How LinkedIn Marketing Put Her Personal Brand in the Top 3% with Caroline Pennington

If you’ve ever wondered if LinkedIn marketing is really worth your time as a coach, service provider, or podcaster, this episode will change your perspective.

I’m joined by Caroline Pennington, host of The Feminine Founder Podcast and a LinkedIn marketing strategist who went from zero to over 7,000 followers in her first year—organically.

We talk about what makes LinkedIn so powerful right now, why it’s different from Instagram and Facebook, and the exact steps Caroline took to grow a personal brand that attracts high-quality, high-income clients without relying on paid ads or spammy cold DMs.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why only 3% of LinkedIn users post content—and why that’s your opportunity
• How Caroline grew 7,000 followers in 1 year with zero ad spend
• The 3 pillars of LinkedIn marketing (it can be so simple!)
• What kinds of content perform best on LinkedIn right now
• The biggest mistakes to avoid
• The best repurposing strategy (literally genius)

➡️ SHOW NOTES: Grab all the links and resources mentioned in this episode on the blog here!

https://www.megankachigan.com/linkedin-marketing-personal-brand-top-3-percent-caroline-pennington

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Transcript

Many service providers and personal brands feel intimidated by LinkedIn, or maybe just unsure how to use it in a way that actually gets results. And that's why I've invited today's guest, Caroline Pennington, onto the podcast. She is an expert on LinkedIn, the host of the Feminine Founder Podcast, which is a top 3% global podcast that I had the joy of being a guest on, which was such a fun conversation. She is the founder of her own marketing agency, where she helps female entrepreneurs grow and scale their brands on LinkedIn. And she is the creator of Chilled Vino, her patented wine drinkware product. So fun. Her clients describe her as a dang genius. Their words, I saw them, because she brings patient strategy and serious results to everything that she touches. So Caroline, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. So glad that you're here. And even just before we recorded, Caroline already gave me a quick win in like less than five minutes of like one thing to change about my profile. So I'm so excited. This is what happens when you talk to an expert and it's just like, oh, it's so easy. you. can be so much easier. So I'm excited to dig in today. And the first thing I want to know is how did you build your personal brand so quickly on LinkedIn? Was there a turning point where you realized, hey, like this is working? Yeah. So LinkedIn for any of your listeners, LinkedIn is what Facebook and Instagram used to be 15, 20 years ago. Okay. And so I actually started my LinkedIn journey, my personal branding journey while I was a corporate employee. I was a headhunter, recruiter. On the agency side. So what that meant was when companies were hiring, depending on all sizes, I would help them find talent. And I did it for 15 years. And when I started my journey, I was placing internal professionals. And 15 years later, I'm placing C-suite professionals. So the very high income earners, CEOs, COOs, FOs, the high six, seven, and eight figure income earners. And where was I finding them? On LinkedIn. So I decided to 2023 to start my personal brand. I actually started it because I wanted to be the go-to recruiter. So my content when I started my personal branding journey was all about recruiting. So if you're listening to this and you're like, I'm making some pivots in my life or what I'm doing, that's completely okay. I've literally pivoted three, if not four times on LinkedIn. So I went from zero to over 7,000 followers in under a year. Now I'm close to 13K in under two years, right at two years. And the reason I've been able to grow and scale so fast, and also if you're listening to this, that has been completely organic growth. I've not spent one cent on boosting posts, ad spend, nothing. And the reason I was able to scale like that is because nobody posts on LinkedIn. And when I started my journey, it had just crossed the 1 billion user mark and only 1% of people were posting on LinkedIn. Now- Now- Now, that number has gone up and is at 3%. So if you're listening to this podcast, this is the time to get in LinkedIn game before it gets too crowded like the other platforms.  Those are incredible statistics. I mean, I get it. It's like a lot of people will sign up for a profile and then they never actually use it. They just forget about it or they lurk. But 3%, that's like nobody. It's literally insane. 1 And also, the average user makes over 100 grand. So what that means is they have the money to spend with you on your products, services, and offers. Again, I used to recruit millionaires on LinkedIn. Like, that's where they were hanging out. So even if they're not engaging or liking your stuff or, you know, doing comments, they're still there and they're hanging out there.  Yeah. Yeah. That is so good. And do you see, how do you see LinkedIn working well, especially for people in the online space, podcasters, service-based business owners, people like that?  Yeah, again, same as that. You can get a lot of visibility, 3% of people, so not all the competition. And then you've got high-income earners on the platform. So the trick about LinkedIn, and I know you might be thinking you were listening to this like, oh, I don't want to learn another platform. You can repurpose the same content that you're using on Instagram and Facebook on LinkedIn. The only difference that you'll need to tweak is how you address your audience. For example, if you follow me on Instagram, I'm more casual on there. I show more of my personal life, my dogs, my podcast managers. And when I do my posts, I address it like I'm talking to a friend. So I'll say like, hey, girl, or something like that. You'll notice on my LinkedIn, all of my LinkedIn posts are addressed LinkedIn community. Just a little bit tightened up, a little bit more formal, but that has been like the only thing you need to change in your content. Okay. Yeah. And I noticed that difference as well, because I know you more on Instagram and then popping over to check out your profile. I'll to prep for today's episode. It's still you. But yeah, I can tell there is that a little bit more tightened up, as you said, sense of professionalism, but there's still personality, like there's still you on there. So I think that's great because I think one of the questions my listeners would have is like, is LinkedIn even worth my time? Like I'm drowning in all of the things that we have to do. And I think those two stats showing of how like there's actually not a lot of competition. It's so easy for our industries to feel saturated. And they're really not, especially on that platform. And to know that that's where those higher income earners are that can really, you know, afford the higher ticket services that that you're offering. Yeah, I know.  I'll say too, I mean, even if you're a healer in the spiritual space or something like that, there's still room for you on LinkedIn. There's literally all types of people with all types of services. Offering. Their services, their thought leadership on LinkedIn. So don't think, well, I'm a creative and LinkedIn isn't for me. LinkedIn can be creative too. It has this rap of being a square place of where you go to get a job, but it's not that place anymore. Like it literally is what Facebook used to be 20 years ago. Yeah, I love that. That's such a great comparison. And I think some people, I don't know, I don't want to say like not stuck on Facebook, but needing to evolve beyond that. I felt that shift as well. Facebook used to be my primary platform when I first started business six, almost seven years ago. And now, you know, I will repurpose there, but it's not what I'm primarily pursuing at this point. And yeah, I agree that LinkedIn is where we need to be showing up, especially now. So how do you get seen by the right people on LinkedIn? So you have to start building your office. Audience. And it's going to feel like a slow snowball that you are building, just like any other platforms. It's in the beginning, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, I don't know what kind of content resonates. I don't know what my audience wants. If you're listening to this, I literally have been you and was that person two years ago. The formula that worked for me, that can work for you too, is, and one cool thing about LinkedIn that I love is that you literally do not have to do any trends. Like, forget the trending audio, forget dancing on the internet. You literally can show up with a static post and assign a picture to it and it will do really well. That's so refreshing. I know, it's so crazy. Like, I keep telling people, I'm like, y'all, you don't have to dance around and like sing to these music. You don't have to do that anymore. Okay, so here's the formula. For me, this is what works. I started posting five days a week, Monday through Friday. If you're like, ooh, that seems a little too much. Start with three days a week and do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. By Thursday, Friday, people are tired. They don't want to learn. They don't want to hear thought leadership stuff. So if you want to do three days a week, that's fine. Do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Five days is what I could commit to. I always would do my content the week before and just batch it out and schedule it. I have clients who do a month at a time. That's too much for me. A week at a time is fine. But start talking about what you do for a living. Like, what are you the expert in? And if you're sitting here listening to this and you're like, I don't know what to say or I'm maybe not an expert. Yes, you are. That's why you're getting paid for what you're doing. So start talking about it. Some posts that do really well are pro tips. So again, position yourself as a thought leader. I personally like doing unpopular opinions a lot because it stirs up people in the comments, which really supercharges engagement. And then people also repost your stuff. And if you're like, I wouldn't talk about politics or religion or any cuss words on LinkedIn, so stay away from those three things. But everything else is literally fair game. I mean, if you follow me at any capacity on Instagram or LinkedIn, like I have a sassy side and I let that show on LinkedIn and that's okay too. One thing I would do is every Wednesday, you'll notice in my cadence, I do a poll. And so I basically talk to my audience and even if they don't engage with my stuff or do comments or likes or whatever, they will vote in a poll. So let's say I have a new program I'm rolling out or I want to take the podcast a different direction. I just ask my audience and they talk back to you in the votes. And the last thing I'll say to you is when I started this, I literally got no votes, like no votes, no comments, no likes or nothing. So the engagement that you see now is something that you have to build. But on LinkedIn, it goes really fast. So the magic numbers to hit are this. Two thousand. 1,500, we'll start with 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 7,500, and then once you hit over 10, LinkedIn starts sending you over 200 people a week without you even doing anything. The number one question I get asked is, do I need to have a premium profile? And my answer is no. You can build and have a personal brand on a free profile, and that's completely fine. I actually recently deactivated my premium account because it wasn't necessary anymore, and it was costing me 80 bucks a month. When you have the free account, you can add 100 connections a week. When you have the premium account, you can add 250. Okay. Yeah. It's good to know that the free account is good enough and probably a great place to start if you're just getting back into it. And then the premium can take you that next step if you're eager to get those, like you said, to that 5,000, that 7,500, that 10,500. Yeah. as that grows, LinkedIn just starts, you start becoming like the person on the side, the sidebar that's like people you might know. And that's how you start really building is like LinkedIn starts pushing you because LinkedIn likes that you're creating content on their platform. So they reward that. That makes sense. That makes sense. Okay. A quick like lightning few questions for you, because there's some features on LinkedIn that are, I don't know, newer-ish. Um, then they were even six, seven years ago when I first started on it was, so are LinkedIn newsletters worth it? No. Ah, interesting. Okay. What about hashtags on LinkedIn? Let me go into the why real quick. Yeah. Because the newsletter, when you have a newsletter, you can build my husband as a lawyer and he has actually significantly large newsletter following, but he has zero emails. So with the newsletter... newsletter... LinkedIn keeps the information. You don't have any control over the data. So that's why I say no. Like you can build fast just like he did. But again, he has no IP. Like he has no, he doesn't know who he's talking to in his newsletters. Hashtags. Yes, if you're starting out, I've used hashtags. LinkedIn only likes when you use four or five hashtags. So don't use any more than that. This is not Instagram where you need to use 30. Stick to four or five. I would always have a call to action, a CTA in your post because you want to, again, you want to start get your audience talking to you. And again, literally when I started my journey, I heard crickets for like so long. It's just like I stayed in it. And that's the only and the main difference. One thing, too, I'm going to add to your listeners so they're not intimidated by LinkedIn or like another platform. You can repurpose things. I repurpose my content every 12 weeks. Oh, that's great. So like you. Post something, and then you'll take that, and 12 weeks later, just post the same thing again? Yep. I like that. And no one has ever called you out. No one knows, right? Nobody knows. Nobody cares. Because everyone's consumed with themselves. And if I want to get really fancy, I'll just change out the picture.  I love that. Let me add something to... I'm getting sassy over here. The introduction posts that you do on Facebook and Instagram do really well on LinkedIn, too, because people want to get to know you as a human. A lot of what I do sometimes is I'll do 10 facts about me, and I'll have three of them be personal. They don't have to be super personal. Like, we don't need to get on your biz. So, for example, I did one recently, and I prefer to drink hot tea over coffee in the morning. I had 87 comments about the fact that I drink tea. So, it doesn't have to be all, like, super formal and... Buttoned up and everything. You can have fun on LinkedIn, too. I love that. I think that is, yeah, the stereotype of LinkedIn is like, it's very buttoned up, professional. You have to be very corporate on there. And you're saying, that's not true. LinkedIn has evolved and, yeah, yeah. Okay. I love that. Okay. And what about engagement pods? Thoughts on those? No. Do you want to add? Yeah. I said lightning round, but I didn't mean it. I want to hear all the spicy thoughts. Yeah.  So the LinkedIn algorithm is going to catch you if you want to get into a pod and like try to do all that. This will work for me. And it can work for you, too, because I don't have some magic wand. I just cracked the code on LinkedIn. And how I did it was I gave engagement. And if you want engagement, you need to give engagement. Now, I mean to sit there all day for like an hour commenting? I don't don't People's stuff. No. Start following, connecting people with stuff that you like to talk about. And I would start with micro-influencers. So don't go with the people who have like over 10,000 followers, 20,000 followers, because they're never going to see your comments. So you want to come back and start with like the micro-influencers, the 5K and below. Start there. Because once you comment on their stuff, they don't have to, but it's likely that they'll come back and comment when they see your stuff. The law of reciprocity exists in a very big way on LinkedIn. And that's the way that you start getting seen. Because once you comment on their stuff and they comment on your stuff, is what happens is you start cross-pollinating audiences. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's, in my experience, like an unspoken rule of LinkedIn is if someone comments on yours, it's just like good practice to comment back. Or if I comment on someone else's, like you said, very likely. They will comment back. And it's nice to be on a platform that is actually like a social media that is actually social. Yeah. And one thing about LinkedIn, too, I will say is like people are really nice on there. Like I don't have anybody like body shaming me or like critiquing whatever I'm doing. Like they're on LinkedIn to learn, not to be entertained. And so you have a different mindset, too, of the LinkedIn audience. I would say, too, one thing about LinkedIn is that when the people are logging on LinkedIn, most of the time they're on their computer, not their telephone screen. So you're not competing with like their children screaming in the background or like their dogs running around or like they're sitting there doom scrolling, watching television. Like they're actually focused. That is so important. Yeah, mean, like I'm sure you still need hooks and whatever for your post, but it's not like it's not as. Much of this interrupt. You don't really even need hooks for posts on LinkedIn. The bar is so low, you guys. The bar is so low. Okay, so back to the engagement thing.  If you're listening to this podcast now, start with two to three people. Do two to three comments every day for five days a week. You literally can do your comments from the red light. Like, don't sit there and, like, I'm not, like, have my computer screen up for my comments. Like, I'll be in my car on the way back from the gym or whatever. So, like, when you're doing your engagement, it can be from your phone. Yeah, and that's, like, five minutes a day. Yeah, so easy. And, again, a lot of reciprocity. If you have a podcast, like, 97% of my podcast guests have all come from LinkedIn. And I use LinkedIn to advertise my podcast. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. I'm loving it. I am ready to take LinkedIn. So much more seriously now. Do you have a favorite or like feature or strategy on LinkedIn that is you feel is overlooked or that most people miss? Is the polls. The polls. Yeah, because the polls, people talk, they talk back to you. And they, and also if you're listening to this podcast, I'll do four polls a month, one every Wednesday, and three of them will be business related and one will be fun. So I did a poll one time about like, who do you think said win the Super Bowl? I literally got hundreds and hundreds of responses. Like, I did a poll on like, are you traveling out of town before the July weekend? Again, seems like dumb and silly, but like, probably one of my highest ranking polls that I've ever done is people, they just want to get to know you. And they just want to like, connect with people. They want to know like, are you traveling? Like, what are you doing? Like, you don't have to get super personal on LinkedIn. Then I get some my personal on LinkedIn, but enough to give them a piece of me. Yeah. That is so good. And it's so funny. I think that is true, you know, in my experience on, like, threads, too. It's like, I'll post, you know, business thoughts, but I'll also post, you know, random things I'm thinking or, like, about my garden or, like, how I'm, like, still enjoying summer and I'm not ready for, like, the pumpkin spice lattes yet. And, like, people went off, like, taking my side, like, yes, it's still summer. Or, like, heck no, I've, like, got my cozy fall stuff on. And, like, again, like you said, like, it seems silly, but it's just so refreshing to engage with business owners on a human level, rather than keeping everything just about business. And, like, like, show up as a thought leader, but, like, also show up as a human. And I don't want to open the can of worms about AI right now, but so, so much more important that we just connect human to human. That age as well.  One thing I'm going to add to your comment you just said is a lot of times, especially if you're trying to grow an audience or get more people on your podcast or get more clients or whatever, a lot of times, especially when you start dealing with people who have bigger businesses or have bigger audiences or whatever, when you slide into their DMs on Instagram and Facebook, you're going to get their staff on LinkedIn. And when you slide into the DMs, you're going to get that person. I mean, maybe if you're Jenna Kutcher or Amy Porterfield, like, no, you're not going to get them on LinkedIn, but like 95% of people you're going to get on LinkedIn, them directly.  That's, that is a good tip there. Yeah, because part of it is like, well, like, you know, you want to respond, engage, be, be interactive, but then it's a little bit. I don't know, disappointing or disheartening when you're like, oh, it's just many chat responding or it's, it's. It's not actually them. It's a canned, you know, response from a team member. So, yeah, that's great that you can actually, like, the actual CEO will know who you are, recognize your nameface profile on LinkedIn, whereas they may not in those other places. Yeah, and I'll say, too, the magic is happening in the DMs on LinkedIn, so don't be afraid of them. Also, do not attach a DM or a message to your connection request. Send the connection request first, and then do the DM separately. When I first started my journey, I got it all wrong, and I would slide in the DMs and be like, hey, here's my newsletter.  Give me your email. Now, I slide in their DMs and just, I say their name, Megan. Nice to meet you. I look forward to connecting further. And what happens when I do that is one of three things. One, they ghost me. Two, they send back the AI response likewise. Or three, the people on LinkedIn, I'm not going to say they're more sophisticated, but maybe I'm going to say they're more sophisticated. Kayden. Kayden. And they do their due diligence. So once you sign on their DMs, they're going to go on your profile and see like, hey, what's this girl about? Like, what does she do? And if they're interested in your services or what you're doing, they'll actually ask for a meeting with you or ask how they can listen to your podcast or learn more about your whatever fill in the blank services, which is a huge lead gen function. Yeah. And I love your approach to that too, because another common, just like why people don't like LinkedIn is because they feel like it's just the cold DMs constantly bombarding my inbox of people just like selling right away before they even know who you are. Hi. And like, my name is like, they just go right into their spiel and like send you the link in that first connection request and like, wow, this is, this is just too much. Yeah. But there is power in DMs, but do it the right way. Yeah. And if you're listening to this, don't sell, like, on your first DM. Like, I want to get to know you before you ask me to whip my credit card out. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, I hope that goes without saying, but it's good to say it because I think it's just, it's one of the things that holds so many people back from LinkedIn in just conversations that I've had. And it's so good to hear that, like, so much magic is happening in DMs. And, like, you get to have conversations with people that, like, how else are going to have a conversation with them through that as long as we just don't, like, don't abuse the DMs. And I don't have to tell anyone in my audience about that. We're all sick of the cold pitch right off the bat. Okay, so if you had just one piece of advice for a female founder who wants to be more visible in her industry on LinkedIn, where would be the very first place you would have them start? All right, you got to do three things. This is the three pillars you need to do. Number one. You need to optimize your profile. Okay, so if you're listening to this podcast, literally go on my profile and duplicate it. What that means is have your profile picture, get your banner going, get your taglines, what you do, who you serve, get your about section with your CTA, how can they reach you, get your experience section set up. So that's going to take the most time is optimizing your profile. But once you have it set up, like you're good to go. Like you've built the engine. And one thing I see a lot of creators and service providers getting wrong is they will not upload an appropriate banner or they won't have a banner at all. And that's literally Waterfront Real Estate back there. And you can always swap it out. So I swap it out based on what programs I'm running, based on what I'm doing. And so that's okay, too. And I swap it out just to test it, too. So don't think like you have to have it so perfect and you can't change it because you can. So optimize your profile, then you. want to start posting content. Then you want to start the engagement. And once you do those three things, you're going to be good to go. It's so simple.  It can be so simple. It really is like Facebook 20 years ago.  Yeah. Yeah. I love it. That's so good. And I love that you just break down into those three simple things. Let's not overthink it. Let's not overcomplicate it. One thing I'm going to add to, because I get asked this a lot and I feel passionate about everything about this. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, oh, man, I don't want my ex-boss to see me posting on LinkedIn or I want my ex-coworker to see me or my weird uncle Tom or whatever, just go in there and remove them as a connection. Do not let them hold you back. They do not deserve a place in your connection realm if they are going to hold you back or make you feel like your content isn't valued. As you continue your LinkedIn journey, you will be captive. 30,000 connections. That may seem like a lot to you right now listening to this if you're just getting started in your LinkedIn journey. So what that means is don't connect with anyone and everyone. Be selective with who you connect with. And that's one of the reasons people don't post on LinkedIn is because the visibility is so high. And it was so high for me, too, when I was a recruiter in corporate, like literally, like my coworkers, the CEO of the company, like my clients, like everybody was watching me. And in the beginning, it went from like, how's your little LinkedIn posting going to now when I've been organically featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, like how did you do it?  There you go. And that's such a good point of like, we say we want visibility, but then when we have a very easy, totally free way to get the visibility, it's what scares us. And we end up not doing it. And then you look. Back two years later, and like, this is what I got going on, and this is what you got going on, and you're going to be like, I wish I would have started posting five or two years ago.  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I don't say that to be, look, I was scared too. I didn't know what to post. I got crickets, so many crickets. I got so many people coming at me in my life, you know, with lots of opinions on things and want to tell me how to do what I was doing, but actually they weren't doing it at all. So why would I take their advice? So if you're listening to this podcast, just keep your head down and keep going, and it'll all work out for you.  That's so good. Yeah, I think that's so real and so relatable. And just circling back to what you said at the beginning, like only 3% of users are posting content. Like, what a prime opportunity to get that visibility that we say that we want.  Yeah, and that number is just going to keep going up. So like now is this I'm to get a LinkedIn game.  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, good. This has been such a good conversation. And I would love to hear just a fun question is what is outside of business? What is a small joy that is fueling you right now? So I have two wine writers, Zena and Zara, and I call them my podcast managers if you follow them because they typically lay behind me and sleep while I work. But we live in a small coastal town in South Carolina called Beaufort, and I love taking them on long walks in our waterfront community. That brings me happiness.  It brings me happiness, too, when I see it on your Instagram stories. Look at you. I'm girls, press, smile, we're recording. Oh, that is so great. Okay, and where can our listeners connect with you? Because I know they're going to want to get more of what you have to offer. You can find me on LinkedIn, Caroline Pennington. I have a lot of pink in my profile, so you can't miss me. My website is FeminineFounder.com. I am also on Instagram, and it's CPennington55 is my handle. Perfect. Thank you so much.