If You Build It, They Will Come: Personal Branding on LinkedIn

“You don't have to be Gary Vee to be a personal brand,” says Andreas Jonsson, CEO and co-founder of Shield, a platform that empowers LinkedIn users to, as he explains, “use their data to become even better and stronger; to build their brands faster.” 

Andreas sees LinkedIn as the primary platform to build and grow a personal brand. He and his team built Shield to streamline that process. Its interface features a dashboard that puts users’ LinkedIn content, performance metrics, profile stats, and network growth all in one place. 

“We have experienced firsthand how growing a personal brand will benefit you in multiple, even unimaginable, ways,” says Andreas. With his 15,000+ followers, he practices what he preaches when it comes to LinkedIn. 

He joined an episode of the Rep Your Brand podcast to share his best tips on how you can do it, too.

1. Know your goals

What social platform is best for building your personal brand?

“It's all contextual,” says Andreas. “But generally speaking, most people benefit from LinkedIn,” 

The platform’s broad organic reach alone makes it easy to connect with a wide audience. If you’re creative, other platforms might be a better place to find like-minded followers. 

“It depends on what you do and what you're trying to achieve” –– particularly the kinds of people you’d like to reach, he adds. 

2. Consistency is key (more posts = more views) 

For months, if not years, Andreas was a passive user of LinkedIn. He didn’t read the feed or comment on his connections’ posts. When he realized how many users drove impressive engagement by posting frequently and consistently, he knew there was something powerful happening on the platform many of us think of like a resume repository.

Andreas began to build a following (now 15,000 and counting) by consistently posting content. He notes that consistency and frequency are two different things. 

“It doesn't mean you have to post every day, but you have to establish a habit,” he says.

It’s clearly paid off: In 2019, he posted 136 times. He made 250 posts in 2020, an increase of about 85%. His views, likes, followers, and other engagement metrics on the platform grew by 400%.

“I attribute that not only to building a habit,” he says, “but being consistent at a frequency I can sustain, which is now two out of every three days.”

3. Stop scrolling and get going

Where to begin? Don’t overthink it.

Andreas says, “[Get] into the feed to figure out what works.”

People tend to think they have to do everything at once.

If you try to do that, you’ll end up with more questions than answers before you even scroll through the feed. That’s why it’s so crucial to start –– somewhere. If you’re not posting frequently, Andreas recommends doing it once a week or once every other week. Every day is probably too much of a stretch. 

“You're not going to build the habit overnight,” he adds.

“Get that first small win,” he says.” When you start… nobody will get amazing reach and engagement. But it's a good testing ground. Get in there, get some posts out, see what it's like and take it from there.”

4. Experiment to discover your unique value

Andreas brought it up first: What does adding value really mean? 

“Just get into the feed and figure out what value is,” he says. 

He likens building a personal brand to running a company while trying to define the value it provides users.

Creating a recognizable brand doesn’t necessarily require you to niche down by hyper-focusing on just one topic.

“We're all complex human beings,” he explains. “I think that the more angles or perspectives we show of ourselves, the better and the easier it becomes for someone to say, yes, I'm going to follow [them].”

You can talk about your area of expertise all day, but you should also let your personality shine to help people lean into your brand.

“If you show more angles of yourself,” Andreas says, “… all of that will sort of add to your personal brand to make it more holistic.”

5. Track metrics (like comments) that align with your goals  

Andreas is a data guy –– after all, Shield is a place to study numbers. But before looking at any metrics, he stresses the importance of establishing expectations. 

“I would rather ask what we’re hoping to achieve by being on LinkedIn in the first place. Then I would go a step deeper: What are we trying to achieve with our content? Once we have those sort of things in place, we can start looking at metrics.”

Those metrics should be aligned with your goals. If you want to grow your company and build an engaged audience, look at comments. If you want to grow brand awareness, views might be the best metric to reflect that.

Andreas notes that Shield lets him follow the traction of his posts, including views per hour. He can watch those accelerate, lose speed and pick up traction again. He uses those metrics to make content decisions.

If the post is still gaining ground, “I don't have to post again,” he explains. “I don't want to cannibalize my own posts, so I just leave it be. Once it hits a hundred views per hour or something like that, I know it's time to post again.”

The second thing he looks at is audience demographics. 

“For me, it's key that I target the regions of the world where I want to do business,” Andreas says. “For example, where I know for a fact there are a lot of customers and a lot of people using LinkedIn, so that's the U.S.” 

Audience demographics also help him make sure his content is resonating with people in occupations that are relevant to his business.

If he sees improvement across the metrics, he cares about, and he knows he’s on the right track and can identify which posts contributed to it. Then he can lean into that topic or type of content to build his personal brand across other platforms.

6. Don’t pander to the algorithm

“I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the algorithm, not when I create content,” says Andreas.

He says trying to pander to the algorithm is a hack that can only get you so far. Instead of creating content to get likes, create quality content that adds value for your target audience.

Posting on topics you're passionate about is a way to beat the algorithm, Andreas says. “It's much better to stop thinking about the algorithm … I'd much rather spend my time focusing on content that will add value.”

7. Keep it real and platform appropriate 

Andreas says you don’t necessarily need to post about your personal life, like your kids or vacations, to be authentic. He recommends saving that for another platform. Instead, your authenticity is in your voice.

“I always have this check with my own posts,” he says.” Does this look and sound like me? If I don't look at my name and avatar, would I be able to identify this post as my own?”

That means it’s authentic to him –– and hopefully to his connections, too.

“A personal brand is not detached from you before you start,” Andreas says. “You already have it. You are your own personal brand. I think the question people need to ask themselves is: Do I want my immediate physical circle of people I work with to know how great I am at something, or do I want thousands of people to know and listen to my perspective?”

When you choose the latter, you generate opportunities.  

“Get out of your own head and get into the feed,” he says. “That's where the magic happens.”

This article is based on an episode of the Rep Your Brand podcast. Go check out the episode on Apple & Spotify and make sure to give a subscribe if you like it.