Why Does Everyone Want to Be a “LinkedInfluencer?” — Mastering the Art of Linkedin

7 min readJan 26, 2023

Over the past three months, I’ve closely followed gurus and successful content creators on LinkedIn. I’ve dissected their strategy and copied it myself. I learned it doesn’t take much to see some results from a little personal branding effort.

Since most people don’t do any personal branding, just by showing up, you will set yourself apart from the crowd.

In this post, I’ll share a summary of what I’ve learned and the best resources so you can:

Build up your personal brand — key in today’s shaky economy where job security is on the fritz.
Rule the LinkedIn algorithm so your content appears in as many people’s feeds as possible.

Here we go!

First of All — Why Build Your Personal Brand?

By consistently sharing content about a specific topic on social media (i.e., fintech, B2B SaaS marketing, gardening), you become a perceived expert. More doors will open to you than ever before that will help you earn more money and give you leverage in the job market.

For example, if you become popular for making posts like “10 deadly sins of cash reporting,” what is very likely to happen is that people and media companies in the finance space will take notice.

You will receive invitations to be a guest on a podcast, write for a blog, or speak at events and webinars. Then, you have a bigger platform for meeting more potential customers, partners, etc.

The more ways people get to know you, the more interested they become in you, and by extension, the more they will come to know about your business and/or services.

People like to find out about brands and products from people they like and trust, not necessarily from the brand’s own social channels or website.

This is where you come in! You help create the buzz! Just like an actor who embarks on a media tour for their own film, there is no room to be shy. Chances are, if you work for or have built a solid company, you’re part of something AWESOME.

But Who Am I to Be a LinkedIn Content Creator?

You might be coming down with imposter syndrome now, thinking, “Who am I to create content for others on Linkedin?”

Well, who is anyone to be creating content?? Why NOT you?

If you don’t feel like positioning yourself as a “guru,” pontificating from your mountaintop, that’s okay!

There are two personas you can choose from when it comes to being a content creator:

The learner on a journey to X topic mastery
The expert on Y topic

How do you do that?

Write a statement in your LinkedIn title/bio that reflects it. Maybe even write in your profile why someone should follow you or connect with you, i.e., “I share content about fintech every Friday.”

If you want to be the “learner,” preface your posts with something like, “I’m no expert, but I am starting to see a lot of finance professionals do THIS when it comes to THIS. Here’s what I learned from them recently…”

The best part is that you don’t even have to have any original thoughts or ideas to be a successful content creator.

(Check out Dan Koe on what it means to be a value creator).

The short story is…

Ideas in = Ideas out.

If you make it a point to read one article on your topic per day, watch one video, or read one chapter from a book, you already have information you can reflect on, regurgitate, or synthesize with your own ideas. Come up with five takeaways and turn those into five nuggets, AKA 5 posts.

By sharing other peoples’ ideas, you can expose them to your audience, who perhaps wouldn’t have encountered them otherwise. And that is valuable in and of itself.

You can also “show up” where the conversation is already being had. Provide your take.

Now, you’re on your way to being the “go-to person” for that topic. Or an influencer.

As my colleague Joe Sabatino once told me, “You create influence by creating value.”

How to Win the LinkedIn Game with Zero-Click Content

In her Superside webinar, Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro, explained why you need to focus on creating “Zero Click” content. She says:

“LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google — none of them want you to click out and leave their platforms.
So beat them at their own game.
Create Zero-Click Content.”

Here’s how to make zero-click content…

1. Offer valuable, standalone insights

Write a post/ share an image/ upload a video to Linkedin that provides a complete thought or takeaways.

If you do want them to click on a link, make it additive value and post it in the COMMENTS only.

2. Make content native to the platform

Don’t make a 30-minute professional video for YouTube and then upload it to LinkedIn. It is better to record a short video from your phone with your thoughts for the day, keeping it personal and friendly.

Or, if you wrote a wonderful article for your company, chop it up into pieces across multiple LinkedIn posts.

Make your posts short and punchy.

3. Tell the juiciest info right away

Get to the point in the first line. Entice people to expand your post text, earning engagement so that LinkedIn’s algorithm rewards your post and shows it to more people.

4. Make sure every post has a call to action

What do you want the reader to do now that you’ve had their attention? What’s your “call to action” or CTA?

Do not always try to sell here. It will get old.

Instead, your CTA can be as simple as asking them to share their opinion in the comments.

Change up your CTA — don’t be too repetitive. Options:

“Read the full article, link in the comments.” (then you drop the link in the comments)
“What’s your take? Leave a comment.”
“Am I wrong here? Let me know in the comments.”

5. Build goodwill

Again, don’t try to push a sales offer every day, but provide something useful by itself. This way, your audience will like and trust you, remember you, and hopefully, seek your call to action when they’re ready.

You’re trying to get members of your audience to think to themselves, “Man this Kalei lady posts excellent content; I wonder what company she works for…” and then they check out your profile. From there, you’re in control of what they see.

What do you want them to learn more about?

Make it prominent on your profile.

6. Know what you want to be the go-to personality for

Think about the topic you know best and want to be known for. Let it guide what you post about.

For example, I follow lots of content marketers and SEOs. I look at their profiles for new tips, tricks, and ideas. If I ever want to hire a new marketing agency, I will see which of these influencers runs an agency first because I’m already familiar with their work.

Also, by engaging with them, I get to network with top marketers, which is helpful for me to put my name out there and make friends!

7. Ideally, post 3–5x a week in the morning.

Post often.

8. Write in short sentences.

No paragraphs.

When possible, tag other people, businesses, and/or your company page for greater exposure. All you have to do is type the “@” symbol before the name.

9. Know how the algorithm works

Here is an excellent summary of the do’s and don’ts of LinkedIn to game the algorithm in your favor:

(Image via Richard van der Blom and Katrin Wietek)

Best LinkedIn Posts & Resources

BONUS POINTS IF YOU DO THIS…

You can post amazing content consistently, but if you only have 100 followers on LinkedIn, your growth will be slow.

Spend time daily inviting professionals who fit your target audience to connect. You can also comment on other people’s posts who share content similar to yours.

Search for groups on LinkedIn where your target audience can be found and post your content in each of those as well.

Then, you can also send a connection request to people who are in those groups and say, “Hey I saw you are also in X group. Would love to connect and trade war stories!”

This message tends to do pretty well. This way, you can build your audience for your LinkedIn posts.

Aim to send out about ~20 requests per day. More than that, and LinkedIn will penalize you.

That’s it! What are some of your favorite LinkedIn resources? Who do you look up to on the platform? Leave a comment.