The way we present ourselves online today is becoming more and more significant — also professionally. Whether we are looking for new employees or want to find new business contacts, our online presence can make all the difference.
This means it is all the more important to position ourselves correctly and build a personal brand. As the largest professional network in the world, LinkedIn offers a huge opportunity for this. With just one click, you have the chance to share your skills and experience with around 900 million users and draw on your interaction with them. It's all about recognizing how you can make an impactful contribution based on your individual strengths, knowledge, network and personality.
At the end of the day, people identify with people and thus build trust more quickly. It's no different in a business context. No matter what your objective is, an approachable face creates an emotional bridge to your business, from which you can create a measurable return, especially in today's world.
Over the past few years, my team and I have managed and built up more than 350 C-level profiles on LinkedIn. From the insights and learnings of these projects, we have developed a systematic approach: our C-Level Branding Five (CLB5) process. (Note: Of course, this approach works for any personal brand, regardless of whether you operate at C-level or not. The important thing is to follow the phases chronologically and to implement the aspects therein conscientiously.)
Phase 1: Set-up
The first step is to clean up your LinkedIn profile and lay the foundation for your content strategy. To do this, analyse your industry environment thoroughly to learn what your competitors, role models and "target group owners" (people who are already interacting with your target group) are doing online. You can learn valuable lessons from their successes and mistakes.
In this step, ask yourself what kind of brand you want to be, what topics and trends you and your industry are concerned with and how you want to talk about them. It's important to think of your LinkedIn profile as your new landing page, where you need to find the right balance between business and personal story.
Phase 2: Content
The LinkedIn algorithm aims to keep users on the platform for as long as possible. The more engagement your content gets (meaning the longer users spend viewing your posts), the more it will be pushed and played out to your target audience. Therefore, content is the most important part of any profile. After you have determined, in the set-up phase, which topics you want to talk about and how often you want to inform, polarize or inspire, it's time to find good and specific content ideas.
Every situation in your professional life (and beyond) can provide you with new material for your content on LinkedIn. AI tools, like ChatGPT, can also offer you playful, creative impulses for new posts. It is important not to force anything. Stay true to yourself in terms of language and content, and find a balance between text, photos and video posts.
If you run out of content at some point, you can always recycle. A post can be posted multiple times, from different angles, with different tags. Time blockers in your calendar can help you develop a routine of regularly documenting your content ideas. Aim to publish at least one post per week. Otherwise, a lack continuity means you run the risk of losing the reach you've worked so hard to build up.
Phase 3: reach
Reach on LinkedIn is often misunderstood. It's not about generating leads quickly, but about building long-term trust and sustainable business relationships. This primarily involves account routines that ensure regular interaction with your target audience. This includes checking your inbox, processing every inbound contact request, actively writing to profile visitors who might be relevant to you and your company, and tackling content engagers — this means filtering all likes, comments or shares for valuable contacts.
Phase 4: Media and PR
Wherever your target group's attention is, that's where you should be. In order to increase your expert status, it is worthwhile supporting your digital reputation through classic media appearances, such as in newspapers, online portals and podcasts. A broad media presence not only serves to increase your reach, but also creates additional trust among your target group.
To reach the right media, you should analyse which media are used by other opinion leaders in your sector and determine through which channels your target audience consumes this content. Then, you know who to target. LinkedIn makes it easy for you to connect directly with journalists, reporters, etc., and build a bond that can lead to media placement.
Phase 5: evaluation and improvement
You generate a lot of data with your activity on LinkedIn. This is very valuable in (re)aligning your online presence. Take the time to review and analyse the data regularly. For example, LinkedIn's own analysis tool offers you a good overview. It shows you the number of visitors to your profile, their titles and action areas (cities/countries), as well as your engagement metrics (likes, comments, reach, shares).
During this evaluation process, keep asking yourself: are the right people seeing my content? Which topics resonate with my target group in terms of content? Am I still pursuing the same goal as when I started my presence or has the focus in the company changed? What KPIs do I need to formulate for this?
Let's go — don't waste time!
Even though LinkedIn is the most important driver of today's business world, the platform has by no means exhausted its potential. Few users continuously post good content, which means that many niche topics are still unoccupied. Those who dedicate themselves now to the structured and sustainable development of their personal brand can relatively easily build up a large reach or effective visibility and generate a measurable return for their own company.
Those who follow our CLB5 process can expect tangible results in just a few months. One thing is clear: your competitors will not sleep. Either you will be one of the visionaries and get ahead of the game, or you will be left behind and resent the fact that you let the competition get ahead of you. Which do you choose?