Consulting in the Age of Scrolling

⏰ Today in 5 minutes or less:

• The most basic digital marketing strategies you need are a good LinkedIn profile, thought leadership and video content, and a good email strategy.

• Don’t move to the next strategy without mastering the first one — prioritize your profile, then create videos before launching your emails.

• They key is to consistently show up with valuable content. You don’t have to have new ideas every time, and reposting is fine.

Consulting in the Age of Scrolling: Stand Out or Fade Out 

Great consultants don’t struggle with expertise. They struggle with visibility. 

Thought leadership only works if the right people see it – and I think that starts with LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn isn’t just a place where people go to learn about consultants. It’s also where a consultant builds the audience for their thought leadership. 

And that audience? It includes people who might hire, refer, or champion your work. 

Growing a digital presence and strong brand isn’t about being known for the sake of it. 

It’s about creating reach for the ideas that drive business forward. 

This article breaks down how to build a presence that gets noticed, builds trust, and brings the right people closer. 

No fluff, no overwhelm. 

Just the tools, strategies, and small habits that turn profiles into pipelines. 

Independent, Exceptional, and... Invisible? 

Even the most seasoned operator can fade into obscurity without a strong digital presence. 

Without consistent, strategic visibility, expertise remains the best-kept secret in someone’s inbox.

The good news? LinkedIn offers indies and fractionals a practical way to show up, stay relevant, and be remembered. 

Three Components of Digital Marketing (Because It’s Not Just for Big Brands) 

This isn’t about going viral or becoming the next LinkedIn micro-celebrity. 

The real focus: business growth through positioning, contribution, and consistency. 

Your professional persona online does a lot of heavy lifting before any conversation happens. 

Prospects check LinkedIn before responding to a message, reading articles before booking a call, and evaluating thought leadership as a proxy for trust. 

Digital presence is no longer a “nice-to-have.” It’s infrastructure with three main components: 

1. Your LinkedIn profile. This is the digital resume that also serves as a positioning tool. It tells a clear story about what problems are solved, who’s being served, and how. Every part of your profile should be designed to reinforce that narrative. 

2. Your video content. Visibility is about showing up in front of the right audience with purpose – and the algorithm LOVES videos so it’s the fastest way to get traction. Posts and comments help, but video builds trust quicker and gets more reach.  

3. Your email strategy. Social media builds awareness, but email builds relationships. A smart, lightweight email approach keeps leads warm, offers continued value, and turns passive readers into active clients over time. 

With these three running like a well-oiled machine, most independents might not even need a website. 

If the profile is strong, video content is consistent, and email creates touchpoints, then clients don’t need another place to click. 

My advice? Save this investment when you have a bigger team and a longer roster of clients – or when SEO becomes a major part of your strategy. 

No website means less infrastructures to worry about, and more time for relationship-building and efforts that actually convert.

1. How to Build a LinkedIn Profile That Gets Noticed 

Many treat LinkedIn like a trophy case of humblebrags – or a Pinterest board of cringe-inducing recycled quotes. 

I also snubbed LinkedIn for a long time, because of the exact same reason. And I still hate logging in there.

But the reality is that prospects are still lurking on LinkedIn – regardless of whether I post or not. 

Instead of completely giving up, I revamped my profile:

I also had the idea of projecting a version of myself on the platform. 

A LinkedIn character, if you must – someone who knows what the audience wants to see and how to interact with them. 

And everything in my profile reinforced that character: 

1. Headline. If it no longer describes what you do, it needs to be reworked. Headlines should immediately engage the audience, share how you can help, and say why you’re different.

   There are formulas to success here, so check out our LinkedIn headline cheat sheet for some ideas on what works. 

2. Your Face (aka Headshot).  Initial impressions on social media link to perceived competence – that's why you need to choose a professional headshot for your profile. But how do you pick the best ones? 

   There’s also a formula here: high-resolution image where you’re making eye contact, no smiles except for slight upturned corners of the mount, and a solid color background. 

   I suggest using free tools like tinywow  to quickly replace the background. You can also play around with many other photo editing tools they have. 

3. About. You’re not telling life stories in this section. I like to think of it as a short, on-brand pitch. I find that about two to three tightly written paragraphs plus a bullet list of achievements work well. 

   In your about section, also focus on who gets helped, how, and what makes your approach different. Adding personality should be a bonus – the goal is to deliver your message clearly. 

   My advice? Write this like a human. Like how you talk.

   Here’s a great example of a leader who doesn’t describe themselves like a robot: Paul Rabil. Perhaps you’ll see mine modeled after it.  

4. Skill Endorsements. Some people overlook the skills section because it feels like a filler. But the algorithm reads them – and uses them to categorize and recommend, which also means they play a big role in your profile’s visibility to others. 

   My suggestion? Pick the best five that align directly with your character’s positioning. Skip the generic terms and use niche-relevant skills. It will help LinkedIn understand what kind of what is being done and who should see it.  

   Here’s the hack: find job descriptions that mirror your work.

   Upload these to chatGPT and prompt it to identify the LinkedIn skill endorsements that match. Then, personally ask folks you’ve worked with to endorse you on LinkedIn. 

    

5. Recommendations. One well-written recommendation is a thousand times better than five “Lauren was amazing to work with!” throw aways.  

   Ideally, you should feature some from clients, some from peers, and some from someone with a lot of credibility in your niche. It should skip vague praise and highlight the outcomes of the engagement and your work style.  

   But instead of randomly asking recommendations, I suggest you flip the script: write one for them first.

   Share a recommendation for the person you’d like one from and then ask if they’re open to giving one in return. Most will say yes and appreciate the gesture. 

   If needed, include a few talking points to make it easier. A little direction goes a long way toward getting something thoughtful and on-brand. 

2. Using Videos to Expand Reach 

There are lots of different ways to publish content. 

It could be on your social media profile, a dedicated blog, a newsletter, or even some guest posts. 

But one thing has become clear: video works best. 

That’s why I made it a point to post one video on my profile every day.

It builds trust, gets more reach, and helps people remember who’s behind a LinkedIn profile. 

But I know consulting work can get really busy, so setting up a studio or publishing daily isn’t a requirement. 

• Level 100: Be Seen. Let’s start with the basics. At this stage, engaging is your best move – and you need a strong LinkedIn profile for that. 

  With your profile, join conversations that matter: leave comments, share reactions, and be in the right spaces. And if you’re looking for thought leaders to learn from, Taplio can create a curated list for you based on your niche. 

  Not ready to record your first video yet? No problem. Even being visible through comments helps the algorithm understand where the value is.  

• Level 200: Show Up on Camera. In this stage, we add the video – because these are worth more than a dozen posts. 

  Record a few short clips about your thought leadership – recording your point of view, breaking down a framework, or offering a hot take in a niche. No fancy equipment needed. Just clear, useful ideas delivered with presence. 

  However, recording and publishing videos everyday can be a lot of work. What I like to do instead is record and edit them by batch. This way, I can consistently publish videos for about 2-3 weeks, using Riverside.fm. 

  Read more about the easiest way I make my videos here.

• Level 300: Stay on Top of Mind. Now, it’s about consistency. All the content already lives online – it just needs to stay on top of mind through rotation. 

  A simple newsletter (on LinkedIn or beehiiv) helps keep the signal strong. Monthly or quarterly updates to your close network are enough, but you can take it to the next level with weekly newsletters for a broader audience. 

 At every level, the goal stays the same: be clear, be useful, and be seen. 

Video just happens to be the fastest way to get there. 

3. Move the Conversation to Email 

Social media helps people find you. Email helps them remember you. 

Unlike social media platforms like LinkedIn, email doesn’t rely on algorithms. 

They go straight to inboxes – the decision makers, warm leads, former clients, peers, and more. It’s one of the most effective ways to stay on top of mind and build stronger relationships over time. 

The good news? A strong email strategy doesn’t always have to be complicated. 

You can just focus on three things: 

1. Write down your lists. Start by building an email list of all the people you connected with – from peers, former bosses, and clients to other service providers you met at conferences. I have a low-tech way to keep up with these people, so check out this guide for some pointers. 

2. Add Value. Emails are also useful to regularly serve the network. Aside from smart campaigns, I also like to cultivate my network by sharing ideas that help people do their jobs better – through their email. 

   Even if they’re not ready for an engagement yet, staying on top of their minds turns passive subscribers into future clients or connectors. 

   In my quarterly newsletters, I do two things. 

   First is I write it like a personal and business update from me. I keep it personal to focus on the relationship. 

   The other is that it should include something that could be of value to my network. Sometimes, it’s a tool or template we developed; other times it’s a productivity hack or a full-blown thought leadership piece.

3. Contact your evangelists personally. Evangelists are the people who champion your work – and worth the investment to continue to be of service. These are the deep, long-term relationships where I genuinely care about their success and have the most fun working with. 

   I’m constantly in contact with most of my evangelists to check in and see how I can serve them better, but you can also nurture these high-value contacts through email campaigns.

   After sending my quarterly ‘cultivate’ emails, I send another one to my evangelists, individually, around 4-6 weeks – and yes, I personalize each one individually. But, we use a repeatable format as a guide. 

Consistency Over Perfection, Every Time 

Perfect posts are rare. But consistent contributors are noticed. 

Digital visibility favors the repeat players: the ones who keep showing up, even when the lighting isn’t ideal, and the draft isn’t Pulitzer-ready. 

It favors clarity, both to the algorithm and to real humans looking for trusted experts. 

A strong LinkedIn profile clarifies positioning. 

Strategic content feeds the visibility machine. 

And sustainable engagement through email turns awareness into revenue. 

The playbook isn’t complicated. The key is showing up again tomorrow – and every day after that. 

Remember, the path to success is paved with continuous learning and embracing fresh perspectives.

Let's stay connected, share ideas, and elevate your consulting business.

Stay curious, friends.

The 2×2 is brought to you by Keenan Reid Strategies

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