What I Learned From My First Viral LinkedIn Post
I woke up to my phone buried in notifications.
The post I’d published the day before was performing exactly as expected when I went to bed: 10-15 engagements, a handful of comments, around 1,000 impressions. Typical Tuesday content.
Now something had shifted. Comments were piling up. Impressions climbing. I’d check back every couple hours to respond to the growing list of comments and watch the numbers jump thousands higher each time.
Over the next week, the momentum kept building.
All told…nearly 117,000 impressions. Over 200 engagements. 159 comments. 11 reposts.
I officially had my first viral LinkedIn post.
What followed taught me more about leadership, feedback, and staying grounded than the post itself ever could.
The Emotional Reality of Visibility
Here’s what nobody tells you about your first viral moment: 98% of the comments were constructive and positive. People sharing their own experiences, asking thoughtful questions, adding valuable perspectives to the conversation.
But that 2%? That other 2% hit a little differently.
“Save what little you have left of your humanity.”
“You’re illiterate.”
“You are everything that’s wrong with the internet.”
I felt myself getting pulled in. The emotional hook of criticism is real. Your chest tightens. Your mind starts drafting defensive responses. You want to explain, to justify, to prove them wrong.
Then I caught myself.
I paused and asked:
How can I approach this with curiosity?
What can I learn from their perspective?
And how can I create space for them to be willing to do the same with mine?
That reframe changed everything.
Some of those critical commenters actually engaged in genuine dialogue. We found common ground. We understood each other’s concerns. The conversation became productive.
Others stayed closed. They had an opinion and an agenda they evidently wanted to broadcast, not explore. No amount of curiosity on my end could create dialogue if they weren’t available for it. I thanked them for their perspective and moved on.
The lesson: Curiosity became a diagnostic tool.
It revealed who was genuinely open to conversation versus who just wanted an audience for pre-formed rants and conclusions.
And that’s valuable information. It told me where to invest my time and energy.
The Post Went Viral
So what was this post that generated nearly 117,000 impressions and 159 comments? Here’s what I wrote:
Last week, someone showed me their AI output and said: “This is generic garbage. AI just doesn’t work for what I do.”
I looked at their prompt: “Write a blog post about leadership.”
Surface level in, surface level out.
Your AI is like having the world’s most capable intern with access to the greatest library ever compiled.
But if you walk up to that intern and say “make me something good,” they’re going to fill in all the gaps with generic internet knowledge.
The depth equation is simple:
– Vague context = Vague response
– Rich context = Rich response
Instead of: “Write a blog post about leadership”
Try: “I’m a construction company owner with 25 employees. We just lost a major client and team morale is low. I want to write a blog post that shows other leaders how I’m handling this situation – both the practical steps and the emotional challenges. Attached are 3 blog posts I have recently written. My voice is direct, vulnerable, and focused on lessons learned rather than giving advice. Write this in first person, about 800 words, starting with the specific moment I realized we lost the client.”
Same AI. Completely different output.
The intern can only be as good as the context you provide.
If you want AI to sound like you, think like you, and create value for your specific situation, you have to give it the rich background information it needs.
This isn’t about longer prompts. It’s about deeper context.
Your industry expertise, your specific challenges, your unique perspective, your way of solving problems – that’s what turns generic AI into powerful AI.
What’s one area where you’ve been providing surface-level context that you could enrich?
You can see the full comment thread here.
The Hidden Cost of Engagement
Here’s what I didn’t anticipate: the time investment.
Responding to 159 comments took A LOT of time. A couple hours every night for nearly a week.
Every comment thread was a choice: Do I engage here? How deeply? What’s productive versus what’s performative?
I wanted to be present. To honor people who took time to share their perspectives. To create real dialogue, not just broadcast my views.
But I also had a business to run. A family. Other work that mattered.
The hidden cost of visibility isn’t just the emotional energy of handling criticism. It’s the sheer volume of attention required to stay engaged with the conversation you started.
I learned to recognize the difference between:
- Comments that invited genuine dialogue
- Comments that used the post as a launching pad for their own public thoughts
- Comments that looked for an argument, not a conversation
Not every comment deserves the same investment of energy. That’s not being dismissive. That’s being strategic about where you can actually create value through engagement.
The Virality Trap
After the post took off, I got the same question over and over:
“What’s the secret? How do I make my posts go viral?”
Here’s the unsexy truth: I don’t know.
I’ve been posting helpful content consistently for months. Some posts get 500 impressions. Some get 5,000. This one got 117,000.
The algorithm caught it. That’s it.
The temptation after a viral moment is to try to reverse-engineer it. To figure out the formula. To optimize for engagement.
That’s the trap.
Because the moment you start creating what you think will perform rather than what you actually have to say, you’ve lost the plot. You’re chasing metrics instead of serving your audience.
Here’s what I’ve learned about the relationship between authenticity and metrics:
Create from authenticity first.
Write what you wish you could have read before you learned that lesson the hard way. Share from your actual experience, your real struggles, your hard-won insights. Your story. Your taste. Your voice.
Then use metrics as feedback on the container, not validation of the content.
Impressions, engagement, comments…these tell you something about how your message is landing. They give you feedback on story structure, formatting, length, tone. They help you understand which delivery methods help your authentic message connect better.
But they don’t tell you what to say.
Keep the horse before the cart:
- Create based on what feels authentic and right to you
- Use the metrics to shape the container that helps it land
Not the other way around.
Post a lot of helpful content. Give the algorithm lots of chances to catch one. Keep showing up with real value.
That’s the only “secret” there is.
The “Nothing Changed” Wisdom
There’s a Zen story that comes to mind:
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
Before the viral post, I was sharing lessons I was learning from hard knocks and real conversations with business leaders navigating complex challenges.
After the viral post? I’m still sharing lessons I’m learning from hard knocks and real conversations with business leaders navigating complex challenges.
One viral post doesn’t validate your work. It doesn’t prove you’ve “made it.” It doesn’t mean you’ve figured out some secret formula.
And thankfully, one viral post also doesn’t invalidate your work if you never have another.
The work is the work.
The value you create is the value you create.
Visibility is a byproduct, not the goal.
Keep chopping wood. Keep carrying water. Keep sharing what you’re actually learning, whether that’s in person or online.
Let the metrics tell you which containers work best for delivery. But never let them tell you what to create.
Lead With AI,
Derek
P.S. Speaking of momentum: Lead With AI’s fall cohort closed last Friday with 25 members across 12 companies…well past my goal of 5 and stretch goal of 10. Seems like we may just be onto something here. Winter cohort registration will open in January.