I listened to Brandon Smithrick interview Dan Roth, LinkedIn’s editor-in-chief, in this video, and now I’m reconsidering my entire LinkedIn existence. Cool. Love that for me. Dan said that if he were starting in content today, he’d find a niche he was passionate about and put in the work there. Wasn’t I already doing that, tho? No, Christina. Marketing, media, and content is not a specific niche. If we’re talking about things I could happily obsess over for the rest of my life… Obvi, it’s books. And I’m already doing that pretty successfully on other platforms. I talk about the fiction I’m reading. I share romance recommendations. Thriller twists. Book mail. Reading challenges. All the very serious literary journalism happening over on Bookstagram. But would that work here? Probably not exactly the same way. I’m not sure LinkedIn needs me screaming about fictional men. (Although never say never.) Maybe the niche here becomes the content behind the book content.
What works. What absolutely bombs. How brands fit into it. Basically, less: “Here are five thrillers with insane twists.” And more: “Here’s how I turned talking about thrillers into content people watch.” I don’t know. Just a thought. But that’s exactly why Dan’s interview got my wheels turning. Here are a few other things he said that I think every person creating on LinkedIn should steal immediately. Write for your community, not yourselfPainful. Because sometimes I am extremely interested in something, and therefore, naturally assume all of you should be too. That is not how audiences work. Dan’s advice was to pay attention to your comments.
What sparks an actual conversation instead of, “Thanks for sharing!” Please stop writing a magazine articleDan came from magazines. He knows long-form writing… and even he says people don’t want giant walls of text here. They want chunks, headings, guideposts, and little reasons to keep scrolling. Which makes sense because nobody is sitting down at 9 a.m., pouring a glass of wine and saying: “Finally. Time to deeply study Christina’s LinkedIn newsletter.” Make your content easy. Assume nobody read your last newsletterI love this one. Every edition should make sense to someone discovering you for the first time.
And maybe stop calling everything: Issue #23 Because the person who just subscribed is now wondering what critical information they missed in Issues 1 through 22. They missed nothing. Let them live. You don’t need a famous person or a giant revelationOne of Dan’s biggest lessons from LinkedIn editorial content was that leadership advice consistently resonated. And some of the strongest-performing ideas didn’t come from giant household-name companies. One example he mentioned was a piece about hiring for potential over experience from a company many people hadn’t even heard of. Which is a great reminder because we constantly think content needs to be HUGE. Sometimes people just want one smart idea they haven’t considered before. Voice might matter more than everTHIS. Especially now. Anyone can open ChatGPT and ask it to write a LinkedIn post. And the result will probably be grammatically correct. It may even be pretty good. But if everything starts sounding polished, professional, and vaguely inspirational… The people who sound like actual people become much more interesting. Dan talked about newsletters having a distinctive voice. Same. One of the newsletters he follows talks about the absolute disasters communications professionals find themselves in.
Some of my best LinkedIn posts blew my mind. Like, why do you all like the TV news reporter horror stories?! Is my pain entertaining to you?! And then there’s distributionDan said after voice, distribution matters most. In other words:
That’s a much more interesting goal than trying to rack up 100,000 random impressions. Especially because… Apparently follower count isn’t king anymoreBrands are paying more attention to credibility, audience fit, and trust. Dan said brand safety and relevance to the audience have become more important than raw follower numbers. He’s also hearing a lot less: “Can you make this go viral?” THANK GOD. Because imagine putting “make it viral” into a marketing brief and believing you have completed the strategy portion of the meeting. Dan tells brands to go into LinkedIn’s creator marketplace, find creators talking about the subjects they care about, and start following them.
Your comments might matter more than your impressionsImagine two creators. Creator A has 150,000 followers. Creator B has 12,000. But every time Creator B posts about cybersecurity, a bunch of CISOs, IT leaders, and security professionals start debating the topic in the comments. If you’re a cybersecurity company… Which creator do you want? Exactly. And I think that’s the bigger lesson here. Maybe the goal isn’t: How big can I get on LinkedIn? Maybe it’s: How relevant can I become to the exact people I want to reach? Dan said he wants to see an explosion of creators talking about incredibly specific things on LinkedIn. He wants people covering niches we barely hear about now. Basically, a creator for every weird little corner of the professional world. So now I’m looking at what I’m already doing elsewhere and wondering: What would the LinkedIn version of that look like? Maybe mine really is books + content. Maybe it’s how creators build audiences around things they’re obsessed with. Maybe it’s the behind-the-scenes of turning something as simple as “I read a lot of books” into an actual content engine. I haven’t totally figured it out yet. (I’m open to your thoughts.) But I think there’s something there. So tell me: If you had to niche WAY down on LinkedIn, what would you want to become known for? Christina PS. I’m sending this from Las Vegas, where I’m attending the Think Media Mastermind to get better at video storytelling… and of course I’m gonna swing by The Sphere to see the Backstreet Boys tomorrow night. |
