Growing Your Coaching Brand and Presence on LinkedIn

LinkedIn? Isn’t that a crowded place already?

Well, apparently not.

It’s the place to be if you want to build your coaching brand’s credibility and presence.

Here are some reasons why:

• In 2024 Q1, LinkedIn reported 450 million newsletter subscriptions globally (a 3x increase year over year).

• Out of the 1 billion users on LinkedIn, only 11 million have turned on creator mode (that’s less than 2%!).

• More brands trust LinkedIn and have seen increased purchase intent and a 2x higher conversion rate.

In 2020, during the pandemic, I started to intentionally build my presence on LinkedIn. This was after I tried and got sidetracked two years prior. My desire to expand my reach and eventually grow my coaching practice made me decide to build my presence on LinkedIn. And I’m glad I did.

Let me share four tried-and-tested tips that have helped me reach a wider audience, get the coveted “blue badge” as a LinkedIn Top Voice, and ultimately influence more lives! After all, that’s what we coaches want to do, right? We want to make a positive difference in this world.

Clarify Your Brand

Before jumping into LinkedIn and doing the next steps, ensure you have clarity on your brand and value proposition. Without this, your efforts of connecting and posting may be in vain. You might not attract the right people and opportunities, or worse, people might end up confused about your brand (who you are, what you do) and miss out on the great coach that you are and the value you offer.

Boost Your Profile

As a career and leadership coach, I know that many find updating resumes or their LinkedIn profile tedious and daunting. But we all know it’s necessary if we want to land a job or get clients, right?

Your LinkedIn profile is critical to building your brand and presence online. Unlike a resume, you can express your personality more and include other information about yourself (awards, projects, volunteer work, recommendations, and even photos!).

Here are some tips to boost your LinkedIn profile:

• Have a simple, clear, and targeted headline. Avoid fancy words or phrases that do not add value. Your headline is critical, as this is something that people see whenever you write posts or comment on the posts of others.

• Use the About section to help your audience get to know you as a coach and person.

• Update other sections of your profile to showcase work that you’ve done and establish your credibility. Yes, include photos too, of workshops you’ve conducted, events where you spoke, and more.

Create Meaningful Content

LinkedIn is a social media platform. In the same way you might share tidbits of your life on other social platforms, you can also do something similar on LinkedIn on a more professional level.

Based on your brand and value proposition, determine three to five topics of expertise where you can add value to people. These are the topics that you can write about. If you’re a parenting coach, for example, you might share stories about common challenges of parents, children’s developmental needs, the importance of emotional intelligence in children, and more.

Do you have to post every day? Not necessarily. Focus on quality instead of quantity. One of my mentors once told me your focus should be, “How can I give value?” rather than “How can I make a sale?”

Grow Your Network

When you’ve established your presence on LinkedIn through your profile and content, you’ll begin to attract followers. But that doesn’t mean you should sit and wait for raving fans or clients. Connect with people, too. This might mean connecting on LinkedIn with someone you met at a conference, engaging in conversations (through comments or collaborative articles) on topics that align with your interests and expertise, or simply getting to know others in a related field or industry.

From experience, there are many nice and friendly people on LinkedIn. I’ve hopped on a call with some of them to talk about coaching or life, and others I met in person for coffee.

Ready to Start?

Take it one step at a time and trust the process. Don’t expect results overnight or in a few days or weeks. Show up consistently, authentically, and with all that you are. You’ll soon build a thriving brand and presence on LinkedIn.