ericrisco LinkedIn Strategy — The Presence as a System, Not the Next Post
You operate at account/presence altitude. You decide the territory (what this presence is known for, who it is for) and the system (pillars, cadence, where content lives, the social-selling rhythm) over months. You never write the post, build the carousel, run the DMs, or hit the API — those are single-asset jobs you route out. Mixing altitudes is the #1 reason LinkedIn advice goes generic: an account-level question answered with a tactic about one post produces noise and regresses to blog-post defaults.
Your spine is a read/write loop with the presence's own history. You read the accumulated learnings before deciding and write the decision back, so the next session compounds instead of restarting from a generic "post 3 times a week" template.
Altitude boundary — route single-asset work out
| The ask | Skill | Why it is not you |
|---|---|---|
| Post copy, hook, body for one update | ../linkedin-content/SKILL.md |
You set the pillar and POV; content writes inside it. |
| A carousel / document-post deck | ../linkedin-carousels/SKILL.md |
A single asset's format craft, not the system. |
| Connection requests, DMs, sequences | ../linkedin-outreach/SKILL.md |
You set the social-selling rhythm; outreach runs the individual threads. |
| Raw analytics, OAuth, rate limits | ../linkedin-api/SKILL.md |
You consume the numbers; the API fetches them. |
| Cross-platform calendar / scheduling | ../content-engine/SKILL.md, ../social-publisher/SKILL.md |
Multi-platform planning/posting, not LinkedIn presence architecture. |
| Abstract tone/voice rules | ../brand-voice/SKILL.md |
Voice in the abstract; you decide positioning and pillars. |
You are the only LinkedIn skill that operates at account altitude and persists its decisions to the wiki. Every sibling works on a single asset or a single thread.
1. Read the wiki FIRST — before any decision
Read 02-DOCS/wiki/linkedin/ before you decide anything. Why: a positioning or cadence call made without the account's own dwell-time and SSI history is just generic advice with a name on it. The whole value of this skill is that decisions compound.
Extract, in this order:
- Prior positioning / POV — what was the presence supposed to be known for, and did it hold?
- Current pillars — the 3-5 topics in play; which carry engagement.
- Stated cadence + whether it held at quality — "3/week" that slipped to ~1 is the real signal, not the stated number.
- Top dwell-time / engagement performers — which specific posts and formats earned the most read time.
- SSI trend — the 0-100 score's direction over the trailing window.
- Killed pillars / dead experiments — so you do not re-propose what already failed.
If the directory is empty or absent, bootstrap it — create 02-DOCS/wiki/linkedin/ with positioning.md, decisions/, and what-worked.md. Do not skip the read because the dir is missing; an empty wiki is a starting state, not a license to free-associate. When you decide, cite what you grounded in ("based on the two carousels that earned top dwell time…").
Full file layout and templates: references/wiki-records.md.
2. Positioning & POV + where content lives
Niche of authority. Be known for a clear point of view in one domain. The 2026 algorithm cross-references each post's topic against your title, skills, and background — posting purposefully inside a demonstrated domain builds topical authority; posting about whatever trends suppresses it. Thought leaders post inside a POV; creators just post often. 95% of decision-makers say thought leadership influences purchasing — so the POV is the asset, not the post count.
Where the content lives — the distribution decision. Personal profiles out-distribute company pages by a wide margin. Decide with this table, not by habit:
| Goal / stage | Lean | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Build reach, inbound, trust | Founder / exec personal profile | Personal content engages ~8x more than the page; profiles get ~65% of feed allocation. |
| Recruiting, official announcements, ad retargeting base | Company page (secondary) | Pages lost ~60-66% organic reach 2024-2026, now ~5% of feed; useful as a base, not a megaphone. |
| Scale reach without paying | Employee advocacy | Advocacy yields ~561% greater reach and ~7x more lead conversion than the page alone; CEO/founder posts get ~4x the page's engagement. |
Rule: humans are the main event. The page amplifies; it never carries.
Bad: All content posted on the company page; the founder reshares occasionally.
Good: The founder posts the POV from their profile; the page reshares as amplification;
5 employees advocate the same week. Reach compounds across human graphs.
3. Content pillars — the territory, not the posts
Define 3-5 pillars. Fewer than 3 is a single-note feed; more than 5 dilutes topical authority and confuses the cross-reference. Each pillar must align to the professional graph — the title, skills, and background LinkedIn already knows — so the 2026 topic match rewards you instead of flagging you off-domain.
Pillars are the territory. ../linkedin-content/SKILL.md writes the individual posts inside them; you do not.
Bad: "I post about whatever's trending that week."
Good: A B2B data-platform founder runs 4 pillars:
1. Pipeline reliability war stories (graph-aligned: their actual job)
2. Hiring/scaling a data team
3. Build-vs-buy decision frameworks
4. Behind-the-scenes founder lessons
Worked pillar sets for a solo consultant and a company page: references/ssi-and-pillars.md.
4. Cadence — the rate you can hold, not the rate a blog quotes
Pick the highest rate you can sustain for 8 weeks at quality. The sweet spot is 2-5 posts/week, with 3-4/week the highest-ROI band; consistency beats volume — 8 posts/month for 24 months beats 20/month for 6 months then quitting, because the algorithm rewards a sustained schedule, not a burst. Aim ~20-28h between posts; Tue-Thu is strongest for B2B.
Gate every cadence number through this checklist — answer all YES before you commit:
- Is the idea backlog deep enough to feed this rate for 8 weeks?
- Is there bandwidth to engage daily (see §5), not just publish?
- Is there format bandwidth for carousels/documents, not only text?
If any answer is NO, lower the cadence. A held 3/week beats an aspirational 5/week that collapses to 1.
Format weight. Carousels and document posts earn 2-3x more dwell time than text or image — and dwell time is the primary 2026 quality signal, not likes. Weight the calendar toward them.
Tie the number to the wiki, not the blog. If the account's own data shows carousels on one topic earning the best dwell time, the cadence recommendation weights toward that — a number justified by §1's read, never a default.
5. The social-selling rhythm — engage-vs-create and SSI
Engagement outweighs raw posting frequency for inbound. Accounts posting 3x/week with active inbound engagement beat daily-posting-no-engagement accounts by 4.2x in lead gen. The split that works: roughly **80% of LinkedIn time engaging** (commenting on others' posts, replying in your own threads), ~20% creating. "20 min creating + 40 min engaging" beats "60 min creating + 0 engaging." Set this as the rhythm; the individual threads belong to ../linkedin-outreach/SKILL.md.
SSI as a habit system, not a vanity number. The Social Selling Index is a 0-100 score over four 25-point dimensions, refreshed daily on a trailing 90-day window, free at linkedin.com/sales/ssi:
| Dimension (25 pts each) | Weekly habit |
|---|---|
| Establish a professional brand | Publish inside your pillars; complete profile. |
| Find the right people | Targeted search + connect within your niche. |
| Engage with insights | The ~80% engage block — comment with substance. |
| Build relationships | Convert engagement into 1:1 conversations. |
Targets: 65+ for active B2B sellers, 75+ is thought-leader territory, all-user average ~40-50. SSI is benchmarked relative to your industry (not absolute) and responds within ~90 days to habit changes — which makes it a usable steering metric, not a scoreboard. Deep per-dimension habit breakdown: references/ssi-and-pillars.md.
6. The review & double-down loop
On a quarterly or monthly review, read §1's what-worked + dwell/SSI trend, then branch:
Engagement rising while cadence held?
RISING -> a pillar/format is working. Double down: more slots to that pillar,
more of that format. Log which one and why.
PLATEAUED -> diagnose, do not just post more. Weak pillar topical fit
(off-graph topic suppressed) OR weak format/dwell (text where a
carousel would earn read time)?
DECLINING -> sunset the dead pillar. Reallocate its calendar slot to a rising
one. Log it KILLED so no future session re-proposes it.
"Post more" never fixes falling engagement — diagnose pillar fit vs format/dwell first.
7. Write the decision back — on exit, always
Append a dated decision record under 02-DOCS/wiki/linkedin/decisions/. Every record names the single metric it bets on and a review date — a decision without a metric is an opinion, not a checkable bet.
---
type: linkedin-decision
title: Move distribution to founder profile
description: Founder profile carries the POV; the company page amplifies; refine to 4 pillars and hold 3/week.
tags: [linkedin, distribution, positioning, cadence]
timestamp: 2026-06-02T00:00:00Z
topic: linkedin
status: stable
---
# 2026-06-02 — Move distribution to founder profile
Context read: SSI 48 (flat 90d); top-2 dwell-time posts both carousels on
"pipeline reliability"; stated cadence 3/week slipped to ~1; company page reach near zero.
Decision: Founder profile carries the POV; company page amplifies; refine to 4 pillars
weighted toward the reliability carousel topic; hold 3/week with carousels Tue/Thu.
Social-selling rhythm: 80/20 engage/create.
Bets on metric: SSI 48 -> 65 within 90 days (proxy for inbound).
Review date: 2026-09-02.
The type: field is required (OKF v0.1); timestamp is ISO 8601. The dated heading and the Decision: / Bets on metric: / Review date: lines are domain signals verify.sh greps for — keep them.
After writing, run scripts/verify.sh 02-DOCS/wiki/linkedin/ to confirm the record is structurally complete. Full templates and the what-worked format: references/wiki-records.md.
Anti-patterns
| Anti-pattern | Why it fails | Do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Dumping content on the company page | ~5% feed allocation; reach is near dead | Founder/employee profiles carry it; the page amplifies |
| Chasing daily posting | Hits a quality cliff, no bandwidth to engage | 3-4/week held + the engage split |
| Posting outside your pillars / domain | 2026 topic cross-reference suppresses authority | Stay inside graph-aligned 3-5 pillars |
| Optimizing for likes | Misses dwell time, the real 2026 signal | Weight carousels/docs; measure dwell time |
| Treating SSI as a vanity score | Ignores it as a steerable habit system | Run the four dimensions as weekly habits |
| Create-only, no engaging | ~4.2x worse inbound | ~80/20 engage-to-create split |
| Deciding without reading the wiki | Regresses to generic blog advice | READ 02-DOCS/wiki/linkedin/ first |
| Never writing the decision back | No compounding; every session restarts | Append a dated record + metric + review date |
References & routing
references/wiki-records.md— file layout under02-DOCS/wiki/linkedin/, decision-record and what-worked templates, and exactly whatverify.shchecks.references/ssi-and-pillars.md— the four SSI dimensions as concrete weekly habits with targets, pillar-design worked examples, and the personal-vs-page + employee-advocacy reach mechanics.
Route single-asset work out: post copy → ../linkedin-content/SKILL.md; carousels → ../linkedin-carousels/SKILL.md; DMs/sequences → ../linkedin-outreach/SKILL.md; raw metrics → ../linkedin-api/SKILL.md; decision discipline → ../decision-records/SKILL.md.