How I hit 250,000 in 2 years

How I hit 250,000 in 2 years

I posted on LinkedIn celebrating 250K on the platform.

It feels crazy and surreal because I remember being at 10K not too long ago

(and yes, I documented that here).

My only goal was to hit 100K and now that target has only gone up 🫠

FYI: I talk about how I grew over 100K on LinkedIn in 2024.

But I want to intentionally slow down and share the lessons I learned:

1/ Followers don’t equal $

I used to think that if I had 100K followers, my life would change overnight.

The reality? It did and didn’t.

Yes, I became ‘online famous’ but followers don’t always translate to $ earned.

This is really important.

The way you become rich is by monetizing your expertise (think courses, products, consulting/coaching, affiliates, etc beyond just brand deals).

Most influencers make money primarly through brand deals.

Brand deals are lucrative (it’s 60% of my YTD income) and I have other sources:

• Coaching

• Speaking

• Paid blogging

• Course royalties

• Investments (stocks + crypto)

(get a full $ breakdown of when I hit $50K+ months)

My goal was to become a business owner > not just an influencer.

Ask yourself: Why do you want to create content? What business model will serve your ideal lifestyle?

2/ What works for others may not work for you

I tested every single format, viral tend, and framework by following LinkedIn creators I admired.

I’ve done infographics, videos, carousel, text + image posts, text only, etc.

And I learned 1 thing: there is no single universal way to win on LinkedIn.

You literally just have to test and see what works for YOU.

My top posts have always revolved around text + image posts, personal storytelling, and actionable tips that weaved in my lived experience (my first viral post that drove 3K+ followers in 1 day)

So this became my go-to content type.

3/ Strategy beats consistency

Posting daily and engaging for 30 min isn’t good enough.

80% of my growth comes from less than 20% of my top posts.

So what does that mean?

Quality beats consistency.

But strategy + consistency will make you golden ✨

Call me anal but I track every single post for the past 2 years (likes, comments, impressions, and yes followers). More on this in #5.

4/ The art of being your own niche

You literally don’t need to limit yourself to 3-5 topics.

Ditch the content pillars.

In year 1, I only talked about careers and project management.

In year 2, I shared stories and lessons across topics I could relate to (remote work, leadership, side hustles, entrepreneurship, AI and more).

Some of my best posts:

I quit my job after 14 days.

I’m a contributor for Business Insider 🥹

Just got back from Korea and my heart feels full 🥰

And here’s what happened:

I enjoyed the process of creating content.

I humanized my personal brand.

I built a trusted community.

5/ Vanity vs needle-mover metrics

Likes and views are great but I don’t care about them.

I optimized my content for follows and engagement.

So how do I know what sticks? I track the data.

I highlight in yellow all the posts that drove more than 400+ new follows and green for 800+ so I can see exactly which kind of content converted the best.

Then I can use this to inform my future content strategy.

Here’s the biggest lesson:

Community > virality

This boils down to quality over quantity.

I love this concept around 1,000 true fans. You don’t need a million followers to build a raving community or be extremely wealthy.

You just need to build an intentional brand that attracts the right people.

I’d rather have 100,000 followers and make $500K then have 1M followers and make $100K.

Remember this:

Your followers will find you for your content but will follow you for YOU.

I did my best to distill 2 years of learnings in less than 5 minutes and hope it was helpful 😆

What is 1 thing you’d like to see more of in my content?

If you have any questions or want to join me as I build in public, follow along here.

And you can read all the previous newsletters here 🎉 

Jean