5 Honest Lessons After Hitting 150,000 LinkedIn Followers in Less Than 3 Years
I'll never not be thankful.
Yesterday, I hit 150,000 LinkedIn followers.
I started creating content there in January 2022 and it's been the most life changing, skill building and lucrative thing I've ever done.
If you follow me on LinkedIn, thank you so much for the support.
If you don't follow me, start here.
If you have goals to hit 150,000 followers on LinkedIn, that's cool.
But here's 5 lessons I've learned along the way that might help:
1. Don't obsess over followers
I obsessed over it at the start.
But it was the complete wrong metric to obsess over.
If you run a service business and you want to grow revenue, you need to focus on enquiries inbound and who is connecting with you. Those conversations turn into clients.
Not followers.
2. Social media is a love/hate relationship
The opportunity that social media gives us is mind blowing.
It's changing lives and turning poor people into rich people within months, when used correctly. It's turning successful businesses into even more successful businesses.
But it's also incredibly toxic with 1,000,000,000s giving their opinions on things they probably shouldn't be every day, all day.
Use it wisely.
3. Writing is a love/hate relationship
As a writer, this pains me to say it.
But it's also just the truth.
I don't love writing 24/7, 365 days a year. I posted recently about how I didn't enjoy writing my social content for a whole year. The thing I love about writing is the practice, the discipline and the freedom you have with it.
I've found it's important to respect that it's not going to be enjoyable all the time, just like everything in life.
4. You will not do it alone
Social media growth is rigged unfortunately.
The biggest accounts all share content with their friends who engage with each other and help each other grow. Some people even sell services off the basis that they can help someone do the same.
Mad really.
Regardless, you won't grow on social without finding some like minded people who you vibe with, enjoy talking to and support each others work.
I made friends with some incredible people very early in 2022 when I started posting (shout out Ryan, Ruben, Roman, Jessie, Tas, Kev and Gusto) who made it all a lot more fun and enjoyable.
5. Educational, long form content is king
My first 12 months I went from 0 to 40,000 followers.
Then the following 6 months, I went from 40,000 to 100,000.
Double the growth in half the time.
The reason for that was I doubled down on educational long form content, using carousels like this as the format of choice. I come back to this format every now and then, and it still slaps.
I just don't have the time to create this every day, nor do I need to grow my followers exponentially anymore.
Hope these lessons were useful and good luck to you.
Thanks again for your support.
It means the world :)
Cheers,
Matt Barker
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