Today, I’m oversharing my LinkedIn analytics from month 1 of building in public: the good, the bad, and the ugliest...

Welcome back to issue #5 of the Zero to $10M ARR newsletter. Today I’m oversharing my LinkedIn analytics from month 1 of building in public. ​ I’m holding nothing back. Full transparency. We’ll be going in depth on the following: - My LinkedIn stats and metrics for month 1 - My best and worst performing posts from the month - Analysis and takeaways from month 1 - How we are iterating based on the data and the plan for month 2 ​ My aim with this issue is to give you a seat at the table for same conversations and analysis I’m having with my LinkedIn content manager. And if you dig it, [I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section on LinkedIn.](=)​ Quick context before we dive in: My goal for building in public is to share the “journeys within the journey”. This means being fully transparent about all of the components that that go into bootstrapping a startup from Zero to $10M ARR (in 3 years). In this spirit, I will be sharing my playbooks, analytics and takeaways for every aspect of building Helply. So, let’s dive into the stats, takeaways and analytics from month 1 of my Founder-Led Marketing LinkedIn strategy: Month 1 LinkedIn Metrics Follower Growth: As of this morning (7/31) we've added 1,001 followers going from 2,778 to 3,779 (25% increase from previous month) ​ That means in the 24 hours since I drafted this post we grew and took these screen shots we grew by another 65 followers. ​ Impressions: 97K (499% increase from previous month) Comments: 449 (490% increase from previous month) Engagements: 1,333 (259% increase from previous month) Likes: 866 (197% increase from previous month) Demos Booked: 48 (most important metric) ​ Best performing posts: ​ Worst performing posts: ​ For those who are interested, here are links to my 3 best performing posts on LinkedIn, and my 3 worst… ​[Best of post #1](=)​ ​[Best of post #2](=)​ ​[Best of post #3](=)​ ​ ​[Worst of post #1](=)​ ​[Worst of post #2](=)​ ​[Worst of post #3](=)​ Primary Takeaways: - Mediocre 1,000-word blog posts are DOA. It’s all about actionable, rich and in-depth long-form or TL:DRs, snippets and memes. ​ No in between. ​ Expand a thought into something valuable or compress it into a 1-tweet sized summary. ​ - Posts that utilize a slightly negative hook followed by actionable take aways have higher engagement. ​ - Posts that lead with a slightly negative / or conflict driven headlines and @ multiple parties (other companies, thought leaders, etc) and deliver actionable takeaways or lessons in the form of lists seem to achieve significantly farther reach and impressions. ​ - Posts that are published the same day as the newsletter have higher engagement. ​ This is (most likely) due to cross linking between the newsletter and the LinkedIn post, driving higher than average traffic. ​ - Post’s that feature an organic / DIY style picture with my face in it seem to be helpful, if it is accompanying valuable content. ​ - We tried to post a video with every single post for the first 2 weeks. there was no noticeable increase in engagement so we are using video more sparingly. ​ - Engagement from our ICP has been strong. The vast majority of new follows are CEOs, founders and operators. This is exactly what I want. ​ - I constantly ask myself, what content would I have killed to have 2 years ago (or even 10 years ago)? Create that. ​ - Go look at some of your favorite thoughtleader founders on LinkedIn, much of their engagement is driven by people who look at that founder as THEIR ideal target customer. ​ This is the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve. ​ I want the founders and operators to be having conversations and interacting in my comments. ​ So far, we are very much trending in the right direction. ​ - Top of funnel impressions are great but at the end of the day they don’t matter when you’re working in the B2B space. ​ What does matter? Are you achieving your core biz objectives. ​ If you’re a B2C or D2C company you may need 500k impressions to sell five $200 products. ​ This is simply not the case with B2B. ​ The real question is are you reaching the right people? ​ Is your pipeline growing? ​ Are you achieving the business objectives for that quarter? ​ You may only reach 100 people, but if they’re all operators and decision makers in your ICP, a dozen of those people could lead to a pipeline worth 6 figures in enterprise value, rather than hundreds of dollars or 5 figures in value for lower priced, volume driven B2C or DTC offerings. ​ So the real barometer becomes this: are we achieving our core objectives as a business with our top of funnel founder led marketing and content?​ ​ Concluding Thoughts From Month 1 Impressions and top line growth are great but only if it’s within your ICP and lead to real business outcomes.​ ​ ​I’ve ran the founder led marketing playbook before (albeit in the now antiquated medium of blogs) and it was the single most impactful marketing activity that took Groove from $0 to $5M ARR. My goal is the same with Helply. But this time with a much more sophisticated playbook (which I’ll be sharing completely and with full transparency in future newsletters as we create it and carry it out in realtime). Plans for Month 2 Iterate on what is working: - Actionable, rich and in-depth long-form from the trenches of building a startup - TL:DR Test out new formats: - Carousels - Curation posts (my takeaways from content I find valuable) - Deep dive profiles on successful SaaS founders and entrepreneurs with actionable takeaways - Relevant memes ​ The incredible thing about writing and publishing online everyday (especially on a platform like LinkedIn), is that the feedback loops are so tight. You watch what’s working and iterate with extreme efficiency. Few activities in life offer this opportunity for rapid improvement. As long you remain consistent and mindful about the nature of publishing online (i.e it is not going to be an always linear, up and to the right journey), success becomes inevitable. Alex CEO & Founder, [Groove](=) & [Helply]()​ P.S. I’ll also be posting on LinkedIn seven days a week, 365 days a year. I’d love to hear your feedback on the new newsletter in the comments of [my latest post.](=)​ ​ Let me know what you think in the comments. I read and reply to every single one. ​ ​ Don't want to hear from us? You can [unsubscribe here](.