From Zero to 10K in 6 Months - Angela's LinkedIn Growth Secrets
If you’ve ever tried to build your personal brand on LinkedIn and grow your account, you know just how challenging it is.
There are lots of questions on your mind:
- "What do I write about? Why would anyone read what i post? Where do I get content ideas? What tools could help me?"
Angela Davis (Content Marketing Manager @Kiavi) was able to crack the code and grew her account by a staggering 10k in only 6 months!
I had a chat with her about how she managed to achieve this growth and her key learnings.
Angela started posting on LinkedIn about six months ago, thanks to a push from her manager at the time. She felt a mix of excitement and anxiety, like most of us would. But her manager said something that really stuck:
"People follow people."
She encouraged everyone to build their personal brands to help get the company’s name out there.
Angela’s first post felt super vulnerable, almost like people could actually see her through the screen. Yet despite her nerves, Angela kept going, and eventually, creating content became easier, more fun & has definitely paid off!
How did she do it?
Find the Right Content Focus
At first, Angela tried the classic advice: niching down. She focused on email and digital marketing content, but soon realized she was getting bored herself.
As she put it:
"If I was getting bored writing it, my audience was probably bored reading it."
So she decided to broaden her topics to things she genuinely found interesting — like AI, leadership, and remote work.
This shift kept her motivated, and her audience responded positively.So, don't force yourself into a niche if it doesn’t feel right. Be yourself to keep both you and your audience engaged.
Build a Content System
One of Angela’s biggest challenges was keeping up with content ideas. Sometimes she’d feel totally stuck, unsure of what to post next.
To fix that, Angela created a Content Ideas backlog in Notion to never have to rely on her inspiration to post consistently.
Her system is inspired by the LinkedIn Content Dashboard we shared! Curious about what it looks like? Get it here for free.
She also built a "content tree" in Miro, mapping out different branches of topics she liked. Plus, she used Inoreader, a free aggregator tool that pulled articles from around the web to keep her inspired.
These systems help her stay consistent, even on the days when she doesn't feel super creative.
Track Content Performance
From day one, Angela was dissecting what worked and what didn’t. She even created a dashboard to track her posts (see below), using metrics like likes, comments, and impressions to spot patterns. This dashboard gives her a deeper sense of what types of posts people resonate with, and she noticed that certain elements, like timing and visuals, made a big difference.
Here's a sneak peek into this dashboard:
Eventually, she found a unique visual style that became her signature: lime-green animals. It's unexpected, bold, and helps her stand out in people’s feeds: Her engagement rates have shot up since as a result!
Now, when her audience sees a lime green animal, they know it’s her content.
Visual consistency like this is super important for personal branding because it helps you stand out on a crowded platform like LinkedIn, making your content instantly recognizable and memorable.
Need support building your company's or your personal branding? Reach out to our team of designers.
Angela’s takeaway?
Don’t be afraid to try new things —and track everything.
By keeping a pulse on your content’s performance, you can adjust and improve over time. Test different formats, find visual cues that make you instantly recognizable, and stay curious. If something doesn’t work, switch it up, but let your data guide your decisions.
Be "Social" on Social (aka Engage with Others)
Angela’s growth isn't just from posting content — it's also because she's built a community. Two-way interactions and genuine engagement with other people's posts is key.
Every day, she sets aside specific times to engage with others on LinkedIn.
Before her post goes live, she spends 30 minutes in the morning commenting on and liking posts. She does the same during her lunch break, and again in the evening.
As Angela says,
"The more engagement you give, the more engagement you get."
This engagement strategy keeps her top of mind for her network, which in turn encourages people to interact with her posts. It also helps her posts reach a wider audience, feeding the algorithm’s preference for engagement.
Build Connections Through Comment Sections
Angela’s tip for finding high-quality connections?
Look at the comment sections of popular posts in your industry. The people commenting and engaging there are often open to connecting and share similar interests.
She also sends connection requests to people who interact with marketing content, which helps her expand her network strategically. LinkedIn caps weekly connection requests around 170–250, and it's important to try and make every invite count.
Connecting with others is how you can grow on LinkedIn much quicker - so, don't be shy!
Target Your Audience’s Time Zones
When sending out connection invites and posting, timing can make or break engagement. Try to connect with users in your target time zones. Angela learned this from experience:
“My post time would be 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in Florida, but I had a lot of Australian connections. So when I was posting, they were going to sleep, which is going to decrease my engagement.”
By aligning connection requests and post times with your audience’s time zones, you can make sureyour network is online when you're active, which will increase your posts’ reach.
Use Tagging to Boost Visibility
Another cool tactic Angela uses is tagging. By tagging relevant brands or influencers in your posts, you can maximize visibility & boost engagement on your posts.
For every person that engages with your post, you're going to receive about 4% additional impressions based on how many followers they have.
Imagine then if you tag Hubspot or any big brand - and they comment on your post?! Huge impressions boost right there!
Angela tags brands that are likely to comment back, creating a ripple effect that amplifies her reach.
“I keep a list of organizations that I know will communicate and talk. When those organizations come and talk inside my friend’s comments or my colleague’s comments, it will push the content to 4% of their following.”
For example, the social media team at Metricool is pretty active!
Angela calls this tactic "Robin Hooding" — using larger accounts to give her content and her friends' content more visibility.
Lessons for Marketers
Angela’s story is so inspiring. And we've already learned a lot from her LinkedIn journey. Here's a quick recap:
- Don’t Be Afraid to Start: Angela’s first post was terrifying, but she did it anyway. Over time, she got more comfortable, and now posting is so so much easier.
- Authenticity Over Niching Down: You don’t have to stick to one niche if it doesn’t feel right. Talk about what genuinely interests you — your passion will shine through and attract the right audience.
- Create Systems to Stay Consistent: Use tools like Notion, Miro, Canva, and Inoreader to keep your ideas organized and make sure you always have content ready to go.
- Engage, Don’t Just Post: Spend time each day engaging with others. Building relationships is just as important as sharing your own content. Give value first.
- Make It Visual: Stand out with consistent, unique visuals. Angela’s lime green animals are a perfect example of how a small visual element can help build recognition.
Growing Together
Angela’s journey shows that growing on LinkedIn is not an "overnight success" thing. It takes putting in the work, learning from what's working and doing more of it, engaging with others, and more!
It takes patience and persistence, but the results are definitely worth it.
As she puts it, "If you wouldn't read your own post, how can you expect someone else to?" By keeping your content valuable and fun, both for you and your audience, and by learning from your best-performing content, you can grow much quicker.
To catch more insights from marketing leaders, tune in to Marketing Mondays with Maria. Every bi-weekly episode dives into a new challenge, offering you practical advice from people who’ve been there, done that. Stay tuned!
