Why you should give LinkedIn another chance

LinkedIn has changed.

It’s not perfect, sure. 

But honestly, it’s SO much better than it once was. 

It’s like your best friend’s little brother. He got past the pimply teenager phase, sorted the frizzy hair, the braces came off and now suddenly—he’s HOT. Massive glow up. 

Like Neville from Harry Potter.

{Okay, bad analogy. But you get me.} 

So if you decided back in 2019-20 that LinkedIn was not for you? 

I beg of you: think again. 

Because it’s full of cool things: 

• creators (to learn from)
• peers (to collaborate with) 
• leads (to buy from you) 

But before I get to the crux of my argument, let me bring up this one thing. 

When you check LinkedIn out again, does this problem arise?

When you do go for a little explore, you’re likely to be disappointed. Because you’re largely inactive on Linky, it doesn’t know what you like. 

You haven’t curated your connections. So you probably follow someone who’s annoying or lame. Or your colleague from 2012 who’s massively into NFTs or crypto. 

So when you check LinkedIn out? You find a whole lotta repetitive, fakey, bland content, and you’re bored shitless. The good stuff is hiding. Please, give the algorithm a chance. Unfollow all the duds, and connect with creators you like. 

Then, your feed improves. You’re not bored. The more you engage with the people you like, the better the algorithm gets to know you. And then it suggests more legends to follow. And so forth. 

Is LinkedIn just Facebook, but for business? 

A few years ago, LinkedIn was corporate, professional, and stuffy. 

It was full of posts like this: 

• I’ve made millions, you can too, just buy my $10 program to learn my secrets 
• I just took a homeless guy to lunch and now he’s turning his life around (but don’t call me a hero) 
• how I went from 0 to 137,000 followers in six weeks using this one neat trick    

Admittedly, there are still annoying showoffs around. Sometimes including me. 

So you will still find pretentious content. 

But, the cool people are totally worth your time.

Currently, LinkedIn creator mode is rewarding people who share quality content with massive reach. That could be YOU. 

If you post free helpful stuff, LinkedIn will like you. And when it likes you, it amplifies your content to your audience. And so your network grows. 

A percentage will become superfans and buy from you. All you have to do is gain their trust, with the right content strategy. 

The other surprise benefit of giving LinkedIn another shot

LinkedIn is a great place to learn. So many smart, clever people, sharing smart, clever stuff. 

You can learn about NFTs, SEO, PPC or pretty much any other acronym. 

And by following creators, you can learn what works. See what kind of content they are sharing. Get ideas and inspiration for what you could publish too. Not copying, just inspiration. 

People like to follow experts, so by getting on board now, you have a chance to build an audience. 

Because one thing’s for sure, LinkedIn will keep tinkering with itself 

And that means it might ruin itself. 

Remember LinkedIn stories? It tried to become Instagram, but we all hated it, so RIP stories. 

In future, it might be bloody hard to build an audience. LinkedIn could shit all over your reach or become TikTok. We’ve seen it with Instagram; Meta has been tinkering, and now everyone’s got the shits with it. 

So while Linky is encouraging people to become creators, now is the time to strike. Before it’s clogged with same-same creators or LinkedIn stuffs it (or you) up. 

While you can, take advantage of LinkedIn and build your email list. 

Use that insane reach to build your audience. If you take that audience offline and build an email list, you’re protected if things go bellyup later. 

Your reach could tank at any time. Or you could end up in Linked Jail. Or even permanently kicked off. 

Side note: here’s more about LinkedIn jail and how to avoid it. 

(I was put in jail in early 2022, so take it from an ex-con.) 

Anyway, I recommend you get visible on LinkedIn now and build a list, while the reach is good. 

If you suddenly have problems or it becomes super hard to build awareness down the track, you will be the one who got in early. 

Nice. 

Another great thing about LinkedIn

There are people to collaborate with. You can make internet friends with people who serve the same audience. Then you can collab with them, scratching each other’s backs in a bloody awesome way. 

You will find people who can: 

• join you at events, such as LinkedIn lives or in-person workshops
• invite you on their podcast (or appear as guests on yours) and other PR opportunities
• recommend you to others (a very happy side-effect of getting visible on LinkedIn — you become top of mind so your word-of-mouth referrals increase) 
• invite you to share a guest blog on their network 
• have you as a guest expert in their mastermind or membership group 

To recap, 13 reasons you should retry LinkedIn

1. It’s full of people with money who may not be on other platforms 
2. You can get leads from it, with the right sales strategy
3. To build a reputation as a trusted voice in your industry 
4. You can create a content strategy that works without taking hours each day to produce 
5. It’s easy to repurpose your content 
6. It has insane reach for quality content 
7. If you have the right strategy, it can be easy to generate endless content ideas 
8. You don’t have to create fancy graphics or dance in reels like you do with Instagram 
9. It’s easy to be found on LinkedIn, if you optimise your profile 
10. You can turn your profile into a mini-landing page 
11. You can build your own audience by sending connection requests (rather than waiting for people to discover you) 
12. Creator mode rewards you for sharing quality content 
13. People searching your name online will likely find your LinkedIn profile (which is good, if you have it looking smick. But bad, if you haven’t touched it since 2019.) 

What still sucks about LinkedIn 

Let’s not pretend LinkedIn is perfect. You will still have to put up with a lot. Such as: 

1. Many people are using a dud strategy, and you will likely encounter them, leading to… 
2. Annoying DMs from people trying to sell to you 
3. There is confusing advice about how to use LinkedIn and you don’t know what is right for you
4. It’s another platform you need to learn, and you’d rather have a hot chocolate and two Arnott’s Mint Slices (no one ever has just one, right?) 
5. It has a masculine energy (which is not inherently bad, but it’s just got a bit of a blokey vibe that not everyone loves, sorry fellas) 
6. You have to feed the beast — by which I mean post content often. (This is easier with a content system and a repurposing strategy) 
7. Content trends can be irksome — suddenly everyone is sharing the same kind of content and it’s repetitive

It’s worth putting up with the annoyances. Because LinkedIn truly is a place to grow your business.