Right now I’m sitting on 127,000 impressions and crossed over the 10,000 follower milestone on LinkedIn.
And I did this in a matter of weeks, which is highly surprising since I have a love hate relationship with LinkedIn.
Many times a year I would go on stints where I will challenge myself to write a post every day and be engaged on the platform….so I can grow my brand and followers.
Monday would start and boy oh boy, I had a post up and scheduled.
Then I would schedule another one. I would spend Monday morning just filling my schedule for a good two weeks.
I wold post and get comments and I would like the comments and sometimes I would respond, but over time, I got distracted, or busy with life. Laundry calls, my son’s hungry AGAIN and oh man, we ran out of milk and now I have to go grab some for the morning.
Yes, that’s my life with two teen TWINS.
So, by week three, I would forget to schedule posts, and I wouldn’t even go on the feed to check other people’s posts to comment.
Five months would go by and I would try all over again. Maybe you connect with this and maybe YOU have done this also.
The most I would get is a few dozen new followers and my impressions would hover around 20,000.
So, when I tried again for the umpteenth time, I was shocked that I have these numbers.
What changed? Why did this iteration work and none of the other iterations had legs?
When breaking this down, I developed a 5-step process to grow on LinkedIn in less than a month.
So, if you’re struggling to grow on LinkedIn, follow this five-step LinkedIn growth plan below!
1. Like Posts
Sounds easy right?
Well, this is something I rarely did and when I did Like posts, I would do it haphazardly, without conscience or reverence. A Like here, a Like over there.
That is until I noticed that in my LinkedIn feed I was getting posts of people I followed. They liked a post so then that post went in my feed.
And a light bulb went off. Maybe if I like more, then I would be in people’s mind so that when I do post they will see it more often.
So, I began liking a ton of posts, but mostly job ads. I would Like any freelance writer job post and while this was happening I would also share on Facebook or X that I’ve been seeing a lot of jobs and if you want to see them to just follow me.
I’m not sure if that worked because I didn’t see much growth in the beginning.
It wasn’t until I started doing the second thing that things slowly started to build.
2. Write a Post Every Day M-F
Since LinkedIn is a business platform, you can get away with writing daily M-F.
What’s nice is that you can schedule your posts on LinkedIn. I’m not sure how far in advance but I’m sitting on around 2.5 weeks out.
So, how do you fill up your schedule? What do you post?
For me, it’s a lot of things I’m noticing and sharing handy resources. I will also use what is already working.
Since I’m liking a lot of posts, I’m reading a lot of posts and seeing the amount of Likes and comments. When I see one that interests me, I will write my own take.
I will also look at my own daily posts and if I see one that has higher engagement than previous, I will write a similar post. For example, my LinkedIn post on job boards was a big hit. I followed that up with a list of newsletters to find writing jobs and that did well too.
Do I use AI? If I do I just use it to paraphrase something I already have in a newsletter or on a Youtube video.
Otherwise, it’s just my writing. If you need help with some LinkedIn post ideas, grab my handy guide with 60 prompt ideas to help you figure out what to post.
And as before, I have no problem filling up a schedule. The problem comes when I have to keep ADDING TO IT.
Fortunately, because I’m on Substack, I now have a content day to fill up my queue on Substack notes and LinkedIn posts.
3. Reply to Comments
This is a no-brainer for any content creator, but for me, life gets in the way, and I am on more than one platform, so comments are a low priority…BEFORE..
Now? I make sure to answer them every time I go on LinkedIn. My Notification is always alerting me and I just take a few minutes to comment.
When you start publishing daily, you will start getting people to comment and the more comments are on a post, LinkedIn will share it to a wider and wider audience, so keep the engagement high on our posts.
4. Comment On Other People’s Posts
Go to your LinkedIn feed and scan all the posts until you see one that interests you. Go ahead and drop a thoughtful comment.
The point is to add a perspective or thought that gets noticed by the author and others. When this happens, they might follow you.
How often do you do this? For me it’s very organic. After I respond to comments I then go to my feed and comment on 1-2 posts I see. I’m really there to find freelance writing job ads, but if I find a post that interests me, I will comment.
5. Write a LinkedIn Article Once a Month
LinkedIn has a publishing platform where you can publish long-form articles and you can even start a newsletter.
I haven’t looked into starting a newsletter since I already have a Substack and two email lists for my blogs, but it looks like it would be a good thing to have for brand building.
Similar to Substck, you can write out an article and when you publish it, LinkedIn will share it in your feed.
What does this do? Well, for me I’m writing articles once a month for AI search visibility.
Google AI sites from LinkedIn and since my blog and Youtube channel is already been cited by AI search, I wanted to see if my LinkedIn articles will.
AI search only cites people (not companies) and long-form content, not short posts.
So, that’s why I’m writing a long-form article once a month
And my most recent LinkedIn article was cited in Google.
But writing articles on LinkedIn just helps grow your brand. You can repurpose newsletters and Substack articles if you want but if you want to get Google to surface your LinkedIn content, it should be original.
And once you do all these five steps guess what happens?
More people will Like and comment on your posts. Yup. Instead of 15 comments you will get 75 comments.
And then…out of nowhere you will start to get reposts. I’ve never had a repost before and now two of my posts have been reposted dozens of times.
For me, that’s pretty cool because those people are sharing it to their audience and maybe, just maybe, those people will follow me and read my posts and articles, growing my brand.
Once You Have New Followers and Your Impressions Are Up
Congrats! Your follower count is growing and you’re noticing more impressions on your content.
Now what? As more an more people view your profile and follow you, you might want to audit your LinkedIn profile to see if it fits your brand or if you can do something more or add something new.
For me, I recently started on Substack so I wanted to feature that but my featured content on my LinkedIn profile has mostly client posts.
While I want my LinkedIn profile to help me gain writing clients, I also wanted to show my content creator business too.
So, I removed the articles and added my digital shop and my Substack newsletter alongside my writing services page.
So prospects can look at me as a subject matter expert or LinkedIn writer and hire me based on that.
Another thing I did was change my LinkedIn banner copy and added a color to make my banner pop (because prior it was only white).
I’m not sure if purple is what I want but since I’m wearing a yellow hoodie I can’t use yellow (which is the color I want).
Remember This One Thing
Now that you have your LinkedIn profile working for you, be sure to keep at it.
Try to visit your LinkedIn profile once a day or more. Because I have a Substack, I’m checking both Substack and LinkedIn when I’m my laptop. They go together in my brain.
So maybe pair your LinkedIn with Substack or your blog or something else that needs frequent checking.
I hope you found this helpful. If you’re on LinkedIn, share your profile in the comments so we can all follow each other (of course, if it makes sense).
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