Building and maintaining your presence on LinkedIn usually takes hours each week. You come up with ideas, write and publish posts, reply to comments, and reach out to new connections. Without a strategy, all that work rarely adds up to anything.

AI has changed that. You can now instruct your marketing agent to handle most of the job. In this guide, you'll train it to do exactly that. You'll start with the foundation for its work: your strategy and your profile.

By the end of this guide, you'll:

  • Define what you want from LinkedIn and what you stand for.
  • Set up the LinkedIn strategy your marketing agent works from.
  • Optimize your profile so it supports that strategy.

Note: This is Part 1 of a four-part guide. Here, you'll set up your strategy and profile. In Part 2, you'll build the skill that writes your posts. In Part 3, your agent publishes them and reviews the results. In Part 4, it helps you grow your network.

What is LinkedIn marketing, and why should you use it?

LinkedIn marketing is using LinkedIn to become known to the people you want to work with. You share what you know, take part in conversations, and build relationships. Over time, readers become followers, followers become connections, and some connections become clients or lead to new opportunities.

It works because LinkedIn spreads your posts beyond your followers. When someone comments on a post, their connections can see it too. A useful post can reach people who have never heard of you.

Your personal profile does this better than a company page. People follow people, not logos, so this guide focuses on your own profile.

LinkedIn marketing comes down to four activities:

Activity What it does for you
Posting Shows what you know and what you stand for
Engaging Builds relationships and reach through replies and comments
Networking Connects you with the people you want to work with
Reviewing Shows what works so the next post is better

It pays off when your work runs on trust and expertise: services, coaching, B2B products, or a career built on what you know. It's a long game. Results build over months, not weeks, so the plan has to be one you can keep up.

What goes into your LinkedIn strategy?

Your marketing agent can write posts, but it can't decide what you stand for. Give it a vague brief, and it writes posts that could come from anyone. It needs your strategy: what you want from LinkedIn, who you help, what you believe, and what you post about.

Your strategy is one file with five sections. Your agent reads it every time it prepares a post:

Section What it decides How your agent uses it
Goals and calls to action What LinkedIn should do for you Chooses how each post ends
Positioning Who you help, what change you offer, and why they should believe you Checks every post against your one-line test
Beliefs and points of view The ideas readers should recognize as yours Shapes the angle of each post
Content pillars The three topics you post about Chooses the subject of each post
Cadence How often you post Plans how many posts to prepare

Your profile is where your strategy pays off. When a post lands, readers click your name. Your headline, About section, and Featured section decide whether they follow you, visit your site, or move on.

Note: This guide builds on your writing system: your personas, value propositions, and writing guide. Don't have one yet? Create it with the AI writing system guides first (ChatGPT ยท Claude).