Engaging with LinkedIn Posts to Expand Your Network

Your LinkedIn post doesn’t start when you hit publish. It starts 30 minutes before. Most people post and pray. (And hey—prayer is great. Just maybe not about LinkedIn 😅) Here’s the engagement strategy I teach clients who want visibility, leads, and real traction: 1️⃣ The 30-Minute Pre-Engagement Rule (a.k.a. Content Seeding) Don’t just drop your post cold. Warm up the feed. Before you publish, comment on 5–10 posts from people you want your content to reach. When you engage with them, you trigger LinkedIn to surface your upcoming post in their feed once it goes live. 📌 Pro Tip: Prioritize → Your ideal audience → Past engagers → Active accounts with good reach (they help amplify you if they engage) This is how you train the algorithm to pay attention. 2️⃣ The 15-Minute Post-Boost Once you publish, your post enters a test phase. It’s tracking: → How fast you get engagement → Whether people stick around (dwell time) → If the comments spark back-and-forth conversation So when the comments start coming in, don’t ghost. Reply quickly. Ask questions. Keep the thread alive. Every interaction signals to LinkedIn: “This post has value.” 3️⃣ The First 3-Hour Window Is Critical Your post gets a short trial run. If it performs, it gets pushed to a wider audience. If not, it gets buried. Remember: LinkedIn is in the business of keeping people on the platform. It rewards content that does the same. Your job in this window:  → Keep the engagement active  → Drop a thoughtful comment on your own post to extend the conversation.  → Send it to a few trusted peers and say, “Would love your POV on this.” (Don't spam though. Make it relevant.) Bonus: Save outbound DMs for people who actually care about the topic.  You’ll get better feedback and avoid annoying your network. Most people treat LinkedIn like a billboard. Top performers treat it like a system. Which of these tactics do you already use? Which one will you try next? 👇

68% of my profile views last week came from comments. Not posts. Not tags. Not search. Comments. For the last 2.5 years, I ignored the one thing I always tell other people: Commenting on other people’s posts with actual value. I got busy. Focused on growing community and driving business. So I defaulted to being self-promotional. Just hit "post", engaged with whoever commented, and moved on. But 3 weeks ago, I flipped the switch. I started commenting on 25–50 posts a day. No strategy. Just what I found interesting while scrolling. Blocked time on my calendar so it actually happened. And here’s what happened: ➜ 68% of profile views came from comments ➜ DM volume exploded ➜ Connection requests doubled ➜ Some comments hit 20K+ impressions All from 5-second thoughts I used to skip. It made me realize something: LinkedIn doesn’t want you to post. It wants you to engage. Here’s what I’ve learned from doing this daily: 1.) Comments are portable content. They’re now treated like posts. People see them even if they don’t follow you. 2.) Reach is unpredictable, but the scale is insane. Some get 200 views. Others hit 50K. But they stack. Fast. 3.) The ROI per second is higher than anything else I’ve done. You don’t need a hook, a CTA, or a story. You just need a take. 4.) This builds real trust. When people see you add value across the platform, it sticks. No warm-up required when they hit your DMs. 5.) If you can’t post daily, comment daily. It’s low lift. And right now, LinkedIn is rewarding it heavily. Want to grow your reach, network, or pipeline? Start with 10 comments today. Then do 10 more tomorrow.

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!

I started posting on personal finance and psychology content 6 months ago, and here's the biggest insight I wish I'd known from day one: LinkedIn isn't a publishing platform—it's a social bulletin board. (incoming advice for newbies on LinkedIn…especially a few handful of college students/recent graduates who still read my posts regularly) Your LinkedIn profile and posts are just YOUR corner of this massive bulletin board. What makes it truly social (i.e. networking with others) is how you interact with everyone else's corners. Here's what I'd do differently if I were starting over today: I'd spend 80% of my time commenting thoughtfully on other people's posts and only 20% creating my own content. Because you don’t get discovered when you post—you get discovered when you COMMENT. When someone (maybe your future collaborator or manager) sees your insightful comment on a post they're reading, they become curious. They click through to YOUR corner of the bulletin board to see what you're all about. That's how the magic happens. Most people have this backwards. They think: "I need to post more to get discovered." The reality is, you need to show up more to get discovered. And the fastest way to show up is in the comments of posts your ideal connections are already reading. You don't need a lot of posts on your profile to start building relationships this way. You just need to show up with genuine value in the conversations that are already happening. If you’re just starting out: - Share one thoughtful post per week. Something you’ve learned or found valuable. Yes, just one per week! - Every day, spend 30–60 minutes engaging with others’ posts by leaving thoughtful comments. That’s it! Don’t build a content strategy and then hope people show up. Build a commenting strategy and let your content back it up. When people land on your profile after seeing your thoughtful comments, THAT'S when your posts do their job. Not before then.

Most people think building a network on LinkedIn requires churning out content daily. Meanwhile, there's a faster way that most people completely overlook: Strategic commenting. While everyone else is competing for attention with their posts, you can build meaningful connections by showing up thoughtfully in other people's conversations. When you comment strategically on someone's post, you're not just talking to them.  You're talking to their entire audience. Their followers see your insight, check out your profile, and suddenly you're on their radar. The psychology is different too. When someone posts content, they're in "broadcast mode." When they're reading comments, they're in "conversation mode." That's when real connections happen. Content creation is still important for overall growth. But for pure network building? Nothing beats showing up consistently in the right conversations. Try this for a week and watch what happens to your connection requests.