#241: Lara Acosta — How LinkedIn’s fastest-growing female creator uses the platform

Lara Acosta [00:00:00]:
There was no one. I had no job experience, no connections, nothing. When you're trying to be seen for the first time, the only thing I could do was network at scale. My mental reframe for this is looking at LinkedIn, like the biggest networking conference in the world that never goes to sleep.

Jay Clouse [00:00:30]:
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. My guest today is Lara Acosta. If you're publishing on LinkedIn, I bet you've come across a few of Lara's posts there as she's one of the fastest growing creators on the platform. Lara specializes in personal branding and teaching people how to tell short stories in their post. As a result of her SLAY framework, that's s l a y, which you'll hear about in this conversation, Lara has generated tens of millions of impressions on LinkedIn. In this episode, Lara teaches us her secrets to growth on LinkedIn, her outlook on the future of video on the platform, how she thinks about the opportunity of company pages, and more. I had a chance to meet Lara in person when I spoke at 1,000,000,000 followers summit in Dubai last month.

Jay Clouse [00:01:16]:
She was speaking as well, and she's an inspiring, high energy person that I think you'll really enjoy learning from here today. I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. If you're listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment directly on this episode. Otherwise, tag me at jklaus on Instagram. I love to see who listens to the show and I reshare those posts as well. Okay. Let's dive in and hear from Laura. Lara, so great to have you here on the show.

Jay Clouse [00:01:47]:
Been following you on LinkedIn for a long time. So today, I wanna get in the mind of Lara Acosta. You're showing up to the keyboard in the morning. What does your plan of attack for LinkedIn for the day look like? Not necessarily today in particular, but in general, what does your plan of attack look like?

Lara Acosta [00:02:04]:
I absolutely love this question because, the majority of people ask me what my content scheduling itinerary looks like, and I have none. Only until, like, yesterday, maybe I schedule content because I have to get ahead because of before Christmas, but usually I wake up and I kinda, like, just write. I like writing all the time. Luckily for me I found a very big passion for writing. So then I think about topics that I could be writing about that would be valuable to my audience. So I always go into writing with the how can I help my audience today? What can I teach them? What did I learn recently? What am I going through? And what is that one keyword that I can use that could tie everything together? So having a very solid base of things that I can talk about, LinkedIn writing, storytelling, productivity, entrepreneurship helps me guide my thoughts in the right direction so it can become content that is applicable to the majority of my audience.

Jay Clouse [00:03:06]:
When you think about this, like, a morphus entity that is the majority of your audience, how do you think about that entity? Because it could be an author. It could be a coach. It could be a consultant. So when you're sitting down saying, how do I create something of value for my audience? How do you run that through a filter that you have confidence will work?

Lara Acosta [00:03:25]:
Honestly, I don't know. I am the biggest pain to any coach that tries to coach me because they always go in, who's your target audience? Was your ICP? And I'm like, I don't know. Even when I had the agency full time, I started off running a ghost writing puzzle running agency. I never had an ICP. I always just had a feeling, almost like a like a vibe of passing that I want to attract. And I was like the go getter the one that wants to improve themselves. Age doesn't really matter. Like I attract people that are 15 years old, 20 years old, 23, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60.

Lara Acosta [00:04:02]:
The one thing they all have in common is that they want to grow. And they are very curious about the Internet. And they really like both a very professional style, but also quite relaxed in a way that the professional teaching, which is me, doesn't take themselves too seriously is still very tapped into the vein of what's going on with the Gen Z trends, but also understands how b to b works in a more corporate like level. And because it's so wide, I can't really define, but I just know they are innovative people who are excited to gain new knowledge, but also really appreciate the core fundamentals of marketing.

Jay Clouse [00:04:46]:
I think there's a couple ways that you can, like, skin the cat when it comes to an ideal client persona. Right? You could have the demographic answer or even, like, the job title answer. You could have the outcome based answer. You could have the psychographic answer. So I think a lot of people get caught up, like, when they think, oh, I need to come up with demographics. Like, who is my audience in terms of age, where they live? Male, female, what's their job? But like you're saying, I think the more useful way of thinking about your avatar is what do they want? What does this person want? Because that can cut across any generation, any job title. It's more outcome based. And I think when you're known for specific outcomes rather than identities, it's better for you anyway.

Lara Acosta [00:05:33]:
It is more about what do they wanna learn today that's gonna make their life easier tomorrow.

Jay Clouse [00:05:39]:
When you're writing, what type of benchmarks do you have to know this is done? How do you know when, like, okay, I had an idea, and I've written it, and now it's good enough.

Lara Acosta [00:05:50]:
At the start, it was very complicated because writing on LinkedIn is very fluffless. People that are actual copywriters hate LinkedIn content because it avoids the majority of the nuance, which is where the majority of storytellers thrive, because it's all the little elements that would make a story great, or like how direct to consumer would work, which is very sales y. A LinkedIn post that for me feels done is the one that has a compelling hook, arrived to the point very quickly, and then has a last finishing line that summarizes everything. I created this framework called the SLA framework, and I am known for saying SLA because I'm just so gen z, it kinda hurts. But over time, I was my friends were asking me, like, do you have a framework to write the way you do? And I'm, like, not really, but I always start with the story, lead with a lesson, have some actionable piece of advice in there, and always end with a u. And they were like, Lara, that is literally slay. And so from that, every single piece of content I ever write always has to have an ingrained story in it because that's what always makes it feel like, even if I'm saying the most basic type of information, it's mine. There's no one else's.

Jay Clouse [00:07:09]:
And why is that important?

Lara Acosta [00:07:10]:
Online writing has become such a massive thing over the last 2 to 3 years. We've seen a boom right now. LinkedIn has over 1,000,000,000 users, maybe, like, 2 to 3% are posting weekly, etcetera. And so even on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, knowledge has become a true commodity for most people. And so how you differentiate your knowledge between you and ChargebeeT is you turn the how to into a how I. And the only way you do that is through storytelling things that you've only experienced yourself.

Jay Clouse [00:07:45]:
I love that. I'm gonna come back to that for sure. You mentioned the hook being one of the most important points of this writing effort on LinkedIn. How do you define the hook on LinkedIn? Is it the first line? Is everything before the read more? How do you think about it?

Lara Acosta [00:08:01]:
So the hook is the first line. And on LinkedIn, you have two lines, maybe one before you get to the Seymour, right? So the first line is unequivocally the most important one. And it should always be around 8 to 10 words long. The reason why is because when you're scrolling on mobile, which is where the majority of people read the LinkedIn content, it is statistically proven about 60 to 70% of LinkedIn users scroll LinkedIn on their mobile. So having that 8 to 10 word benchmark for the hook allows you to communicate what you're saying without it spilling over in your phone. So people can see exactly what you're trying to say within the first line without having to wonder what it is. The idea is that the hook is so compelling that they feel like they should click on see more and then read the entire post. The second line is called the rehook.

Lara Acosta [00:08:55]:
And ideally, this would be like almost like a either bait and switch. So you'll say something like here's how to grow in LinkedIn without spending 1000 of hours writing content. That is something like you get them to bite into a hook. And then you switch them up because most people would think that in order to grow, they will need to spend 1000 of hours on LinkedIn, for example. And then you can use that to then further compel someone to keep on reading your content on LinkedIn.

Jay Clouse [00:09:20]:
I know a lot of this is probably second nature to you now. So this may be difficult to go back and say like, okay, how do I think about this? But the word compelling is interesting because I think intuitively, we know something needs to be compelling for us to take action on it or we won't do it. But how do we actually engineer something to be compelling? How do you think through okay, I have a little bit of an idea. Yeah. But now how do I make that compelling?

Lara Acosta [00:09:44]:
So I'm lucky enough that I teach a course is called Legit Academy. And I have to go through this every single time. And I have to remind myself of where I started. And I'm such a child of the internet. I grew up watching YouTube. And for me, I always try to compare it to YouTube videos and thumbnails. When you go onto the YouTube discovery page, all you see is 2 things, thumbnails and titles, right? So all of us either with Netflix TV, we know the title and we know the thumbnail, every single hook should look and feel like the thumbnail and title of a YouTube video that you want to watch, right? So if you think about it in your head, like a game of YouTube, and you think this is the thumbnail I want to click on, because what is it making me feel, And you need to connect it back to emotions. So how do we do that with words? We illustrate the emotion that we wanna compel to our audience to read.

Lara Acosta [00:10:36]:
Are you trying to make them curious? Are you trying to make them excited? Are you trying to educate them on something? So if you're trying to educate them for example, we're gonna lead with how to do ideal thing that you wanna do. Right? It doesn't have to be something crazy like I just made a $1,000,000 in 2 days because obviously that's very unattainable for the majority of us. But if you're teaching something to someone that doesn't know how to do that thing but they do wanna know how to learn, then you do just that. How to do the side outcome. Or if you're trying to tell a story, I did amazing thing while not being as amazing as I thought it was. So I just made $10 in 1 hour by cleaning cars on the street. That's interesting enough for someone that might be going through something like that. So we're trying to reframe it from just words into emotions, and using psychology to write.

Lara Acosta [00:11:29]:
And for me, it's obviously now quite easy to find. But I kind of had to teach myself that through reading influenced by Robert Cialdini. And just having more conversations. I'm known for going to networking events. But I don't do any networking at all in order to like, exchange cards and, like, oh, let's exchange synergies. I go there to test out ideas and see what words people like to react to. That is my favorite way of finding stories and actually creating compelling hooks because then in real life, I get to test different emotional things like people get to react to.

Jay Clouse [00:12:08]:
That's interesting. So you're saying in real life, you'll talk to people and you'll tell stories and you'll gauge their physical reaction to say that story did something.

Lara Acosta [00:12:17]:
Yes. Yes. That's how I've become such a a better storyteller. I used to have stage fright. And I remember 5 years ago when I wanted to be nominated for social media head of my powerlifting society, my throat shut, and I couldn't talk and I felt like I wanted to cry. And since then I've been making an active effort to expose myself to speaking more. Because the more I speak, the better I write, because the better I can communicate my stories, everything's communication, right? From storytelling to writing to public speaking. So that's a cute little trick I've picked up over last year.

Jay Clouse [00:12:54]:
I like that. I like the unlock of thinking about your first line, your hook, as if it was a YouTube title. Yeah. When you're talking about thumbnails, are you implicitly saying that the majority of your posts also have an image as the post type?

Lara Acosta [00:13:11]:
Yes. Yes. A 100%. Everything's about the packaging, and people forget YouTube is the best like sample for that is the biggest platform. I think it's the top of top of the social chain on social media. And for me, if a voice on LinkedIn doesn't have an image attached to it, a good quality image as well. It's missing a shot of even performing even better. A lot of people like to write text only just because they don't have photos to post, or they just don't like it, or they just have this whole persona around just text post.

Lara Acosta [00:13:43]:
I just feel like it's a waste of time and energy to not give your post up extra boost. Obviously, on YouTube, we've seen it. There's so many anomalies where the thumbnail is literally just a screen grab of the video itself. And it does well because the either the person does a carrying for the video or the title. But usually for beginners and even me, I rather have a great thumbnail and a great title and have them both do the work together and not just alienate each other.

Jay Clouse [00:14:12]:
Yeah. Because some people have different viewer behavior. Right? Some people, they are more text based where they'll read the first hook and that's what hooks them. Other people are scrolling for some sort of scroll stopping image. Yeah. When you say that you lean on images, do you specifically mean the image post type? Or are you also lumping in, like, carousels, the document upload style things Yeah. Videos?

Lara Acosta [00:14:38]:
All of them. All of them. I do text posts, photos, carousels, videos, everything. If you guys go and look at my LinkedIn profile right now, maybe 99% this year has been accompanied with some sort of like video or image naturally because I have this rule that I will only create content that I consume. I will never create content that I would never read myself. And I am a visual learner first. So why would I not accompany that with my own content, and I'm so glad you mentioned carousels because a year ago, carousels were the big thing, nearly 2 years ago. And that was a single thing that scaled me up so quickly from nobody to sort of like an authority on LinkedIn.

Jay Clouse [00:15:27]:
So when you say that carousels over the last couple years are one of the biggest points of inflection for your growth. You're kind of saying that in, like, a past tense. Has the time passed for carousels to be as effective as they once were?

Lara Acosta [00:15:39]:
Yeah. LinkedIn goes on phases is a very I would say it's a platform that has the most mental crises, that I've seen. It goes on, like, very quick cycles. So 2 years ago, carousels took over the entire LinkedIn platform. If you upload a carousel, and it was sort of like at 7 out of 10, it would make you go viral like crazy. My friends went from like, I don't know, 50,000 to maybe half a1000000 in a matter of months, I went from about 10,000 to maybe 80 1000 in a year or maybe under just because of my use of carousels and obviously my ability to explain things very visually, my visual capacity, my visual storytelling, and design skills that accompanied everything became 1. But then suddenly, they sort of stopped working. LinkedIn has this thing.

Lara Acosta [00:16:28]:
And we can get into the video boom, right, like after where they push certain things, just because they want to create some sort of environment on LinkedIn that is of learning, of exploration, of getting new people into the platform that may make it easier. LinkedIn realistically is a very low friction platform if you think about it in comparison to TikTok, Instagram, and all the other video platforms, even YouTube. Long LinkedIn, you could grow just by posting text only content, right? So it's very low friction, very easy gains. So then, when you're trying to appeal to more people and trying to get more customers, because obviously LinkedIn is a business, then you incorporate more elements that may make people stay on the platform for longer. That is the idea of every single social media platform. TikTok does it with, like, this algorithm that is so addictive is in an endless for you page and with Instagram. And now for LinkedIn, because their only goal realistically and has always been is to help businesses and employers have a better experience at work, then they push these features out to test and attract more people that have similar values.

Jay Clouse [00:17:37]:
Yes. Interesting. I would agree with you that LinkedIn changes frequently and yet innovates on the product very very slowly. So many aspects of the product itself are not impressive. Like the newsletter feature

Lara Acosta [00:17:50]:
I've never ever used it. No.

Jay Clouse [00:17:51]:
It was amazing because I was in the beta for its launch and I would pick up like 500 new subscribers a day. And anything that you publish in the newsletter, it would send to their inbox. It would send them a push notification in the app. And it was like this incredible aggregator of attention, but it didn't even have basic analytics. I think it still doesn't have basic analytics. You can't see what links people click on or how many times. And so you can't make any type of real decisions strategically for content using that tool. I think part of it comes from they're owned by Microsoft.

Jay Clouse [00:18:24]:
And so their goals really have to be aligned with Microsoft's goals, which are pretty much just driving revenue to Microsoft. They don't have to compete the same way that most social platforms compete because they have, like, a very sound business on the back end. But it's such a weird place because of this, like, amalgamation of stuff.

Lara Acosta [00:18:43]:
Yeah. That just sums LinkedIn up very well. I can't complain though. I love it. I love it.

Jay Clouse [00:18:50]:
After a quick break, Lara tells us why she's not sold on video as a growth strategy for LinkedIn. So stick around. We'll be right back. And now back to my conversation with Lara Acosta. So is video something that you are particularly putting a lot of emphasis into right now?

Lara Acosta [00:19:13]:
I got very lucky with the video boom on LinkedIn because it was just a natural transition for my content creator journey. So I've always been good at video. I'm not gonna deny it. Every Gen Z that I know would be good at video because we grew up with it. Ever since I was like a little kid, I had a camera on my hand. And I've always wanted to be a blogger. And I've always delayed that because I put more emphasis on learning how to write and communicate my skills better through content. I have just natural rules when it came to building my business.

Lara Acosta [00:19:44]:
I didn't wanna just be seen as a face. I wanted to be seen as an intellectual mind. And with that, I hid behind the keyboard for, like, a year or so, trying not to show myself too much because I really wanted to hone in on my skill set of writing, personal branding, strategy, all of these things. But then, as I grew and my business grew and I could naturally afford a camera setup, lights, and table all of these things. It just made so much natural sense for me to progress on to YouTube. I wasn't even trying that hard to do LinkedIn video. Most of my videos now are either forecasts or YouTube clips. But in one day around this time last year or October last year, a guy from Nepal reached out to me, and he created this beautiful video, very highly edited.

Lara Acosta [00:20:36]:
I was familiar with highly edited videos that look very good from, like, Alexis Musi, Mangati, all of these people that have high quality editors. And he took this podcast that I made and edited it. And he was like he posted it on LinkedIn. I saw it. I was very grateful for it. And then he sent it to me on an email, which is one of those email style DMs on LinkedIn that you kinda have to have credits for. And then he sent me the Google Drive link, and he was like, here you go, queen. Hope you like it.

Lara Acosta [00:21:04]:
And I accepted the message, and I was like, thank you so much. And then he said something like, I paid for LinkedIn premium just so I could message you. I would love to work and grow your LinkedIn your YouTube together. And at the time, I didn't have a YouTube channel. I had no interest, but he saw that I was good at speaking in public, or at least better than the average LinkedIn user who is mostly introverted, and they just don't like speaking on camera. So he saw that chance, but I wasn't ready to commit to the investment, time, And it wasn't just a priority. I have this thing where I'm always focusing on one platform at a time. First it was LinkedIn, then it was Twitter, then it was newsletter.

Lara Acosta [00:21:44]:
And I wasn't really going to try and get beyond that because I wasn't interested in video. But then I got very jealous of one of my friends who blew up on YouTube because of a LinkedIn video and he wasn't even a LinkedIn expert. And so jealousy created this entire thing which was my video boom and here we are.

Jay Clouse [00:22:06]:
So if someone's getting started on the platform today, do you steer them towards video? Or do you say start with images, do the sleigh framework in your post? What's your go to like, here's the path of least resistance?

Lara Acosta [00:22:20]:
I think video for growth on LinkedIn is absolutely overrated. And it actually doesn't do well for growth. Most people come on LinkedIn and they wanna grow. I did a challenge for 20 days. I posted video only. And I tracked analytics from DMs, leads, growth, followers and unfollowers. And in contrast between my typical growth journey with me posting photo and copy and copy and video, I grew more posting photos and texts than videos. So Interesting.

Lara Acosta [00:22:53]:
I would always recommend people to start with copy and video because realistically and always, culturally, LinkedIn as a platform will always be a text based platform. It's just the culture of how we see LinkedIn. And I think people ignore that so much. And it's quite frustrating. Because we're getting all the TikTok influencers, creators, entrepreneurs, Instagram entrepreneurs, YouTube, seeing this LinkedIn video boom going on. But it is hidden in fake views and impressions that LinkedIn is artificially boosting to kind of curate this new video environment that they wanna create and generate from scratch. But if you think about the typical LinkedIn user, and I always say say this, what are they doing? And where are they checking their phone? At work, where they don't have headphones, where they can't really watch a video, and where they're not really interested in watching a video anyway.

Jay Clouse [00:23:52]:
If people

Lara Acosta [00:23:53]:
are interested on video, they will go to TikTok or Instagram where there's subtitles and all these like really experienced creators. So I think people are missing the mark that video it is good for a personal brand regardless of the platform. However, for growth purposes, you need to make it easier for the person who is using that specific platform to get to know you. And that is through text and photo.

Jay Clouse [00:24:17]:
I love that take because I've had a similar experience. I haven't tested video as rigorously as it sounds like you have. But it's been wild to see how high the impression numbers are in these posts. But they don't get any more actual engagement.

Lara Acosta [00:24:32]:
It's so annoying. It has been the most annoying thing to see, especially 6 months ago when people kept on asking me like, oh my god, is video the future is video the future. And just because video works on all the other platform and has grown so much. The thing that makes LinkedIn and even platforms like Twitter so unique is the ability that they attract the introvert. The one that is a deep thinker that doesn't require doesn't wanna have a setup, that doesn't need to have a mic, They just wanna write. Like, take people like Naval. He's a great speaker, but he's also a prolific writer. And people like the Varend form on Twitter because that's what they go to Twitter for.

Lara Acosta [00:25:12]:
It's the same on LinkedIn. They go to LinkedIn for analytics and, like, deep data research and very deep thoughts or, like, very concise explanations that do not require this algorithmic viral video creation with effects and subtitles that realistically that audience doesn't want. And I I appreciate it so much. I understand it and I I love it. I can create video for it for days. I I love YouTube. But as someone that loves LinkedIn and the reason why I chose to grow on LinkedIn was that it allowed me to create a safe space without having to over rely on all the tools like a mic or a camera or a script. It was just me and my keyboard.

Lara Acosta [00:25:56]:
And I think that's very precious.

Jay Clouse [00:25:59]:
Yeah. There's something about if you're able to build an audience through writing rather than video, it just tends to attract a different audience, it seems. A friend of mine posted on Twitter yesterday. He shared a screenshot of his Instagram account and then a screenshot of his Twitter account. And his Instagram account had 1,400,000 followers. His Twitter account has like 30,000 something. And he said, I have 1,000,000 360 1,000 fewer followers on Twitter. But if I were to keep one of these, I would keep Twitter, which is insane.

Jay Clouse [00:26:33]:
Right? But it's like the platforms have different audience selection and even mediums have different audience selection a lot of the time. And I think people miss the point in this in multiple ways. It's not even just about video versus text. I see a lot of people who see, like, oh, I can take an image from Reddit that went viral and post it and then write something fairly generic. But because that image has already proven successful, it will get impressions. It will get views. I will get followers. But what has that done for actual association or relationship building with you since this didn't come from you.

Jay Clouse [00:27:07]:
I think people chase impressions blindly a lot of the time.

Lara Acosta [00:27:12]:
I love that I love that you mentioned that it's so true in the culture as well. Like, there's a platform for every single archetype of personality and creator, And I think that should be more widely respected and known that people think people use use it as like, oh, this is going viral right now. But what is virology going to do to you? If your personality isn't showing? I've seen so many times all of these accounts on Twitter, Instagram that will post a story about Steven Bartlett or the guy that wrote Atomic Habits, and it'll go viral. But then they're just known as that person that told that story about that older person.

Jay Clouse [00:27:50]:
Actually, they're not known at all. Yeah. Yeah. They were seen, but they're not actually known at all.

Lara Acosta [00:27:54]:
Yeah. And then they gain all these followers, and they post a story about themselves or, like, an offer, and no one listens. And it's again, it is frustrating. It is the game as well, how you choose to play it. But I truly believe that the people that build their brands from the ground up with their own personality as a forefront will end up winning the game at the end.

Jay Clouse [00:28:15]:
I got really far away from my original question and I kinda wanna go back here, which is okay. Laura shows up at the keyboard. She's writing. That's thing number 1. She's writing because she's not necessarily scheduling getting ahead. But I've also heard you say that you spend a lot of time engaging afterwards. So talk to me about the post publish experience of you at the keyboard.

Lara Acosta [00:28:35]:
It's a whole routine. I need to preface this. It's not sustainable. It is not glamorous. It's actually was very hard for me to grow because I was no one. I had no job experience, no connections, nothing. I had zero skills. I was literally just looking for a job on LinkedIn, wanted to get a master's.

Lara Acosta [00:28:53]:
So when you're trying to be seen for the first time, when you have nothing, no network in real life or online, the only thing I could do was network at scale. And my mental reframe for this is looking at LinkedIn, like the biggest networking conference in the world that never goes to sleep. Right? So I knew I had, while I was unemployed at the start, so I had all this time to spend networking. And so before it was about 5 to 8 hours, connecting with people, DM ing people, creating content, engaging with people's content, and making lists of people that were like either my top 100, my dream 100. I think I heard that from Richard Branson maybe, and made a list of people that I wanted to connect, engage, and maybe be seen by. And nowadays it's way less time, maybe around 4 to 5 hours a day where I'll post a post at 12:30 and then for the next hour, it's time blocked on my calendar. It's been time blocked for 2 years and a half. And from 12:30 to 1:30, I'll be engaging on my comment section on my own posts.

Lara Acosta [00:29:59]:
The reasons for this can be varied. One of them is obviously to boost my own engagement. So the more comments I get the bigger that like comment account gets the more formal it attracts naturally. Almost again back to the YouTube video, if you see a YouTube video is the same but you see one of them has 10,000 views and the other one has 10, which one are you gonna pick on? The one that has 10,000. Right? So then again I I applied that to my content and I try and boost my own content by replying to comments by commenting on my own post. I'm I'm my biggest cheerleader. I have no problem saying that. And I also use that as a chance for people to get to know me a little bit better.

Lara Acosta [00:30:39]:
And then after that hour, for the next 2 to 3 hours, if I have time or, like, odd enough, I'll be engaging in other people's content.

Jay Clouse [00:30:47]:
I wanna flag something that you said because I can hear people's pencil scratching in their notebook. You said every day you post at 12:30 and I bet a bunch of people were like, oh, 12:30 is the time to post. But I'm wondering if that is related to your time zone and where you live and whether people should hear that differently.

Lara Acosta [00:31:05]:
12:30 in the UK. That could be like 5 am in the US. Right.

Jay Clouse [00:31:09]:
It would be 7:30 Eastern.

Lara Acosta [00:31:10]:
Yeah. But I know people that do wake up this early in the morning to post around the same time. Why does this happen? And why did I choose this time? Before it was 2:30 pm because I used to wake up very late because I was at university but then I was like this is too late it's making my day start very late. So I was like what is the earliest but latest time that I can grab people at the right time? So 12:30 is the time people at work go to eat and what do people that are eating do usually? They look at their phone and my ideal customer or client or audience will be looking at their phone and be on Linkedin. Also, in the US if it's 5 to 7 AM in the morning, what are they doing? They're on their morning commute, They're on the train. They're having breakfast. So I get to kind of like capitalize on both of these people having some free time. And I kind of know that they'll be able to at least see my content and then it increase my likelihood of them seeing me.

Lara Acosta [00:32:06]:
However, however, when I'm selling, I will push my posting time to around, let's say either 6 pm or 4 am in my morning. Why? Because the audience with the most buying power is the US naturally. There's like a lot more people on LinkedIn in the US. So I capitalize on that by posting at that those types as well when it comes to like sales content because I know that those people are also active. Maybe they just got off work, maybe they're going to work, coming back from work, and I can then, you know, make them see me more and push my product up. Someone I learned this from was literally Justin Welsh who I analyzed their his content time and posting schedule, and I realized that he was posting sales posts in the later end of my day, so it would be around my 6 PM or even 4 AM. So then I tested that out and it was true in some of my friends who are also LinkedIn nerds. We've tested that theory out and it works because it hits the US audience at the right time.

Jay Clouse [00:33:07]:
I like that. I like sharing the context because context is more important than the specific because Yeah. The specific may change based on the context of where you are. How much have you pushed frequency on your page? Have you thought about, like, posting 4 times a day?

Lara Acosta [00:33:20]:
No. No. Never. Never more than twice. I've only posted twice when I launch a product. That's because I have obviously have to promote myself a little bit more than usual. The maximum I've done is 7 posts a week for like a period of time, maybe month, maybe a month and a half. I started with 3 posts at the start.

Lara Acosta [00:33:41]:
And the reason why was I wanted to prioritize quality over quantity, which is a very unheard of thing when you come from the Gary v land of, like, quality, bro. And I just push content and just do it do it do it like post post post like just post it just fucking and I'm like, actually, I would really like to maybe not post as much but create this good experience on my reader that they actually enjoy the content and it doesn't feel like I just wrote it just to post it. Because I feel like if you're disrespecting your audience with a shitty piece of content, they're not gonna come back. And I hate that because I can feel like someone marketer just inherently. And so I've always posted 3 times a week at the start because I was again quality and now I can post more because I have like a content schedule maybe, ideas are already validated, the Twitter screenshots that I use, videos that I can create. So I've got more bandwidth for creating content at scale, But if I was starting all over again, it will be 3 times a week.

Jay Clouse [00:34:45]:
If you could maintain the same quality and double your output, do you think that would double the outcome from your post?

Lara Acosta [00:34:53]:
Yes. Because obviously, frequency matters. We'll see people like, again, Justin Walsh posting twice a day, and it does help because you are maximizing the chances people see you. Right? I haven't been able to nail that at the scale that he has because I don't think that I can create content at scale at that quality that I would like to position myself as. I have a lot of pride on how I write and how concise it is and how clear it is and how fluff free it is. And I feel like if I push myself to do that twice a day, it will start creating some sort of like lazy content or like, oh, I just got this done. Get it out of the way. And I I hate that.

Jay Clouse [00:35:34]:
After one more quick break, Lara shares her take on the potential of company pages on LinkedIn. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. And now please enjoy the rest of my conversation with Lara Acosta. Where do pages live in your strategy? Because I've seen some folks who they also have a LinkedIn page they'll post to. I see you have, like, Laura from Literally Academy as a page that you'll post on your own post. What's the upside of having a LinkedIn page at this point?

Lara Acosta [00:36:06]:
Okay. So it depends on your strategy. Honestly, the Lara from Literal Academy page is run by one of my admins, and it helps me just create this even further nurturing cycle with my audience, but we don't really post in it. Company pages can still grow. My friend, Jake Wood, has done it very well with his page to LinkedIn creator, where it's a content creation page that then leads to a tool, which is amazing. But the reason why I've not been so intentional on it is naturally by default. Linkedin company pages are seen 40% less than a personal profile, which means that the only reason why I would start building my company page would be for more authority as a business, or if I was just trying to grow it to then further push my own business agenda and trying to sell more. Right now, we're just using it as a, hey, we're here type and, like, as an engagement mechanism where people kinda see the brand everywhere, but it's not the main focus.

Lara Acosta [00:37:06]:
The focus is me. So that's what my strategy is, but it depends on the business.

Jay Clouse [00:37:11]:
If I create a company page and I comment on my own personal posts, do you think that comment has the same weight as a third party or even my own profile?

Lara Acosta [00:37:22]:
Yes. It adds I feel like it really does add that luxury of community that people sleep on a lot. I learned this from, obviously, Duolingo, who has had the most amazing growth on their page, and I've seen them grow over the last 3 years from TikTok. And seeing how a company can engage in such a engaging way, new, more like up to date, actually conversational, less professional, adds that security feeling that a lot of my customers are looking for. Many people are scared of buying things from professionals on LinkedIn because they feel like it's too professional or too scary, too rigid, needs a blueprint, needs a specific strategy. And when you're doing that from your company page, you're actually just allowing people to familiarize themselves with you and your brand and kinda see them as a conjunction. So I've seen this with one of my older friends, Jake Wood, who started doing this as well with his company pages, I think, is like content growth. And every time I would see it, I would just smack.

Lara Acosta [00:38:29]:
Because I knew it wasn't the company page. It was probably, like, one of his assistants or something doing it. But it just it adds a smile to someone's day when they see the trick. Or, like, it's just like, why is this company page talking like a 20 year old Gen Z or like a 30 year old millennial? I don't know. And I like it. I find the little pressures on social media the most enjoyable.

Jay Clouse [00:38:50]:
What do you think most people are getting wrong when it comes to LinkedIn right now?

Lara Acosta [00:38:55]:
They're getting lost on the hype of video. They get lost in the hype of everything. They get lost in the hype of templates and any single thing that people see that's working. And they confuse their goals a lot. So I run an agency. I know this firsthand where people will come to me for growth and exposure. We'll give them growth and explosion. Guess what? They wanted lead generation obviously, and they're not clear on what that really looks like.

Lara Acosta [00:39:23]:
Social media has this thing that does to people that people feel like because they're going viral it means that they're becoming millionaires at the speed of light, which is a problem that it's been very ingrained in the industry for years. It's no one's fault. It's just like natural how people think. And so I feel like people don't go into social media knowing exactly what they want and how they wanna achieve it and who they wanna become. My thing is LinkedIn parcel branding. So people don't even know why they wanna build a personal brand. They heard Gary Vee say it. They heard me say it.

Lara Acosta [00:39:53]:
They heard someone else say build a personal brand, but they don't know why. And if you don't know why you're doing something, then it's not gonna work because your heart isn't in it. I'm big on energy, and if it's not aligned, it's not gonna happen. And you end up copying someone, and you end up going in this endless hamster wheel of, like, copying this path and then templates and strategy and video, and then it's it all works and you're burnt out because you're following all of these things that don't work for you until you find the thing that actually ends up working for you, which is probably the thing that you wanted at the start.

Jay Clouse [00:40:23]:
Something I've noticed a lot of people do who are good at this that I don't do because I'm not good at this, They'll end their posts with a line that's basically like an explicit call to action. Like, hey, repost this if you want more stories and less infographics. I was on your last one. Or, hey, repost this if you agree or something. And then it'll even have a PS like tag someone in the comments. How much does that move the needle? Is that something that more people should be doing with their posts?

Lara Acosta [00:40:52]:
I think yes and no. I was recently roasting content for my course and we have weekly calls and someone was literally using every single one of my templates and having the good post, call to action, good post, call to action. It looked exactly the same as mine but it wasn't getting the same effect. Why? Community. Just because you have a good call to action like tag a fan below or like tell me what you think it doesn't mean that people are going to be incentivized to reply. And so a lot of social media for me is logic and feeling And logically, do you think that for your audience size, can you actually push someone to give you an honest reply? Or should you be better off using that PS to actually direct them to something else? Or using that time to be engaging so people can come when you choose to do a PS. So a reason why I get so much engagement from this PS is because I spent 2 years building an audience that actually wants to start a conversation with me, And this is so underrated. People see the framework, but they don't see the work that went behind the framework for it to work better.

Lara Acosta [00:42:02]:
They'll take a viral post template, it'll go viral, and then they'll do it again. It won't go viral, and then they'll blame the framework but not the work that they're doing behind. And so the PS works, of course, a call to action works, of course, if the call to action is enticing enough for the audience that you have at the time. So it's a little little nuance that most people will skim past because they believe that social media is very simple and easy. It isn't. It looks simple. It looks very easy. But there's a lot of like all the needle movers that go into the work of it.

Lara Acosta [00:42:36]:
And so, yes, so call to actions will always work if you have an audience that is interested. And into that you have to be interested in other people.

Jay Clouse [00:42:45]:
Right? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. People do what they wanna do. If they're not doing a thing that you want them to do, it's because they don't wanna do it. So, you know, you need to do the work to figure out, well, why would they want to do this? It's not good enough that I've asked them to unless I've already built a relationship. And the reason they wanna do it is because of that relationship. So I think that's a really important nuance that people aren't taking the actions that you want because they don't want to. And you need to figure out, oh, why don't they want to? Probably because if they've done it in the past, they have not gotten a good experience on the other end of it. When somebody does the thing that you're asking them to do, tagging a friend or commenting, they probably get a reaction from you in that 2 hours after you post.

Jay Clouse [00:43:24]:
And that was a good experience for them. They said, oh, wow. I did the thing Laura asked me to do I got a message from Laura that made my day better probably subconsciously that's going to push them to do it the next time the next time the next time you also end some of your posts with a link which I think is a wonderful thing about LinkedIn in that if you don't have a link preview, but you have a link in the post if the post itself is doing well enough, you can get a lot of traffic to a link. It also strikes me that it's probably not feasible for accounts that are just starting, but I'd love to get your take on this. When does it make sense to include a link?

Lara Acosta [00:44:00]:
A 100%. I I didn't include links until 6 months ago because there's like this theory and I've disproven it proven it. I am a LinkedIn ad by the way. I spend 12 hours a day on LinkedIn testing things out with my friends who are also LinkedIn ads. And the first thing with links is that like any other platform, the platform doesn't want you to leave the platform for another. So naturally, it just would make sense that LinkedIn would strike your post with a link like minus points, and it will show it less reach, because you have a link leading people out. We've sort of disproven this theory, because I've gone viral with photos with link on it. And the reason why it works is because a post is good and people are clicking on the link.

Lara Acosta [00:44:47]:
Right? LinkedIn may think that the link is spam if no one's clicking on it, right? So you have to think how do I entice more people to click on that link? You have a very compelling call to action, like grab my free 7 day template here. People like free stuff. Right? So that's why lead magnets work very well. That's why newsletter articles that are specific and actionable enough and you're leading them to something work very well. But at the start, I wouldn't have done it even when I had around 80,000 followers, because I didn't feel like I've gained enough trust from people to go and click straight into a link. I was listening to your podcast with someone else that does cause I can't remember her name now, and it's the same with her offer. It was like you can't just sell a course from just an email to sell. It has to be another mechanism like the planning page, webinar, email, and then sale.

Lara Acosta [00:45:44]:
And it's the same kind of funnel when it comes to a link. So it's like you build a trust, you retain the trust, and now how are you gonna convert that trust? And it's a longer process because with Passoveran is is exactly that. You get them to like you then you get them to trust you. So I wouldn't have done that. The only way I've done links before it was through comments. So I'll be like hey by the way I have this free 7 day guide, grab it here. Or I'll have it on my profile which a lot of people don't know but it's also a landing page that you've got a banner, you've got a proof of picture, you've got your links there, you've got your feature section. So for me, it worked as a very good landing page.

Lara Acosta [00:46:24]:
I didn't have a website until this year.

Jay Clouse [00:46:27]:
Wow.

Lara Acosta [00:46:27]:
I ran an entire social media marketing agency, a personal branding agency on LinkedIn without a website that was functioning. We've had that just for Luxe, but it didn't say anything. So I think that is very much underrated too. That just because you're not adding a link and a call to action to your post, it doesn't mean that you're not selling. It just means that you have to direct them to the right place, which is your profile.

Jay Clouse [00:46:51]:
We've covered a lot of ground here. Thank you for being so open and sharing so much.

Lara Acosta [00:46:54]:
Of course.

Jay Clouse [00:46:55]:
What do you think is the 80/20 if somebody leaves this and makes one thing better with the way they show up at LinkedIn?

Lara Acosta [00:47:03]:
Send more connection requests to people that you think are going to move the needle for you. Again, LinkedIn is the largest networking conference in the world that never sleeps, right? So always make sure you're wearing your best suits or your best dress and what I mean by that is make sure that your profile is clean. Make sure that your content looks good and presentable. It doesn't have to go viral. It doesn't have to be the most engaging thing. It doesn't have to have the perfect hook, but make sure it looks good for whenever someone makes that click onto your profile. They have a great first impression of you. And in order to do that you have to be sending connection requests and to be engaging a lot because the more you engage the more you can be shown on that feed.

Lara Acosta [00:47:45]:
Lara Costa commented on Jay's post and that is a comment that people will see. Just think about it as like you're making a first impression, right? Every single day. So make sure that everything's clean, and you're ready to go. Your content doesn't have to be perfect. Your comments do. And so does your profile.

Jay Clouse [00:48:03]:
Okay. Quick follow-up on that. When you send a connection request to somebody who's legit, you want them to know you exist. What are you putting in that request box?

Lara Acosta [00:48:12]:
Always think about it like it's leverage when you're trying to build connections with your ideal desired clients or your ideal network. So there's always something that you have that that person may want or that person may know. So if I'm trying to connect with Jay, I would have said, and I think I actually said this to you or maybe not. Hey, Jay. I love your podcast with Kieran Drew. It was so good. I specifically loved when he spoke about his launch. I actually listened to it before I launched mine.

Lara Acosta [00:48:42]:
We ended up making a 100 k. Thank you so much for putting this amount of effort into your podcast. Speak soon. That type of personalization and also slight ego boost plus value add allows you to cut through the noise that your ideal client or connection with a 1,000 connection requests that say nothing. You can actually push forward and be that person that actually stands out. The game is so easy. Just people are lazy, you know? Just think about it a little bit how can I appeal to this person? What do I have? What can I see? What can I actually go find out about this person? The same thing I was reading another book it was this guy who wanted to close a deal it was I think his influence And the person that he was trying to close a deal with he had a check of like a $1,000 his first check that his grandpa gave him. And so that guy when before he made the introduction for the first time he mentioned that check.

Lara Acosta [00:49:39]:
No one had ever mentioned that check but he did. And so he ended up getting what he wanted because of that single personalized thing that no one thinks about.

Jay Clouse [00:49:48]:
That's so good. It worked. I accepted it and I accept almost no connection request because most of the time it's nothing or someone that I'm I don't know. If you send me a connection request and I don't know you and you send me no context, I'm not going to accept that because just to give people some more insight.

Lara Acosta [00:50:03]:
A lot

Jay Clouse [00:50:04]:
of times people reach out to me and they'll say, hey, do you know this person? I see you're connected. And so implicitly, the connection requests that people like me and you accept, people might see that we're connected to that person and take that as social proof that we may not mean to give. So if you're gonna ask for a connection request, love this advice of actually giving some context, actually doing something personalized. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Those reviews go a long way in helping us grow the show. That's why I say it, episode after episode after episode. And if you wanna learn more about Lara, I've linked all of her social accounts and her newsletter in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you next

Lara Acosta [00:50:59]:
week.