Shawn Conner October 15, 2025

LinkedIn Personal Branding: A Complete How-To Guide

When people think of Satya Nadella, they think of a leader who is visionary, cutting-edge, insightful, and a champion of diversity.

This is no accident. Over the years, the Microsoft CEO has built this personal brand through public appearances, traditional media, and by being active on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn personal brand building is an ideal way to become an influential thought leader in your industry. In this post, we look at the specific tools LinkedIn offers and how you can use the platform to build your personal brand and cement your thought leadership status.

Why having a personal brand on LinkedIn is important

Different social media platforms offer their own unique tools and are more popular with certain audiences. However, LinkedIn is the only social media platform with a built-in audience of fellow professionals and colleagues.

Using LinkedIn’s unique features, you can reach the people who will benefit most from your perspective and build your personal brand, and that of your company’s, in the process.

Here are some of the key reasons why having a personal brand on LinkedIn is important:

Enhance your reputation

By building your brand, you can position yourself as a trusted expert, sharing insights about your experiences and lessons learned. This bolsters your reputation — which is a big deal, since executives estimate that 44% of their company’s market value is directly attributable to the CEO’s reputation, according to Weber Shandwick.

Build connections

When you post regularly on LinkedIn, you expand your network while engaging potential partners and clients. At the same time, you strengthen relationships with industry influencers and other executives, which increases your reach.

Attract opportunities

The more visible you are on LinkedIn, the higher the chances you’ll be invited to participate in conferences, webinars, and other media opportunities. By positioning yourself as a thought leader, you can build an inbound pipeline of high-impact professional opportunities.

Generate business

According to the 2025 Edelman LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, 64% of decision-makers spend more than an hour each week reading thought leadership content. Since nearly three-quarters of decision-makers consider thought leadership content to be more trustworthy than marketing materials, building your brand on LinkedIn can lead to more business.

How LinkedIn differs from other social media platforms for branding

Cat memes. That’s one of the biggest differences between LinkedIn and other social media platforms — cat memes. You are far less likely to see playful, goofy, and personal content on LinkedIn. (Although you might see posts about how cat memes can improve your marketing strategy.)

There are other differences too, though – beginning with your profile and extending to the platform’s networking capabilities.

Profile

Like other social media platforms, LinkedIn lets users build a profile page. But LinkedIn’s profile formatting is customized to let users highlight their business affiliations and experience and showcase recommendations from colleagues, clients, and fellow thought leaders. You can also endorse your connections, of course.

Like other social media platforms, LinkedIn also suggests people to connect with. But these are professional contacts and are based on your current connections, profile information, and activity — and not on friends you follow on other social media channels or friends of friends.

Content

Because of its professional nature, LinkedIn rewards and promotes posts that focus on business and corporate news, insights into business trends, reports and predictions, lessons learned, achievements and company updates, and how-tos and educational content.

If this sounds dry, that’s because it can be.

One way to pep up your post is by using images and video — multi-media posts get more engagement. And a sure way to burnish your thought leadership credentials is by showcasing an employee, or many of them.

For example, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach recently posted a picture of himself and his team at Sibos, a global financial services event.

Connections

LinkedIn offers many ways to connect with colleagues, clients, and fellow thought leaders that make it different from other platforms.

But first: What’s the difference between connections and followers?

When you connect with someone on LinkedIn, you join each other’s networks and appear in each other’s feeds. Connections are ideal for folks you want to build professional relationships with, and LinkedIn users can have up to 30,000 connections.

Followers can see your public posts and articles, but you don’t see theirs. This is ideal for thought leadership when you’re trying to grow an audience beyond people you know personally. There’s no limit to how many followers you can have.

Direct messaging and InMail

Apart from commenting on other users’ LinkedIn posts, you can also reach out to your connections for one-on-one communications using LinkedIn’s message functionality.

Meanwhile, the premium InMail feature allows users to directly message another LinkedIn member they’re not connected with.

Groups

LinkedIn lets you join or even create your own group — communities centered around industries, interests, or specific topics. Needless to say, this is an excellent opportunity to share insights, suggestions, and solutions with colleagues. Just remember to save your fantasy football league for Facebook.

Improving your personal brand on LinkedIn

You can use LinkedIn to improve your personal brand and position yourself as a thought leader in a number of ways.

Step #1: Optimize your profile

A well-crafted LinkedIn profile is one that showcases your professional background, skills, achievements, and aspirations. Always use a professional photo and, ideally, a banner that showcases your company or business. Craft a compelling headline and summary that highlights your areas of expertise and accomplishments. Get endorsements from peers and colleagues and keep them up to date.

For example, Asana COO Anne Raimondi’s profile is colorful, inviting, and crystal-clear, and it also features a friendly professional headshot.

In addition, use SEO best practices to make your profile search-friendly. Use hashtags in your summary and posts to reach a larger audience. Use keywords in your profile when describing your skills and experience. You can also create a custom URL that’s easy for colleagues to remember.

Step #2: Post content regularly

Post about the latest news, trends and research in your industry. If you can, offer insights and opinions but don’t force it — a hot take might land you in hot water.

Post at least once a week, 2 to 3 times a week if possible. But remember that less is more if you have time only for one quality post.

Don’t gum up the works with nonsense. Types of content especially suited to thought leaders include long-form articles, relatable professional experiences and lessons learned.

For instance, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella regularly posts about advances in the tech sphere.

Step #3: Prioritize networking and engagement

Participate in LinkedIn groups, discussions, and networking events. Engage with others through likes, comments, and shares in the comments sections of their posts to expand your professional network and visibility.

Share other peoples’ content, such as articles, blog posts, industry news, and updates on professional achievements or projects, as well. Showcasing employees, clients and colleagues shows that you are confident enough to share the spotlight.

For instance, Arc’teryx CEO Stuart Haselden recently shared a post from the company’s VP of store development about the opening of a new store.

When commenting on other people’s posts or engaging with someone who has commented on one of your posts, do so in a genuine and thoughtful manner. Remember why you are commenting — because you can relate and recall a similar experience or can add something of value.

Step #4: Be consistent and authentic

Maintain a consistent and authentic tone in your posts that reflects your professional identity and values. For example, Ryan Gellert, CEO of outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, likely wouldn’t post about the return of the McRib.

Instead, Gellert regularly posts about renewable energy, sustainability, and other environmental concerns — very on-brand.

You can also use your profile and the way you interact with others on the platform to express your values and leadership style.

Step #5: Use Thought Leader Ads

Thought Leader Ads are a recent innovation that lets you promote your personal LinkedIn posts through a LinkedIn company page. In the example below, Chime CMO Vineet Mehra wrote a post celebrating TIME naming his company the #1 bank brand in America. Chime then promoted that post as a Thought Leader Ad, making it appear in feeds looking entirely organic.

The ads amplify your voice (or that of a colleague or employee), build trust and credibility with key audiences, grow brand value, and save time and resources by repurposing content.

Step #6: Leverage analytics to continuously improve

By using LinkedIn’s native analytics or a third-party social media management service like Hootsuite you can track the number of visitors to your profile and see which posts are getting the most reaction, comments and reposts and who your audience is. Use this information on what is and isn’t working to adjust your branding strategy accordingly.

If using LinkedIn to build your personal brand sounds like a lot of time, work, and energy, then you’ll understand why many of today’s top CEOs are turning to outside sources for help. Thought leadership consultancy agencies like CSuite Content have the experience and expertise to help you turn your LinkedIn profile from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan of personal branding.

Curious How Your Company’s CEO is Doing on LinkedIn?

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