--- name: "linkedin_thought_leadership" description: "Build LinkedIn authority for founders and agents: comment-first growth, swipeable document carousels, a sustainable posting cadence, and turning comment threads into real connections. Use when someone wants a LinkedIn growth plan, carousel outline, substantive comment drafts, or a connection strategy." metadata: { "includeInPrompt": true } --- # LinkedIn Thought Leadership ## Purpose Run a LinkedIn growth system that gets a founder or an agent persona seen by the right niche and converts conversations into connections. The engine is comment-first engagement, backed by a weekly document carousel and a posting rhythm the person can sustain for months. No automation, no engagement bait, no algorithm folklore presented as fact. Every claim in this skill is tiered by evidence. Details live in [references/evidence_tiers.md](references/evidence_tiers.md): **Official** means LinkedIn's own help pages say it. **Reported** means practitioners widely observe it and it is attributed, not proven. Everything else here is the skill's own operating opinion. ## Workflow ### 1. Position check (before any outreach) Do this first, and say so when the profile is not ready. A growth system on a generic profile wastes every comment. - Headline follows Role + Specialty + Proof, e.g. `Founder | B2B SaaS onboarding | Helped 40 teams cut time-to-value`. No buzzword soup. - Name 2-3 topic pillars. Everything the person posts and comments on must map to one of them. Commenting outside the pillars dilutes what the profile is about. - Claim a clean custom profile URL and pin the best proof (product, post, talk) in Featured. ### 2. Comment-first growth (the daily engine) Comments are the highest-leverage unit of effort on LinkedIn. Officially, Feed ranking uses profile identity, content, network, and recent activity, and LinkedIn says it weighs whether conversations are constructive. Reported practitioner consensus: substantive comments travel farther than likes and 5-10 per day inside your domain beats random posting. Rules for every comment: - Only comment where you can add something: a concrete example, a counterexample, a technical clarification, a first-hand lesson, or a real question. Templates and good/bad examples in [references/comment_and_convert_playbook.md](references/comment_and_convert_playbook.md). - Generic praise ("Great post!", "So true.") is not a comment. If you cannot add substance, skip the post. - Stay inside the topic pillars. Topic-chasing trending posts outside your lane trades long-term positioning for a temporary blip. - No engagement bait. "Comment YES if you agree" is reported as neutral at best and penalized at worst. - Reply to comments on your own posts while the conversation is still active. LinkedIn's relevance model explicitly weighs recent engagement. ### 3. Document carousels (the weekly anchor) LinkedIn document posts are the stable way to publish a swipeable carousel: upload a PDF through the Document option in the composer, add a title, and viewers swipe through the pages and can download it. LinkedIn has changed native multi-image formats over time, so the PDF document post is the format to rely on. Full slide-by-slide blueprint in [references/carousel_blueprint.md](references/carousel_blueprint.md). - Turn one strong comment-thread insight or one real lesson into a carousel each week. One idea per slide, short enough to read at a glance. - The post text earns the "see more" click: posts truncate after two or three lines, so the hook is the whole post. End key posts with one specific question. Reported: question posts draw markedly more comments; attributed in the evidence file. ### 4. Posting cadence LinkedIn publishes no fixed posting-frequency rule. The skill's operating rule: a sustainable rhythm beats bursts. The widely reported norm is 2-5 posts per week, all inside the topic pillars. A schedule kept for six months beats a fortnight of daily posts followed by silence. ### 5. Convert: comments into connections Do not send cold invites to strangers and do not pitch in the first message. 1. Engage first. Like, comment on, or share their content one to three times so your name is familiar before the invite arrives. 2. Spend personalized notes where you have real context. Official LinkedIn help: free accounts get up to **3 personalized invitation notes per month**, each up to **200 characters**; Premium members get unlimited notes. Steps: profile > Connect > Add a note > write the message > Send invitation. 3. Note formula, under 200 characters: where you found them plus why you want to connect now. A real example pattern: "Saw your post on onboarding drop-off, we hit the same wall at 60 days. Would like to connect and compare notes." (Count your characters; 200 is tighter than it looks.) 4. After they accept: one short human welcome note aligned with the reason you connected. One useful question or one relevant resource. No pitch, no sequence, no follow-up nag. If they do not reply, let it rest. ### 6. Track lightly (weekly, five minutes) Watch connection acceptance rate, replies to your comments, and carousel performance. If acceptance drops or comments get no replies for two weeks, the targeting or the substance is off. Fix that before doing more volume. ## Output Contract When asked for a full growth plan, deliver: the 2-3 topic pillars, the weekly rhythm, five comment targets with drafted comments, one carousel outline (slide by slide), and connection-note drafts for the top prospects, each under 200 characters. When asked for a single artifact, deliver just that artifact: a drafted comment (substantive, no filler), a carousel outline (7-12 slides), or a connection note (personal, under 200 characters). State the evidence tier of any algorithm claim you repeat. Voice: plain, professional, human. No em dashes, no hype words, no motivational filler. Write the way the person actually talks. ## Operating Rules 1. **Evidence tiering.** Repeat no algorithm claim as fact. Official claims cite LinkedIn help; reported claims are attributed and labeled as observed, not proven. If a claim cannot be verified, cut it or frame it as opinion. 2. **No automation.** LinkedIn's terms prohibit third-party automation of posting, commenting, liking, and invites. The agent drafts and plans; the account owner posts, comments, and sends manually. No sequencers, no click-for-you extensions, no identical mass messages. Acting human-shaped at machine speed is exactly what gets accounts restricted. 3. **Notes are scarce.** Three personalized invite notes a month on a free account. Never spend one on a blank or generic note. 4. **Substance or skip.** If a comment cannot add an example, clarification, counterexample, lesson, or question, it does not get written. 5. **Stay in the lane.** Pillars only. Off-topic visibility is a positioning tax. 6. **Never pitch first.** The first message after connecting is human, short, and useful. Pitching on connect is how reputations get made, badly. 7. **Invitation limits are boundaries, not targets.** A pile of ignored invites produces "I don't know this person" reports, and those compound. 8. **Own the voice.** Drafts must sound like the person, not a template. If a draft could have been written for anyone, rewrite it.