Every LinkedIn Post Is Someone’s First Episode of You

There was a time when television understood something that many of us have forgotten about communication.

Never assume the audience knows your story.

If you grew up watching television in the 1960s or 1970s, you probably remember the theme songs from Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, and The Partridge Family.

You might even remember the words.

But have you ever stopped to consider why those songs existed?

Not simply why they were written, but why they were so effective.

Consider the opening of Gilligan’s Island.

Before the first scene unfolded, viewers learned that seven people had embarked on what was supposed to be a three-hour boat tour. A storm intervened. The passengers and crew found themselves stranded on an uncharted island.

That was the premise.

And the theme song made it unmistakable.

Or consider The Brady Bunch.

A mother with three daughters. A father with three sons. Two families becoming one.

You didn’t need to have watched the previous episode to understand the relationships or the central situation.

The theme song did the introductory work.

Then there was The Partridge Family, whose opening established the premise of a widowed mother and her children forming a musical group.

Different shows. Different characters. Different stories.

But all three understood something important about attracting and retaining an audience.

Before people can become interested in your story, they need enough information to understand what story they’re entering.

That’s a lesson worth revisiting in an era when millions of people are competing for attention on social media.

And it has profound implications for how we think about personal branding.

The Genius of the Television Theme Song

I was reminded of this idea while listening to Seth Godin discuss television theme songs and storytelling on his Akimbo podcast.

Godin’s broader observation points toward an important communication principle: people need a way into a story.

Think about television before streaming services, on-demand programming, and digital recommendations.

You couldn’t necessarily watch an entire season in sequence.

If you missed an episode, you missed it.

And if you discovered a television show halfway through its season, you needed some way to understand what was happening.

An explanatory theme song could provide that context.

The opening of Gilligan’s Island is especially instructive.

Creator Sherwood Schwartz understood that audiences needed to grasp the premise of the show. The theme song became a memorable way to establish that premise repeatedly.

It wasn’t merely entertainment.

It was orientation.

The lyrics told viewers what had happened, who was involved, and why the characters were in their unusual predicament.

But notice something else.

The song didn’t explain what would happen in that particular episode.

It established the larger world in which the episode would unfold.

That’s a distinction worth understanding.

The theme song explained the series. The episode delivered the story.

And that brings us to LinkedIn.

Every Post Is Potentially Someone’s First Episode of You

Imagine that you publish an article about leadership on Monday.

On Wednesday, you share your thoughts about artificial intelligence.

Friday, you write about career reinvention.

The following week, you publish something about overcoming fear.

You see a connection between those subjects because you understand the philosophy behind your work.

But does your audience?

More importantly, does someone encountering your content for the first time?

Social media doesn’t work like a television schedule.

People don’t necessarily discover your content in the order you published it.

A stranger might encounter your 100th post before ever seeing your first.

Someone may discover you because a mutual connection commented on something you wrote.

Another person might find you through a search.

Still another might see your post shared in a private conversation.

In each case, the person enters your story at a different point.

And here’s the problem.

You know everything that came before. They know nothing.

You know why you care about leadership.

You understand why you write about artificial intelligence.

You recognize the connection between career reinvention and personal development.

But your new reader doesn’t necessarily have that context.

They see a single post.

A single idea.

A few paragraphs written by someone they may never have encountered before.

And from that limited encounter, they begin forming an impression.

That impression may determine whether they keep scrolling, engage with your ideas, visit your profile, or remember you.

Which means every piece of content has two jobs.

First, it must communicate something valuable on its own.

Second, it should contribute to a larger understanding of who you are and what you stand for.

Your posts are the episodes. Your brand is the series.

And just as television shows needed a recognizable premise, your personal brand needs a recognizable point of view.

Principle Two: Understand You Are a Brand

In my book, Pick Yourself For Success: How To Step Out Of Your Head And Into Your Greatness, the second principle of my SUCCESS System is:

Understand You Are a Brand.

I deliberately use the word understand.

Because branding isn’t something reserved for corporations, celebrities, entrepreneurs, or social media influencers.

Every person has a brand.

Your brand exists in the minds of the people who encounter you.

It’s shaped by what you say, what you do, what you consistently demonstrate, and the expectations people develop about you.

Think about someone you know personally.

Perhaps a colleague.

A former supervisor.

A neighbor.

Or a friend you’ve known for decades.

When that person’s name comes up in conversation, certain qualities probably come to mind.

Reliable.

Creative.

Generous.

Difficult.

Thoughtful.

Unpredictable.

Those associations didn’t appear overnight.

They developed through repeated experiences.

That’s branding.

And here’s something many people overlook.

You don’t get to decide whether you have a personal brand. You only get to influence what that brand becomes.

You can deliberately shape the associations people develop.

Or you can leave them to chance.

Social media simply gives those associations a larger stage on which to develop.

Every article, comment, video, photograph, and interaction contributes to the story people tell themselves about you.

The question is whether those individual experiences add up to something coherent.

The Difference Between a Topic and a Point of View

One of the biggest misconceptions about personal branding is that consistency requires discussing the same subject repeatedly.

It doesn’t.

Think about The Brady Bunch.

The show didn’t tell the same story every week.

One episode might involve sibling rivalry.

Another might involve a misunderstanding.

Another might explore a lesson about honesty, responsibility, or family relationships.

The situations changed.

But the audience recognized the central premise.

The show was about the experiences of a blended family learning to navigate life together.

Your personal brand can function the same way.

You don’t necessarily need to restrict yourself to one narrow subject.

You need a recognizable perspective that connects the subjects you choose to discuss.

For example, I write about leadership, psychology, artificial intelligence, business, history, and personal development.

On the surface, those subjects may seem unrelated.

But much of my work returns to a central conviction:

People often possess more power to influence their futures than they realize.

Fear, assumptions, habits, and inherited expectations can prevent us from exercising that power.

And meaningful progress frequently begins when we stop waiting for permission and take responsibility for our next move.

That’s the larger philosophy behind Pick Yourself For Success.

Different subjects allow me to explore different dimensions of that philosophy.

A discussion about artificial intelligence might become a conversation about adaptability.

An article about leadership might explore the responsibility to develop others.

A historical story might reveal what becomes possible when someone challenges an accepted limitation.

A personal story might illustrate the cost of allowing fear to make our decisions.

Different episodes.

Same underlying worldview.

Consistency isn’t about repeating the same message. It’s about bringing a recognizable way of thinking to different conversations.

That’s what makes a personal brand distinctive.

And it brings us to another important element of the television analogy.

Your LinkedIn About Section Is Your Theme Song

If your posts are episodes, what serves as the theme song?

Your LinkedIn About section is one place to begin.

Think about its purpose.

Someone encounters a post you’ve written.

They find it interesting.

Perhaps they agree with your perspective. Perhaps they disagree. Either way, you’ve given them a reason to become curious about the person behind the idea.

So they click your name.

They visit your profile.

And they begin asking questions.

Who is this person?

What do they do?

What do they believe?

Why should I pay attention to their work?

Your About section should help answer those questions.

Not by reciting your entire professional history.

Not by stacking credentials until the reader loses interest.

And certainly not by filling the page with generic claims about being passionate, innovative, dynamic, and results-oriented.

Those descriptions might sound impressive.

But what do they actually tell us?

Imagine if Gilligan’s Island had opened with a song describing the castaways as a dynamic group of highly motivated individuals committed to overcoming challenges through collaborative problem-solving.

Technically, that might describe some of what happened on the show.

But would anyone remember it?

Of course not.

The actual theme gave viewers a story.

It established the situation.

It made the premise understandable.

Your About section should do something similar.

It should communicate your professional identity, the people or problems your work serves, and the perspective that makes your approach distinctive.

Here’s a useful way to think about it.

Your headline identifies the show.

Your About section explains the premise.

Your posts deliver the episodes.

Your body of work gives people a reason to keep watching.

And there’s an important difference between television and LinkedIn.

On traditional television, the theme song usually came before the episode.

On LinkedIn, people often discover the episode before they discover the theme song.

Your content creates curiosity.

Your profile provides context.

Your About section helps people connect the dots.

And your continued work determines whether their interest grows.

The Language of Your Brand: Why Familiar Words Matter

There’s another reason those old television theme songs were so effective.

Repetition.

People heard the same opening week after week.

Eventually, the words became familiar.

The melodies became recognizable.

And the songs became closely associated with the shows themselves.

Decades later, many people can still recall portions of those lyrics.

This illustrates something important about memory and communication.

Repeated exposure can strengthen familiarity and recognition.

And familiarity can help people connect new information to something they already understand.

That principle has implications for personal branding.

One way to make your work more recognizable is to develop a consistent vocabulary.

Not a collection of empty catchphrases.

A meaningful language built around the ideas you teach.

In Pick Yourself For Success, for example, I use several recurring frameworks and concepts.

The Core Four represents the mind, heart, body, and soul.

The SUCCESS System provides seven principles for personal development.

The MVP Method brings together meditation, visualization, and prayer.

And the phrase step out of your head and into your greatness communicates a central idea behind my work.

These concepts serve different purposes.

But together, they help create a recognizable vocabulary.

Someone who encounters one of these ideas in an article may encounter it again in a video, workshop, podcast, or conversation.

Over time, the language becomes familiar.

More importantly, it becomes useful.

People can begin applying the concepts to their own circumstances.

And that’s when something interesting happens.

Your brand begins living in the language other people use to understand their lives.

Consider how many familiar business and personal development concepts have become part of everyday conversation.

People talk about their comfort zones.

They discuss growth mindsets.

They refer to their personal brands.

These expressions have become useful shorthand for larger ideas.

You can develop a vocabulary around your own philosophy.

Perhaps you have a framework for making decisions.

A metaphor that explains leadership.

A distinctive way of describing resilience.

Or a recurring question that helps people examine their assumptions.

Use those ideas when they’re relevant.

Explain them clearly.

Return to them in different contexts.

And give people opportunities to apply them.

But remember this distinction.

Repetition should reinforce meaning, not replace it.

A catchphrase repeated without substance eventually becomes noise.

A useful idea revisited through different stories and experiences can become a recognizable part of your work.

Don’t Confuse Recognition With Relevance

There’s a danger in the television theme song analogy.

You could conclude that the goal of personal branding is simply to make people remember you.

But recognition alone isn’t enough.

A familiar name doesn’t necessarily inspire trust.

A recognizable slogan doesn’t automatically communicate value.

And a polished profile doesn’t guarantee that your ideas are worth someone’s attention.

Consider the difference between a television show’s opening and the show itself.

The opening might attract your attention.

It might help you understand the premise.

It might even make you smile.

But if the episodes consistently disappoint you, the theme song won’t keep you watching forever.

The same principle applies to your content.

Your headline might capture attention.

Your About section might communicate a compelling promise.

Your recurring vocabulary might make your work recognizable.

But ultimately, people need to receive something valuable from the experience.

Perhaps you help them understand a difficult subject.

Perhaps you challenge an assumption.

Perhaps you introduce a practical tool.

Perhaps you tell a story that helps someone recognize an opportunity they hadn’t considered.

Or perhaps you simply give someone the language to describe something they’ve been struggling to understand.

That’s value.

And value is what gives recognition meaning.

The goal isn’t merely to become memorable. It’s to become memorable for something that matters.

How to Apply the Theme Song Principle to Every Social Media Post

So how do we translate this idea into something practical?

You don’t need to begin every LinkedIn post with a biography.

You don’t need to mention your credentials in every article.

You certainly don’t need to insert your favorite catchphrase into every conversation.

That would be exhausting for you and your audience.

Instead, think about how to make each piece of content understandable on its own while allowing it to contribute to your larger brand.

Here are five practices worth developing.

1. Write for the person meeting you today

Before publishing, imagine that your reader has never encountered you before.

Would the post make sense?

Have you provided enough context?

Are you referencing a framework or concept that requires a brief explanation?

If you mention your Core Four, for example, someone unfamiliar with your work may not know what that means.

A short explanation can welcome them into the conversation without slowing down readers who already know the concept.

The objective isn’t to explain everything.

It’s to remove unnecessary barriers to understanding.

2. Lead with the idea, not your résumé

Most readers don’t begin by asking how accomplished you are.

They begin by deciding whether something you’ve written deserves their attention.

Give them a reason to care.

Present a question.

Introduce a surprising observation.

Describe a familiar problem from an unfamiliar perspective.

Tell a story that creates curiosity.

Then deliver on the promise of that opening.

Your credibility can support the idea.

But it shouldn’t have to carry the entire weight of the message.

3. Connect your subject to your larger philosophy

Before publishing, ask yourself:

Why am I interested in this subject?

That question can reveal the deeper connection between your content and your personal brand.

Suppose you’re writing about a company announcing layoffs.

You could simply repeat the news.

Or you could explore what the announcement reveals about adaptability, professional identity, economic uncertainty, or the importance of developing transferable skills.

The second approach gives readers more than information.

It gives them your perspective.

And perspective is one of the things that makes your work distinctive.

4. Use recurring language naturally

If you’ve developed useful frameworks, return to them when appropriate.

But don’t force the connection.

A post about artificial intelligence doesn’t automatically need a reference to your favorite leadership model.

A story about personal reinvention doesn’t necessarily need to mention every principle in your book.

Let the subject determine which ideas are relevant.

The goal is recognition through consistency, not repetition through obligation.

5. Make your About section and content work together

Periodically review your LinkedIn profile.

Then examine your recent posts.

Do they tell a coherent story?

If someone read your About section and then reviewed your last ten posts, would they understand the connection?

Would your content reinforce the expectations established by your profile?

Or would they encounter two entirely different professional identities?

Your About section doesn’t need to summarize every subject you’ll ever discuss.

It needs to establish a broad enough premise to accommodate your interests while remaining specific enough to communicate what makes your perspective distinctive.

Think of it as the organizing idea behind your work.

The Five-Minute Personal Brand Exercise

Here’s an exercise you can complete today.

Open your LinkedIn profile.

Read your headline and About section as though you were encountering them for the first time.

Then open your five most recent posts.

Ask yourself these five questions:

1. Clarity: Can a stranger understand what I stand for without knowing my history?
2. Consistency: Do my posts reveal a recognizable perspective, even when the subjects differ?
3. Language: Are there meaningful ideas, concepts, or expressions that connect my work?
4. Value: Does each post offer something useful beyond simply attracting attention?
5. Recognition: If my name disappeared from these posts, would anything about the thinking distinguish them as mine?

That final question is particularly important.

Because the strongest personal brands aren’t built entirely through logos, photographs, color palettes, or clever headlines.

Those elements can help people recognize you.

But the deeper recognition comes from your ideas.

From the questions you ask.

From the problems you choose to examine.

From the way you interpret events.

From the values consistently reflected in your work.

Eventually, people begin recognizing your perspective.

And that’s when personal branding becomes something more substantial than self-promotion.

The Real Goal Isn’t Recognition. It’s Meaning.

There’s a reason we’re still talking about Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, and The Partridge Family decades after their original broadcasts.

Their theme songs helped make the shows memorable.

But the songs weren’t the entire experience.

People returned because the episodes offered something they enjoyed.

The same is true of personal branding.

A compelling headline might attract attention.

An effective About section might explain your promise.

A recognizable vocabulary might strengthen familiarity.

But none of those things can substitute for consistently delivering something valuable.

Your ideas must help people think differently, understand something more clearly, or take meaningful action.

Otherwise, you’ve created a memorable introduction to a show nobody wants to watch.

And that’s the distinction worth remembering.

Your brand isn’t what you repeatedly tell people about yourself.

It’s what people gradually come to understand about you through repeated encounters with your work.

Those old television theme songs remind us that every audience includes newcomers.

People who don’t know the backstory.

People who missed the earlier episodes.

People who are deciding whether the story in front of them deserves their attention.

Today, those people are scrolling through LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and countless other platforms.

Somewhere among them may be a future client.

A collaborator.

A business partner.

An employer.

A student.

Or someone whose life could be changed by an idea you share.

They may not know your history.

They may not know your credentials.

They may not know what you published yesterday.

They’ll simply encounter your words.

And in that moment, you’ll have an opportunity to communicate something about who you are, how you think, and why your perspective matters.

Make that encounter count.

After all,

You never know which episode will introduce someone to your story.

And you never know whether that first episode will inspire them to stay for the series.