I’m in Mumbai, India this week—yes, I travel a lot—and am struck by the amazing ecosystem in this city of nearly 22 million people. The city hums with energy day and night, everyone playing their part in moving food, materials, and knowledge around.

LinkedIn is kind of like that, especially from my perspective of having a vibrant network on the platform from every corner of the world. I can log in to LinkedIn day or night and there’s always something new to read, someone to engage with, a connection to be made. Sometimes it feels like controlled chaos, just like Mumbai.

My Networker guest this week has experienced a frenzy of non-stop growth in this past year, and LinkedIn is a huge part of how he’s grown his business of providing services to game company leaders. I think you’ll quickly see how Harry Phokou’s energy and curiosity has made him super successful in a very short time.

Be sure to read about and steal his DM method!

Welcome, Harry. Please tell us about yourself.

I’m a Ghostwriter for 7 CEOs who serve in the games industry. I’m also the CEO of Phokou Digital, that’s part ghostwriting, part operations, and part managing the team I have now, where the outreach, content ideation, and video editing happen. I’m also a podcast host.

What’s your industry?

I feel part of the games industry, but I also feel part of the marketing industry because I resonate with both quite deeply, having been in both, online and in-person. 

What does LinkedIn do for you?

Everything. I’m able to move back to Cyprus; I moved back in December. The only reason I can do that is because I can work remotely by scaling my reputation on LinkedIn. I wouldn’t have been able to do that otherwise. Since April, my entire business has been built around LinkedIn.

What are your main goals for using LinkedIn?

Make money, make babies. That is the goal. I set that goal when I started the business to make $100k revenue by the end of the year. It’s a big number to go at. By making as much money as possible for my clients, I can make money, which means I can then build a family. [Stephanie’s note: Awww.]

Harry’s content strategy

Who’s your target audience on LinkedIn?

CEOs of gaming businesses. Potentially, in the future, I’ll resonate with those looking to start a business that isn’t in the games industry. I have those two networks, but I try to only speak to the gaming CEOs. But naturally, what is relevant to them is also relevant to those creating [other types of] companies and businesses on their own.

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

I have conferences and the podcast, so I’m naturally having conversations. 2-3 posts a week are about lessons I’ve learned from the podcast, and conferences I attend from a business development point of view. The rest is documenting what I’m learning now and how I’m finding clients for my clients. 

• On Monday, I do a convert post, "case study—why I’m amazing, work with me," very on the nose. 

• Tuesday, I release a podcast. 

• Wednesday and Thursday are usually nurture content. 

• Thursday, I try to lean back into a story. 

• Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are more stories, maybe inspirational takeaways, less dense. 

I’ve been posting seven days a week for two months.

How do you differentiate your content from others on LinkedIn?

I try to write as I speak. When I look at other posts, it seems like it could be Googled. I want to avoid that. A picture of me doing something related to the post shows I put in effort. I noticed for my clients, if it seems like they put in the effort, and the picture matches the hook, it can carry a post. 

I also repurpose posts where the content was gold, but the picture and headline were too medium. I added something more authoritative, and it worked better.

What makes your content successful with your audience?

I've noticed it's the building in public that people resonate with. When I hired my brother, they were rooting for me because they saw I was bringing other people. When I go to a conference or have a conversation with someone, I try to involve them in the content. It's less about me and more about how I do this for my client, and here's how my brother’s doing. 

It's not me in a silo, Harry giving advice. It's more, here's what's happening with this person, here’s what's happening with that person. It feels like more of a web of things to engage in. I don't see many people doing that. I think it’s a big part where I can see on my client's accounts and people tell me I'm usually the first on their feed. It's because of that pattern interrupting with the photo and the hook.

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) ❌

• Other people’s graphics ❌

• Links to your company content ❌

• Links to other content ❌

• Reposts of others’ content (repost only) ❌

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

• LinkedIn newsletters ✅

• LinkedIn Live events ✅

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?

Four hours actually on the platform.

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

Maybe even more on the weekends, to be honest. Because weekends have no calls. I work on the weekends, just create and finish quicker.

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

I don't do it on my account anymore, but I do it for all my clients.

This is the simplest way to say it: Blank connections. [When they connect,] thank them for the connection, wish them a wonderful day and just say nothing. Sometimes, that alone gets them to view your profile and ask you questions.

Then, the next day, I'd compliment them on something impressive they're doing. “Really cool game you're working on. Notice you're doing the X.” Show that you put some effort into starting this message. Then ask them, "How's that going?" Hopefully, they will tell you. 

People aren't silly. They know that you're eventually going to sell, but this is human. So after they've responded, depending on how big that response is, you can gauge if they're already interested. If they've given you a decent response, I tend to ask, "What's your goal for the rest of the year with this?" They tell you, and then you say, "What's stopping you from getting that?" Then you say, "Would you mind if I'm happy to share?" I tend to give a one-liner of like gold advice and then say, "Happy to share more on a call." Then we book the call.

Harry’s biggest growth levers

What has contributed most to your growth?

LinkedIn live events, audio events, conferences, outreach on LinkedIn, inbound from LinkedIn content, podcast, account-based marketing, and interviewing people who would be great clients. 

Obviously, the podcast is what gets the conversation started, then referral. 

What I've noticed is most people do one or two [of these things], but you can do a lot of these in tandem. But outreach is key—you send 100 connection requests. I think the biggest part is having as many conversations as possible and not relying on just one channel.

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

I track my lead sources, where that number’s going, and the amount of effort.

How Harry makes money

How do you generate revenue in your business?

The main way is through retained ghostwriting fees, which is a fixed fee every month, and for that, they get LinkedIn done for them. Other revenue streams are revamping their entire offer, anywhere from fixing the website to their offer package, and that's just a one-off fee. 

Then, I have bolt-on services, which are direct outreach, DMs, and inbox management. I can also do their newsletter. When it comes to the DMs and outreach, there’s usually a commission involved, which makes it more affordable for them. So, the main ones are the ghostwriting fees and the bolt-on services.

How do you quantify your success on LinkedIn?

Pretty much everything comes from LinkedIn, 100% of the revenue. I can share that from April 1st, I have recurring $15,000 a month plus commission.

Harry’s top tips

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

I had a phase last month when I went from 4 clients to 7, and I also told everyone I would do 5 posts a week instead of 3 posts. I went from 50-60 posts to hundreds of posts quite quickly, and then I’m also doing my content. Just the sheer number of posts I had to [write meant I had to] really improve my writing system, which I did. 

The motivation was that my target was to hit $10,000 a month by the end of the year, and then I hit it three months in. So this month, I’m trying to say no to pretty much every call and front-loading a lot of work so I can improve the writing process. That has led to some stressful days where I’m like, "how am I supposed to write this many posts?" But then sheer adrenaline got me through, and now we’re here, and everything’s okay.

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

Do then write. You probably have very little to write about if you've just started, so do something first. For example, when I had zero clients, I coached two people in exchange for feedback and a testimonial. I treated them like paying clients for a month. It forced me to build a notion and understand objections. Then, I wrote about those objections in posts, which got my first inbound lead. So I did the free coaching, but then I had something to actually talk about because it’s real. 

But in a sense, most people just delay so much and talk about the topic around it, but they’re not actually in it. So get in it.

Is there anything else you want to tell me that I haven’t asked you?

LinkedIn is so overpowered because you can filter by who’s who on the platform, by their job title, location, etc. You can’t do this on Twitter, Instagram, or any other platform. Take advantage of this free amazing thing.

What I do is build a list of the people that you want to be your clients or are either influencers or very good friends of their clients. You can build [that list] for free on LinkedIn by searching and then connecting or using Sales Navigator. Then connect with them. It’s basically forcing them to consume your content.

When I started doing this for my clients, it was a game changer. They get 30-40% [acceptance] of connections.

Please, just send your 100 connections this week. If you’re not doing that, bye.

Harry’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 Harry considers this his best post.

It got me the most leads I've ever had from any post and it was just a recap of the last five months. It was nice writing it because I had to actually write on paper what actually happened in last five months, and then I realized, that was a lot, and it's sometimes nice to reflect. Here's how I scaled LinkedIn from zero to €15,000 per month, I just did a timeline.

How to network with Harry

• Follow Harry Phokou on LinkedIn

• Follow Harry’s business, Phokou Digital, on LinkedIn

• Watch or listen to Harry’s video podcast, The Gaming Playbook

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

• It should come as no surprise that LinkedIn’s spammy, stealing-your-ideas collaborative articles are being discontinued, along with the Top Voice badges you could earn with them. Good riddance. (Social Media Today)

• The best way to announce your layoff on LinkedIn. (Fast Company via Apple News)

• New LinkedIn data shows decline in women in senior leadership. (Yup, it’s still happening.) (Fortune)

• LinkedIn wants to be the new TikTok by putting videos front-and-center. [Stephanie’s note: How do we all feel about video? Hit reply, I’d love to hear your take.] (Axios)

• There’s been a 23% jump in posts by chief executives on LinkedIn in the past year. What does this mean for your execs? (Inc.)

The best advice I give to my university students working on startup business is: niche down. Which of course applies to everyone in business, really. Ruchi V explains why and how extremely well in today’s Tip of the Week.

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.