My Top 3 Lessons From Crossing 15k Followers on LinkedIn

Was it worth it?

tl;dr

• It took me 2.5 years of consistent posting to reach 15k followers on LinkedIn

• Quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive when it comes to content creation

• I consider the time spent building this audience an overall break-even investment

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I crossed 15k followers on LinkedIn recently.

It took me 2.5 years of consistent posting to get to this point. I estimate that about half of the followers came when I went viral with my post about why I quit my job at Netflix, and the other half came just from consistent 3-4x/week posting.

It took me 4 months to get to about 4k followers, and 4 days to double to 8k followers after this article came out

Although many creators have grown even faster than I have, I’m still proud that I even got to 15k at all. I fondly think of all the people I’ve met, the experiences I’ve had, and everything I’ve learned along the way.

In today’s article, I share my top 3 lessons from these last few years of content creation.

Quality and Quantity are NOT Mutually Exclusive

I used to think that quality and quantity was an unavoidable tradeoff I had to make. 

There was a turning point though in 2022 when I realized that my 1x/week posting on LinkedIn simply wasn’t going to cut it. So I first ramped it up to 2x/week, then 3x/week. And then I said if this is do or die for business, then f*** it, why not 4x/week, which is where it is now.

And that’s when I realized that quantity and quality are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, the best creators are all prolific creators as well. You CAN have it all. Arguing otherwise is just an excuse for laziness.

For example, millions of people love Stephen King’s writing, but many people forget that he has written over 80 books in his lifetime, many of which were duds, and one of which was even pulled off the shelves.

King mentioned that he wrote 2,000 words a day, every work day, for decades. No wonder he was a success!

The famous Japanese artist Hokusai has an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 works to his name in his lifetime. This was back in the 1800’s when he had far less technology to speed up his creative process.

Hokusai’s most famous work is this painting titled, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”

Leena Dong, a famous comedy content creator with almost 20M followers across all social media channels, said that she was not an overnight success, but got to where she is by consistently posting videos every week for over 10 years.

And looking through her videos, they are both consistently posted and consistently funny.

So remember - creators have to CREATE. Writers have to WRITE. 

Quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive. The best content creators are also the most prolific.

Everything is Content

Another major lesson I learned from content creation is how to come up with ideas to post about.

Consistency helped me better spot all the content opportunities in my normal day-to-day life because EVERYTHING could be content.

Had an interesting conversation with a friend?

Did you feel inspired by a book you read? 

Are you in the middle of an interesting project?

Are you at an event? 

Did you travel somewhere new?

All of this is content!

In fact, I also realized how much content you can potentially squeeze out of a single event. You can post about it before you attend, during the event, and after the event as well, literally 3x’ing the possible content out there!

Example of how I posted about my trip to Saudi before, during, and after.

And despite so many content creators churning out more content than we could ever consume in our lifetimes, I’ve realized that there are still so many perspectives and ideas that still haven’t been fully documented yet.

Your unique take even on the mundane topics is still valuable and a fresh perspective that deserves to be posted!

For example, although job quitting videos are common, it seems like every single one still has a different take on the same topic. 

Example videos discussing why they quit their jobs. They all rack up a lot of views!

Don’t let the fact that other people have already posted about something stop you from posting your take on something. Your perspective matters too!

Create Content Because You Love Doing It

Lastly, I’ve learned that you should create content because you enjoy doing it, not because you’re expecting an ROI on it. Otherwise, you’ll burn out before reaping any of the rewards.

I’ve certainly learned a lot from content creation. But considering the amount of time this takes up, with each article taking around ~6 hours, and each LinkedIn post taking ~30 minutes 4x per week, that’s 8 hours, or a full work day, spent on content creation every week!

It’s a heavy investment, so I often switch back and forth between saying it’s worth it and it’s not worth it, and would call it a roughly break-even investment of time.

Some of the tangible benefits I’ve gotten from doing this include:

• Winning at least 2 consulting projects I wouldn’t have even won if it weren’t through the visibility that content creation gave me

• 1 paid speaking engagement, 4 podcast appearances

• Countless people and friends made 

• Invaluable entrepreneurship lessons 

• Better communication and writing skills in business settings

• A wide network of people who I can ask for help

• A number of potential business partners

Example speaking engagement that resulted from content creation.

However, I’ve also wondered if spending all the time on content creation on direct sales (for example, testing ads, cold emailing, or bidding on more projects) would’ve been a better use of time.

As the saying goes:

“Followers ain’t cash.”

There’s the famous story of another influencer on Instagram named Arii with 2.6+ million followers, who tried to launch a clothing brand and couldn’t even sell 36 T-Shirts.

So ultimately, I can only recommend content creation because you love doing it, sharing your thoughts, and expressing yourself to the world. 

If you only do it purely for an ROI, you might be disappointed.

What Now?

I’m still posting regularly, and aiming to be as consistent as possible. But at the same time, I’ve learned to not burn myself out doing this as well. 

If I feel like I need a break, I will unashamedly take it. Given the choice between content creation and a direct sales opportunity that is more pressing, I’ve also learned to prioritize what will make the sale now over a longer-term content marketing play.

Either way, I will continue to post despite the modest rewards because I enjoy writing and meeting new people.

Onwards to 20,000 followers!

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In the mean time, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I post daily content on AI and entrepeneurship.

You can also connect with me here on Instagram.

And, if you have any referrals for folks interested in building anything related to AI, let me know!

I offer a $1,000 referral bonus for every opportunity that closes (website link).

Thanks,
Michael