How these young Kenyans turned their LinkedIn posts into steady pay cheques

“Back in 2020, I was using it for job searching. After some time, I felt it was impossible to achieve anything there. If you didn’t have a very good CV – and I had just completed high school in 2019 – then it was almost impossible to get a job on LinkedIn. I uninstalled the app from my phone and only returned in late 2023,” she says.

Her return to the platform was more curiosity than ambition. She wanted to see what had changed and how people were using it.
When she returned, she realised that people were creating content on LinkedIn, just like on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

“It took me about three months to reach 1,000 followers. From there, I added 1,000 followers every month, some paying, but the rates were low,” she says.

“I started engaging more. If you’re not engaging on LinkedIn, your content won’t be pushed by the algorithm. By the end of 2024, I had about 13,000 followers, and within three months in 2025, I had doubled that to 26,000.”

Part of that growth, she says, came from understanding content that connects with people.

“For me, stories have been the biggest growth driver. Educational and informative content is important, but personal stories – where you’re vulnerable – perform better. I pay attention to posting times too. For a starter, don’t post beyond 9am as the algorithm won’t favour you. Stick to a specific time daily and avoid tagging too many people. Three to five meaningful tags are enough – and never without permission,” she says. She has also developed practical systems to sustain her creativity.

“To avoid running out of ideas, I keep a ‘content bank’ where I write down ideas as they come. LinkedIn has changed my life in just over a year, and it started with showing up, learning and being real,” she says.

In 2021, LinkedIn introduced “creator mode,” giving users access to analytics and publishing tools – features now available to everyone. Last year, it rolled out a video tab on its mobile app, with full-screen video now available on the website.

Video views are up 36 per cent year over year. The platform still isn’t teeming with social-media stars – and for many users, that’s exactly the point.

Daisy Keter saw LinkedIn as a deliberate launchpad.

“It really is not about the numbers. I got my first client when I had fewer than 1,000 followers, within a month of showing up consistently. The idea is to be intentional with how you communicate,” she says.

A large part of her strategy is anchored on content pillars. “When you’re building a brand, you have to know your pillars so you don’t wake daily asking: ‘What will I post?’” she says.

She has also learnt that audiences respond strongly to vulnerability. “Posts about wins do well, but the ones about struggles and failures do better,” Keter says.

Timing, she admits, matters a lot. “I strive to post between 9am and 10am. Mondays are good days to post, followed by Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It’s like people have switched off by Thursday.” She avoids over-tagging people or abusing hashtags, relying instead on LinkedIn’s algorithm to surface her posts.

If there’s one myth Keter wants to dispel, it’s the idea that personal branding is separate from self-promotion. “It is self-promotion. If you don’t talk about your strengths, who will do it for you? You don’t have to pitch every day, but every so often you remind people what you do because we’re on LinkedIn to attract opportunities,” she says.

For Elvis Warutumo, a digital literacy coach and content strategist, LinkedIn wasn’t always the obvious path.
“I wasn’t looking for a job. I joined LinkedIn to build my brand,” the 28-year-old says.

Unlike most people who treat LinkedIn as a space for announcing promotions and new jobs, he took a different approach. “I started posting about relationships, washing machines, even jokes. But I mixed that with educational content. That’s when people began to resonate,” he says.

Warutumo doesn’t believe in hashtags. “One with 5,000 followers can outdo someone with 400,000 by the value of what is shared. Hashtags don’t give you conversions — content does,” he says.

He pushes back against the “devilish” metric of follower counts. “I have 115,000 followers on LinkedIn, but sometimes a post will get 800 impressions. That’s still 800 people. Imagine 50 people sitting in your living room – that’s a huge audience. Don’t despise small numbers,” he says.

“To survive, I need about Sh250,000 a month. That’s just 250 people giving me Sh1,000 each. I don’t need millions of views when I post. If 250 people connect with my content, that’s enough.”

Asked how he avoids sounding like he’s only promoting himself, Warutumo’s answer is simple.
“I post things that help people. If you solve their problems, you won’t even need to promote yourself. People will remember you,” he says.

“I get website clients. I’ve worked with an asset manager, Safaricom and other brands because of LinkedIn. The platform catapults you into opportunities. Investors may not look at your TikTok, but if you have a serious LinkedIn profile, you’re giving off serious vibes.”

He advises those starting to be patient and disciplined. “Forget about followers and concentrate on content. Give yourself six months of consistency. Post three times a day; not to gratify yourself, but gratifying someone else. If you have 19 followers, focus on those 19,” he says.

When Nicodemus Were joined LinkedIn, his approach mirrored that of many professionals at the time; logging in only when he was on the hunt for an opportunity.

“I was using LinkedIn traditionally. It used to be boring – people creating blog content using big English. It was mundane, unlike now,” he says.

That changed when Were realised the platform could serve him as a job board and stage. “I wanted to attract opportunities that suited my niche. I started being intentional about the people I connected with, the kind of content I created and how I positioned myself,” he says.

It paid off. Were noticed that many professionals on LinkedIn were struggling with basics – how to optimise their profiles, show up consistently or share attractive content.

“When I realised people were hungry for simple guidance, I replicated what I knew and shared it on my feed. People kept returning because they found value,” he says.

His posts began to follow a winning formula. He leaned heavily into visuals “because we are visual creatures”.

When Muthoni Njoroge, 25, joined LinkedIn, she treated it the way many young professionals do– like an online CV. Her updates were occasional and mostly celebratory.

“I realised it was more than a place to list my experience. It was a space to share my expertise, story and to attract the right networks. That transformed everything for me,” she says.

Storytelling became her strongest tool. Content that performs best always blends three elements – a strong opening hook that stops the scroll, a human story that makes people feel seen, and a clear takeaway they can apply in their own journey, she says.
Muthoni manages personal branding and LinkedIn strategies for executives and has worked with several corporates.

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