The Biggest Risk on LinkedIn Isn't What You Post (with Dani Markovits from Shake Content) | Ep. 16

Everyone can make content now, so everyone does. The result is a feed full of posts that read like they came out of the same prompt: same hooks, same tidy takeaways, same manufactured vulnerability. The part nobody mentions is that LinkedIn has quietly started grading the person behind the post, not just the words in it.

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David Walsh, founder of Limelight, sat down with Dani Markovits, who spent four years building LinkedIn's creator program before joining Shake Content as chief commercial officer. They get into what actually works on LinkedIn now, why the same post lands differently depending on who hits publish, and how to keep a posting habit from eating your week. You'll leave with a system that fits in an hour.

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Dani brings the view from inside the platform: how the creator team thought about the feed, what the new algorithm changes reward, and why he almost turned down the agency job. He also talks through the moment early on when he sat down to post and could not think of a single thing to say.

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Dani Markovits is chief commercial officer at Shake Content, a LinkedIn-first B2B marketing agency based in London. Before joining Shake, he spent four years at LinkedIn as one of the first members of its creator team, working across Europe with hundreds of executives, founders, and athletes as the platform reshaped itself from a job board into a place people return to daily. He's now building content programs for B2B tech companies, professional services firms, and a growing roster of athletes. Somewhere along the way he picked up the nickname "the LinkedIn whisperer," which he says he wasn't a fan of at first and has since decided to own. He'll also admit, freely, that he still struggles with video.

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• Why he left a big-name role: Dani explains why he turned down Shake at first, thinking it was too small a move from LinkedIn, and what changed his mind. He frames it as a mutual risk: he bet on them, they bet on him.
• What a "creator" actually is: He never felt like a creator, because he pictured polished YouTube video. His reframe: if you share your thoughts and expertise, you're already one, and it doesn't have to be your whole career.
• The authenticity premium: With AI slop flooding the feed, the content that stands out is the stuff only you can write. David adds the contextual-storytelling angle: "I was actually there, I actually did this."
• Why slop is an opportunity: Dani argues the flood of generic content is good news for anyone willing to play the long game without cutting corners. More noise raises the payoff for real insight.
• Beating the blank page: His fix for "what do I post about" is to stop hunting for original ideas. Look at your calendar, who you spoke to last week, what you're reading, then bring it back to your own lens.
• The one-hour-a-week system: Block an hour. Get one post out without overthinking it. Spend the rest leaving real comments and sending ten connection requests to ICPs, prospects, and people you respect.
• Sweated posts underperform: The posts you edit five times and sleep on are often not the ones that work. A quick thought or something funny frequently does better.
• Who's posting now matters: Under LinkedIn's new changes, the platform weighs the author as much as the content. The same post about running a business does better from someone who has actually run one.
• Comments as a strategy: A good comment is content in itself, and LinkedIn is prioritizing it. Many people now get more growth from commenting than from posting.
• The anti-pitch-slap: Cold DMs work, but engaging with someone's content for two weeks before reaching out makes a positive reply roughly ten times more likely.
• Boring industries win: The duller the field, the more room to stand out. A tax accountant who posts has far less competition than yet another marketing voice.
• The real risk: Dani's closing line is that the biggest risk on LinkedIn isn't picking the wrong thing to post. It's not posting at all.

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• Shake Content: Dani's LinkedIn-only agency, discussed throughout as the home for the founder and executive content programs he now runs.
• LinkedIn: the platform at the center of the conversation, where Dani spent four years on the creator team before advising clients on it.
• SaaStock: the SaaS conference where David first met Shake's CEO, James, who later pitched him on the business.

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Safe Doesn't Scale is hosted by David Walsh, founder of Limelight. New episodes drop weekly.