My LinkedIn
In March 2025, I decided to actually use LinkedIn. No strategy deck, no content calendar, no posting schedule. Just a commitment to show up consistently and say things I actually meant.
Twelve months later: 57,000+ impressions, 1,000+ followers, and an audience where nearly 5% are founders or co-founders. Not because I cracked some algorithm, but because I stopped writing for LinkedIn and started writing for people.
This case study is about what I learned building in public: what worked, what surprised me, and what the data actually showed about what resonates when you stop trying to sound like a thought leader and just tell the truth.
I started posting in March 2025 with no particular plan. The first few months were quiet — a few hundred impressions a month, slow follower growth, posts that went mostly nowhere. I kept going anyway.
Then in July, something shifted. Two posts in the same month hit differently than anything I'd published before. The first: a reflection on two weeks into a new job at OpenGov, and what their onboarding process taught me about company culture. The second: a one-month update from the same role, with a photo and a list of what I'd actually learned. Combined, those two posts drove nearly 21,000 impressions — more than my entire first four months combined.
I hadn't done anything technically different. I'd just written about something real that was happening to me, in the moment it was happening, without cleaning it up too much.
That pattern held across every top-performing post I published that year. The ones that hit were never the ones I'd thought hardest about. They were the ones where I was honest about something uncomfortable:
The post about feeling suffocating under the weight of AI news everywhere — and sharing the resources I actually use when I'd rather rip my hair out than scroll LinkedIn — became my most engaging post of the entire year, with 187 engagements. It outperformed posts with three times its reach because people didn't just see it, they responded to it.
The post about B2B SaaS copy that looks great on a website but completely misses the point — calling out the "optimizes workflows, streamlines efficiencies" language that means nothing — generated 8 comments from people who felt the same frustration. That one mattered to me because it was directly connected to the work I do and the problems I care about.
The post announcing my move to Just Appraised drew 26 comments. The Gusto payroll launch announcement drew 17 reactions from people in my network who'd watched me build that product. These weren't viral moments — they were proof that the audience was paying attention.
Throughout the year I also experimented with graphics and frameworks — a hybrid GTM model for GovTech, an AI overwhelm resource guide, a visual on avoiding mental hangovers from AI use. Some landed, some didn't. The data was pretty clear: the words always mattered more than the visuals. A good hook on a plain text post consistently outperformed a polished graphic with a weak opening line.
I didn't build this audience to build an audience. I built it because I think clearly when I write, and writing publicly forces me to sharpen the thinking.
But the byproduct is real: I now have a growing network of founders, marketers, and operators who follow me because they trust that what I say is what I actually think. That's a harder thing to build than a content calendar, and it's more durable than any growth hack.
For clients, this matters because personal brand strategy is part of what I offer through Refactor Marketing — and this is proof that I practice what I preach. I didn't manufacture a persona. I just got clearer about who I am and said it out loud, consistently, in public.
That's the whole strategy.
Let's make your product stand out.
