LinkedIn Top Voice Sumit Agarwal tells people to be unprofessional on LinkedIn. Here’s why.

As COVID led to a spike in users’ consumption of online content, you had the prolific rise of dwell time on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. These platforms and their business models are still the same: advertising chasing user eyeballs. And in this race for hyper-competitive advertising dollars — LinkedIn’s a dark horse. Powerful for those who know how to use it. And “boring,” “dull,” and “too professional” for those who don’t.

The trick, according to LinkedIn top Voice Sumit Agarwal, who has helped various businesses from different niches globally to build a presence on LinkedIn — is by being unprofessional on LinkedIn. Now that might sound a little offensive to some. But it really is not. It helps in humanizing any problem, making it easier to solve problems. This creates a unique way to find solutions to problems and generate leads, build up a recruitment pipeline, and rapidly scale a brand on the platform.

He believes it starts with understanding what LinkedIn even is.

Microsoft & LinkedIn: a 26 Billion Marriage of Convenience.

Sumit believes that when Microsoft announced its acquisition of LinkedIn, it raised a lot of eyeballs. To start with, LinkedIn, at the time, was barely making any revenue. But through the years, LinkedIn’s posted billions of dollars in revenue through 3 simple products: premium subscriptions, advertising revenue, and LinkedIn courses [B2B and B2C].

The idea initially was to cater to the significantly unserved population of suit-wearing professionals. Through the years, LinkedIn branded itself as a destination to find and land jobs — leading to a new influencer that the world never had any space for HR professionals.

A decade later, the content on the platform also evolved to appeal to these influencers: job-seeking professionals started posting content and achievements to appeal to these recruiters. As the platform grew from 100 million to 650 million, LinkedIn’s moat became data and the kind of data you can’t ever get on any other platform all around the globe.

Of CEOs, founders, B2B decision-makers: a data moat the likes of which even Meta can’t boast of. The best part: users gave it all willingly. And with this data came opportunities to get and do business. But only if you can use its algorithm in your favor.

Sumit believes anyone can do it — they just need to redefine who a professional even is.

Be Unprofessional: The #1 Secret to Cracking the LinkedIn algorithm

Learning to be who you really are — isn’t something that came naturally to Sumit. Born with cerebral palsy that led to 70% body restriction, he spent most of his childhood surrounded by doctors who didn’t believe he’d live long. From there, he got an MBA, which led to him starting a PR firm that helps startups, founders, and CEOs generate brand awareness online. So, when he landed on LinkedIn, he did something that every PR professional would advise you against; he just shared his genuine and authentic story.

Braving comments that insist that “LinkedIn isn’t Facebook” talked about how companies need to do better around diversity, equity, and inclusion. He shared stories from his childhood — how growing up all alone affected him, how anyone can be successful irrespective of where they come from. These were authentic stories that would brand anyone as “unprofessional.”

But that’s the secret he believes.

The problem with LinkedIn is how most users view it only as a platform for finding jobs or updating their resumes, but we have forgotten that there are human beings behind the screen. We are people — and as people, stories make us different. It’s what makes us human, and it’s what unites us. And it is in embracing this authenticity we can connect with people who believe in the same thing we do.

That’s the secret to cracking the LinkedIn algorithm.

Being human.

And it affects your bottom line too: because no one likes being sold to. LinkedIn seems to agree since he’s been awarded the LinkedIn Top Voice this year. This sounds simple, but it’s much harder to do in practice.

 Being vulnerable can create Strong connections.

Returning from the brink of death at a very young age, Sumit realized what connected people and what made them fear the most. He realized that empathy is the key to understanding people. People tend to feel stigmatized about what they do not understand, and disability is one issue. But Sumit has been lending his voice on LinkedIn to help people relate to the stories of people similar to them and learn to empathize with their struggles.

The essence of Sumit’s values comes from his journey and struggles, and his core belief rests in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He has used his experiences to help humanize social issues, which has also helped him become the LinkedIn Top voice while building his social currency.

The two-way street: Social currency.

We as humans have evolved from tribes. In the age before the pervasiveness of social media, mass media had dominated people’s lives due to the lack of hypersegmentation. But being a part of the digital revolution is no longer the case. Social currency has become a two-way street to get something meaningful out of something one requires to provide value in return. And this is what Sumit’s work on LinkedIn primarily consists of.

Sumit helps people build their brand on LinkedIn through humanizing stories. This creates a balance of relationship and connection-based economies as the recipe for success, despite common belief. Rather than just using a physical approach in building a brand, Sumit finds LinkedIn one of the best platforms to approach brand building and project their impactful values while creating a natural customer-business equilibrium.

When asked what motivates Sumit to create these unique contents, he says, “people who create content with a mission to bring change and impact the world do it with a motive of being remembered for their work, to leave a legacy. They strive to teach future generations the values which will stand the test of time. So, LinkedIn is that platform that can reach people and help people bring about those changes.”

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