Should an agency owner post from their own profile or the agency page?
Post from your own profile, and let the agency page carry the name, the logo and the job ads. A Page can't open a conversation: LinkedIn's help page on messages for Pages says Page admins can only message a member after that member messages the Page first.
One r/agency thread shows both sides of the branding question. In February 2025, a solo marketer asked whether to brand as an agency or as themselves. The most upvoted reply, from someone with almost ten years of mostly solo work, said an agency name makes other businesses take you more seriously. Another reply said that even as an agency, a personal brand works better on LinkedIn, X and YouTube. One way to use both answers: the agency name on the website and the contract, your own name in the feed.
Our guide to splitting time between your personal profile and the company page covers what the Page is still good for, including sponsoring your posts as ads.
What happened when Optimist's founder wrote for peers instead of buyers?
Optimist, a content marketing agency, spent years writing in public and found the audience was mostly other business owners. Its founder, Tyler Hakes, posts a yearly revenue update on Reddit. The January 2025 update in r/Entrepreneur gave self-reported figures of $1,032,035 in 2024 revenue and $7,863,052 lifetime, and set out a plan to move upmarket to companies with about 500 to 5,000 employees.
We read the comments in the Reddit archive on 24 October 2026. At least ten came from people who said they ran an agency, freelanced, did SEO or ran another company. None said they bought content for their company. Pilot notes that the update gained traction, but the comments came largely from fellow business owners.
Pilot's profile of Hakes, published 1 August 2025, describes the same problem and the fix. Hakes had treated LinkedIn as a place to share an article once: "I didn't take it seriously." The build-in-public posts on the blog and Reddit mostly resonated with founders, freelancers and early-stage entrepreneurs, not Optimist's ideal customers. So Hakes moved to LinkedIn with a different plan:
- Three to five themes at a time, such as content marketing, SEO, agency growth and AI.
- A loose 70-20-10 split: about 70% educating or engaging, 20% practical advice, 10% promotional.
- At least three posts a week, sometimes seven, plus livestreams. During one livestream, two prospects sent inquiries.
Pilot reports that LinkedIn became a dependable source of qualified leads, and one became a client worth nearly $500,000 a year. These are company-reported figures, published on Pilot's blog. Referrals and word of mouth still drive much of Optimist's business, the same article says.
At three posts a week, a 70-20-10 split works out to about 12 posts a month: roughly eight that educate or engage, two or three with practical advice, and one that asks for anything.
Which agency posts reach buyers, and which reach other agency owners?
Posts about running your agency tend to reach agency owners, and posts about your client's problem tend to reach clients. Hakes's January 2025 Reddit update is the example above. Our explainer on why LinkedIn likes don't turn into buyers covers the general case. Here is the agency version, as our own suggestion. Our LinkedIn post templates give you formats to fill with the buyer version.
| Topic that draws peers | Buyer version of the same idea |
|---|---|
| Our revenue this year | What changed in the results we got for clients this year, and why |
| How I price retainers | What a retainer for this kind of work should include, and what to cut |
| Managing freelancers | Questions to ask any agency about who actually does your work |
| Lessons from losing a client | The early signs a campaign is off track, from the client's side |
| Our new tool stack | A teardown of one public example in your client's industry |
| Agency growth tips | One client situation, the constraint, what you tried, what happened |
In our view one agency-life post a month is fine, since peers can refer work. Just don't count their likes as pipeline. One agency owner on the Fastlane forum reported in July 2024 that a single post got 6,500 impressions, more than 140 comments and one lead, plus two past leads showing interest. That is one person's post, and it shows how far comments and leads can sit apart.
How do you check whether your LinkedIn audience is buyers or peers?
Use LinkedIn's free audience analytics once a month. LinkedIn's creator analytics page says every member can see follower demographics broken down by job title, location, industry, seniority, company size or company, with the top five shown for each. You open it from the Analytics section of your profile.
Run this 15-minute check, which is our own method:
Score the top five job titles
Mark each title as buyer or peer. For a content agency, Head of Content or VP Marketing is a buyer; Founder of an agency or Freelance Writer is a peer.
Check company size
If you sell to companies with 50 to 500 staff and your top band is 2 to 10, your posts are reaching small businesses like yours.
Read the commenters on your last five posts
Open each commenter's headline and tally buyer or peer. This catches what the top-five view hides.
A worked example: top five titles of Founder, Marketing Consultant, Agency Owner, Head of Marketing and Freelance Designer give one buyer in five. If 9 of your last 40 commenters are buyers, that is 22.5%. Write next month's posts from the buyer column of the table above, then compare the two numbers a month later.
How should an agency owner set up their LinkedIn profile?
Set the profile up as the agency's sales page: who you help, proof, and one next step. A May 2026 r/agency thread asked whether LinkedIn still works, and two replies said prospects check your profile before they reply. One commenter's view: "For agencies, LinkedIn feels more useful as a trust check than a pure lead source." These are the profile tools LinkedIn's help centre describes, checked 24 October 2026:
| Tool | LinkedIn's rules, in short | Agency use |
|---|---|---|
| Featured section | LinkedIn's Featured page: show posts, LinkedIn articles, external links and uploaded media; posts and articles must be ones you published | Pin one case study post, one teardown and your services page |
| Follow as primary button | The creator mode update: you can choose Follow or Connect as the main action on your profile | Choose Follow if you post often and get many requests |
| Custom button | The custom button page: only for some Premium Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter Lite subscribers; options include Book an appointment and View my services | Link to a booking page or services page |
| Newsletter | The newsletter page: all members can create one; subscribers get notified of each edition | A monthly note on one client problem |
| LinkedIn Live | The Live access criteria: more than 150 followers or connections, a 30-day-old account, a good-standing record, and a third-party streaming tool | A monthly teardown or Q&A; Hakes uses livestreams |
Write your headline as who you help and with what, in the buyer's words. An example for a content agency: "Content programmes for B2B software companies with 500 to 5,000 staff", the company size Hakes named in the January 2025 update, instead of "Founder at [agency name]". Open your About section with one problem from the buyer column of the peer-versus-buyer table above.
What weekly LinkedIn routine works for a 1 to 20 person agency?
We suggest two posts and about two hours a week in total. Pilot's lessons from Hakes say to block time to post at least twice a week and to keep a backlog of ideas. Here is a routine sized for an owner who still does client work:
| Day | Task | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Write two posts from the buyer column, from last week's client calls | 45 minutes |
| Tuesday | Post one; comment on five posts from people who fit your client profile | 20 minutes |
| Wednesday | Reply to every comment; connect with buyers who engaged | 15 minutes |
| Thursday | Post the second; comment on five more buyer posts | 20 minutes |
| Friday | Send a short DM to buyers who engaged twice, about the topic they engaged with | 15 minutes |
That is about two hours a week. For the Friday message, our guide to turning post likes and comments into DMs has openers that start from the engagement itself.
If the Monday writing block is the part that slips, Siela's LinkedIn Presence agent posts in your voice at 2, 3 or 5 posts a week, in formats such as customer stories, industry takes and how-to lists, and can show you every post before it goes out. Pilot notes that a LinkedIn brand takes time to pay off. Our suggestion while it builds: pair posting with direct outreach. Our signal plan for agencies that want clients beyond referrals covers that side.
Frequently asked questions
Should a one-person agency use an agency name or their own name on LinkedIn?
Owners split. In an r/agency thread from February 2025, the most upvoted reply said an agency name makes other businesses take you more seriously, while another said a personal brand works better on LinkedIn. A common split is the agency name on the website and contracts, and your own profile for posting and conversations.
What should an agency owner post on LinkedIn?
Post about your client's problems in your client's words: a teardown of a public example in their industry, a client situation with the constraint and the result, or what a fair scope for the work looks like. Keep posts about your own revenue, hiring and agency life to about one a month. In Optimist's case, build-in-public posts mostly reached other founders and freelancers.
How long did it take Optimist to get leads from LinkedIn?
Pilot's August 2025 article does not give a timeline. It says Tyler Hakes posts at least three times a week, that LinkedIn became a consistent source of qualified leads, and that results showed as long as the posting continued. Hakes described it as a long-term strategy, building connections that turn into work a year or five years later.
Can my agency page promote my personal LinkedIn posts?
Yes. LinkedIn's Thought Leader Ads let a Page sponsor posts from employees and other members with the author's approval, requested through Campaign Manager. LinkedIn says they work with the Brand Awareness, Engagement and Video View objectives. The ad is tied to the parent Page, so your post can reach a paid audience while keeping your name on it.
How do I know if my LinkedIn followers are potential clients?
Open creator analytics from the Analytics section of your profile and look at audience demographics. LinkedIn shows the top five job titles, seniorities, industries, company sizes and companies among your followers. Mark each top job title as a buyer or a peer, then read the headlines of recent commenters, since the top-five view hides most of your audience.
Sources
- Pilot: How Tyler generated a $500K new deal for his agency through brand-building on LinkedIn (1 Aug 2025)
- r/Entrepreneur: Started a content marketing agency 8 years ago, 2025 update (Tyler Hakes) (9 Jan 2025, read via archive 24 Oct 2026)
- r/agency: Working solo, agency brand vs personal brand (3 Feb 2025, read via archive 24 Oct 2026)
- r/agency: LinkedIn 2026: dead, dying, or working for you? (7 May 2026, read via archive 24 Oct 2026)
- Fastlane forum: Cracking LinkedIn personal branding and getting inbound leads (15 Jul 2024)
- LinkedIn Help: Messages for LinkedIn Pages (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: View your creator analytics (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Manage featured samples of your work (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Updates to Creator Mode (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Add or remove a custom button from your profile (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Create a newsletter on LinkedIn (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Help: Create and host LinkedIn Live, access criteria (checked 24 Oct 2026)
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Thought Leader Ads (checked 24 Oct 2026)