the intentional content strategy

Every single post should have a job. Once you know what each post is for, you stop posting hopefully and start posting deliberately, and the results stop being random.

Here's the mistake almost everyone makes: they treat "post good content" as the strategy. But "good content" with no goal produces random outcomes. A great post that's pulling in the wrong direction for what you actually want is wasted effort.

The fix is to recognise that LinkedIn content can do exactly three jobs, and only three:

• Reach, get more views, likes, and followers (top of funnel)
• Authority, be seen as an expert in your space (middle of funnel)
• Sales, turn attention into business (bottom of funnel)

Different jobs need different kinds of posts. The entire framework is: know which job each post is doing, and mix the three deliberately based on what you want. That's it. The discipline is what's rare, not the idea.

goal 1: reach & audience growth

What it's for: growing your audience. New eyes, new followers, more people who know you exist.

The content types that do this job: personal stories, strong opinions and hot takes, perspectives on trending topics, relatable experiences.

Why these work: this is broad content, relatable to almost everybody, not just people in your niche. That's exactly why it travels. A story about a hard decision, a mistake you made, or a strongly held opinion can be appreciated by anyone, so it gets shared far beyond your existing network. These are the posts that hit 50,000–170,000 impressions and bring in waves of new followers.

Real examples from accounts we manage:

A creator, a CEO, and a podcaster, the content type works regardless of who you are. The common thread is that every one is a human story or a strong take, not a niche lecture.

goal 2: authority & expertise

What it's for: being seen as genuinely expert by the people who matter in your field. Positioning you as a thought leader.

The content types that do this job: "how I do X" breakdowns, case studies, detailed industry insights, frameworks, lessons from specific experiences.

The part that trips everyone up: this content does NOT get a lot of views or likes, and that is by design. Only people actually in your space care about solving those specific problems. So a great authority post might get a fraction of the impressions of a story post, and that's correct. It's reaching exactly the right, smaller audience and proving your expertise to the people who can actually become clients, partners, or hires. If you judge authority content by reach, you'll wrongly conclude it's failing and stop posting it. Judge it by who is reading, not how many.

Who this matters most for: especially important for CXOs, executives, and anyone who wants to be positioned as a thought leader. For a senior executive we work with, this kind of content drove an engagement rate near 9%, extraordinary, precisely because it reached a small, relevant, highly engaged audience rather than the masses.

goal 3: sales

What it's for: turning your audience into actual business, leads, clients, revenue. There are three types of sales content, and they work differently:

• Recent wins, new clients closed, milestones hit, results achieved. This establishes positive momentum and shows you're actively succeeding. People want to work with people who are winning.
• Direct offer posts, talk plainly about what you sell, what the customer gets, and what problems your offer solves. Not every post can be a story, sometimes you simply state what you do.
• Pain-point posts, talk about the frustrations and fears of your ideal audience. This makes them feel heard and grabs attention immediately: "I understand your problem and I can solve it." Often the most powerful of the three, because it earns attention before it ever asks for anything.

The discipline here: sales content only works when it's a deliberate portion of the mix, not all of it. Post nothing but offers and you get ignored. Earn reach and authority first, then sales content converts the audience you've built.

the mix: the part that makes it a strategy

Knowing the three goals isn't enough. The skill is mixing them in the right ratio for your situation. The same framework produces a totally different content plan depending on who you are:

• If you're a creator (audience growth / fame is the priority): heavy on Goal 1, some Goal 2, little to no sales content. You're building reach and fame; monetisation usually comes from elsewhere.
• If you're a founder or agency owner (all three matter): a genuine balance, reach to grow, authority to establish expertise, sales to convert followers into clients. The most balanced mix of the three.
• If you're a CXO or executive (authority is the priority): heavy on Goal 2. Executives often can't share personal stories freely and usually aren't selling a product directly. Industry insight, leadership lessons, and "how I think about X" content positions them as thought leaders.

how to apply the framework this week

why this works: the proof

This isn't theory. It's the framework behind every account we run, and across those accounts it's produced:

Different people, different goals, different mixes, same framework underneath. The intention is the engine.