There’s nothing like a bit of controversy to kick off a LinkedIn training session – don’t you agree? When I open my LinkedIn training with this on the slide, it generally makes people sit up and take notice.
So, if LinkedIn isn’t social media, what is it?
It’s networking. If we stop thinking about LinkedIn as a social media platform and more like a space to meet and connect with new and relevant people, we would have much more success on the platform AND we would probably enjoy it much more – and spend more time on LinkedIn too.
If you think about what you’re doing when you go to networking events, conferences, meet-ups etc. it becomes much clearer. You’re having conversations in the coffee queue, introducing yourself to people you’ve never met before, asking what they do, sharing a bit about your own work, and gradually building relationships.
This is exactly how we should be behaving on LinkedIn.
The difference is that you don’t have to travel anywhere to do it. You can network on LinkedIn from your desk, your kitchen table, or, if you really want to, from a swimming pool. More importantly, your team can be doing it too. Your team can be networking all over the world while you’re swimming in that pool, or in meetings or with clients.
The gap I kept seeing
Over the last few years, working with leadership teams and marketing departments, I kept seeing the same issue. Company pages were posting regularly, often with well thought-out content, and yet those posts were barely being seen. Even when they were seen, they were not being interacted with, and they certainly weren’t leading to enquiries.
Marketing teams were putting in the effort, but they were struggling to demonstrate real impact, particularly when that impact needed to be justified to a CFO or board.
At some point, you must ask; where does the problem really lie?
The statistic that changes everything
For me, that moment came when I came across a statistic that completely shifted how I think about LinkedIn. Content shared by employees can generate up to 561% more engagement than the same content shared by a company page.
The message is the same, but with a different messenger, it lands in a completely different way. When you step back and look at this in a real-life context, it’s not particularly surprising. People don’t want to interact with faceless companies. They want to engage with people. People with opinions, with experience, with something at stake.
Why this matters more than ever
This shift is not just anecdotal. It is reflected in how trust is evolving more broadly in all sectors of our lives.
Buying behaviour is changing. Decision-makers are spending more time researching, observing and forming opinions before they ever begin a conversation.
LinkedIn is a central part of that process.
So, if your people are not visible, not active, or not communicating in a way that builds trust, you are missing opportunities before you even know they exist.
Your silence is saying more than you think.
What this means in practice
When companies begin to approach LinkedIn as a networking platform rather than a broadcasting channel, the focus shifts. It becomes less about pushing content out, and more about:
how people engage
how conversations start
and how relationships develop over time
I saw this very clearly with someone I worked with called ‘Chris’. (Real name not disclosed).
Chris had spent most of his career as a lawyer before retraining as a business coach, and like many people, he wasn’t entirely sure how to use LinkedIn in a way that felt natural. After working through positioning and confidence, he left a thoughtful comment on a post using my simple 4 C’s structure: a genuine compliment, a relevant comment, a question, and then a connection.
That single interaction was seen by a former colleague, who then looked at his profile, realised he had repositioned himself as a coach, and reached out to start a conversation. Two months later, Chris was speaking at a conference in Greece in front of a room full of his ideal clients.
All from one comment on someone else’s post.
That’s how LinkedIn works when it is used as a networking platform, not just a broadcasting channel.
Conversations create opportunities
What Chris’s example highlights is something many people overlook. Opportunities rarely come from a single post or a direct pitch. They come from a series of interactions that build familiarity and trust over time. That’s why commenting, engaging and having conversations is just as important, if not more so, than creating content.
It shows presence.
It demonstrates thinking.
And it opens doors into new networks and new relationships.
A different way of thinking about LinkedIn
If you take one thing from my blog today, it should be this: LinkedIn is not a place to broadcast what you do. It is a place to demonstrate how you think.
When individuals across a business start doing that consistently, the impact is significant. Visibility increases, not just in terms of reach, but in terms of relevance.
Credibility builds, because people can see how you approach problems and conversations. Opportunities begin to emerge in a way that feels natural rather than forced.
Final thought
Most companies are not struggling with LinkedIn because they are not doing enough.
They are struggling because they are approaching it in the wrong way. As long as LinkedIn is treated as a content channel, it will feel like effort without return.
When it is treated as a networking platform, it becomes something entirely different.
