 You guys let me know, but whenever you are, wherever you are, thank you for joining this LinkedIn Live. So let's start by making this session a little bit more interactive and drop a comment or an emoji below of where you're actually tuning in from. So we know that there's someone on the other, like the other end that's actually listening, even if they're not, just drop a comment and emoji anyway. So yeah, welcome to how designers can leverage LinkedIn with me, Chris, and our special guest, Tice. So let's start with some first introductions to introduce ourselves first and then we can go into the topic. So I'm Chris, a product designer. I quit my head of design job in 2020 and since then I've been building numerous startups or at least try to raise some money, join the startup incubator and then nothing really worked out but in that journey, I actually started a UX education company called UX Playbook. I help designers of all levels, whether it's building your portfolio, learning fundamental UX frameworks for any project to managing your design team and actually a lot more, just go check it out. But as I started this company, I have also been writing and publishing and writing for the last 600 days plus, so ever since May 2022 and primarily is on LinkedIn and Twitter and sometimes other platforms but LinkedIn and Twitter has been the most consistent. So that's a bit about me and today I wanna bring on Tice. As I said, Tice is a product designer, a writer and a design content consultant. So this topic of how to leverage LinkedIn is actually perfect for me and Tice, I believe. So Tice, how is it going, man? Hello, I'm doing fine. And it's funny that you said that I didn't know that because you also started in May 2022. I started in May 2022 as well on 16 May actually. So I've also been consistent for like 600 plus days. Yeah. But I wasn't ahead of design at that time. I was still in college and I was just testing it out because I heard people were saying, writing is good for you. And then I started writing and after 30 days I noticed the real benefits of writing and ever since I've never stopped then I even turned it into my business. And now I'm trying to help the learners do the same because I feel like designers always struggle with selling themselves and trying to put their knowledge into the market but they really have a lot of knowledge and they're just not always putting it into the world. And I feel like that's an opportunity to jump in on. Hence my, right now is helping designers grow, establish and monetize their expertise. Awesome. That's great. Yeah. It's cool that we started at the near enough at the same time. So we're really on this journey together. So this is actually kind of perfect in terms of like just going back and forth. So that's awesome. So let's introduce the topic of today, right? So LinkedIn has over a billion users, 140 odd million daily active users. So not a low number by any means but only less than 2% share content. And this is the stats that you shared with me, Tice. So today's outcome and agenda, what are we gonna talk about? The topic is how can designers leverage LinkedIn, right? And by the end of this live session, you'll have some takeaways, why and how to start writing on LinkedIn. And more importantly, if you did decide to do that, how you can monetize it and bring in that sweet, sweet cash if you so choose, okay? And just some housekeeping for us, which is today's session is broken into two sections. So the first is just me and Tice discussing some subtopics under this sort of how designers leverage LinkedIn. Then we at towards the end of this conversation, maybe the bottom half of, let's just say 20 or 30 minutes, we will ask the audience for any questions they have. But of course, drop your questions below as we're talking. Maybe it will trigger something that you're like, oh, that's really interesting. Let me ask more about that. We wanna make it interactive as possible. If I can do the job of asking questions and reading the comments, I'll do my best and I'll try to inject those and ask Tice and really kind of bring you guys into the conversation when I can. So yeah, leave your comments below and we will try and get to all of them. So I guess the first thing I wanted to discuss with you, Tice, is that the power of writing online for designers, right? Or writing in general, but maybe specifically writing online. So why don't we kind of, why don't you share your thoughts first around this and we can kind of jump back and forth? Yeah, so like I said, I was starting with writing for like 30 days. That was my challenge, just publish one post every day, write for 30 minutes every day and basically do the engagement next to that. That's what my first challenge was and that turned into a 600 plus day challenge basically because I really found the benefits of writing because writing itself also really helps you think and distill all the ideas you have and by publishing them online, you will get feedback from everybody in the world basically or people who are actively seeing your content. And then I slowly just iterated on my ideas, kept on sharing them, kept on sharing what I was observing, what I was thinking about, what my audience was asking me. So I was slowly just getting a lot of content into the world and slowly iterated upon all my ideas. And by writing about those ideas, I really got better at thinking and by putting my thinking in writing, I really spotted the gaps in my thinking so I could fill them with further research or basically anything on the side to fill in those gaps and learn more about what I do. And that really helped shape my career as a designer because I still like to think like I'm a designer but I don't really professionally design anymore. I don't design products anymore but I have designed those products and I actually work with a lot of senior designers with design leaders and just design founders all around the world basically. And by working with them, I still really notice what they're struggling in the day to day. And the problem I really noticed is that they have a hard time selling themselves, selling the business value of design and I really believe writing brings a lot of value to that because by writing about the decisions you make, the problems you're facing, you will help share that within your company or in the online world to help people to follow you. Yeah, one thing that stood out to me was when you said really helped your thinking. And I think I found this also to be true where it kind of like, let's just say like, we're talking now, right? Like for me, let me speak for myself because when I speak, sometimes I don't think to, like I just say stuff, right? Then things just come out and we're just there and it's not as structured as it could be and sometimes the message doesn't get across or it's messy and I'm jumping back and forth on points but with writing is very different, right? You're kind of forcing yourself to have a bit of clarity and this is what you said which is like more like structured thinking or more mental clarity around the point that you're trying to make and how to also deliver that message like effectively, right? And I think that really helped me is, so are you saying that it also helped you in a way and how do you, I guess, what sort of insights did you gain from having more mental clarity or how did it help you in terms of that? Well, I think what you're saying is very right. Like every time I have a conversation with somebody and I listen back to it, I feel like sometimes it's just a very simple idea but it just doesn't get across because you're basically answering two emotions and when you're just alone somewhere, it's way less emotional and you're not trying to satisfy somebody's need, you're really trying to get those thoughts out of your head in the right way without trying to please anybody. And I feel like that's also something that helps with getting clarity in your thoughts and writing because there's less emotional. Yeah. And then you feel the same in that way. So like when you're in the conversation, do you feel like it's very emotional sometimes or you're just trying to say stuff to please another person? Yeah, I'm a total people pleaser. So I find that a little more. Yeah, but I guess with like really close friends, then it feels more like, you know, flowy, where like flow stay, not people pleasing, but you know, genuine kind of, you know, discussion whether you're not, whether or not you're going to hurt the other person, right? Because fundamentally not that many people want to hurt the other person by saying something they may get too bluntly or whatever, but I think with friends, yeah, something that actually came up when you're just saying that it's like, when you're by yourself, right? And you're writing like, the process of editing is also something that's like kind of enlightening, right? Where you're like, first, okay, I have these raw thoughts, they're kind of unfiltered and then they're just on paper. But then the process of editing and structuring this and kind of being like, actually this can be said better, don't need to say this at all and kind of, you know, moving it around. So it really fits together like a proper puzzle, not just something like random. I think that's like really fun. And that's actually a lot like designing where it's like ideas, then iteration, iteration, fair enough we don't have any feedback in this setting where we're alone. So, but it's still helpful to kind of build that first solution, right? Or that first piece of writing. Is that what you found as well? Yeah, I feel like that's also the case for me because when you're editing, you're just looking at the thoughts you basically put on paper and you get to analyze your thoughts. And also for others to analyze your thoughts because you're making your thinking basically visible. And by making it visible, you can also do that by voice and speaking of course. And in a Paul Graham article, I remember, he also said where if he has like a conversation over one hour and he has to distill that into writing, it's like two minutes of reading and 60 minutes of speaking. So when you really sit down and really think about the point you're trying to get across, you will save a lot of people time even if it's a one-on-one conversation but it's very hard to get to that clarity. And that's the biggest challenge because when you truly understand something it becomes very easy to write about that basically. Sometimes I take like two or three hours for a post when I don't understand it. And I have to do a lot of research, ask people and really understand my point or sometimes it takes five minutes. It's just something I've been thinking about for months and the challenge I've been tackling myself. And then it just flows out of my head and it's very easy. But I feel like there's a lot of difference there as well. Like sometimes I take like 20 minutes to edit and sometimes I don't edit at all. And like I think it really depends on the situation. Like when you write, how you write, how you're feeling and just a lot of reasons that might be causing that. Dude, I do want to push back because you are probably one of the writers that I've seen on LinkedIn that has the most gorgeous formatting. Like literally, I don't believe that you don't edit. Like if you don't edit it might just come out like, you're like, oh my thoughts are also pretty as well. Like that's crazy man because the way you format your sentences and stuff is fucking cool. It's, how am I supposed to square on this? Anyway, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's a pleasurable read as like, not just from reading the content, but it looks good. And I think that is so important for online writing, isn't it? Yeah, I feel like that's right. But in my context, editing was like a separate thing. Like there's this thing where people say, I write on one day and I edit on the other day because that helps like get a new view on what you wrote. But I actually edit during the writing many times just to get that structure in. So it's like a habit I've built and it basically becomes automatic and I write in Notion so I can easily shift the two lines so they're in order. And I feel like that's also a big reason that it makes Notion makes it easier to make that formatting, right? And I feel like there are also other tools but I just use Notion and works fine for me. So in that sense I do edit and I try when a line doesn't really flow well, I try to rewrite it and that also helps me to get clearer because I need to write shorter sentences and still get the same idea across. So that's also like a thinking challenge at the point I'm writing. Yeah, yeah. Do you find yourself, cause I do this, sacrificing the correct words to use or the better words to use because of formatting or have you never done that based on how it looks? Like let's just say like this word is slightly longer, I don't know, to fit in some kind of format. I felt I've done that sometimes, right? Like I want to balance both visual and written. Yeah, I feel like I make that trade off a lot of times but I'm not really aware of it. I don't really care about those single words that change. So sometimes I just don't want it to change the meaning. Like if it keeps the same meaning, I think it's fine. People will understand and you sometimes even search for synonyms on Google to get a shorter word to make it easier for people to read in like the format I like them. So that's a funny thing. That is a really funny thing. But I mean like as designers, right? We're thinking about accessibility or usability or also the visual aesthetic of it. So there's actually a lot of elements that like, hey, otherwise it's just, if you're just writing in big paragraphs, like not that many people are really gonna enjoy that even if it's the greatest content. It works on some other formats, but I believe LinkedIn it doesn't work as well. There are some outliers of course, but we can get into that. Anyway, there's a lot of questions around like specifics, like specific platform things, but I wanna get into that a little bit later, but why don't we like, let's just say the audience believes of the power of writing, right? They believe that it's this thing that gives a mental clarity, structured thinking, makes a more effective communicator, storyteller, better seller of ideas because it's structured or is more convincing, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, so they believe in all this power of writing and they're convinced. So my question to you, Thais, is why shouldn't they be scared to publish? Like they believe in all this, but they're still kind of nervous. What is it? Yeah, I think that's the biggest challenge that a lot of people face, like literally everybody that comes to me and everybody I work with has that specific challenge. It's like the first roadblock to content creation is getting over that and just not caring about the opinions of other people because they're only holding you back. And if you really look at it, you really, I really realize people aren't even looking at me. They don't really care about me. They just really care about themselves and they want to look well themselves. And if you're publishing something, they don't agree with it, it's usually because they don't agree with it. And that's also a point for learning. So I really don't see the risks of publishing online. Of course, there may be reasons why people will not want to work with you because you're publishing online because I also believe there is a big stigma around being vocal online. But if you're doing it from a good morale and you're just having a good intention with everything you post and you're trying to learn and showing humility in your learning, I think it only provides benefits because I've been on the job market for less than a year basically. And like I'm getting a lot of good results from just being in my career for one year. And I feel like that's mainly because I've been very vocal online and just talking about my learnings and sharing my ideas and just talking to a lot of people. Like I mean five plus design leaders a week and I would never get across those people if I wouldn't be publishing online. And that's just so valuable for me because I'm not really deep. I haven't designed for like five years but I'm still meeting a lot of those people. And if I would work somewhere I would meet only one or two of those people. But now I'm meeting like 20 people a month and just talking to them, asking them questions, learning from them. I even had a meeting with a design leader at Spotify as well. And he even offered me to help me build like a research structure to research customer thing, research my customers. And I feel like those interactions would have never happened if I wasn't vocal online. And I feel like that's a huge benefit. And also on a business side people are from all levels are coming to me for help with that. And I feel like that's a huge opportunity. That's awesome. Yeah, opening a lot of doors just by sharing and kind of being putting yourself out there that's definitely one of the great benefits of it. And I think a lot of folks see that but they see more of the end goal shiny thing like Mr. Beast type, Justin Welsh type where they're like, oh, shit, this guy's doing great. But remember also opportunities get bigger over time. So the little ones come first. I think you mentioned something earlier as well which is like publishing in public or practicing in public. Can you tell me a bit more about that? I think, did you mention that? I think you did. Practicing in public. Yeah, I'm not sure I mentioned that but I feel like it's somewhat practicing in public. What I do is just sharing my learnings, the things I'm observing when I started out. I wasn't talking about like how design leaders should run their business. I don't know that. So I don't talk about that but I knew I was studying portfolios all the time. And so I was writing more about those types of things and that was also getting attraction from a lot of people up the ladder. And that slowly I started learning from them and starting to develop my own thoughts about the industry. So slowly I just learned a lot more by just sharing what I was actively thinking about learning in public and basically also practicing in public. I wasn't really sharing my designs actively because that wasn't really aligned with the goals I was trying to achieve. So if I would want to have a job, I would really focus on getting my work on there and my learnings and my perspectives on industries and positioning myself in an industry I really loved. So that will be my focus then but now it's more like a broader type of mission I'm trying to follow. And I wanted to quickly pin what you just mentioned like the results basically come at the end. Like that's always the case. I feel like if you're doing something that compounds like a network, like your audience like the people that come to you, it just takes time and after a long time you will probably see results. If you're doing it the right way, you're constantly learning and you have a basically a growth mindset. I think you will always get successes you want eventually if you just have the right mindset and keep on developing your skills and trying to get better and listening to all the signals. So. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's great. I think I definitely agree with you there. So I have three things to share about this and you just tell me, jump in whenever but why you shouldn't be scared to post. The first one is we want to celebrate success. We wanna celebrate the wins that we go along the way big or small, big ones of course but we tend to forget the small ones. We're like, oh, okay pattern the back and move on but it's really important to think about the things that you've done as a way to motivate yourself build momentum and to celebrate good work that's happened and build a bit of positivity in the mental habit of yourself, let's just say. So that's really important. The second is forced introspection. This is why you shouldn't be scared to post guys because it makes you crystallize your mistakes and hopefully from thinking about your mistakes a lot and actually like writing about it, you'll learn from it because you've thought about it. A lot of times we go through life it kind of just passes us by unless it's one of those brutal, brutal mistakes that those are hard to forget but the little ones is probably could make more of a difference. Then the other one, my final point is that once you start sharing stuff, there's gonna be people alongside you that feel the same, right? And eventually and hopefully they get invested in your journey and you build your own tribe or the people that resonate with your story, what you're going through. So that's for me are those three things that are really interesting and that's why I sort of encourage folks not to be scared by those three things. Any thoughts? Yeah, I think those are all true because they just help you get more opportunities by just sharing them and sharing the learnings and people will appreciate you for sharing learnings with others. If you're doing it like with humility, I think that will always benefit you and I feel like a lot of people getting to success on that. And one thing I'd like to add to that I feel like people aren't really scared to post itself, they're just really scared of facing the truth. Because they are scared of getting their thoughts into the world and getting feedback on their thoughts. And I feel like they're just scared of that. They're scared of being met with the actual truth. Like maybe your thoughts aren't that good in a particular moment. Like I've had those moments where I put my thoughts into the world and people are like, whoa, man, you're not right. You're wrong here, here and here because of X, Y and Z and I'm like, oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for teaching me that. And then I learned something new and my thoughts got better. And slowly you just develop more, better ideas and you just get smarter, you get to meet new people. And if you just don't really care about your opinions of other people you will find a lot of benefits with it. And a lot of people at the start will dislike it. And then when you find some success in it people will come to you like, how did you do that? Maybe you could help me too. People will always make fun at the beginning of your journey. So I would just say just ignore them and do what you want to do. And if you feel like doing it, just do it. It may be a cliche, but I really think it's the truth. I've did that briefly, everything and every time I didn't follow my own gut in that sense I always regretted it at the end of the day or like years later. So I will just keep on doing it and people who don't like it, don't like it. I like it and I like to find the people who basically think like me or have an opposing perspective which I can learn from. I just find that to be important. So there's a few folks who've asked this question. I think this is the perfect time to sort of get into this as we're saying, okay, well, we believe sharing and posting, writing specifically on LinkedIn is really beneficial just for us as well, but maybe other platform. But there's a lot of folks saying, how do you get started with this? And then, and also like, yeah, let's just go to the how you get started and then I'll follow up with some other questions. So like if I'm a newbie, okay, you've sold me, you've said how good it is in terms of like the power of writing, how it is beneficial. You said I shouldn't be scared to post or like opinions of others and there's a lot of other things that is good for me when I share my journey but how do I do it? Like any advice? Yeah, I think you don't really have to publish online at the first point. If you really scared of publishing your thoughts online, you could even start in your company channel like your Slack channel. You just get comfortable of getting those reps in of writing to get comfortable building that writing muscle basically and maybe it's just five minutes a day of writing. Then you will build it to 10 minutes a day and then to 20 minutes a day and then to 30 minutes a day and maybe if 30 minutes a day is a little bit too much you go back to 20 minutes a day and you just share on a place you're comfortable sharing maybe it's with a friend, somebody close to you, people or juniors asking you for advice or seniors asking you questions about maybe you should grow in this direction. I think there are so many inputs you can get and by having the mindset of creating and sharing it somewhere, maybe it's not online but maybe it's in your Slack channel basically also online but more private. I think building the habit of sharing somewhere and maybe LinkedIn for me, LinkedIn worked very well because I had the deadline to post every day and by having that deadline I always came up with a post even when I was very busy. I had like 60 hour weeks of work sometimes and I still managed to do a post every single day because I had that deadline and every time I have a deadline I meet that deadline for some reason and maybe it's not the highest quality but first I want to get the quantity and now I'm moving more towards quality because I've had a lot of reps and I'm better able to judge what writing is good and what writing isn't good. So I would say just get started with somewhere you feel comfortable starting and building the habit of sharing daily and sharing with friends, writing every day and then slowly or maybe immediately just publish it on LinkedIn if you feel comfortable doing so. Yeah. And how would you recommend in that situation? Yeah, I really like what you said to kind of choose a channel where like if it's the public sharing bothers you then don't do it publicly, I really like that. I'll just say how I started and it was like, okay, well, working on UX Playbook I actually decided it was like, okay, fine we're gonna work on UX Playbook. So I committed and then one of the things is like, well what do we do, right? How do we spread the message of what we're doing what we're building? So it was at the beginning it was purely a business motivation, right? It was like, okay, well let's write about stuff unless how do people know about the business? So that's a good motivation, right? There was a very strong purpose of what we're doing where we're trying to educate designers, right? That's what we're doing. So then yet again, it was a deadline every day but I didn't put myself in that situation like you did I said, okay, well, I'm just gonna give myself two weeks or a month to write as much as I can to fill out the first month and then once the first month is filled out on a content calendar, then I'm gonna publish then it was naturally like I was writing trying to like, you know, stack it in terms of being like a month ahead or two weeks ahead and then I started like listening to podcasts watching videos and everything was like an idea capture machine, like my head couldn't get it out I was like, oh, I could turn this into a way of how I'm thinking or this is how I think about it and everything eventually became that and it just got easier as I went along but for pressure sake, I didn't wanna say like I have 24 hours to come up with something like that was too much for me like I had to do something else. So, you know, whatever the folks at home take away from this is just like, okay, well you have to do some kind of commitment, right? You have to say to yourself like, I wanna do this because of this, like knowing the reason why you wanna do it and then committing to it therefore hopefully you would do it but also there are ways not to make so much pressure in yourself so you like burn out, right? With all the work and all the stress so there's a healthy balance of those things and then yeah, as you said that muscle eventually came where it was like, wow like this is easy, I can listen to something jot down some thoughts. What I struggle with now is that when a thought comes sometimes I don't have anywhere to write on like my phone is in there, right? So like the pro tip here is like have a notepad somewhere have something that you're recording something down wherever you are that you bring everywhere because you will find these thoughts come to you and that is actually the next question which is like how the hell do you generate ideas? Like let's just say you're not even, you're not there yet but like let's just say you're before that you're writing but like how do you come up with like a million ideas for your content? So this changed over my entire journey at the start I was just gathering all ideas around the world, just everything that came up and me and just put it down and write about it but then I was talking about like 20 or 50 different topics so I was just going to philosophy to design to health to everything basically I was jumping to all the corners and a few days ago I actually finished like an entire structure for going through every single thing to make it also very aligned with the business you have or the business you're trying to build and now it's basically I just listen to my audience I try to talk to my audience they will share outcomes with me and we'll talk about what outcomes are they're trying to achieve and when I know which outcomes they're trying to achieve I try to basically rank them and try to find a way which outcomes are very important to them and then based on those outcomes I will look what activities are required to get to that outcome and when I know all the activities I can ask them about those activities what are you struggling with? What pain points do you have in this situation? What obstacles are you basically facing and then we'll get a lot of obstacles and based on these obstacles you could think about solutions so you have an activity so how to do design critiques and then you can put even if you obstacle, obstacle, obstacle so how to do design critiques even if you don't have time even if you don't know what to do right now even if you don't know the knowledge even if you don't know the structure and then based on that you can look at that and you can just look at like what format and I'm putting it in do I want to grow? Maybe I can share resources maybe I can share tips maybe I can share this and you can just get a lot of ideas based on formats that have already been proven like the lessons you've gotten the mistakes you've made the failures you've had the stories you've experienced or the steps you have to walk through and then you will just get a load of ideas just based on basically talking to the audience you're trying to reach and then aligning it with their needs and also when you find something in the world it's a good idea to just write about it and just use that for yourself I write like 200 ideas maybe in a week or in a few weeks but most of them don't get used they're just dusting away in my notepad but I feel like that's my main approach right now and then based on that I will create content around that sometimes I flesh it out immediately sometimes I go at a different moment to flesh out posts when I need a post for example but I feel like it's also important everybody has their own way of doing it and yeah it's just finding what works for you based on first trying what other people will say you have to do and just testing those out for yourself and seeing what works and how do you do this so I'm actually curious about how do you get ideas you just scramble them away or do you repurpose them from yeah I so I consume a lot of media like that's kind of I always have something in the background whether it's a pod a video reading something so I'm always kind of like maybe doing two things at once sometimes like so there's no shortage of input let's just say so I just yeah just try to capture it just try to capture where I can but yes I have these kind of what we call content pillars and there's like kind of a few buckets so I just capture all thoughts and then I figure out where it fits in and what narrative to go right it could be a helpful tip could be a story could be a listicle yeah as a resource so there's the like framings around what type of content you want to share and based on that then you can kind of generate content but there isn't a sophisticated way like you like I really like the first like what are the people that you want to reach a saying and then break it down into like obstacles or pains or things and then kind of go off that like I really like that I think that's a really good approach but for me it's more kind of there's some free flowing nature to it I have this thing as well not only do I have content pillars and we just try to find it on my notion I also have themes so goals, aspiration, frustrations, values and fears right so those are some kind of like categories as well on top of the content pillar so you're basically like merging the categories and then from there you have a topic so let's just say it's about design critiques the fears around design critiques right okay well how do we write about this well there's a bunch of ways we can talk about why you shouldn't fear it it could be like motivational, inspirational or here is my personal story here are the resources so yeah and then you're going into more like structural stuff we also have so like apart from the content pillars we've done a good job of like oh yeah actually let me tell you a story okay so when we started writing first it was like okay well let's just write whatever about design and then we see what works and what doesn't work so through this there's probably a I've categorized it into let's just say 30 different subtopics around the field some are like self-development productivity, leadership, user centered community right and then so that is like so we have a subcategory then we have our content pillars then we have our themes so there's like three different buckets that you can pull from mix and match and then you have the content structure on how you're going to present it to it's not very structured as obviously I'm explaining it like going around I should probably write about it but that's kind of how we can frame different ideas based on like what the messaging at the top is like you know what the input is but the same input can also you know branch out into all of these different categories and themes subtopics or whichever pillar you want so it's quite flexible in nature right sometimes the idea is very specific around something other times it's a bit more up here that benefits from leaking down to these different categories say yeah something like that and do you actively use those structures what do you mean actively use those structures like do you just is it like part of your daily workflow of writing or is it just you get an idea you write it out and then you put it in your content calendar basically yeah is it like you you you get an idea you store that idea somewhere then you look at the idea and go through those structures and then basically write out the idea no no so only if we if like the idea is not properly formulated really yeah so it works both ways sometimes it helps triggers the high-level idea down sometimes is just a way of categorization to delve deeper into the analytics okay so but there is always a theme goal aspiration frustration value and fear right so that that's kind of the theme and then so depending on what we're writing and then yeah a content pillar so really really is all from like theme and content pillar and then the other categorization is if we need it or not yeah we like it's it's interesting because yeah diving to the analytics is funny where you're like oh this subtopic or this subcategory is outperforming everything else why is that like is like let's just say like um what's a popular one uh like goal and portfolio or goal and job search or whatever right like there are some that I just perform on you're just like okay that's interesting how do I do a different take on it should I do fear job search do I like so so you go the other way as well when you start like you know learning from that okay maybe I'm rambling a bit sorry guys let me go okay there's one other topic that I want to talk about we can talk about the like nuances of like how to get started all this stuff but the other topic which is huge which is monetizing your LinkedIn with offers and you've been thinking a lot about this I think potentially more than I have so why don't you kick us off and I can try and add what I have to add Thais yeah so I think the first principle of monetization is deliver more value than you get so people must value the thing you're delivering more than you're asking for them so they must value solving their problem more than the money they're paying you so you basically always want to price under what somebody is paying and so you can easily open a liver that's one of the principles I follow in that sense and there are many ways to monetize but the main part is having an offer and there are a lot of types of offers like you could have products you could have services you could do consultancy which also basically is a service where you can license stuff or yeah there are a lot of ways to monetize but I usually categorize them based on Alex Ramosy's book How to Design an Offer or 100 million offers that was the name there are like these three categories which is do it yourself and do it with you and do it for you and that's how I like to think through offerings I don't really use the structure he mentioned like I made my own structure to design the offerings but it's mainly just finding a way to deliver a product and last year I tried to deliver a product but I wasn't satisfied with the result so I just made that free and put it on my LinkedIn profile to basically get more feedback on those ideas and I did do services and programs based on the experience I already have and the demand I was getting and the questions I was getting so it's basically finding questions people ask you and the problems they're experiencing and trying to fit that into an offer which you can easily deliver on and sometimes that's a service where you do design work for people in my situation is helping people basically grow, establish and monetize their expertise based on writing content because I feel like it's a one activity that has a lot of purposes and that's what I try to find a way to monetize that and that's true the service where I work with agencies for example and I go to their offers and give them workshops and there will be five designers who will be working with me to write the posts make the strategy and make it a system of writing to first become more productive in creating it documenting their day to day decisions or their learnings their takeaways their observations of the industries or basically doing deep dives in industries and then making a funnel where they offer value and based on the value they provide they will get more engagements with clients for example so it's just finding a way the problems your audience is experiencing but you can do that from multiple ways you can start with an audience and try to attract those people or you can just frame your expertise and sell that online Do you have an audience to have an offer? No, no you don't need that but the offer is for an audience so if you make an offer you have to be very clear of the audience you're serving or it's like a specific problem people have but it's still an audience behind that people with problem X for example so and you can also work the other way around like I did like I had an audience how do I find something or how do I find the problems problems I can solve and get money in return so that's also a way to monetize it and how did you was it comments, DMs just kind of listening real close? Yeah just talking to a lot of these I talked to thousands of designers basically and I really noticed the problems they were facing and I really noticed the one big one was that they had a hard time selling themselves getting leads growing the network and even now you see a lot of design leaders and designers struggling getting buy-in from stakeholders that's also like a very big topic and that's also basically being able to sell your ideas and getting buy-in from clients stakeholders prospects your network because yeah I feel like it works everywhere and it's just a skill set you build and you can apply with within everywhere and yeah I think the easiest kind of offering first especially for designers is like services right design services freelance freelance yeah right that's kind of the easiest to start with and then you can kind of think about scale like from there what are the repeat problems within that services business that you're doing or a small kind of thing that you can chunk off that is maybe a little bit more scalable maybe turn that into a digital product like an ebook or UI kit Notion template whatever it is but yeah there are so many ideas of like offerings right like different the way you present it and as you mentioned the you know done with you done for you kind of model as well okay let's dive into the audience questions because I think they really want to have like top tips on LinkedIn right yeah just want to say just want to repeat this ain't financial advice like this ain't LinkedIn advice do it your own discretion right we have been doing it for a while but by no means are the gurus yeah the algorithm works in our favor right we speak to the algorithm we do not so let's get into it okay all right is there a certain timing to post or do you or do we schedule posts any advice what do you how do you think about timing and scheduling so I don't think the timing really matters I've seen all times of the day matter and might influence it of course I just stick to 3 p.m. which has been working okay for me so I just stick to that I haven't really tried many other things and I felt like I don't think it's because of timing I have with the post timing matters of course but just show on time every single day I think that does the job and it will spread if the value is there and about scheduling posts I don't schedule very far in advance mostly a week most times 2 weeks depends on if I have a vacation I will schedule more I just write a little bit more and I personally like to stay like very close to the current situation by being able to have like a deadline in mind and making it making me more observant about the world to find ideas to write about which really helps during the day and I feel like that's also a great way to start with content just note down the questions you're getting from people or clients and just writing about those answering those or when you have a meeting make a quick summary or when you are making a decision why are you making the decision just get built the habit of writing and that content you can look at from a point of view if I wanted to share it with designers what would they find valuable in this content and share it with them and you also see how do you find inspiration for quality posts every day yep I really like to stick with my audience so I try to focus on what are the outcomes they want to achieve what are the activities to get to that outcome and what obstacles are they facing and based on that I try to generate ideas but I also just write down an idea when I get it and flesh it out instantly and just schedule it to get ideas into the world that's also a way for me to validate content for my clients because my clients are usually designers and I also build a database of ideas and things people seem to care about and I can share that with them as well so I don't always have to write specifically on the content topic I'm doing it for but if I want more business I need to write about what I do more but currently I'm not focusing on that I'm more focusing on growing myself and becoming sharing more of my expertise online on this matter yeah and I think quality post is subjective no? yeah yeah one quality is another quality so if you if you're yeah I guess the best filter is yourself no? like if you are proud to publish it publish it even if you're not proud publish it anyway somebody else might find equality right so quality is subjective I don't know if quality is a good measure for what you want maybe there's a different word maybe meaningful maybe thought-provoking valuable like yeah quality yeah maybe that's what this person meant but really that's kind of a your own rubric of deciding whether or not it's good or not right and obviously quality shouldn't be measured by impression likes engagement that kind of stuff but you could potentially measure quality by the quality of discussion subjectively in the comments like if it's like okay I'm writing about a not a controversial topic or let's just say I am like designers don't need portfolios all right let's just say that and everyone's like this guy's crazy that's what I think and then they actually we have a really genuine discussion underneath and people go deep and people give me different perspectives I haven't heard about then for me personally that's a quality discussion right so maybe that's what you're aiming for really depends on your goal but I think this is a decision that you should make yourself yeah yeah very good point I think what you just said is like very important like optimizing for your goal if you're trying to learn make sure you spar good discussions in your comment section and you just have to figure out which questions do I ask which provoke those conversations and I feel like that's important to take in mind like what is your goal of creating is it to grow a network is to get more leads is it is it to become an expert in a certain area is there maybe many goals everybody might have in publishing content online yeah because I think this goes to one of the other questions which is how writing on LinkedIn can get you better interaction well yeah that's a very like it's up there right how can writing on LinkedIn get you better interactions well how do you get more interactions it's like if we knew we probably would have won the game all right like and if interaction is your only goal why is it your only goal and should that be your only goal right so I don't know if I can give an answer to that but I do actually I think there is I haven't figured out how to do it 100% effectively myself but it's just trying to optimize the question you're asking at the end and basically I call that a prompt you start with a hook then you write the reward then you write a prompt and the prompt should spark people spark their thoughts and reply to what you have to say but it's mainly focused on when you deliver more value and value is very subjective you just have to get to know your audience very well and if you do you will spark more interactions because you know what will make them tick and when you do you can jump in on that and press those pain points and press those outcomes and by using them to basically improve that but it's just hard because there's also a lot of things at play to do that consistently like you can it's like 5% that will go hard maximum right and the rest is like 60% of what you write is average or even more and like 20% will be good and like 20% will just be very bad and I just yeah I'm just used to that I feel like after six hundred days yeah no I really like that take though yeah it's to summarize it was like know your audience really well study their psychology and if you can spark something in their psychology then you basically won or at least you've got the interaction that you desire which is yeah yeah no I like that it's really good no no no yeah so many levels to this game okay isn't quantity better than quantity in terms of posting every day what are your thoughts yeah I feel like you need quantity to get to quality so I think that's something that's very important I put in a lot of reps at the beginning and it probably was very bad I think it is very bad and now I'm still learning every single day and I still don't think my writing is very good because I just don't have 20 years of industry experience which I can write about those are usually like the most insightful insights I'd love to talk about but which I don't have and that's why I'm also trying to help more design ears do this because they have the 20 plus years of experience and they just have to find a way to write about it that gets engagement and I feel like yeah that's just a big opportunity for the industry when they're more vocal about everything they're thinking and doing in their day-to-day lives but usually they don't really optimize for the social platform and then that's somewhat important and the structures you use as well like if you have a bad hope people won't read it it's just the headline is very important yeah and only by doing this will you learn how to write the quality per platform nuance right medium is different LinkedIn is different Twitter is different so I don't want to say it but it's kind of true where yeah to have quality you need quantity to get there however there are some outliers right in terms of folks who produce content they do it every so often no flexible schedule and they're not about quantity at all they're very quality focused but they've probably been doing it for years right they have it's not their first rodeo so it's not their first video they've ever made on YouTube they've been making it for years it just so happens they're like once in a month they release right just effort into it so you can play the game based on how you want to play the game right there's nobody says that you have to publish every day it's just kind of one of the approaches that works in terms of building muscle yeah how do you choose topics like did we answer that or that was more about generating ideas but how do we choose topics I feel like choosing topics is very dependent on your background so the things you love the things you're good at the things the world need and the market wants basically the icky guy type of format that's something I really ingrained in my life and really have been exploring for seven plus years for myself so I have a good idea of what I think I'm good at what other people think I'm good at what I really love doing where I lose my time and I'm actively looking at the market to what they want and trying to find a way to like tailor those market ones to what the world needs and I feel like the world needs design so I want to help people share the word of design because I really believe design is super valuable and I will think it will increase by value when the maturity increases and people start understanding it and it's just my standard belief of everybody is a designer basically everybody's designing their lives their environment their productivity set up every single thing it's all designed basically they just have a different label for it and they're not professionally doing it I just really believe in commercializing the value of design and yeah I'm probably rambling here too No, no, I like it that's kind of why you got into it and yeah it's good that you showed your passion because it is your Ikegai and if folks can find it then that's good as well because you feel natural to kind of share on that topic because you have such an affinity for all those things you really believe in How do you write content for two different audiences simultaneously? This is John, Xiao, John What do you mean here? So like let's try and I think he has like maybe you have like two offers like a freelance photographer and one freelance designer you have like two things and you want to talk to two people My advice is big one It's just focus on one and find the one you find most fun and do the other one as like a plus one and yeah I think it's very important to be focused in how you communicate yourself online and the more focus you are the more successful you will find and positioning is the big part of that you have to position yourself in a place of your Ikegai I feel like because then you will be able to stay consistent for like 10 years because you love doing it and aligned with your strengths like what are you actually good at and what do other people say you're good at and just doubling down on those points and then also figuring out like what does the market wants where do I want to have do I want to make $1 million a year then maybe I need to choose a different vehicle than making photos for people maybe I should do something more scalable and find a way to do that basically so I feel like picking one that would be my advice and doing the other one on the side which I also basically do I still build websites sometimes for people and for my old clients I don't actively take new clients on but when an old client is asking me for a website I will just build it I can build it in a week and I like doing it so that's also a thing I do but I never talk about it nobody knows I'm doing that in the background but I still do it right and you can kind of bury that in your website if you want like a rant or put it on an email photo like in tiny little letters yes like you know you don't have to shout but yeah that makes sense yeah pick one and double down and also when you say like I think when folks say like pick one thing everybody's like oh no that kind of like pigeon holes me now I'm in a box but like everything is about experimentation right that's why you're doing it it's like you don't know if let's just say photography or design will work with whatever audience you're trying to build and the content will resonate so you can also experiment I would also say that once you start building a rhythm and let's just say you have your audience I think to a certain extent people like you know or feel comfortable following someone and and listening to their journey they will kind of follow you as well as you grow right maybe they get bored but but also like you'll never like be static like you know Chris the UX playbook guy right like I don't plan to be the UX playbook guy forever right so I'm I also know that I will have to shift when the things in my life change my interest change the things I want my ambition gets bigger or smaller like whatever it is right so there's also an element of that where it's like you'll never kind of stuck you're always kind of moving so pick one for like and then try yeah okay so let's there's another sort of more tactical question do you always recommend having an image or video attached along with your post yeah so that's something I really like about you I don't I want to do that but I never make pictures of myself but I'm just pretty introvert so I don't really like to be on the pictures and I feel like that's something you really nail because you have so many intimate images it's always a new one and I feel like that's a way it's a big benefit because it helps you build your personal brand basically and that's something I'm not doing well like I'm not sharing enough about myself and then find it hard to do that in like an effective way without yeah I just want to stick to my expertise and focus on building that but I feel like having those images like you published them I think that's really good I want to do that more but I don't have those pictures well um you know summer is just around the corner so buy a camera and get someone to follow you around and take some pictures you know uh yeah I think I'm lucky where like because so I've been living in a different country from where I was born for the last 10 years right so when I came here it was like everything's new always pictures you're always traveling so I sort of built up a library of like photos but I don't take that many photos myself in terms of like actually taking it's usually like in a group or someone else takes it but now we've been a bit more purposeful with taking photos because we have a place to use it now but before it was like super random um but yeah I think it's um quite nice for folks to kind of get behind the curtain and and kind of see who you are what you do like things you know even if sometimes it doesn't relate it's quite funny and and we've experimented with like like terrible photos like me with like an anime character face and that has worked and I'm like and I really didn't want to post that but um when I say we because um my mrs also works on this with me and she's like this photo we're using it and I'm like do we have to right but you know yeah yet again experimentation and um yeah it's quite interesting that it has worked for us so yeah yeah keep doing it I think you're rocking it in that sense thanks man thanks man any uh just send me any request of uh poses of backgrounds and I'll try fine I'll try to pick one right um okay I also see a good question by the way how might one balance clickbait popularity versus content integrity and originality I think about this a lot yeah I feel like originality is like a very hard thing because I believe nothing is really original I'd like to stick to delivering value it might sound very cliche or like standard but it's finding a way to write about an outcome or an obstacle your audience is facing and that will make it original by itself because it's helping them solve a problem they actually have and I feel like that's a important thing to think to keep in mind and by clickbait and popularity I feel like just stay with what you think is right and be very intentional about it have the right attention behind it and just have a good morale and then you don't really have to risk your brand in some sense I feel like because it's just who you are and what you care about but I also think about like what could go viral by using like words that resonate with these irons like Figma portfolios and those types of things and just sometimes using them for my advantage of course so yeah I feel like it's always a balance to do that and just be very ethical about it and trying to do the right thing is the best approach for me I feel like and it's something I also recommend my clients it's just yeah just stay true to yourself and I feel like you can really go wrong by that way just figure out what works the best for you and your audience yeah yeah no I really like that yeah like I guess like the popularity like if if you've done a clickbait thing and it works I guess it gets kind of addicting right because you're like oh and I think that's a slippery slope because if you don't enjoy doing that and it's working you're gonna do it over and over again right it's like starting like whatever right starting at any bad habit like eating chocolate at let's just say 11pm right feels good I'm not supposed to do it so but it feels so good like um yeah it's a slippery slope and yeah so but it's not to say that you can't write on topics like AI right like no or things that actually matter and things that are relevant because that's also relevant to the people reading it right um and yeah so yeah really tricky I think it's a really good question you know content yeah it's a really good question yeah yeah and actually this is this is this is a great it triggered a great thought which is content integrity and originality Tice what do you do when someone copies your content like what happens like like how should content creators no because we do this like you know we think about this a lot we live and breathe this kind of world what do you like how do you how do you treat it I think there's like three types of how people copy some people just copy and post and say say at the end of this is his post and don't really make it clear it's somebody else's content and then there's people who write their own thoughts around a post which are really recommend I think that's a good thing like sharing it and using the native repost function to share your thoughts around the post I feel like that's way more ethical to do and just don't steal I feel like don't copy you can steal but steal the idea and add your own experience and perspectives on that and find a way how that idea is valuable to your audience and trying to write it in that sense and adding your own take on it but I always try to stick with the insights I get from my audience which is sometimes hard but I'm just thinking about that all the time so how can I create more how can I serve my audience better and it's also my customers basically so that's my goal with content and trying to align with their needs but how do I deal with that I sometimes I just ignore it sometimes I point it out and they delete it and sometimes yeah most times I just put a comment under there with a little subtle hint it's my own post but I don't really like to make a thing about it because I really when they keep it it can also be like beneficial for them because it will reward them with more engagement maybe somehow so in that sense yeah I just think people shouldn't do it they do it but yeah it happens and I feel like it's also a compliment because you did some good content probably if they want to steal it from you so maybe that's also a signal you're doing a good thing yeah very stoic of you a very very chill I like that I like that I like that yeah so when someone did this to me the the other day and usually I like I don't really care that much but I thought like you know I'll just leave a comment underneath and immediately it was removed and I was like all right then I messaged the guy I was like it's not cool and he was like sorry man I'm like whatever all right just just calls them out but that that's how I did it but like it also doesn't bother me that much it's just sending them a message and just be like I just call you man like just just chill with me I just called you yeah I just call you send it again please thank you anyway okay we are a little bit over time so let's just see if there is any last questions if you see one Tyce let me know all right I think we are good then it doesn't seem like there's any more questions we kind of got to them which is super super rare I know we're a little bit over Tyce so I apologize so before we wrap up do you have anything to plug and just let the audience know how to find you things like that well the only plug I have is basically you can get my content system on my profile is free and I just want to get feedback because I want to learn about everybody's needs and to be able to create more value for everybody and I'm also thinking of making a paid community around what I'm doing but I'm not sure about doing that yet because I've collected like a lot of ideas and content and frameworks I've put together myself and I'm thinking about making a community because I notice most of the people in my audience struggle with staying consistent starting having a talk partner to talk to and I feel like that could be like a way I can help a lot of people but because most people can't afford my services right now and I want to have like a cheaper product which I can also offer and help people without coming in money struggles myself so I just want to have like a cheaper type of offer and help people get started with content and do it better and build a business out of it maybe yeah well let us know when that comes out because super interesting to see some topics and the learnings from this community as well man cool so on that like I feel like there are a lot of communities of course but I want to keep it like very specific on how you can build a business out of it with while staying very ethical and doing it the right way by providing a lot of value so in that sense it's yeah is it just about business building like and so it's about business building staying ethical is it just for designers is my question yeah it's just for designers and it's focused on knowledge sharing so also internally and just that like getting good at creating content and making valuable content based on the expertise you have so that will be like the focus area right and would it be centered around the system that you've created for your clients okay so everybody actively using the system maybe adapting, applying sharing learnings of what worked what didn't and how they kind of use that to exactly just to make knowledge sharing more easier and just find out also ways to do it in Google workspace Arkansas workspace and maybe newsletters internally just want to make content like a standard part of the designer's workflow and make it like a standard thing in their day-to-day lives yeah yeah wow sounds cool okay all right well excited to hear more about it dude from me guys so our next LinkedIn live is February the 7th with Ruby Pryor she's a user researcher founder of Rex and xGrab it's going to be a really interesting one we're still kind of debating on what kind of topics to talk about but probably sense about user research how to measure the dollar amount on UX because I think that's a topic that she's really interested in and also that she's building a subscription-based business around user research so yet again that's February the 7th we do this live every first week and third week of the month so twice a month you'll hear from me and another guest but I want to welcome on Tice again and finally just say thank you dude you've been great and so much knowledge sharing and you're working on some really really cool stuff especially this content system that like content creators like me are like give me it I need it right now so and we can find out on your profile and also if you don't follow Tice on LinkedIn please his content is awesome and it's probably the visually best formatted writing that I've seen online check it out guys but you know thanks for coming on dude yeah thanks for having me it was fun it was an interesting conversation we had yeah definitely all right guys I will see the audience and you Tice in a bit peace out