Account Manager @ Kurogo | Sharing lessons from a life in Marketing

Hey, I'm Joe 👋

I post about: 

- Careers
- Marketing 
- Leadership 

Sound good?

Hit the follow button and come say hi.

Joseph Rudd

Marketing looks simple ...

Until you try doing it.

It’s easy to look at marketing and think: 

→ Anyone can post something on social media
→ Anyone can write a few clever words
→ Anyone can make viral content
→ Anyone can ... 

But there’s so much more to good marketing than what people see on the surface.

Marketing (done well) is a careful balance of art and science, being aimed at (and held accountable by) business-oriented goals. 

It requires: 

✅ Deep knowledge and research 
✅ The ability to pivot quickly 
✅ Constant testing and learning 

Not to mention: 

✅ Storytelling 
✅ Trust building 
✅ Customer insights 
✅ Industry knowledge 
✅ Data-driven decision making 
✅ A near obsessive personality 

The list goes on and on.

Point is... 

Marketing is so much more than clever words, clicking post, or looking cool. It’s about driving tangible results. 

It's not 'easy'. 
But done well, it will be the Lifeblood of your business. 

Agreed? Repost to spread the word ♻️
And follow Joseph Rudd for more.

Strategy Director at LeverBrands | We help founders build leverage through personal branding

Create Content that Sells | Content Strategist & Demand Gen Marketer @contactstudios → SEO, Content and Video for Online Businesses

Content changed my business' trajectory and my life.

It's the growth lever behind every client success story I'm proud to tell.

I firmly believe it's one of the best things you can do for your growth.

It's how you build trust and a reputation in your industry at scale. 

What I call: Content-Led Growth.


At Distinctiva we help you build your content strategy from the ground up.

With content & creative strategies, copywriting/ghostwriting, design and video editing/animation. 

You have the whole package to grow on platforms like LinkedIn, Newsletters and YouTube.

We create across all formats - from text, videos, carousels, one-pagers to full content machines that compound over time.

The results?

• Clients going from unknown to 10K followers in 3 months
• Some approaching 80K (more than I have!)
• YouTube channels hitting 6K views on their 2nd video
• Newsletters with 60%+ open rate in every single issue
• Millions of impressions, hundreds of podcast invitations
• Posts ranking #1 in Google Search

Best part?

Their content is one of the main sources of revenue. 

• One attributes 80% of their leads to LinkedIn Organic.
• Another credits LinkedIn as their top referral source (3x'd their website traffic!).
• Another scaled from $1.2M to $3.6M ARR through LinkedIn alone.


I only accept a limited amount of clients a quarter. And make sure I'm behind your strategy always. 

I don’t believe in massive hiring and scaling because I prioritize lean, focused teams that drive impactful results.


Thinking this might be right for your business?

Let's hop on a call and figure it out together. 

I'll take a look at where you're at, where you want to go, and we can map out if content could be your growth engine.

And hey, if content isn't the right fit or you're looking to grow on other platforms, I'm happy to point you toward the right people who can help.

Diandra Escobar

I'm tired of LinkedIn because...


People are obsessing over the wrong numbers.

➝ 20 likes feels like failure.
➝ 50 profile views feels invisible.
➝ 1000 followers feels small.

But here's what those numbers actually look like in real life:

➝ 20 decision-makers in a room, paying attention to you.
➝ 50 potential clients walking up to check you out.
➝ 1000 people who chose to hear from you—that's a packed auditorium.

The problem isn't your reach. It's your follow-through.
Likes don't close deals. Conversations do.

Swipe through to see what I mean →

Now go start those conversations 💚
Your content is working more than you think 🤝

Building content machines | Founder, Distinctiva.io - Organic Content Production House | Content Strategist | Speaker

I'm tired of Linkedin because...

LinkedIn is now the #2 source AI pulls from.
Only Reddit beats it.

Not Forbes. Not news sites. Not company blogs.
LinkedIn.

According to Semrush's study of 230K prompts, when ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode cite sources - LinkedIn shows up more than almost any other site.

What does this mean for you?
Your LinkedIn posts aren't just for your audience anymore.

They're being indexed. Cited. Recommended by AI.

That "simple" post you wrote about your process? It might show up when someone asks ChatGPT for advice in your industry.

This is another reason to stop treating LinkedIn like an afterthought.

LinkedIn was already a goldmine for B2B.
Now it's also becoming a source of truth for AI.

So here are a few tips to make sure your content is worth citing:

→ LinkedIn newsletters rank on Google - treat them like blog posts
→ Change your image alt text to keyword-friendly descriptions
→ Name your carousel files with SEO-friendly titles before uploading
→ Add your keywords to your headline, About section, and Services section
→ Use keywords naturally in your posts - write for humans, but be searchable

AI cites expertise. But people buy from people they trust.
A good LinkedIn strategy builds both.

Content compounds. This is just more proof.

Top cited domains on LLMs chart - LinkedIn ranks #2 behind Reddit according to Semrush 2025 study

I've been thinking about Twitter / X.

LinkedIn was where I started. Built everything here for myself and clients.

Then newsletters. YouTube.

But Twitter? Never really gave it a shot.
And honestly, it's a bit intimidating.

New platform. Different rhythm. Different unwritten rules.

You know that feeling when you're great at one thing and then you have to start from zero somewhere else?

Yeah, that.

But here's the thing about being a marketer:

You can't just stick to what's comfortable.

I've helped clients crack different channels. Built content engines across platforms. Developed strategies that actually work.

Time to practice what I preach.

So I'm asking you (because LinkedIn is still my safe space lol):

Who should I follow on Twitter?
Who's creating actual valuable content there?
What's working for you if you're active on both?

I'm not trying to go viral or chase trends.

Just want to show up. Learn. Engage with good people.
Same way I did here.

If you're on Twitter and doing cool stuff, drop your handle.

Or if you have tips for someone starting fresh, I'm all ears.

Let's see where this goes.

6 months ago we got a client's LinkedIn content to rank #1 on Google. Checked it again today. Still there.

No blog. No backlinks. No ads. In this case, just a newsletter.

We were running their full LinkedIn strategy - posting consistently, building their presence, growing their audience. The newsletter was part of that.

But we noticed an opportunity. They were in an emerging category - people were starting to search for what they do. So we picked their target keyword and built a newsletter issue around it.

He was building a new category. A brand new product they were just getting out there. The kind where people were just starting to search for solutions. Perfect timing to own that search term.

With traditional SEO, this would've taken 6-12 months minimum. Building domain authority. Getting backlinks. Competing with established sites.

But with LinkedIn content, they ranked in just a few months.

We didn't write typical LinkedIn fluff. We optimized the title, used clear H2s, answered the search intent completely. Basically SEO 101 - just published on LinkedIn instead of a blog.

Few weeks later it hit #1. Then it started showing up in AI Overviews. And 6 months later? Still ranking.

Most people think LinkedIn content disappears after 48 hours. But if you build it right, it keeps working for you.

And it's not just Google. LinkedIn ranked as the second most cited source by LLMs. Your content isn't just showing up in search results - it's being referenced by AI tools answering questions in your space.

LinkedIn is so slept on for SEO. 

You're not just reaching your network - you're showing up in search results for people who've never heard of you.

Me 🤝 The Balkans

Heading back to the land of Rakia for the 3rd time.

Speaking at unlockit conference on February 19-20, 2026.

Marketing Growth Session.

800 participants. 100+ speakers. Founders, investors, operators building real companies in CEE.

This isn't another "growth hacking" conference.

It's about scaling startups from Central and Eastern Europe to global markets.

Day 1: Growth Track and Inspiration Track.
Day 2: Hands-on workshops.

What's got me excited?

The focus on operator experience over theory.

People who've actually built companies, not just talked about building them.

The CEE tech ecosystem doesn't get enough attention.

But some of the most resourceful founders and executives I know come from there.

*cough cough* Nick, Vukasin

They build with less. They think differently. They execute faster.

I'll be sharing what's worked for us at Distinctiva.

Real content strategies. Real client results. Real systems.

No fluff. No hype. Just what actually moves the needle.

If you're building in CEE or thinking about expanding there, this is worth checking out.

See you in Belgrade. 🥃

Details: unlockit[dot]org

Most influencer campaigns fail before they even start.
Not because of bad creative or low budgets. Because you're partnering with the *wrong* people.

Sarah Adam runs influencer marketing at Wix across multiple brands.
Each one targets completely different audiences.

The old process was brutal:

⏳ Waiting on SEO teams for keyword research (never their priority) 
📑 Spending 4+ hours digging through product decks manually 
🎯 Running generic searches that miss your actual ICP 
🤷‍♀️ Guessing which creators your audience actually trusts

She built a ChatGPT workflow that changed everything.

Now she drops product docs into ChatGPT.
Extracts keyword clusters in minutes.
Maps them to ICP-specific influencer profiles.

The results:
→ 2-4 hours saved per campaign 
→ Better quality matches 
→ No dependency on other teams 
→ Scalable across different audiences

This isn't about replacing human judgment.

It's about spending less time hunting and more time building real partnerships with creators your audience already follows.

The full workflow (with all 3 prompts) is in this week's issue of The Workflow.

Real workflows. Real results. No hype 📩
Subscribe at www.theworkflow.digital

The Influencer Workflow to Discover The Correct Creators 

I've debugged these 3 content problems dozens of times.

They're sneaky because the content itself is usually fine.

Vukasin Vukosavljevic and I broke them down… and the exact playbooks to fix them:

Swipe through for the complete playbooks, content distribution workflows, and exact systems we use.

——

TL;DR

Problem 1: 
You publish and pray.

No distribution system. No content repurposing plan. Just hoping SEO saves you.

The fix? 
Build a content flywheel before you create.

Vuk's chicken analogy: one piece of content is like a whole chicken. You can make different meals from it. One blog post becomes LinkedIn posts, carousels, newsletter content, lead magnets, and YouTube scripts. 

At Distinctiva, we map the distribution into your workflow, not as an afterthought. And we’ve been collaborating closely with HeyReach.io and their genius marketing team to build these.


Problem 2: 
Traffic without pipeline.

You're getting pageviews but demos stay flat. Your content entertains but doesn't convert visitors into leads.

The fix? 
Product-led content strategy and intentional content mix.

Use your own product in your content. Go niche instead of broad. Mix your content deliberately: 40% authority building, 30% growth tactics, 20% povs, 10% direct conversion.

Check your CTAs. Are they clear? Do they match where people are in the funnel? Fix your conversion mechanics.


Problem 3: 
Brand-centric content that nobody cares about.

Every post is "we launched this" or "we achieved that." Your audience doesn't care about your brand milestones. They care about solving their problems.

The fix? 
Make your audience the hero.

Outbound Outliers does this perfectly. They feature user stories, not company wins. They share customer frameworks and tactics. They turn case studies into "here's how THEY did it" instead of "here's what WE did."

Stop making your brand the main character. Your customers should be the stars.


Drop your biggest content challenge below and we might tackle it next :)

3 Content Problems That Sink Brands (And How to Fix Them)

This framework helped my boutique agency make close to $1M through LinkedIn. 32K followers. Clients paying $20K/month retainers. All inbound.

Here's the truth most people miss:

A million-dollar LinkedIn profile isn't about going viral. It's about creating a funnel where every post has a job.

And here is how we define it at Distinctiva:

→ Growth content (broad reach)
Hot takes, pattern observations, industry commentary. The stuff that makes people go "I need to follow this person." Gets shares and brings new people in.

→ Authority content (builds trust)
Deep expertise. Frameworks, systems, case studies, client results. This is where you prove you can actually deliver, not just talk about it.

→ Conversion content (drives revenue)
Sales messages. Lead magnets, direct offers, CTAs that move followers to clients. Yes, you actually have to ask for the business.

→ Personal content (optional)
Stories, updates, behind the scenes. You don't have to share personal updates - but if you've built a community that actually cares about you, they want to know what's going on in your life.


What ISN'T optional? Your point of view.

Your voice, your perspective, your unique take - that should be woven into every single post across all buckets. Without it, you're just another AI spitting out tips.

Most people post randomly and hope something sticks.
This system makes every post intentional.


I made a full video breaking down the framework - including the 5-step writing process and pre-publish checklist I use before every post goes live.

Watch it here: https://lnkd.in/esEFBFi9

Last week I got this screenshot from Backlinko: their YouTube videos are now ranking on Google. 🤸🏼‍♂️ Here's what we did:

We built their YouTube channel from scratch by treating it like part of a bigger content engine, not an isolated platform.

The full content flywheel we built:

The Backlinko team runs experiments. Gets data points from Semrush. Writes highly researched blog posts.

We turn those blogs into long-form YouTube videos.

Those videos get repurposed into LinkedIn posts. Promoted through their newsletter. 

The whole flywheel is fueled by social listening from LinkedIn and Reddit SEO communities.

Every piece feeds the next.

For the YouTube side specifically:

→ Brainstorming video ideas from their best content

→ Coordinating with Leigh McKenzie, Chris Hanna, and Matt Kenyon for hosting

→ Editing with our in-house team

→ Optimizing titles and descriptions for SEO

→ A/B testing thumbnails with our designers

→ A/B testing and iterating on titles after publishing when videos don't perform well

→ Publishing and selecting the best clips for Shorts


The biggest constraint? Time. And finding real SMEs willing to create content.

Recording takes real time that most brands just don't have. Everyone's already stretched thin running their actual business.

We're fortunate to have Matt helping with hosting. Finding an actual subject matter expert who's good on camera isn't easy. Most people who really know their stuff don't want to be on video. Or they freeze up when recording starts.


What we learned about YouTube SEO through this work:

Descriptions still matter. Not just for YouTube, but for Google search too.

We put the primary keyword in the first sentences of every description. Google pulls this as a snippet and bolds the key terms. It acts like a meta description.

We started writing descriptions like mini blog posts. Not keyword stuffing. Actual helpful content that gives context.

This is what makes videos show up in Google search results, not just YouTube.

We experiment with different title approaches constantly. Some ultra SEO-optimized for Google. Others more attention-grabbing for YouTube's algorithm.

Constant experimentation is what actually moves the needle on content performance. Not guessing what might work and sticking to it.


The goal wasn't just to launch a new channel.

It was to build a system where YouTube becomes a search engine asset, not just a video platform.

A few months in and they're showing up on Google search results.

This is what happens when you treat content as a flywheel with strategy baked in, not isolated posts hoping for the best.

The flywheel is spinning ;)

Closed a $5k/monthly deal in 29 minutes last month.
Not because I'm some sales wizard. The opposite actually.

A previous client referred us. Told the prospect we were a great choice. 

Between that and our content, by the time he got on the call he already knew:

- LinkedIn matters for his business
- He doesn't have time to do it himself
- We know what we're doing (he'd seen our content)

The call wasn't about convincing him. It was about making it official.

This is what people miss about content.
They don't just bring you leads. They build trust before you ever speak.

But the reality most people face with LinkedIn is that posting consistently takes hours every week. And quite frankly most business owners don't have that time. 

They know they should be on LinkedIn, but between client work and running their business, content falls to the bottom of the list.

That's why when your content works 24/7, it's not just convenient.
It's doing the selling for you while you sleep.

Your content shows you know your stuff.
Your referrals prove you deliver.
By the time someone books a call, they're ready to work with you.

So what do you do if you don't have the time?
You build a system. Or you get help building one.

Either way, the goal is the same: stop treating content like a to-do list and start treating it like a machine that runs without you.

The worst option is staying stuck in the middle - knowing you should, never doing it, watching competitors show up while you don't.

Have you ever had a sales call where the prospect was already sold before you spoke?

B2B content gets ignored by Sales because it makes them look amateur in front of prospects…

(Ouch. Somewhere, a marketing team just felt a chill down their spine 🥶)

Marketing creates in isolation. Sales pretends it doesn't exist. Buyers get recycled fluff that sounds like every other vendor.

Andrei Zinkevich built a fix: a synthetic buyer panel trained on real closed-won deal data.

It's an AI feedback loop that roasts your content before your prospects do- using the actual language, pain points, and decision criteria from your best customers.

No 40-agent setup. No complex automations. Just Claude, real buyer data, and a process that catches weak claims before they tank your credibility.

Because as Andrei puts it: "AI is an accelerator. If your process sucks, it will just accelerate… the suck.”

This week's The Workflow issue breaks down: 
→ How to build a knowledge base from closed-won deals 
→ How to set up buyer personas that actually challenge your content 
→ How to validate assets in minutes instead of weeks

Subscribe using the link under my name 👆🏽

The Buyer Validation Workflow to align Marketing and Sales

Only 20% of newsletter readers click on links.

Which means 800 of you might've missed the prompts we ship in every issue of The Workflow.

So we fixed that.

🗃️ The Prompt Vault: 15 battle-tested prompts from every workflow we published in the last 6 issues.

Marketing reports. Lead scoring. Brand positioning. BOFU articles. Call-to-content workflows. Voice of customer research.

All the prompts. Zero fluff. Ready to copy-paste into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or whatever LLM you're using.

No nodes to stack. No complicated automations. Just prompts that solve real problems when you're staring at a deadline.

To the 1,100 of you who trusted us with your inbox this year: thank you. 💙

Inbox real estate is sacred. We don't take that lightly.

Sara and I started The Workflow because we were tired of AI being presented as either magic or menace. We wanted the messy middle. The receipts. The "but what's the actual goal here?" questions that nobody else was asking.

Turns out, a lot of you wanted that too.

🎁 So here's your gift. You'll find it in the latest issue we just published.

theworkflow.digital


P.S. First 2026 issue drops Jan 8th. We're tackling Sales and Marketing alignment. Because apparently, we hate ourselves.

You want a research report that actually builds pipeline.

But you're stuck choosing between expensive agencies or burning out your internal team.

Sara found a third option at Stryber.

She ran 40 expert interviews and cut production time in half using AI and automation.

Here's her exact workflow:👇🏼

1. Set the strategy 
Workshop your goals, audience, and narrative before touching any AI tool. Define who you'll interview and what hypotheses you're testing.

2. Do the research 
Use ChatGPT to scan existing reports and trends. Know what's already been said so your report actually adds something new.

3. Find experts 
Start with warm intros (70% conversion rate). Layer in cold outreach with Sales Navigator + Clay + Dripify (40% conversion rate).

4. Prep & personalize 
Send tailored questionnaires before each call. Different personas = different questions = answers worth quoting.

5. Record & transcribe 
Run interviews with Fathom. Transcripts, key moments, and highlights — all automatic.

6. Automate the chaos 
One Zapier workflow: transcript finalized → tracker updated → Slack pinged → Google Doc appended. No chasing files.

7. Cluster insights 
Feed transcripts into ChatGPT to group themes, pull quotes, and draft takeaways.

This isn't another "10 AI hacks" newsletter.

Every issue features one real workflow from someone who actually ships work, not just posts about it.

You get the tools, the templates, the prompts, the exact system they used.

The Workflow is us giving you the systems that actually work, tested by people doing the work.

Link to subscribe under my name. ☝🏼

taplio

The Battle

Joseph Rudd

Diandra Escobar

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreJoseph Rudd's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDiandra Escobar's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Joseph Rudd

Diandra Escobar

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Joseph Rudd's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDiandra Escobar's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreJoseph Rudd's LinkedIn Performance