LinkedIn Growth for Creators + How We're Using AI Deep Research
In this episode, Colin and Jacob dig into two powerful tools for creators: LinkedIn and AI deep research capabilities. Colin shares his recent LinkedIn strategy, revealing how daily posting has drastically improved his engagement and impressions, and what makes up those daily posts. He explores effective content types like cheat sheets, carousels, video formats, and personal stories that perform well on the platform. Colin also highlights successful creators like Chris Donnelly, Ann Handley, and Tom Hunt who are having a bunch of success on LinkedIn with their distinct approaches.
In the second half, Jacob explores his experience with ChatGPT's Deep Research feature, explaining how it revolutionized his content creation process for a viral blog post about vibe coding, providing valuable comparative analysis and SEO gap identification that helped his article reach the front page of Hacker News.
Key Takeaways:
🟢 Consistency is crucial for LinkedIn success - Colin saw his average post impressions jump from 100-200 to 400-500 by posting daily, with his newsletter content reaching 1,000+ impressions.
🟢 "Cheat sheets" with dense, valuable information perform exceptionally well on LinkedIn - these text-heavy graphics with minimal design offer quick value and stand out in feeds.
🟢 When creating plain text posts on LinkedIn, being opinionated and authentic performs better than overly polished content - controversial hooks and personal stories drive engagement.
🟢 ChatGPT's Deep Research feature (available with Pro subscription) acts like a dedicated research assistant, providing comprehensive competitive analysis and identifying content gaps.
🟢 When using AI for research, being specific with your requests (like asking for first-person reviews rather than marketing copy) significantly improves the quality and usefulness of the results.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and episode overview
04:44 Colin's LinkedIn growth strategy and results
08:06 Analyzing effective LinkedIn content types
13:34 LinkedIn cheat sheets and why they work
20:40 Carousel posts and their engagement power
24:13 Authentic text posts vs. polished content
26:14 Storytelling techniques from top LinkedIn creators
32:28 LinkedIn commenting strategies for algorithm growth
36:34 Optimizing your LinkedIn profile features
40:35 Jacob introduces ChatGPT's Deep Research tool
45:10 How Deep Research transformed content creation
49:45 SEO gap analysis and competitive advantages
54:38 Practical applications for content improvement
57:01 Outro