Produced By - LinkedIn: The Career Growth Lever You’re Not Using | #103: Thomas Pearce

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

Thomas Pearce is the Account Director at LeverBrands, the go-to personal branding agency for LinkedIn’s fastest-growing creators. As the first full-time hire, he has been instrumental in shaping the agency's success, contributing to over 500 million impressions and more than £5 million in revenue within a year. He now leads client strategy, manages the team, and works closely with CEOs and founders to help them grow their presence with clarity and purpose.In this episode, Thomas shares his journey from the challenges of job hunting after graduation to securing a role at one of LinkedIn’s top agencies. He reflects on building a following of over 60,000, offers valuable tips on personal branding, and talks about the fulfilment that comes from helping others grow their influence online. This is a grounded and inspiring conversation for anyone looking to level up on LinkedIn.Connect with Thomas:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-pearce4/Timestamps:00:00 – How a LinkedIn post changed everything01:16 – Who is Thomas Pearce03:31 – Was uni worth it06:03 – Job hunt struggles after graduation08:52 – Breaking into a tough market10:18 – Smart job application tips11:41 – The real power of LinkedIn15:24 – Growing to 60K followers18:09 – Landing the job at LeverBrands20:41 – How a pitch deck got him noticed23:29 – What he does now25:06 – LeverBrands’ core services26:19 – Lead gen tips for founders27:45 – Carousels vs video on LinkedIn30:14 – Expanding to Instagram32:12 – Why email matters more than followers34:04 – Helping others grow35:12 – Top advice: clarity before content37:52 – Content systems and commenting39:27 – Making carousels that work40:09 – Favourite tools and AI42:42 – Competing through content43:20 – Hobbies and gaming44:17 – Favourite shows46:24 – Book recs47:28 – Where to find Thomas47:57 – Final thoughts Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I was posting consistently and then I came across a job posting from Chris Donnelly. And I joined as the first full-time employee in the UK. So it's been quite a ride. Mainly just been me and Nader operationally. And then Chris is like a head figure. So I applied to that role. Actually, someone commented under that post for me to apply to that role because I wasn't even following Chris at the time.

You know, I did the best I could. I sent over the email, sent the CV, proof of work, commented on a post, reached out to him on LinkedIn reached out to his current brand manager at the time on LinkedIn. And then like a week later, I sent basically like a pitch step of why I would do the best in the role and then had interviews with him and then basically came second in that process. So I didn't quite get that job. But then two weeks later when he was hiring for his new agency, he referred me. I spoke with them and then very quickly had signed the contract to join them. Almost got quite lucky with it. But at the same time, like I did put in a lot of hustle to try and get a job.

Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello, Thomas. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. Hello, yes, thanks for having me. So, Thomas, for those who don't know, can you please introduce yourself? So, my name's Thomas Beard.

I am an account director at a company called Lever Brands, which is, as you can imagine. LinkedIn personal branding agency. Whenever I introduce myself, I always say that I'm the youngest as three brothers, because I feel like that says a lot about a person. I graduated from Newcastle University in 2022. I actually did a degree that was semi-relevant marketing and management. The funny story about university is that I went to Newcastle University, but they had a London campus. So for the first three years I was in London and then my final year here I was up in Newcastle so a bit of a unique experience with that and I worked at IBM for a year within that but pretty swiftly decided that I didn't really want to work at a massive organization and that when I graduated I wanted to join

like a startup or a small company where I had more autonomy over my work and more of a direct impact it might be a silly question but as you mentioned with the university did you know that you're going to be at campus in london since it was newcast university or was it unexpected so my aim was to get to newcastle at the time you needed two aes and a b i got three bs so i actually knew before i got my results because i got a text message from my um i can't remember what you call it but you put two universities as like your priority i got a text from my second universities

I didn't get in. But I rang up on in the UK, we called it clearing. I just rang up the university. I said, is there any other campus or any other sort of degree that I could do? And they said, there's basically the same degree in London. I was like, so that is like closer to home anyway. And I have family in London. Yeah, I mean, that sounds like it worked out well.

I think quite a common topic or what people say. You know, when it comes to the university, now when you're out of university and you are working, do you feel like that it was necessary to go there or what would be like your advice for the people who are considering that? Yeah, I think there's like a lot of anti-university, so like not propaganda, but messaging these days. And I do believe that it is useful for some people.

I mean, it's not as, you know, people would do a university degree because not as many people would do it and it would therefore get you the job. It doesn't get you the job anymore. I personally only did it because one, I wanted to go to like a prestigious university, which Newcastle was like a Red Brook University, triple accreditation, that sort of thing.

I also only wanted to do what they called a sandwich course, which is basically like you do a placement in your third year at a company. So you work full time at a company as an intern, which is like I said, what I did at IBM. I worked in communications for a year. So yeah, I was only ever going to university if I could do that and really basically give myself as high a percentage chance as possible to land a role. Unfortunately, I graduated after, well, only a year or two after the COVID outbreak happens.

So there was a flood of talent onto the market. And even in junior level roles, like it was very high competition. And I came at university with a full year at IBM. I got high 2-1 in my degree. I actually was a football journalist for like three years. I was paid to do that. And I did scout reports for football clubs and all that sort of stuff. But I found it very hard to get a job coming out of university, even with that.

And as you mentioned, was it because it was like the period after COVID or is it just competitive field or some other factors? So I actually, when I graduated, I tried to get into sales because I had some previous experience with it, but I think I was sort of led by like the amount of money you can make doing it. But I also felt like I was capable of doing it. And also it was a bit outside my comfort zone. So I felt like I would have grown doing it. I actually had three job offers in 2022. And unfortunately, two of them were like pulled under the rug. And then one of the other ones, I had to reject to take the other company. And then when I came back to them, they were like, well, you rejected us.

Why should we now hire you? So, yeah, it was only the following year. I was like, okay, let me just get into marketing, content marketing at the time, because that was my experience with my degree, communications, IBM. So, yeah, I did that for a little bit, but pretty soon found out that that wasn't for me either. I only lasted there four months. The company was fine. It was just it didn't really suit me

and then eventually landed into copywriting and then LinkedIn copywriting and we are where we are today. And before moving further, coming back to your experience with IBM because it's obviously big established brand and company was like part of the course or how did you actually get there to work for that?

So with a placement, you actually have to go out and apply to all these internships yourself. You don't really get help from university. And a lot of these big companies will have placement schemes. So they bring you on as an intern for a year and they just have like a rolling intern every year in that role. And then a lot of those times the intern will be hired back when they graduate because they already know you. they know how good or bad you are. They are kind of pre-pranioning you in advance. Yeah.

But for me, the only role I would have been able to get back into would have been in cloud. And I did interview for it, but I think that they could tell I wasn't really that excited to do it, wasn't really what I wanted to do. So, yeah, I'm happy that I didn't get back into it. But was it then, let's say,

kind of your dream company, or was it just one of the options that worked out or white IBM specifically. Yeah, man, honestly, I applied to a lot, like a lot of, like, car companies, for example, like Mercedes-Benz, Audi. I actually got an offer from another big company called Mondale. They're like a parent brand to, like, milk a...

I think Cabri might be within that. I'm not 100% sure. But they have a lot of, like, food brands underneath them. So I had been accepted by them as well. I honestly don't really remember why I went for IBM specifically, but they did have like good reputation for interns and like the application process was pretty thorough. Like you have to do an initial interview and then you do and like after the initial interview you actually had to do like games and they were like a cognitive test. And I think it's something like 92% of people fail it, which I was like that's wild.

And then you have to do an assessment center and a final interview after that in the office. So it was quite comprehensive. And once I got on that, I was like, wow. Yeah, sounds like not as simple as it might seem. And although, as you said, applied to many and then ended up in IBM, it still like, sounds like impressive one. Like, you know, in the end it worked out well. Yeah, yeah.

Like having a big name like that, definitely helped the CV and gave me the Lego. But yeah, like I said, still struggled really to get roles. and by 2023 even just interviews were hard to come by. And if you were in that position, again, is there something that you'll do differently, such as, for example, start looking for jobs earlier or preparing better or something else? Yeah, I think one of the traps that I fell for

that a lot of young professionals fall for is I applied to like 50 jobs a day, used LinkedIn, easy apply, a handset of job alerts. I was just like typing in the job titles, applying to jobs that, for example, if you are on LinkedIn applying to jobs, then you see a job ad which is like over a week old. The likelihood is that they filled that role or at least stopped accepting candidates for the role, but they have just left it up. So applying to a lot of opportunities like that without realizing that. So I would have applied, like if I were to do it again, this is why I recommend to people.

I'd apply to probably max five jobs per day. I would treat hunting for a job as a full-time job and not just like a couple hours in a day. I would just research the hell out of our company, reach out to people on LinkedIn, reach out to former employees to see what they thought of the company, why they left, especially if they're in the same role that you're occupying, like that would be great. But yeah, I would do max five per day and just like research them intensely, the customized and ATS proof CBs. I still think coverlerts are useful. And obviously

I recommend building a personal brand. And it doesn't even have to be where you're like, you have to get 10,000 followers on LinkedIn, for example. Not that you're building a side hustle, but more that hunger and you have the passion for work. And if you're showcasing what you do and what you do well, and I think that really stands you up from a crowd, should I say. And you know, I got the job I did with 700 followers. And that was in May last year. So you don't need a ton of followers.

You just need it's essentially a form of social proof. But if you can grow very quickly, then that does change your perception or your perception in other people's eyes. I like it. I was very curious to hear what you're going to say because I haven't spoken with that many people who have such a fresh experience

and I still feel that for me. It hasn't been that long since I left the uni. So I was really curious to hear from someone with experience as well. And I'm sure that there are, you know, even on LinkedIn, many people who are in the position that are either at uni before uni or will experience, you know, something like this. So it's good to hear advice from someone like you. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of young professionals still don't understand the opportunity that is available on LinkedIn.

when you're in the scene, you feel like, oh, this is a really crowded market. It's just false. It's just not crowded. Like there are millions and millions of users on LinkedIn who use it frequently and don't post. Or, you know, a lot of people's experience on LinkedIn will just be their network. And it'll be like, I just got promotion or I just got a new job or like a picture of themselves and they're posting. But the feed and the just general landscape of LinkedIn is changing, even from a year ago, there are a lot more creators or business people come creators on the platform that are producing different content or like more well-produced content. And that opportunity still exists and it might not in two years time.

But the opportunity is still there because it's still quite fresh. You know, personal branding as a concept on LinkedIn really has a. only been around for like five, six years, probably popularized by the likes of Justin Welsh. So there still is like a really big opportunity for people out there to create content, get seen. I agree. What always helps to put things into perspective is, for example, I've seen like some statistics or images of the number of users on LinkedIn compared to other social media platforms.

And then out of those people, you know, still the LinkedIn is lower compared to, I don't know, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and still the number of those people who use LinkedIn, then what percentage actually posts regularly? So then it helps to put things into the perspective and see what the potential there is. Yeah, yeah, big old Noam, Noam the Sun's done. Oh, yeah, there's around. Yeah, it's like 1% of active regular LinkedIn users post. So the proof is in the pudding.

Yeah. And was then the moment when you decided to go for LinkedIn or maybe when it switched from online CV to something more serious? Yeah, I think. So I've had a LinkedIn account since 2018, but I didn't really pay any attention to it until 2020 when I started working IBM and I started it's just expanding my network on there. but it was around that time that I was doing football journalism works. I was writing articles and I was posting about them. And I do the odd post about like, oh, I've just started reading this book or something like that. And just like building my network through that way. But I basically just used it to promote my articles until like 2021 and then didn't really use it for a while. And then 2022 I was obviously trying to get sales roles.

So I was posting a bit about that. 2023, start posting about content marketing because I wanted to get into that. And then finally, end of 2023, I started to become a freelance copywriter. And then I feel like really then I started to realize like, oh, like a lot of people are posting on LinkedIn about copywriting. There's a lot of great and really useful content out there. So I was just engaging with that content because I really liked it. And I was building not a presence, but I was like,

building and network and relationships from there. And then 2024 is like when I really got into it. And I was posting more regularly, but I just wasn't like growing whatsoever. Like my posts, you can look back like even like April last year. I was going like two, three likes on a post or something like that.

Hard to believe if you compare it to now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was sort of just following the advice of a lot of the big creators at the time. And it just wasn't really working for me until, you know, after I joined this role, learned the process that we used to help CEOs and founders grow their LinkedIn's, just start applying it to my job and then, yeah, June 700 followers. And as we live in

brief today, I think it's 59,000. Let me check. Oh my God. It's going to be my most times. 60K. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my goal by end of year is 100K. That sounds good. And do you remember when did you hit 50K? Was it last year or this year? It was this year. I started this year on, I believe, 30,000. Oh, wow. That's cool. And because I asked a similar question, someone I spoke with before, but did you celebrate it in any way? I did a little post about it, and that was a cool milestone. And it was around the time I had just moved in. I've only been in this flat for like two months. So I've been living at home until now, and now I can actually, you know, thanks to my role.

but then also I've been able to monetize my own LinkedIn to a decent extent and that makes me more comfortable to move to London basically. It was around the time that I was moving and I hit 50,000. It was quite a cool moment, yeah. And you got something planned for one other K when you hit it? No. That will be really cool though. And I feel like, you know, I spoke about perception earlier and it is quite powerful

just the like number of followers, I feel like. Like I went to an alumni networking event for Newcastle. And I was like, I wasn't bringing it up, but I was connecting with people on LinkedIn. They were like, oh, wow, like you have 50,000 something following. And they look at you a bit differently. It's like, I just think that's like quite interesting. But then also that's like so powerful for a CEO or a founder. Like if you can have the most followers, for example, in a certain niche, then like automatically

people are going to think, oh, he must know his stuff. And if you're providing, you're creating highly valuable and useful content. I mean, it's a whole strategy. Don't go wrong. It's not just that. Yeah, I agree. And also, as you mentioned it from the networking event, there was a poster recently from Jasmine, that even if you think that you don't have as many followers, I don't know, a few

hundreds or thousands, still, if you imagine being like on the stage and in front of you, those thousands or hundreds people or in your example, like 50K, I just cannot imagine. And, you know, speaking in front of a lot, it's crazy if you put it into such a perspective. Yeah. And I feel like, for example, if you look on someone's Instagram account and, like, if you switch over to reels, you can see, like, how many views each reel's getting. And you'll see one where it's like, oh, this dude consistently gets like 50K views on each reel. That's, that's impressive. But I've had weeks on here where I've got like two million views in a week.

And like, I just can't, like, quite get it. I can't quite wrap around it in my head. Obviously, that's like an outlier, but like, that's what I mean. Like, the opportunity on LinkedIn is still so, so big. It's not just like, oh, like, this is good stats for LinkedIn. Like, they're great stats like across any social media. Yeah. And can you then tell us how did you get the job where you are now?

So, yeah, like I said, I was freelance copywriting, but not really out of my own choice. In 2024, I found it incredibly difficult to. even get any interviews, let alone, like job offers or anything like that. I probably had like two in-person interviews between January and April, which is crazy. You know, with the experience that I had and things like that, obviously looking back, there was things I pretty could have improved. But basically, I was posting more regularly on LinkedIn, just about my copywriting. I'd created like a landing page. You know, I was networking with people. So a lot, you know, I actually got a fair amount. of opportunities just through, I would reach out to people who were in the position I wanted

to be in and I'd ask them how they got there and any advice they had for me. And then I would try to provide value back to them. And a lot of the time, you know, you would get a referral through that, for example. Like I got a freelance role through LinkedIn at like a gate of like, yeah, an indie studio within the gaming industry. Quite fun. That was like on a contract basis. And then one of my first freelance gigs was through my like step sisters. boyfriend. I was helping him build his website for his electrician business. I didn't even ask for payment. I just said, can you refer me to someone sort of snowball from there? Yeah, like I say, I was posting consistently and then I came across a job posting from Chris Donnelly. So I didn't

actually know. So I don't think I mentioned, but the agency I'm at is headed up by Chris Donnelly and the co-founder who's called Nader and a job. And it's called Levera Burns, right? that's it. And I joined as the first full-time employee in the UK. So it's been quite a ride. Mainly just been me and Nader operationally and then Chris is like a head figure. But yeah, so I applied to that role. Actually, someone commented under that post for me to apply to that role because I wasn't even following Chris at the time. So, you know, I did the best I could. I sent over the email, sent the CV, proof of work, commented on a post, reached out to him on LinkedIn, out to his current brand manager at the time, Josh Sanders, on LinkedIn.

And then like a week later, I sent basically like a pitch deck of why I would do the best in the role. And then had interviews with him and then basically came second in that process. So I didn't quite get that job. But then two weeks later, when he was hiring for his new agency, he referred me. I spoke with them. And then very quickly had signed the contract to join them. So yeah, that was, I feel like I almost got quite lucky with it. But at the same time, like I did put in a lot of hustle to try and get a job.

But as you mentioned, that you sent some kind of pitch deck. Was it required or was it like extra from you? It was extra from me just because I wanted to stand out. And I'd like watch a lot of career content and they would suggest how you can stand out. I'd even created this document called Working with Tom. and it was basically like an insight into how my brain works and how I like to take feedback, what I'm best at, and things like that. So I feel like that was like another quite useful thing.

And then obviously I had my landing page and then the content I was writing on LinkedIn and it all sort of came together. It's not like do this one thing, you will get this job. It is a whole process. I like it because again it reminds me of when I was going to that process as well. And if you imagine that, I don't know, there are hundreds or thousands of people applying as well, you're in need to think how to stand out, right? And if other people have more experience for something, then as you did maybe with pitch deck or something else,

that's actually what helps you just to be unique. Are you struggling to stay consistent on LinkedIn? Fan post helps you create high quality posts in minutes so you can write faster, show up more, and stress way less. Built by creators for creators is the easiest way to grow your presents without burning out. Try it free at fanpost.com. And you mentioned in the beginning

that you are account director and if I'm not mistaken, have you been promoted just recently? Isn't it in your own? Yeah, yeah, just promoted within this last week. Like a perfect timing for a celebration. Can you then compare what did you do before?

What do you do now? So when I joined initially, there wasn't really like a role title, but I guess at the time I would have fit under content writer, but I was doing more outside of that because there was obviously only me and Nader and we had some couple people in the Philippines and a designer in Nigeria. But that was that was mainly it. And then we hired more people and I just became a brand manager within my own right. So dealing directly with my own clients. and I've been doing that for months and months and then particularly over December and then early months of this year

we've hired quite a lot of people so I have been managing more people since then and it's more of like the title now reflects more of what I do in terms of having more responsibility and overseeing more people but then also just thinking about the systems of the business how we can

optimize that as well and potentially helping out with just general lead generation, brand advocacy on LinkedIn, all those sorts of things. It's pretty all-encompassing role. And is there still a creative role or has it switched like from before that now is more management, organization and stuff like that? So I definitely am more on the content strategy side now, but I still do a lot of content ideation.

I have a handful of clients that I manage right now. And yeah, I ideate on their content strategy. come up with the overall strategy and then I'll assign it to a writer, a designer to write and design the content. And then that frees up my time more for the managing side of things and the system. And the agents, is it focused on our LinkedIn? Yeah, so that's our core service. Core service is LinkedIn and then we also do the odd landing page for people whenever we're building like a newsletter, for example. So we do quite a full newsletter service as well, where we, you know, create the newsletter, then write the newsletters every week, but also, you know, create the

segmentation for the landing page and then creating the cadences off the back of that, which is quite interesting, quite fun. We've been learning a lot about that recently, but the main thing is LinkedIn, and we will also, you know, we got some things in the pipeline as well for some other offerings, but can't say much about it, but it is exciting, but we're still just, you know, companies like a year old, so we're still just trying to nail down the core service, make sure that's as best as possible before we, you know, we don't want to do too many things at once. No, of course, yeah.

And would you mind sharing, like, for example, how does it work for you looking for the clients? Because it's obviously a big topic on LinkedIn. I think people sometimes struggle with that. So if you've got any advice, tips, tricks. Yeah. So I think, like I said, it's like, there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to lead generation as a whole. I'll probably talk more to general CEOs and founders rather than our company, us, like ourselves, because we work a lot through like referrals, basically. We are basically filled with clients because of referrals because of the success we've had with our current client base.

But in terms of other CEOs and founders, it really is just about creating. really high quality content that speaks directly to their ICP, understanding their pain points, really having an optimized process that incorporates AI. I think that's really important because then you can distribute at scale, basically, with your content. And then mixing that with, I sort of like to call it community building rather than outbound, you know, pulling lists from sales navigator, reaching out to these people, but then also just messaging people who connect with you, messaging people who engage on your content. You know, the warm lead, so to speak, they already know about you.

And then you're just having like a friendly introduction, provide them with some value and eventually try to get on a call with them. Or one approach that I think is very useful is if you do content, which dries a lot of attention. So for example, like carouselves in the moment, they have the most views per the format, basically, on LinkedIn. Are you saying it's about video? It was video probably about three months ago, but with the video tab disappearing on mobile,

I imagine that that, well, I do know that that's definitely crippled video a little bit. Honestly, I feel the same. Did I also see both from others that the video is trending? It's the biggest one. And because I do it regularly, to be honest, I feel like that the carousel still perform the best. Yeah, I think video is definitely good in terms of lead generation as well, because it does it builds that trust which is very useful and people can see and hear from you but I think yeah like I was saying like a good former lead generation is getting people onto a webinar so driving a lot of

traffic to a webinar creating content that's a bit like yeah like said speaks to your ICP get them on a webinar and then you can actually drive quite a lot of business through that if you do them weekly monthly whatever I always feel like that's quite useful because you're them you're providing them value first and then at the end of each webinar you can do a bit of a hard hard sell which always works quite effectively especially if you have like webinar exclusive discount or something like that so i think it's also good about the video is to step all of your conference on because i feel like pretty much everyone or the majority people are afraid to start or it's not easy but once you do it it just becomes easier.

Yeah, I mean, I really like video like this where I'm talking to someone, but one thing I definitely want to work on this year is just talking to camera. And I've got some people who are trying to help me with that. One of my goals this year is that I would like to start on Instagram as well, and that will be primarily like video content.

And I can use that on LinkedIn as well. But yeah, I mean, it is daunting. And I still feel like there's not a lot of people you know, when the mobile video tab was a thing, you'd scroll through and it would either be content from other platforms or CEOs and founders who they had that like, what do you call it, millennial pause, like every video you see. And then they start talking. It was just like really low quality video and then also videos that I had absolutely no interest in. Like I was getting fed like videos from people in finance, for example.

Like the algorithm for it was just really bad. So if you had really high quality videos like yourself or it's that guy's named Lewis Lewis Butterfield. Yeah, Louis Burfield. LinkedIn's a video king. Yeah, and that's how you guys are able to stand out because it's like really great editing, for example. So, yeah, I feel like I'm interested to see how video develops.

I wonder if actually LinkedIn are going to create like a separate app for it because I'm curious as to why they removed it. I agree. I don't know why either. It suddenly disappeared. And obviously because of the content that I share, I wish probably it was back. But I guess we will see. Maybe next time we open the app and suddenly it appears again before it disappears.

And as you mentioned it before, it was one of my next questions because you said that you might explore Instagram. So after LinkedIn, if I'm not mistaken, I haven't really found your presence on other social media platforms. So for the future, I will planing to branch out? Yes, so Instagram is something that I want to do. Just because, like, for example, I walk out about with Chris, for example, sometimes. And if people come up to him and recognize him, it's not, oh, I recognize you from your LinkedIn content is, oh, I recognize you from your bad boss videos on Instagram. or as like podcast, for example.

So in terms of people remembering you and keeping top of mind, I feel like videos very good and naturally that works on Instagram probably the best. I don't know about TikTok. I've never had a TikTok account, so I've never really thought about it. I think it is harder to grow on TikTok than Instagram as well. And Instagram to LinkedIn, I feel like there's a lot more transferability than people realize in terms of the content that performs on both platforms. And when it comes to TikTok,

I feel like that's a little bit different. So that's why I say that. And then another thing this year, at some point, I would like to launch my own newsletter. That'll probably be later in the year. But just in terms of like, obviously I do this for clients and we optimize,

we call it the flow of attention. Like where are we funneling the attention? Like it's all well and good getting views and followers. But unless you're driving into somewhere, you're going to struggle to monetize. but growing a newsletter list it's just like so important. I would rather have 20,000 people on a newsletter list

than 200,000 followers on LinkedIn is genuinely, if you have a really targeted newsletter list, you can like literally just sell on there and like no need to promote something on social media and then you can just have your social media as like your high quality content that you actually enjoy making and it's like more about the positioning

rather than the hard sell. I agree and I think great point is I recently spoke with someone who's lost access to LinkedIn for some reason

and you never know what can happen for some reason you lose access even though you haven't done anything wrong or by the person someone steals it

or the password or whatever but when it comes to subscribers on email you keep it so it's like a safer and more I don't maybe even more like a closer

relationship. Yeah, exactly. And it does take time to build up as well. I certainly don't have the budget to do like Metaads, for example. And out of Christel, what platform would you go for? So I have the most experience with, it's now called Kit, but what's called Convert Kit. So probably that. Also know some of their team members that we've basically worked with them at our company. I'd pretty look at Beehive as well. That's like the only other one that I really know of, but probably a big kit, yeah. Would it be content related to personal brand in marketing and the stock that you share on LinkedIn? Yeah, so the way I like to position myself is leveraging your personal brand for your career because I do believe that if you, let's say, post every day for

six months on LinkedIn or a social platform, there's no way that doesn't benefit your career. And it makes you stand out. So the content I do is basically trying to help myself from two, three years ago, a graduate coming out of university and just really struggling to find a job and listening to career advice that isn't actually very useful. So I want to help those people. So personal brand is a big part of it, but a lot of it is like helping young professionals, but also just professionals of any age. I feel like it will be beneficial to people. I agree. And speaking of this, can we like now discuss actually your personal profile? because, you know, as we discussed before, get some decent following, a lot of experience.

And I'm sure that you also receive, like, a lot of DMs, Thomas, some tips and tricks. So what is like the advice or how do you reply to these type of questions? Yeah, I think the number one piece of advice I have is first identify your goals. That's like, if you want to achieve anything, you've got to know what you want to achieve first, which sounds really basic, but I feel like a lot of people don't put enough force. into it. Obviously, I'm an advocate of doing and figuring out as well, but I think if you have some sort of plan, then that's really good. One thing I did last year, or maybe 2023, was an icky guy. Basically, what you love doing, what you're really good at doing, what the world needs, and then

what you get paid for? Something like that. But if you can mix all those and find something in the middle, then that should be your career. But also, you can do it for LinkedIn. That could be whatever's in the middle is what you could post about. So I'd say that first and foremost. And then really understanding what to post about is understanding what resonates with people. So I feel like that takes a bit of research. You can use tools like Favicon, Cleo. There's a new tool called Say What that's quite good and literally just finding creators within a certain topic, the biggest creators within that topic, what are they posting about? I feel like a lot of people try to reinvent the wheel with every post they do, but you almost have to think of LinkedIn as

like a marketing campaign. And the best marketing campaigns, basically they repeat themselves a lot. So, you know, if a piece of messaging resonates and it achieves the outcome that you want achieve with that post. There's no reason you shouldn't do that one month, a few months later, you do that post again, for example. So that's one thing I'd say that helps people is like, you don't have to like think about, oh, I've got to like on the day, you think of a brand new post. It takes a lot of brain energy. But I'd say look at what resonates and then add your personal spin to it, write poster in your personality, write comments that you're in your personality, because there's a lot of,

and I'm not against the use of AI, but there's a lot of AI generated written content, which is like so obviously AI and has no personality. But then also in the comments as well, like you can stand out quite easily in the comments by just being like actually engaging with the content and actually giving your viewpoint on it. Like sometimes like if I see someone in my network has done a post

and I disagree with it, like I'll say I disagree with it. But in like a friendly way where like, like we're engaging in a debate. So I feel like being human is like so important now. Yeah, you don't have to really overthink it. Even if it's funny comment or saying that you agree and add in a bit of, I don't know, your opinion or your experience,

doesn't need to take minutes, but still authentic and much better than, as you said, super obvious AI comment that is even paragraph long. That's like the worst. I think as well it's like So with knowing your goals It's like knowing your content pillars And then you can

And this is what I like to try to do Is like create a repeatable content system So it's like on Monday I'm going to post this On Wednesday I'm going to post this Like which content format Like I'm going to post a carousel on a Wednesday I'm going to post a video on a Friday That's really important

But then within that content It has to be digestible Because unless it's like insanely valuable like people just aren't going to read like a 50 page carousel. But if it is 50 pages, then it shouldn't be like massive long text paragraphs on each page. So I think make it digestible and then also make it actionable. So like what can people take away from it?

What kind of content is going to make people save the post? Because that's a good indicator to the algorithm as well. What's going to make people comment and engage with the post? Because comments are the most important factor in terms of boosting engagement. but yeah I mean like you'll see in my carousels for example it will be like seven things that will improve xyz and then underneath it'll be like and how to avoid it or how to action it or something like that and that's like where the value is so I was just looking at nine brutal carrier traps and how to actually avoid them yeah yeah that's that was the most recent one that is like a

very again that's one that you know I've seen do well time and time again. So that's why I did that one. Pretty sure that post was Shadow Band, which is shame. Why? I don't know. Every now and again, I do a post and the reach just gets throttled. Yeah, I don't know. So Alga doesn't like you for some reason once in a while. And before, you mentioned like AI, because obviously it's a big topic.

What are maybe some tools that you use and why? It's interesting with AI tools, because if you look at like, content on LinkedIn, for example, the tools by AI tools. It's like tools that use AI rather than AI tools, like notions are AI tool or Grammally is technically an AI tool. But I think, yeah, like the one I said earlier, Say What is a good tool. Fabricon is an AI generator platform. That's quite useful. I don't know if it's technically AI, but Cleo is quite useful, especially for formatting. I try to optimize my post for mobile, so it's quite useful for that. What about some favorite other lamps? Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know why. I just

completely blanked on those. I just use chat GBT for the most part. Every time another LLM comes out with something, GBT, the next day has that thing that is just a better version of it. It's great. Even with the, obviously, the image model generation, it's unbelievable. So I mainly do use ChatGBTGPT and I have a chat chbt premium and I have created a bunch of custom GPs for many, many different things. It's very, very good at executing on a specific outcome. But if you try to make it do everything, it just won't do it. So it's good still to this point for certain things, but not everything. I also, I use co-pilot for my imagery, actually. I don't really know why.

I just have like a specific prompt for the imagery that I use and it only seems to work on co-pilot. So I have also used mid-journey and I have also used ideogram as well. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like I might be a bit boring but I'm the person who sticks with chat GP as well because you see like updates from all kinds of tools

or even the new ones and it's hard to keep up but I'm like I feel like Chi-GPT if you know how to prompt it still just all you need. I mean, it's one of the most heavily backed private firms like ever of all time. So the funding they have is incredible and the team they have working on it is just ahead of the game. So I mean, GROC is interesting because it's trained on Twitter data, which like is trained on social media data, which is quite interesting.

Like chat GBT is on internet search data. So that's quite like a unique. angle that Grok has. So I'm kind of curious to see how that goes. Yeah, good to see the competition. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's plenty of competition. And it's like the same on LinkedIn. Like if there's a lot of competition, that's great because it means that it's great for the use, like the consumer because it means that all the creators will have to try and one up themselves and therefore level up their game and level up their content. And it means that only the best creators will survive. Sounds a bit extreme, but he'd get well on chance to say.

And Thomas, just as we will be finishing soon, some lighter questions. What is it that you like doing in your free time, such as any of your hobbies? Yeah, that's a good question. I actually, so one thing I'm actually going to look into today is I want to try and get into a sport whilst I'm down in London. So I'm going to try to find some sort of club. Everyone seems to do paddle these days, so I might try and get to that. But I have literally also played tennis and squash for like over a decade. So I feel like I'd be able to adapt to paddle pretty quickly.

So do you still play it or not anymore? I'll play tennis when I'm back home because we have a court in the village I live in. But yeah, I mean, I like to go gym, for example. I've gotten back into that. I quite like, it's like basic things really. I mean, I've loved gaming for as long as I can remember. I really enjoy the social aspect of gaming, but I also like really like single player games

and like really cool stories. And I also like TV shows, for example. I'm not huge on films, to be honest. So what are some favorite TV shows? Favorite TV shows. If you want to get really nerdy, I got into anime a few years ago. One of my favorite from that is Neon Genesis Evangelion,

incredible Bojack Awesome. I watched Fleabag last year, that was very good. I'm trying to think if it was that last year or this year. It might have been this year. It's just like time is just warped. But yeah, I just really like that. And I just tried to socialize where I can.

But like work is, I love this job. And I probably spend more time on it than the average person will on a role. But that's another thing. Like work-life balance looks different for everyone else for everyone. So like what works for you might not work for me. I'm probably edging more towards doing two. much work at the moment and I'm like noticing that sooner and sooner every time so I'm going to try my best to pivot in the opposite direction for now because there's a video I watched

by his guy called Charlie Morgan on YouTube and he basically tells this story of like a man on his horse on this journey and how like you wouldn't expect the horse just to like run for days in days, obviously it needs breaks and essentially, like, your brain is the same when you're trying to reach your goal. It's very simple anecdote, but it is so true. Like, you just need to be cautious and aware and react where necessary, because there will be periods where you work really, really, really hard, and then there'll be periods where there's less work going on. And I think be careful to avoid burnout. Yeah, exactly. But I do also think that there is a bit of misconception around burnout. I don't think it happens probably as often as people think, because

burnout is like a serious thing where that takes months and months of very intentional work to come out of it. It's like a serious condition, basically. And I feel like people misunderstand that for, oh, I'm just a bit tired this week. Like it's a really serious condition. So, yeah. Yeah. No, it's a good point. And then what are some books? If you read, have you got any recommendations? Books. Yeah, I also read books. I recently read The Dose Effect by T.J. Power.

That is like one of the best self-help books I've ever read. I highly recommend that. I'm currently reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Toll. That's a classic one. I haven't yet read it before. One of the pretty the best self-help book I've read is the Chimp Paradox by I think he's named Steve Rogers, Professor Steve Rogers. That's a really good one.

And then I do try to read some fictional books as well, but I haven't really got around to doing that recently. I've read some comics and stuff as well. You got a favorite superhero. Favorite superhero. I mean, it's really basic, but probably like Batman or Spider-Man. No, it makes sense. And I agree, and I understand that. Or if he counts, Anakin Skywalker.

Okay, yeah. Then Thomas, the very last, oh yeah, actually I think it's going to be obvious, but where people can find you and follow you. Yeah, so just mainly on LinkedIn, just my name, Thomas Pierce. I need to saw out my SEO because if you search my name into Google, just don't show up. So I need to figure that out. But yeah, just Thomas Pierce on LinkedIn. I like when it's simple. Only one platform, not too many.

And then very last question, if there is anything that you're going to, would like to share that I should have asked you or did not or any final piece of wisdom to finish with? Final piece of wisdom. I think final piece of wisdom is when you are posting on LinkedIn, I always say, one thing I say a lot in my content is tests, learn and iterate because it's all well and good posting consistently, but you need to look at what's working and what's not working and leaning more into what's working and then pushing away the stuff that isn't.

work. So that's really important. And adapting with the algorithm changes as well, that's really important. But also just post what you like to post about. If you don't enjoy the content that you're creating, you won't stick to it long term. So post what you like. Be quote unquote authentic, although I feel like the meaning of that term has been lost. Sometimes becoming a bit buzzword. But I like what you said. It's important to have fun so that you can stay consistent and so that it's just easier to show up. Yeah, exactly. Cool. I think we can then finish Thomas. Thank you very much. It's great that we finally made it. I'll be following and supporting and we'll be excited to see when you hit that exciting mouse talk before the end of the year. Yeah, nice. Thanks for having me on.

Thanks for listening to Project With Tomlin. Check the show notes for all the links. And don't forget to subscribe, like and share your feedback. Speak soon.