Aware

You should acquire companies with relevant SEO. And merge their websites into yours. I've done this TWICE in 2024. Here's how they're each playing out: 1. ???????????????????? ???????????????? ?????????? ???????? ???????????????? (March 2024) → Avg quarterly SEO-sourced SQLs are up +62% → Avg quarterly revenue up +66% Funny how that works? You maintain a great LinkedIn presence, you keep building out your website, you partner with amazing people, and revenue rises along with leads. This was a very partnership-oriented deal, as well. We're paying the former owners of the acquired company based on realized value, not based on a hope and a dream. But I still think you can put hard numbers to the value of SEO, and acquire it. As evidenced by... 2. ?????????? ???????????????? ???????????????? (September 2024) → Avg quarterly SEO-sourced SQLs up +1000% → MRR up +40.2% in less than 3 months These are extremely correlated. I've been doing basically nothing additional on LinkedIn with my content, even slacking a bit on our influencer program if I'm being honest, and revenue has grown handily. In this deal, like I said above we took the opposite approach and actually offered 100% guaranteed cash over 60 days. But we paid a price that might surprise you, given how much value we have been able to realize. We'll need another several weeks to make back the actual cash flow given that we have costs on the revenue we acquired, but our financial ROI is in the 18X range on this already. I imagine it'll be over 60X easily before all is said and done. -- To put this another way: I spent years trying to convince y'all to invest in this stuff. Many listened. But a lot of marketers stuck their noses up at this and decided to play around with ChatGPT instead. Really, I hate convincing people to do things. But I LOVE putting my money where my mouth is. I'm going to keep doing that.

We shipped a big revamp to the Aware UI! Took Mac a few weeks of clearing out tech debt, but we needed to stay scalable ?? Highlights: ? Faster and more responsive ? Date range selectors make more sense ? Better use of white space ? Buttons etc are more standard ? Add commonly used snippets to the post scheduler ? Commonly used bullet points (like these, ha!) available in scheduler Bunch more stuff too. Oh, and: MRR is up 46.2% last 3 months. Let's go ????

Give away your best insights. Completely free. Here's why you shouldn't be worried about "your secret sauce": 1. IT'S NOT ACTUALLY SECRET Other people are going to give it away first. Maybe they're wrong, or not as smart as you. But they'll give it away, even if it's not public yet. Whatever it is that you think is so special, you're not the only one who knows it. And you'll get left behind, if you're hiding in your corner hoarding your perspective, expecting to be paid just for sharing it. 2. PEOPLE DON'T PAY FOR KNOWLEDGE The value that people pay you for is not in the insights themselves. It's in the *tailored application OF those insights* to their specific business. Or in you flying out to deliver those insights to their company, in person. Or in you putting your reputation on the line to certify something. Even if you sell information products: what you sell is the placement of all of your knowledge, into a coherent and digestible format so that people can consume it in a way that helps them drive outcomes. The point is, you should be treating your Perspectives, Insights, and Knowledge as "free marketing products". Your actual paid product, is the application of that perspective. -- I've been walking the talk on this, personally. I've been consistently posting on LinkedIn for 7+ years. I share the good stuff. I'm not violating privacy, and I'm not sharing actual trade secrets. But I'm giving away serious value in Perspective, Insight, Knowledge. Free. I even flew down to Apollo.io HQ last year to shoot a video course - again, free! - where we talked about giving away your best stuff on LinkedIn. If you haven't checked out this course yet, it's on apollo[dot]io/academy. Have a look. -- All of this sharing? It's driven tons of revenue for companies I've founded. I'm making huge time investments in educating people about LinkedIn, and Aware (a LinkedIn management tool for creators, agencies, and sales teams) is growing rapidly as a result. This stuff pays off. Believe me. Share your sauce publicly and see how far it gets you.

Ish Verduzco (Head of Social @ a16z crypto) got 284,689 reactions from a single post in Sept. Here's why: He found Nike's new CEO's impossible LinkedIn profile… And turned it into gold: ? Intern → CEO. ? In one company. ? 36 years at Nike. ? 15 different roles. But here's the genius part: It's not about the CEO. It's about what his journey represents. And here’s why the post worked: ? Rare career path (intern to CEO). ? Simple yet powerful hook. ? Story of long-term loyalty. ? Perfect curiosity gap. To have anything go viral… You must understand the mechanics of a viral post. The numbers are crazy: ? 284,689 reactions. ? 2,947 comments. ? 8,226 reposts. I studied this post for hours. And found the viral formula. It's not just about finding a good story. It's about engineering virality. Swipe to see exactly how Ish did it (and how you can too). Thanks Alex Boyd @useaware.co for sharing this data file with me. ??Remember to click 'Subscribe to Newsletter' under my name to get the best creator journey deep dives every Wednesday (and breakdowns—like this one).

So our customer service is pretty good. It could be better. But here's how we do: Median First Response: 1.6 hours Median Response Time: 12 minutes (Time To Close, I don't really care about because that's just when we hit "close" on the ticket, and we give it a few followups if a customer hasn't responded re: our ticket, before closing.) That's factoring in overnight inquiries from EU/APAC customers. Travel and vacation (which I'm currently on. Ha. Hello from Tulum!) This is with a skeleton crew of me and my cofounder Mac doing it all ourselves, in addition to everything else under the sun across the business. There's a reason that only 2 people have cancelled their subscription to Aware, and listed "customer service" as the reason (and they both said they hit it by mistake and apologized, when I reached out to confirm that was a real thing). Our product isn't perfect. It never will be. But the least we can do is TAKE CARE of people. Best we possibly can.

My Linkedin engagement grew by 5x in 30 days. Nonetheless, starting from today I am ditching LinkedIn ?? , and here is why: - there's way too much noise. - it's getting cringier by the minute. - it is increasingly difficult to find posts/people that ACTUALLY bring value to Shai and myself. - it is just as addictive as other social network. Instead, I will be using Aware to engage with a pre-selected feed, made of people that are in the creative, film and advertising industry. (thanks Alex for the tips) This means I won't be scrolling endlessly trying to find relevant content. I will be able to engage in more meaningful conversations with creatives. It will force me to be more consistent in creating content and look for my own point of view. I am pumped. Less time on LinkedIn, more on time with our users. ciao!

You can make north of $40/year per LinkedIn follower. But most people are pulling in ~$2-5/yr per follower. Even though: → Fewer than 10% of your followers will make a purchase from you, if you sell SaaS → Fewer than 1% will buy from you, if you sell a high value agency or consulting service The math doesn't require you to sell to most, or even many people who are aware of you. This is great! It means you can just be casual and helpful, and not be constantly trying to 'convert' everyone you interact with. But here's the thing many people miss: → This does NOT mean that follower growth is the main goal. Far from it. You might think, "Ok if I'm making $3.50/yr/follower, I just need 120k followers and I'll be golden!" Ok, fair. But trust me, that's a way harder path. It's much, MUCH easier to influence the decisions of another 1-2% of people who already are in your sphere, per month, than it is to add thousands of followers every month. Focus on: → Nailing your positioning → Honing your message → Refining how you write → Improving your media → Doing more commenting → Approaching people in DMs More followers will be a side effect. It's far easier to make $1m/yr from 10k followers with a high-quality presence Than it is to make $200k/yr from 100k followers with a "high-volume" presence -- P.S. Sam Szuchan often posts about picking substance over virality, as you approach LinkedIn and he nails it.

Voici comment je créé mes publications LinkedIn. Tu peux copier toutes les étapes. C’est gratuit & actionnable. J’ai commencé à 08:26. J’ai fini à 11:52. J’ai 5 ans d’XP et j’ai mis 2h18 à la faire. Voici mon process en 10 étapes. Simple. Basique. Actionnable. ? 1. Trouver de l’inspiration. ↓ 2. Idées de publications. ↓ 3. Les notes. ↓ 4. Organise. ↓ 5. La rédaction. ↓ 6. Le visuel. ↓ 7. La relecture. ↓ 8. La programmation. ↓ 9. Récite cette prière. ? 10. Les outils. ★ BONUS : 3 Outils complètement fou. → J'ai testé et approuvé ces outils absolument incroyables. → On n'a pas tous le même niveau d'expertise. → ?a va vous aider à mieux rédiger des publications. → Prenez la version payante. C'est un investissement -- ? 1. RedactAI → https://lnkd.in/eJBbtMdh ?? Yohan Callet & Nicolas Pamart. ? Fonctionnalités : ? Trouver des idées de publications avec l'IA. ? Rédiger des publications LinkedIn avec l'IA. ? Possibilité de copier le style d'un créateur. ? 3 propositions de publications différentes. J'ai testé tous les outils d'IA pour rédiger un post. C'est le plus avancé. C'est le meilleur. -- ? 2. UseAware → https://lnkd.in/ehr8herv ?? Alex Boyd ? Fonctionnalités : ? Créer des listes de créateurs. ? Réagir & commenter les posts des créateurs depuis l'app. ? Voir toutes les publications des personnes qui ont interagi avec vous. ? Répondre à tous vos commentaires restés sans réponses. ? Toutes vos statistiques de publications. Cet outil me fait gagner au moins 3 heures par jour. -- ? 3. Perfectpost → https://lnkd.in/esZ2Dmzk ?? Antoine Périgne & Jér?me Heissler. ? Fonctionnalités : ? Barre de styles. ? Enregistrement des publications. ? Programmation des publications. ? Pré-Visualisation de la publication sur smartphone. ? Visualisation du post avec la ligne "...voir plus". Tu sais tout. Tu as tout. Y'a plus qu'à. N’hésite pas à → Republier, ?a m'aiderait beaucoup. ??

The debate about content formats can be fierce. → Make video! Post selfies! Carousels are dead! But comparing formats is a waste of time. Let's look at two Top Creators: Sam Browne ?? and Brianna Doe. Then let's break down the average engagement of their posts of different formats. Sam's Carousels → Average # Comments: 206 Brianna's Text Posts → Average # Comments: 189 Why is the comparison between formats a waste of time? Two reasons: 1. Their brands make an extremely healthy, similar amount of revenue. Should you be posting carousels then? If deciding based on engagement alone, it would seem so. But if the financials aren't drastically different, how do you decide? 2. It's just not about "the format". It's about the story. Sam has a wonderful, lighthearted, pleasing, and very insightful message: the torch of which he carries day in and day out with a strongly consistent brand aesthetic. Brianna's voice and message are bright, insightful, and equal parts mellow yet biting, depending on the day. The kicker? In each post, both Sam and Brianna choose the format that works the best to tell the story they want to tell, of THAT particular piece of content. Now, sure: → There are some advantages (that I've talked about) of using richer visual media. In particular, integrating high quality video and carousels into your content allows you to stand out and connect with your community on a deeper level. But this is no substitute for the core fact here: People follow Sam, and Brianna, and other creators, because they just plain: → Like them as people → Value their contributions → Enjoy their content → Get value from what they publish Day in and day out. I bet if Sam started ONLY doing video, you'd like him just as much. Or if Brianna started primarily posting carousels, you'd still appreciate her words and message quite a bit. They both invest in their brands, make great incomes that increase the value of their businesses, and what they do works for them. Find what works for you. Lean into the formats that feel good. But don't forget: It's your WHOLE PRESENCE, holistically, that draws people in and encourages them to actually spend money within your corner of the ecosystem. P.S. It doesn't matter which bullet point you use :) → This ? This ? Or this