedIn because 2024 LinkedIn is the equivalent of 2020 Twitter. When in 2020 Twitter, I know there's some people like Sean Puri, Andrew, actually you two, you know, you started going, guys like us started going viral in 2020, 2021.
And we all got hundreds of thousands of followers because it was just so easy. It was fishing with dynamite. LinkedIn is fishing with dynamite right now. And I can give you some tips on how to grow on LinkedIn. Yeah, please. Okay. So, by the way, I was like you. 14 months ago, I wasn't even on LinkedIn. And I grew from zero to 125,000 followers with probably like 15 hours of work in 14 months.
And that's actually translated into millions of dollars of revenue. And how I did it was a few ways. So, okay, so take notes, by the way. If you want to go viral on LinkedIn, get your notepads ready, because, like, you might as well. I like that. Right? Yeah. Like, you might as well. Yeah. Okay?
So step one, did you know that there's a tab on LinkedIn right now that was just added that's a video tab? Do people know this? I'm not even saying, no one knows this, but LinkedIn is becoming TikTok. If you post videos on LinkedIn right now, they go far. So some people don't have video content. So you're probably like, oh, I don't have video content. Okay, well, you have two options.
Option one is you create faceless video content. Meaning you go out there, you use a bunch of AI tools to create video content, and then you just record over it. Or if you don't, you can use tools like Eleven Labs, where you can just write a script. Eleven Labs is an AI tool that will read the script and assign a voice to it.
So go and create some faceless video content that you'll then post to LinkedIn. And then the second thing you can do is obviously record video content yourself. That takes a lot more work. And then also some people don't like being on camera, which I totally get. So step one is you post that video content and you have a few options on captions to post that work.
And I'm getting really technical here. These are things that work. Because I think that I really want people to leave with value. So one is, you just put a caption that people will agree with. AKA, the future is now. You just put something that everyone's going to agree with with the video. The world needs more positivity now than ever. It's like, yeah, I kind of agree with that.
And you get some likes. And you accompany that with the video. That's one thing. So video. The second thing you can do is stories. Stories work really well on LinkedIn. I'm sure you've seen that. What you should do after this is get someone on your team to sit with you. and get them to ask you, what are the 15 stories that are most interesting in your career? And get them to ask you that question,
And write with them 15 stories, at least. Because it's hard to think about it on the top of your head. So write those stories down. Would we write those stories using the Matthew Dix type stuff?
Like, I am here, blah, blah, blah.
Exactly. And now everyone here is equipped with how to tell a good story. So you can write the stories yourself. I just find it's helpful to have someone there to ask you, like... You know, what was the hardest thing in your career? Or tell me a story about how you failed an exam in college. Vulnerable stories work really well.
And then you have to, the thing with LinkedIn is you actually have to pair the story with a picture of you.
Really?
You have to. That's the way you're going to get those likes. Sweet. So you have to go find interesting photos of you.
pair them with the story and That'll that'll make that content go 10x more viral videos stories You got one other like LinkedIn hack that if we're starting from nothing or from minimal engagement What's one more thing that people could do? Next week even just to kind of kick start it.
The third thing is finds find infographics that have gone viral before and and just post them, obviously giving credit to that person with a banger line, kind of like one of those... The future's now. The future's now with it. I had a post, one of my first posts on LinkedIn, was a year and a half ago or so. And it was like, I guess it was 2023, January 1st.
And it was basically like, this year's gonna be great. It was like an infographic that this year's gonna be great. It's like, of course this year's gonna be great. Everyone wants that to be great. It got 456,000 likes on LinkedIn.
Really?
Yeah.
Can you talk a little bit about how you then took that audience and monetized it?
Yes. We'll get actually very specific about how to take audience from LinkedIn and convert it to leads. So the mistake I was making was I would create a post and then in that post put a link to something I was trying to sell or some lead magnet or some community, whatever. It didn't work because LinkedIn is suppressing that piece of content.
So I actually went to the LinkedIn office and I asked them, how can I put links in my content such that I can get people to click things? Because what is the point of creating content if you're not going to be able to get people to sign up to the things that you want them to sign up to? And by the way, side note, Twitter sucks right now.
Like, yes, you can get a lot of impressions, but once you put that link in there, your post is going nowhere. So what the LinkedIn team told me is that if you post something that gets more than 150 likes, 200 likes, after four hours, if you put the link at the bottom of the post, you will not be suppressed by the LinkedIn algorithm. So you edit the post? You edit the post.
And by the way, this is all going back to what we just learned about delegation. This is all things that you can delegate, just create SOPs around, which I do. I barely log into LinkedIn like you. So to answer your question, I'm obsessed with lead magnets. And we talked a little bit about lead magnets in my workshop for those of you there.
But the mistake that entrepreneurs, many entrepreneurs make around creating websites nowadays is They get strangers to come to the website, and it's all about buy my product. But people don't come to your website to buy your product. They come there to learn. They come there to do, I call it a primary task. They have some primary task of why they're going to the website.
So the example I used yesterday was, if you're going to Ford.com, you might not want to buy a Ford Expedition, but you might be there to learn about EVs. You might be there to just see pretty pictures of a red Mustang. So you make the link magnet. So what I do is I try to figure out what are the things that I want people to do. And I create multiple lead magnets every single month.
I link them in my LinkedIn posts. And then I nurture those people. And so I have people interested. For example, I have a lead magnet around a database of startup ideas. 5,000 people have downloaded that in the last 30 days from LinkedIn. Now I have those 5,000 people interested in startup ideas. I don't know what I'm going to sell them. But at some point, I could sell them something.
And now I have them segmented in ConvertKit. That's how it works.
Would people be able to come up to you? We're going to be hanging out at the happy hour tonight. If they don't even know where to start about lead magnets, will you give them free advice? Will you tell them what to do?
I would be honored for people to come up to me. And please do. Please do. I'm here. So come say hi. There you have it, folks. Now I hope you got a few nuggets from this episode. And just start posting on LinkedIn. Just start. Learn. Get some reps in and see if you like it. And if you don't like it, you can always... Stop doing it. But I think 2025 is going to be a huge year for LinkedIn.
I also did an episode with Cody Schneider, friend of the pod, where we talked about some opportunities with LinkedIn agencies as a startup idea. And I will link that link in the description. So, uh, like comments and subscribe. If you want more of these videos, uh, given the sauce away for free. Uh, and, uh, I read every single one of these YouTube comments. So, um, I I'd love to see you there.
All right, go get them. Happy building. I'm rooting for you.