How to get 145k followers on LinkedIn in 1 year

I share my experience growing from zero to 145,000 LinkedIn followers in 14 months, generating millions in revenue. I detail specific strategies for LinkedIn growth, including leveraging the new video tab, creating engaging story posts, and utilizing infographics. The presentation explains how to properly monetize a LinkedIn following through strategic content posting and lead magnet implementation. This talk was given at Andrew Wilkinsons IP2 conference Learn more about IP3 Andrew's Newsletter: https://neverenoughnewsletter.kit.com/signup Andrew's Twitter/X: https://x.com/awilkinson Andrew's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NeverEnough2024 Episode Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 02:05 - The ACP Funnel Explained 02:50 - Case Study: BoringMarketing.com 04:42 - Tactical Tips for Going Viral on LinkedIn 06:10 - Leveraging Video Content on LinkedIn 08:10 - Crafting Compelling Stories for Engagement 09:46 - Using Infographics to Boost Engagement 10:31 - Monetizing Your LinkedIn Audience 12:16 - Creating Effective Lead Magnets Key Points: • LinkedIn in 2024 is comparable to Twitter in 2020 for viral growth potential • Three main strategies for LinkedIn growth: video content, storytelling posts, and viral infographics • Monetization through strategic lead magnets and post-editing techniques • Building the ACP (Audience-Community-Product) funnel for business growth 1) The ACP Framework: • Audience first • Convert to Community • Build Product for them Example: Boring Marketer → Free community → $8M ARR SEO tool business 2) Why LinkedIn in 2025? "LinkedIn right now is 2020 Twitter - it's fishing with dynamite" Greg grew 125K followers in 14 months with just 15 hours of work 3) LINKEDIN HACK #1: Video Content LinkedIn just added a video tab. Nobody knows this yet. Two options: • Faceless content with AI voiceover (use @elevenlabs) • Record yourself Pro tip: Videos are getting INSANE reach right now 4) LINKEDIN HACK #2: Stories that Convert • Get someone to interview you • Extract 15 career stories • Focus on vulnerable moments • MUST pair with photo of yourself • Use storytelling frameworks 5) LINKEDIN HACK #3: Viral Infographics • Find previously viral infographics • Repost with credit • Add universally agreeable caption • Example: "This year's gonna be great" → 151K likes 6) THE MONETIZATION STRATEGY Don't put links in original posts! Secret sauce: • Post content • Wait 4 hours • If more than150 likes, EDIT post to add link • LinkedIn won't suppress it 7) LEAD MAGNET MASTERY: Don't sell directly. Create valuable free content. Example: • Made startup ideas database • 5,000 downloads in 30 days • Segment in ConvertKit • Nurture → Monetize later 8) KEY TAKEAWAY: 2025 will be HUGE for LinkedIn. Start now while organic reach is insane. Even 15 hours can build a massive following that drives millions in revenue. Notable Quotes: "LinkedIn is fishing with dynamite right now." - Greg "I grew from zero to 125,000 followers with probably like 15 hours of work in 14 months." - Greg LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ BoringAds — ads agency that will build you profitable ad campaigns http://boringads.com/ BoringMarketing — SEO agency and tools to get your organic customers http://boringmarketing.com/ Startup Empire - a membership for builders who want to build cash-flowing businesses https://www.startupempire.co FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Greg Isenberg?

  I went from zero to 145,000 followers in about 14 months on LinkedIn. Now, I know what you're thinking. LinkedIn is mega cringe. And I was like you too, until I saw all the value I was getting from LinkedIn, literally millions of dollars of revenue flowing into our businesses. I think you should give it a shot. And okay, maybe you don't need to give it a full shot, but you can give this episode a full shot. Learn how to grow really big on LinkedIn. A bunch of hacks that are not being shared anywhere. Like how to create LinkedIn video and why LinkedIn video matters.

• 0:44Greg Isenberg?

  Someone's going to listen to this podcast and make millions of dollars. So that's for sure. It's a in-person podcast that was filmed at IP2, which is Andrew Wilkinson's event. People paid thousands of dollars to be there. You get the benefit of being there, but you didn't have to fly to Victoria, British Columbia. So I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you did, comment below and let me know what you think. Enjoy.

• 1:37Greg Isenberg?

  A little bit about Greg. So started and sold three VC-backed companies. Was an advisor to Reddit, TikTok. And now I run a cash flowing holding company like some of you here.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  What's in the cash flowing holding company? What do you make money from?

• 1:51Greg Isenberg?

  We've got four agencies. Three of them are productized agencies that use AI, of course. AI assisted SEO, AI assisted ads, design agency, internet communities.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Sweet. You have talked a little bit about buying communities and building communities. Can you talk about why you think that's kind of an arbitrage or what you've shared online?

• 2:15Greg Isenberg?

  So my whole thesis, like what I'm betting my entire career on is this one funnel that I call the ACP funnel. So it's basically A stands for audience. You build the audience up top, then you convert that audience into a community, and then you build a product for that community. So when we start a business, you know, most people start a business, they build software, you know, they'll go and build a CPG product. We don't do that at all. We start a Twitter account. And if the Twitter account gets traction, or an Instagram account, or the TikTok account, then we know that there's something there. We'll create a community, and then we'll build up that product.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  What's a specific example of a product that you've built to sell to a community like that?

• 2:56Greg Isenberg?

  So we built a business called boringmarketing.com, which, you know, will probably do seven, eight million dollars in ARR next year. And it started off as a Twitter account called @boringmarketer. Yeah, you have people like, I know you're friends with Cody Sanchez, talking about boring businesses, right? But no one was talking about boring marketing. So we said, okay, let's just grab the Twitter username boringmarketer, simple as that, and just give people tips on boring ways to grow your business. Turns out, a lot of people wanted to talk about SEO. So we just like kind of pivoted to SEO. And then it started, you know, getting 10,000 followers, 15,000, 30,000. And then we built a free community for people interested in boring

• 3:41Greg Isenberg?

  marketing. And then we built the AI assisted SEO tool. So that's how, that's kind of how it works.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  So you built a SaaS tool that you sell to them instead?

• 3:49Greg Isenberg?

  Exactly.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Sweet.

• 3:52Greg Isenberg?

  Quick break in the pod to tell you a little bit about Startup Empire. So Startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me, like you, who want to build out their startup ideas. Now, they're looking for content to help accelerate that. They're looking for potential co-founders. They're looking for tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them, how do you do email marketing? How do you build an audience? How do you go viral on Twitter? All these different things. That's exactly what Startup Empire is. And it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas, or it's for people who have a startup, but just they're not seeing the traction that they need. So

• 4:37Greg Isenberg?

  you can check out the link to startupempire.co in the description.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  What advice do you have that is specific and tactical and practical for this audience about perhaps going viral online or simply creating better business content?

• 4:53Greg Isenberg?

  So let's talk about something a little cringe. So I'm obsessed with LinkedIn right now.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Good.

• 5:01Greg Isenberg?

  And I talked about this in my session. And I'm obsessed with LinkedIn because 2024 LinkedIn is the equivalent of 2020 Twitter. When in 2020 Twitter, I know there's some people like Sean Pori, Andrew, actually you too, it's, you know, you started going, guys like I started going viral in 2020, 2021, and we all got hundreds of thousands of followers because it was just so easy. It was fishing with dynamite. LinkedIn is fishing with dynamite right now. And I can give you some tips on how to grow on LinkedIn.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, please.

• 5:35Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so, by the way, I was like you, 14 months ago, I wasn't even on LinkedIn, and I grew from zero to 125,000 followers with probably like 15 hours of work in 14 months. And that's actually translated into millions of dollars of revenue. And how I did it was a few ways. So, okay, so take notes, by the way, if you want to go viral on LinkedIn, get your, get your notepads ready, because like, you might as well.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 6:05Greg Isenberg?

  Right?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:06Greg Isenberg?

  Like, you might as well.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:08Greg Isenberg?

  Okay, so, step one, did you know that there's a tab on LinkedIn right now that was just added that's a video tab? Do people know this? I'm not even saying, no one, no one knows this. But LinkedIn is becoming TikTok. If you post videos on LinkedIn right now, they, they go far. So, some people don't have video content. So you're probably like, oh, I don't have video content. Okay, well, you have two options. Option one is you create faceless video content. Meaning, you go out there, you use a bunch of AI tools to create

• 6:48Greg Isenberg?

  video content, and then you just record over it. Or if you don't, you can use tools like 11 Labs, where you can just write a script. 11 Labs is an AI tool that will read the script and assign a voice to it. So go and create some faceless video content that you'll then post to LinkedIn. I mean, and then the second thing you can do is obviously record video content yourself. That takes a lot more work and then also some people don't like being on camera, which I totally get. So step one is you you you post that video content and that video content and you you have a few options on captions to post that work.

• 7:32Greg Isenberg?

  And I'm getting really like technical here, like these are things that work. Because I think that I really want people to leave with value. So one is you you just put a caption that people will agree with. AKA, "The future is now" or

• 7:52Greg Isenberg?

  like you just put something that everyone's gonna agree with with the video, you know, like

• 8:00Greg Isenberg?

  "The world needs more positivity now than ever." It's like, "Yeah, I kinda agree with that" and you get some likes. And you accompany that with the video, that's one thing. So video, the second thing you can do is stories. Stories work really well on LinkedIn, I'm sure you've seen that.

• 8:16Greg Isenberg?

  What you should do after this is, you know, every get someone on your team to sit with you and get them to ask you, "What are the 15 stories that are most interesting in your career?" And get them to ask you that question and write with them 15 stories, at least. Because it's hard to think about it on the top of your head. So write those stories down.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Would we write those stories using the Matthew Dix type stuff, like "I am here, blah, blah, blah?"

• 8:47Greg Isenberg?

  Exactly, and now everyone here is equipped with, you know, how to tell a good story. So, you know, you can do it, you can write the stories yourself. I just find it's helpful to have someone there to ask you like, you know, "What was what was the hardest thing in your career?" Or, "Tell me a, tell me a story about how, you know, you failed an exam in college." Vulnerable stories work really well. And then you have to, the thing with LinkedIn is you actually have to pair the story with a picture of you.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Really?

• 9:20Greg Isenberg?

  You have to. That's the way you're gonna get those likes.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Sweets.

• 9:24Greg Isenberg?

  So you have to go find interesting photos of you and pair them with the story. And that'll, that'll make that content go 10x more viral.

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Videos, stories, you got one other like LinkedIn hack that if we're starting from nothing or from minimal engagement, what's one more thing that people could do next week even, just to kind of kickstart it?

• 9:47Greg Isenberg?

  The third thing is find infographics that have gone viral before. And, and just post them, obviously giving credit to that person with a very, you know, with a, with a banger line, kind of like one of those.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  The future's now.

• 10:04Greg Isenberg?

  The future's now with it. I had a post, one of my first posts on LinkedIn was, you know, a year and a half ago or so. And it was like, you know, I guess it was 2023, January 1st. And it was basically like, this year's gonna be great. It was like an infographic that this year's gonna be great. It's like, of course this year's gonna be great. Everyone wants that to be great. It got 456,000 likes on LinkedIn.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Really?

• 10:31Greg Isenberg?

  Yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Can you talk a little bit about how you then took that audience and monetized it?

• 10:36Greg Isenberg?

  Yes. We'll, we'll get actually very specific about how to, how to take audience from LinkedIn and convert it to, to leads. So the mistake I was making was I would create a post and then in that post, put a link to something I was trying to sell or some lead magnet or some community, whatever. It didn't work because LinkedIn is suppressing that, that piece of content. So I actually went to the LinkedIn office and I asked them, "How can I put links in my content such that I can get people to click things?" Because what is the point of creating content?

• 11:18Greg Isenberg?

  If you're not going to be able to get people to sign up to the things that you want them to sign up to. And by the way, side note, Twitter sucks right now. Like, yes, you know, it's, you can get a lot of impressions, but once you put that link in there, your post is going nowhere. So what the LinkedIn team told me is that if you post something that gets more than 150 likes, 200 likes, after four hours, if you put the link at the bottom of the post, you will not be suppressed by the LinkedIn algorithm.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  So you edit the post?

• 11:59Greg Isenberg?

  You edit the post. And by the way, this is all like going back to what we just learnt about delegation. This is all things that you can delegate, you know, after four, just create SOPs around, which I do. Like, I, you know, I barely log into LinkedIn like you. So, you know, okay, so to answer your question, I'm obsessed with lead magnets. And we talked a little bit about lead magnets in my workshop, for those of you who are there. But the mistake that entrepreneurs, many entrepreneurs make around creating websites nowadays is they get strangers to come to the website and it's all about "buy my product."

• 12:44Greg Isenberg?

  But people don't come to your website to buy your product. They come there to learn. They come there to do, to create, I call it a primary task. They have some primary task of why they're going to the website. So the example I used yesterday was, if you're going to ford.com, you might not want to buy a Ford Expedition, but you might be there to learn about EVs. You might be there to just see pretty pictures of a red Mustang.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  So you make the link magnets?

• 13:13Greg Isenberg?

  So, yeah, so what I, what I do is I try to figure out what are the things that I want, you know, people to do, and I create multiple lead magnets every single month. I link them in my LinkedIn posts and then I nurture those people.

• 13:31Greg Isenberg?

  And so I have people interested, for example, I have a lead magnet around a database of startup ideas. 5,000 people have downloaded that in the last 30 days from LinkedIn. Now I have those 5,000 people interested in startup ideas. I don't know what I'm going to sell them, but at some point I could sell them something. And now I have them segmented in ConvertKit.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 13:54Greg Isenberg?

  That's how it works.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Would people be able to come up to you, we're going to be hanging out at the happy hour tonight, if they don't even know where to start about lead magnets, will you give them free advice? Do you tell them what to do?

• 14:04Greg Isenberg?

  I would be honored for people to come up to me. And, yeah, please do, please do. I'm here, so come, come say hi.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you, dude.

• 14:19Greg Isenberg?

  There you have it, folks. Now, I hope you got a few nuggets from this episode. And just start posting on LinkedIn. Just start, you know, learn, get some, get some reps in and see if you like it. And if you don't like it, you can always stop doing it. But I think 2025 is going to be a huge year for LinkedIn. I also did an episode with Cody Schneider, friend of the pod, where we talked about some opportunities with LinkedIn agencies as a startup idea. And I will link that in the description. So like, comments and subscribe

• 15:00Greg Isenberg?

  if you want more of these videos. Giving the sauce away for free. And I read every single one of these YouTube comments. So I'd love to see you there. All right. Go get them. Happy building. I'm rooting for you.