LinkedIn Without the Overwhelm?

My Experiment Says It’s Possible

After months away from LinkedIn, I decided to give it another try—but this time, with a strategy that doesn’t drain me.

To fund my gentleman-scientist lifestyle, I need money. And to gain money, I need some way to let people know what I have to offer. This, in a nutshell, is what marketing is. As with (almost) everything, I see this as one big experiment. I learn a lot from trying things out. On top of that, writing about my discoveries helps me clear my mind and consolidate what I learn. I share my lessons here, so others can learn from it, too.

Damn LinkedIn

So, LinkedIn. When I just started as an entrepreneur, LinkedIn was my go-to. I would post all sort of things there. Was curious about how far I could stretch my creativity. Could I post 3 times a week? 4? 5? Everyday? Turns out I could. And I did for about two years. Connected to some very nice people. Got a lot of traffic. I even made sales from it. Until I got fed up. It all felt kind of….fake. All those people screaming for attention, attempting to force engagement. Even me, or so it felt.

So I quit posting on LinkedIn. For months. I did not want to have anything to do with it. But ditching your most important marketing channel is not without consequences. And I felt that!

I’m a bit of a novelty seeker. I like new things to explore. Apparently, this applies to marketing as well. Always looking for something new. Which is a waste, you have to start over every time. Not very efficient.

Why not use what you allready have available?

This lesson came in a conversation I had in a gifted entrepreneur mastermind. Why don’t you utilize what you already have, the leader of the mastermind asked me. I didn’t have an answer. Or not a good one, anyway. So I began thinking about that. How could I use Linkedin (where I still had the largest audience for what I have to give), without it being an energy drain? So instead of giving up, I decided to rethink my approach.

Structure and goals

To ease the ‘burden’ producing LinkedIn content had on me, my first step was to decide posting twice a week is enough. Then I decided to batch my content creation. Batch working works for me, it makes me more focused. I plan time in my schedule, and write posts for 4 weeks. This takes me about 2 hours to write and schedule the posts on LinkedIn. Great, done for almost an entire month. The only thing I have to do is react to comments.

Another gamechanger for me is my post-cycle. I used to randomly write a post and post it. And then you get random results. Or you have days without inspiration (sometimes leading to just post something for the sake of posting). No strategy, in other words.

Introducing the post cycle. I took some time to figure out what my goal was with posting. It’s telling people about all the things I do. To inspire. And to let them get to know me. Sharing about my life and business, so they know what I have to offer. So when they need it, they know where to get it. My goal is to make a good living by providing people with the support they need to thrive, based on my unique talents.

My company consists of three parts: I am a guide for gifted adults, I am a Gentleman- scientist, and a furnituremaker. So the first week of my post cycle, I post about my coaching programs, or my blog. The second week I write about my research projects. The third is about furnituremaking. In the fourth week, I write about how these three crossover to each other. And then I start again at the first week.

Approaching it like this gives me time to think about the strategy. It also gives me space. I don’t have to think about it the rest of the time. It helps me to go deeper, and be more authentic in my posts. It leaves room for spontaneous posts. And it brought back the fun!

I have been doing this for the last 4 weeks, and I got lots of views, new connections with wonderful people and lots of interaction. Especially on my post about my own giftedness discovery. It got more than 4000 views in just a few days, and a lot of people reached out to me, telling me it was as if I described their own childhood. Curious about that? You can read it here (in Dutch).

It’s too early to draw a conclusion, but it looks promising. Getting my energy back, and reaching people with what I have to give means a lot to me. I am confident this will work for me. I’ll keep you updated on my progress!