The Secret to Reaching Mindboggling Followers on LinkedIn!

He Grew From 3,000 to 400,000 Followers on LinkedIn. Here’s What He Did.

Will McTighe is one of the most impressive LinkedIn growth stories I’ve seen.

In 21 months, he went from 3,000 followers to over 415,000, becoming one of the fastest-growing new creators on the platform in 2024. He recently released a video breaking down exactly how he did it. No gatekeeping. No vague advice. Just the raw blueprint.

I watched it and took notes because his approach aligns almost perfectly with the principles I write about in my book Synergy: Thought Leadership, Strategic Partnerships, and Your LinkedIn Brand Engine. So I wanted to unpack his strategy and explain why it works.

Hat tip to Will for being so transparent about his process.

Your LinkedIn Is Not a Diary

Will makes a point early on that most people need to hear: too many creators treat LinkedIn like a personal journal. A random thought about a bad customer service experience. A niche observation unrelated to their expertise. Interesting to them. Useless to their audience.

His rule is simple. If a post doesn’t solve a problem for the reader or align with the topics you want to be known for, it shouldn’t exist. Every post is either building your brand or diluting it. There is no middle ground.

I emphasize this same idea in Synergy. Your content needs to serve the reader, not just express what’s on your mind. That’s the difference between building authority and keeping a diary.

The Niche Trap

Here’s where Will goes against conventional wisdom. Being too niche too early can kill your growth.

He almost made the mistake of posting about software for chemical distributors. Think about how small that audience would have been. Instead, he pivoted to broader topics like career development, leadership, and soft skills—topics millions of professional’s care about.

But broad doesn’t mean unearned. Will talks about needing the “Right to Speak.” You earn it in two ways.

First, through lived experience. Will’s background at Goldman Sachs and his Stanford MBA gave him the credibility to speak on high performance and career strategy. He didn’t manufacture authority. He drew from what he had actually done.

Second, through curation. If you haven’t led a 100-person team, share the frameworks of people who have. Be a high-value curator, not a pretend expert. Your audience can tell the difference.

This is something I discuss in Synergy as part of building your Authority-First Philosophy. You don’t need to be the world’s foremost expert on everything you post about. But you do need to earn the right to speak on it.

The 4-2-1 Content Funnel

This is the engine behind Will’s growth, and it’s one of the smartest content frameworks I’ve seen.

Post four times a week at the top of the funnel. These are broad, relatable posts designed for maximum reach—educational infographics, carousels, and posts that solve common problems. Will’s “How to fix work conversations” post hit 8 million views because it addressed something everyone deals with.

Post twice a week in the middle of the funnel. This is where you build trust. Will uses a framework he calls SLA: Situation, Lesson, Application. Describe a specific event or failure. Extract the core takeaway. Give the reader something they can act on tomorrow.

Post once a week at the bottom of the funnel. This is where conversions happen. Use social proof. Highlight client transformations. The client is the hero. You’re the guide who provided the system.

Will shared real results from people who followed this approach. Yousef went from 4,000 to 28,000 followers and landed a leadership role at a major consulting firm. Jacine went from 500 views per post to earning $10,000 per month within a year.

If you’ve read Synergy, you know I built my own content funnel around similar principles. Seeing Will’s results with the 4-2-1 model reinforces what I’ve seen repeatedly: structure beats randomness every time.

Your Visual Is the First Hook

Will makes a great point about visuals that most creators overlook. People see your image before they read a single word. The visual is the first hook.

He found that “ugly” but useful visuals consistently outperform polished graphics that lack substance. Dense, high-contrast cheat sheets. Red for wrong behaviors, green for right ones. A human figure in the center that stops the scroll.

The goal is what he calls “zero distance.” If someone can print your post and use it in a meeting the next morning, you’ve won. Pretty doesn’t matter. Practical does.

Pay to Learn Faster

One thing I respect about Will’s transparency is his honesty about investing in coaching. He worked with Justin Welsh and Chris Donnelly. They reviewed his posts before they went live. That feedback loop saved him months of trial and error.

He also built a Peer 30—thirty creators at his level who swapped ideas, gave honest feedback, and held each other accountable.

And when he reached out to creators ahead of him, he never asked for a favor first. He led with value. He secured Chris Donnelly as an investor by sending him quality referrals before ever asking for anything in return.

I preach this same approach in Synergy. I call them Synergy Partners. The relationships you build with other creators aren’t just nice to have. Over time, they become your most valuable referral source. Will’s story is proof of that.

I also had the privilege of coaching Will early in his LinkedIn journey. Here’s what he said about my coaching:

Growth Is Lumpy

This might be the most important mindset shift from Will’s breakdown. Growth is not linear. It’s lumpy. Ninety percent of your views will come from the top 20% of your posts. You can’t predict which post will break through. But you can be ready when it does.

Will uses a specific headline formula for his profile: “I help [target audience] get from [A] to [B], and I’ve helped [number] do this already.”

When an outlier post brings 100,000 people to your profile, they need to know who you are, what you do, and whether you can help them—within seconds. If your profile isn’t built for that moment, you’ve lost the opportunity.

In Synergy, I call this Profile-as-a-Pitch. Your profile isn’t a resume. It’s a landing page. Will clearly understands this, and his growth is evidence that it works.

From Followers to Freedom

Will’s system isn’t about vanity metrics. It powered a two-person business to $500,000 in annual recurring revenue and generated over $230,000 in brand partnerships in a single year. He also went on to build Saywhat.ai, a platform that helps professionals grow their personal brands on LinkedIn.

What I appreciate most about Will’s approach is that it mirrors what I’ve seen work for my own clients and what I wrote about in Synergy. Authority beats virality. Systems beat hustle. And serving your audience deeply is the fastest path to earning well.

If you’re serious about building a real presence on LinkedIn, go watch Will’s full video. Then pick up Synergy if you want the complete framework for turning that presence into a business.

Stop building a diary. Start building a system.

Kevin Box is a LinkedIn creator, coach, and consultant. He is the author of Synergy: Thought Leadership, Strategic Partnerships, and Your LinkedIn Brand Engine. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Free LinkedIn Growth Workshop

📌 I'm hosting a free 90-Minute workshop on March 7th at 9:30 AM Central Standard Time on the 5 Secrets to Growing Your Personal Brand.

Everyone who signs up and attends will receive 2 Free Gifts valued at $99.

𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽:

https://lnkd.in/g7X3CdiJ