The Game Plan For My 2nd Year Of Writing On LinkedIn
First a little news: My content has been viewed over 1 million times on LinkedIn!
Next stop, 10 million.
The backstory
If you’re new to this Newsletter, hello and welcome!
I joined LinkedIn in 2007 and lurked around for 15 years before writing my first original post.
Since March 25, 2022, I’ve posted 331 times on LinkedIn, which means I’ve published content ~78% of the days since I got started.
Here’s what I learned in my first year as an online writer. And, here’s what I got in return for nearly 300 hours of unpaid writing.
For most of that first year, I wrote with no real content strategy. In today’s article, I write about my plan for year 2 and the reasoning behind it.
The plan
The high-level plan is:
Post 4-7 times per week on LinkedIn
Repost to Twitter
Write an article for this Newsletter 1-2X per month
Share them on LinkedIn (get additional subs)
Repost to Medium (get additional subs)
Take 1 week or longer breaks as needed
I wasn’t successful “pushing through” creative lulls last year
I view breaks as part of a sustainable routine, not as a failure
274 total LinkedIn posts
That's 3 posts every 4 days
Breaking down the LinkedIn plan
Last year my goal was to write consistently and not much more. Now that I have the consistency part down, I’ve put more thought into what content I want to produce.
Here’s where I’m landing:
1 hyper-niche carousel / week
An example:
2 additional industry posts / week
1-2 personal stories, career lessons / week
0-1 posts on LinkedIn writing (on weekends)
0-1 posts on random topics (occasionally)
The reasoning behind the strategy
1. Hyper-niche carousels - These carousels will go deep into the zone where I have accumulated the most specific industry knowledge.
I think this will be the core of what ultimately monetizes my LinkedIn writing. When people think “I need some help managing a marketing program on Credit Karma” or “I want to hire a head of partnerships for a lending business” - I want my name to be the first that crosses their mind.
That could mean more job opportunities, advising gigs, maybe even an independent business some day. I'm keeping a long-term view and an open mind on how this might play out.
I’m in no rush.
For now, my focus is on creating useful, shareable content.
2. Industry posts - These posts will go a little broader than the hyper-niche of building marketing programs on credit marketplaces.
Here, I’ll write about the broader card & personal loan industries and share stories about some of the work I’ve done.
This is intended to attract an audience beyond the hyper-niche I work in.
3. Personal stories and career lessons - I want my audience to relate to me personally and know something about my work style.
Potential business partners will want to know about my subject-matter expertise, but they'll also want a sense for how I think and operate.
A theme that’s been successful in this category has been my business lessons from playing poker.
I’ll keep going with that theme, as it seems to be memorable and I’d like to write a book on the topic someday.
4. LinkedIn writing - I want to meet other mid-career professionals that want to build an online presence on LinkedIn.
I hope “writing about writing” will attract professionals like this (hello Newsletter subscribers!) and help me initiate collaborations.
I’ve initiated a few of these relationships so far, and they’ve been key to my consistency, motivation, and on-going learning.
5. Random stuff - I want to give myself space to riff on interesting books, podcasts, experiences, and anything else that pops into my head.
I think it’s part of building a balanced online persona.
I'll have my subject-matter-expert zones that everyone expects, but I'll also show up occasionally with insight on a random topic.
Why not have a little fun?
How it's going so far with the industry posts
I’m happy with the distribution I’ve seen so far.
Compared with my “career lessons” posts, my industry posts see less engagement (likes & comments) but more views.
A typical career lessons post gets ~3200 views and ~22 likes.
An industry post gets ~4000 views and ~14 likes.
Here’s an example of a high-performing industry post with 8,471 views, 37 likes, 9 comments, and 2 reshares.
I find it harder to generate likes and comments with the industry posts, but it’s still early days here and I have more work to do until I find my stride.
How will I measure success in year 2?
Year 2 will be a success if:
I feel like I'm writing unique, thoughtful content in my area of expertise
I execute the content plan I’ve laid out here through March 25, 2024
Views, likes, and followers are out of my control so I’m not setting any goals there.
The most important question I want to answer: What happens when I stick with a topic and go fairly deep on it for 1 year?
Will I still have fun writing? Will I still meet interesting people? Will I see signs of increased career optionality / professional brand recognition?
Those are the questions I’ll be asking myself.
Closing thoughts
It’s a little crazy that it took writing over 300 posts before I could articulate my content strategy.
If you’re in your first week, month, or even year of writing online, and you don’t feel like you have a content strategy, well, at least you have some company here.
Reflecting on year 1, there’s no way I could have formed a strategy with any conviction before doing a bunch of writing. That experience (plus the feedback I got from my audience along the way) provided the data I needed to develop a point of view.
If you need some help thinking through your content strategy, ping me. I’m no expert, but I recently went through the struggle to land on an answer.
Lastly, I hope you’ll consider:
Sharing this Newsletter with a friend who might enjoy it
Responding to this email with questions I can help you with
Responding to this email with your take on my content strategy
See you again in a few weeks,
Carlos