Leveraging LinkedIn for Social Media Networking

How I Built a 30,000+ LinkedIn Community With a Solid Social Media Plan When I first joined LinkedIn, I thought it was just an online resume—drop a job update, send a quick "Congrats on the promotion," and call it a day. Fast forward to today, I’ve gone from total rookie to coaching others on how to master LinkedIn. The secret? A solid social media marketing plan. If you’re starting from scratch, here are 6 steps to create a plan that works: 1/ Create GOM: Goals, Objectives, Metrics Failing to plan is planning to fail—seriously. Start by setting clear goals aligned with your company’s objectives. Want more visibility? Engagement? Sales? Whatever it is, know your target and how to measure it. ✔️ Prioritize exposure across platforms. ✔️ Don’t shove sales pitches in people’s faces. Instead, nudge them in the right direction with value-driven content. ✔️ Track your progress with metrics to stay on course. 2/ Know your audience or brace for chaos. You can’t sell anything if you don’t know who you’re talking to. ✔️ Research your target market. ✔️ Study your competition—what gaps can you fill? ✔️ Address their pain points, fast. Remember, the internet is full of people looking for solutions. Your job? Be the solution they didn’t know they needed. 3/ Choose the right social platforms. Not every network is created equal. Instagram: Great for product visuals, Stories, and influencers. LinkedIn: Perfect for B2B and professional networking. Twitter: Rapid-fire updates and engaging threads. Pinterest: Ideal for middle-aged women and visual inspiration. Pick 2–3 platforms that match your audience and dominate those spaces. Be consistent—same profile pic, tone, and branding across all accounts. And for heaven’s sake, don’t sound like a robot. 4/ Schedule your life (and posts). Social media success = consistency. ✔️ Use a content calendar to plan posts around key topics and events. ✔️ Experiment with different posting times to find your sweet spot. ✔️ Stick to your schedule, but don’t be afraid to adapt. Pro tip: Holidays and trending events are your friends—use them to stay relevant. 5/ Test, analyze, improve, repeat. Your first plan won’t be perfect, and that’s okay. ✔️ Use analytics tools to monitor performance. ✔️ Test different content formats and posting strategies. ✔️ Tweak your approach based on what works—and scrap what doesn’t. Social media isn’t set-it-and-forget-it; it’s all about learning and evolving. 6/ Automate + engage = gold. Automation tools like Social Champ can save your sanity. ✔️ Schedule posts. ✔️ Track performance. ✔️ Free up time for what matters most—connecting with your audience. But don’t let the bots do all the work. Show up. Reply to comments. Start conversations. People follow people, not just content.

I was asked by Moe K. Suliman to detail and post my social media strategy/execution for LinkedIn. I hope this helps others think about their posting, even if you disagree or have a different perspective. If so, I would love to hear it. For posting on LinkedIn, I think there are some simple things to do and not to do. Do: - Post often in your area of expertise. I have found that LinkedIn has built a profile on the areas of my expertise and rewards posts in these areas. Also, try posting in your groups to see how well your content is received. So, my holiday greetings' posts were not optimized because they fell outside my "normal". Oddly, this post falls into the same category. Irony. - Post at different days and times to find a sweet spot for your audience. I have found that Mondays get far more exposure and eyeballs than Fridays. - Post at the same time/s most days. You are building expectations for your audience. I post at 9 am eastern most days. - Post media to break up just words. One secret I use is to go to Tenor and download relevant gifs. It took me an hour and I now have a large library. - Schedule posts so that you can then only manage notifications and not be tied to LinkedIn all day. I usually schedule posts for a week or two in advance. This takes me less than an hour. To help with creativity, I keep notes for future posts and podcasts ideas. - Turn on notifications for certain people in your network so that you get a notification when they post. - Comment on other people's posts to engage, encourage, and grow your thought process. Posts get far more exposure with comments than likes so it helps the poster. - Cultivate relationships through messaging. Like in real life, it takes being a friend to have a friend. So, do not waste people's time or pitch to them. These messages should be thought of similar to text messages in real life. Do not: - Never post and complain that you do not have a larger community. - Do not post when your audience is offline. - Do not spam people's message boxes for jobs (if they do not know you or your work) or just to say "hi". - Do not post links unless it is with purpose. The LinkedIn algorhythm limits the reach of posts with links. - Do not stay just within your industry, geography, or organizational level. You will grow by growing your connections from different perspectives than your own. - Do not see LinkedIn as transactional, give to get. View LinkedIn as relational, a place that you can grow and build relationships. So, what did I miss? Please comment below. Here's to a great 2025! Thank you for being a part of my LinkedIn community. Please let me know if there is anything either I or Service Management Leadership can do for you and your organization.

You know you should network. But you probably don’t know what to say or how to get on people’s radar. Here’s an easy 7-step LinkedIn networking strategy (that anyone can use): 1. The 3 Principles Of Good Networking If you want to network effectively, you need to:  - Have a way to reach people  - Have a way to add value to them  - Have a way to keep the engagement going This strategy does all three! 2. Make A List Of Job-Related Keywords Think of keywords, skills, phrases, and jargon that align with your target role. Ex: If you’re in sales, that might be “sales,” “leads,” “pipeline,” “sales cycle,” etc. Make a quick list of these. 3. Run A “Post” Search On LinkedIn Start with one keyword (or the job title itself). Run a search for it on LinkedIn. From the “Filters” option, select “Posts.” Then change “Date Posted” to “Past Week.” 4. Filter By “Author Company” Click on “All Filters” to find the “Author Company” filter. Add all of your target companies to this filter. This will give you a list of all the posts related to your target role, written by people at your target companies, posted in the past week! 5. Analyze Posts & Authors Scroll through the posts. When you find one that resonates? Click the person’s profile and check to see if they post consistently (at least once / week). If they do? Bookmark their profile in your browser. 6. Leave A Value Driven Comment For each author you find that posts regularly in your target space? Leave a comment on their post recent post that is:  - Supportive  - Postive in tone  - Offers your own take / value  - Is more than one sentence Repeat for each author. 7. Rinse & Repeat Daily Every day, click through the author profiles you have bookmarked. See a new post? Leave a new comment. Repeat this process every weekday if you can. But aim to leave at least one comment / week at minimum. 8. Why This Works Content creators love engagement. By cosistently offering that in a positive way, you’re going to get on their radar. And when you’ve done this for a week or two, the likelihood of getting a “yes” to a coffee chat, or even a referral, goes WAY up. Give it a shot today!