LinkedIn has become one of the best platforms for Startup founders, marketers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders worldwide. And LinkedIn Personal Branding is becoming more and more popular by the day.
The platform isn’t just for networking — it’s a powerful tool you can use strategically to advance your career and build your personal brand. With a community of over 900 million users on LinkedIn, you have the opportunity to make a significant impact, provided you know how to use it effectively. How? That is what we’re going to cover in this guide.
To give you a head start, we’ve also prepared a complimentary Notion Content Calendar & Dashboard to help you plan and publish your content easily and consistently.
Most people use LinkedIn only to showcase their CV and apply to jobs. So, they never use it, until they urgently need to get it to work for them to get clients or work. Don’t be like one of these people – you can get ahead by starting now and taking small steps every day that will lead to much better results. You’ll be able to get inbound leads and job offers, just from publishing valuable content! A strong personal brand on LinkedIn will draw in the right offers, business leads, partnerships, but also new friends and connections.
LinkedIn allows you to highlight your achievements, share your thoughts & learnings through articles and posts, and engage with other professionals and industry leaders. You can meet new people digitally and in real life by engaging with each other’s content and exchanging direct messages. It is also a platform where you can find leads or new clients for your business, although it must be noted that it is more popular for acquiring B2B clients.
While LinkedIn is becoming more and more popular, still the majority of LinkedIn users do not actively post or engage on the platform. This is your chance to stand out! And there are a few people who you can refer to as an example. They people use every feature available on LinkedIn — from their headline to their summary, to the rich media on their profiles — to craft a compelling, cohesive personal story and connect with others.
Matt teaches you how to write snappier copy that converts. He has a super down-to-earth presence online – you start feeling like you know him after reading a few of his posts. 99% of my screenshots are his posts. This says it all.
Lara is one of the best creators to follow when you’re just getting started. She helps you untangle the messiness of your LinkedIn content strategy, guides you on what effective content is, and always delivers actionable tips.
Daniel is the co-founder of Marketing Millenials & Sales Millenials. Both are newsletters and communities I adore. He loves a good meme, and regularly shares his Marketing advice in a clear, AHA-moment inducing, fun way. Also, if you’re looking to get entertained he posts great marketing related memes.
Olivia is the founder of Girls in Marketing. She organizes marketing events and conferences, marketing internships, and posts valuable content about the state of marketing and social media. Take a look at her personal brand to get inspired.
Nick writes about content design and copywriting, as well as getting leads for your business from LinkedIn. He has mastered the art of content design, but also of repurposing content in a fresh, efficient way.
Ilze posts amazingly valuable content on her LinkedIn. She is the founder of a personal branding agency called “Not Scheduled” for B2B SaaS founders and her content is very engaging. She posts about Social Media trends, actionable tactics, and strategy.
These examples show how building a strong personal brand on LinkedIn can help you establish yourself as a thought leader, attract business opportunities, and even monetise your expertise.
In your journey to build your personal brand, consider how your content speaks to your target audience.
Ask yourself these 2 questions:
These questions are crucial to get clear on the value you provide with your content. And this idea is also embedded into the Content System that you can get below. Every time you add a new content piece, it prompts you to tag it with “educate, entertain, inspire, or engage”, for example:
To make your LinkedIn profile discoverable, it's essential to think like a search engine. Use relevant keywords throughout your profile that reflect your skills, industry, and the roles you're eyeing. But don’t start stuffing your profile with keywords. Placement matters—include them in your headline, summary, and work experience sections to improve your profile's visibility.
Here are a few examples:
Your headline is the first thing people see on LinkedIn. When you comment on a post for example, others only see your name, profile picture, and first part of your headline.
Make it count by being clear, concise, and free of overused buzzwords like "guru," "ninja," or "wizard." Instead, mention the thing you’d like to highlight. Is it the company you’re working for? What your business does? Your target audience?
Here are a few ideas:
Your summary is your chance to tell your story, not just list your skills. Use this space to connect the dots of your career journey, highlighting achievements and how they align with your professional goals. Write in the first person to make it more personal and engaging, and remember to weave in a few keywords naturally to keep it SEO-friendly.
Here’s a great example of a profile summary from Olivia Mae Hanlon (58k followers):
The banner behind your profile picture can serve as a billboard for your personal brand. Use this space to grab attention and communicate your personal identity visually. Whether it’s an image of you speaking at an event, a clean design with your business tagline, or something more creative, make sure it complements your story and highlights what you do clearly.
In each job description, don't just describe what you did — highlight your accomplishments and the skills you've honed. Use action verbs and numbers to paint a clear picture and make your work look more tangible. This is also a great place to include specific keywords related to your industry and expertise, for example:
Creating high-quality, authoritative content is key to building and sustaining your personal brand on LinkedIn. Share insights, write articles, and post updates that provide value to your network. This not only showcases your expertise but also keeps you relevant in the feeds of your connections.
Engage actively with your network by commenting, liking, and sharing others' posts. This helps to build connections and can increase the visibility of your own content.
Remember: consistent engagement is as important as consistent posting. Like with any social platform, it’s important to participate in the community, and have dialogues with people, not just talk at them.
Content is king, and on LinkedIn, this is particularly true. Your posts should not only reflect your expertise but also demonstrate your understanding of the industry. Authoritative content can range from detailed analyses of current trends to how-to guides that solve common problems. The goal is to provide value that establishes you as a go-to resource in your field.
To figure out what to write about, you need to ask yourself who are you writing for:
Example:
My content is for marketing managers, specifically interested in performance marketing. Because I already have over 10 years of experience in this field, I want to share what I’ve learned with other performance marketers. I will provide value by sharing helpful tools, learning resources, tutorials, and thoughts on this topic to help others develop their skills.
Carousels are an excellent way to present information in a visually engaging, easy-to-digest format. They can be used to break down step-by-step guides, showcase multiple examples, or tell a story across several slides. Ensure each slide is impactful and leads smoothly into the next, keeping your audience engaged till the very end.
Here are 2 examples of carousels that got over 20k impressions and a lot of engagement for our Marketing Manager, Maria.
Infographics combine data and design to inform your audience quickly and clearly. They are particularly effective for summarizing research, visualizing data trends, or explaining complex processes. An engaging infographic can be a very powerful tool for reaching a broader audience, as they are often shared across LinkedIn and other social platforms.
Here is an example of a cheatsheet from our brand account – note that it breaks down a big topic and presents the content in a visual, digestible, but comprehensive way.
Sometimes, simplicity wins. Text posts, especially those that do storytelling well, grab the viewer by using a strong hook (first line), asking questions or offering quick tips, can generate significant engagement and are easier to produce. Keep these posts concise and focused. Use a friendly, conversational tone that invites interaction, and don't shy away from occasional bold or controversial takes that can spark discussion. Here’s an example from a great marketer, Liz Willits:
Video content continues to gain traction on LinkedIn. A video-only tab in the LinkedIn App is already being tested (Source).
It’s harder to embrace video content than to escape it. So, here’s how you can leverage video content:
Your videos don’t need fancy editing (although cutting out a few uuhhhmm’s can be beneficial and make the video more engaging, you can use a video editing tool to do so) - but do make sure that you have clear audio and good lighting.
Using a mix of content types— text posts, screenshare videos, vertical videos, infographics, and carousels — keeps your profile dynamic and engaging. It demonstrates your versatility and keeps your network anticipating your next move. This variety also helps cater to different audience preferences, maximizing your reach and impact.
Webinars offer a platform to dive deeper into topics, share your screen for live demonstrations, and interact directly with attendees. They position you as an authority and let you interact with viewers in real-time as well as building your email list, making them a great tool to grow your network and reinforce your personal brand. But, they do take much more planning than a regular post, of course.
Your content is only as effective as the network it reaches. Actively seek out and connect with industry peers, thought leaders, and potential mentors daily. Engage with their content thoughtfully — comment with your ideas, additional thoughts and personal takeaways: always aim to add value. This reciprocal engagement helps strengthen relationships and boosts your visibility. With the rise of AI generated content, there are many people on LinkedIn that don’t put in any thought into LinkedIn comments, which is a big mistake and can ruin your reputation. So, do engage, but in an authentic, honest manner – that’s our advice.
By adopting these strategies, you can effectively enhance your presence on LinkedIn, and make sure that your personal brand not only reaches but resonates with the right audience. Use our free Notion Content Calendar to plan your content if you want to get a head start instead of setting your whole system from scratch.
Remember, personal branding is not a "set it and forget it" — it's an ongoing process.
Use a Content Calendar
Using a tool like the Notion Content Calendar, plan your content strategy to stay on track - it’s a marathon, not a sprint. With time you’ll learn what content performs better than other, which topics your audience resonates with, and what to do more of. In the beginning it’s important to just start and get over the initial hurdle of hitting “publish”.
Set themes for different days of the week and decide on content types you’d like to focus on. In the beginning we suggest you start with 3 posts a week - and once you’re comfortable, you can increase that to up to 5 posts a week or more. You don’t have to always be on LinkedIn to publish your posts – feel free to schedule them in advance with a scheduling tool like Metricool, Buffer, or similar.
Here is a sneak peek of what pre scheduled content looks like in Metricool:
Note that if you’re often scheduling content, it’s easy to forget to actually go on the platform and engage with others. So, do add slots to your calendar to engage with other people's posts on Linkedin to your calendar, not to forget it completely:)
Keep a Content Ideas Backlog
The last thing you want is to write content to post on the spot, every day.
This strategy can waste a lot of your time and you might stop you from posting at all eventually. What most creators do is carve out 1 day of the week when they tackle content creation. This is the time when you can add ideas to your content backlog, draft copy for upcoming posts, schedule out the content in your scheduling tool, and design or film the visuals. This is what keeps most content creators consistent - they don’t scramble daily and ask themselves what they should post.
And with the LinkedIn Personal Brand Dashboard, you’ll easily be able to achieve the same:
It’s much easier to continue posting what isn’t working than to check in and face the fact that you need to invest in figuring out a new way.
Regularly ask yourselves these questions when you’re building a personal brand on LinkedIn, to ensure your growth doesn’t stall:
LinkedIn analytics or the analytics tab of your favorite scheduling tool can provide valuable insights into what's working and what isn't. Use this data to refine your strategies and experiment with new ideas. Being responsive to feedback and adaptable to changes in the industry and what you’re seeing in your analytics will help your account thrive.
To give you a concrete example, here’s the filled out Notion Content Calendar of our Marketing Manager’s personal brand’s account. She prefers using the calendar view to plan out the content in a visual way and tries to post once a day - with some posts being very short polls, memes or text posts, to engage and entertain her target audience. She tends to set a general theme for each day of the week like “Educate” on Mondays and Wednesdays, which makes content planning much easier. This setup allows her to visualise her content over weeks or months, and adjust quickly.
Would you like to duplicate this content calendar as well as the whole Content Dashboard? Get it here for free.
To make the most of your time on LinkedIn, focus on these things:
Assigning specific themes or content pillars to different days can help organize your posting schedule and keep your audience engaged. For instance:
Developing content series is an effective way to keep your audience coming back for more. These can be weekly tips, monthly in-depth articles, or regular case studies. A series not only builds a narrative over time but also establishes you as a consistent presence in your followers' feeds.
Curating content from other thought leaders or relevant industries can provide additional value to your audience. When you share others’ content, make sure to add your insights or takeaways. Tagging the original author or relevant contributors not only acknowledges their work but also encourages engagement. Here is an example of a curation post:
You can make it a habit to have these posts as part of your content strategy by assigning this theme – Content Curation – a day of the week. You can do this easily using our Content Calendar:
Be aware of these common pitfalls:
Implementing these strategies will help you maximize your impact on LinkedIn, ensuring that your personal brand stands out and attracts the right professional opportunities and connections.
Throughout this guide, we've explored comprehensive strategies to enhance your LinkedIn personal branding. Here are the crucial steps to take:
Now that you're equipped with the knowledge and strategies to build a standout personal brand on LinkedIn, it's time to take action. Start by implementing these steps one by one to transform your LinkedIn presence. To help you organize and plan your content effectively, download the Notion Content Calendar we've specially designed for you. It's tailor-made to keep your content strategy on track and ensure you're always ready to engage your audience with quality posts.
Download your Free Notion Content Calendar
Yes, LinkedIn is an excellent platform for personal branding. It is designed specifically for professionals, making it the ideal environment to establish and grow a personal brand in a business context. Here’s why LinkedIn stands out:
Don't let the fear of what other people will think hold you back! Of course, especially in the beginning, when you're not used to other people reading what you write it can feel a bit scary - that is completely normal. But, trust us when we say that in continuing to post consistently you will notice that most people don't really care that much. And this is a good think! You can focus on providing value to people who will become your followers and will care. Building your personal brand at work is about showcasing your strengths and helping others learn from what you know. Focus on inspiring others by sharing your knowledge and passion. Remember, people connect with authenticity, so be yourself and let your unique side shine. That is our personal branding advice.
1. Define your brand identity
2. Optimise your profile
3. Network and build relationships
4. Become a thought leader
5. Be authentic and consistent
By following these tips, you can build a strong personal brand that will help you achieve your goals.
To effectively use LinkedIn for personal branding, focus on posting content that reflects your expertise, values, and professional evolution. Here are some ideas:
To significantly amplify your personal brand on LinkedIn:
A personal brand statement on LinkedIn should succinctly communicate who you are, what you do, and what unique value you bring. Here’s how to craft one:
Example: “I transform complex market data into strategic insights that drive profitable decisions, helping businesses cut through noise to achieve tangible results.”
Yes, there are numerous courses available on platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, and Udemy that offer comprehensive training in LinkedIn personal branding. These courses typically cover optimizing your profile, content strategies, networking techniques, and how to measure your personal brand’s impact.
Yes, LinkedIn personal branding can be highly effective when done correctly. It helps professionals establish credibility, increase visibility, and open up opportunities for career advancement, networking, and new clients.
Effectively using LinkedIn involves:
To make your LinkedIn personal brand impressive:
Tools like Buffer, and Metricool are excellent for planning and scheduling content, tracking engagement, and analyzing the effectiveness of your LinkedIn strategy. Notion, in the meantime is an incredible tool for brainstorming ideas, writing first drafts, reflecting on your content and tracking OKRs and KPIs.
Although this advice is nothing revolutionary, principles such as engaging actively with your network, optimizing your SEO with relevant keywords, and consistently sharing high-quality, authoritative content remain timeless strategies for enhancing visibility on LinkedIn.
Managing your time across multiple platforms involves: