Preparing For Your Viral Moment

I have 3 core things to share with you today:

1: Latest LinkedIn tips (on featured posts, feed, niche, and engagement)

2: Tips to prepare for your next viral moment

3: The DM strategy that is working right now

This is a long read, as always. So, get comfortable and let’s get right into it.

Latest LinkedIn Tips

1. Cleaning up your feed

Your LinkedIn feed is a reflection of how the LinkedIn algorithm sees you. I believe that if you clean up your LinkedIn feed, your reach will be better.

I have experimented with this and it works.

I got in a mini-argument with someone on LinkedIn last week who said it didn’t work for her. And I had to dig in a bit. So, maybe, you don’t know how to clean your feed.

Go to your LinkedIn feed. Any post that does not align with your expertise, remove it from your feed. If the topic is faraway from your niche, you should pick the option, “not interested in this topic”.

You have to be very brutal for this to work. What is your niche? What do you want to be known for? Everything significantly outside that range must go. But this is just one side of the puzzle.

The other side is to avoid any kind of engagement on posts you don’t want to keep seeing. Don’t dwell on it, don’t write angry comments on it, don’t react to it. Just cancel and move on.

If you write an angry comment or anything like that, the LinkedIn algorithm will just think you want more of it. If you say you are not interested in a topic, do not make any posts looking like that topic.

If you say you are not interested in a topic, give the algorithm 24 hours to put it into action. I have experimented with this and it is not always immediate.

If you say you are not interested in a topic and you are still engaging on other posts on the topic (maybe because of the person who is posting it), the algorithm will assume you are interested.

The people who react and engage on posts LinkedIn is suggesting to you, are probably the same people LinkedIn is suggesting your posts to. Think about that.

2. Peers over clients

I saw a LinkedIn post last week that encouraged people to comment on the posts of their ideal clients. And I couldn’t disagree more.

I have tried it and it is not good for the sales process. With one exception…

If you are employed in a big or mid-size organization as an AE or B2B salesperson, this strategy of commenting on the posts of ideal clients can work.

However, if you are the one selling the product or service yourself, this is detrimental. NEVER CHASE CLIENTS.

Clients are people too. They are smart. They know what they want. And they are always looking for it, actively or passively.

Your job is to look like the person they want. Your job is to act like you have the insight they want. Your job is to make them class you in the category of the expertise they need.

If you are selling for a company or organization, follow and comment on your ideal client. If you are selling yourself as a professional or it’s a business you own, don’t go chasing clients.

People can tell when you are commenting on their post because you want to sell something to them, even when your comment is thoughtful. Instead, do this…

Comment on peers. Your ideal clients are looking at your competitors too. Don’t sit there pretending that you are the only one they see.

Engage with your peers. That’s what ideal clients that are looking to buy are watching. They are making the comparison in their heads.

And you achieve this not by fighting or arguing with peers. Instead, you achieve this by thoughtful engagement. Share your expertise in a dignified way. Trust me, someone is taking notice.

Don’t chase clients. Chase engagement with peers. The clients that are ready will choose you in their heads and be waiting for an offer from you.

3. What true engagement looks like

Here is a screenshot from my account last week of what true engagement looks like:

That’s gold standard right there. It is peer-to-peer and there is actual value in the conversation.

Always remember this - opportunities come from peers.

Opportunities don’t come from ideal clients or ICP. It comes from peers. There is someone with more clients than they can handle. There is someone with connections with a good-fit company for you. And so on.

Those opportunities will come to you when you establish trust with peers. Not through chasing public figures and ideal clients.

The #1 factor for clients in choosing who they will work with is TRUST. And it is very hard to trust strangers even when you have demonstrated all the competence in the world. People have had bad experiences and are scared to jump in.

But when you are recommended by someone they’ve had good experiences with, things are just so easy. I’ll make an example of myself:

I wanted to start making Meta ads for this newsletter and posted about it on LinkedIn. An old colleague made a comment. I got on DMs with him and asked if he could run the Meta ads for me.

I didn’t even check his profile or what he is currently up to. I just know he works in marketing as some kind of a freelancer. And I haven’t spoken to him since 2019. But I was eager to collaborate with him.

Meanwhile, someone else saw that post, reacted to it, and sent me a connection request. I didn’t respond. I can see they want to sell me their services for Meta (Facebook) ads.

That was when it dawned on me. People buy from people they trust. Trust or the perception of trust is the singular factor.

If you want sales, make it easy for people to trust you.

4. Importance of featured posts

There are several ways to optimally use the featured section of your LinkedIn profile. But I noticed one thing…

Any post you set on your LinkedIn profile will keep getting more impressions. It will keep getting more reactions (and comments too probably). And this means, the LinkedIn algorithm will keep throttling it.

I have tested this. Put your best-performing post that is in your niche, as one of your top 3 in the featured section.

If possible, make the post the first thing in your featured section.

It is easier for a post with 10k impressions to get to 20k impressions than for a post with 300 impressions to get to 1,000 impressions.

Never forget this. Once you spot a viral post, give it every ounce of fuel that you can.

5. Niche DNA

I feel like I ought to keep reminding you of this every week - stick with your niche. Do not deviate from your niche.

This is the most important thing on LinkedIn.

Be broad. Be human. Try to interact with fun stuff. But let it be among your peers and within the spectrum of your niche.

Nothing kills your LinkedIn reach like getting into a discussion about something that is vastly outside your niche. If you want to do that, go to Twitter (now X).

Even if there is a hot topic in politics and some of your peers are running into the rabbit hole, stay away. It may give a temporary boost, but your reach will suffer long term damage.

I changed my niche from remote work to LinkedIn content creation around 3 weeks ago. I am still yet to have a viral niche post. But I am prepared for my next viral post.

Preparing For Your Next Viral Post

If you want to make money the next time you go viral, you need to listen to this.

If you want to gain clients and get opportunities and offers, this is very important. I have been working on this myself over the past 2 weeks and I have made some really good progress.

First, you need to understand that you don’t know the post that is going to go viral. So, you have to write each post with the intention of it going viral.

Here are some things to note:

1 - Tag your name at the end of each post. This is how you get a huge surge in followers when you go viral. You can say something like, “Follow me @yourLinkedinName for more posts like this”

2 - Let your headline be very clear. People will not read what you wrote. They will scan through and certain words will pop out to them. Then, they will guess who you are based on that

3 - Tell people what to do next from your bio. They may do it. They may not do it. But it is important for you to show them the next step.

4 - Reply to every comment on a viral post of yours

5 - Brace up for insults, abuses, etc. Don’t take it personal

You likely won’t go viral without some naysayers and haters in your comments. And they will try as much as possible to hurt you, hurt your credibility, etc.

Never take it personal. And if that blows a relationship, then it just helps you to avoid what wouldn’t have worked in the first place.

My post on a DM gone wrong where I asked for feedback, a recruiter at a company that I applied to gave worst possible interpretation to what I said. And the worst part of it is that several people came on to agree with her (interpretation).

I just replied kindly and moved on. Of course, I got the rejection from the company soon afterward.

Those kinds of things happen. But the beautiful thing is that those moments reveal the things that are truly in alignment with you, and those that are not.

When someone reveal themselves as not in alignment, don’t force it. Just let them be themselves. And you be yourself. Your people will gravitate to you.

Your viral moment can also be a bad day for you based on what people will say to you. Be prepared for that too. You can’t have the fame without the haters.

The DM Strategy

I have sent 100+ cold DMs this year alone (and I am not using sales navigator or anything like that).

I have learned a lot from this. And I am going to give my playbook of what is working for me right now…

I spend 4+ hours every weekday on LinkedIn experimenting things just to share them with you. Kindly consider becoming a paid subscriber of this newsletter.

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