I thought this LinkedIn post was gonna go viral

I thought this LinkedIn post was gonna go viral…

Then it flopped – twice 🫠

Which was a real kick in the nuts, since the same content crushed when I posted it in TOFU.

Turns out simple > clever on LinkedIn.

So here’s what I do differently now…

Okay, hold up.

I sound like a bit of a dick saying I expected one of my LinkedIn posts to go viral, right?

But here’s why:

Last January, I posted a deep dive here in TOFU that went down really. 

Like, really well:

Here was the hook, btw:

So I’m buzzing, obviously. 

And I’m thinking “ooohhhh baby, this is gonna do gangbusters on LinkedIn!”

So I post it.

And I wait for the 👏s and 💡s to start rolling in.

And I wait…

And lemme tell ya TOFU:

I’m still waiting 💀

The mortifying part?

I was like “nah this is 🔥, I must’ve just posted it at the wrong time of day or something”

So I added an image and posted the same thing again a couple months later…

And it flopped AGAIN 🫠

I thought I’d done everything right:

1. Banger hook (lads, someone literally told me “you’re not gonna be able to top those four lines this year” 💀)

2. A post that (IMHO) added value

3. Ego-baiting someone with tonnes of followers (Austin was having none of it 😂)

4. An incredible image on the second one (graphic design is, after all, my passion)

And yet these are two of my lowest ever performing LinkedIn posts?

A year’s worth of posts later, I think I know why:

Simple beats clever every time on LinkedIn

Check it out.

Simple:

Clever:

And it makes sense.

When I’m scrolling my feed, I’m scanning every post through the filter:

“Is this relevant to me?”

So the hooks that tell me exactly what the post is about win.

Which is where I went wrong with my “Do your clients treat you like two-play toilet paper?” hook.

Clever, but not exactly clear.

I course corrected with these posts:

Kinda boring? Yup.

But I’ve learned it’s worth saving the clever stuff for after you’ve hooked your reader.

Or else you’ll find yourself with a lot fewer readers 🤷