One of the things I love most about LinkedIn is that I get to meet people from all over the world. Without LinkedIn, I likely would have never met this week’s interviewee, Ayesha Ameer. She’s a personal brand specialist from northern England, and I don’t remember when I started following her or how we got connected, but we did connect, and now she’s in your inbox!

I find it so cool to think about all of the people in my network, some of whom I interact with a few times a week—more than some of my family members!

Because I’ve been on the platform for 20+ years, I’ve got people from many parts of my life on LinkedIn. It’s amazing and I’m grateful for it every day.

Now on to our interview!

Welcome, Ayesha. Please tell us about yourself.

I run a marketing agency called Mentoria Digitals. We help founders and individuals grow their personal brands on LinkedIn. It's evolved over time because we used to focus on social media as a whole, but now it's more focused on LinkedIn and specializing with founders and individuals. I have been doing it for the past two years.

What’s your industry?

Personal branding.

What does LinkedIn do for you?

LinkedIn opens up so many opportunities. Things that maybe if I wasn't on LinkedIn, I probably would have never gotten.

Reaching out to people, speaking to people who are on such a high level and have so much experience, several years more than me, but still being able to speak to and learn from them. The educational part is the main part of LinkedIn.

It's also given me a platform and base to grow my business. I've been promoting my business [on LinkedIn] for almost two years, and that is where I get the majority of my leads and clients.

What are your main goals for using LinkedIn?

There are two main goals for me. One is growing my personal brand, reaching out to people, and learning from people. The other side is growing my business and getting clients and leads. 

Ayesha’s content strategy

Who’s your target audience on LinkedIn?

It's business owners and founders, people who have a business but want people to know more about them and their business. They want to share with their audience who they are and become more well-known in their industry. My clients are usually people from Europe, America, and the UAE.

How do you decide what content to create and share on LinkedIn?

[I have] content pillars and a strategy. Over time, I adjust things. My strategy last year was very different from what it is now. Currently, I focus on personal branding content, content related to LinkedIn, my story, and entrepreneurship.  

When creating content, I look at how I can help my audience—what do they need help with? I’m engaging on Linkedin LinkedIn quite frequently, so I see the types of questions people are asking and what they're genuinely interested in. It's changing as time goes on, so my strategy changes. And my audience is broad, so it can sometimes be difficult to target them. But with the right content, understanding who I want to help, and looking at the questions they ask, that is usually what helps.

How do you differentiate your content from others on LinkedIn?

I feel like so many of the voices on the platform have blended together over time, and there are not many people who stand out quite a lot. So with me, even my background, for example, being a hijabi, that makes me stand out.

A lot of individuals come and look at my content, and they see that I'm different, so they're interested. Then, my tone of voice in my content makes it unique to me. I also have a unique story, which I share frequently. Because of that, people get to learn more about me.

What are the processes you use to create content? 

• Schedule in advance ✅

• Batch create content ✅

• Optimize for SEO/keywords ❌

• Follow an editorial calendar ❌

• Have specific content pillars/themes ✅

• Repurpose content to/from LinkedIn or reuse on LinkedIn ✅

• Use AI in any part of the content writing process ✅

• Have team/human support for any part of your LI process ✅

• Keep a list of potential topics somewhere (Notes, Notion, etc.) ✅

• Design or source visuals including infographics and carousels and video ✅

What types of content do you post to LinkedIn?

• Text only ❌

• Polls ❌

• Audio ✅

• Video ❌

• Carousels ✅

• Photos of yourself (selfies) ✅

• Photos of other people or things ✅

• AI generated images ❌

• Infographics (single image) ✅

• Links to outside content ✅

• Reposts of others’ content (repost only) ✅

• Reposts of others’ content (with your thoughts) ❌

• LinkedIn Live events ✅

• LinkedIn newsletters ❌

How much time does it take?

How much time do you spend each weekday on LinkedIn on comments or Direct Messages (DMs), outside of content creation?

About an hour, maybe a little bit more. What happens is my post usually goes live around 7:45 am UK time. So I engage a bit before my post goes live and then after, reply to comments and then reply to DMs because my DMs sometimes get very, very busy. I try to make the most of my time and just stay focused for that one hour, one hour, and a bit.

Then, throughout the day, I might check in here and there. But when I was first on LinkedIn, I was spending more time on the platform. I was spending maybe closer to three or four hours a day, which is quite a bit. But over time, it's reduced because I've got that audience in place now and processes in place, too.

Are you active on LinkedIn on the weekends, either posting or commenting or both?

Saturdays are usually my break day. Sundays, I am posting, but I'm engaging a little bit less.

How do you use DMs (direct messages) in the service of your goals?

Sometimes, with my content, if it's a post where I'm mentioning a couple of tips or I'm sharing a case study of a client or testimonials, at the bottom, I might write something like, message me on LinkedIn if you want help, or I might attach my discovery call booking link. From that, people DM me, and I reach out, asking them what they're struggling with, their goals, and what they need help with. From there, I reply to them to see if they're suitable. Then, we get a call booked. That's where the whole process starts. 

Ayesha’s biggest growth levers

What has contributed most to your growth?

Just really dive deep into what your audience is looking for. I look at what my audience struggles with because I feel like the struggles sometimes change. I'm testing content out as time goes on. So, I repurpose content that has performed well, but I also try out new content, which has helped, too. 

Overall, having a strategy, knowing who you want to target, and the content pillars you have in place make a difference. It's always changing, too, so you must adapt. If you don't, then you're losing out.

How do you track what’s working and know what to change?

I'm looking at leads and clients. The end goal is that. If a post performs well or targets them in the right way, [individuals] will book a call with me. Some days, I'll book several calls. Some days, I might not book any. So, I look at the content I posted that day. What content was it, what was it about, how many people booked a call, and what resonated with them? So that's one way how I measure the success of that. 

Another side of it is, I'm building my audience as well. So I look at those numbers, too. I look at the analytics and how everything's performing.

How Ayesha makes money

How do you generate revenue in your business?

There are two main ways. The first is that we offer packages for LinkedIn management, LinkedIn ghostwriting, LinkedIn profile optimization, and branding packages. That is where the main chunk of income comes from. We have clients on retainers, some of who have one-time packages. For example, the profile optimization package is a one-time thing. 

The other way is brand deals. Working on different brand posts with different brands.

How do you quantify your success on LinkedIn?

We’ve worked with individuals from 10+ countries and booked 50+ calls, just this year. Overall, I’ve worked with more than 50 individuals growing their personal brand, mainly founders or employees at companies, and we’ve helped them achieve 10 million+ impressions across various profiles, added together.

Ayesha’s top tips

What challenges have you faced on LinkedIn? What’s made you almost—or actually—quit? What got you back on track?

It's really hard seeing people posting content online, because you have that thing inside of you where you're comparing yourself to them or the success that they have or you're looking at they made this amount of money, or they're onboarding this many people, they've booked in this many calls. Sometimes, stuff like that can be difficult when you feel you're at a low point and things aren't going your way.

Over time, you build that resilience where you stop comparing yourself and focus on your own path. Initially, that is where I was looking at other people, and it was hard, but over time, you realize you're on your own path; everyone's on their own path. So, that is what has helped me out.

What advice would you give others who are looking to grow and, ideally monetize their LinkedIn platform?

Really tap into who you are, who your audience is, and who you want to help, and just stay consistent with it because that's where you're going to see the results. It's all about learning from the platform because there's so much knowledge on LinkedIn that you can learn from.

It's just about you taking it in and taking action. If you aren't taking action, you won't see the results. If you keep putting yourself down when one thing doesn't work, it'll be hard for you. So keep going, keep learning, keep growing.

If you're tapping into who you want to help, you're clear about your goals and the processes, making sure you have clear processes and you make things clear for your audience so they can easily go from one step to the next, then it should all work out for you.

Ayesha’s best post

Stephanie’s note: I’ve asked each Networker to give me one “best post,” based on their own criteria.

Read this post on LinkedIn

Why Ayesha considers this her best post.

it shows an overview of my successes but also mentions the hard times, too. It has transparency, and points which a lot of individuals can relate to.

How to network with Ayesha

• Follow Ayesha Ameer on LinkedIn

• Check out Ayesha’s agency, Mentoria Digitals

What’s new related to LinkedIn? Here’s what caught my eye this week.

• A very cool influencer stunt from Hootsuite tapped top LinkedIn-ers. (AdWeek)

• LinkedIn shares more tips on how to use video. (Yes, this is a theme we’re going to see a lot of going into 2025!) (Social Media Today)

• Interesting story of how a racecar driver predicted his success on LinkedIn as a teenager. (Racer.com)

• Are you a job seeker? Are you making one of these 5 critical mistakes on LinkedIn? (Forbes)

If you’re as geeky as I am, you’re probably interested in how the LinkedIn algorithm works. My longtime social media connection Christopher Penn just wrote a very in-depth guide about the current state of the algo—grab it from the comments of this post.

Read this post on LinkedIn

I’m always on the lookout for something that changes the way I use LinkedIn. It could be an idea, a tool, a process, or something strategic.

Have a tip I should consider? Hit reply to this email and let me know!

That’s all for now—I look forward to seeing you again next week for another Networker interview.