A lot of executives sit on the sidelines when it comes to LinkedIn. Maybe they don’t think they have anything profound to say. Maybe they’ve never thought of themselves as a writer. Maybe they post once, don’t get much engagement, and quietly decide it’s not for them.
The worst outcome isn’t posting something imperfect. It’s telling yourself you’ll get to it eventually and then never actually getting to it. That’s how years go by with an empty personal feed while competitors are out there building audiences, trust, and pipeline.
The barrier to entry is a lot lower than most people think, and the people you want reaching you are genuinely interested in hearing from you directly.
Key Takeaways
- In B2B, people still buy from people. A personal LinkedIn presence builds trust in a way a company page can’t.
- Content that provides real value earns attention. Content that reads like a pitch gets scrolled past.
- For smaller firms especially, an invisible leader has a real cost, since that leader is often the one driving new business.
- Our own leadership team at HatchMark Studio holds each other accountable to post consistently, and our podcast has become a genuine relationship-building tool because of it.
- Getting started doesn’t have to be complicated. Engage with others, answer the questions your audience already has, and write the way you actually talk.
People Buy From People
Think about how you scroll through LinkedIn. When a brand account posts something, how often do you actually stop and read it? Now think about how you respond when the CEO or CMO of that same company posts something. For most of us, there’s a real difference, even if we’ve never sat down and thought about why.
Sean Johnson, CEO of Madison, talked about this on our podcast. He put it simply: “People tend to buy from people, not companies.” People want to feel like they know who they’re doing business with before they ever sign anything, and a personal LinkedIn presence is one of the easiest ways to give them that.
Show Up With Value. Forget About the Pitch.
The posts that actually get engagement usually aren’t selling anything. A post that’s really just a sales pitch in disguise tends to get ignored, and people are good at spotting one from a mile away.
What tends to work is sharing something useful. What you’re thinking about. What you’re learning. A perspective on something happening in your industry. That kind of content gives people a reason to feel like they already know you a little before you’re ever in a room together.
Sean Johnson touched on this too, describing his own habits on the platform: “I tend to engage more often with little faces rather than little logos.” That’s a pretty good summary of how most people actually use LinkedIn, whether they’d put it in those words or not.
The Cost of Staying Invisible
If you’re leading a smaller firm, there’s a good chance you’re also the person primarily responsible for bringing in new business, whether or not that was ever formally spelled out. Choosing not to build visibility isn’t really a neutral decision. It has a cost, and that cost usually lands on the team that’s counting on a full pipeline.
Sean Johnson spoke to this directly: “I’m willing to bet that at least for smaller firms, you are the primary revenue generator for your practice. I think you have a moral and ethical obligation to your team to ring the cash register and to generate inbound.” Staying invisible affects everyone who depends on that business staying healthy.
How We Practice What We Preach
At HatchMark Studio, we push each other to stay active on LinkedIn from our own personal accounts, and we’ve genuinely seen it pay off. More conversations come our way because of it, and a good number of those conversations turn into real work.
None of this is about pitching our services directly. It’s about staying top of mind with the people we want to be in touch with, and becoming known as people who actually know what we’re talking about. Our podcast has turned into one of the best tools we have for this. Instead of reaching out cold with a pitch, we get to invite someone onto the show, hand them the floor, and let them talk about what they know. That approach has warmed up more real conversations with future clients than cold outreach ever has, mostly because it doesn’t feel like a sales pitch at all.
A Simple Way to Start
If you’re ready to get going but aren’t sure where to start, keep it simple.
Start by engaging with other people’s posts. It’s a low-lift way to build some visibility before you’ve written a single original word. From there, start writing your own content. It sounds like a bigger task than it actually is. Marcus Sheridan wrote a book called They Ask, You Answer, and the whole premise is that your customers already have questions. Go answer them. Don’t worry about the sale while you’re doing it.
Keep the focus on education and value rather than self-promotion, and don’t worry about sounding overly polished. Write the way you’d talk to a client in a first meeting. You probably know more, and have more worth saying, than you give yourself credit for. The main thing is to just start posting.
Marketing Managers Need to Push Executives
Maybe you’re not the executive here. Maybe you’re the marketer looking at your leadership team, wishing they’d get more active, and not sure how to make that happen. You probably have more influence over this than you think. Change doesn’t only come from the top. Sometimes it starts with someone on the team making the case and giving leadership a nudge in the right direction.
Frequently Asked Questions About Executive Thought Leadership
Why should executives be active on LinkedIn personally, not just through the company page? People tend to trust and engage with individual people more than they do brand accounts. A CEO or partner posting under their own name builds recognition and trust in a way a company logo really can’t replicate.
Isn’t posting on LinkedIn just self-promotion? It can be, if it’s done that way, but that’s usually what makes people tune out. Content built around real knowledge, honest opinions, and lessons learned tends to earn attention and trust over time in a way pitches don’t.
How often should an executive post to see results? Consistency matters more than volume here. Even posting and engaging a few times a month adds up over time. This is a long-term trust-building effort rather than something that pays off in a week or two.
What if an executive doesn’t have time to write their own content? That’s a common situation, especially for leaders at smaller firms who are also driving most of the new business. Executive ghostwriting, built around real interviews with the executive, is one way to keep a consistent voice and presence without adding another task to their plate.
Do you need outside help to do this well? Not necessarily, but doing it well and doing it consistently are two different things. Agencies that understand brand voice and content strategy can help executives get their footing and stay consistent without it becoming one more thing they have to manage themselves.
Work With Hatchmark Studio
We know that understanding why this matters and actually doing it consistently are two very different things. That’s where we come in. As a branding agency, we start by getting clear on your voice and tone, your target audience, and what you actually want this effort to accomplish. From there, we build out a content calendar and can manage scheduling and posting so it doesn’t fall through the cracks.
For executives who know they don’t have the bandwidth to write consistently, we offer executive ghostwriting built on real insights, so the content still sounds like you without you having to sit down and write it yourself. We can also carry this messaging across your other brand channels, whether that’s Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook. Our in-house videographer can help produce polished video content, or we can coach you through simpler, more casual video you shoot yourself.
If you’re a busy executive who believes in this but can’t find the time to execute it well, let us close the gap. Discovery calls are always free and there are no strings attached.
