My friend Jay Harrington is a LinkedIn superstar and technically a competitor of mine. But since I learn from each of his posts and we frequently collaborate together, I asked him to share his secrets to LinkedIn success. Follow him on LinkedIn and subscribe to his blog.

How has LinkedIn helped you build your brand?

LinkedIn has helped me in many different ways. One of the most important is that it allows me to practice what I preach in public. In my coaching, training and consulting, I advise my clients on how to become highly visible thought leaders on LinkedIn. By being active on the platform myself, my clients (and prospective clients) can see what I’m doing and get a sense of how they can put some of the principles into practice for themselves.

LinkedIn also allows me to curate a network of my choosing. There’s no better place to find and connect with people (at scale) who are part of the legal industry, and that really helps in turns of building a brand and creating content that resonates with an audience.

What has been the key to your social media success?

In a word: consistency. I post every day. And I put a lot of effort into my posts. I try to make each post insightful and actionable. And it’s not easy to check both those boxes when you only have 1,300 characters to work with. As Mark Twain said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

The effort is worth it. I will generate more than 2 million views on my LinkedIn content this year. You can’t (or at least I can’t) buy that type of visibility. You have to earn it. And that requires hard work and consistency.

I also use LinkedIn as a testing ground for ideas. LinkedIn is my starting point for content creation. Every piece of longer form content I create, from blog posts to books, begins as a short post on LinkedIn. By starting on LinkedIn, I get real-time feedback on whether an idea resonates with my audience. If it resonates, I often build upon that idea. If it doesn’t, at least I didn’t spent four hours writing a 1,500 word article about it.

Finally, I prioritize engaging with other people’s content. If I want people to take notice of and support my content efforts, it’s critical that I genuinely and enthusiastically support the efforts of others in my community.

What advice do you have to lawyers who want to use social media more?

The key to success is having an abundance mindset. Creating content for the purpose of generating opportunities on LinkedIn is the long game. You can’t focus on generating opportunities. You have to focus on delivering value and trust that the opportunities will come. If you act out of abundance, with a belief that there’s plenty of opportunity for everyone, you’ll get more than your fair share. If you have a scarcity mindset, it will stop you from taking the types of actions that lead to opportunities.

Be generous with your ideas. Give freely with no expectation of reciprocity. Reap the rewards.