{"id":5628,"date":"2025-11-04T20:39:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/?p=5628"},"modified":"2025-11-07T10:54:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T10:54:33","slug":"the-tactical-shift-that-led-to-35000-higher-visibility-on-linkedin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/04\/the-tactical-shift-that-led-to-35000-higher-visibility-on-linkedin\/","title":{"rendered":"The tactical shift that led to 35,000% higher visibility on LinkedIn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Meller is the Head of Social for The Hustle, <\/em>but we briefly got to borrow her for Masters in Marketing, <\/em>because she makes everything she touches better.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how I got a chance to hear about a tactical content shift that led to a startling 35,000% increase in visibility <\/strong>on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

When I heard this story, y\u2019all, I threw an Asana card on our editorial calendar so fast I nearly broke my clickin\u2019 finger.<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n

In short, it\u2019s the cautionary tale of how even good content may not be the right content for your audience. And how, even in this data-soaked paradigm, sometimes you still need good ol\u2019 human instinct.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

A Tale of Two Targets<\/h2>\n

When Sam first stepped into her role at The Hustle, <\/em>she started with an audit of all its various social media channels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to really get a sense of what was working, what wasn\u2019t working, and where we had opportunities to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

She quickly noticed a disconnect: The Hustle <\/em>was killing it on Instagram, but on LinkedIn? They weren\u2019t feeling the love.<\/p>\n

At the time, both channels were using the same content strategy: Daily recap videos where the host of The Hustle Daily Show<\/em> would do a rundown of the headlines of the day. But while these videos were popular on Instagram, they just didn\u2019t seem to land with The Hustle<\/em>\u2019s LinkedIn audience.<\/p>\n

This is where a lot of marketers would simply assume that LinkedIn just wasn\u2019t the right channel for their brand. But with over a decade in content marketing, Sam has learned to trust her gut.<\/p>\n

\u201cLinkedIn should be a really strong platform for us,\u201d she explained. \u201cGiven that our whole brand is about business, careers, and entrepreneurship technology, it\u2019s a natural fit. But we weren\u2019t really getting any traction.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Tactical Twist of Topics<\/h2>\n

Around this time, Sam noticed that LinkedIn had launched a (then new) short-form video feature, similar to Instagram Reels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just exploring [on LinkedIn] and starting to see a lot of these vertical videos of podcasts or explainer videos, and I think, \u2018We have that! Let\u2019s try that out!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But making unique, tailored content for each channel <\/em>would simply take too much bandwidth and budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the idea to test out podcast clips from My First Million <\/em>with Sam Parr, who was the founder of The Hustle.<\/em>\u201d And, while sharing the same name didn\u2019t hurt (Sam-ple bias? Wakka wakka), her thought process was more about aligning topically-relevant content to the expectations of the platform.<\/p>\n

The results were nearly immediate.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Before the test] we had 71,000 total impressions in the month of August, and in September we had to the tune of 25 million impressions just from LinkedIn alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Takeaways<\/h2>\n

Now, featuring a well-known media figure certainly played a part, but before you dismiss this as simply face recognition, consider that The Hustle <\/em>found similar success with less recognizable hosts.<\/p>\n

Following this test, Sam (Meller, not Parr) reached out to the podcast and YouTube teams to gather their most successful content to turn into clips that matched this audience\u2019s vibe. The numbers didn\u2019t drop.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of them got over a million views alone, compared to the 400 we were getting prior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Sam says you should take away:<\/p>\n

1. Don\u2019t assume your brand has the same audience on every channel.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Which stands to reason, right? How often do you <\/em>like a company so much that you\u2019ll follow them on Instagram and <\/em>LinkedIn?<\/p>\n

And, even if you did, would you want to watch the same video twice?<\/p>\n

2. Audiences want to see human beings, not brands.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sam attributes a large part of the success to showing off the people behind the content.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important to us that we\u2019re showing our talent, our people, because I strongly believe that people want to follow people. They don\u2019t want to follow a brand. They want to see personality.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

And this starts as early as your thumbnails.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn pretty much all cases, the best performing videos start off with someone\u2019s face. Even if it\u2019s for two seconds, you see a person, and they hook you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still need a little more data before I say that\u2019s 100% the reason. But I\u2019ve been doing this for long enough that my spidey senses are tingling.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Sometimes you just gotta go with your gut.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If Sam had blindly followed the data, she might have de-prioritized LinkedIn or abandoned it completely. And The Hustle<\/em> would have lost out on millions of views and untold brand equity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI respect the data. I use the data. I think it\u2019s a fantastic tool, but I will be the first person to tell you that I do not live and die by the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, think of your data as a guidepost instead of the end-all-be-all of your strategy.<\/p>\n

When asked for the moral of the story, Sam sums it up: \u201cIt\u2019s really important that you\u2019re trusting yourself and trying out new things. Not thinking \u2018Oh, this worked for us six months ago.\u2019 The internet moves too fast to stay in one lane.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Meller is the Head of Social for The Hustle, but we briefly got to borrow her for Masters in Marketing, because she makes everything she touches better. That\u2019s how I got a chance to hear about a tactical content shift that led to a startling 35,000% increase in visibility on LinkedIn. When I heard…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5633,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions\/5633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dietdebunker.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}