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If LinkedIn feels slow… quiet… or like you’re posting into a black hole, this episode will land with a gut punch, in a good way. In this straight-talking solo episode, Deirdre Martin breaks down why the issue isn’t the algorithm or your content, but a lack of clarity, positioning, and intention, and how that quietly keeps you invisible to the right clients. Drawing from how over 92% of her non-referred clients find her through LinkedIn, Deirdre walks you through the practical shifts that turn LinkedIn from a content platform into a genuine B2B client channel, without cold DMs or salesy tactics. You’ll learn how to fix your profile, focus your content, use conversations properly, and finally make LinkedIn work the way it’s meant to, socially, strategically, and sustainably for awareness, consideration and clients.

For the full list of timestamps, key takeaways, and all resources mentioned, visit the full episode page here: https://deirdremartin.ie/blog/linkedin-strategy-2026-turning-visibility-into-clients

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Incoming truth bomb.

If LinkedIn feels slow or dead or like you're posting into a black

hole right now, the problem isn't your content or the algorithm per se.

It's your clarity.

It's the digital version of you walking into a room full of your

ideal clients and then standing in the corner behind a potted plant

hoping that someone comes over.

And listen, I get it.

I really do.

You're busy, you're overwhelmed.

You are doing 101 things in your business already, and the thought of

optimizing LinkedIn feels like just another extra thing, an extra tour

to add to your already endless list.

But.

When I look at how I acquire clients and when I take referrals outta the

equation, over 92% of all of my non referred clients find me through LinkedIn.

That's a lot, and it's not just me.

The platform works, but here's the golden nugget for you.

In this, only 1.8% of people on the platform actually use

it to promote themselves.

Like that's not a problem.

That's a massive glittering blue ocean opportunity for you, and today I'm

giving you a snappy LinkedIn overhaul that you can go away and implement

the second you stop listening or you can pause me as you're listening.

And go and implement it as I'm talking.

But this is the exact system I use and teach to my clients.

It's called the LinkedIn seven C success strategy, and it results in the profile

tweaks that turn strangers into followers.

Followers into lurkers and lurkers into, Hey, how can we work together?

Type conversations.

Okay, let's dive in.

'C', number one is clarity.

Posting without clarity is literally like walking into a gym, hopping on

every piece of equipment and then like magically hoping that you're

going to have abs by the time you walk out, like it's never gonna happen.

And before you go and you start producing content for LinkedIn or write a post

or whatever, you need to ask yourself and be really clear on the answers.

What do I want LinkedIn to do for my business?

Who am I showing up as?

What's my unique value proposition?

What's my tone of voice?

Who am I speaking to and what is the purpose of what I'm about to post even?

And there's so many more things to get clarity on, but I don't wanna

overwhelm you if you have those six your already streets ahead of most people.

And here is truth bomb number two, incoming.

Visibility without direction is quite frankly a complete and utter

waste of your time and effort.

And most people, they get this wrong because they go on to LinkedIn and day

one their purpose is let's just go out there and get a shit ton of clients.

Straight away from LinkedIn, but it just doesn't work like that.

That's like going to a bar and literally asking every single random stranger in

the bar to marry you today, like, ugh.

Your first goal should be eyeballs.

And by eyeballs I'm talking about increasing your reach, increasing

your impressions, and literally getting more people seeing you,

increasing your visibility.

Because when you're doing that, what's happening or has to happen

for that to be effective is you need to show up consistently in

a way that creates recognition of who you are, what you're about, and

why anybody should freaking care.

That's pattern placement, and that's how you build authority,

credibility, and trust.

And honestly, I can tell you clarity is not easy.

It's the hardest part to master in your business.

Full stop.

And let's be clear here.

And yes, pun intended, a confused mind never buys.

But the other side of that is that a confused mind never sells.

So get clearer before you move forward with LinkedIn or any

element of growing your business.

And it doesn't have to be perfect, but the clearer you are.

The easier it becomes to grow.

And I think most people underestimate that.

Okay, so one of the first things I wanna dive into with you is your banner and

headline, because this is the first impression piece and your LinkedIn profile

actually has over 37 different sections.

Like seriously.

Sometimes I wish I was like, oh, I wish I was just on X or Instagram,

where there's just this tiny little bit of a profile section.

But anyway, it is what it is.

Rant over.

The good news is that no, you don't need to write a novel in all 37 sections

or in any of the sections really.

But you absolutely do need to own the real estate that matters.

And your prime real estate on LinkedIn is these two sections.

Your banner, that's the bit behind your profile picture.

And it's like your billboard.

Actually, I'm gonna caveat that and say three sections.

'cause your second one is your picture.

Your picture needs to be something that's a Pretty professional looking

headshot, and when I say professional.

It's not you in a bikini on a beach, or with a pint in your hand in the

pub after a great match, right?

It literally needs to look like a decent headshot of you, and ideally you'll

have had it taken professionally, but you can look like you're having fun and

having a good time and be approachable.

What I'm saying is don't have a poor lighting or a poor.

Ratio, image, aspect, ratio, that kind of stuff, make it a decent picture.

And the third part is your headline.

And in particular with your headline, it's that first few words because

those words literally follow you everywhere on the platform.

Meaning if people don't click through to your profile, but you've commented

on their post or in a DM or something, they can see those first few words.

So it's also what comes up when they search you.

So everywhere that you show up, those first few words of your

headline literally follow you around.

So make sure that they're like a good smell and not a bad one.

And to do that, make it tight, be bold, but most of all,

be seriously fricking clear.

Don't leave it up to guesswork.

The next thing is in terms of profile optimization.

I'm gonna run through really quickly a little checklist because here's where

most people mess up their profile is that they treat it like a cv,

and that's absolutely fine if you're looking for full-time employment.

You are a business owner.

You are not looking for employment, you're looking for clients, right?

So treat that fricking profile like it's a sales page, and here's

how I'm gonna break it down.

First off, a custom URL, you can edit your public profile, URL

on LinkedIn, so it's your name.

So go and have a look and see, have you got all these

random numbers after your name?

And if you do delete them.

And listen to me really carefully on this.

Typos are permanent.

Seriously, send me a message on LinkedIn and ask me how I know.

I'll show you a super example of where somebody's rightly

fucked up their public URL.

Okay.

Moving swiftly on to your about section next, this is your story.

It's your opportunity to demonstrate your positioning and provide

details about the transformation you help clients experience.

And even though links aren't clickable here, add a call to action anyway.

Tell people where to go or what are the next steps if they want to learn more or.

Potentially work with you.

And some people ask me, Deirdre, for that about section, how do you add

bold or how do you add italics and things like that to emphasize certain

elements or to make it more skimmable.

And it's so super simple.

Seriously, just run a Google search with these words, LinkedIn text formatter

and paste that, paste whatever you've written for your about section or

even for regular post into that.

Whatever shows up on your Google search, paste it in there, bold, italicize,

underline whatever you want, and then copy it back over to LinkedIn.

It's actually that simple and there's so many different websites that allow

you to do it, and they're all free.

Okay, your experience section.

Don't just list your job duties like it's a 2012 CV or resume,

whatever you wanna call it.

Pull forward your relevant skills.

And an example of this is one of my clients recently, she previously

worked in dental and she was like.

Oh, do I include that?

That I worked in dental and I'm like, well, what did you do in dental?

And she's like, oh, that's where I learned marketing.

I'm like, fuck yeah, share that bit.

That's so relevant because it's like, oh, and is that the

industry you work with now?

Yeah, to a degree.

I'm like, definitely share it then.

It's absolutely relevant.

And relevance is strategy.

Skills section is next in here.

Your top five skills should echo your USP, not what you did five careers ago.

So align your strengths with intention and just in case

you're like, Deirdre, hold on.

You're mentioning some language there and I don't really know what you mean.

Go and check out a previous episode to help improve your brand

clarity, and it's all related to your USP, UVP, and positioning.

I'll share the link in the show notes.

Okay, now let's talk about your featured section.

Curate it, keep it up to about three items max, and use images so they pop.

I use mine to push people towards my podcast and my email list because long

form content is what actually converts.

Recommendation section is next.

And what can I say about recommendations?

Give them, receive them, give them monthly if you can.

Your profile loves it.

And behind the scenes in the algorithm, it definitely works to

have some of those recommendations going out and coming in and, hey,

I'm just gonna throw it out there.

Feel free to give me a LinkedIn recommendation about this LinkedIn

episode if you're finding it helpful.

Okay.

I'm gonna group a few of the next ones because like I said, there's 37 sections.

I want this to be a shorty episode, and if we go through all of them,

we're gonna be here till tomorrow.

So languages, causes volunteer work, organizations,

interests, all those things.

This is kind of like your personality piece.

Humans hire humans.

Humans buy stories, so share more about who you are and what you value

by literally filling in those sections.

For example, one of mine is.

Animal welfare, and one of the things that I do each year at Christmas is I

donate money to animal welfare rather than buying presents for my clients.

So it's important to me.

I have three dogs, I have horses, you know, and I'm like, animals

are important to me and I believe they should be treated really well.

So this is one way where I highlight that I don't need to talk about

it in my content all the time.

Which is where we're going next to talk about content, and most

people treat content like a lottery.

Some people are amazing at content, they just get it, but others post a lot.

They pray a lot, and they just hope something hits.

But I'm afraid that won't get you the results that your expertise deserves if

you're in that hope and pray situation.

So here's the simplest way I can put it.

Pick two or three core topics that you're gonna talk about.

That's it.

And say the same thing 50 different ways.

And why this works is because consistency builds topic, trust

and the algorithm loves it.

It's like an algorithm.

Holy grail.

And then frequency.

Let me just share an insight on this.

I used to post daily, but recently I've pulled back a bit.

I'm literally too busy, but also it's what I say to people is post at

whatever frequency you can manage, so aim for as many as possible.

But go for a minimum of at least two posts per week and up to as many as seven.

Whatever you can sustainably manage, and the way I see it is quantity helps

improve your quality because you'll get to figure out what works and

what doesn't for your ideal clients.

In terms of formats, let me say this boldly and clearly.

LinkedIn is rewarding visual content right now, so text and image posts and where

specifically the images are emotional or show some sort of action movement

kind of thing happening inside them.

Carousels are working really well and short vertical videos

around 30 to 60 seconds.

Well when you're sharing images, instead of just sharing a single image, test

out and see if two or three images outperforms your single image posts.

And for a carousel recently I shared one and it performed so super well.

It was carousel of loads of images.

And when I did that, I had a little bit of caption text over each of the images

and it was like telling a micro story frame by frame, Pixar style, let's say.

But just like content topics, keep your formats consistent.

One or two formats, maximum of three.

Otherwise, the algorithm looks and thinks you're showing up like it's day one every

single time, and it can't preempt how this content is gonna perform for you.

Now, a lot of people don't realize you get to send up to 100 connection

requests per week on LinkedIn.

But use them.

Use them intentionally.

And I like to recommend people go, well, who should I connect with?

Should I only connect with my ideal clients?

Should I connect with others?

I always say there's four buckets of people to connect with.

One is industry leaders because your ideal clients are probably following them.

Two is strategic partners because these are other people who are serving your

ideal clients in a different way to you, and they're not your competitors.

Bonus number three is current clients where you can show up in the platform,

give them some love, and number four is your dream clients and your prospects.

Okay, so that's connections.

Commenting is next.

So if clarity is the foundation, content is like the bricks and mortar, well then

commenting is like the lights, light, and heat and commenting is, you can't.

Get away with Nice post anymore, and for LinkedIn to even acknowledge

that you've made a comment or to perceive a comment as a comment, it

has to be at least five words anyway.

But now for them to think it's a good comment, it needs to be over 35 words.

Seriously.

But one of the good things about this right now is that you can see the

impressions on your comments, and if someone comments on your post,

try to reply as soon as you can.

Ideally within the first 30 minutes.

Oh, and if you spot something that looks like an AI comment

on one of your posts delete it.

Apparently LinkedIn hates it.

Okay.

Conversations.

Conversations are like the under goldmine and no, you don't need to be cold DMing

people saying, buy my stuff, or spamming them with crappy things like that.

You just need to talk to people.

And my favorite thing I've been using to generate that little bit of connection

so it feels it's so much easier to start a conversation this year, is

using the catch up section where it's.

It shares every single day, people's birthdays, anniversaries, job

changes, and all that sort of stuff.

And honestly, happy Birthday has started.

More sales conversations than any guru's DM template ever did for me.

Like seriously, humans being human, who knew it works okay.

Communities.

So groups can be a little bit weird on LinkedIn, and mostly they're quiet.

But also there are gold mines for fishing.

What you can do is you can go and search by industry, search by role or niche

groups and like really your ideal clients are probably in there in clusters, and

this is where it might be a bit more of a red ocean rather than a blue ocean,

but basically go where they're gathering.

Okay, we're nearly there.

Consistency and commitment are the final Cs.

And here's the truth with these, right?

Redundancy in marketing isn't repetitive.

It's reputation building.

So commit to your message to how you're gonna show up to your brand,

why you're on LinkedIn, your ideal client, all of the things, because

what I can tell you from experiences.

Every time you pivot, it literally delays you in your success and

your audience can't catch up and neither can the algorithm can't

figure out who you are, what you're about, and why anyone should care.

Okay, really quick recap.

Clarity.

Clarity is the foundation.

Your profile then does the heavy lifting.

Your content builds authority.

Connections, expand your reach.

Comments, amplify your presence, conversations, build relationships.

And then communities, collaboration, commitment, and consistency.

Close the loop and remember, if you take one thing away from

today, just think of it like this.

LinkedIn is a social platform and the clue is in the name.

So don't forget to link in with people and be social.

Now if you want the exact roadmap that I use to help my clients build

authority, visibility, and demand, grab the Visibility authority engine.

It breaks the entire strategy down into simple steps you can implement this week.

And go ahead and grab it at www.deirdremartin.ie/visibility.

And if today's episode, let any bit of a fire under you, go back and listen

to another episode, which is three hook types that trigger instant attention.

Because once you start posting that content, you literally have seconds to

grab people's attention on the platform, and it's all down to the hook, and that's

gonna make your content unstoppable.

Okay, last shout is please do me this favor and share this episode

with one entrepreneur who you know is maybe hiding a little bit

on LinkedIn, but shouldn't be.

And until next time, keep mastering your business.

Bye for now.