How I overcame my fear of commenting on someone’s post, started producing regular LinkedIn content and developed my personal brand.
I post on LinkedIn an average of three times a week, I accept over a hundred connection requests every month, I host a podcast and release new episodes bi-weekly, and I don’t think twice when I want to comment or engage with someone else’s content. If it sounds like I am bragging, I kinda am. But mostly because I am proud at how far I’ve come in the past three years.
Let’s rewind to March 2021, when I decided to pursue a personal branding project—in other words, work on becoming more comfortable having a professional online presence. I reached out to someone to help me “setup my Linkedin profile” and well…things kind of escalated from there.
As someone who thrives when diving 150 percent into hobbies and projects—if you recall, my passion for good food turned into pursuing culinary school—I found a course to kickstart my LinkedIn makeover. For those who haven’t explored LinkedIn Learning®, I highly recommend looking into it. There are over 16,000 courses to choose from including Becoming A Thought Leader, which I completed alongside my brand new, personal branding coach. The goal? To figure out what (if anything) I wanted to say on LinkedIn and in the industry as a whole. And one step further, how I was going to say it.
Finding My Why
So, there I was sitting on a Zoom call with a personal brand coach who had no background in infrastructure or major programmes, trying to explain my industry and why I was passionate about becoming a more prominent voice within it. We spent months talking—me trying to explain the industry’s many intercities and challenges, her translating my tangled thoughts into structurally correct sentences.
After many weekly Zoom meetings, we completed the thought leadership course prompts and she presented me with my personal rebranding strategy. Everything from updated copy for my LinkedIn’s About section to a 15-minute daily engagement routine for interacting with my LinkedIn audience. There was also a section called The Extra Mile that suggested everything from developing whitepapers to publishing my own website and speaking on expert panels. The insights dek concluded with the following quote: “You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not.”
As I read through her recommendations for my digital online presence, I was skeptical and truly uncomfortable about proceeding with much of it. Sure, I’d update my LinkedIn’s About section and descriptions of my previous jobs, but I thought the suggestion of a website or speaking on panels were just off base. Reluctantly, I put my trust into the process and did my best to follow the 15-minute LinkedIn engagement strategy to get myself more comfortable on the platform.
15-Minute LinkedIn Engagement Strategy
Hi Riccardo,
Here is your daily LinkedIn Engagement Checklist:
- Respond to any comments from recent posts (always attempting to further the conversation with an insightful question)
- Respond to any valid friend requests and reach out with personal message
- Engage (like, no comment) with five relevant posts from your community
- Comment on one relevant post from your peers, either directly on the post or as a reply to someone else’s initial comment
- Send two strong friend requests to relevant industry members who have engaged with the peers above
Keep in mind these are just guidelines (sometimes you might see several people you’d like to send friend requests to, etc) but do your best to stick with this consistently. The above checklist should become a routine part of your day over coffee or before bed.
A few other things to keep in mind while growing your LinkedIn following:
- Your LinkedIn profile should be linked in your email signature (in all professional emails)
- Joining and engaging in LinkedIn groups that fall within your industry or the topics you cover, can help expand your network very quickly. Here is one you can join and post your systems thinking animation or article. For now, let’s aim for you to join and engage with one group a month, posting within a week of joining each group. You should be able to leverage the connections made within these groups for your daily friend requests (and ultimately, receive several “follows” per day from these groups)
- Post with visuals. When sharing your own content (instead of resharing an article), uploading with an image is proven to harness twice as many views (at least with the current algorithm)
- Post one long-form article per month (12 a year). We are already on track with this for the 2021 Reading List. As with anything, consistency is key.
Good luck and chat soon!
For years, I had been using LinkedIn like 90 percent of people—reposting my company’s latest news and reading through content of those brave enough to post and maybe, leaving a like or two. And maybe just scrolling without engaging anything at all. But, with this new daily strategy, that old routine wasn’t an option.
Liking turned into commenting; commenting turned into reposting; reposting turned into reposting with my thoughts; which then turned into posting original ideas. This process slowly helped me gain my confidence in engaging with the platform and I posted my first long-form article: 2021 Reading List (So Far). If you look through my most recent articles, you’ll see I’ve come a long way in terms of the type of content and level of vulnerability I am comfortable posting, but at the time, I had never felt more exposed. What would people think about my reading recommendations? Would they seem too elementary? Would my takeaways be profound enough?
Unbeknownst to me then, LinkedIn was subtly casting a spotlight on the depths of my imposter syndrome. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say (my wife can attest to my many industry rants over dinners), it was that I feared that no one would want to listen. Afterall, who was I to be a “thought leader” in our industry? I needed the push to publish and I knew I couldn’t articulate my thoughts the way I wanted to on my own.
Hiring A Ghostwriter
Much like the varied opinions surrounding ChatGPT, the topic of hiring ghostwriters also sparks strong reactions. For those who may not be familiar, the Oxford Dictionary defines a ghostwriter as “a person who writes a book, etc. for another person, under whose name it is then published.” Originating in the 1920s, the term ‘ghostwriter’ has been used to describe authors who are compensated to create books or articles that are then officially attributed to someone else.
After spending far longer than I’d like to admit typing and retyping comments before ultimately deleting them, I realized I needed word-confidence. While I could explain an industry concept or my thoughts on new developments in a couple of minutes, writing them into posts was painfully inefficient. So, during my weekly call with my brand coach, I would talk about anything and everything going on in the industry and she would transcribe and translate into LinkedIn-friendly posts or articles for me to use at a later date.
Working with a ghostwriter has allowed me to focus on the topics I’m passionate about, rather than just being a parrot for my employer. LinkedIn becomes a far more interesting platform when we manage our profiles as our own, not as a mouthpiece for our companies. It’s a fine line to walk, but it’s worth it.
Am I posting on LinkedIn too much?
Are my LinkedIn posts still my own? While I believe they are, I know some reading this may not agree. As I mentioned, my personal brand coach turned ghostwriter has no experience in the industry and therefore couldn’t write the content on my LinkedIn without my input and insights. Despite the controversy on this topic, I want to be extremely transparent: I delegate a lot of copywriting because, over the years, peers have complimented my LinkedIn and asked how I manage to do it all—and I don’t, at least not alone.
If you’ve read this far, the question must have popped into your head by now: “So, is what I’m reading now from Riccardo or a ghostwriter?” Well, let’s just say BOO! It’s me, the ghostwriter, writing in a brand voice that sounds remarkably like Riccardo’s, because it is. As a twenty-something journalist and digital marketer, I have no direct experience in many of the topics Riccardo wants to share with you all—especially the technical pieces! But with our system of interviewing, translating, and reviewing, we’ve been able to publish consistent content that resonates and allows Riccardo to get his thoughts out there. In fact, I believe I’ve created a content monster, as he is constantly bringing new ideas for posts, podcasts, and even has started feeling comfortable writing his own posts consistently.
While you can assume my biases, I am a huge advocate of teaming up with ghostwriters to help you articulate your story. It should come as no surprise that celebrities and best-selling authors utilize ghostwriters to help them create higher quality content more efficiently. Just because someone doesn’t write naturally (or didn’t go to university to learn how) doesn’t mean they don’t have something to say. As I wrote to Riccardo after our first meeting, you have a personal brand, whether you like it or not. So, what does your LinkedIn currently say about you? And if it doesn’t say much, that also says a lot.
Well, thank you for reading this one. It was lovely to write to you for the very first time, as me, your undetected ghost.