You’ve probably heard that Linkedin is essential to building your professional (hopefully Agile!) brand.
So I am, of course, active on the platform.
But I will admit to you, I wasn’t always a fan.
I resisted for a very long time.
Something made me change my tune, though. So let me share this through the lens of Scrum…
Some Transparency
For years, I repeatedly tumbled down the rabbit hole of social media.
Endless scrolling.
Shouting into a black hole.
Always feeling like I was behind everyone and I would never catch up.
I gave up many times.
Last year: But Linkedin is DIFFERENT! I was told.
It is where people find clients! Or find jobs! Or land amazing opportunities!
Was this really true, though? Could this work for me, someone who had a largely unused account with only a few connections?
I decided to give it a good old college try.
In the past 6 months, I have been building a professional brand as a thought leader on Linkedin.
And like building a solid team, you have to start with them trusting you.
That doesn’t happen overnight.
So how are things going? Let me share my journey so far.
My Learnings:
1. Study those who do it well. But don’t compare yourself to them.
I observed successful people in my Linkedin network. And I found they all did the same things.
I took a Teachable course to learn what that is.
Also: Be realistic
It took these folks a lot of effort and possibly a long time to get the engagement they have now.
They may do it close to full time or have others to help them. (You may not. I certainly don’t.)
They may use pods, which makes them look popular, but doesn’t always translate into anything (jobs, sales etc.)
2. Create 3 months worth of on-brand content and put it on recycle.
In the past, I would do 1 month in advance, but that month would be up fast. And I would get busy, so I’d quickly be right back to posting the day of.
I would get burned out trying to come up with yet another clever, engaging post each day.
But this time, I needed a new strategy. So I worked non-stop in March and April to create the 3 months of posts.
Why 3 months? It’s enough that you can recycle it and people won’t remember and tune it out.
And then you can focus on something else for 3 months.
Inspect and Adapt
3. Look at what people respond to. But give each post 2 tries before you ax it.
You’ll see….The first time may get 2 likes. The second time you’ll get 10.
Right now. I am in the second iteration of my content, currently improving the readability of each post.
Because I just have to lightly edit all the posts, I have some time to create video content.
Also: tag people – People love to give their opinions on Linkedin.
4. Engage with people. Reach out and connect.
People on Linkedin genuinely comment and discuss things. They will go back and forth and increase your comment count for you.
Also: Send people messages. Many will reply and appreciate that you are a real person. They will interact with your posts afterwards.
BTW: This can be a mental hurdle. There are many “experts” already out there. It takes guts to put content out there and not feel like an imposter.
That will go away. It just takes time.
The results so far:
At first, very few people interacted with my posts.
But now, the second cycle around, I actually have people liking and commenting on my posts. Sometimes a whole bunch.
But more than that, it is about visibility. People are silently watching.
Some recent things….
- People I don’t know started signing up for my Agile workshops and newsletter.
- I landed an opportunity with a company to teach a regular Agile 101 workshop for them.
- I’ve been asked to run a Scrum Master user group. I was the first person they thought of.
- Yesterday, I was invited to do an Agile podcast about being a female Agilist and educator.
- Someone I hadn’t talked to in 10 years saw my content and reached out. We did a Zoom catch-up and I told him I was looking for a new role. He put me in touch with someone, which eventually led me to a job offer in less than 3 weeks. (I had been looking for months)
When I started posting regularly in May, I would have never thought opportunities would come my way. I just crossed my fingers.
So in case you are thinking of giving up, don’t.
Start with these steps.
Inspect and adapt.
And if you need some help, I am one click away!