She went from 0 to 154K followers in less than 2 years.

She went viral after 2 weeks on LinkedIn.

She doubled her income after just ONE month of posting.

Meet Lara Acosta.

Lara went from being rejected by 100s of employers to being one of the top LinkedIn creators in the world.

She has ~240K followers across LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube…

A thriving agency business…

And she wakes up every day in love with what she does.

But how did she achieve all this in just 20 months?

Well, it all began in 2012 when she fled her home country of Mexico.

The relentless racism and bullying from her peers had become too much. So at 15, she bought a one-way ticket to the UK and left everything she knew behind.

At first, the culture shock was jarring. 

She had traded her small town in Mexico for school ties, grey skies, and beans on toast.

Plus, the stress of GCSE exams left Lara suffering from panic attacks.

But she had a release valve.

Since the age of 12, she’d been obsessed with social media. Rather than suffer in silence, Lara would often share her troubles online.

For much of her childhood, Lara felt like the “black sheep”

She found comfort and meaning online. 
She idolised creators. 
She dreamt of someday following in their footsteps.

Lara soon realised school wouldn’t provide the golden ticket for the life she wanted.

So she started educating herself on how to succeed online. She inhaled YouTube videos, bought courses, and started several businesses.

She tried:

• Dropshipping

• Trading crypto 

• Even a social media marketing agency

They all failed…

Meanwhile, Lara had 100s of job applications rejected due to her “lack of skills and experience.”

One evening, she looked herself in the mirror. And with tears rolling down her face – she made a promise:

"I owe it to myself to become who I dream of."

In a bid to turn things around, she took her fitness more seriously. 

She quickly built her Instagram to 30K+ followers. She started a community, got offered brand deals, and was making money with affiliate marketing.

She was a fitness influencer.

Her drive to succeed online was finally paying off.

Until…

Things began to turn sour. 

She despised how superficial that world turned out to be. She knew it wasn’t sustainable. 

So she quit. 

Once again, she was back at square one

But a few months later, Lara came across a keynote in which Gary Vee said, “Go all-in on LinkedIn!” He explained how LinkedIn was an untapped opportunity hidden in plain sight.

With nothing to lose, Lara took Gary’s advice.

At first, she was overwhelmed. So many people from her past life were on LinkedIn. When she logged in, she was bombarded with people announcing how well they were doing. 

Lara felt like a failure. An imposter with nothing to announce.

So, in May 2022, she deleted her LinkedIn account – and started a new one.

She began:

• Following creators who inspired her

• Posting on topics she knew about

• engaging in communities

Within 2 weeks, one of Lara’s LinkedIn posts went viral

Before long, a group of supportive creators took Lara under their wing. They helped reset her negative mindset around social media.

Lara had finally found a sense of belonging.

Since then, Lara has taken LinkedIn by storm. 

All because she found something she could commit to with community and purpose.

Consistently creating content and engaging on LinkedIn continues to open doors for Lara.

In less than 2 years, she has:

• Scaled her personal branding agency (LA Digital) to 6-figures 

• Spoken on global stages with the likes of Justin Welsh

• Become the UK’s No.1 female LinkedIn creator

• Been featured in Forbes magazine

And recently, she’s started teaching LinkedIn personal branding to cohorts of aspiring creators.

The creators she once idolised are now her friends.

Despite numerous setbacks, Lara kept trying new things until she found HER thing.

The turning point came in 2022 when she gave herself a choice:

"Be better or stay bitter!"

Lara chose the former.

And she’s only just getting started.

Our interview with Lara Acosta

We asked Lara 9 burning questions about growing a personal brand on LinkedIn.

Let’s dive into Lara’s responses:

1. What’s one common mistake you see LinkedIn creators making?

They overuse selfies or photos and neglect learning how to write.

When I quit photos for a while, my impressions dropped heavily. I had no choice but to learn to write so my brand wasn’t attached 100% to my face but also my ability to write.

Learned a lot from Jake Ward on technical content and using Kleo ofc.

Today I use both and it yields the best results.

2. What’s your process for generating new content ideas?

I have a weekly post template with keywords to focus on specific content pillars.

• So Tuesdays I aim to give a writing tip and educate.

• Wednesdays I always try to post a story.

Helps me stay organised while remaining creative and up-to-date.

I then look at my own problems I solved and create content around it. Or problems I solved for clients. Or a topic I saw on my feed that I agree/disagree with.

Then I look at my best performing posts and look at the frameworks I used. 

If it’s a newer topic like productivity etc. I’ll go to people’s profiles and look for their best-performing content within those topics to see what made them work (using Kleo).

3. What’s the one change you’ve made to your content strategy that’s had a big impact?

I stopped context-switching.

I have time to ideate and another to write. 

Otherwise it takes me too long to write.

I also write based on what’s happening in my life a lot which makes it easy to write and builds that building in public element without explicitly saying it! Super good for community building.

4. What's your creator tool stack?

1. Kleo - for idea generation

2. Notes app - for everything

3. Tweethunter - for idea generation

4. Trello - for swipe files and client work

5. Kleo - for post previewing

6. ChatGPT - for writing

7. Claude - for writing

8. Perplexity - for writing

9. Taplio - for writing

10. Opal - for focus

11. Opus clip - for ideation

12. Cold turkey - for focus

13. Google docs - for script writing

14. VidIQ - for validation of ideas

15. Tokaudit - for research

5. How do you balance creating content with your other professional responsibilities?

Writing is therapeutic for me, it’s a hobby.

I was doing this for free before I even got paid.

So even when there’s no balance, I make time for it because I love it so much! :)

6. What’s your strategy for writing compelling LinkedIn hooks?

Optimising for mobile, making them 8-10 words long max and making sure that there are enough keywords in the first two lines to make an audience understand what they are getting from it.

I.E [How to] + [problem]

Or [I did amazing thing] + [desired time frame]

Touching on emotions is key, you need to be solving a problem or inspiring them to solve it via a story.

I always say my content is never about me, it’s about them. 

7. What’s one habit that has made you a better creator?

Writing every day, not so much now but in the come up I was writing a lot more comments with a lot more depth which helped me test ideas and build recognition for my brand.

I literally stole everyone’s audience by either leaving mega-valuable comments or just snarky sarcastic comments that added that vibe to my brand.

I don’t say slay on my content too much, but everyone thinks it for example. 

Because of my comments. Not just my content.

8. What’s your advice for someone just starting out as a LinkedIn creator?

Optimise for top-of-funnel content, because it gives you a quick win.

Most creators quit because they don’t see results within the first 3 months. 

When you get a big win under your belt you’re more likely to do the hard thing longer, something to do with our brain and how we prime it to like hard things as the dopamine hit nice and it rewards our hard work.

So even if you’re in a mega niche like dentistry, you can talk about the 9-5. Which is a top-of-funnel topic as 99% of people on linkedin would relate.

Stack small wins, stay longer.

9. What are you working on right now that excites you?

I dropped my first personal branding course on September 17th 2024!

It's been a dream of mine to have one people can just buy and take.

100s of hours of content and a brand new community to go with it and live calls from me!

Similar to my cohort but at a more accessible price and a LOT more content.

***

Thank you, Lara!

Make sure to follow (and subscribe to) Lara Acosta on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube.