The Darkside of LinkedIn ft Engagement Pods

Imagine getting banned 7x on LinkedIn.

Imagine for a second that on your final warning, the LinkedIn team lets you know that if you get banned one more time….

Your account will be gone permanently.

How would you respond, and would your business/content strategy change?

Well, this happened to me in the spring of 2023.

I stopped posting for almost 3 months on LinkedIn because of this final warning.

Up until that point, I’d spent the previous 3 years building the most unhinged personal brand on the platform.

I shared selfies, memes, GIFs…
I shared rants about bacon hatred and my love of pizza, hosted drunken writing competitions, and even half-dressed selfie bombs.

I live-streamed in the Scottish highland while on whisky benders and hosted ruthless meme roast battles targeting other creators.

I pushed the boundaries on Linkedin, and you either loved or hated me.

But these antics caught up as I got banned for confronting a troll for having a tiny pecker and calling my ghostwriting rival Matt Barker unpleasant to look at.

Why did I share all of this with you?

Well, I’m glad I asked myself because I’m about to tell you….

When I made my comeback to LinkedIn in May 2023 I decided to be a professional. I leveled up my content, improved my copywriting, hung around the good citizens of the platform, and lost all the antics.

It was good for business, and it prevented me from getting any bans in the past year!

(yay me)

But as the clock turned in 2024, I began to feel empty inside….

While business was good and opportunities abounded, I started feeling more and more disconnected from LinkedIn. I was bored of my content, bored of my connections, and, well, ultimately, I felt purposeless.

This past week, I’ve finally realized why.

When I joined LinkedIn in late 2019 and began posting in early 2020, I did it for really only one reason.

I wanted to just write whatever I wanted and express my creativity to the world.

I wasn’t worried about building a big business, or a perfect brand or influencing anyone. I simply just enjoyed writing my thoughts out and making people think.

For 3 years, I did that, and last year, I lost that vibe.

I got lost in follower races, big income goals, influencer deals, and AI marathons.

I’d lost the soul of why I write on LinkedIn.

This silly video I shared a few weeks ago was the first time I felt like I’d just said what was on my mind and in my heart on LinkedIn for a year.

It was a dumb video I recorded at like 2 am about the dark underbelly of the top 1% of creators on LinkedIn.

These kinds of posts aren’t supposed to perform well anymore.

It was a 10-minute video, and I wrote 3000 characters of copy.

But it performed very well, and I had so many DMs from old followers who’d known me for years who said:

“We missed you, Luke”

After that post, I began to just let my hair down again.

Sometimes, I still post perfect copy and banger carousels.

I still write about AI and deliver high-quality content.

But I’ve also allowed myself to lean into my darkside as well and post stuff like this video rant I shared about religion on Sunday:

I’m posting at different times, testing different styles, and having fun just doing my own thing in my own way again.

I’m getting back to just cooking and enjoying this LinkedIn thing.

Now, I’ve shared this long story to basically funnel you into coming to an audio event this Thursday……

(hehe)

Tasleem, my fellow Darkside alumni member, is going to join me, and we are going to take a truthful look at how influencers actually build their accounts and make money.

We will discuss:

• Engagement pods & networks

• Hot topics like AI, remote work & kindness

• The darkside of LinkedIn Coaches, Communities & Courses

We have a combined 200k+ followers on LinkedIn and we are going to dish the real sauce on LinkedIn growth.

We will expose all the tricks and show you why the game is rigged against you and how you can pivot and focus on what matters.

Hope you join us.

Join this Audio Event LIVE this Thursday at 10am Eastern / 3pmUK time

Click the image below to join.

🤖 Lead Magnets with AI Workshop

Want me to create a resource for you?

Come watch me live on LinkedIn.

I'll show you how I use Distribute to quickly create:

-landing pages
-lead magnets

And show you how you can, too.

Here's the process:

1. I research a pain point in my niche.
2. I write an educational post to fix the pain.
3. I create a lead magnet tailored to that post.
4. I use Distribute to create a landing page with AI.
5. I ask for a repost my content for a link to the page.
6. I collect ur email when you sign up for the lead mag.

Done.

I'm going to show you live how easy it is.

I am LIVE today at 5pmUK (12pmEST)

Q/A at the end, and I may get bored and just hang out or write some posts with AI.

PS I'm giving away a Pizza for the vibes.

Join this event by clicking the image below.

🤖 Prompt of the Week

Introducing the “storytelling prompt” to help you write stories with AI.

The best way to use my prompts is to go grab my Notion Prompt Library by clicking on the image below.

There are a few steps to properly use this prompt.

The nice thing about the Notion doc, is it allows you to duplicate this “Storytelling Prompt” into your own Notion and make it your own.

Step 1: Add a Topic for the Prompt to Generate a Story About

Step 2: Add 10 Posts for the AI to Copy the Formatting of

I’ve added 10 of my own posts for you to make it easy to get started!

3) Copy the Storytelling prompt into ChatGPT or Claude + Add the Two Inputs Above

𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒕:

You are an expert ghostwriter that specializes in LinkedIn and Twitter marketing and you have years of business experience.

Please analyze the following 10 posts. I want you to give me 2 new posts based on these posts.

Please make the posts with an emphasis on both thought leadership, but also formatting and copywriting like Gary Bencivenga, a legendary copywriter.

Please make the posts about: [ADD TOPIC HERE]

I want you to make the sentences short and concise and no longer than 9 words. Do not let sentences continue on one line, always start a new line after they are complete. Also switch up the formatting so it's enjoyable to read. Please no hashtags, and please make sure the posts follow this opening format:

A bold statement that is no more than 8 words in sentence one.

A short statement beginning with "How I" and then a number included in this story opening sentence.

Here are the 10 posts to analyze, please match the posts you generate based exactly on the style of these posts:

[ADD 10 POSTS]

4) Optional / Follow up with this Prompt

Pro tip: You can use a voice-to-text tool like ChatGPT mobile’s voice feature or Otter to tell your story verbally, and then paste it into the prompt.

You’ll get two posts adjusted to your own story. You can repeat this infinite times.

Are the posts 100% done and in your tone of voice? Probably not.

But did you just save yourself 0,5-3 hours drafting the post yourself? Probably yes.

🤖 6 Ways to Monetize Your Expertise with AI

Last week, I got featured in Forbes alongside some other awesome entrepreneurs in an article discussing monetization and AI.

AI is a booming industry in 2024:

→ The global AI market is valued at $196 billion+
→ AI market size is expected to grow by 120% yearly
→ 83% of companies put AI as top priority for their biz

AI is where the cash is right now and where a lot of investment is flowing and it’s also a great space to start monetizing in.

If you’d like to read the article, you can do so by clicking the button below.

That’s it for this week.

I think I’ll get back to listening to Lofi while staring at the Netflix fireplace.

Hope to see you at some of my live events this week.

Cheers,
Luke