From 30k Followers to Top Voice in 90 Days—The Simple Steps That Changed Everything
Kait LeDonne
Personal Branding Expert for Ambitious Professionals and Thought Leaders in the Making ? Join 53k Members Receiving Weekly Personal Brand Playbooks by Subscribing to My Newsletter ? Speaker & Corporate Trainer
Between the months of August and September, a trifecta of “tipping points†happened for my personal brand.
- I surpassed 30,000 followers on LinkedIn
- I received the LinkedIn editor stamp of approval through the blue “Top Voice†badge
- I made Favikon’s list of top 10 personal brand experts in the United States
Now, before you go thinking that this is just a victory lap of “how wonderful I am,†I’m here to emphatically state it is not.
While I was of course elated by these things, it led me to the question of “Why now? Why after 10 years did these things happen within 90 days of each other?â€
The answer?
It isn’t just that I “stayed consistent.†Instead, I took time to analyze what really changed for me this past year that seemed to turbocharge momentum for my brand, and today, I want to share those simple and integrable findings. Because if there is one thing I want you to always know, it’s this…
If I can do it, I truly believe you can too.
The Top 4 Things You Can Do Today to Create Faster Momentum with Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn:
1. Build your network daily
You’d think as a branding professional, my first bit of advice would be to focus on messaging. But that’s all wrong. Instead, start seeding your network daily. My favorite part of LinkedIn is that you can reverse engineer your audience to be your target demographic. I add 20 “perfect prospects†a day to mine.
Because LinkedIn is not the movie Field of Dreams. People won’t flock to your content simply because you create and publish it. Invite the ones to your network who most need to hear it.
??No offense, Kevin Costner, I think that strategy may only work with baseball playing ghosts. Definitely not LinkedIn.
2. Engage, a lot.
Check out my surge in followers on October 11th:
You’d think I had a high-performing post. Actually, that day’s post didn’t perform as well as other posts from that same week.
The reality was that I took an hour to make meaningful comments on my network’s posts, and message supporters.
Now, I get it. I don’t have an hour a day to do this frequently either, but I do often have 30 minutes. And on Fridays I have more room to “digitally network,†which is why I see these end of week spikes. This is certainly not something I was doing before this year.
3. I became uber clear on my audience’s top 3 issues
Then I only wrote about those issues. Again, and again, and again. Did it feel exasperating? Sometimes. Did I worry I was repeating myself? No, not really.
I know it takes people around 7-12 times to see something before it clicks for them. So I know I need to keep saying the same things over and over before it unlocks understanding in my audience’s minds. This is not overkill. This is psychology.
??Stop saying 365 different things. Start finding out how to say 1-3 things in 365 different ways.
4. I stayed very, very consistent with my LinkedIn newsletter
And grew that to over 51,280 subscribers. It’s by far my top-performing brand aspect.
Guess what else?
Every edition I post of my LinkedIn newsletter nets me, on average, 36 people that day alone. I also know this was a huge feather in my cap in getting the blue badge for Top Voice; editors aren’t just looking for quantity of posts, but length and quality of thought leadership. A LinkedIn newsletter is a very effective way to do this.
The Recap?
If your personal brand growth has been stuck on LinkedIn, revisit the four pieces of “low hanging fruit†above.
Ready for next steps?
??Be First to Get My LinkedIn Newsletter Flash Course
And if you haven’t developed a LinkedIn newsletter yet, I can’t implore you enough to do so. It can be one of the biggest catalysts to skyrocketing your LinkedIn following and your overall thought leadership and value.
On Black Friday, I’m releasing a “LinkedIn Newsletter Flash Course.†It’s a full checklist with coordinating videos walking you through:
- How to craft an irresistible newsletter title and topic
- How to secure your first hundreds of subscribers within a day
- How to develop an entire annual content calendar
- How to use your LinkedIn newsletter to convert readers into customers
Join the waitlist here.
VP@KMBL ??| 21k+ LinkedIn Family ??| 2.6M+ Impressions ??| LinkedIn Top Voice ??| Growth Mindset??
4 个月Very helpful Kait LeDonne ??
CEO of Triangle | Speaker | Leading Global Personal Branding Agency
4 个月It's all about showing up consistently & staying consistent with your brand messaging, Kait
CEO @ Style Space, Elevating workplaces through personal style ? International Speaker & Corporate Trainer ???????????????? ? 2X founder ? Award-Winning Author
4 个月“Stop saying 365 things, find 3 things to say in 365 different waysâ€. This really resonated with me!
Director Consulting to Financial Service Providers
4 个月One of the only online computer games I’ve played besides Solitaire was called Lord of Ultima. It took me 3 years to win the golden crown. It was a big deal. There were millions of players around the globe. In my 3 years I joined alliances, led them and eventually created my own. Now many people have finished and won the game. A game took about 6 months to complete. If you bought ministers who would run your empire while you were offline you could finish in 2 months. Not me, I refused to capitulate and waste money as I believed I could do it myself. I am one of the few who ever won it in that way. I’ve been working hard on building my network without using Premium. As in Lord of Ultima I don’t feel the need to pay for what I can do myself. I’m on 17500 followers. Took about 3 years.I send out the max number of invites on Mondays and see a great uptake. My network grows at a rate of around 600 per month. I get a few requests everyday too. LinkedIn has been a conduit for me. I landed up with some consulting work but not through the jobs portal. I used LinkedIn to identify the right people to talk to. I’m continuing on this path and hope the platform will continue to pay dividends in terms of work opportunities.
Founder & CEO of MyTravaly
4 个月If it worked for you, it will probably work for others too. I really liked the idea from your newsletter about finding ways to say the same thing differently.