Client Overview: The client, a top executive at a Fortune 100 tech company, aimed to increase their audience on LinkedIn by 6,000 followers over a 12-month period during FY22 and the beginning of FY23. I partnered with the executive's communications team to develop and implement an aggressive audience growth strategy.

Objective: Expand executive’s LinkedIn audience to 13,000 followers, enhancing their visibility and influence on the platform and throughout the industry.

Strategy and Implementation: I developed a comprehensive tiered strategy utilizing both organic and paid measures in collaboration with the brand communications team.

1. Audience and Follower Engagement

LinkedIn rewards active creators and users who start and engage in conversations. To establish the executive as a high-volume contributor, I developed a daily engagement strategy that would position executive as a top voice.

I curated 10-15 posts daily, relevant to the executive's business priorities and passions. These posts were then submitted to the executive's team for approval. Once approved, I liked the posts from the executive's LinkedIn account and, in some cases, provided recommended comments for the executive leverage personally.

As a result of this daily engagement strategy, the executive’s overall engagement on LinkedIn increased by 144% over the course of the year. This strategy successfully enhanced the executive’s visibility on the platform, positioning him as an active user and prompting LinkedIn to promote his posts to both his followers and a broader audience.

2. Paid Spend

I recommended and executed paid advertisements three times throughout 2022 to further drive audience growth for the executive. These ads ran on the main company LinkedIn page for two weeks in April, July, and October. The ads were linked to the executive's personal LinkedIn account and were boosted with a budget of $4.5k for each campaign.

Due to LinkedIn's limitations, precise tracking of new connections and followers resulting from the paid spend was not possible. However, the growth rate in April 2022 reached 9.8%, the highest growth rate of the year. In July and October, during the two additional months with paid spend, the growth rate fell below the average of 4.8%, reaching 3.5% growth in each period.

3. Content Personalization

Recognizing the importance of personalized content in LinkedIn's algorithm, I recommended the executive appear more genuine and showcase his leadership style, initiating a shift in tone across the executive's profile.

First, I recommended and implemented a new profile picture that depicted the executive in motion, presenting on stage, replacing the standard headshot. This change infused the executive's profile with renewed energy and made him appear more approachable on social media.

Next, I collaborated with the executive's team to identify opportunities for the executive to share personal stories, photos, and anecdotes alongside his business-focused content. This included showcasing photos from speaking engagements, team events, and personal milestones. The shift in tone resulted in increased engagement throughout the year. The executive's top-performing post, both for the year and in the history of the program, was a personal post celebrating the departure of his youngest child for college.

The focus on content personalization continues to drive high engagement and remains a key aspect of the executive's program.

4. Proactive Follower Program

To foster organic growth, initiated a proactive follower program on LinkedIn, proactively sourcing and recommending 1,000 new connections each quarter based on the executive's business priorities and passion areas. I created four lists per quarter, each containing 250 targets, which were then submitted to the executive's team for approval. Once approved, I sent out connection requests from the executive's LinkedIn account, ensuring that the timing and quantity of requests were strategically spread out to avoid platform flags for spam behavior.

In December 2022, the proactive follower program was temporarily paused due to new LinkedIn restrictions limiting the number of connection requests that could be sent per week. However, in February 2023, the program was reintroduced with new parameters: 100 sent connection requests per week, evenly distributed across the week, and targeting second-degree connections to drive a higher acceptance rate.

While exact tracking of new connections and followers from the proactive follower program was not feasible due to LinkedIn limitations, it was observed that when the program was paused in December 2022, the executive's growth rate experienced a decline to 2.3% compared to the average yearly growth rate of 4.8%. This suggests that the proactive follower program, when implemented thoughtfully within the platform's limits, can foster increased organic social growth.

Outcome:

The executive achieved the target of 13,000 followers on January 23, eight days ahead of the February 1 deadline. This milestone was reached within 11.5 months from the program's initial kickoff, indicating the successful implementation of the audience growth strategy. I then pitched a more aggressive growth program for 2023 with the goal of doubling the executive’s audience size to 26,000. The program was approved and is currently in action.

Overall, this comprehensive approach effectively propelled the executive's LinkedIn presence, positioning him as a thought leader and driving meaningful engagement with his audience.