Let's Talk LinkedIn: Writing your 1st post, going viral, and building credibility

Hey, hey insiders! Welcome to a special edition of my newsletter where you get "the inside track" on all things internships, college, early careers, and personal branding!

Today we're gonna talk about something that quite literally changed my life:
posting on LinkedIn.

And speaking of posting on LinkedIn, I’m SO excited to partner with Stanley for today’s newsletter and break down exactly how to get started, from setting up your profile to writing your first post to (eventually) going viral. FYI: I said yes to this partnership because Stanley is a tool I actually use, and have been using for a while now. It also genuinely aligns with a philosophy I deeply believe, which is that AI will never replicate your human experience, and it shouldn't be writing all your content for you. The best AI tools don't replace your voice; they help you express it. They help you articulate what's already in your head and push you through writer's block and creative burnout when you're staring at a blank screen. That's exactly the role Stanley plays for me, and I'll show you precisely how I use it later on.

When I initially started posting, it was pretty innocent. I just thought I had the coolest job in the world and wanted to share it with anyone who'd listen. I didn't have a big following. I wasn't trying to "build a brand." But those posts ended up cracking open a world of opportunities I never could've imagined.

Because of my LinkedIn posts, I got invited to be part of the DisneyTech influencer, advocate, and outreach program. I got to speak on behalf of the intern program multiple times. I got extra points on my performance evals for this work. And it didn't stop at Disney. I gave a keynote at Airbus's corporate innovation week at 19 years old, became one of the youngest LinkedIn Learning instructors at 21, and I could keep going forever. Even now that I've pivoted into social media and marketing, my LinkedIn stays bringing opportunities to me. I've gotten 6 high-quality inbounds in the last 6 months alone for senior- to director-level social media/marketing roles at companies paying high six figures.

The point I'm making is this: posting on LinkedIn can open up a WORLD of opportunities for literally ANYONE. And I do mean anyone, even me, the neurodivergent, non-target kid with subpar grades and horrible attendance. 😅 If I can do it, you absolutely can too.

Ready? Set? Go! 🏁

The Inside Scoop 🍨 on Posting on LinkedIn

First Things First: Do Your Homework 📝

Before you write a single post, hear me loud and clear: do not even THINK about posting until your profile is up to snuff.

I KNOW. I KNOW. You came here to learn how to go viral and I'm telling you to pump the brakes. But posting before your profile is ready is like throwing a party before you've cleaned your apartment. People are going to show up (read: click your profile), and you want them to like what they see.

Here's what most people don't realize: LinkedIn essentially gives your profile a "credibility" score based on how complete it is. The more complete and verified you are, the more LinkedIn trusts you, and the more it pushes your content out. So a polished profile isn't vanity. It directly affects how far your posts travel.

Your pre-flight checklist:

Complete EVERY section. Headline, About, experience, skills, education, featured content, all of it. LinkedIn rewards completeness, and half-finished profiles get half-baked reach.

Do the identity verification. This is the one people skip. That little verification checkmark signals to the algorithm AND real humans that you're legit. It's free, takes a few minutes, and gives your credibility a real boost. This is SO important especially because LinkedIn has really been cracking down on non-verified accounts and accounts they suspect are bots.

Make sure it reflects who you are NOW. If you're pivoting or building toward something new, your profile should say so.

Bottom line: every post sends people back to your profile. When someone discovers you through a great post, the next thing they do is click your name. Don't make that click a disappointment.

Get your house in order first. Then we can throw the party, dage, dager, darty, whatever you prefer 😂 🎉

What Kind of Content Actually Works on LinkedIn?

Profile polished? Now the fun (and slightly terrifying) part: actually posting.

Good news, you don't have to guess what works. After years of posting and obsessively studying what performs, I've found LinkedIn content tends to fall into a few buckets that consistently win:

Educational / value-driven. Teach people something. Break down a concept, share a framework, explain how you did something. If someone finishes your post a little smarter than they started, you've won.

Personal anecdotes (especially a good struggle story). People connect with humans, not highlight reels. Some of my best posts got real about a rejection or a moment I almost gave up. The struggle story is undefeated because it's relatable and gives people permission to feel seen.

Milestone-marking content. New job? Follower goal? Launched a project? Mark the moment. These are easy to write, invite people to celebrate with you, and quietly build your credibility over time. I KNOW that this probably feels pretty cringey. I get it, you probably don’t want to contribute to the “I’m happy to announce…” epidemic on LinkedIn. BUT, this is a really important part of building your personal brand, and credibility. Don’t be shy or scared to share your rightfully earned wins. You deserve to be celebrated and you’d be AMAZED at how many people are genuinely excited to celebrate with you!

All three work. But there's ONE ingredient that separates content that lands from content that gets lost, and it deserves its own moment:

It HAS to Be Personal 🌟

If you take ONE thing from this entire article: every post should have YOUR flavoring on it. Your story, your memory, your perspective, your hot take, your lessons learned the hard way.

Here's why this matters more than ever. Anyone can generate a generic "5 tips for networking" post in four seconds, and that content is everywhere and forgettable. What AI can NEVER do is replicate YOUR lived experience. It can't tell the story of the time you bombed an interview, or how it felt to land your first internship after 200 rejections. That's yours, and it's the most valuable thing you bring to the table.

So don't write "here are 5 networking tips." Write "here are the 5 networking tips I wish someone told me before I awkwardly cornered a recruiter at my first career fair." One is noise. The other is you. Your experience is your unfair advantage. Use it. 💪

"But Morgan... What Do I Actually Post About?"

Hands down my #1 question. You're sold on the value of posting, you know it needs to be personal, but you're staring at that blank box completely frozen.

Let me free you right now: you don't need to be an expert. You just need to build in public.

That means sharing what you're learning, building, and doing in real time. You don't wait until you've "made it" to talk about the journey. You document it as it's happening. And here's the beautiful part: the thing you think is "too small" to post about is the exact thing someone three steps behind you desperately needs to see.

Learning a new skill? Post it. Hit a roadblock and found a workaround? Post. Got rejected and dusted yourself off? Definitely a post. The way I've always thought about it is dead simple: "I just post about what I'm doing in my career and work life." That's the entirety of my strategy. I capture this best in my weekly recap series, where I round up everything I did that week, and it performs consistently because it's a genuine window into a real journey.

Time for a Stanley Assist 🏀 

This is the part where I let you in on my process. Since I’m building in public, I don't need to write every post from a cold start. I use Stanley, which is a LinkedIn-specific AI tool from Stan.

What makes Stanley different from every other AI tool is that it's a subject matter expert on LinkedIn. It's been trained exclusively on LinkedIn posts, so it actually understands the rhythm and structure of what works here. And even better: if you've already been posting, Stanley becomes an expert on YOUR posts specifically. It learns your voice and what your audience responds to. So it's never replacing my experience (nothing can). It's helping me shape what I actually did into something that lands well.

Which brings me to my favorite part I want to actually show you: turning a chaotic brain dump into a real post. But first, the thing that makes or breaks every post you'll write: the hook.

Your Hook Is EVERYTHING

If your profile is the foundation and your story is the soul, your hook is the gatekeeper. Nail it and people stop scrolling. Miss it and your best work dies in the feed, unseen.

Here's why hooks matter so much on LinkedIn specifically: the feed only shows the first 2-3 lines of your post before cutting it off with a "...see more." That's it. Those few lines are the only thing standing between your post and the scroll.

And here's the part that makes it really high-stakes. LinkedIn's algorithm pays close attention to "dwell time," aka how long someone lingers on your post. When someone taps "...see more" to read the rest, that's a signal you've got something worth their time, and your post gets rewarded with more reach. But if they read your first few lines and keep scrolling? That tells the algorithm your post wasn't worth lingering on, and your ranking takes a hit. So your hook isn't just about that one reader. It directly affects how far your post travels to everyone else.

That's why your first lines can't be a warm-up. No "I've been thinking about this for a while..." or "Excited to share that..." You have to hit them with something that creates an itch they NEED to scratch. A bold statement. A surprising result. A cliffhanger. A question that hits a nerve.

For example:

Weak: "I learned a lot from my first internship." 
Strong: "I got rejected from 147 internships before I landed one. Here's what finally worked."

One is a shrug. The other makes you go "...okay, what was it??" That's the whole game.

Time for a Stanley Assist 🏀

Hooks are where I lean on Stanley the most, because writing a great one is genuinely hard and I don't always nail it on the first try. Like come on, people aren’t meant to speak in hooks 😂 .

Since Stanley is trained exclusively on LinkedIn posts, it actually knows what kind of openers stop the scroll on this platform. I'll write my post, then have it punch up the first few lines, or spit out a few hook variations so I'm not betting everything on my first instinct. It's like having a partner who has a Master’s degree in hook writing, has studied what works and is fluent in your voice. I still pick the one that feels most like me (because it has to be mine), but I'm choosing from stronger options instead of staring at a blank line.

A Quick Note on Formatting ✍️ 

Once you've got your hook and your story, there's the question of how to actually package the post. Here's the quick version.

Graphic + text posts tend to perform the best. A solid block of writing paired with a visual (a photo, a simple graphic, a carousel) gives people something to land on while they read, and it takes up more real estate in the feed. This combo is your safest bet for consistent reach.

Video is still the wild west. LinkedIn is clearly pushing video hard right now, but it's nowhere near as figured-out as it is on TikTok or Reels. Some videos pop off, others completely flop, and the "rules" are still being written. So by all means experiment with it, just don't bet your whole strategy on it yet.

You really don't need to overthink this part. A strong, personal, well-hooked text post with a simple graphic will almost always outperform a fancy video with a weak hook. Substance first, format second.

Consistency beats ALL

If hooks get you in the door, consistency is what builds the house. This is true on every social platform, but LinkedIn reallyyyy rewards it.

Here's the truth nobody wants to hear: 1 great post will not change your life. Showing up over and over, week after week, is what actually builds an audience, compounds your credibility, and keeps you top of mind. The algorithm rewards people who post regularly, and so do humans. Your audience starts to expect you, recognize you, trust you.

The mistake I see constantly is people going all-in for two weeks, posting daily, burning out, and then disappearing for three months. A sustainable once-a-week rhythm you can actually keep will always beat a heroic sprint that ends in silence. Pick a cadence you can realistically maintain and protect it.

This is the part most people where most people quit. Not because they run out of things to say, but because staring down a blank page every single day is exhausting. This is why having a system matters.

Time for a Stanley Assist 🏀

Consistency is genuinely the hardest part of all of this, and it's where having Stanley in my corner makes the biggest difference. It lowers the activation energy of posting, so "I should post this week" doesn't turn into "ugh, I'll do it later" (and then never).

The feature I love most for staying consistent: at the end of each week, Stanley sends me a report on how my posts performed. It shows me what's working, suggests tweaks, and flags missed opportunities I can act on next time. So instead of posting into the void and hoping, I'm actually learning and improving each week, which makes it so much easier to keep showing up. Consistency stops feeling like a grind and starts feeling like a feedback loop.

A Peek Into My Process: Writing a Build-in-Public Post With Stanley

Alright, I've been promising you this the whole article, so let's actually do it. I want to pull back the curtain and show you a real exchange I had with Stanley, so you can see exactly how this works in practice.

Keep in mind: I DO NOT treat Stanley like a ghostwriter. I treat it like a coach. I bring my own draft (my own words, my own quotes, my own experience) and Stanley helps me sharpen it.

Here's a real one. I'd just gotten back from the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit and had a rough caption for a carousel of my favorite quotes from the event. So I dropped it in and asked for help optimizing it.

What Stanley sent back wasn't a rewrite that erased me. It was coaching, editing, and advising. It told me what was already working (my hook, my framing lines, my closing), and then gave me specific, surgical suggestions:

The part I want you to really notice: it asked me how I wanted to proceed instead of just steamrolling ahead with its own version. That's the whole relationship. Stanley surfaces the opportunities; I make the calls.

So I made them. I agreed to cut the filler line. I took its help on the transition. And for the CTA, I didn't want a generic "save this!" I knew exactly what I wanted to say, because I had a story only I could tell.

Last year was my first time at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit, and I only got in because someone (shoutout PeduL) held the door open for me. This year, I got to be the one holding the door for others. And next year, I'm planning to hold it open even wider. That personal full-circle moment became the heart of the post, and it made the newsletter CTA feel earned instead of salesy. (People who came with me this year are already asking about next year, and my newsletter subscribers will be the first to hear when it's ready. 👀)

That's the entire philosophy in one screenshot. The experience was mine. The quotes were mine. The "holding the door" story? Could only ever be mine. Stanley just helped me trim the fat, smooth the transitions, and frame it all so it actually performed on LinkedIn.

Stanley gets me most of the way there. I always bring my unique POV and personality. That's how you build in public without burning out. 💜 

Here's what I want you to take away from all of this: the hardest part of LinkedIn isn't going viral, or nailing the perfect hook, or even building the perfect profile. The hardest part is simply starting. Hitting "post" on that first one when you're convinced nobody cares what you have to say.

But here's what I know for sure, because I lived it: somebody out there needs to hear your story, in your words, from your perspective. The you from a few years ago needed it. And the version of you reading this right now has more to offer than you give yourself credit for. So whether you're about to write your very first post or you're recommitting to showing up consistently, this is your sign to go for it. Start messy. Start scared. Just start. 🫶 

And if the blank page is what's been holding you back, let Stanley be the thing that gets you unstuck. Think of it less as a tool and more as a content coach in your corner, helping you find your hook, sharpen your story, and keep showing up week after week without burning out. It never replaces your voice. It just helps you say what's already in you, on the one platform where saying it well can genuinely change your life.

A huge thank you to Stan for partnering with me on this article, and for building a tool that actually respects what I believe most deeply: that your lived experience is irreplaceable, and the best technology doesn't write your story for you, it just helps you tell it. That alignment is the entire reason I said yes to this, and I'm so grateful to share it with you.

Now go open that "start a post" box. I'll be cheering you on from the feed (seriously, if this article motivates you to post, please tag me, send it to me, and I’d love to cheer you on in your comments!). 🏁