You SWORE you’d only log in for “professional reasons.”
And yet, here you are again.
You’ve been doomscrolling to eternity, past a guy celebrating the time:
- He was unexpectedly fired from his 11-year job (“a position no longer needed,” they said) and
- Got engaged to his childhood love …
All on the same day (100% sure he was toughing it out because the mental strength of this man is simply unprecedented).
You see someone else (Sam, was it?) comparing a paperclip to leadership, and another 2-month-old intern, Tessa, with 10 LinkedIn followers, posting an 11-part story series.
But wait one moment, please. What if, and hear me out now. What if … the very platform you’ve been mocking over coffee breaks and scrolling through your feed every day in pure boredom and disdain … is the exact one quietly building empires and personal brands behind the scenes?
Because even though a lot of LinkedIn today is a perpetual abyss of:
- Copy-pastes,
- Repeated topics,
- Droning paragraphs, and
- AI hogwash …
People are still using it to grow themselves or their business. And on the brighter side of LinkedIn, it all works. Still. Despite all the bologna (wait, baloney? Ehh)
And a sobering realization dawns: while everyone’s laughing, bored out of their minds, and frankly distracted by all the LinkedIn cringe posts and AI slop, the real ones are using LinkedIn as their growth playground. They play fair, smart, true, and consistently.
So, welcome! To the professional jungle where visibility is credibility, irrespective of the humblebrag casserole and the “influenzass” who are as exciting as watching paint dry.
- Being Thoughtful is Better than Being Trendy
Maybe Instagram wants you in a tip-top, polished state. Maybe TikTok wants you to dance to the no.1 trending step. But what about LinkedIn?
LinkedIn wants your brain (no, not literally budd).
This is still the only platform where a good idea, a painful lesson, or a controversial opinion on GEN Z hiring culture can absolutely shade a viral lip-sync.
So What Can You Do?
- Serve the controversial opinions on LinkedIn with substance.
- Share a mistake you made during a high-priority client’s project, and how you fixed it.
- A bizarre “The client said WHATT now??” moment.
- A hard lesson you learned from your last meltdown at the office.
You can craft a post about each of them, from different angles as well. But you don’t need an expensive camera or a $299.99 multi-color ring light for better aesthetics.
Just bring relevance and reflection to the table, and you’re on the right track.
For Example: A video game designer shared how an in-game text typo taught her to include an in-built spell checker to flag potential errors, and conduct in-game testing at the end to identify remaining errors. She received 8k Likes, 15 Comments, and 8 Shares. Many people even took to her DMs requesting the name of the kind of tools she used for this. People saw her struggles and mistakes as real and human. They understood, empathized, learned, and trusted her.
- You Need to Be Intentional
Here’s the dilemma. LinkedIn’s algorithm isn’t holding a vendetta against you, to keep you from being famous and visible. Gosh, no.
You don’t need 100k+ followers or even the classic verified tick right from the get-go. You first need to be:
- A human,
- With a heartbeat,
- And some perspective.
So What Can You Do?
- Comment like a human. We get that there’s no Bible for commenting like a human, but avoid commenting with generic, 4-words like “Good One. Nice read.” You can do better than that!
- Send them a personalized message, because you care, don’t you?
- Say something valuable, and share your interest in something they said in the post.
For Example: A solopreneur who left his 6-figure-paying job and relocated to another continent, started consistently posting bite-sized value pieces on personal branding, how to write LinkedIn posts, and how remote-working has worked out great for him and his new wife. He went viral for his value-packed posts and had top company founders reaching out to him on DMs.
- It’s Still a Legit, Adult Playground for Growing Credibility
Sure, LinkedIn has been experimenting with memes and recurring, oddly emotional posts about the most random things.
But when it comes down to actual business discovery, referrals, and partnership invites, LinkedIn stands undefeated. Even when compared to other channels like Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok.
For instance, when a hiring manager wants to look up some guy they found funny on Instagram and who seems like a potential candidate, they would most definitely Google this guy.
But what the hiring manager will not do is Google “funny guy on Instagram.” No, the HR is most likely to look up the guy on LinkedIn first.
So What Can You Do?
- For starters, fix your headline to say “Who you are + What you do + What you offer.” OR “Who you help + What you help them do + How you do it.”
- Use simple words and throw the jargon-wagon in the back (and keep it there).
For Example: An experienced digital marketing professional updated her LinkedIn headline to read: “I help brands 10x their SEO traffic in 80 days through content that scales and converts.” And voila, she got 4 people dropping comments asking for help on their personal website. (Better install Trello!)
- LinkedIn Content Has a Shelf-Life
Your Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours. And your tweets and TikTok videos drown in the algorithm and AI-ridden soup.
But LinkedIn works in a way where a post from last week would still show up on someone’s feed today. You see, LinkedIn posts linger like that one catchy Elvis song. But better.
So What Can You Do?
- Post evergreen gems like FAQs that you keep answering.
- Talk about the mistakes clients or you keep making.
- The rants you’ve turned into trustworthy resources.
And then watch it age like fine wine … in business casual.
For Example: A leadership coach who’s seen it all by now, posted a well-written and fun guide titled “5 Things I Tell Every Burned-Out Founder.” His post swept in 54 Likes within an hour and crossed 8k views that day. It became his highest-performing post in 2 months. Fantastic!
- Even the Hogwash is Useful. Sometimes. Yes Really
All of us cringe-scroll through LinkedIn sometimes.
But what you might not know is that all those over-the-top posts like “10 Lessons From my Dog, Abby,” get around 3k+ likes. End of the day, it’s data. Plain and simple.
It doesn’t matter if you love it and the next person hates it, or vice versa; these posts teach you how:
- Formatting,
- Flow, and
- Vulnerability works in real-time.
It might be noise, but it’s a free marketing seminar for you. You just have to deal with some occasional secondhand embarrassment along the way.
So What Can You Do?
- Use your scroll breaks like research breaks.
- See what grabs your attention.
- Observe what post annoyed you but made you pause enough to read it.
Dig up the dirt, borrow the bones, skip the fluff, and add your insight.
For Example: A B2B marketer studied post patterns for a month. And over time, he realized one thing. A “mini confession about something + a practical fix for it” was a winning combination on LinkedIn. And so she reworked her own content posts using that same formula. The result was a LinkedIn reward, because her average engagement tripled in just six weeks. (LinkedIn’s algorithm works in mysterious ways man.)
Final Thought: Ignoring LinkedIn Is Ignoring Opportunities
LinkedIn is still the platform, ranked highest for professional growth, despite all the hogwash we see on it every day now.
Sure, there are some cringeworthy posts every now and then alongside some AI-copypastes as well.
There’s chaos and suspicions all around. What’s human and what’s not, you know?
But beneath all of that, beneath all that noise, is the most direct route to career growth:
- Networking,
- Finding your community or building one, and
- Credibility.
Especially for those people who want to build something new and unconventional.
So before you give up on LinkedIn because of a bad scroll day or a bad feed week, ask yourself: “Is it really the platform that’s the problem? Or am I just too afraid to show up without a ready-to-post visual presentation?”
Spoiler WARNING: Done is better than perfect. And extremely so when done on LinkedIn! Good Luck.
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