47. LinkedIn for Impact: Prof Phillip Dawson on making the platform work for you (even if you hate social media)

Knowledge mobilisationStrategic commsStakeholder/audience mappingNetworkingAICareer development
Written By Chris Pahlow

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You probably already know that being on LinkedIn is a good idea for your work, your research, and your career. But how do you make sure it's actually making a positive difference, rather than just becoming "doom scrolling at work"? Returning guest Prof Phillip Dawson joins us to walk through a seven-step framework for making LinkedIn manageable, effective, and maybe even (dare we say it) not terrible. From setting goals and capturing ideas, through writing posts and showing up in conversations, to reflecting on what's actually working, we cover the full process for turning LinkedIn from hellscape to... well, if not heaven, then at least something you can actually live with 😅

Phillip Dawson is a Professor and co-director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University. This is his third appearance on the show, following episodes on becoming a key person of influence (Ep 3) and crafting repeatable signature talks (Ep 37). With more than 12,000 LinkedIn followers built while openly calling the platform "a hellscape," Phil brings both the results and the honesty to co-host this one.

"Someone else got this amazing opportunity to write a really influential document for the sector, led to a lot of stuff with government, and I looked at their work and I looked at my work and I thought, 'We're both pretty similar scholars in the space. Why'd it go to them and not to me?' … The better play is sometimes the shorter thing on LinkedIn that people are actually gonna read." — Phillip Dawson

Whether you love LinkedIn and are already posting multiple times a week, or you actively hate it and won't even put the app on your phone — this episode gives you a repeatable system to make the platform manageable, purposeful, and aligned with what you actually want to achieve.

The seven-step LinkedIn framework

Step 1. Goals: Figure out what you're actually trying to achieve

Before you post anything, get clear on who you want to reach and what outcomes actually matter to you. Not follower counts or likes — the real stuff.

  • Name the people you want to reach. Practitioners who could use your work? Policymakers? Potential collaborators? Future employers? Knowing this shapes everything that follows.

  • Be honest about the "shadow goals." Career advancement, consulting opportunities, speaking invitations — there's nothing wrong with wanting LinkedIn to benefit your career. That's not being salesy, it's being strategic.

  • Don't get fixated on visible metrics. A post with 12 likes and three DMs from people who want to collaborate might be worth more than a congratulatory post with 100 likes and 30 "Congrats!" comments. The metrics that matter most might not show up on the platform.

"I want people to either, in the future, give me a great job or hire me to do some consulting work… But the nice public version is I want people to use my work." — Phillip Dawson

Your homework: Sit down for five minutes and jot down what you'd like to achieve in the next six months. Who are the people you'd most like to know about your work? What kinds of conversations do you want to be having?

Step 2. Capture: Never face the blank page

Separate the capturing of ideas from the writing of posts. If part of the friction is not wanting to go onto LinkedIn, this one move helps enormously — you're collecting material throughout your week without ever opening the platform.

  • Keep a running list. Phill simply uses a pinned note in Apple Notes. Dump ideas in whenever they come up: a paper you've read, a framing that clicked in a conversation, a commitment you've made to a co-author.

  • Or use structured prompts. If ad-hoc capture isn't your style, set aside 15–20 minutes once a month or fortnight and work through some of these questions. You don't need to answer all of them — just pick the ones that spark something.

    • What's been happening: What's been keeping you busy? What projects have moved forward? Who have you connected with or collaborated with recently, and what came out of it? What have you helped other people do?

    • What you've learned: Has anything recently shifted how you think? Any papers, talks, or sector changes that caught your attention? Have you changed your mind about anything compared to six or twelve months ago?

    • What's coming up: Anything big on the horizon — papers, funding, collaborations, events? Anything changing in the policy or funding landscape worth starting a conversation about?

    • What's on your mind: What should people be paying attention to that they aren't? What's getting you fired up? What are you wondering about the future of your field?

  • Not everything needs to be original. Think about three tiers: Report (sharing and commenting on others' work), Discuss (engaging in back-and-forth about ideas in your field), and Lead (putting new thinking into the world). It's completely fine if the majority of what you post is in the first two categories.

Your homework: Pin a blank note to the top of your phone's notes app. Next time you have a thought about your work — in a meeting, reading a paper, walking to the car — take ten seconds and dump it in.

Step 3. Shape: Think before you type

Before you start writing, spend a moment thinking about how to present your idea so it lands with the right people.

  • Sweat the hook. The first couple of lines before the "read more" button are where most of your shaping energy should go. If the hook doesn't work, nobody reads the rest.

  • Try three angles into the same idea. The professional angle (how does this affect people's working lives?), the contemporary angle (what's happening in the news or calendar that makes this timely?), and the personal evolution angle ("I used to think X, but now I think Y").

  • Keep it skimmable. Unless you're deliberately targeting a specialist audience, aim for language that's easy to scan. People don’t want to read War and Peace on LinkedIn — they're scrolling between meetings.

  • Think about visuals. A photo of you or your team often outperforms a chart or infographic. LinkedIn is a social platform first — people respond to people.

"The worst hook is, 'I am very proud to announce that today I have published with my prestigious colleagues so and so and so and so in journal XYZ.' No one wants to read that. They're gonna be like, 'Here's Phill doing another humblebrag about his work.' Instead, I gotta think, what's the real problem in the world that I'm attaching to here?" — Phillip Dawson

Your homework: Take one idea from your capture list and come up with three wildly different hooks for it — one professional, one topical, one personal. See which one you'd actually want to click on.

Step 4 — Write: Use AI as a collaborator, not a content factory

Neither of us endorses handing your content to a chatbot and posting whatever comes out. People can spot AI slop — and they're allergic to it. But using AI as a sounding board, a brainstorming partner, or a way to get past the blank page is a different story entirely.

  • Understand the progression. Most people move through stages: Generic human posts (the "I am humbled to announce..." announcements — everyone starts here) → AI slop (outsourcing the writing entirely, and it reads that way) → Getting better (using AI to draft or outline, then rewriting in your own voice) → Hitting your stride (human-written or hybrid, well-structured, opinionated — the stuff that really lands).

  • A decent AI-assisted post beats a generic human announcement. The goal isn't perfection on day one — it's to keep moving up the progression.

  • Use AI to brainstorm, not to bypass your thinking. Get it to generate hook options, stress-test your framing, riff on an idea — then write the post yourself, or heavily rewrite what it produces. The three AI prompts linked below are designed to make AI work with you as a coach, not for you as a ghostwriter.

Three prompts to get you started:

  • Level 1 — Quick gut-check feedback (2–5 mins):

    • You are a world-expert science communicator. Please give me detailed thoughts on how [insert target audience] would respond to this draft, and pointers on what to consider to improve reach, engagement, and understanding. If my target audience isn't specific enough to be useful, ask me clarifying questions. Don't write a new draft for me unless I specifically ask you to — instead, discuss your feedback with me and coach me so that I can learn from the re-drafting process.

  • Level 2 — Check draft against objectives (5–10 mins):

    • You are a world-expert science communicator. First, ask me questions to clarify what I'm aiming for (beliefs, feelings, behavioural outcomes, and learning outcomes). Then, assess my draft for [insert target audience] against those objectives. If my target audience isn't specific enough to be useful, ask me clarifying questions. Don't write a new draft for me unless I specifically ask you to — instead, discuss your feedback with me and coach me so that I can learn from the re-drafting process.

  • Level 3 — Detailed audience profiling (15–30 mins the first time, 10–15 mins after that):

    • Define your target audience using the Relationship Mosaic Profile template, then upload the finished profiles to a new chat along with your draft and use this prompt:

      You are a world-expert science communicator. Read the uploaded profile(s), confirm you understood them correctly. If it's not already clear from the profiles, ask me questions to clarify what objectives I'm aiming for (beliefs, feelings, behavioural outcomes, and learning outcomes). Finally, assess my draft for the defined audience(s) against those objectives. Don't write a new draft for me unless I specifically ask you to — instead, discuss your feedback with me and coach me so that I can learn from the re-drafting process.

"I've found more recent AI models I can kind of work in tandem with them, get a little bit of help. Get it to come up with some of those different hook ideas, and then I write the post, or I come up with the hook, get it to write the post. So probably more of that hybrid practice mode now." — Phillip Dawson

Your homework: If you love writing, just get practice every week. If it's a chore or you're short on time, try the three AI prompts linked in the resources section — they're designed to help you get started without losing your voice.

Step 5 — Check & Post: The five-minute gut-check

Before you hit post — or better yet, schedule — give the post one final read.

  • Three questions. Is this accurate? Could it annoy someone in a way I'm not prepared for? Would I be comfortable if my head of department saw this tomorrow?

  • AI can help here too. Phill uses AI to fact-check posts, especially when critiquing someone else's research. He had one case where Claude told him his take "really isn't the smoking gun that you think it is" — which saved him from a post he'd have regretted.

  • Scale the effort to the stakes. A post sharing a collaborator's paper? One minute. A post critiquing government policy in your field? Maybe worth a longer look, or a quick conversation with a colleague or your comms team.

  • Schedule, don't post. Tools like Buffer give you a calendar view of your upcoming posts and keep you off the platform. LinkedIn's built-in scheduler works too. Three posts a week is a good target, but if you're starting from zero, one a week is fine — let it build.

"When you think it's done, give it one more read. Not 10 more reads. Give it one more read." — Phillip Dawson

Your homework: Read it back once. Ask: Would I be comfortable if my head of department saw this tomorrow? If yes, hit schedule.

Step 6 — Show Up: Do the work without the doom scroll

Posting is only half the job. The other half is being part of the conversation — replying to comments on your posts, commenting on other people's work, and having conversations in the DMs. That other work can often lead to the most meaningful outcomes. The trick is doing it all without getting sucked into the feed.

  • Block the feed. Phill uses a browser plugin called Linkoff that hides the LinkedIn feed entirely. Chris uses Distraction Free for LinkedIn. Both let you use the platform for posting, commenting, and messaging — without the addictive scroll.

  • Go direct, not via the algorithm. Keep a folder of bookmarks to specific people's LinkedIn profiles. When it's time to engage, go straight to their page instead of scrolling whatever the algorithm wants to show you.

  • Manage your notifications. Phill doesn't have the mobile app — LinkedIn is blocked on his phone entirely. He gets email notifications for comments so he can respond without opening the platform. Find whatever setup keeps you in the conversation without keeping you on the feed.

  • If you're starting small, focus on commenting. Not getting many comments on your own posts? That's normal when you're building a following. Put your showing-up energy into leaving thoughtful comments on other people's work. Those people will remember you.

"I turn off the LinkedIn feed. When I go to LinkedIn, there's this big blank space right in the middle of it where everyone else sees the feed, and I see nothing." — Phillip Dawson

Your homework: Try a feed-blocking browser plugin this week. Pick three to five people whose work you want to follow, bookmark their profiles, and leave one thoughtful comment. Respond to every comment on your own posts.

Step 7 — Reflect: Check in with yourself

After a couple of months, stop and take stock. Are you moving toward the goals you set in step one? And is the process itself sustainable — or is it making you miserable?

  • Check the metrics, but don't stop there. The numbers that matter most might not show up in LinkedIn analytics. Phill's best-performing LinkedIn post of the year linked to what became his best-performing academic paper — the post's metrics were beside the point.

  • Look for the real signals. DMs from potential collaborators. Speaking invitations. People knowing who you are when you meet for the first time. Someone referencing something you posted in a conversation. These tell you more than impressions ever will.

  • Adjust one thing at a time. If something's not landing, change your posting frequency, try different hooks, or shift your topics. Don't overhaul your entire approach. Give changes time to show results before changing again.

  • Be kind to yourself. This is work. It's not supposed to be your passion project. The goal is for it to make some other parts of your professional life easier.

"I'm here to get a job done. I'm not gonna let this take over my life, but this will ideally make some other parts of my life easier." — Phillip Dawson

Your homework: Once a month, sit down for five minutes and ask: Am I doing what I set out to do? Is this still working for me? If something feels off, adjust one thing. Don't overhaul the whole system.

We also discuss:

  • Why bother with LinkedIn if you hate it — and the case for treating it as part of the job

  • Phill's origin story: the opportunity that went to a peer because they'd written a LinkedIn article

  • The "shadow goals" — career development, consulting, policy influence — and why it's okay to want them

  • Why visible metrics (likes, comments, follower counts) can be misleading about what's actually working

  • Report, Discuss, Lead — a tiering system for posts that takes the pressure off being a thought leader every time

  • Commenting on others' work as a relationship-building strategy — not just a visibility play

  • Why the post that "flopped" might be the one that actually mattered

  • Co-authoring as a content strategy: how Phil's research team coordinates LinkedIn posts across multiple authors, staggering timing and taking different angles on the same paper

  • Reposting with your thoughts as an entry point when you don't have a big following yet

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Credits:

  • Host & Producer: Chris Pahlow

  • Edited by: Laura Carolina Corrigan

  • Music by: La Boucle and Blue Steel, courtesy of Epidemic Sound

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Chris Pahlow
Chris Pahlow is an independent writer/director currently in post-production on his debut feature film PLAY IT SAFE. Chris has been fascinated with storytelling since he first earned his pen license and he’s spent the last ten years bringing stories to life through music videos, documentaries, and short films.
http://www.chrispahlow.com
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46. Research Translation: Dr Jaelea Skehan on why proving something works is just the start