Stop Trying to "Go Viral" on LinkedIn (It Will Destroy Your Profile)

Write specifically for your target market—or prepare to face the consequences.

Recently, I spoke with a highly experienced entrepreneur who was beginning to take LinkedIn seriously as a channel.

They already had an established following on Twitter and were looking to invest more on LinkedIn, as they recognized the extremely high leverage it offers.

But they weren’t sharing the hard-earned expertise they built over decades—the kind of rich experience that other decision-makers would recognize and immediately take action to capitalize on.

Instead, they were sharing generic motivational advice and leadership platitudes designed to reap the maximum engagement possible from random people.

Not because he was a bad or stupid person (quite the opposite), but because he saw other “successful” accounts with tens of thousands of likes per post doing that exact thing.

But here’s what he didn’t understand: the back-end results of those “popular accounts” are extremely unimpressive relative to the amount of attention they receive.

True, in the short to mid-term, they can make decent money on sponsorships and “Here’s how I hacked the algorithm!” courses…

…but they’re banking the entire future of their profile on whatever “algorithm hack” they’re leveraging at this moment to continue working forever—and it never does.

But the people who have built their audience over years of implementing an intelligent, audience-facing content strategy based on human psychology (rather than “algo hacks”)?

They’re reaping the increasingly awesome compounding asset of industry authority, which results in:

• Qualified leads

• Speaking opportunities

• Brand moat

…and much, much more.

And let’s be clear: LinkedIn is currently the highest-leverage content marketing channel on the face of the earth.

But chasing virality will eventually kill your presence on the platform. Too many well-intentioned people make this mistake early in their journey and learn it the hard way.

I've been building on LinkedIn for years now, and I'm going to share exactly why you should avoid the virality trap and what you should do instead.

All Followers Aren’t Equal

Let's start with something simple: all followers aren’t created equally.

This isn't a controversial statement.

If you're selling B2B SaaS, which follower is more valuable to you?

1. A VP of Marketing at a Series B startup

2. A college student posting "hustle culture" content

The answer is obvious. But here's where it gets interesting: most people's LinkedIn strategy actively works against attracting the right followers.

The Four Levels of LinkedIn Followers

Your LinkedIn following can be broken down into four distinct levels:

1. Level 0 (Cold): People who don't know your content exists

2. Level 1 (Aware): People who've seen your content at least once

3. Level 2 (Engaged): Regular readers who occasionally engage

4. Level 3 (Champions): Die-hard supporters who amplify everything

Here's what most people don't realize: The natural progression is downward, not upward.

A new follower starts at Level 1 or 2 (high interest) and gradually decays to Level 0—unless you have a strategy to prevent it.

Credit to wono for this framework.

Why Some LinkedIn Profiles “Die”

You’ve probably seen several profiles that look like this:

• 100,000+ followers

• Average post: 10-20 likes, 5-6 comments

• Engagement rate per post: <0.50%

What happened?

In most cases, they chased virality with generic engagement bait: job-seeker advocacy, motivational quotes, basic leadership principles, and the like.

It worked—temporarily. They gained tens of thousands of followers, but they weren't remotely interested in their actual industry expertise.

The result? A dead account with ghost followers who scroll past their every post (if they see them at all). Their “thought leadership” disappeared as soon as their “hack” stopped working.

The Real Numbers Behind Quality Followers

Let me give you some concrete numbers from my own experience:

A Level 3 follower (Champion) is worth approximately 500-1000 Level 1 followers in terms of business value. Here's why:

• They read everything you post (80%+ view rate)

• They engage consistently (50%+ engagement rate)

• They share with relevant connections (3-5 referrals per year)

• They're highly likely to become clients (50%+ conversion rate when qualified)

This isn't theoretical, either—

One of my Level 3 followers (a client who previously converted from my content, actually) recently connected me with a VC with a large LinkedIn presence, who successfully referred me to another founder in the VC space.

That's worth more than 10,000 likes and comments.

How to Build a Valuable Following

Here's a concrete framework that actually works:

1. Define Your Perfect Follower

• Title (e.g., "VP of Marketing")

• Company stage (e.g., "Series B+")

• Industry (e.g., "B2B SaaS")

• Budget (e.g., "$50k+ monthly marketing spend")

2. Create Content Specifically for Them

Example: Instead of "10 Morning Habits of Successful People," write "How a Series B SaaS Increased Demo Bookings by 300% Using LinkedIn."

3. Optimize for Conversion, Not Reach

• Focus on converting Level 2 followers to Level 3

• Measure engagement from target accounts/demographics

4. Build a Content System

While I don’t follow an exact content calendar (too inflexible for me), I do build each of my posts around a specific content angle and pillar and plan them in advance.

For example:

• Monday: Case study/results post for a ghostwriting client

• Wednesday: Strategic insight into what formats currently work best on LinkedIn

• Friday: Technical deep-dive into how the LinkedIn algorithm works

With every post, my goal is to include

• Real numbers/results/data

• Specific action items

• Clear target audience call-out

The ROI of Building the Right Following

Let’s imagine you’re the co-founder and CEO of a cutting-edge fintech platform that’s solving a fundamental problem that enterprise SaaS finance teams routinely struggle with (accurate MRR and ARR reporting).

If I offered you one of two outcomes on LinkedIn, which would you choose?

Option One: 100,000 generic followers

• 0.5% follower engagement rate

• 1-3 qualified calls booked per month

• $50,000 annual revenue from LinkedIn

Option Two: 10,000 qualified followers:

• 1-3% follower engagement rate

• 10-20 qualified calls booked per month

• $600,000+ annual revenue from LinkedIn

Obviously, you’d choose the second option in a heartbeat. It doesn’t provide the same ego boost as a six-figure follower number, but with that amount of revenue directly attributable to LinkedIn, you’re doing just fine.

The reason my example was particularly specific is that it was (loosely) inspired by a real person: Bobby Pinero.

He’s taken the time to build a quality following over the years and, as a result, reaps increasingly large benefits from doing so.

Practical Implementation

If you're starting from zero, here's your exact playbook:

1. Month 1-2: Create 20-30 pieces of hyper-targeted content; send 10-15 connection requests daily

2. Month 2-3: Start publishing consistently (3x/week)

3. Month 3-4: Build your Level 3 follower base

4. Month 4+: Scale what's working based on feedback/data

The key metric isn't follower count—it's the number of Level 2 and 3 followers you have emerging from your target market.

Your Next Steps

If you're a leader at a business that generates over $1M in revenue annually, you have zero time to implement all of this yourself.

Given that I'm extremely good at this, you should outsource it to me. If that interests you, please book a call with me here.

If that doesn't describe you, but you'd still like to work with me, please book a paid coaching call with me here.

In any case, I'll see you in the next newsletter (coming when it's ready).

Thanks for reading.

PS: Although this newsletter is shorter than my previous ones, I felt I “made up” for it by packing it with valuable/novel ideas. I’d love to do an ultra-deep dive every newsletter, but I want to publish more often than every 1-2 months!