How to Grow on LinkedIn in 2026

We break down how to grow on LinkedIn in 2026 without chasing daily posts or virality, and why the platform still rewards real thinking over polished noise. We share practical ways to choose a single topic, add a true thought leadership angle, and use comments, carousels, and social SEO to get discovered. 

Key Takeaways:

• LinkedIn growth in 2026 starts with one clear thought leadership topic.
• LinkedIn rewards people of influence.
• The best LinkedIn posts teach something, not just share an update.
• One high-quality LinkedIn post a week can outperform high-volume posting.
• Human LinkedIn content stands out more than polished AI-generated content.
• LinkedIn comments can drive reach, impressions, and connection requests.
• Text posts and LinkedIn carousels usually outperform video content.
• An optimised LinkedIn personal profile supports SEO, GEO, and discoverability.

Send this to someone who needs a little push to start their own LinkedIn.
 

Follow us on LinkedIn:
Cherie Clonan
Stephanie Clifford

Stepps Framework Explained

Ryan Kelly on LinkedIn

Hosted by Cherie Clonan [@cherie_thedigitalpicnic] and co-hosted and produced by Steph Clifford [@stephssocials] 

Follow us on Instagram @theclimbpod_

Check out our agency @thedigitalpicnic > we teach digital marketing, and we can manage yours, too. 

Transcript

Introduction

Cherie 0:00

We're recording this episode on the beautiful, unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We want to express our gratitude for being able to create this podcast on this land, and we pay our respects to their enduring culture and connection to country. We recognize that sovereignty was never ceded, always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Welcome to the Climb, a podcast about the messy, brilliant, relentless journey of building something meaningful. As an introvert who believes in adding value, not noise, every 40-minute conversation is built to respect your time, but also actually teach you something useful.

Why we love LinkedIn

Steph 0:38

Okay, you've seen the title. This is How to Grow on LinkedIn in 2026. We've done an Instagram version of this, which you guys loved. So we're so excited to give you the LinkedIn version, which, Cherie, you are a top voice on LinkedIn. So I feel like we're in good company.

Cherie 0:52

And I didn't even know that I was a top voice. Do you know that story? No. You don't know? No. Are you pretending not to know and no, I genuinely. You really? Oh wow, okay. Well, let me tell you the story.

Steph 1:02

I know I'm a good actress, but maybe not that good.

Cherie 1:04

So I um got the top voice nomination in my emails. It was, I don't know, the UX needed some work. It looks like spam. So I had deleted it. And never took the badge. Um, as it turns out, it doesn't really matter. That would have just been a nice screenshotting moment. Unfortunately, I genuinely deleted it. And one day my team member at the time logged on and said, You've got a top voice badge next to your name. And I was like, What? And yeah.

Steph 1:32

Oh my god.

Cherie 1:34

Yeah. So uh I never knew that I even had it.

Steph 1:36

Wow. So when people start posting after this, they need to check their emails because they might just be coming at top voice.

Cherie 1:41

Absolutely. And if you've accidentally deleted, it might just be on your LinkedIn profile next to your name. So that's great. There's hope for us all, yeah.

Steph 1:48

I do need to acknowledge uh the elephant in the room or in our room, anyways, is that we are not in our usual space. We are really yeah. Anyone who's watching on YouTube or online will uh will be able to recognize that it's not the Red Sover.

Cherie 2:03

No.

Steph 2:03

We are outside in a little meeting room, very corporate vibes, definitely not TVP vibes. Not TDP. So we are here while we're moving into our whole new office space, which is so, so exciting. So we do apologise if there's a bit of different lighting, a little bit of different sound. We are doing our absolute best while we are in literally a climb of our own in terms of getting from one office to another.

Cherie 2:26

So bear with, bear with. Poor way of despair.

Steph 2:30

All right, Sheree, can you tell us why LinkedIn has been such a huge platform for you?

Cherie 2:35

Yeah, okay. So obviously, favorite platform. I know we're not meant to have favourites, but I don't have favourites with my actual kids. Um I have favourites for the day, you know, but not overall. When it comes to social media platforms, I've got a firm favourite and her name is LinkedIn. I love this platform so much because it's just an introvert's playground. I feel like we genuinely get to do what introverts love most here, which is add value, not noise, you know, and it is an introvert's best friend. I exhale every time I get onto the platform, but I do just want to say, and I say this to everyone who sits in any kind of LinkedIn upskilling with me, you've been in some of those audiences, you know, um, capturing content. But I say the same thing every time. There's no reason Cherie Clonan from Yarreville, I'm just Cherie from the inner west of Melbourne, um, should be clocking one mil-ish impressions per month, or um, sometimes in those quieter moments, about one mil per quarter. I should not be clocking that. And I just think the reason why is this isn't an influencer space, it's a person of influence, you know, and there's a really big difference. And so I just get to show up to my favourite child being LinkedIn and talk about what I love the very most. And when you show up and you're just really locked in on that one thing you can't stop talking about, no matter how hard you try. Apparently, one mil impressions get to be created each month. So if you're sitting and listening to this episode and you're thinking, oh yeah, but it's Cherie, she's almost 12 years into business, she's X, she's Y, she's a copywriter, she's a content strategist. There are people on the platform who've uh never been paid to write words or never been paid to do dot dot dot who are killing it on this platform. They're just so and so from so-and-so.

Steph 4:20

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And we are going to be sharing a framework at the end of this episode that is going to help anyone who is on their LinkedIn journey to be able to start creating content on this platform and seeing results. So stick around because uh we're very excited to share that with you all.

Cherie 4:36

Yeah, we don't want to clickbait, but this framework um is designed for virality, and I don't chase virality, but this framework seems to clock it pretty well. So if you want to stick around, we'll give that framework that we use, and it's so good.

Steph 4:52

Okay, so we're listening to this episode and we're thinking, that's great, Sheree. What on earth am I gonna talk about on LinkedIn? So, how does someone choose

Choose One Topic And Go Deeper

Steph 5:00

what those topics are gonna be?

Cherie 5:02

Yep. Okay, so good news is you almost don't need topics plural. How good does it? Does it you feel good if you're doing that? Have I just reduced the overwhelm for you as we're speaking, right? So some people won't even need topics plural. If you're really rich in topics that you could speak to, then sure, make it plural. I would cap it at three. But for most people, I would stick to one thing that you want to speak about really passionately and speak about that so well on repeat, repackage it up. Yeah, LinkedIn suits a thought leader. And a lot of people hear that and think, I'm I'm not a thought leader, I'm just so-and-so from so-and-so. I disagree. If you've got one thing you can professionally yap about on this particular platform for 12 months straight consecutively, and still remain interesting, congrats. You're a thought leader.

Steph 5:50

Yeah, yep. Agree. I think it's also almost leading back to our previous episode about personal brand. Such a good platform to start on. I think people get a lot of fear about posting on Instagram, TikTok, etc. Posting on LinkedIn, like there is this like more freedom, I feel like it's from a professional lens. Yes. It's your work self, like it's a there's a little bit of this differentiation. You can create an incredible community and yeah, just talk about those things that you're really passionate about from a professional lens.

Cherie 6:21

The people would get around, and and too many people are overthinking it, Steph. Like when I look at you, I think one of my favorite things about you is an almost quotable, you live by the motto that it's not that deep. Yeah, and I wish more people were like that, yeah, especially in the workplace, you know, and you could turn that into a freaking LinkedIn series. My gosh, I'm getting a LinkedIn audit. You would be a thing. I just think you would be the person I'd want to consume content from as a professional, um, even if it was outside of industry, and how rolling in with it's not that deep has positively influenced your career. So, to anyone listening, like really, this shouldn't be overthunk. It can be just again, some of the best things about you, the thing that makes you that person of influence. And yeah, um, rolling in and designing content accordingly, it's not that deep.

Steph 7:12

I love that. I'm writing that down.

Cherie 7:14

Can't wait to see the post.

Steph 7:16

Okay, so if I'm gonna, let's say, post my my new post now, how do I make sure it's not just a post, it's actually that thought leadership? Like, how do we define that difference?

Cherie 7:27

So, yeah, it's actually really that's a good question because I think every day I sort of see on LinkedIn some examples of people who've honestly played it safe and still clocked reach, um, engagement, like all the obvious wins, but I look at that post and I'm like, where's the thought leadership angle in this? You could have gone, actually, you could have gone deeper. It could have been deeper. Um, you know, and so uh I guess an example that I think of, just so people can grab the visual here, there was one time I think last year where our home was featured in Bunnings magazine, and it was a really big deal, such a big deal that I could have just played it so safe and shared that and that alone on LinkedIn, and it would have got really good reach and engagement. People would have done a lot of hand clapped celebratory emojis. Cool, done, won. But did I win at thought leadership with just playing it safe like that? Abs freaking Lutely not. And so I looked at that same post and said, Where's the thought leadership in this? And so, to anyone listening, please stop playing it safe and just ask yourself, where can I do something more with it? Like, how can I add something more to this? How can I add something that's unique that I know as a thought leader within my space? So I went in with the post that said, like, yep, this is a really pretty bunch of images. We had a personal stylist for the day, we had X, we had Y, we had Z. The photographer was absolutely amazing. We cleaned for six hours before anyone got in there. The list goes on. That could have been it, but I instead went in and said, it's not just the pretty space, this is a really neuro-inclusive home, you know. And I said, I have designed this home with sensory quadrants in mind, and I want to teach you about that. So there's the thought leadership kicking in because some people have never heard of the Dunn's model of processing. And so I taught them about that, and Steph, the post blew up, you know, because the commentary, it was just comment after comment after comment where it was like, I've just learned something new for the first time. Now my family makes sense. Oh my god, I'm gonna design this to cater for that. And it just went on and on. It went so far, and now it's created opportunities where just as of a fortnight ago, I think ABC or I think it is for ABC are like, can we come to your home? And I'm like, I'm busy. I'm a busy woman. We don't have time to clean it. Yeah, I can't. I haven't got a six-hour clean of me again, to be quite honest.

Steph 9:43

Yeah, so I love that so much. I think it's kind of like any social media platform where, of course, you can just post what you do and you know, hey, bunnies came over of being the caption and put it out there, and yes, of course, you'll get some engagement. Yeah. But yeah, how can you challenge yourself to make it something better than that and go so much further? And again, so many opportunities come from LinkedIn. I feel like we'll probably speak about that later. We will. Oh man, so many.

Cherie 10:07

No, but seriously, talk about it, Steph, because that is it. Like when you choose to just share the safe moment, yay, I featured in Bunnings, cool. But what I did brought so many more opportunities. So to everyone listening, please think in all of the opportunities that come with this platform and what what it needs in return is a thought leadership angle from you.

Steph 10:27

Yeah. But the good news is that thought leadership doesn't mean that you have to be posting five times a week.

Cherie 10:33

Absolutely not.

Steph 10:34

Thank goodness.

Cherie 10:35

No, it's you know, it doesn't really match up, does it? Like if we want strong thoughts in general, how are we gonna do that when we're telling people to drop and give us 20 like TikTok does? Give us three freaking videos a day. I'm gonna have no effing thoughts by day's end. I got nothing left. I'm I'm I have I there's no not even IQ, EQ, or even freaking D minus Q. Like, I don't know, there'd be nothing left for me. No cues. No cues, no cues, you know. So LinkedIn, it's a less is more platform. Um, so

Less Is More And AI Slop

Cherie 11:10

how do you all feel as you're listening to this? Like, I hope you can feel the exhale from this podcast because LinkedIn honors um thinking. And so it says, hey, we'd prefer probably to hear from you a little less, but show up with so much more because of that. Um, and so I can I said before that I clock about one mil impressions per month when I'm really in LinkedIn stride. Um, it does dip down to about one mil impressions per quarter if I'm just um biz A. Yeah, you know. And yeah, how I do that is with a less is more approach. So I'd rather hit with something really freaking good, less consistent. Well, it's consistent, but hopefully it's consistently good. And so what I mean by less is more is you can make a massive impact even with one really bloody good post per week. Or if you're feeling like a little bit more stretchy, give us two, maybe three. And that would be seriously enough. So my one mil is usually attached to no more than one to three posts per week.

Steph 12:14

And if you're hearing that and thinking, I cannot get around one post per week, I feel like the advice that we always give people with content is post the amount that you can that is high quality. So if that looks like one piece a month for you, then that's better than zero pieces a month. So don't hear that and think, I'll just never achieve that. That's fine if at this current moment that's not achievable for you. Yeah, but there are those small steps that you can take to start building on this platform.

Cherie 12:40

Yeah.

Steph 12:40

I think something that we are seeing as well now with the rise of AI and Chat GPT is people want to show up consistently on platforms like LinkedIn and they're doing so full AI slop uh mode. Yes. Where they think, I'll just chuck my idea into Chat GPT, and that way I get five posts for the week. So tell us what you're experiencing, I guess, being on this platform for so long now and um seeing this change.

Cherie 13:08

Yep. Okay, well, uh grieving um the loss of human on the platform currently. I just miss people and all of their spelling and grammatical mistakes, Def. Bring it on. I love that. Just come back. Where'd you go? Yeah. I didn't mind your there with the uh incorrect EI, you know? Just come back. Like, and they got replaced by something that's so polished, it doesn't sound like them anymore. I have watched some of my favourite LinkedIn creators dilute the very best of what they were into the worst chat GPT prompts that I've probably ever seen in my life. Because I can guess the prompt. I've been teaching chat GPT for so long, I'm like, well, that was a freaking lazy prompt, wasn't it? You know? And I feel like um the DJ from The Wedding Singer when Adam Sandler's kind of having a moment. Yeah. And he's like, he's losing his mind. I'm reaping all the benefits. Because I'm like behind the curtain, I'm like, you've just chat GP'd the GPT'd the shit out of yourself, and I I can write. Yeah, yeah. And even if I couldn't, I'd still get behind honestly, a really just authentically you caption with spelling and grammatical errors and all, you'll get the engagement people will say you spelled there wrong.

Steph 14:23

Yeah, yeah.

Cherie 14:23

You know, um, but yeah, I just I miss that. So in this AI slop era, don't give up on the platform and just think like DJ from Wedding Singer and just say, Well, this is a golden opportunity for me to stand out. I promise you, in that relentless scroll of nothing but ChatGPT after Chat GPT, people are like, Oh, hey, Cherie's written this. That's right.

Steph 14:45

Yeah, it's actually easy to stand out at the moment because you're amongst a bunch of robots. So the human is shining through. Truly. We're not saying don't use it at all, but just be very cautious of trying to build

The Algorithm

Steph 15:00

up that high consistency by using AI because I feel like that's where you can get in trouble. But for now, I wanted to talk about LinkedIn's algorithm because I actually think that LinkedIn is so incredible in this way. And you can actually see Instagram and TikTok trying to catch up to LinkedIn, which that's you know, yeah. LinkedIn's a bit more old school. You wouldn't think necessarily it'd be at the forefront of uh a lot of social media uh algorithms and decisions, but the LinkedIn algorithm is so different in the way that your engagements and your activity can actually be just as, if not even sometimes maybe more important than the posts that you're making. So tell us about that side of things.

Cherie 15:43

Yep, okay. Again, this is why it seems to love an introvert and understand how we roll. This is a platform where you can say so much about yourself just by choosing what to engage with on this platform. There's a whole strategy in how and what who and what you engage with, you know. So I would be connecting with really solid thought leaders. I would be wanting to bump up how rich my feed feels, get rid of the AI slop everyone's, get the real people pushing through and their real stories, and start engaging with them. Because the algorithm, like you said, the way it's designed, a lot of what you engage with actually shows up within feed mostly for great reasons, unless you're commenting on something that's also saying a lot about you for the wrong reasons. And this is this has happened, Steph speaking honestly, and we're gonna talk about this in another episode in the hiring season for the digital picnic. I do look at everyone's activity on LinkedIn and I scroll really far back to see what they've engaged with and what it says about them. You know, here's a plug, connect with me on LinkedIn. And if there's something that resonates, engage with my content because it actually says a lot about who and what you back. And if you're a marketing professional especially, I reckon it would be a solid idea to connect with people like me, you know, and engage with our content. So yeah.

Steph 17:02

If anyone's listening to this and maybe they haven't even stepped onto LinkedIn's platform for before or maybe for a really long time, just to give um, I guess that visual. So if I'm on my LinkedIn platform and I'm scrolling through my feed, and obviously I've connected with Cherie. Yeah. Thanks for accepting. Sorry, who are you? Yeah. So when I'm scrolling through, I can see what Cherie has commented on and I can see what she's reacted to. And you're actually an amazing case study. There's a reason why you're a top voice, but how you uh reply to things that you agree with and showcase your values by either you know agreeing or disagreeing or whatever that is in a really succinct way. It's very easy for someone to scroll through their feed and go, oh, Sheree Clonan commented on this. Yeah. Read what you said, decide if they agree or disagree, and if they agree, they're gonna go and connect with you. And that has not required a post from you, it's required required zero content to be created. It's literally just maybe a sentence, two sentences, and I've gone, yeah, I agree with her. I'm gonna align with her. So yeah, really don't um underestimate the power of a good comment. And if you are looking for some good examples of some strong comments, go and um have a look at the comments. Look at my activity section.

Cherie 18:18

Yeah, yeah, you're right, Steph. I kind of forget that about me. Why can I? You've just reminded me that the same thing I think about my team. I just thought, oh my gosh, maybe the team are happy with what I sort of, because I do disagree a lot, and I'm sure it shows up in our team's feeds because I'm sick of hustle, bro, bullshit on LinkedIn, and I do call it in, but not in a dysregulated, assholy kind of way. It's more like, are you so for real right now? You really want to push people to they literally drop and call that ambition, you know? Um, and so I'm heavy on that commentary on this platform because I feel passionate about that. Um, and I don't hold back and you wait till you see the DMs. I've got some frenemies hanging out in the DMs, but it's worth it. That's um, yeah. So I just to finish off on the engage first post second thing. If you really thought this wasn't a thing, LinkedIn is so big on this now that they're rewarding you by showing you how many impressions you got from your comment.

Steph 19:17

Yes. How good is that? And often it will be like you could comment the most simple thing like, thanks for sharing this, Cherie, and you'll have a look and it's 1500 impressions and you're like, whoa. Okay.

Cherie 19:29

So imagine if you bumped that up and put thought leadership into your commentary alone just to start with. You would end up without even posting. There are people who get more impressions from a freaking thought leadership-angled reply on their comment than they would ever get on a post. Yes. Maybe that's your whole strategy. And then that's right. You're commenting on like aligned folk that makes sense, and then you're grabbing all of these connection requests because people are like, wow, I love what Steph Clifford's putting down. I love this. I agree with it. Let's let's roll, let's connect.

Steph 20:00

You know, I love that.

Cherie 20:02

Yeah.

Steph 20:02

Okay, so that's great, especially if we're nervous. Definitely start with your comments, start with your reactions, and connect with people that you align

Carousels Beat Video

Steph 20:10

with. But if you are at that phase where you're like, no, I actually am ready to post, I'm excited to start putting content out on this platform. You'll hear Sheree and I always yapping on about how important video is.

Cherie 20:21

Yeah.

Steph 20:22

But LinkedIn is a little bit different, right, Sheree?

Cherie 20:24

Yeah, it is. We have got a 70 plus client portfolio, and video is just awful on LinkedIn across so many different industries. And we are video marketing legends. Not to flex, but we understand video, video production, video editing, even beyond that, the optimization social SEO, the list could go on. There's hardly any video that cracks it, and I think it's just because the platform hasn't made video really accessible yet. Yeah. Um, it just doesn't show up well, you know, and there's not even a video feed. I kind of err away from guiding people to produce too much video for LinkedIn. There's only a few kind of um moments where I'll just disagree or not follow my own advice. Steph, you've just created a video for me with um our team member Nicole, and I'm like, damn it, that's so good. I'm gonna have to push that out to LinkedIn. And I'll let you know, Steph. I'll let you know how it performs. It does, in theory, suit going to LinkedIn, which doesn't happen a lot for TDP. Um, I'm looking at it and I'm like, I'll give it a crack and I'll probably yet again be humbled by LinkedIn's poor video UX. But let's let's just see, right? Um but for the most part, steer away from video, hang out with the written word. It does love a text based um, you know, caption, pair it back with rich media, so probably a somewhat relevant image that suits what you're probably talking about. But I would say instead of could this be content and instead of could this be video, I say, well, should it be video? The answer is mostly no, and then bump it up. Say, could this be carousel? LinkedIn loves a carousel. So make besties with Canva, design it as a PDF, export that PDF, and then you have to roll into LinkedIn, Steph. And anyone listening, are you all out there? Are you here? Hello? Anyone there? You hit the little uh cross button. Yes. And that brings up a new post. Um, and then you sort of drag it out to the cross and look for add a file or document that allows you to add a PDF, which shows up as a really beautiful carousel. So you know how I feel about that stuff. Like it breaks my heart when people design these beautiful graphics in Canva and then they load it to LinkedIn as a freaking photo dump dump.

Steph 22:44

Yeah.

Cherie 22:44

And I'm like, oh, you would have got three times more reach, impressions, engagement if you just put this into a PDF and let that bad boy roll out the way it should do, which is a carousel.

Steph 22:54

And you'll be surprised on LinkedIn how even a static image can sometimes tell the story alongside your caption well enough. Whereas like I wouldn't recommend that on Instagram very often these days, but on LinkedIn you can. So it's a bit of a flip. No. Start with your carousel.

Cherie 23:13

Yeah, it's it takes. Would you agree with this, Steph? Like, I feel like the type A perfectionist struggle to get around how lo-fi this platform is. Like you and I both, we've had this ongoing realization where we're like, oh my God, it's like the uglier this piece of you know, collateral is, the better it performs. Let go of perfectionism, get over yourself, um, make peace with ugly screenshots, um, images from your literal camera role. This platform just it doesn't need the superficiality of Instagram, it doesn't need the fast pace of TikTok, it just needs you, boo. You know?

Steph 23:48

It's less about what you're showing and more about what you're saying.

Cherie 23:51

So add value, not noise.

Steph 23:54

100%. Yes. Love that.

Cherie 23:56

Yep.

Steph 23:56

Okay, what about uh company pages versus personal pages?

Cherie 24:01

Way to go and pick the hill that I will die on. I feel like you asked this because you know how passionate I get when I talk about this. So for those listening, Steph and I, we get flown around Australia to talk to like TikTok and PepsiCo and Uber and Amazon and McDonald's, and the list goes on. And we have to, at the beginning, I think I was a little too gentle. And I was like, yeah, congrats, you've got the company page. I'm so happy for you. But what I wasn't saying

Personal Profiles Versus Company Pages

Cherie 24:30

was, well, this is tumbleweeds without any personal like personal profiles attached to this company. It doesn't mean literally attached by admin rights or whatever. You can be the person on the team in whatever department and so on. But we need some activity from the peeps, the personal, you know, profiles attached to that page. Otherwise, that company page is freaking redundant. Like, don't even bother. It'll be tumbleweeds, it's just so cold, clinical, it lacks any warmth. And I would never waste a marketing team's resources, effort, energy. The list goes on on a company page if no one else on team are actively posting to their personal profiles, you know? So yeah.

Steph 25:15

It's they complement each other. So the digital picnic's uh LinkedIn profile compliments Cherie Clonan and vice versa. And even for me being an employee, I compliment TDP by speaking about my experiences and what I'm doing at the workplace, and then TDP also compliments me by showcasing what we do and therefore backing my credibility up as well. So it's a win-win scenario. And you, Sheree, are so good at encouraging us here at TDP to post on LinkedIn so much. And I would say that that probably speaks a lot to you about having that, like you don't have that scarcity complex of thinking that, oh, if my employees are posting on LinkedIn, someone might poach them.

Cherie 25:55

They will poach them. They will, and I want that, yeah. Like, I'll be sad, but I just want someone to climb, and you'll climb if you post to LinkedIn. You're gonna get you're gonna get a LinkedIn DM. That's right.

Steph 26:07

And I think that, I mean, as an employee, you should know that that there's opportunities there sitting on that platform for you. But as I guess an employer, that yeah, those opportunities might come knocking or whatever, but it's it is benefiting the company or agency or whatever it is as a whole that you have so many people speaking about your company. Because I mean, TDP as the company can shout from the rooftops about what it does. Yeah, but when you have the employees actually backing it up to say, this is my experience, this is what I get to do, yeah. That says so much more than what we could ever share from TDP's profile.

Cherie 26:44

You know it, because you see the insights on the company page, and then you hear about my insights in terms of personal profile and so on. But the truth is, Steph, just like you said, I could say this one thing about TDP that's so positive and warm and endearing and loving a thousand and one times. It doesn't mean shit. When it comes from team, it just lands so much better. It's so real, you know. So yeah, I would say for those listening who are not the McDonald's and the Amazons, please, we started big, but um honestly, the most, the majority of the work that we do is like really honestly SME, you know? Totally. And they're landing on this freaking company page and saying, no, we're active here. And I'm like, yeah, but you don't have a single personal profile posting within company. And it might just be a team of five or less. Or it might just be the founder-led brand asking us, well, I will start with the company page. And I'm like, well, you may as well not bother. Just start with the personal profile. And if you're gonna have a company page, you've got to do there's a checklist, it's got one tick box. Do you want to hear it?

Steph 27:45

Yes.

Cherie 27:46

If you want a company page, do you have one active personal profile on LinkedIn? We can do it. Yeah, like tech, and I'm like, yep, done, let's go. Let's talk company pages then. But if that doesn't get ticked, I'm like, I'm not gonna waste your time and money talking about a an effective company page build out. If you don't have one, we call it Link Fluenza, yeah or anyone does. We didn't create that, it's probably stolen from somewhere, but you just gotta have one active profile.

Steph 28:12

Yeah, I think because what happens otherwise is the company page just turns into, hey, we're hiring every couple of months or something. And it's like, well, why even have the page? You're gonna put that out on like Seag or whatever else anyway. So it's like it just, it just feels like a bit of a I don't know, it's not a social media platform anymore. It's not building community, it's not giving social proof, like all of the great benefits of LinkedIn are fading away, and you're just there to be there, which is like you might as well not show up anyways. Yes,

Social SEO

Steph 28:40

agreed. Okay, so of all the platforms that Google reads best, it's LinkedIn. Yay! Yay! Google loves words, and LinkedIn is full of words. So tell us about, I guess, the pros.

Cherie 28:52

So I think this whole podcast episode is dedicated to the plethora of reasons why I love LinkedIn. But this is another one and it's a big one, you know, because I love social SEO. Uh, I am annoying with it. There isn't a single exploration call that I roll into at the digital picnic here where I don't end up just borderline ranting about social SEO. Uh, thankfully it's really well received and it has been our competitive advantage as an agency. I just really strategically care. So Google has an ability to read all social platforms now, but LinkedIn is the platform that it reads best, you know. So, yay, even if you didn't honestly again post, just having an optimized profile is already pretty well read by Google. Yeah. Um, I'll give you an example here. So when we pulled our children from a school that was just not suited to them as two neurodivergent kids, we were furiously looking elsewhere. And I landed on the LinkedIn profile of the potential principal at the school that I was scoping out. When I looked through his really well-fleshed out LinkedIn profile, so thankfully he had fleshed this out, I learned that he dedicated his entire career to dyslexia. And that just, I have to say, dyslexia, especially a raging green flag. I just I think any educator who gives a shit about dyslexia, it just says everything about the entire experience that you're gonna have with them. So that was just that. That was just the fully fleshed out LinkedIn profile. So coming back to Google, like uh even if you weren't to post, it can already read you if you just after this podcast episode, lo and behold, flesh out your LinkedIn profile. Put the about section in. Get a header, get a get a tagline under your name, you know, list out your experience and so on. But I've got a bigger example for you here, Steph. I kept getting journalists hitting me up for most of this year wanting to run stories about C-suite folk who grew up in poverty. And I was like, where the fuck are you all coming from? I haven't posted about this. Yes. Um, and I thought, what is going on? Where are you grabbing this information? I could recall maybe posting once to LinkedIn about growing up below the poverty line. And I think I did one Instagram post. And um, as it turns out, Google is so good at reading, it came from LinkedIn, it was one post. It is so good at reading content that the journalists were grabbing these insights from chat GPT searches. So yeah, the social SEO was SEOing, yeah, and it feeds that generative engine optimization piece that we call that, like that's called GEO. And that means I'm gonna come up in chat-based searches when media folk are saying, Who can I interview about? Insert thing here. Yep. And it's Cherie Clonan, who grew up below the poverty line, has ended up in the C-suite, and you know, they should run this story. And it links to my LinkedIn, I've checked it. One post.

Steph 31:53

That's incredible.

Cherie 31:54

You want to drown in free PR, create the stories that the journalists are so hungry to tell, and they need your help and they're leaning on, you know, your chat GPTs, your Clauds, your Geminis, and so on to find who the right people are to interview in in my, you know, in this example, Australia.

Steph 32:12

Yeah.

Cherie 32:13

Yeah.

Steph 32:13

Okay, circling back to Chat GPT. So if we are looking to use ChatGPT to help us out with our writing, our captions, our content on LinkedIn, what can we do to make sure that we are not sitting in that AI slop space? And that it's actually being a helpful tool for us.

Cherie 32:32

Okay, yeah, good question. I've got a little hack here that I do because I do know the statistics on infographics on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn loves collateral, uh, does love an infographic. It's said that it gets two and a half more in terms of reach, engagement, and so on if you just have an infographic to pair back with what you're talking to. So, what if I was to tell you that you could write the caption, feed that entire caption written by you through to a chat GPT or, you know, whatever it is that you're using, and say, can you turn this into an infographic for me? And then you get to use that on LinkedIn to pair back with that post.

Steph 33:09

Oh, I love that.

Cherie 33:10

Right? Sorry, I can't take credit for this. It was my son, 15. He taught me the infographic hack. Um, and I've used it a lot since then, and we use it for clients as well, especially we've got clients in the gender equality spaces, and we just need to, even if you honestly um stop there and just use the first go that ChatGPT gave you, cool. We're lucky, we can give that to our in-house graphic design team. That's right. Um, and they can obviously put it into branded colours and so on. But honestly, with Claude, you can give it brand palettes, you you will get

Formatting posts

Cherie 33:40

something that seriously looks like what it's meant to. That's right.

Steph 33:43

Okay, let's talk formatting because LinkedIn does have a quite a specific way of formatting posts because realistically, people are looking at this platform at work. So we don't want to create, you know, essays for people. Yeah, we want to make it short and sharp and be able to get that thought leadership across in the quickest and most effective way possible. Yes. So, what are your favorite ways to format a LinkedIn post?

Cherie 34:06

Okay, well, I can't steal this. We've got a direct relationship with LinkedIn as well as other social media platforms, so it definitely comes in handy. So we get given literally checklists, you know, of what is currently working the very best. And look, we're such a bunch of bad asses, we don't agree with all of those. Listed in the checklist. So, you know, some of the things for me, if I was to pull from the latest kind of list, I would say when you spoke to length just before, LinkedIn, the sweet spot, seems to be somewhere between 800 to 1,000 words. Actually, that's not really short form, is it? You know, that's quite the story.

Steph 34:40

Yeah.

Cherie 34:40

I love that, to be really honest, because it just reminds me that storytelling seriously it pulls through on this platform. So you want to pick the right format there. In saying that though, with such a chunky little post like 800 to 1000, you want to do this thing where you create a bit of a I call it and I taught one of our team members, Zara, and many others, and actually proudly Zara is now using this at the diary of a CEO. I can't believe it. But it's called the caption dance. When you've got a beefy little body of text like 800 to 1000, you need to reward the person that's reading it. So they can't handle it all in one hit to begin with. And this isn't rocket science, we need spacing. Um, but on top of that, you sort of need to do this dance where in one minute it's like this tiny little paragraph. Then on the next sentence, like the next line down, it might be all caps, locks, one sentence. And then the next line down might be two sentences paired back together. And then after that, one more mini paragraph, and then you might finish off with some emojis like here's what I did to dot dot dot. And it's like line, line, line. A bit of a list. That's it. And with that list, I would pair it back with a little emoji prompt at the beginning. I do keep in mind though that with emojis, that's not the most accessible thing for those using a screen reader. So just keep that in mind and do with it what you want to. But so roll in that caption dance when you're playing with 800 to 1,000 words, you need to honour the person that's reading it and do a little bit of a dance with them.

Steph 36:07

So yeah. It's kind of like when you get um a PowerPoint presentation back when you're at school or something, and someone would put it up on the screen, and when it was a slab of text, you just immediately like die.

Cherie 36:18

Absolutely. It's like immediately no, immediately no.

Steph 36:21

Immediately no. Whereas like, can how can we make this as exciting as possible for the reader? And I think when you do see, oh okay, there's some dot points and there's a list and there's a few fun little bits, and maybe there's a bit of a joke going on, naturally you're more likely to be engaged.

Cherie 36:36

100%, yeah. Just think of the mental load of the person taking in 800 to 1,000 words 15 minutes before their Monday morning meeting. Yep. And do a dance with them.

Steph 36:45

Yep.

Cherie 36:46

And if you don't know what the flip I'm talking about, again, connect with me on LinkedIn. I dance every day or three times a week. Just dancing. I'm dancing. Um, it's tango, it's solcer, it's like um hip hop, it's just all of the dances. Um, because I would never subject people to 1,000 words in one single body of text. Ew. Yeah.

Steph 37:06

Ew.

Cherie 37:06

Yeah.

Steph 37:07

All right. Now you've promised the people a framework. Yeah. So tell us about it.

STEPPs Framework

Cherie 37:12

Okay, so there's a particular framework that I've always used as a content strategist, which is called the Steps Framework. Now it's deliberately misspelt, it's steps with two P's. Um, it's not mine, it's created by a person called Jonah Berger, and it has been specifically created to create viral content. Um, so you can imagine that each letter means a particular thing. Now the S stands for social currency. So, what is socially current to your demographic at this point in time? You'd want to lean into that on LinkedIn and you can rotate through and speak to one socially current thing per quarter, right? The T would be a trigger. So, how can you trigger people, not in the way that you're thinking? Yes. Um, this isn't psychology talk. I'm talking like, how can you trigger people to look forward to something on a regular basis from you? So a beautiful example of this is Ryan Kelly from Creative Natives, who does these bi-monthly-ish, incredible free webinars for marketing professionals everywhere. You cannot believe they're free. Next one down, E, is emotion. So that just means you've got to nail that storytelling and have something emotive come through within that big 800 to 1,000 body of text. We need that. The first P is public, so public topic kind of leans into social currency. They they kind of go well together. And then the next P is practical value. If you could get away with teaching someone something that they didn't know on LinkedIn once per, I don't know, week, fortnight, month, whatever, the same way I did with the sensory quadrants piece, you've already won in this framework alone. And then the final one is the easy part. It's S. It's storytelling. With 800 to 1,000 words, you're gonna need to get around storytelling, and we don't want to chat GPT it too hard. We do. Like I would say again, connect with me on LinkedIn and watch me do the steps thing every single month. Yeah. I am leaning into this every single month. My next social currency piece will be about this budget and the budget changes and how that impacts SMEs because I'm passionate about it, you know, and I want to unpack it with my community and I'm gonna put a Cherie clone and angle on it.

Steph 39:17

Amazing. That brings us to the end of the episode. So yeah, if you want to connect with Cherie on LinkedIn.

Cherie 39:23

Or you.

Steph 39:24

Oh me. Yeah, come and find me over there. I think I'm actually Stephanie Clifford over there. Yeah, I've been the professional. Yeah, you are the long name.

Cherie 39:31

Stephanie Clifford with It's Not That Deep.

Steph 39:33

Yeah. Yeah, come and watch me start this new signature series, apparently. But we would love for you to send this to someone who maybe, I don't know, maybe you want to give them a little push to start their own LinkedIn, or maybe you're an employer and you've got employees and you'd love to be like, hey, come on guys, let's get our um, let's get our profiles up. Let's start uh creating a bit more of a community in this space. Yeah. Hope everyone enjoyed that episode and we will have more for you next week.

Cherie 40:01

Thanks for listening to The Climb with Cherie Clonan and Steph Clifford. Here's to growth, grit, and bloody good stories.