How to Grow Your LinkedIn SO Fast in 2026 It Feels ILLEGAL

0:00Give me 20 minutes and I'll show you how

0:02to dominate LinkedIn in 2026. And I'm

0:05going to do it differently than every

0:06other LinkedIn video you've [music]

0:08probably seen. No list of steps.

0:10Instead, I'm going to show you the exact

0:12journey your next client would take

0:14[music] from never hearing your name to

0:16actually sending you a DM, every touch

0:18point in order. Because once you see

0:20LinkedIn from [music] their side, the

0:22whole platform stops being confusing.

0:24But before we actually go and follow

0:26that stranger, you need to understand

0:28why they wouldn't [music] care about you

0:29yet. Because one thought I really want

0:31to insert inside your brain is no one

0:34cares about you. It's a [music] bit

0:35harsh, I know, but what I mean with this

0:37is you can't expect to post something

0:39valuable and get attention because

0:41posting valuable stuff does not equal

0:44[music] getting the attention. And it

0:46comes down to which of these three types

0:48of people you are. One, the subject

0:50matter expert. The person with the

0:51deepest knowledge in [music] the room,

0:5220 years of experience, real results,

0:55real clients, but almost nobody knows

0:57they [music] exist. Two, the creator

0:59knows how to get attention, posts every

1:01day, hooks, formats, the whole game.

1:03Sometimes the knowledge underneath is an

1:05inch deep. Three, the thought leader, a

1:08subject matter expert who learned

1:11distribution. [music] Same depth as the

1:13first one, same reach as the second.

1:15That's the position this video gets you

1:18to. If you are watching this video,

1:20you're probably in that first group. And

1:21the first group has a specific problem.

1:23I call it the authority paradox because

1:26sometimes the more you know, the more

1:28you assume people will care and they

1:30just don't. Because expertise and

1:31attention are two completely different

1:33currencies. You can be rich in one and

1:35broke in the other. And on LinkedIn and

1:37any other social media platform,

1:39attention is the one you need to learn

1:40how to create. And expertise is what you

1:43build that attention from. We had a

1:45client who sold his company for over $70

1:47million. He stopped working with us for

1:48a few months, posted on his own, and got

1:50singledigit likes on topics he literally

1:52built a company on. Everything in this

1:54video comes from the systems we built at

1:56the stinka for clients paying 5K to 20K

1:59a month. One of them went from 800K to

2:013.6 million ARR with over 80% of their

2:04pipeline coming from LinkedIn. Zero

2:06outbound. And I even built my own agency

2:07to six figures [music] the same way. I

2:09want you to think of it like opening the

2:11best restaurant in the city, but you

2:13open it on a street with zero foot

2:15traffic. You don't have an online

2:17presence. You're not even on Google

2:18Maps. The food can be micheland type and

2:20it doesn't matter until someone is going

2:22to actually walk down that street, until

2:23someone does a Google map search, until

2:25someone sees a foodie reel recommending

2:28your restaurant. So, that's [music] the

2:29game. This video is about building that.

2:32So, let's get into it.

2:35[music]

2:38The first time your next client sees

2:41your name, it probably won't be on one

2:43of your own posts, especially if you are

2:45just starting out, it will probably be

2:48in the comments of someone they already

2:50follow because when you are starting

2:51out, your posts reach almost nobody.

2:53You're talking to an empty room. But

2:55there are people out there that their

2:57comment section is full of your ICP.

2:59Their rooms are full. A comment puts you

3:01inside that full room today for free. Is

3:05it easy? No. Because when you are the

3:07new kid at school, it's never easy. Not

3:09knowing anyone, not having friends, not

3:12understanding the social dynamics or how

3:14the teachers are like, where the

3:15bathroom is, is never easy. Now, you

3:17might think this sounds a little bit

3:19like engagement farming, leaving

3:21comments to get noticed, warm up the

3:23algorithm as some call it. But there's a

3:25real psychology underneath this, and

3:27it's the opposite of farming. It's

3:29called the reciprocity effect. One of

3:31the heavily documented patterns in human

3:33behavior. When someone gives you

3:34something, our brain keeps a tab open.

3:37We feel a quiet pull to give back.

3:39Someone holds the door, you hold the

3:41next. Someone leaves a genuinely useful

3:43comment on someone's post. That person

3:45notices, replies, checks their profile,

3:48their audience does, too. So, here's

3:49exactly what I'd do. Start by building a

3:51list of 20 to 30 creators whose audience

3:55matches your ICP. The people who could

3:57become your clients. Then build another

4:00list of those 20 to 30 real ICPs you

4:03start finding active in their posts.

4:05Then 30 minutes a day before you even

4:08post your own post, you comment on their

4:10stuff. And a good comment does one of

4:13three things. It adds value, an

4:15experience or angle that makes the

4:17original post better. It challenges

4:19respectfully disagreeing with nuance or

4:21it tells a quick story that relates to

4:24the topic. What it never does is repeat

4:26the post back. And AI loves doing this.

4:29So true. Consistency really is key. Adds

4:32nothing. Generic AI comments add less

4:34than nothing. And LinkedIn announced

4:36this year they're actively suppressing

4:38comment automation. Real comments from a

4:40real perspective. That's the whole play.

4:42So please do not assume comments are a

4:45small thing, that nothing meaningful

4:47comes from a comment. I'll give you an

4:49example. One member of my community left

4:51a single comment on a post by an

4:53ex-England football legend, Peter

4:55Schilton. That guy asked him to DM him

4:59because of his services with one

5:01comment. And every comment you leave

5:03carries your headline with it. Which

5:05means the comment is only half the

5:07equation because the moment that comment

5:08works, something happens that decides

5:11whether all of this effort was worth

5:13anything at all.

5:17[music]

5:19Okay, your comment worked. that stranger

5:22clicks your name and now they are doing

5:25one fast gut check. Do I understand what

5:27this person does and is it for me or do

5:29I like this person? Would I want to hit

5:31that connect button or send a DM? If the

5:33answer isn't obvious in 10 seconds,

5:35they're gone, [music] maybe even

5:36forever. So, your content is the ad.

5:39Your profile is the landing page. You

5:42can run the best ad campaign in the

5:44world, but if the landing page is

5:45confusing, nobody's going to buy. and we

5:47see profiles every week that read

5:49[music] like clicking a promising ad and

5:51then landing on a page that says, "Hi, I

5:53work somewhere." Or they just use very

5:55big, hard, complicated words to sound

5:59fancy and to sound actually credible.

6:01But what that actually does, it makes

6:03someone not actually understand what it

6:05is that you do and just jump off your

6:07profile. So, let's follow the journey

6:10someone would have when looking at it.

6:12They're going to look at your profile

6:13picture, [music] have it zoomed into

6:15your face, smile, look approachable. You

6:17can add a background color for brand

6:19awareness. Then they'll read your banner

6:21[music] right next to your picture.

6:22They're scan your headline again. If

6:25that convinced them, then they'll go

6:27down to your about section. I think of

6:29the first phrases as hooks. So, use

6:31those first lines to get people to want

6:33to read the rest. And then your featured

6:36sections. They should always send people

6:38to your world. Don't lose this space by

6:41putting your best performing post just

6:42because it looks nice to show big

6:44metrics. Link to a lead magnet, your

6:46website, your newsletter, a booking

6:47link. Same with the custom button. The

6:49profile isn't just cosmetic, even though

6:51of course you also have to think of the

6:53look, the colors, the feel of it. It's

6:54also extremely important for the actual

6:56performance of your post. Thanks to the

6:58new algorithm, every word you put on it,

7:00you have to be extremely intentional.

7:02Use the right keywords for both humans

7:04[music] and the algorithm. I want to

7:06show you what this one step is actually

7:08worth because a number surprised even

7:10us. An SEO consultant with 20,000

7:13followers followed an advice I posted on

7:15LinkedIn. He changed [music] two things,

7:17his headline and his about section.

7:19Nothing else. Same posting style, same

7:21frequency, same topics. Reach went up

7:23226%. Engagement went up 327% and

7:27brought in a lead the same day. What

7:29does this [music] mean? Same ads, new

7:32landing page. That's the entire

7:34difference. Okay, so let's do a quick

7:35pass through each element. Your

7:37headline. [music]

7:38Use the problem you solve and who you

7:40solve it for in the exact language your

7:42buyers would understand [music]

7:43and search. Every word is deliberate

7:45because your headline travels with every

7:47single post and every comment you make.

7:49It's working for you in rooms you're not

7:51in your about section. One structure I

7:54really like problem solution proof CTA.

7:57Show them you understand their pain.

7:59Position yourself as the fix. Back it

8:01with numbers. Tell them what to do next.

8:03Nobody opens LinkedIn to read your

8:05autobiography, your featured section,

8:08and your custom button. Move people one

8:10step into a world you own. A newsletter,

8:13a booking link, a lead magnet. LinkedIn

8:15owns your followers. You don't, so try

8:17to push them to your world. Fix this

8:19before you post anything. Every post you

8:21publish with a broken profile is an ad

8:23pointing at a dead page. But a fixed

8:26profile only matters if your content

8:28actually reaches the stranger again. And

8:30this year, what decides that changed

8:32more than it has in a decade. Almost

8:34nobody posting right now understands

8:36what I'm about to show you. [music]

8:43A few days later, that same stranger

8:45we're following is scrolling and your

8:47post appears in their feed. That

8:49placement is the algorithm doing exactly

8:51what it was rebuilt to do. And this part

8:53changed completely this year. So, pay

8:55attention. On March 12th, LinkedIn went

8:58public about how their feed works. Tim

9:00Jerka, their VP of engineering, who

9:02spent 13 years building it, explained it

9:05openly. They replaced a bunch of

9:07separate ranking systems with one

9:09unified model powered by a large

9:11language model. It understands what your

9:13content is actually about, who would

9:15genuinely want it, and it walks it over

9:18[music] to them, even if they don't

9:19follow you. Two details from LinkedIn's

9:22own data that matter for you. First, the

9:24system stopped looking at raw engagement

9:26numbers. It converts everything into

9:28percentiles. So, it sees this post is in

9:31the 71st percentile of views, and that

9:34one change made its matching 30 times

9:37more accurate. Real engagement quality

9:39is what moves you up a percentile. Pods

9:42don't. Second, and this is the detail

9:44that should change your behavior today,

9:46their AB test showed the new system

9:48produced a lift for members with fewer

9:50connections. The rebuild structurally

9:52favors smaller accounts. If you've been

9:54waiting to get bigger before taking

9:56LinkedIn seriously, the platform just

9:59removed your excuse. I call this total

10:02addressable content. The same way your

10:05business has a total addressable market,

10:07your content has a total addressable

10:09audience. What is that audience already

10:11watching, [music] reading, reacting to

10:13right now? That's your entry point. It's

10:15the difference between fishing in a

10:17stocked lake and fishing in an ocean.

10:20Your expertise is the bait. The lake is

10:23where attention already lives. Five

10:26formats. Put your expertise into

10:28conversations that are already [music]

10:29happening. And I have receipts for every

10:31single one. One, brand jacking. Take a

10:34brand that already has credibility your

10:36name doesn't have yet, and use their

10:38moves as the frame for your insight. One

10:41did this with Anthropic [music]

10:42breaking down their Too Dangerous to

10:44release model announcement. Entropic's

10:46[music] brand carried the reach. His

10:49analysis carried the value. 230

10:51comments. Second, newsjacking. When

10:54something breaks in your industry, be

10:55the first credible voice to explain what

10:58it actually means for your readers.

11:00Instead of summarizing what happened,

11:01for example, a new AI model drops, an

11:03SEO update rolls out, a regulation

11:06changes. And this works in every niche,

11:08not just marketing. A battery safety

11:10consultant covered CL opening a new

11:13validation facility and turned a piece

11:15of industry news into a take on

11:17certification. as competitive strategy.

11:19Her buyers all saw it within days of the

11:22news. Hundreds of comments, hundreds of

11:25likes. Three, memejacking. Reference a

11:28person your audience already follows and

11:30add something real to the conversation.

11:32A client of ours posted about Steven

11:34Bartlett and Bartlett himself commented

11:36[music]

11:37147,000 impressions. And this works at

11:39every scale, not just celebrities.

11:41Someone posted about me and I'm not

11:43Steven Bartlett, but I've been posting

11:44for 3 years on LinkedIn, so I'm somewhat

11:46of a familiar face now and she got nine

11:49times their normal engagement. The

11:51person doesn't need millions of

11:52followers. They need to be someone your

11:54specific audience already knows. Four,

11:57hot takes. A genuinely held belief that

12:00challenges what your industry accepts as

12:02true. You have to state it plainly

12:04enough that people have to pick a side.

12:06One Google Ads specialist in our

12:07community posted an open complaint about

12:10budgets over spending, something every

12:12advertiser feels, but nobody says to

12:14Google directly. It went absolutely

12:16viral. Another creator posted that his

12:18favorite AI tool was getting worse and

12:20he was switching. 790 comments. [music]

12:22The comment section did the distribution

12:24for him because there's half agreeing,

12:26half defending the tool. Everyone wants

12:28to give their point of view and hot

12:29takes do that. And last but not least,

12:32number five, trend writing. The first

12:34four start from a specific brand, story,

12:37person, or belief. This one starts from

12:39a format. When a post structure starts

12:41spreading across a platform, it's your

12:43opportunity to grab it and pour your

12:44expertise into that shape while it's

12:46still climbing. Right now, it's the

12:49thing is dead one pager. SAS is dead,

12:51email is dead, SEO is dead. They all

12:53blew up. Different niches, different

12:55authors, but the same format. [music]

12:57One of them pulled 616 comments and 97

13:01reposts. The trend brings the reach.

13:04That's why I decided to call it the

13:06trend rider cuz you got to ride the

13:08trend. Your substance is what's going to

13:09actually make it land cuz you can't just

13:11copy exactly what someone else is doing.

13:13But the window is short because once

13:15everyone starts using it, it doesn't

13:16work anymore. All five do the same

13:18thing. You are walking into a

13:20conversation that's already happening

13:21instead of standing in an empty room

13:23hoping someone walks by. That's how you

13:26solve the authority paradox without

13:28waiting years. and everything I've shown

13:30you so far, the profile, the common

13:33system, these formats. It's a lot to

13:34execute from memory. I know. So, I

13:36turned this entire journey into a free

13:385-day email course. One email a day,

13:41Monday to Friday, one move a day, so

13:43that by the weekend, your profile, your

13:45comment system, and your first post are

13:47live. Links in the description. Okay,

13:49but we're not going anywhere yet because

13:51none of those impressions happen if the

13:54stranger scrolls past your post in the

13:56feed. And whether they actually stop

13:59comes down to the next thing I'm about

14:01to mention.

14:02[music]

14:07Okay, so we are still following this

14:09stranger. Your post now is in their

14:11feed. Now you have about a few seconds.

14:14In 2026, your opening lines have two

14:17audiences at once. The human deciding

14:19whether to tap see more and the

14:21algorithm itself. Because LinkedIn's

14:23retrieval system reads roughly your

14:25first 50 words when deciding whether

14:26your post even enters the candidate

14:29pool. It's the algorithm audition. Spend

14:31those 50 words on slow setup and you

14:33fail the audition before a single human

14:35voted. I've studied hooks for years now

14:37and every single one is reduced [music]

14:40to four repeating formats. The dense

14:42hook, the punchy plus context, the

14:44single line bomb, and the stacked hook.

14:46That's it. And I made a free Claude

14:47skill that writes all [music] five for

14:49any draft. Watch that video. links is

14:51also in the description. Okay, the

14:53formats are important [music] and if you

14:54go and see that video, you'll learn

14:56exactly how they look like. But there's

14:57something bigger that lots of people are

14:59not doing, and [music] it's the order

15:00you write in. One thing that's really

15:02going to help you write better LinkedIn

15:04posts is to stop trying to write the

15:06hook first. [music] That's like trying

15:07to cut a movie trailer before you've

15:09shot the film. Write the whole post, the

15:12story, the numbers, the framework, then

15:15read it back and find the sharpest line

15:17inside of it, the one already doing the

15:19heavy lifting. drag that to the top.

15:21Most of the times your hook is hiding

15:22inside the post. And if you read back

15:24through and nothing in there is worth

15:26pulling, the problem was never your

15:28hook. It was the actual post. So stop

15:30and write a better post. Okay. [music]

15:32So that stranger we've been following

15:34stopped because of your hook. They read

15:36the post. [music] Good. Except one post

15:39converts nobody. What happens over the

15:41next weeks is where the entire system

15:43either compounds or collapses.

15:51Okay, so here's what the stranger

15:53experiences over the next few weeks. A

15:56growth post caught their attention. An

15:58authority post that can be a framework,

16:00a client results, made them think, "This

16:02person actually knows what they're

16:04talking about. A personal post made them

16:06remember you as a human instead of

16:08someone trying to sell something. And a

16:10conversion post showed them the door

16:12when they were ready to walk through

16:14it." After thinking about this for a

16:16long time, I've built the perfect

16:18LinkedIn content funnel. It's in four

16:20buckets. 40% growth, 30% authority, 20%

16:24conversion, 10% personal. Each one has

16:26its own job. One brings in new leads,

16:28one builds trust, one closes, one keeps

16:30the relationships warm and human. When

16:32every one of them is doing the same job,

16:34your pipeline breaks. We see experts

16:37post 100% authority content to an

16:40audience that doesn't know them yet.

16:42That's like handing out business cards

16:43in an empty room. And there's creators

16:45who post 100% growth content that build

16:48an audience that never buys from them.

16:50And there's one thread I want you to

16:52keep in mind that runs through all four

16:54buckets. Your actual point of view. What

16:57do you believe that contradicts what

16:59your industry keeps repeating? Where is

17:01your space wrong? When I got fired at 22

17:03after building my old agency's founder

17:05brand into a lead machine, it forced me

17:08to figure out what I actually believed

17:10about content. That belief is why

17:11someone follows me instead of the next

17:13person posting about the same topics.

17:15You need yours. It's the one thing AI

17:17can't generate and competitors can't

17:19copy. And when all of these things run

17:22at once, the comments, the profile, the

17:24formats, the buckets, something happens

17:26on the outside that other people will

17:28see like magic or that you game the

17:30system, but you will know exactly where

17:32it came from because you've understood

17:34the full content [music] system.

17:41Then one day [music] that stranger sends

17:44you a DM. Been following your stuff for

17:45a while. Want to chat? That message

17:48feels like it came out of nowhere, but

17:49you now know it came from a comment, a

17:52well optimized profile click, a reserved

17:54post, a save, and weeks of every post

17:56doing its job. Dominating LinkedIn means

17:59one right person taking that exact path,

18:02then other, then another pipeline you

18:04can predict, content you can control.

18:06When that DM arrives, what you [music]

18:08do in the next 24 hours, decides whether

18:11it becomes revenue or a dead thread. So,

18:13make sure to reply the same day, ideally

18:15within hours. That DM took weeks of

18:18trust to [music] generate. And trust has

18:20a temperature. Every day you wait, it

18:22cools down. And there's a part you can

18:24also do. You don't have to wait for the

18:26DM. By this point in the journey we have

18:28been following, you have people leaving

18:30signals everywhere. [music] the same

18:32names commenting week after week, people

18:34saving your post, profile views from

18:36your exact ICP. Those people are one

18:39nudge away from the conversation. And

18:41reaching out to them is warm because the

18:43relationship already exists. Something

18:45as simple as, "I keep seeing you in the

18:46comments. What are you working on?"

18:48opens more doors than any sequence ever

18:51written. That's the difference between

18:52outbound and follow-up. Cold outreach

18:55interrupts a stranger. This continues a

18:57conversation your content already

18:59started. Three ways to go deeper. The

19:01free 5-day course I mentioned turns

19:04everything in this video into one move a

19:06day. If you only do one thing, do that

19:08first link below. If you want to build

19:10this with feedback, live Q&As's, and my

19:13full AI setup, that's the LinkedIn

19:15engine, my community. [music] That's

19:16also below. And if you'd rather skip the

19:19building and have my team run all of it

19:21for you, that's Dininga. We do done for

19:24you LinkedIn newsletter [music] and

19:26YouTube content for founders and

19:28executives. links in the description as

19:30well and subscribe if this was useful.

19:32I'm breaking down what's actually

19:33working for B2B [music] brands every

19:35week. See you in the next one.