I’ve been freelancing for 2 and a half years. And that’s precisely how lengthy it took me to make LinkedIn work for me as a instrument to develop my community and get shoppers.
For a very long time, I’ve gotten sporadic outcomes. Discovery calls that led nowhere, only a few leads, and a single shopper with a one-off mission.
However wanting again at how I approached my LinkedIn presence, all of it is smart. I mixed brief, impulsive bursts of creativity with months-long escapes from the platform. And my outcomes mirrored that.
As a freelancer, it’s straightforward to get misplaced between 20 totally different acquisition methods, shopper work, and administrative duties of operating what you are promoting. And not using a construction in place, staying current on LinkedIn simply falls by the cracks.
In April, I spoke to a fellow freelancer, Tawni Olson, who advised me: “For buying new shoppers, LinkedIn has been the perfect lever — it helps me keep top-of-mind and has instantly led to each referrals and chilly inquiries.”
And that was the ultimate signal for me to begin taking LinkedIn significantly and construct a system centered round content material buckets.
Right here’s how I did it.
How I created content material buckets in 4 steps
I outlined my targets
My first step was to outline what I need to obtain by posting on LinkedIn. As a result of if I don’t know the place I’m going, how may I do know if I obtained there or what I would like to vary in my strategy to get the outcomes?
Natasha Khullar Relph, a distinguished freelance journalist and the founding father of The Wordling (publication for writers and authors), highlights the significance of aim setting in one among her articles:
“By setting targets, you permit your self the readability to see what it’s good to be engaged on and focus your consideration on the issues that may transfer your profession ahead.”
After just a few days of brainstorming and being trustworthy with myself about the place I need to take my freelance profession, I spotted that I need to:
Join with different freelance content material professionals to share our experiencesBuild a private model as a contract content material author and content material managerGet new content material administration and content material writing shoppers
With these targets in place, it felt just like the fog had lifted. I may lastly see the place I needed to go. All that was left to do was determining the best way to get there.
I brainstormed content material concepts primarily based on targets
The following step was to brainstorm content material concepts primarily based on targets.
Asking myself the next three questions:
What matters deliver me nearer to freelance content material professionals?Which content material concepts may assist construct my private model as a contract content material author and content material supervisor?Which posts will get me extra content material administration/content material writing leads and shoppers?
That is what I got here up with:
Purpose
Content material concepts
To attach with freelance professionals
Relatable freelancing tales
Managing deadlines
Managing admin work
The way to deal with suggestions/edits
The way to negotiate/value companies
What I considered freelancing then vs what I imagine now
How I get shoppers
To construct a private model as a contract content material author and content material supervisor
Instruments I take advantage of and the way I take advantage of them
Workflow suggestions
Writing suggestions
ChatGPT/Claude prompts that assist me write sooner
Recommendations on managing freelancers
Content material ops suggestions
Classes from writing for a particular shopper
To get new content material administration/content material writing leads and shoppers
Social proof
Testimonials
Case research
Articles I used to be featured in
Posts selling companies
Posts selling articles I wrote
Posts answering questions I obtained from shoppers through the discovery phases
I grouped concepts into content material buckets
After brainstorming, I made a decision to group them into content material buckets to assist me set up all concepts and label all future matters I give you.
I got here up with 4 content material buckets and gave them descriptive names:
For freelancers/right here’s how I workTips, workflows, and toolsSocial proofPosts about companies
Every bucket is instantly linked to the aim, like this:
Purpose
Content material concepts
Content material bucket
To attach with freelance professionals
Relatable freelancing tales
Managing deadlines
Managing admin work
The way to deal with suggestions/edits
The way to negotiate / value companies
What I considered freelancing then vs what I imagine now
The way to deal with suggestions/edits
How I get shoppers
For freelancers/right here’s how I work
To construct a private model as a contract content material author and content material supervisor
Instruments I take advantage of and the way I take advantage of them
Workflow suggestions
Writing suggestions
ChatGPT/Claude prompts that assist me write sooner
Recommendations on managing freelancers
Content material ops suggestions
Classes from writing for a particular shopper
Ideas, workflows, and instruments
To get new content material writing/content material administration leads and shoppers
Social proof
Posts about companies
Every time I need to submit one thing, I do know EXACTLY which aim it’s contributing to. And this helps me guarantee I’m not losing my artistic power on irrelevant content material.
I created a system to trace concepts
My subsequent step was to create a system to assist me hold all of my concepts in a single place, so I can simply entry them once I need to create or publish one thing.
I turned to Buffer and created color-coded tags to maintain observe of my matters throughout totally different content material buckets, like this:
Every time I get an concept, I add a scribble to Buffer and instantly label it so I can simply discover it later once I have to create one thing for a particular aim.
Tags assist me have a visible overview of what number of concepts I got here up with for every bucket (and due to this fact, aim). And decide if I have to focus my power elsewhere.
How I take advantage of content material buckets
To give you new concepts
Outlined content material buckets make it simpler for me to give you new content material concepts.
With out targets and buckets, asking myself, “What may I submit in the present day on LinkedIn?” may get me just a few good posts. However arising with constant concepts aligned with what I need to obtain? Not a lot.
With a system in place, I can ask myself a extra easy query that creates a pre-frame and helps direct creativity in the direction of the best tales to share.
For instance, going from “What may I submit in the present day on LinkedIn?” to “What relatable tales may I publish to attach with freelance writers?” creates a slender focus that makes arising with concepts a lot simpler.
And as soon as I’ve set these pre-frames for all buckets, concepts began popping up in my day-to-day work life.
As quickly as concepts pop up, I observe them in Buffer and add an acceptable tag.
Right here’s what my library seems like proper now:
To content material batch and keep constant
After I outlined my targets and content material buckets, it turned loads simpler to do content material batching (creating increased volumes of content material in a single session to make use of over an extended time interval).
This technique helps me keep a constant publishing schedule with out burning out.
That’s as a result of content material buckets take away the choice fatigue of what to submit. As a substitute of beginning with “creating X posts for LinkedIn,” I can merely decide a bucket and brainstorm concepts.
And as soon as I begin creating, I can additional simplify this course of by batching comparable content material collectively.
For instance, for the bucket “Posts about companies,” I can create 5 posts answering questions shoppers requested in discovery calls. And for the bucket “For freelancers”, I can chunk down the subject of suggestions into 4 separate posts and create them in a single sitting.
For content material batching periods, I take advantage of the board view in Buffer.
All of my new concepts are within the “Unassigned” board. Earlier than I begin creating, I transfer the matters I need to work on to the “In progress” board.
Like this:
To additional double down on a single bucket, I choose the precise tag.
That is what my board seemed like once I was engaged on the posts about suggestions:
As soon as the posts are executed, I transfer them to the “Prepared for scheduling” board and schedule them on the finish of the session.
I’m posting thrice per week and batching content material as soon as a month. I often schedule a full day for LinkedIn content material creation and pair it up with the admin work.
In the course of the month, I’ll do a further shorter batching session or create a submit right here and there when I’ve the time and really feel impressed.
Utilizing this technique helps me keep constant with out interrupting my shopper work and helps me present up on low-motivation days.
To pick out and hone broad concepts to match my targets
Deciding on and honing concepts to match my targets ensures my content material is intentional and brings me nearer to what I need to obtain.
I don’t need to submit on LinkedIn only for the sake of posting, and never all of my concepts are related to my targets.
Right here’s how content material buckets assist me work out what and what to not submit:
Determining which matters to keep away from: Writing in regards to the newest recipe I attempted is relatable and can probably get me some engagement. Nevertheless it’s not aligned with my targets, so I gained’t choose that matter.Honing a broad matter: “The way to give/obtain suggestions” is a broad matter. However I can chunk it right down to “The way to cope with constructive criticism in your writing” or “The way to give suggestions to content material writers.” This manner, my content material is much more related to my audience.Personalizing Buffer’s content material prompts: I typically use prompts from Buffer’s library. And because of buckets, I can alter them to make sure they’re aligned with my targets.
Let’s check out the immediate “How slowing down made me extra productive.”
By including the narrative of specializing in fewer issues without delay as a freelancer, the immediate rapidly turns into related to my viewers.
To troubleshoot decrease efficiency
I measure the success of my targets with a mixture of metrics. To find out if I’m heading in the right direction to develop my community and construct a private model, I keep watch over follower progress and engagement metrics.
And for my aim of getting freelance content material writing and content material administration shoppers, I observe the variety of leads and shoppers I get from my LinkedIn posts.
At one level, I spotted that my community was rising rapidly, however I hadn’t generated any leads in six weeks.
So I had a have a look at my calendar. Because of color-coded tags, I rapidly observed that almost all of the content material I posted was directed in the direction of different freelancers, not content material managers.
Just one (pink coloration) out of 11 posts within the former three weeks was devoted to getting shoppers:
The next week, I doubled down on sharing content material within the different two buckets:
Social proofPosts about companies
Quickly after noticing this, I revealed a submit about what sort of shopper may have to create content material briefs for his or her writers. And this submit alone generated three leads and one shopper.
And when my calendar is full, I can merely cut back the variety of posts for shoppers and deal with posts for freelancers that drive engagement.
Content material buckets train me that it’s not about how a lot I submit, however about being intentional and matching what I need to obtain with my content material.
Monitoring the best metrics
Since I began publishing often in early June, all of my LinkedIn metrics are up:
Impressions (+405.2%)Engagements (+558%)Followers (+355 new followers)Profile viewers (+104%)
Right here’s a glimpse:
I’m intently following these metrics as a result of they point out the expansion of my community. Nevertheless, I’m not at present optimizing for them.
Previously 95 days, my content material has generated:
6 leads 2 content material shoppers
Engagement with out shoppers doesn’t imply loads for a contract content material enterprise. The variety of shoppers and leads are the metrics that I’m most pleased with and am at present engaged on growing.
A framework that retains me going
Defining my content material buckets gave me an organized system that helps me keep constant and have a means of measuring whether or not my posts are bringing me nearer to my targets.
As a substitute of questioning what to publish or worrying in regards to the relevance of my posts, I now have a framework that permits me to remain centered and intentional.
That shift took LinkedIn from being a guessing recreation to a good way of rising my community, my model, and my shopper base.
