The Content Jedi Blog

My friend and fellow-marketer, Dan Gershenson is good at LinkedIn. 

Read any of his posts (I share some excerpts below), and you’ll notice right away that he’s as authentic as it gets. He writes point-of-view content with teeth that sounds like a person and not a playbook. His posts cite specific examples instead of abstractions and balance critique with a way forward. 
That style is both refreshing and drives engagement.

The perfectly polished “5 Tips” or shared article or report without a take? Zzzzzz.

The ones where you can actually hear the person behind the words—that’s the stuff.

Why Do Personal Posts Catch Attention

Because you’re so Goddamn interesting!

You have a strong in-person brand, and LinkedIn’s algorithm increasingly favors “original insights” and “expertise-driven content.”

A client of mine is a litigator, and he describes himself as a streetfighter. No, he’s not Ryu, Zangief, or Blanka from the legendary arcade game, but in his LinkedIn post, I made sure to position him as someone who shows up, gets his hands dirty, and wins the battles that matter--a streetfighter for his clients.

Personal posts interrupt the scroll because they don’t seem manufactured. They feel like someone actually sat down and thought, “Here’s what I’ve been seeing lately.”

Point-of-View Is What Drives Engagement

Being personal helps, but it’s not enough on its own.

What really drives engagement is perspective.

Here are some parts of Dan’s posts:

• When existing clients don't understand the full scope of what you have to offer, you're leaving significant revenue on the table. Firms that are big, dumb dinosaurs are OK with this because they have a false sense of security and think they have all the time in the world to educate people. After all, they're not losing clients. Of course, they're not GROWING clients either.
  
  
• Facebook Advertising is something I’ve never recommended because the targeting is so flawed. Say I choose to engage with a person I don’t agree with. We’re having a hopefully friendly debate. But I’d never join his group or follow his page to have that content in my face constantly. Facebook thinks I’m a fan. Nope. Not only that, it KEEPS serving me content that is the total opposite of my beliefs and values. Every. Single. Day.
  
  
• I don't write much about stuff you and I can't control that has less impact on real business anyway. I would rather be relentlessly focused on destroying BS corporate jargon that infects brand content and is made only for the appreciation of peers instead of real prospects and customers.

The moment you add a point of view, you give people something to respond to. They can agree, disagree, and add their own experience. That’s where the conversation starts.

The Balance Between Personal and Professional

This is usually where people get stuck.

They assume “personal” means oversharing.

It doesn’t.

You’re not writing a diary entry. You’re sharing something that connects back to how you think, how you work, or what you’ve learned.

A good filter is simple. If someone reads your post, do they walk away knowing something about how you approach your work? If the answer is yes, you’re in the right place.

What This Looks Like in Practice

It doesn’t have to be complicated.

In fact, the simpler, the better:

• A quick story from a client conversation that changed how you think about your service.
  
  
• A mistake you made and what you do differently now.
  
  
• An observation about your industry that people see every day but rarely say out loud.

Why This Builds More Than Engagement

These posts give people a sense of who you are before they ever speak with you.

They attract the kind of people who think the way you do, or at least respect how you think.

That makes every conversation that follows more productive. You’re not starting from zero. They already know what you bring to the table.

Your next client is already scrolling. The question is whether they stop on your post or keep going.

About the Author, David Telisman

I am a Writer and Content Creator, and I work with businesses to inspire their customers to buy from them. I believe that my clients deserve to feel proud of how their content marketing looks and what it says, and I deliver by providing expert copywriting and marketing solutions.

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