Last week, I carried out a soul-destroying experiment.

I spent £100 testing LinkedIn’s newly released ‘boost post’ feature.

Why? Because I’ve got a business to run!

The verdict? Not exactly money well spent (not to sound ungrateful to my newest 4 subscribers!).

Given how well the post had performed organically, I thought this £100 bet would be a no brainer. Turns out it wasn’t, and it got me thinking…

If I had to start out on LinkedIn again, from scratch. How would I go about it?

Answer: Well, it wouldn’t be with a posting strategy, with a commenting strategy.

Let me explain…

One of the reasons LinkedIn (in fact, any kind of social platform) is so damn hard to get any traction on is because if you’ve got no reach (followers) every post is going to feel like you’re shouting into the abyss - because you are!

So you’re going to need a different way to get noticed.

Cue the most underrated growth strategy on LinkedIn, the humble comment.

Step 1: Turn your LinkedIn Profile into a Landing Page

Here’s what I’d do before writing a single comment:

1. Optimise your headline

   Every time you comment, other people will be able to see the first ~47 characters of your headline. So you need to make those characters count.
   
   My suggestion would be to structure your comment like this:
   Specialism | Mission | Credibility
   
   In my case:
   Public speaking coach | I turn Founders into Thought Leaders 🎤 | Founder of MicDrop | Author of Make It Count | Ex-COO | Ex-TEDxClapham Founder 

2. Optimise your ‘About’ section
Your About section should answer two questions: Why you and why now?

And the best ones are written like a LinkedIn post that speaks directly to the people you want your profile to attract.

3. Add a clear next step
   Include a Calendly link or a “book a call” button in your featured section, so it’s as frictionless as possible for someone to take action when they’re ready. Bonus points for sharing a newsletter (because that’s the strategy that will algorithm proof your business.

When you’ve done these three things, everything you then do has the best chance into driving an enquiry home.

Step 2: The Commenting Strategy that Actually Builds Authority

The commenting strategy that so many people are adopting on LinkedIn, seems completely nonsensicle to me...

I'm not talking about AI or VA ghostwritten commenting.
[I'll save that for another post]

I'm talking about 'echo chamber' commenting.

When I hit 20k followers I noticed multiple 'strategic comments' from other public speaking coaches on my posts. Now, first off, I should say I don't mind this at all.

I'm very grateful to everyone who comments on my posts.

[Not least because I've experienced more than my share of tumbleweed along the way]

But as a strategy to build authority, it baffles me.

My guess is their goal is one of two things:

1. Hope that I return the favour and comment on theirs ♻️

2. They're hoping to attract some of my audience 🧲 

The logic being...

'If I'm visible enough in Alex's comments, maybe some of his following might check out my profile.'

Logical yes, but not particularly strategic.

So here’s what I would do instead.

I would create a shortlist of 10-20 popular accounts who:

1. Have a mutual audience 🎯

2. Are solving complementary problems to me 🧩

3. Regularly post the kind of content that I feel I could add a disproportionate amount of value to (in my case video content) 🍿.

That should give me enough material to be able to deliver consistent value in my comments on a weekly basis.

Example 1: TED
They have a massive audience, regularly go viral and they post videos of their talks.

Everytime they posted a video, I’d a write a comment sharing the keynote speaking tips that the speaker was using. Like this:

A good strategy. The only problem with it is that TEDs audience is vast so I’d get more followers, but they wouldn’t necessarily be my target market.

Example 2: Daniel Priestley
Same audience as me. Non competing, complimentary businesses. High effort comment, got noticed.

Example 3: High Performing, Topic
In this case, someone complaining about being asked to speak for free.

Step 3: A posting strategy to compliment it

So that when they click on your profile, they have a reason to follow you.

I’ve been posting 3x a week since 2020.

It wasn’t until June 2023 that I started to get traction and audience growth and this was the post that changed everything.

It was the first time I’d ever managed to get people to engage with a post on my topic - in 3.5 years(!!). It taught me three things:

1. Show is more powerful than tell.

2. It doesn’t need to be about you and what you’re doing.

3. If you can find content that’s gone viral before and add your own take to it, you’ve got a better chance of it gaining traction, than if you don’t.

From that day onwards, the most important part of my LinkedIn posting strategy has been the research. Finding golden clips that allow me to showcase my expertise whilst helping people.

12 months later, I posted that same clip again (and felt extremely guilty after pressing post because it wasn’t brand new anymore). These were the stats:

The lesson here is simple (please don’t ignore it!)…

Your ability to communicate your expertise will live and die by the quality of the stories and examples you share.

(This rule applies in public speaking too!)

This means you don’t need to talk about yourself nearly as much as you might think you do. This is GOOD news.

Instead of chasing the spotlight, you get to become it.

And paradoxically, that is how you create a sense of magnetism around your subject. The other thing that happens, is you start getting messages like this from complete strangers:

Which is extremely rewarding.

One more thing…

A number of people have told me privately that they’re giving up on LinkedIn as a platform given the inconsistency of the algorithms of late. To be honest, I’ve been equally frustrated, and it’s made me question the effort vs reward myself.

The question I keep coming back to is…

If I were to leave, what would I replace LinkedIn with?

I don’t yet have a better answer. And if the attention of your audience is still there, neither should you.

It took me 3.5 years to create any kind of excitement around my topic (quite embarrassing given what I do really). So I hope this gives you the confidence to keep going when the times are tough.

Alex