Building your LinkedIn presence doesn’t have to be intimidating.

Let’s break it down.

People are telling me they understand it’s beneficial to have a LinkedIn presence for career building, but ‘it’ doesn’t come naturally to them:

“How do I talk about myself — let alone promote myself?!”

“I don’t have anything to say…”

“I freeze at the thought of hitting ‘Publish’ — what if I embarrass myself?”

I get it — but if we break it down into a few parts, it’s actually not so unfamiliar, and much less intimidating.

1. Identify your LinkedIn goals

What is your goal for being on LinkedIn? Is it to get a job? More name recognition? To meet people in your industry? Etc… Your goals might seem modest or cliche, but they are important for you and your career. So let’s define your top LinkedIn goals so we can plan your presence and activity in a smart, direct way.

Once you identify the goal, work backwards to figure out how you want people to associate with your name/personal brand. How you present yourself ends up being your personal brand, whether you mean it or not. Sometimes the cart comes before the horse; for example, I started talking a lot about my own career journeys/questions/musings and years later realized people associate me with career advice.

2. Identify your topics of interest

What topics do you want associated with your name? They don’t all have to be directly connected to your day job. In fact, diversify a bit because we are not 2D beings. Some configurations of what you could be talking about on LinkedIn:

• What you’re passionate about, and know a lot about; this is what ‘you do’ or your professional or cultural or local knowledge, whether it’s been 2 years or 15. You live this stuff every day, and know a ton about it. The trick will be realizing this, and then parsing what will be helpful and interesting to others.
• What you’re passionate about, but don’t know that much about yet; before you utter ‘imposter syndrome’ — it’s ok. You can discuss topics from a place of learning and curiosity, and perhaps your end goal is to connect and speak with people in the know on these topics, or learn more, or become associated with this topic so you can get deeper into it.
• What you know a lot about — just plain expertise. Maybe it’s not your biggest passion, but you sure do know a lot about your industry, and sharing it will be deemed helpful to many — especially those who prefer to turn to someone who knows what they’re talking about. Maybe starting conversations in this area will ignite a passionate side you haven’t felt in a while. Maybe realizing you know a ton about something — and people look to you for advice on that topic — will be exciting in itself.

3. Create a list of potential posts

Start writing down ideas for posts based on your interests/professional expertise. For example, if you start looking back at your work and career, and realizing a pattern — you’ve been running large interdepartmental meetings for years, or you’ve been the one everyone turns to when they onboard at a company — that’s a how-to post, or a ‘day in the life post.’

Sometimes, I randomly think up posts and I add them to my calendar in the future as reminders so I can get them next time I’m wondering what to publish… I have 3 in the queue at the moment. That’s a 3–5 week spread of potential posts!

Here’s another tip: Not every post has to be a brilliant thing you thought. You can vary types of posts and not do all the heavy lifting. For example, here’s a templated list — fill in ideas based on your focus topics:

• Original musings based on your expertise
• A list of best practices in your professional experience
• Tips for how to _____
• An anecdote from your experience that relates lessons learned
• A link to an article in your topics of interest; if you do this, add your own thought about what the author is saying to make it meaningful coming from you
• An accomplishment! Share something you worked on you’re proud of. If you’re too modest, make it educational so others can learn from it. (But it’s ok to be proud of yourself in public. That’s not ego.)

4. Oops, you made a content calendar

Like wrapping doggy medication in cheese — what you just did there was create yourself a little content calendar and it wasn’t that painful. Don’t be intimidated — just having a list of 3–5 potential topics to post about is already half the battle; now put a reminder in your calendar once a week to add a post to your LinkedIn activity. Any day of the week, don’t worry about optimal posting time — do it on the train, after you wake up and don’t wanna get out of bed, or at your 3pm afternoon slump.

5. Write the post

Waaah waaah, I’m not a writer. Stop it. Posting on LinkedIn is not about writing. It’s about expression. Are you good at water cooler talk? Conversation? Lecturing? Bullet points? You’re not winning prizes here, you’re being human with other humans — something we have been doing for thousands and thousands of years. Think about it that way. Write like you speak, read it over, imagine someone you know IRL is listening to you, edit it for clarity, take out any unnecessary words/rambling that would be the point where the person IRL would start to glaze over, and you’ve got a post. Ask someone to read it over if you’re concerned.

6. Do not stress about frequency

Once a week, once a month — don’t worry about it. This is baby steps, honestly just getting your toes wet. If you made a list, start with that, and post when you feel good and like you have something to say. It’s better to be authentic than to just post because Liz Cohen seemed to say so. Liz Cohen always believes authenticity is more important than ‘best practices’. So if you feel like posting on Monday, and then again on Thursday — whoa, you’ve got mojo, stick with it! If you feel like posting this week, and then not for another 2 or 3 — totally fine. The muscle starts to build over time, and then it does get easier.

7. Hit the post button and walk away

The scariest thing is the first couple times you hit ‘Post’. If you’ve gotten this far and find yourself freaking out — get in touch with me, I’ll coach you through it (message me on LinkedIn, @ me on Twitter, comment here).

Otherwise — just do it. If it makes you feel better — neither millions of people nor thousands of people will see your first or second or third LinkedIn post. A selection of your immediate network will. And a smaller group will engage with it. But people are scrolling, reading, and remembering that you had something to say. And over time, that will build up — in a positive way for you, if you are saying the thoughtful, constructive things that make sense for your LinkedIn goals.

Ready for next level?

Once you get over this challenge — it’s time to:

1. Comment on other people’s posts with thoughtful comments. In fact, this may be a better warm-up for you than posting original content. Either way, a healthy mix of engaging on others’ ideas (commenting on posts) and putting out your own is the best way to be an active part of an industry-wide/professional conversation on LinkedIn.
2. Expand your network so the right people actually see your posts and want to engage with you. Thoughtful networking on LinkedIn takes work; many have written about this. I go back to my golden rule of being authentic. Also, relevant, polite and proactive. But that’s for another time.

If you have questions or need a pep talk, get in touch. Go back to step 7 to find me.