"I Don't Have Anything Valuable to Say on LinkedIn." Not True.
How to get started, find your voice, and build your network.
I met with a mentee last week who shared the below:
I know I should build my presence on LinkedIn, but I don’t have anything valuable to say and don’t really have the time or know how to do it.
The Motivation Question: Why LinkedIn
Look—if you don’t feel motivated to do something, then you won’t do it. I know this is super deep stuff, but you should start with whether you actually want to build a presence on LinkedIn. If you don’t, then don’t do it. Figure out another way to network, such as industry meetups, connecting on TikTok/Insta with people, or posting on X.
Three reasons why I build my network (primarily) on LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is built for career networking. People are (generally) not posting about personal life, politics, or their pets so it’s less cringe when you post your work wins, milestones, and career-related accomplishments because people expect (and celebrate) it.
It’s a less awkward way to stay in touch with people. As of this article, I have 5.7K followers and 5.5K connections on LinkedIn. There is no way I would have asked for 10K+ people’s phone numbers or emails. LinkedIn allows me to keep in touch with people, ask for their advice, and share with I’m working on. I think of LinkedIn as my personal assistant who allows me to reach out or stay in touch at a moment’s notice.
There is a correlation between your network and opportunities in your career. Opportunities ultimately come from people. Unless you went to an ivy league or got an internship at Goldman, building a network is the primary way that you will get opportunities in life and LinkedIn makes it easy to build those connections.
Still not sure? Start small and see what happens. Here’s how…
Step 1: Build the Network
Follow/Connect: Add people who are already in your network and those you meet or find interesting. Unless you want to be talking into the void, you have to start with connecting with people on LinkedIn. There are two ways to get connected to someone on LinkedIn: Connect and Follow.
Connect: If you click this, they receive a notification and have to Accept or Decline your connection request. TL/DR: connection requests max out at a certain point, so some people are touchier with who they connect with—don’t overthink it. If they are at your company, someone who knows you, or you’ve partnered with them then connect.
Follow: If you click this, they receive a notification that you followed them, but there is no approval process on their end. This allows you to see all of their posts and you can interact with it on the main feed. I recommend you follow a ton of people, including thought leaders, authors, business leaders, and anyone you find inspiring.
TL/DR: Connect: we know each other, let’s keep in touch. Follow: you don’t know me, but I think you’re cool and want to learn from you.
Step 2: Show Up in the Network
5-10 Minutes per Week: Post thoughtful/non-AI-generated comments on others’ LinkedIn posts. Imagine that every single post on the main LinkedIn feed is someone talking directly to you (1:1 IRL) and then your comment is how you would respond. If you’re talking to someone at dinner, you’re not going to listen to them, think deeply about it, pull up ChatGPT, ask them to refine your response, and then reply. You’re just going to talk—do this for 5 minutes daily or a few minutes multiple times per week and you are on your journey to building your LinkedIn presence. When you comment, others see it, see that you are engaged in interesting discussions, and respect you a bit more.
15 Minutes per Week: Post an interesting article related to career or industry on your own LinkedIn profile. This means that you’re actually reading interesting things related to your career, but this is a pretty easy one. Read an industry publication (Google: top news for XYZ industry or XYZ role), think about/form a thought, and then post it. It can be as simple as sharing the link, a brief thought, “Really inspired/interested/encouraged by this article last week,” or “This changed my mind about how I approach X/Y/Z.” Don’t overthink it—the cringe feeling creeping up your body is called climbing cringe mountain, but you have to get over it and just do it. Also, do this step in combination with step 1 for maximum impact.
It’s Really That Easy?
Yup—it’s really that easy. Keep Connecting or Following people that you meet at college, work, conferences, events, happy hours, and throughout work travel. Every person you add on LinkedIn is increasing the surface area of you getting lucky and finding an incredible career opportunity.
That’s It, seriously. Already doing this and want to go deeper?
Here are three ways to level up once you’ve built the habit:
Use the Featured section of your profile to post cool stuff you’re working on. If you’re at a big company and then post about something you’ve helped deliver, then add the link of the article to your Featured section (this helps recruiters and hiring managers know what you’ve done). Below is the section from my Linkedin.
Write an article highlighting your work, career-related things you’re thinking about, or where you see the world moving. LinkedIn has a built-in article and newsletter feature so you can create these without having to setup anything on Substack or your own site.
Comment on a LinkedIn news article. Click on any of the stories in the LinkedIn News section of your main feed, click Share in the top right of the article, and create your own post or comment on someone else’s thoughts. On the DL, LinkedIn’s own editorial people review the activity in this section of the site and may feature your work if it gains traction or is particularly thoughtful.
It’s a snowy day in Austin, TX so I’m going to wrap it up, but you can do this! Start small, build your network, and before you know you’ll have a valuable community of people that you can rely on throughout your working life.
Inspired to keep improving your career: