Hey friend,

I got asked 2 questions recently by a friend who joined the solopreneurial game, leaving his 9-5 in the rearview mirror.

Last week’s newsletter edition was a response to question #2, which you can read here:
7 rules for writing in the digital age you want to master to build an online business.

It’s a comprehensive deep dive into the art form of writing that’ll take you from procrastinator to pro-creator in 12 minutes. (How’s that for hyperbole :)

In this edition let’s tackle my friend’s question #1:

• Why is LinkedIn a good platform to start building your personal brand?

And while we’re at it, we’ll zoom out on this question and set proper context around major trends impacting the nature of work, education, and the creator economy.

The proud sponsor of these letters is yours truly in Your Creative Corner.
Investing the most precious of resources known to man. Time.

In collaboration with these Creative Flow Inducing Tunes:

TLDR;

Building a personal brand is one of the biggest…
…asymmetric bets you can make in 2024.

There’s close to 0 downside.
If you disregard online trolls.

And embrace a handful of people who might disagree with you.
To the point of genuinely preferring to see you fail.

Accepting this as the price of admission,…
…you get to step into the arena and build infinite leverage.

You’re alive in one of the most dramatic times of transition for humanity.

40-hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age.
Openspace floorplans and corporate assembly lines are disappearing in thin air.

The internet ate the entirety of communication and media.
The internet is now eating money.

You’re at the foothill of a cultural-creative renaissance.
Building a relationship with a network of epic humans.
(AKA personal brand)
Is how you bring your ideas to life.
And make your dreams a reality.

If you haven’t started already.
You’re still early.

Choosing 1 platform and focus is a good strategy.
Unless you’ve got sufficient resources to hire a team and grow on all of them.

LinkedIn could be the easiest platform to start.

With 1 billion users, only 0.5% are actively creating content.
Making it far less noisy in comparison to most other platforms.

The user’s average household income is far above the rest.
2x (double) that of Instagram which ranks 2nd.

If you’re building a business, LinkedIn is:

• A list of ideal customers

• A Rolodex of decision-makers

• A place to grow your community

• A place to connect and grow with peers

• A place to find and develop partnerships

• The single largest online networking platform

What is the Creator Economy and why you should care

If you’ve been following my journey for some time, you’ve heard me rant about the Creative Renaissance and the changing tides of our global cult(ure).

Underpinned by several factors,
including recent technological developments-
(i.e. the internet, decentralized platforms, artificial intelligence,…)

Coupled with the decay of current economic models.
And a massive loss of trust in our institutions.
It makes for one powerful cocktail.
And a seismic cult(ural) shift.

Akin to historic shifts from:

• nomadic tribes to city-states and empires (driven by agricultural tech)

• monarchies to people’s republics and mass production (driven by industrial tech)

We’re smack in the middle of the information tech revolution.

While the previous 2 shifts took millennia and centuries.

This time around, we’re talking decades.
Arguably already kicking off in the early 80s.

Now you might be asking yourself:

• how do these major trends impact my life

• how can I best prepare for the future

You guessed it:

• By building a personal brand
  Revolved around your perspectives and ideas
  Shaped by your skills and domain subject mastery

• By cultivating communities and nurturing relationships.
  Curating people magnetized by sets of shared ideas, values, and visions.

Your online gravitational pull will shape your offline experience.

The communities you’ll cultivate will shape your lifestyle and impact.
The relationships you’ll nurture will represent the only solid currency of the future.

To some extent, this is a timeless truth.
It will only become more accentuated in the next chapter of human cult(ure).

On a more practical note, let’s look at current creator economy market trends

The creator economy is predicted to 2x to half a trillion USD by 2027 according to a recent Goldman Sachs report.

We mustn’t compare apples to oranges, but we could roughly define the creator economy as 1-or-more-person media businesses. Specifically in education.

Let’s park that for now and unpack another important trend.

The educational market is currently estimated at $10 Trillion Worldwide.

• Roughly 70% represents Formal Education

• While 30% remaining falls under E-Learning

Illustrating my previous statement about the erosion of trust in institutions.

Formal Education (An important institutional pillar) is declining by 6% annually.
While e-learning (or alternative education) is growing by 20% annually.

My educated guesstimate is that these trends will continue accelerating in the next decade. (I’ve done freelance market research back in the day, I’m probably not wrong)

What this means is that a growing slice of the E-learning pie will be eaten by educational content creators and individual influencers.

People will continue to connect with prolific creators and individuals they trust.
While big brands and household-name corporations will continue to bleed (and start signing brand deals with micro-influencers)

Education will continue to take more of a shape of the master-apprentice educational model of the past.
(think in terms of Aristotle, a student of Plato, tutoring Alexander the Great)

People will look to those who have done the things they want to do in life.

Tenured professors with purely academic track records and often 0 field experience points will fade away.

What does this mean for you?
How does it impact your ability to create a dream lifestyle for yourself?
Will you take the leap of faith and start building leverage for a very different future?

If you’re still with me.
With this wide-angle context, let’s narrow down on LinkedIn.
And answer the question of WHY choose this platform.

WHY LinkedIn is probably the easiest to start your journey

By now, you hopefully agree that building a personal brand is a great idea.

One that will help you build leverage and a life worth living during these times of great transition.

Allowing you to pursue your curiosity and choose your own adventures, the people, and the greater visions you choose to serve.

Avoiding the catastrophic effects of technical unemployment, commoditization, and work automation. Not to mention government-controlled universal basic income.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s look at the nuts and bolts of this process.

There are a handful of social media platforms, strategies, and business models you could leverage to build your brand.

So how do you choose (wisely) where to focus your energy?

LinkedIn could be the easiest platform to start.
Not only does it “keep things (mostly) professional”.
The number of active trolls is the lowest.
It’s a (mostly) kind environment.

With 1 billion users, only 0.5% are actively creating content.
Making it far less noisy in comparison to most other platforms.

The user’s average household income is far above the rest.
2x (double) that of Instagram which ranks 2nd.

If you’re building a business, it’s a:

• The single largest networking platform

• A place to connect and learn from peers

• Find partnerships and build a community

• A Rolodex of decision-makers

• A list of ideal customers

How to ensure you’re not building relationships on any platform, by trying to be on all of them at once

Unless you’ve got sufficient resources to hire a team and grow on all social media platforms at once.

Or want to spend 8 hours a day minimum on content:

• creating

• distributing

• repurposing

Commenting on other people’s posts and engaging with them in DMs.

I’ve tried doing that.
With minimal resources.
Stretching myself too thin.

And feeling overwhelmed most of the time.
Sacrificing my sanity and any semblance of a life not glued to the screen/phone.

I’d advise strongly against that path.
So why don’t you do yourself a favor?
Start building your brand by focusing on a single platform.

The depth and quality of conversations.
And how you’re able to show up.
Being laser-focused on a single space is your secret superpower.

And once you’ve built something meaningful 12 months down the road.
You can start looking at expanding strategically.

I promise that if you follow this simple principle, your efforts will yield a much better outcome for you and your brand-new message online.

Turning the internet into your private journal.

I’m genuinely curious if you have any questions you’d love my perspective on. Drop me a line via DM.

See you next week.

Aleksander Brankov