why I quit drinking the linkedin koolaid

I caught up with a creator friend yesterday.

We originally met on LinkedIn back in 2023.

At the time, both of us were on the grind to grow our audiences…

Which meant:

- Posting daily
- Replying to comments
- Engaging with 25-50+ other creators
- Obsessing over the latest algorithm changes
- And chasing impressions and other vanity metrics

Frankly, it was exhausting.

And ultimately, for both of us, not that profitable.

Since then, I found out he’s taken a step back from content to focus on his email copywriting business in a wide open niche.

Which is a helluva lot more lucrative.

Meanwhile, I’ve shifted my focus to paid ads to grow my newsletter.

What I love about them is that my reach is guaranteed, they run 24/7, and I’m not chained to content hamster wheel 7 days a week.

No more giving a crap about the algo.

Plus it frees me up to focus on the other needle movers in my business.

Anyway, point is:

Things always look different from inside.

So tread carefully when drinking someone else’s Kool-Aid.

(Including mine.)

You’ve gotta decide which tradeoffs make the most sense for YOU.

Then design your newsletter and business around them.

As one of my earliest heroes, Bruce Lee, once said:

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”

That’s the only path to building something you actually look forward to working on when you get up in the morning.

Jim Hamilton