This is so thoughtful detailed and actionable. I read it twice because all of these are so applicable to me at this stage. Thank you Marilyn for sharing your knowledge!
Thanks you Marilyn, you cleared up a lot of my questions with LinkedIn.
I have also found that when posting on LinkedIn, people may not react with a like/comment (which I found initially disappointing) but sometimes many do request a connect/DM.
Any pearls of wisdom how best leverage LinkedIn to drive to Substack newsletter.
Thanks Nick :) you are right about people not reacting with a like or comment.
Some of them may not be there to build audience or personal brand, or don't know how commenting can help with their profiles, they'd rather connect in private.
For me, just by posting content, connecting and chatting in DMs have been driving new connections to sign up to my newsletter.
Many of them don't comment on my posts, they also don't connect and don't chat in DMs, but they subscribe here from LinkedIn.
This is not without the support of new friends I've made in LinkedIn.
It's not yet very consistent for me too, but at least a few subscribers a day so far.
As always, your comments are very insightful and on point!
Would love to chat/brainstorm more with you on LinkedIn/Substack synergies - my gut say there is something there that is currently undervalued by the community. All the best
Update: Sorry Jack, somehow I did something and deleted your comment by accident. Here was your comment:
"I find LinkedIn so much harder to post on than Substack, because there's more people I know and my employer too, did you do LI before you were self-employed?"
Here's my answer:
Thanks for reading Jack. I see what you are saying about the people you know and employer on LinkedIn. This can be really hard you may never know what you post may trigger something sensitive to your colleagues, bosses, etc.
Justin Welsh has a post related to this, it's not exactly answering your question, but may shed some light: https://shorturl.at/yajSv
When I started LI, I was a freelancer, having multiple clients, who are also on LI, until now. Sometimes they DM me.
I used to not post content cos I was afraid of what clients will think of what I say, and I wasn't so confident in my work then. This made me overthink what I should post so they can be happy and so on.
This sapped my energy and ended up not posting. It was only until a friend told me he found some great results on LI and at that time I wanted to create a lead gen system that I can control. I just gave it a shot. So far there aren't any negative effects between me and my clients.
My case may not be exactly like yours. I can imagine it's not going to be easy for you to just post freely on LI. I find that if your terms with your employer doesn't restrict you from having a side hustle, I would go ahead to post if I were you and ignore the thoughts being judged.
Even if there are terms of not allowed for side hustle, I don't see a problem posting content, it's just to build your own personal brand.
Otherwise, you can explore posting with a different name, not your real name. I've not done this before, but you can see what Tim Denning wrote in this blog post: https://timdenning.com/substack-money/
What a brilliant piece - best I have seen till now. Would love to share in my newsletter as well.
Thanks Salil! Wishing success to you and your followers 👍🙏
This is amazing, Marilyn! Exactly what I needed for this stage of my journey.
Thanks for reading! See you in LI too, excited for you to reach your goals
This is so thoughtful detailed and actionable. I read it twice because all of these are so applicable to me at this stage. Thank you Marilyn for sharing your knowledge!
thank you so much for reading, Sunny! I'm also documenting my current processes to share in future editions.
Thanks you Marilyn, you cleared up a lot of my questions with LinkedIn.
I have also found that when posting on LinkedIn, people may not react with a like/comment (which I found initially disappointing) but sometimes many do request a connect/DM.
Any pearls of wisdom how best leverage LinkedIn to drive to Substack newsletter.
I’m finding results very inconsistent so far…
Thanks Nick :) you are right about people not reacting with a like or comment.
Some of them may not be there to build audience or personal brand, or don't know how commenting can help with their profiles, they'd rather connect in private.
For me, just by posting content, connecting and chatting in DMs have been driving new connections to sign up to my newsletter.
Many of them don't comment on my posts, they also don't connect and don't chat in DMs, but they subscribe here from LinkedIn.
This is not without the support of new friends I've made in LinkedIn.
It's not yet very consistent for me too, but at least a few subscribers a day so far.
I will do a write-up on this one.
As always, your comments are very insightful and on point!
Would love to chat/brainstorm more with you on LinkedIn/Substack synergies - my gut say there is something there that is currently undervalued by the community. All the best
thanks Nick! happy to help :)
I can't reply to your reply now either, so will reply to myself 😅
Thanks for such a detailed answer, thanks for the links, I will check those out.
Yeah I can definitely relate to not feeling confident in my content yet, it's all very new to me.
Yeah I recently had a friend say they got good results on LI too, I will try and get over the embarrassment of posting.
I could post with a different name too, will look into it, thank you so much for the advice
awesome, see you in LI when you are there!
Update: Sorry Jack, somehow I did something and deleted your comment by accident. Here was your comment:
"I find LinkedIn so much harder to post on than Substack, because there's more people I know and my employer too, did you do LI before you were self-employed?"
Here's my answer:
Thanks for reading Jack. I see what you are saying about the people you know and employer on LinkedIn. This can be really hard you may never know what you post may trigger something sensitive to your colleagues, bosses, etc.
Justin Welsh has a post related to this, it's not exactly answering your question, but may shed some light: https://shorturl.at/yajSv
When I started LI, I was a freelancer, having multiple clients, who are also on LI, until now. Sometimes they DM me.
I used to not post content cos I was afraid of what clients will think of what I say, and I wasn't so confident in my work then. This made me overthink what I should post so they can be happy and so on.
This sapped my energy and ended up not posting. It was only until a friend told me he found some great results on LI and at that time I wanted to create a lead gen system that I can control. I just gave it a shot. So far there aren't any negative effects between me and my clients.
My case may not be exactly like yours. I can imagine it's not going to be easy for you to just post freely on LI. I find that if your terms with your employer doesn't restrict you from having a side hustle, I would go ahead to post if I were you and ignore the thoughts being judged.
Even if there are terms of not allowed for side hustle, I don't see a problem posting content, it's just to build your own personal brand.
Otherwise, you can explore posting with a different name, not your real name. I've not done this before, but you can see what Tim Denning wrote in this blog post: https://timdenning.com/substack-money/