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#If You Build It, Someone Will Come

Many of the LinkedIn Influencers who draw the highest traffic tell a similar tale. It goes like this: They began as small-business owners who couldn’t afford to advertise online or off, so they began posting free content and amassing small followings. They were dubious that anyone would read what they wrote. “I do remember thinking, ‘This is probably a waste of time,’” says Ryan, who began publishing lengthy posts on LinkedIn a dozen years ago, back when the platform (and much of the internet) was pushing longer-form blog content.

At first, building a LinkedIn following is a game of trial and error. For a while in the aughts, Neil Patel (700,000 followers), cofounder of online marketing agency NP Digital, would post articles critiquing the initiatives of blue-chip companies. Those companies would then proceed to hire his agency. “They were productive teardowns,” he says. “I got a lot of hate for it, but everyone can always improve, especially at scale.” Patel’s posts rarely went viral; the content that gleaned the most followers, he found, was general advice in the vein of “What My Mom Taught Me That’s Driven My Success.”

Popular posters invariably discover the contradiction at the heart of their efforts: The posts that go viral and garner them thousands of followers in a day do not necessarily earn money. Unlike their counterparts on other social-media platforms like Meta and Instagram, LinkedIn posters usually can’t trade on their follower numbers for lucrative advertising deals with consumer-product companies. That means that most followers’ only value is indirect, as potential future customers. Patel’s “a-ha!” moment came when he realized that he had far more followers than his competitors…and only a fraction of their revenues.

Changing course, Patel began pumping out posts heavy on storytelling about workplace experiences and found those posts correlated with higher sales. The formula for posts driving the most revenue—which might include videos, infographics, and carousels—is unique to each influencer and their business. Over the long term, many influencers tend to discover an unexpected bonus: Their followers, gradually rising through the ranks in their own careers, become high-level clients or connections. “If you just educate people, whether it’s college students or moms, most eventually end up in corporations,” says Patel.

Constantly churning out fresh content on LinkedIn has its downsides, beginning with the difficulty of managing constantly shifting algorithms. Matt Bailey (27,200 followers) offers tactics for gaining an online audience: Create engaging content with original research (it performs well), click “like” on your own posts, share them, and have friends share them. “It’s completely unnatural, and every time the algorithm changes, you have to change what you’re doing,” he says. Lately, he has moved away from monitoring algorithmic shifts in favor of simply providing his followers with what they want. “I am absolutely tired of complying with the algorithm,” he says.

Yet those who want to maintain or grow their followings know the tricks of gaming the algorithm, which include posting content two to four times per week, as well as following other high-traffic influencers and engaging with their posts—which eventually provides traction for their own new content. Growth is typically slow, though some try to buy followers—a practice that LinkedIn forbids and punishes with suspensions.

#The (Very Popular) Renegades

Not everyone is on board with this way of influencing. “There are a lot of people calling themselves ‘thought leaders,’” says Ann Handley (478,900 followers), who has run marketing-education programs for over two decades. “To my mind, that’s like calling oneself a ‘good parent.’ Someone else should call you that.” Her litmus test for discerning whether a LinkedIn expert is worth following: Are they actually doing things?

Handley joined the fray in 2010 after she wrote her first book, Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) that Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (“You’re proud of yourself when you write a book, but the reality is, friend, you’re now in sales”). She had run her company’s Twitter account for years, albeit anonymously, and felt uncomfortable putting herself in the limelight. She quickly discovered that when she appeared on LinkedIn “as a human being speaking in simple and direct terms,” followers felt like they knew her, and seemed to enjoy learning from her. Her advice is heavy on self-presentation suggestions, such as taking advantage of the banner photos and text on social-media platforms, and using a bio to state the value you offer rather than your job title. But many of her posts go against the grain: She fundamentally rejects the idea of using the platform as a broadcast tool, and instead employs it as a means of communicating, frequently, with her followers. “So often I hear, ‘I can’t believe you responded!’” she says. “Why is that unusual?”

Sometimes she doesn’t post for three to four weeks. But when she does publish something new, subscriptions to her email newsletter grow, with ripple effects for her trainings, speaking engagements, and annual conference. Through this strategy, she is the rare influencer to have avoided algorithm fatigue, simply because she was never following algorithmic best practices in the first place.

Ryan, the mega career coach (2,980,492 followers), deploys a similar strategy, posting “literally what I believe in that moment,” she says. Sometimes readers dislike her opinions and unfollow her; she remains unfazed. She is also the rare influencer with an extensive corporate background, having spent most of the ‘90s as SVP in human resources for modem maker U.S. Robotics, where she was struck by how desperate recruiters were for good candidates. She aims to share the expertise she’s gained.

She is often invited onto podcasts to discuss her strategy for snaring 2.9 million followers. “I’m so grossed out. Why would that be the best use of our time?” She has little patience for people obsessed with platforms and tools and tricks. “People tell me that they like my content marketing,” she says. “I say, ‘Sweetie, that’s not content marketing. That’s just content.’”