The Copy Couch: Supporting Businesses through LinkedIn Optimisation
We now live in the attention economy, with companies gravitating to places that have maximum eyeballs. In today’s modern world, that place is social media. Influencers have started making fortunes out of Instagram, Medium, and all the other platforms. In such a time, having a personal brand is more important than many people realise.
Social media is not only a great place to showcase snippets of your life, but also a way to carefully craft your image online, and Nancy Gupta realised this at the perfect moment. She calls her written foray on LinkedIn ‘accidental’, but working as a content strategist changed her belief. She grew a LinkedIn account from 5k to 65k followers in 10 months, and that’s when the Eureka moment struck.
‘Wait, I really know this platform!’ – The thought revolved around her head as she worked tirelessly to build her personal profile. When she started receiving inbound leads from founders and brands alike, she leveraged her skillset to create the copy couch. As a NIFT Delhi pass out, Nancy likes to think of herself or at least technically so, as a designer.
Leaving Corporate and the Birth of an Agency:
She did the whole corporate job phase but understood that the 9-5 routine or the office gossip weren’t aligned with her growth trajectory. It pushed her into LinkedIn, and today she works with different international founders, having procured multiple brand deals while creating content that has gotten 15M+ cumulative impressions across different profiles. In her words, life really wanted a plot twist, so a fashion kid from Delhi ended up creating a content agency.
Talking about branding and virality is the buzzword that everyone throws around. Hopping on trends to get visibility is great, but Nancy advises that one should provide consistency and credibility with unique and personalized storytelling rather than simply giving hot takes about the latest thing that breaks the internet. While most agencies sell you content, The Copy Couch, in their words, sells you ‘Thinking.’
They don’t aspire to simply fill content calendars but also help you build a loyal community. A simple aspiration that runs through her agency - write like humans, not like templates. Nancy tries to condense all this in a single statement.
‘If a post from us sounds like it could've been written by literally any brand, we've failed.’
Fears, insecurities and Advice for the Younger Generation:
But the journey wasn’t all smooth sailing, and explaining the concept of a ‘ghostwriter’ to her family was easier said than done. There were months when she posted with no traction, some days there were fewer than 10 likes, and periods when she genuinely questioned everything. But something scarier than failure was lurking around the corner. It was comparison!
Watching people her age settle into their corporate roles, completing their 9-5 shifts, not carrying work home, those with clear designations, whereas she struggled to sum up her position in one line. Yet, ask her if it was all worth it, and she says that LinkedIn gave her two invaluable things: Opportunities and confidence. It's something that nothing else could give her. She also concedes that she doesn’t have it all figured out and is building the plane while flying it.
Her advice to young entrepreneurs is something that’s been relayed a thousand times over but still holds immense weight. Stop waiting to feel ready. Even if you think no one’s watching, keep hitting post anyway. Similarly, she believes that consistency is the real differentiator and believes that we should all track not our crests or troughs but our averages. One great week doesn’t make you successful, and one bad week doesn’t make you a failure.
Documenting your life is a great way to get started because attracting attention is today’s greatest skill. The universe is never on a budget, so go grab your opportunities right now. Digital tools allowed Nancy to work remotely, from a pink MacBook and grow her business from cafes. So backing, no VC funding, no marketing push, just the desire to achieve something.