Navigating LinkedIn: What My First Five Posts Would Look Like.

Starting out on LinkedIn can feel like stepping into a vast and unfamiliar landscape. It’s scary and filled with doubt, the thought of, “What should I start with? What should I post first?” I've been in the space, so I can imagine, and that's why I've written this piece to guide those that are starting out.

First, kudos to you for taking a bold step and deciding to control the narrative about your personal and professional brand. Now, as you embark on this journey, here's a guide to how your first five LinkedIn posts may look like. Basically, this is how my first five LinkedIn posts would look like. I’ve implemented this strategy for a number of my clients, and I’ve seen it improve their visibility 100X in just the first months of posting.

Introduction and Purpose:

Are you new on LinkedIn? Or do you have an account that has been dormant (ghost account) since you opened it? Whichever category you fall under, your first LinkedIn post should be an introduction to the LinkedIn community. Share a bit about yourself, your background, career aspirations, and reasons for joining LinkedIn. Express your excitement about connecting with fellow professionals, learning from others, and contributing to valuable discussions in your field.

There are two things an introductory post does. One, if it's filled with the right keywords, it helps you connect with more people in your niche/industry. And the other is the LinkedIn algorithm loves new people, so it will definitely pick up your post and spread it further to other like-minded individuals depending on the keywords used.

Look at it this way: here you are, a new user, starting out without an introduction and making random posts, which will have you posting to yourself and your 0-10-50 followers simply because the algorithm doesn’t know who exactly will benefit from your posts. Check out some introductory posts from my clients like Doreen , Patience , and Winnie by tapping their names.

Engaging with Feedback:

After introducing yourself, engage with the feedback and comments you receive from your connections. Express gratitude for the warm welcome and respond to inquiries or shared interests. Building rapport and establishing connections early helps you set the stage for meaningful interactions and relationships on LinkedIn.

Now, it’s this engagement that builds onto your next post. For example, you’re a lawyer like my client Doreen up there, and in the comments section on your introductory post, people raised the concern that there are not so many lawyers on LinkedIn, yet they’d love to receive legal tips or advice here or there. This is your golden opportunity to make a post calling out all lawyers/the legal community to join you on your journey but also inquire from your audience what type of legal content they’d like to read from you.

Here is how my post would look:

“On Monday, I made my debut post on this platform, an introductory post where I let you all in about who I am, what I do, and who I do it for. Going through the comments section, I noticed many people expressed the concern of not having legal practitioners active on LinkedIn. So this post is to call out all my fellow lawyers and advocates, let's stop hiding; it's high time we show up and show the world what we can do. That said, I’d like to hear from you all my new connections, what are some of those burning legal issues that you’d love for me to start posting about. Kindly let me know in the comments section, please.”

Career Journey or Business Story:

Now that you’ve introduced yourself and engaged with feedback, it’s high time you share more about your story. For career professionals, this can be the story of your career journey, and for entrepreneurs, this can be how you started your business.

Use this opportunity to reflect on key milestones, challenges overcome, and moments of inspiration. Give us all the gist (okay some gist) like how you ended up in marketing, what was your dream career as a child, what inspired you to pursue your current career, how have you evolved over the years, and so much more. Everyone has a story to share doesn’t matter if you’re still at college or not, just let your audience in deeper into you as a person, your journey, and your inspirations. Your personal narrative humanises your brand, making you relatable and providing insights into your professional evolution or dreams.

Lessons Learned:

Intro check, feedback check, story check; it’s about that time you reflect on the lessons you've learned throughout your journey, whether as a business owner, student, or career professional. Yes, don’t overthink this, we learn something new every day, and we can only become 1% better everyday if we share with others what we learn. So what have learned along your journey? What are those hacks/tricks/strategies that you can share with your audience?

I recently learned a new networking strategy called FORM from Winnie here. That while building relationships with people, focus on these four things:

F - Their Family (We’re all attached to our families)

O - Occupation (Try and find out what that person does)

R - Recreation (How do they spend their time off all the hustle)

M - Motivation (What motivates and drives them to do what they do)

Offering such insights, anecdotes, and wisdom is one way to start positioning yourself as the go-to person for tips on the platform. Remember, 95% of the audience on Linkedin are looking for educative, informative, and inspiring content.

Sharing Niche Tips:

Finally, now that the algorithm knows who you are, you’re actively engaging and collecting feedback from your audience, you’ve given us a glimpse into your life journey and lessons learned, then you can dive into sharing valuable tips, strategies, or insights related to your niche or area of expertise. But first, take a step back, on day 2, you requested your audience to share their concerns and what they’d love for you to post about. So why not pick that post from those comments. Yes, there may be 10 or 20 issues so you can note them down and keep addressing one by one.

See how creating content on LinkedIn is easy if you follow the right strategy?

Just look at it like a presentation that has an introduction, agenda, executive summary, and so much more. All you’ve to do is keep the flow and don’t forget to respond and engage in the comments because this is where you pick your next content idea.

Extra Tip:

This is my premium tip, and I feel so sad while writing it, but I’ve to because I want to see everyone thrive and build a strong professional and personal brand on LinkedIn. It’s a 3X Strategy. You’ve seven days in a week, but there are these three premium content ideas that shouldn’t miss in your weekly content.

1. Always share a personal story: Personal stories make your content more relatable and help you build trust with your audience. Here is an example of a personal story I shared that sparked conversations, tap here .
2. Always share a post about your expertise: Yes, after connecting with the audience, you always got to remind them about the problems you solve. On a weekly or 2X a week, make posts demonstrating your expertise. Tap here and here to see how I share those.
3. Share about trending industry topics: Mixing your expertise with industry topics helps position you as a thought leader in your niche. Always include at least one post about such in your schedule. Tap here to see how I maximise them in my content.

I’ve given you my all, picked from the top corner, and handed you a gold mine. So as you navigate your journey on LinkedIn, remember to stay authentic, engage with your audience, and provide value through your posts. Like I always say, the audience is looking for ACTIONABLE content, so make sure that every piece you share propels people to take action.

Here's to making your mark and soaring to greater heights. See you on the other side!

Cheers!