How I run 3 channels without losing my mind

Hey {{first_name| default: there}},

I promised this one on LinkedIn.

Quick recap: YouTube channel didn't exist before February. Now it's at 82K views, 3.3K subscribers, 40+ inbound calls in the last 5 weeks. Newsletter at 2,770 subscribers two weeks in. LinkedIn still pulling calls daily.

And I'm writing this on a plane to Washington to get my China visa. With zero time this weekend.

That's the whole point of what I'm about to walk you through. The flywheel is the only reason any of this works.

Before I break down the workflow, I have to tell you how I even started.

I had no idea where to start on YouTube for the LinkedIn niche. We've run YouTube for Backlinko (SEO) and HeyReach (outbound/GTM). Different worlds.

So I ate my own dog food. The thing I tell people on LinkedIn all the time.

Steal like an artist.

If I had just blindly hit record hoping good intentions would carry me, my first video would've flopped. No structure, no signal, no idea what actually works on this niche of YouTube.

Success leaves clues. I just had to follow them.

I opened a new Notion master doc and started saving every single creator making good content about LinkedIn on YouTube. Lara Acosta. Tommy Clark. Mark Firth. Kasey Brown. Sam Dunning. Michelle J Raymond. Pierre Herubel. Matthew Lakajev. Michel Lieben. 15+ channels.

Then I studied them. Not their average videos. Their outliers. The ones that popped way above their baseline. That's where the signal lives.

For each one I studied:

My first video was inspired by Tommy Clark's "If I Started LinkedIn in 2026, I'd Do This" (16K views). Great structure, great hook.

I wrote three title options for my version:

Option 1 won. That video sits at 6.6K views two months in and was the launchpad for everything that came after.

Side by side, my thumbnail looks nothing like Tommy's. My script went in a completely different direction. The video is mine.

By video #4 I started generating net-new ideas, getting creative, having fun. The training wheels came off.

That's the goal. Use the library until you don't need to rely on it.

I'll be honest. I tried some things that didn't fit.

I told people on LinkedIn I was going to start posting on Twitter. I gave it a real shot. But I didn't enjoy it, didn't love making it, and kept getting pulled back to long-form video and written content.

So I dropped it.

If you don't love the format, it will show. You'll half-ass it, burn out, or quietly quit. I rather stay focused on the channels where I actually want to do the work.

Not every "good idea" is for you. Pick the channels you actually enjoy.

Here's the base unit:

1 YouTube video → multiple LinkedIn posts → 1 newsletter issue → 1 blog post → 1 lead magnet tied to it

One video becomes way more than one LinkedIn post. I showcase lots of case studies inside each video, so a single client story can become its own post. Small parts of the video turn into standalone posts across 2-3 weeks.

Sometimes I flip the flywheel in the other direction. I'll test-launch an idea on LinkedIn first (faster to publish), see what traction and feedback it gets, then turn the ones that resonate into a YouTube video.

Or I might even make this issue into a YouTube script…

Even the hook I tested on the YouTube video often becomes the hook for a LinkedIn post.

Every YouTube video and newsletter issue also becomes a long-form blog on my site. Claude runs the transcript through my blog writer skill and gives me a WordPress-ready article. I edit for voice, then publish.

Why blogs? SEO and AI search. LinkedIn posts die in 48 hours. Newsletter issues get opened once. Blogs rank in Google forever and get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

We also record an AI training slug on every YouTube video. A short elevator pitch spoken on camera in the third person: who I am, what Distinctiva does, who we help. YouTube transcribes it automatically.

Then we embed the video throughout the blog post, so the transcript is indexed alongside the written content. The AI layer of the internet reads transcripts. Feed it the exact facts you want cited back.

Write once. Rank forever. Get cited by AI.

The lead magnet ties it all together. Every video, post, and blog points to something readers can actually use. Each one moves them from follower to subscriber to community member.

One idea. Multiple formats. Each with a job.

That's around 4-6 hours of deep work for the whole week's content. On travel weeks it stretches. This newsletter you're reading right now took me closer to 2 hours because I'm on a plane and had to re-set my brain.

The tools that make this possible:

Nothing fancy. Just connected.

This is a big one.

Every client call, consulting call, sales call, and discovery call gets recorded. The transcripts sit in my Google Drive where Claude can access them.

When I need an insight for a newsletter or post, I don't sit down and "come up with" something. I go back to a call where I already said it out loud to a real person, with real context. Claude pulls the gold. I turn it into a piece of content.

The best content I make is usually stuff I already said on a call. I just forgot I said it until Claude reminded me.

This is a piece nobody talks about and in my opinion it's the most important one.

You need a space where you can go deep with your thoughts. Somewhere you can extend yourself. Somewhere you can be messy, criticize yourself, dissect your own ideas, and see where your gaps are.

Short-form social doesn't let you do that. The format itself doesn't allow it. A LinkedIn post is too tight. A tweet is too short. You can't dig into your own thinking in 200 characters.

And that matters for the flywheel. Because you can't repurpose a short, choppy LinkedIn post into long-form content. It doesn't work in reverse. Long form feeds short form. Not the other way around.

Your deep space can be anything. A YouTube video. A newsletter. A blog. A podcast. Even your client calls count, that's why I record them. Somewhere you're forced to actually think through a topic beginning to end, not just say the punchy version.

If you don't have that space, your content will stay surface level forever. You'll run out of things to say. You'll feel like you're repeating yourself because you haven't given yourself the room to go deeper into anything.

Pick your deep space. Build it. Protect the time for it. Everything else compounds from there.

YouTube video: "The NEW LinkedIn Algorithm Rules (8 Fixes for 2026)." 4.5K views in 9 days.

From that one video:

→ LinkedIn post: "I'll make you a bet. Pull up your LinkedIn profile. I can spot at least one thing suppressing your reach." Linked the video and the free Algorithm Audit Kit I built as a lead magnet. 111 comments.

→ Newsletter issue: "I made a mistake in my algorithm video." A senior engineer from LinkedIn corrected something in the first video. I turned that into a second newsletter about what I got wrong and what the VP of Engineering actually said. New angle on the same core insight.

→ Lead magnet: Free Algorithm Audit Kit. Readers get it as a Notion template. It's been bringing in subscribers every day and pulling people into The LinkedIn Engine community. Anthony (a community member) literally set up his optimized profile after watching the video. Started his LinkedIn from scratch because of the content.

One idea. Multiple pieces of content. Community members. Calls booked. Subscribers in.

That's the flywheel actually spinning.

I don't prompt Claude from scratch every time. I've built projects and skills so I can just say "use this skill" and it knows what to do.

My setup:

When I'm ready to write a LinkedIn post from a brain dump, I paste the dump into Claude and say "use the hook skill." That's it. Claude handles the structure. I come in for editing, proofreading, and voice tuning.

The more context I give Claude (brain dumps, old posts, screenshots, call transcripts), the better it gets. That's why I never delete anything. Every screenshot and note becomes training fuel.

I keep a content calendar in Notion that's always open. Any random idea gets dumped in immediately. A comment someone left. A frustration from a client call. A line I heard in a podcast. A screenshot of another creator's post that sparked something.

When I sit down to write, I'm never staring at a blank page.

I've already got 10-20 brain dumps waiting with screenshots, context links, and my raw thinking. Claude takes that and gives me a scaffold in minutes.

Same principle as the YouTube doc. Steal like an artist. Capture inspiration as it happens. Return to it when you need it.

This is how I know what to make next.

Every comment and DM that has a signal (a question, a pushback, a breakthrough moment) gets turned into a Notion card. Screenshot. Context. Link back to the original. A brain dump for future Diandra.

That's where next week's ideas come from. Not from a trend report. From the actual conversations happening in my DMs.

The signals feed the flywheel. The flywheel creates new signals. Repeat.

I used to love carousels. They performed.

Now? They take forever to make and aren't pulling results the way they used to. So I shifted.

YouTube and newsletter let me go deep. 16 minutes of video. 1,500 words in an issue. Real strategy, real playbooks, the exact things I can't fit into a LinkedIn post.

And my LinkedIn content has gotten better because of it. Writing long forces me to think more deeply. The tight posts come easier because I've already done the heavy thinking somewhere else.

Long form makes short form sharper. That's been the biggest surprise.

I'm actually running 4 channels, not 3. I co-write The Workflow with Sara Stella Lattanzio. Every issue gets repurposed into minimum 3 LinkedIn posts I use every 2 weeks.

Same system. Dedicated Claude project. Skills built for the repurposing. It all plugs in.

The more you do, the more you have to write about.

Every client win is a new post. Every conference is 3 posts and a newsletter. Every DM is a card for future Diandra. Every weekend trip to Washington for a China visa becomes a newsletter (hi).

Most people hit a wall because they try to create content about content. That's the dry well.

Live a life that generates content. The flywheel will take care of the rest.

If you only take one thing from this newsletter, let it be this:

Build the capture system before you build the publishing system.

Then the publishing becomes the easy part.

Success leaves clues. Follow them. Then make it yours.

That's the flywheel. That's how the effort compounds.

Talk soon,

D.

PS — I'm teaching this entire system inside The LinkedIn Engine community. The Notion templates. The Claude projects. The skills. The workflows. Everything I just walked you through, step by step, with live audits and bootcamps. Founding member pricing is still open. Join The LinkedIn Engine →