Last week I had the privilege of teaching personal branding and LinkedIn to my digital marketing students in Bangkok. I’m such a huge fan of LinkedIn and am so happy when my students really get into it themselves. And the global network of former students and teaching colleagues that I’ve built on LinkedIn is a big part of what I love about the platform.

This week’s Networker is also a huge fan of LinkedIn, owing his entire business to it at present. I think you’ll really appreciate what Ruben Hassid has to say about trying out different types of content and–get this–how he built the LinkedIn profiles for two of his employees! (I want him for MY boss!)

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

• Turns out the LinkedIn games may actually be…fun? (What do you think? Hit reply and let me know!) (TechCrunch)

• Is it 2005? Because an employee got laid off for liking a LinkedIn post. I thought we were well past that era, apparently not. (Indian Express)

• Verified employers means fewer scam jobs, or at least we can hope. (ZDNet)

• But if the job post you’re looking at isn’t from a verified employer, here are some of the job scams to watch out for. (Tech.co)

Welcome, Ruben. Please tell us about yourself.

I'm the founder of EasyGen, which is an AI SaaS that helps people write content on LinkedIn. I've been using it for myself for two years, which is how I grew so fast from a few hundred to 400,000 followers on LinkedIn . 

I also run a media company that helps me reach multiple platforms, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Threads, my newsletter (which has about 40,000 people), and Instagram and YouTube. I have a team that helps me with that.

What’s your industry?

The generative AI industry and social media industry.

What does LinkedIn do for you?

It’s most of my business. It brings in keynotes, sponsors, and my entire community that I support. Most of the people I talk to are from LinkedIn, even some friends that I've made. My employees come from LinkedIn, and my co-founder for EasyGen comes from LinkedIn. It’s even hard for me not to name anything that doesn’t come from LinkedIn. That’s how deep it is.

What are your main goals for using LinkedIn?

I want to connect with people that I can help. I'm someone who's a teacher; both a teacher and a mad scientist. I love to test things and then teach it to others. Because once it works for me, I want others to leverage it and benefit from it.

Ruben’s content strategy

Who’s your target audience on LinkedIn?

Anyone who wants to use AI instead of talking about it.  And another target audience is content creators, anyone who wants to start being a content creator. Most of my audience is actually people who want to scale their content creation. They know how important content creation is, but they don't know how to do it better. And they understand that maybe a set of tools would be better, or the right strategy would be better.

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

I have winning concepts that I've gathered after two years of posting. I would say 80% of my posts are my winning concepts: about sharing an AI tool for example, like Synthesia, OpusClip, Gamma. Or a carousel on how to start on LinkedIn using AI, or how to prompt correctly. I know those are winning concepts because I've done them in the past and they worked. But 20% of my content, what I call the spaghetti theory, I'm just trying out to see what sticks.

How do you differentiate your content from others on LinkedIn?

I don't really check what others are doing, to be honest. I like consuming content and when I see a certain angle, I'm like, oh that was an interesting angle. I don't think about others when I'm making content.

I'm mostly thinking about what's the best way to transform my community. Meaning, they are at A, I've been to B, how do I get them from A to B? And it's not that easy.

What makes your content successful with your audience?

I'm French, but in Hebrew you say, "straightforward"—meaning straight to the point, no fluff. I don't share that much of my personal story. I think people don't care until I have a deeper connection with them. 

For example, if I do a keynote or I meet someone in person, or I do some webinars, then I have a personal connection. But what I think is successful is at the top of the funnel, meaning when someone doesn't really know me or barely knows me, I don't waste time telling them who I am. I think it doesn't matter. You should just give value instead of trying to explain who you are and why they should care.

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 ❌

• Responses to community articles ❌

• 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?

Two to three hours, every day.

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

Yes, I'm posting. Less commenting. So weekends I spend two hours, and I have one day off, on Saturday.

Ruben’s biggest growth levers

What has contributed most to your growth?

Consistency. Being consistent and understanding what are the winning concepts, what are not the winning concepts. And trying potential winning concepts.

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

I go on LinkedIn analytics, past 90 days, highest engagement, highest impressions. Highest engagement usually gives you 80% of it. 

I think people spend way too long in their analytics. They should just be creating good content instead of spending so long on their analytics. Just do it. Spend more time doing instead of thinking.

How Ruben makes money

How do you generate revenue in your business?

I have a SaaS, EasyGen. And I have sponsorships from companies.

How do you quantify your success on LinkedIn?

I made about a million dollars on LinkedIn in two years. But I also have a team of six employees, so, you know, revenue, benefits.

I did keynotes in Los Angeles in front of 60,000 people, I've been invited by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, for an AI conference. I've done a keynote at the PSG Stadium, which is a very big football stadium in France. In Tel Aviv, I've been invited by Google, by Microsoft.

Ruben’s top tips

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

No, I know what it's worth, and it's worth a lot, so I just keep doing it.

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

Solve one problem. People tend to do way too many things. They do productivity, AI, remote working, HR, sales; like dude, just do one thing for one person. But just target everything about it. So be an expert of that. Solve one problem for one person.

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

Not only has LinkedIn been successful for me, but, I also grew my two employees' LinkedIn, which is weird: I'm the boss, but I grew my employees' LinkedIn writing all of their posts! I started three months ago using my AI. And it's been working. [My employee] Axel started from zero. She's now at 11K followers, and she keeps growing. And Anisha Jain also is at 10K. They both reach almost 5 million people for free, organically. And that, to me, is a massive win. 

It all comes down to that little thing that I spent two years building, EasyGen. And I keep building it, with 8,000 users so far, and growing. Happily growing.

Ruben’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 Ruben considers this his best post.

It's the first one that went viral: In December 2022, I made a PDF about how to use ChatGPT.

At that time, I was a mad scientist who discovered something that was weird. It got 1.5 million views.

And from that point, I dedicated my life and days to help that community to solve their problems: how to use AI, and how to infuse it in their content creation.

How to network with Ruben

• Follow Ruben Hassid on LinkedIn

• Check out EasyGen, Ruben’s post generating AI software [Stephanie’s note: I’ve used it, it’s excellent!]

Queen of LinkedIn, Lara Acosta, is a great mentor to me. In honor of her new personal branding academy, launching today, I’m giving you a top tip from her that echos what Ruben had to say: Solve one problem.

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.