Full Transcript for How a Serial Entrepreneur Uses LinkedIn to Build Trust, Close Deals, and Exit Companies | Alex Boyd

that works. 00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:05.519 I started posting on LinkedIn when I wanted to see if I knew what I was talking about when I started a first consultancy and then agency. 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:08.960 I was just posting stuff about what I learned in my last job. 00:02:09.039 --> 00:02:10.560 And then it started to work. 00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:21.280 And when I say work, people were reaching out, having seen my post and saying, let's talk about your services, which is just the clearest signal you can get from I do this social media thing, revenue potential. 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:26.000 And so from there, it pretty much immediately clicked that this is worth doing more of. 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:32.080 And so I started to think about well, if these posts were helpful, then what else could I do to do more of this? 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:37.680 How do I put more into this machine of I add much in and much comes out? 00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:41.039 So yeah, I definitely don't claim to know everything about LinkedIn. 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:48.960 I just have done it myself and have a few things that could be helpful to people who are in the middle of their journey or starting out. 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.199 So maybe that's the best way to be known. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:56.719 Yeah, so I just began saying, how do I do more of what's working? 00:02:56.879 --> 00:03:06.800 And then eventually it became something I could turn into a system or a thought process, a methodology that was describing what I was doing that was working. 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:11.599 And today, hopefully, I've learned enough that people can take away some things from it. 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:12.639 Yeah. 00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:26.159 I kind of want to just jump into demand bird first because as a tool for people managing social media, managing content creation, you guys span a couple of the different platforms. 00:03:26.879 --> 00:03:31.199 How is that a challenge for you showing up across different social media platforms? 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:32.479 And how does that change your message? 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:34.159 Is it one message for LinkedIn? 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:35.680 Is it something else for somewhere else? 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:38.639 Like how are you thinking about that for you and your brand? 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:42.560 It's like a different dialect or tone, more than a different language. 00:03:42.719 --> 00:03:45.039 The same message overall, generally. 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:49.199 I'll usually talk a little differently on Twitter than on LinkedIn, for example. 00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:53.840 So Twitter is usually just sharper, Substack's a little more collegial. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:54.240 Yeah. 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:58.000 YouTube, obviously different format entirely because it's so video centric. 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:03.280 It's more like the same message, different lens, maybe, rather than different language. 00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:14.960 I'm definitely saying ultimately the same things across platforms, with the caveat that sometimes we talk about demand bird and sometimes we talk about the process of building SaaS companies overall and our community and so forth. 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:19.920 For people that have actually more than one company, you might have a different actual message. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:34.480 But if you're building one thing, you're gonna want to say the same thing in many different ways across different platforms, rather than trying to have a totally new Twitter strategy than Substack Notes strategy, for example. 00:04:35.199 --> 00:04:35.839 Yeah. 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:39.120 Um I like that in terms of a different dialect. 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:40.959 We're all still speaking the same language. 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:58.560 We're just you maybe have a different way that you say one word or an inflection, and that for people who understand multiple languages, I think resonates across different social media platforms, especially for wanting to be known as one thing. 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:04.240 So if you ask somebody, if you ask 100 people what is demand bird, do you want them all to land at the same thing? 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:11.759 But you could do that across LinkedIn, across X, Twitter and Facebook, and still get the point across. 00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:22.000 When you started on LinkedIn, what was your first kind of idea of what the platform was and how were you using it first before it really started to take off for you? 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:24.639 Um I didn't have a good idea of it. 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:30.800 I think I had the pretty standard idea when I first began, which was I go and update my resume. 00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:35.519 I'm gonna have a new job here, and I post sort of professional milestones and updates. 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:43.120 I had to evolve because I began doing that, but then I just frankly got bored of that. 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:51.600 And so I just thought, how far can I push speaking like a normal person on a platform that didn't seem to have a lot of people speak like normal people just did? 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:55.360 And I realized that was a breath of fresh air for people and they appreciated that a lot. 00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:56.800 And so I kept doing that. 00:05:56.959 --> 00:06:03.839 I realized that the stuff I knew back then it was about outbound sales development, about managing a sales team. 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:07.199 That was what I was talking about back then, because I had just done that as a job. 00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:08.800 And I just thought, okay, cool. 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:16.160 If there are people, I'll just treat this as if I was networking with other people who were wanting to know more about how to do that job. 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:28.079 And if anything I had to share from my unique experience was helpful to them, how do I package that in a way that's easiest

for them to understand without me having to give them a lot of context? 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:30.000 Because you don't get context. 00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:31.199 You have your little post, right? 00:06:31.279 --> 00:06:40.000 So you have to do it in such a way that someone who doesn't know everything about you can still nevertheless understand and unpack and receive what you're getting. 00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:46.480 And that's the part where I was like, okay, how do I finesse enough detail, not over too much detail? 00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:51.040 And the rest of it was just treating it like a sales channel, but different. 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:54.639 And I thought, okay, this is not a cold outreach channel. 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:58.800 This is more of a conference channel, except I get to do it behind the comfort of my computer. 00:06:58.879 --> 00:06:59.759 So that's easier. 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:07.839 And so that means things like don't just pitch right away came very naturally to me, whereas a lot of people just send a DM and pitch. 00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:11.439 And that's that's a misunderstanding of the channel, I think. 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:17.519 I saw that you can write comments on people's posts and get engagement just by doing that. 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:20.319 There's no limit to how much you can do of that, and that helps them too. 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:23.839 So great, we'll do more of that than this kind of DM pitching stuff. 00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:30.800 And it just fell into place by understanding the etiquette of the platform and the culture of the platform, basically. 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:41.759 And you touched on one thing really interesting there, the difference between the creating of content and then tying it then to opportunities or revenue or selling, right? 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:50.079 And so you talked about coming from scaling company, growing, running kind of business development type of motions and leveraging sales from that perspective. 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:58.000 And then how do you tie that into, or how do you manage the gap between growing an audience on LinkedIn, but then closing deals? 00:07:58.240 --> 00:08:01.920 Was there a specific moment that stood out to you for that? 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:10.879 You explained how writing and understanding the structure of writing well helped you, but where did you see that kind of come together? 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:16.399 Was there a specific moment or a deal where somebody was like, I saw your post, I want to buy your thing? 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:17.839 There uh there was actually. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:25.120 The first one was someone I had met a couple of years ago and thought nothing of it and we didn't follow up, but we just had one in-person interaction. 00:08:25.279 --> 00:08:31.680 And then he sent an email just saying, Hey, I saw you left this company where we met, and then you're doing your own thing. 00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:33.039 We're growing our sales team. 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:35.360 Let's can we talk about how you can help us with that. 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:38.240 So it was a very clear kind of verbatim. 00:08:38.399 --> 00:08:42.879 We had met, there's some sort of you're not a stranger, and then yeah. 00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:47.519 So he was saying, This is how I've learned about you, and named my LinkedIn post as that. 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:48.879 So it's very unmistakable. 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:50.559 Whereas a lot of times it's not like that. 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:56.399 They have to infer, or people will just find you and you'll have to then ask them a bunch of times, how'd you hear about us? 00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:57.120 And then they'll tell you. 00:08:57.200 --> 00:08:58.799 So this was nice because it was very clear. 00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:02.000 I was reading your LinkedIn post, and now I want to talk about your services. 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:06.080 They signed up and they paid us a bunch of money, and it was really relatively easy sales process. 00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:14.240 And I noted that maybe the fact that he's been reading my stuff for a while has helped him build trust in a way where you'd normally have to do that on a call. 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:28.639 And so I'm shortcutting all of this very laborious discovery call effort that you normally have to do to build trust, because I mean, then even if you were going to do it all on a sales call, there's still that still lacks the element of the public part of it. 00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:48.399 So in public, you the guy can see not just it's almost as if you're doing a sales call and there's public commentary and trust signals coming into that somehow, which that doesn't exist, but that's what's happening when someone's following you on LinkedIn and then they're seeing these third-party trust signals of, oh, so-and-so commented on his post and said, Alex is great. 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:49.360 Oh, that's awesome. 00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:51.919 Maybe he's he gets one more trust point or something. 00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:52.480 Right. 00:09:52.720 --> 00:09:54.240 But I was thinking, okay, cool. 00:09:54.320 --> 00:10:01.360 Well, if thousands and tens of thousands of people are seeing this, then that's a lot of sales work I'm not having to do myself. 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:02.559 So great. 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:07.679 And then it just obviously you don't not do sales from there, but it just shortcuts some of that trust building process. 00:10:07.919 --> 00:10:10.000 So your sales cycles are usually yeah. 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:20.960 Well, you actually might have a longer calendar sales cycle, but you'll get to talk to people earlier because they'll trust you more, and so they'll come to approach you earlier than they otherwise would if they were just making a short list of vendors. 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:25.440 So we would get people come to us early, and the sales process would be easy. 00:10:25.600

--> 00:10:38.559 And then deal sizes tended to be higher than the one sourced from Outbound email, where the trust barrier meant that usually would get in with a lower deal size to build trust, and then you'd have to work for a higher deal size. 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:51.759 Whereas from LinkedIn, you could just start higher because of the relationship that had begun to be built up over the course of them following along with your journey and asking questions and commenting and seeing all the other stuff happen. 00:10:51.919 --> 00:10:53.200 So that's been really nice. 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:58.879 And to this day, it's contributed tons of pipeline because 800 and something posts in. 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:01.679 There's been a lot of repeated trust buildup over the years. 00:11:01.919 --> 00:11:02.559 Yeah. 00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:10.879 Yeah, I think the trust piece is one of the first things that I realized when somebody mentioned a LinkedIn post. 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:12.480 They're like, Oh, I feel like I already know you. 00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:13.759 I'm like, huh. 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:14.960 I didn't think about that. 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:20.639 There was a version of me on LinkedIn that was very close, that that is like who I am, right, in real life. 00:11:20.879 --> 00:11:29.360 That then when they got on that call, they're like, Yeah, yeah, Mark is the same guy that posted about his kids or his wife and still talks about fintech sales and all these things. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:31.120 Like, it does a little bit of that work for you. 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:32.799 It's still, it doesn't do all of the work for you. 00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:37.679 Sometimes maybe it does, maybe in short sales cycles or transactional sales, that can work. 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:40.799 But the idea that it's there to create gas, and it's a long tail, right? 00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:43.840 Like you said, uh, in terms of the length of that sale, right? 00:11:43.919 --> 00:11:47.440 There's people I talk to are like, okay, I'm gonna start posting and all of a sudden I'm gonna start making money. 00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:49.600 I was like, well, it's not, it's not that fast. 00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:53.039 You have to you have to build trust, you have to build that audience. 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:57.759 But if you do it right long enough over time, then it it feeds itself into everything else that you're doing. 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.200 And then to your point, your happy customers start commenting on your posts. 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:03.200 Like all of that feeds into it. 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.159 Um, and the other piece that you talked about was commenting. 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:17.279 I tell people all the time, that's the chi code of LinkedIn is go comment, go show up where your people are, if it's sales related, if it's customer success, whatever area you are, show up in that comment. 00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:21.919 Um, and that will go even further to

help build that trust. 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:23.039 It's true. 00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:26.559 Question about developing demand bird. 00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:33.200 So it sounds like you guys built that out of having to live the pain of scaling social without a system. 00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:34.720 Walk me through that. 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:43.039 And at what point did LinkedIn activity drive you wanting to systematize like a product around that? 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:53.039 Yeah, we had our first attempt at systemizing a product back in 2020, but I'd say ultimately the journey of building that previous product didn't work out. 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:56.799 We just architected it on our own with a Chrome extension method. 00:12:56.879 --> 00:13:01.679 And at the end of the day, LinkedIn was like, you can't do it this way, you have to use our official APIs. 00:13:01.840 --> 00:13:02.960 So we shut that down. 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:05.279 We began developing on the very particular. 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:06.960 So we just said, that sounds great. 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:08.240 Let's go that direction. 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:20.960 So it was a bit of a progress reset at that point, but we just basically tuck it in stride, and now we're building on all of the official APIs of all the platforms according to their rules, and then we're not going outside of that. 00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:23.279 And so it's been pretty simple of, okay, great. 00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:29.360 There's a few things we want to be able to do that we can't, but we just say that's not part of our product scope. 00:13:29.519 --> 00:13:41.039 We're just gonna build as much as we can to reduce the time spent on the little annoying things of managing a LinkedIn, yes, but also plus cross-platform social presence. 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:42.720 And so there's a ton of things. 00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:51.519 Everything from like resizing images that you upload to LinkedIn so they fit Instagram, video stuff, adding captions on YouTube. 00:13:51.679 --> 00:14:02.960 There's so much stuff that goes into if you want to expand beyond LinkedIn, there's the work piles up of not just logging in and posting your LinkedIn video on TikTok, but everything else associated with that. 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:07.279 So the idea has been where do we use automation and AI? 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:11.200 And my view has always been the non-customer-facing stuff. 00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:31.279 So if you're looking for opportunities to automate with code and AI, it's going to be back office, content operations, resizing, reformatting, editing, polling, researching, not just like spamming AI comments and posts on LinkedIn, which is honestly the approach a lot of the LinkedIn tools take. 00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:33.279 And I'm not as big a fan of that. 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:35.200 I don't know who is a fan of that, right? 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:39.120 It's a thing, but like I've never talked to anyone who's oh, I love

the AI comments. 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:42.000 Well, nobody said that, but people are still doing it. 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:43.759 I don't understand it. 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:54.559 Yeah, no one wants to read it, but a lot of people want to use it to write, which is if it wants to generate AI content and no one wants to read AI content, it's like we should just listen to that. 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:55.919 Yeah, we sure. 00:14:58.399 --> 00:15:00.000 So, what's your setup right now? 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:05.039 How are you leveraging Demand Bird and what you're doing within LinkedIn or your other social tools? 00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:07.120 What's your process looking like right now? 00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:12.639 I'm doing a bit of writing my own content, just stuff that comes up. 00:15:12.799 --> 00:15:13.840 I'll work that in. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:16.799 I'm also relying on Demand Bird for the topic ideation. 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:25.519 So it'll pull from my past content and suggest content pillars, and then I'll confirm those and it'll suggest ideas within the content pillars. 00:15:25.759 --> 00:15:29.519 Those are good for saying I just don't know what to write about, but I need to post for today. 00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:34.399 I'm gonna pull something from the idea bin, basically, the generator, and then say, oh, this is good. 00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:36.080 Actually, I wouldn't have thought to write about that. 00:15:36.320 --> 00:15:39.039 I pull the idea, it gives me like a little initial notes thing. 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:46.320 I then fill that out with my own draft, add that to the queue, schedule that across maybe four to six platforms, depending on what it is. 00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:54.399 I'm trying to comment around four to five hundred times a month, including responses on my own posts, which is sounds like a lot, but that's a lot. 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:57.840 20 per workday is if you blast through them, that's not that much. 00:15:58.080 --> 00:16:04.879 Or if you do it three times a week and you spend less than 30 seconds each, it's like half an hour a week. 00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:06.159 Ish. 00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:10.399 So not that much at the end of the day, but it's still what people do. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.000 It's more than average, I'll say that. 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:18.240 And I try to what's working for you right now in terms of content. 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:19.679 Sorry, I cut you off. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:25.360 It's pretty much like for everything, for comments, for content, what tends to work is that it depends. 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:37.840 It's different for everyone, but for me, it's like there are certain hot button things where complaining about the bad use of AI tends to do well, whether it's in a comment or a post. 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:44.080 Writing about how I have success with LinkedIn on LinkedIn, obviously it's a bit of a cheat code there. 00:16:44.320 --> 00:16:49.519 And then just

personal life milestones and updates, people love to tune into those too. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:57.039 Anything where they want to they find it easier to easy to cheer, cheer me on and support. 00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:03.120 I just think about the mental load in their head of deciding should I like this post? 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:04.079 Should I comment on it? 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:05.839 What is the cost if I do? 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:08.559 Is it like a reputational thing if I do? 00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:10.799 Is it easy for me mentally to engage with? 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:14.240 That's what I'm trying to optimize for, is like it's easy to mentally engage with. 00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:25.519 Whereas if your post is dense, it's hard to read, someone might just quickly, in a split second, reason that it's not worth spending the time to even decide if this is okay for me to engage with, and they'll just skip it. 00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:30.799 So trying to avoid those things is good, which means really, really clear hooks. 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:31.920 It doesn't need to be clickbait. 00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:34.400 I shouldn't be the click, baby, but just very clear. 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:41.279 So someone knows pretty early on if I comment on this post of Alex's, this is what it's about. 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:50.960 So they don't have to do a lot of mental brain work to figure out is this okay for me to engage with like reputationally, because people in their network are going to see what they write in my post and they want to make sure that's okay. 00:17:51.039 --> 00:17:54.720 And this is all happening in a fraction of a second as they scroll. 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:58.559 So yeah, those are the three categories of stuff that tends to work well. 00:17:58.799 --> 00:18:03.519 Just posting product videos without context doesn't work that well, as you can imagine. 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:09.359 Feature launches, yes, but beyond that, you have to work product functionality in. 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:10.880 Same thing with an agency. 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:17.119 You want to work client results and capabilities in rather than just listing them out. 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:18.640 So tell the story, right? 00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:25.839 And then one part of the story is the feature or the service rather than here's our service that we offer, which is just gonna fall flat. 00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:38.960 So that's interesting because it leads me to what I want to ask next, which is around the difference between activity, like content that grows an audience versus like leads to sales or business. 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:43.599 I assume that I think you're right about like posts where you're like bashing ads. 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:45.839 There's a lot of those posts out there and they do well, right? 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:50.160 Everybody wants to jump on that bandwagon and and you know, talk trash about Claude. 00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:53.440 I'm guessing

those don't always lead to people being like, let's work together. 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:54.880 So, like, how are you looking at that? 00:18:54.960 --> 00:18:56.319 How are you balancing that? 00:18:57.039 --> 00:18:57.920 Yeah, you're right. 00:18:58.079 --> 00:19:04.960 Those posts don't lead to much unless there's a coherent way to work your product into the story. 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:12.559 So if, for example, you had an AI product that did do well and you post the AI fail, and yours is the alternative, then I can see that. 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:24.000 But the main reason I indulge in like high awareness content is mostly to keep the pump of the flow working well, basically. 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:27.200 It keeps the hose unplugged for engagement. 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:44.960 So if someone never does that content, I'll say, look, can you indulge in a little bit of audience building content, knowing it doesn't have a ton to do with what you offer, just to keep the water going down the river and not letting it dam up in this kind of engagement eddy, if that analogy makes sense? 00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:48.720 Because if you never get any high engagement stuff, then you get stuck. 00:19:49.039 --> 00:19:50.240 I've noticed it can get stuck. 00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:51.680 And you get stuck down. 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:55.200 Yeah, you have to do something big to let it flow again. 00:19:55.519 --> 00:20:07.119 The problem is if you only do that kind of like high attention building sort of candy content, well, then you never talk about your offering, and so you never sell anything, except maybe sponsored posts. 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:08.880 But it's not most people's business model. 00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:20.960 So don't copy the business model of a sponsored post-driven influencer if you sell a product or service, because the strategies are going to be very different to how to grow each of those businesses. 00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:30.000 Yeah, one of the conversations that comes up a lot when I talk with people about this is and when I work with people, they're like, oh, I want to go viral. 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:31.759 And I was like, okay, to what end? 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:33.279 Going viral is great, right? 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:38.559 There's a difference between going viral and gaining the wrong kind of attention. 00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:50.640 And you talked about this too, in the way that you're thoughtful about are the people that I want to reach, will this be something that they can be, for lack of a better term, proud to interact with, that they're okay with commenting or engaging with this. 00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:55.440 If you're just aiming for virality, then it's just attention seeking. 00:20:55.759 --> 00:21:00.960 But there's a mix between posts that can gain more attention, but then the drive engagement. 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:07.039 I was telling people that my top performing post was a rant about checking bags at four kids.

00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:12.559 We were checking the bags and the last bag was over 50 pounds, and I wrote this very angry post to Delta Airlines. 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:14.480 I was like, couldn't we call it good guys? 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:17.519 I checked six bags, the last one was 52 pounds instead of 50. 00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:21.359 And that blew up, but it has nothing to do with what I do for work, right? 00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:26.400 You know, I learned a lot about the baggage industry in the airlines and safety protocol. 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:28.640 The comments were very enlightening. 00:21:28.799 --> 00:21:37.039 Um, but I always use that example to show people look, that didn't help me advance anything that I'm trying to do and help people on LinkedIn or talk about fintech sales that I work in. 00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:38.480 So you need to find a balance. 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:42.480 And one person I talked to called it combining personality plus purpose. 00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:44.559 You can have some personality posts. 00:21:44.799 --> 00:21:47.680 You can talk about life events and whatnot, and that's fine. 00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:49.839 You have to kind of keep the pump primed. 00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:51.680 And if you don't do that, then you end up in those eddies. 00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:53.200 Like you said, I found myself in those eddies. 00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:59.759 Like I've I've been stuck in there, like swirling, wanting to get back out into the river, and you have to do the work to get back out there. 00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:00.799 Yeah. 00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:04.480 I bet your baggage post probably functions as that for you. 00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:13.119 I guess the lesson people is if you are stuck, consider just widening your aperture and look over somewhere else and post about something you wouldn't normally post about. 00:22:13.839 --> 00:22:14.240 Yeah. 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:20.880 I tell people that for lack of a better term, when you call yourself a content creator, it's like the hammer and the nail scenario. 00:22:21.119 --> 00:22:25.039 Everything just everything of experience I think about in front of a lens of content. 00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:27.119 It can be a both blessing and a curse. 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:29.440 I don't know if you're in across that yourself. 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:35.599 I do also tell people it's helpful to just make a habit of thinking that could be a post. 00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:38.720 Some people it comes naturally too, some people hate it. 00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:46.799 But if you can not go crazy and just treat it in a grounded way and think, have a little filter in your brain of lookout for things that could be good posts. 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:51.200 It's way easier than sitting down at your computer and you know what to write about and you're struggling. 00:22:51.279 --> 00:22:58.000 And that's way more friction for me than just having one antenna up all the time of should I post about this? 00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:03.119 And I love how you talked about using demand bird for that. 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:06.720 And like in general, AI comes up in a lot of conversations I have with this. 00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:10.319 It's like, how are you leveraging AI to not be like the next Cloud bro? 00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:13.119 Like, how do you write a real post about an actual experience? 00:23:13.359 --> 00:23:17.519 And I use Cloud to manage kind of my content creation ideas. 00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:24.240 Because the hardest thing to do is sit down to that empty, that empty blinking cursor, that empty page, and write from there. 00:23:24.319 --> 00:23:25.519 That's so hard to do. 00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:32.640 But if you can, you know, seed it with ideas and like you said, oh, I hadn't thought about when demand broke, hey, based on this, you should write about this. 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:34.160 Oh, that's a great idea. 00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:39.279 Then remember that you're a human and go write like the human version of that story. 00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:39.839 Go write that. 00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:40.400 That's fine. 00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:42.640 That you use AI to help you get there, then go do that. 00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:43.680 Because people want to read that. 00:23:43.839 --> 00:23:46.000 People want to experience and interact with that. 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:48.160 Okay. 00:23:49.119 --> 00:23:51.359 Um, we're getting near the end of the conversation. 00:23:51.519 --> 00:23:53.440 I want this to be helpful for people. 00:23:53.680 --> 00:24:02.799 If you were to leave our listeners with two things that they can do this week, or two concrete moves that someone can do to level up their LinkedIn game or presence. 00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:28.880 I'd say one is create an engagement feed of people that you want them engage with and put it as a bookmark on your bookmarks bar, and then put a Google Calendar task for twice a week with linking to that bookmark, and then just do even 15 minutes of commenting on that target list of people, like the ones that you've pre-selected that you want to engage with, and do that twice a week. 00:24:28.960 --> 00:24:36.559 And you'll probably do more commenting that way than 95% of people, and you'll instantly see that everything just becomes easier on LinkedIn. 00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:49.200 And then as you do that, the second thing would be to go back through your last six months or so of content and find the top three things by combination of total reach, total engagement. 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:56.160 We have some ratios in Demand Bird that, apart from engagement rate, can help surface what the actual best posts are. 00:24:56.319 --> 00:25:00.319 Because you can look by top comments, top reactions, top impressions. 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:09.119 But for example, things like top engagement rate may or may not be the best gauge to use because your lowest reach posts often have the highest engagement

rate. 00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:21.359 So just take an inventory of your last six months or 12 months and then pick the top five to 10 from a different different metrics, and then ask yourself what was good about those. 00:25:21.759 --> 00:25:22.960 Were they extra clear? 00:25:23.119 --> 00:25:25.039 Were they very trendy at the time? 00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:28.640 Did they touch on a topic people really want to hear about? 00:25:28.960 --> 00:25:37.839 Just add to your calendar once a week or so for the next few weeks, post that kind of a line with whatever made the best ones of the last six to twelve months. 00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:51.200 And then almost always when people do this, if they're stuck in a rut and they do that exercise, both leaving more comments and then post inventory of what did the best, they'll be like, oh yeah, these posts did really well. 00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:58.720 I'm like, yeah, that's what the data are showing about your content, is that people want like these things that you talk about. 00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:01.920 So if you do that more, then they're probably gonna like it. 00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:04.160 And it's so clear and simple. 00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:09.599 But I think we spend a lot of time thinking we need to be creative and the blank page problem. 00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:12.720 We open up a blank page, we think I can't talk about that again. 00:26:12.799 --> 00:26:14.400 I just talked about that two weeks ago. 00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:20.880 But no, you should talk about that same thing from two weeks ago, from yesterday, today, and then do more engagement. 00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:24.240 And that's just the better way to approach it, especially if you're stuck. 00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:26.960 And everyone gets stuck, even pros get stuck. 00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:31.839 So if you're needing more from your LinkedIn, uh try those two things and see how far that gets you. 00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:34.720 I like that. 00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:38.799 And I like what you started with in terms of picking people to engage with. 00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:42.160 I think that's an easy kind of dip your toe into the pool. 00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:46.000 Go find, and I like that because it can scale across whatever you're trying to do on LinkedIn, right? 00:26:46.079 --> 00:26:52.079 Like if you're in sales and you want go go follow some of your prospects or some some people in your in your space, right? 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:53.279 Show up there. 00:26:53.599 --> 00:27:01.039 Um, if you want to get better at content creation, go find some of those content creators that you like and start following them, start engaging with their posts. 00:27:01.119 --> 00:27:04.799 You'll learn from them, you'll get visibility from commenting on their posts. 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:05.759 It's an easy thing. 00:27:05.839 --> 00:27:09.279 And then the actionable piece of setting the calendar reminder. 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:09.839 So good. 00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:11.119 Just hey, popped up. 00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:12.319 It's LinkedIn comment time. 00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:13.759 Get in there and make it happen. 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:14.880 I love that. 00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:15.839 Yeah. 00:27:16.480 --> 00:27:19.519 Well, anything you want to share with the listeners before we wrap up? 00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:23.680 You already shared a ton, and I just want to give you a chance to have the last word. 00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:31.359 Well, if you made it this far, you're probably pretty focused on seeing what LinkedIn can do for you. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:38.400 I guess I'll say that there's a lot of promises of what you can expect from just social media in general. 00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:46.720 And it's like a casino in that way where you might make a bunch of money, you might be a waste of time, and there's a lot of people talking about it. 00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:56.079 I guess so much for gambling per se, but there's a gambling element to it, and it's like the stock market in the sense that there's a lot of people talking about their way of doing it better. 00:27:56.319 --> 00:28:02.079 And some of that is real, but just to come back to earth, much of it is not real. 00:28:02.720 --> 00:28:18.720 So when you read advice about social media, my own too, just remember to run it through this filter of nobody's a guru, nobody knows exactly how to do anything, unless it's LinkedIn themselves, telling you that they will change the algorithm for your posts. 00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:20.960 There's no magic one way to do this. 00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:24.000 So just take advice you see with a grain of salt. 00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:31.200 That's just a generally good practice, especially when it comes to advice about social media investing or health. 00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:33.039 Those three buckets are pretty big. 00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:34.480 And this is definitely one of them. 00:28:34.720 --> 00:29:01.119 So if you have gurus on your follow list and if I'm one of them, just try to be grounded and give yourself some time to take some space and breathe when you hear people recommend stuff, and then just check with yourself inside whether it feels good, whether you really want to do that, rather than just being like, I saw this guy on a podcast say I should do this, and that's like my whole identity, and then you burn out and it didn't work right away. 00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:09.440 And so you think everything sucks and is bad advice, and just try to integrate little bits and pieces, and you're gonna build your own system over time. 00:29:09.599 --> 00:29:20.240 But maybe something I said was helpful, but nobody's entire system can be copied and pasted wholesale onto your way of running your business on LinkedIn. 00:29:20.400 --> 00:29:30.400 So try not to try to do that and just remember it's gonna take some time, you're gonna build it yourself, and just get tidbits where you can that you like, and that's the best

way to do it. 00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:34.400 Anything else is much more prone to burning out than will serve you well. 00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:40.240 And burning out is the easiest way to get stuck in a trap of I hate all of this, I don't want to do it. 00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:40.960 What's the point? 00:29:41.119 --> 00:29:46.640 I'm just gonna do something else, and then there's that's a big, a big, bad, vicious cycle. 00:29:46.799 --> 00:29:50.880 So that's my point on guru's advice and avoiding burnout. 00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:51.920 That's helpful. 00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:59.920 You mentioned it from a systems perspective, but like if I could don't take Alex Boyd's system and then just go run it as Mark, right? 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:00.799 That's not gonna be helpful. 00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:03.119 And I heard somebody say something similar in terms of the content. 00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:08.240 If they could take your post and somebody else could post it and be just as effective, like it's not a good post for you. 00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:09.680 It needs to be unique to you. 00:30:09.759 --> 00:30:13.200 So, like, run your system, tell your story. 00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:15.759 Otherwise, it's not gonna be sustainable, right? 00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:19.200 I don't want to run Alex's system, I want to run mine. 00:30:19.359 --> 00:30:20.160 Um exactly. 00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:29.839 I remember one question I want to ask you because you're doing this successfully, like as a founder, like showing up and building in public and sharing it on LinkedIn. 00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:40.400 What would you say to those other founders, those business owners that are nervous about building on social media because either they're scared about it or doesn't feel consistent with their professional image? 00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:42.319 What would your advice be to that person? 00:30:43.359 --> 00:30:44.559 People say that a lot. 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:57.039 I think because they look at whatever is on their LinkedIn feed and they conclude that if they're gonna do LinkedIn, they should do it like whatever they see on their current LinkedIn feed. 00:30:57.279 --> 00:30:58.720 And you just don't have to do that. 00:30:58.880 --> 00:30:59.759 You can do two things. 00:30:59.920 --> 00:31:05.039 One, you can do it differently anyway, and then two, you should customize who you see on your feed. 00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:09.920 And the way to do that is to unfollow, mute, block, engage with different content. 00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:18.559 Don't engage with content that's irrelevant or that you don't like, and you will start to see a very different feed if you do that that more resembles what you might like to talk about. 00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:28.319 And then, regardless of all that stuff, even if you're customizing your feed, you should still do it in whatever way you feel comfortable with, regardless of whether you see posts like that. 00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:35.039 For example, there's some VC guy that posted in paragraphs a long time ago, and now people are like, it's cool to post in paragraphs. 00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:39.920 Well, that guy just started doing it a while back because he felt like it and now it's good. 00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:40.240 Yeah. 00:31:40.400 --> 00:31:45.200 So if you see a bunch of line breaks and you're like, I don't want to do line breaks, okay, don't do line breaks. 00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:50.640 You don't have to just because you see posts with a lot of line breaks, you can just do it in some other way. 00:31:50.960 --> 00:31:51.680 There's no rules. 00:31:51.839 --> 00:32:00.000 If the substance of what you want to say is good, and if you're a smart person building a good business, there's something of substance in there. 00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:07.920 If you would put it in an investor update or a pitch deck or on your website, or you'd say it on a call or at a conference, it's probably good. 00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:11.119 How you package it is entirely up to you. 00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:17.680 And you don't have to imitate other people's packaging, especially if you have an uncurated feed. 00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:22.000 You're probably gonna encounter forms of post-packaging that you don't like. 00:32:22.079 --> 00:32:34.400 And so I just want to relieve people of the obligation to feel like they have to show up like some big influencer because most of the time a business leader is gonna show up very differently from an influencer. 00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:35.680 And that's that's right. 00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:37.440 That's okay, that's how it should be. 00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:43.599 But people get mixed up, I think, seeing influencers and thinking, well, I don't want to be like that, but I want to do LinkedIn. 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:47.039 And so they're just stuck in this loop, and then nothing ever gets done. 00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:49.039 So my advice is just don't do that. 00:32:49.200 --> 00:32:53.839 Do it however you want to do it, and you'll have a much better experience of showing up. 00:32:56.720 --> 00:32:57.599 That's so good. 00:32:57.839 --> 00:33:03.759 Giving people license to share their story in the way that they want to share it, not just the same way that they see it showing up in their feed. 00:33:03.920 --> 00:33:06.640 And I think that's a great tip, too, in terms of curating your feed, right? 00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:11.039 Like if you don't like what you see, interact with it in a way that changes that. 00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:16.079 Unfollow, X out, you know, it's still a social media platform, LinkedIn. 00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:22.400 And so you can you have a hand in driving what it shows you for better or for worse, right? 00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:24.160 Like that can go, they can go both ways. 00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:24.960 It's true. 00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:25.279 Yeah. 00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:30.240 Well, Alex, I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to chat with me and share some of your knowledge. 00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:33.039 Many great knowledge bombs dropped today. 00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:35.920 Alex Boyd, the co-founder of Demand Bird, go check him out. 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:39.359 Go find him on LinkedIn, go check out demandbird.com. 00:33:39.519 --> 00:33:41.359 Thank you so much for joining me today. 00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:42.480 Fun stuff. 00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:43.680 Thank you, Mark.