Get More Subscribers Using LinkedIn (42 Rules for LinkedIn Mastery)

Rules to help you get the best from the most underrated social media platform

LinkedIn is criminally underrated as a platform for connection and growth. I use it to grow my Substack publication, but not in the way you might think.

LinkedIn is full of icky salespeople who are constantly trying to sell you stuff. At least, that’s what many creators think. Perhaps your version of LinkedIn is like that, but mine isn’t. My version of LinkedIn is full of valuable, interesting contacts, colleagues and fans.

How can this be? Why is my LinkedIn a fantastic place to hang out, meet new people, get new ideas for content and find new (potential) subscribers, while yours is a hot mess of hustle porn and ads for CRM software?

Because you are doing LinkedIn wrong.

It’s taken me many years and many false starts to create a LinkedIn happy place for myself and my businesses. In this post, I share what I’ve learnt about using LinkedIn for growth and connection, without being icky, salesy or desperate. And I share 42 rules that have helped me grow, form real connections and actually enjoy using LinkedIn.

But before we jump into the rules, let’s remind ourselves why we are here. LinkedIn interactions take time and effort. You need to keep your eye on the prize in order to stay committed and reap the rewards of LinkedIn success.

Why Use LinkedIn?

If you want to succeed with a newsletter, or any other online business, you need a large pool of people on the internet to, firstly ‘see’ you, then — secondly —to trust you, and finally to like you. This is what LinkedIn is for. Not for selling, but for finding that ‘pool’ of people.

Without a pool of people who know, trust and like you, you aren’t going to get subscribers or customers. And if that pool doesn’t get bigger, month by month, your business will struggle to grow.

For newsletter growth, you need new eyeballs on your newsletter every single week (annoying, but inescapable). That means you need a slowly growing pool.