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Filtering through the expanse of LinkedIn blog content - especially when you're searching for high-level insight - can be a time-consuming process. Look hard enough, though, and you'll find relative unknowns using the platform at an elite level. If you're like us, you're always on the lookout for insightful, thought-provoking new content that can help optimize your skills and enable you to work smarter, not harder. And with the advent of its blogging platform, LinkedIn has suddenly become the de rigeur place for industry leaders, scholars, and regular old professionals to publish their insights and learn from their peers.
Still in its early phases, LinkedIn Blogging has borne witness to a proliferation of ad hoc content marketers. Company executives, Marketing professionals, Entrepreneurs and journalists have especially taken to the platform, which has resulted in a mixture of content output that could best be described as the good, the bad and the ugly.
To help sift through the noise, here are six excellent LinkedIn Bloggers that might be flying under your radar.
The Unsung Heroes of LinkedIn Content
True leadership in content drafting takes time, skill, experience & a healthy respect for the reader. The purpose of this post is to spotlight the emerging leaders on bubbling under the surface relative to the site's most famous scribes.
The Guy Kawasakis and Richard Bransons might have more followers, but I'm going to point you in the direction of 6 under-the-radar professionals who deliver resonant content and consistent value on their LinkedIn blogs, and are worthy of recognition (and much larger followings). Here they are.
Chris Young | Founder. The Rainmaker Group, Inc.
Expertise: Recruiting & Sales
I write about sales for a living, and for the most part, the depth of my analysis and insight is basic algebra compared to Chris's Calculus-level discourse on everything Sales & Marketing.
First of all, Chris's Don Draper's Four Rules of Selling is my pick for content marketing piece of the year. (The Content Marketing hipster in me wants to add that I was one of the very first people to share the post).
This post, despite its length and the level of committment required on the behalf of the reader, accomplished something that is nearly impossible: It caused me to drop everything else I was doing and read the whole thing all the way through.
If that was the only post Chris contributed to LinkedIn, he'd still be in the elite 1 percent of content marketers this quarter (212,000 people saw this post, nearly 2,600 liked it, and its comments section became a chorus of universal praise).
Think about that, for a second. While it obviously took Chris a great deal of time and effort to produce this piece, the ROI he obtained from it is downright staggering.
And deservedly so. This is a must-read for any sales and marketing professional. The insight: Profound. Premise: Original and attention-grabbing. Execution: Flawless. Result: Expert-level content that commands your respect, illuminates its subject matter, and signifies that Chris is a unique, powerful voice of authority in the Sales & Recruiting fields.
Mary Davids | Principal. D&M Consulting Services
Expertise: Leadership, Management & Consulting
I've been reading Mary for some time now (we share many mutual connections), and following her content output on LinkedIn has been like watching a star in the making.
Her latest post, "Here's Why Good Employees Quit," took off like an F-15 and clearly struck a nerve with the (by the looks of it, not insubstantial) percentage of its readership who opened Microsoft Word and began typing resignation letters before they'd even finished the piece.
Mary's ascent provides a great example of the rags-to-riches impact that a committed, powerful LinkedIn blog can have, in terms of professional exposure.
Mary comes from a background that will feel very similar to the typical professional on the site (quite literally for me, two of her past law firm employers were clients of my Recruiting firm), yet, she's emerged above the crowd via publishing consistent, high-quality content that logically follows and emotionally resonates. She specializes in publishing empathetic, yet practical explanations of best practices in workplace professionalism.
Tomasz Tunguz | VC. Redpoint Ventures
Expertise: Enterpreneurship, SaaS & Venture Capital
Coming across a relatively lowbrow LinkedIn blog post can feel like stumbling upon a Buzzfeed article. Reading a Tomasz Tunguz post, by comparison, feels like wandering into the middle of a Harvard MBA lecture.
Tomasz utilizes a mixture of nuanced textual analysis and visually compelling graphics to convey illumnating insights into complex topics in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Industry best practices, Startup Management & Venture Capitalism. The ROI from reading a Tomasz Tunguz post is guaranteed, the analysis surefire.
Look at the quality exuding from this post on Benchmarking a SaaS Startup -- this is the standard for a Tomasz Tunguz publication. He never phones it in. If you're still writing thinly-disguised promotional copy, stylizing unqualified opinions as "insights" and promising "expert analysis" when the reality is actually half-baked, superficial discussion of a multi-layered topic, you stand to learn a lot from Tomasz.
Content done this well creates not just respect and influence, but most importantly, trust. And Tomasz has earned a well-deserved reputation as a trusted resource of many young SaaS companies, Ambition included.
Dharmesh Shah | Founder & CTO. Hubspot
Expertise: Technology & Entrepreneurship
Dharmesh is an Encyclopedia of pertinent information for anyone who works within the tech or startup industries.
Whether he's making people like me feel better about our jobs, dishing out unique statistics about entrepreneurs (45 percent had children when they launched their first company? God help those people.) or codifying essential qualities of good leadership, Dharmesh goes above and beyond baseline insight.
Pivotal takeaway here for LinkedIn bloggers: You can write about topics that are already being discussed ad nauseam and still add value, you just have to equip your content with that little something extra that makes it unique and compelling. Dharmesh's posts provide powerful examples of how to put this practice into action.
Sales from the Darkside | Unknown
Expertise: Sales & Consulting
Full disclosure: I was compelled to email the mysterious persona behind Sales from the Darkside the other week, because I wanted him to appear on the Ambition Blog. I still have no clue who he really is.
And that's exactly the point. Reading a Sales from the Darkside post is like taking a trip to the LinkedIn Blog's very own Twilight Zone. This is a different kind of thought leadership: biting, unfiltered, often hilarious, always on-point.
His "There's No Crying in Sales" post deservedly hit it big, a refreshing mix of sarcasm and poignant industry criticism. It's all here: he inanity of regional sales meetings, the cruel treatment of success (doubling quota), and an absolutely brutal series of revelations about the true meaning behind those supposedly innocuous questions Management keeps asking.
Surprisingly, Sales from the Darkside still has less than a 1000 followers, which is insane to me. (Surely there are more than 900 LinkedIn users out there who enjoy reading the truth?)
All I know is that every time I see a new post from the mysterious anti-hero of Sales blogging appear on my LinkedIn home page, I'm dropping everything and taking a few minutes to cross over to the Darkside. You should, too.
Jeff Haden | Owner. BlackBird Media
Expertise: Entrepreneurship, Management & Leadership
I love reading LinkedIn posts that get to the very root of their particular topic, and Jeff Haden's recent post on the defining qualities of a great coworker is a clinic in truly in-depth thought leadership.
"9 Reasons People Love to Work With You" is a genuinely thought-provoking discussion of what makes a good employee, beyond his or her talent level and contribution to the company. Jeff looks at interpersonal communication and emotional intelligence in a way that demands the reader to perform his or her own personal introspection, asking, "Which of these do I need to improve?"
It's a powerful read that transcends industry, company hierarchy, and age level. When a reader's pathological response to your post is to stop and engage in healthy self-analysis, you've reached a new echelon as a content publisher.
At nearly 350,000 followers, Jeff is one of the more high-profile people on the list. But when you've spent a substantial career as a Ghostwriter, you deserve all the recognition you can get. Jeff is more than worthy of a LinkedIn follow.
Ambition: Sales Leadership and Operations Software
Ambition is a sales management platform that syncs Salesforce and other data systems on one simple interface.
Modern sales leaders use Ambition to enhance sales performance clarity and run supercharged contests, reporting, and analytics via Ambition's simple drag-and-drop interface.
Ambition is endorsed by Harvard Business Review and AA-ISP (the Global Inside Sales Organization). Hear more from business leaders who use Ambition in their organization.
Watch Testimonials:
- FiveStars: Adam Wall. Sr. Manager of Sales Operations .
- Filemaker: Brad Freitag. Vice-President of Worldwide Sales.
- Outreach: Mark Kosoglow. Vice-President of Sales.
- Cell Marque: Lauren Hopson. Director of Sales & Marketing.
- Access America Transport: Ted Alling. Chief Executive Officer.
Watch Product Walkthroughs:
- ChowNow. Led by Vice-President of Sales, Drew Woodcock.
- Outreach. Led by Sales Development Manager, Alex Lynn.
- AMX Logistics. Led by Executive Vice-President ,Jared Moore.
Read Case Studies:
- Clayton Homes: HBR finds triple-digit growth in 3 sales efficiency metrics.
- Coyote Logistics: Monthly revenue per broker grew $525 in 6 months.
- Peek: Monthly sales activity volume grew 142% in 6 months.
- Vorsight: Monthly sales conversations grew 300% in 6 months.
Contact us to learn how Ambition can impact your sales organization today.
