Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#115 Building your personal brand and making LinkedIn work for you (ft. Fady Ramzy)

• Mel Loy • Season 1 • Episode 115

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If you’ve ever opened LinkedIn, stared at the blank post box, and thought, “What do I even say?”—this episode is for you.

Fady Ramzy is an international digital communications consultant, LinkedIn top creator, and trainer for LinkedIn Top Voices. He’s passionate about helping professionals and leaders stop lurking and start leveraging LinkedIn to build an authentic, strategic personal brand.

In this episode, Fady shares practical, no-fluff advice on how to show up online without feeling like a self-promoter. He unpacks his signature frameworks for consistent, human-first content—including the “3 specifics” and “3 Cs”—and shares how AI tools can support your creativity and workflow (without sounding robotic).

We talk about:

  • Overcoming the fear of judgment and perfectionism
  • Why value matters more than volume
  • How to find your content sweet spot by blending personal stories with professional insights
  • The mindset shifts that help you stay consistent and connected on LinkedIn

Whether you're a communicator, executive, small business owner, or just someone ready to show up more intentionally online, this episode will help you feel more confident, clear, and aligned in your content.


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Are you on LinkedIn? If you aren't, what's holding you back? And if you are on LinkedIn, are you using it to its full potential or are you simply lurking in the shadows? The fact is whether you are a job seeker working for a company or working for yourself or anything in between, LinkedIn has enormous potential to help you build your personal brand and open up a world of opportunities. So how do we do that and not feel awkward about it, or that's what today's guest is going to share on this episode of Less Chatter, More Matter. Hi there, friend, and welcome back to the show. I'm recording this episode on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin, Brisbane and through the power of global technology. Today's guest joined me all the way from Egypt. I met Fady Ramzy a little while ago at the IABC APAC Fusion 2025 conference in Manila, where he shared his insights into how to use LinkedIn to create opportunities. I loved his practical advice, and for a guy with more than 32,000 followers on the platform, it's clearly worked. So I wanted to bring that advice to you directly from the expert himself. If you don't know Fady, he is an independent consultant and trainer for online marketing and digital communications with more than 27 years of international experience. He is an adjunct faculty member at the American University in the Cairo School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, where he teaches graduate programs for digital journalism, social media, and immersive storytelling. He's also a mentor at the School of Business. Fady is also a professional trainer and consultant, and he's worked with several international companies like Google, Facebook, Thomas, Roche Foundation to just name a few. He's also an international speaker and media figure and has spoken at conferences from Rome to Cairo, Dubai, Riyad, Tunis, Kuwait City, Nairobi, Manila, and so much more. He's also a public and media figure, and he has recently dedicated his focus and all his extended experience to helping professionals elevate their personal brands, especially on LinkedIn. In 2024, he was recognized as one of the most influential top creators on the platform, and he has helped countless professionals including LinkedIn Top Voices master the art of building an impactful online presence. So in this episode, Fady shares how to counter the misgivings. You might have over posting on LinkedIn what to post and why that actually works, and how to effectively use AI to support your content creation. I think you will find this episode full of golden nuggets that will hopefully inspire you to be even more active on the platform. So without further ado, here's Fady. Hello Fady and welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter hi. Thank you for this. I'm really excited. Me too. Uh, so before we get into this, can you tell us a little bit more about you? What do you do and how did you come to establish your expertise in that space? Yeah, sure. So my name is Fady Ramzy and I work as an online marketing and digital communications, uh, consultant and trainer with special focus on building personal brands for, for leaders right now. And I came across this, or the journey started like long ago, more than 26 years ago. And, uh, half of that journey was, was between, um, Europe and North Africa, especially Italy. And Cairo and I, I got into this online marketing world and then exploring the world further. It, it's the same tools, but can be for marketing, for products and services or for, you know, crafting stories and narratives. So, uh, for communications, but then came COVID and everyone was just struggling so. Lastly came the idea of using all those tools instead of building corporate brands or, or narratives to make it more personal. And my humble opinion is that currently personal brands are more valued rather than the corporate brands. So that's just like a quick summary of the journey. Yeah. Uh, and I absolutely agree with that. You know, people follow people not brands most of the time, so, but I have heard you tell a story about how you actually got into, um. Being such a big presence on LinkedIn, can you share that story? Yeah, sure. So, uh, I lived in Italy for, for a few years, starting 2007. And it was, I was just like discovering social media for me. Facebook, like, uh, it was like rocket science at that time. But whenever I went to business meetings, uh, people used to say, we'll be connected over LinkedIn, and I had no idea what's that. So I started building my network on LinkedIn in any few months. I had a good network in that market. So I started discovering back then the importance of having a professional network on a professional platform like LinkedIn. And that opened lots of of opportunities for, for my company as well as myself. And, uh, and even I got the opportunity to start, uh, a small startup between Rome and Cairo. Here from an opportunity on, on LinkedIn, and I came back to Cairo here, my home city, uh, in 2009. And since then, I'm, I'm focused every single day to do three things on LinkedIn to be present and visible in, in a useful way to my audience. This is number one, to build and expand my professional network and to create useful content for, for my audience. It's just like three. Three pieces of, of a great puzzle. And, uh, when you build consistent visibility through useful content, you, you gain, you build trust. And trust is the most scarce currency right now. So that, that's the question. Uh, and I think you've started to answer my next question, but why is it so important for people to build their presence on LinkedIn? There's a lot of people who avoid it, so why would you say you should be on LinkedIn? Yeah, as as you said, humans relate to humans. We, we value the personal brands. We value the, the human connections more than the corporate brands. Um, right now, which is obvious, we are social creatures in any case. So I would follow you. I will get emotionally attached... to you rather than your company's brand. So that, that's, that's normal and that's the opportunity. So if you are not building and growing a personal brand over the internet in general, you, you are losing opportunities. Whatever the opportunity is, LinkedIn is the best quick win because it's a social network, it's a professional social network. You can build your own network, your presence, your, your visibility, and then you can take that further to your own blog, uh, website, newsletter, podcast, whatever. But that's the quick win. So if you are not, again, as, as a professional, as a leader, as a comms leader, if not, if you're not capitalising on that, it's just like having a treasure and just hiding it under the bed every single day, you know it's there and you're super self satisfied, but you don't open the box. You, you don't make use of it anymore. Yeah. And you just expected people to know how to find it when you are looking for an opportunity too, right? So you've got this buried treasure, but there's no map to it. There's no, uh, and no saying there is actually this, you know, I exist and I find that, and you're probably seeing much more of this than I am in your world, but LinkedIn has become the new resume. You know, it's where people go to stalk you if they're looking for somebody with your expertise. Is that, would that be a fair assessment? Uh, no, because it's, it's much more, it's, yeah, what you said. I, I agree with that a hundred percent, but let me add, it's, it's a platform for opportunities. Opportunities can be lead generation or acquiring customers for your business, it can be building your own thought leadership and influence as, as a leader over the platform. It can be media exposure. It, it can be multiple things. Imagine entering a room with more than 1.2 billion. Professionals and if you niche down, you talk to the right audience with the right needs and you are every single day, you are able to help them, offer them help and in return gain opportunities. So it's like it's the best win-win platform ever. Yeah, I actually really agree, but I know that a lot of people I talk to have. Uh, I guess some misgivings about using LinkedIn. What are some of the common misgivings you hear people talking about when they say, well, I, I wouldn't know what to say on LinkedIn. How, how, what are the, some of those queries they have and how would you address them? I think we, we already, uh, we had a discussion about that ba back in Manil. Yeah. And I, I think me and you, we, we can write books. Melanie? Yes. Literally write, maybe that's the next book. Yeah. Let's, let's make it our next book. But, but quickly, you know, you know, the most popular ones is number one. I'm not that expert, you know, to share experience over LinkedIn. And it's a place for gurus, and I'm not one of them. This is number one. Number two, which is also very popular. What would the world think about me if, if I do this post? Especially if I'm a perfectionist? So I want to make the super duper. Uh, best ever post on, on LinkedIn, which, which keeps me afraid. Or maybe what would my internal team, what would my customers, what would my local circles think about me? My opinion, my experience, my post, you know, I'm exposing myself. I'm not used to that. Or number four, accordingly. I, I'm a shy person. I'm, I'm not the person who jumps on stage and, and talks, you know, give me a project or a client meeting. I can do magic, but don't, don't get, get me. Exposed in public. I, I don't do this. Or the most popular ever, which is number five. I have no time. I can do everything. I know it's important. I, I have all the skills to create to, to create the greatest post, but I have no time. So I think these five are, let's say, the top killers for any personal brand on LinkedIn. And what do you say to people when they come to you with those misgivings? Well, three things can be solving the root causes of all this. Number one, it it's, it's an investment of time and effort. Like any investment, there is a return on investment. So if you don't. Use it. If you don't put time and effort, you, you are putting money on the table. So it's up to you and the amount of of time and effort you dedicate. It's just like a weekly slot, sometimes even a daily slot. But you dedicate like one hour, half, a half an hour, whatever. It's an investment and there is an hour. Look at it from this perspective. This is number one. Number two, uh, kill the perfectionist inside yourself. This is, you know, immediately. You should do that because perfection doesn't exist. It just keeps us delaying and, and procrastinating and avoiding what we need to do. And number three, do not think a lot about your post, that it'll change the world, or the world will change how they look at you. Just whenever you are creating content online, especially on LinkedIn, create content that helps yourself five years earlier. Talk to you earlier. Self, like five or eight years. What would be the advice that you would give to yourself like eight years before? What would be the thing? If you have this mindset with those three components, the pressure gets lots easier, uh, than, than, than what you have in mind. I love that. Talking to your earlier self, and I think that speaks to something. I know we've discussed it and I've talked about it with others as well, that you don't go onto LinkedIn to sell yourself or your product. If you go on, if you're going on there to do that, then nobody's gonna follow you, but it also makes you feel very uncomfortable all the time. But if you're going on there to add value, to teach people other things, to be a service to other people, that's a very different mindset, isn't it? To... being on there to brag and to sell, like it's very different concept. Very, very true. And this is one of the misconceptions I about looking in. Sometimes it keeps people away from the platform because this is a platform where people brag about themselves, look, I'm on stage, I went this, I got that hour. I'm not that person. I'm too shy. So my answer is always. No, these people are doing strongly, the platform was not designed for this. So it's a platform for bragging about myself or it's a, it's a platform for getting the, the new job. And also it wasn't, uh, it, it might be designed originally for this, but it's not, not the case. But I always say it's, it's, it's a platform for, as, as you said, creating value to people. And by the way, surprisingly, they're not contradicting. The more you create value you can generate. Business because if you help people, you can generate business. And the magical formula that I always preach here is show me, don't sell me. If you show your expertise and generally help people, they will come asking for your products and services. They will will tell you, where should I swipe the card? Because I need to work with you. If you just keep selling only it's, it's the opposite. So they go side by side, not the opposite. If it's like with the right mindset. I love that. Show me, don't sell me. Love that Fady. So those are the challenges that people often face. Let's say, okay, I've decided I'm gonna do this LinkedIn thing. What would be your top three to five tips for people who want to start building their brand on LinkedIn? I. Uh, well first we start with a concept called the the three specifics. So have in mind a specific solution for a specific problem for specific target audience. And I always say this is the essence of building a personal brand rather than just a presence over another social network because when you have this in mind, you craft your profile accordingly or craft your content strategy accordingly. So you have certain persona with certain challenge in there. Work in their career, in their lives, and you can be helpful to them. So accordingly, if you design your profile and your content, uh, from that perspective, that's, that's a personal brand that can shine over the platform. This is number one. Number two, all also, I call it the three Cs, which is consistent content for conversations. So create useful content that help them solve this problem in a consistent. Way, and just don't make it like one way conversation. Always respond, always engage, engage with quickly with your people, engage with other people. So it's like the essence of social networking. And, and lastly, when you do this, when you have this mindset and you share consistent content, keep always in mind one, once again, the idea of show me, don't sell me, don't, don't do this with only the single purpose of selling a product or service. If you genuinely. Help and jump into conversations that's helpful to people without expecting, you know, immediate millions of dollars in the bank. It, it, it'll come, but you know, it's like what are your priorities when you are jumping into a conversation over LinkedIn? So like, these are the three. Pillars that that can help you build a effective personal brand on LinkedIn. Love it. So the three specifics, the three Cs, and uh, providing value is kind of the, the, the crux of that. One thing I do wanna dive into here, and one of, I think it's around consistency piece that you mentioned. A question I get a lot is how often should I post on LinkedIn? What would be your answer to that? Yeah. The, the million dollar question. Yeah. All the question, every single conversation again, I, I, I answer on two steps. Step number one, again, it's, it's an investment of time and effort, so it's up to you totally. How far, how much. Investment. Can you put on that platform? This is on one side. On the other side. Technically, I would say usually it's to be effective on LinkedIn to be visible, to be seen. It's between three to five posts per week at least. So that, you know, algorithm realises that you start gaining like. LinkedIn is, is, is a generous platform that still gives you free organic reach, but you, you need to do your homework. You need to be visible, you need to create content and get rewarded with, with organic reach. But if you just show up once a week or once a month, do not expect, you know, lots of generosity from the platform because you are not helping even the platform itself. Hmm. That's really good advice. Thank you. And one other thing I wanted to touch on, I mean, you've got 32,000 followers plus on LinkedIn, that's huge. But obviously that didn't happen overnight. How long did it take you to reach that point, and when did you really start to see, I guess, a bit of an uptick in following? Well, uh, honestly, currently, if you compare numbers, it, it's not huge anymore because there are lots of, let's say, creators or professionals with, with larger number. Huge, um, far, far beyond this number, but I always say number is just only a matric. I mean, the value behind the number is what I, I really see. Is this number really targeted? This is really my target audience or not. This is what makes more priority to, to me personally, but, uh. To answer your question, it's a long journey. This number, uh, started or this journey starts back in 2009, so I would say like 16 years to gain this number. While currently you can reach bigger number in a shorter time because the platform has been revamped like two, two or three times. Back in 2009, it was something where people post resumes and, and get jobs, and then it was acquired by Microsoft and totally revamped and, and so on. So, yeah, 32 or almost 33,000 over a journey of 16 years. Wow. That's when you said 2009 and then you said that 16 years ago. I'm like, no, it isn't. Not that old. So that's some really good insights there and I get, you've touched again on something that I know... bamboozles, a lot of people is kind of the algorithms behind a lot of any social media platform, right? Not just LinkedIn, but any social media platform where it, you know, it boosts depending on how often you post and what you post and engagement on the post and all those sorts of things. One thing I've really noticed coming into LinkedIn in the last little while is more videos, uh, very much that. Short, I guess almost TikTok style video. Um, what have you heard about video on LinkedIn? You know, is it going to be ranked higher? Is it worth doing? Uh, because it does seem like just another lot of investment as you say that you need to do to create content. I. Well, video was, especially the res, the short, vertical video was really on fire last year. Okay. Especially like Q3 and Q4 and LinkedIn as a company, as a platform was pushing a lot. Everyone, I think they just realized, you know, in, in late 2024 that internet and social media is about ... they just realised that quite late after TikTok, Instagram after, after anyone everyone discovered that they, they just arrived too, too late and they're. Pushing extremely hard, but all the reports, even my humble experiments say that reels are not getting that much of organic reach as it used to be. In the, in the, uh, last quarters. Still important. Still one of the best content formats, but it's not on fire as it used to be. Uh, in towards the end of 2024. In my humble opinion, my experience and also lots of expert reports, say, LinkedIn, is a place where people mostly come to learn or, or network, which means educational content in the form, especially like carousels, uh, even still text posts, articles. This is where people come to LinkedIn. People usually don't come to LinkedIn for reels,, even if they are educational. So if you compare, I would say, let's say reels versus carousels,, they're almost equal currently. Yeah. That's really interesting. Thank you. And it, uh, gives me some faith that I don't have to go creating videos anytime soon. I have one last question for you on LinkedIn, fady. Um, we all know ai, artificial intelligence is a part of our worlds now. I've been seeing things popping up all over LinkedIn, you know, that feel like a robot's written them because they probably have. But how could we use the power of AI to help us to use LinkedIn more effectively? Again, that's the $10 million question. Thank you for that. Okay, so I, I would answer on two steps. Step number one is the, the bigger picture. Always remember if, if you are building a professional personal brand, after all, LinkedIn is still a social network, which means the algorithm owns it. So you should always keep in mind what we call the owned lands versus rented lands. LinkedIn is a rented land, so the triangle of a... professional person, brand, at least the starting point. I always say it's LinkedIn, where quickly you gain momentum, but you de platform users towards your own land. It can be like a blog and a newsletter. So LinkedIn blog and newsletter, just like for the sake of example. So if you have this in mind, number one, AI is is really massively impressive to design a business model for you. You know, to craft the whole thing. What type of content pillars should you use on each platform so that it's like a system? Ai. One of the best things that I use AI for is to build systems where content creates momentum, it generates opportunities. So it's not only about creating content, but creating the business ecosystem around it. And then comes, I don't say content creation, but content ideation, ai, it's, it's massive to give you, you know, those three specifics. If it understand, if you feed in the right inputs for the, the machine and you, you make it understand the three specifics it can generate amazing strategy and ideas, but creating, I use it usually for ideation and fine tuning for content creation. It should be, as you said, authentic. It should be like my own story, my own narrative. But the idea, the original thing can be from ai and the final fine tuning, whether it's a video carousel or even a text post, can be with ai. So it's like a, let's call it the AI sandwich, like the there, but. You know, the mi the middle is very human, but you know, the, those two layers on the sites can be AI supported. I like that. Uh, the idea of the AI sandwich, and I think, again, you've touched on one of the things that people often talk to me about, and I'm sure you as well, is I don't know what to say. Well, as you just said, AI is there to help you come up with ideas. So to your point earlier around the three specifics, if you know who you're talking to, what's a problem... that they need solved that you can help them solve. Use that as a prompt in chat GPT or Google Gemini or whatever it is you are using, and ask it to come up with 20 content ideas or tech know subtopics or something you can talk about. I think, um, you can use it to make your life easier. I often do you think that people forget that, um. But again, you know, there is that other side of it where, as you said, you, the human part is missing. We're seeing bots that are obviously, or people that are obviously just sort of copy and pasting content that. A bot has designed in relation to the post that you've just done. And I think some of the telltale signs for me are things like they've just paraphrased exactly what I just said in that post. Uh, they've probably used a word like leverage or journey, or, or, I'm thrilled! You know, that type of thrilled. I'm so thrilled. I'm always thrilled. I must be a very heightened state of anxiety to be like that. Um, thanks Fady. So thank you so much. I've got three questions that I ask every guest on the podcast. You ready for those? Let's go. Let's do it. What is one of the best communication lessons you ever learned, and how did it change the way you approach communication? Uh, I think also the, the three Cs, another three Cs, which is consistent communications with clarity. I think that makes lots of difference in any context. If you apply these threes, like for internal comms, makes the whole theme aligned towards, you know, certain goal. If it's like a marketing or let's say client communications, it, it draws a bigger picture and a clear vision about the value that you are offering. So whenever you're communicating, if it's like consistent. And clear. It dissolves lots of problems that might happen along the way if, if you don't follow the, the concept. I love that. And clarity is certainly something I think most decent, uh, communicators preach because when you don't have clarity, you have miscommunication and that leads to all sorts of interpersonal issues a lot of the time within a workplace. Sometimes ai, you know, is a problem with clarity. If you, you create lots of content using ai, sometimes, this is one of the things, if you don't focus clearly or if, if you don't, you know, keep an eye on it. AI can harm your, your clarity of communication. So that, that's, that's one of the drawbacks of relying a hundred percent on content creation with, with ai, with all the jargons as you said, or complicated terms or irrelevant things. So when it comes to clarity, use AI with caution. Yeah, that's a very good point actually. Uh, next question. What's one thing you wish people would do more of or less of when communicating? Uh, I. I think back again to the idea of consistency because communication is a magical tool, you know, when it comes to human psychology. But usually we, we focus on, on communications. Whenever we need something, we, we need to, there is a crisis or we need to deliver a message to the employees or we need to sell something. So it's just like a magical wand that we just. Upon request we use. But if you have the mindset of a communicator, which is like a lifestyle, you know, it's something that's ongoing. I think if, if everyone does more of clear communications, it changes a lot our, our businesses and our lives and, uh, less. I would say less jargon. Jargon with all. Mm-hmm. What, what, what it means, you know, complications using, uh, keep it simple. I, I love this, this idea, and I always preach it, which is the, the case. Keep it super simple. Keep it super short. Keep it super, sorry. Keep it super stupid. Sometimes I, I preach stupid means. Like very trivial that anyone can, can understand. Sometimes as professional communicators or or business leaders, we tend to use like, you know, those big words and you know, in fancy meetings on stage. So if we use less of that, I think that that would bring more value. Love it. Thank you. And last question, who do you turn to for communication advice? Uh. Well, I would very clearly say any, uh, any friends within the IABC community, because I have to say it, it's one of the best, if not the best communities for really highly qualified, friendly, willing to help communicators. And I have, I, I can write also books, uh, from, from, from different perspectives with different people in the IC community. So I think that's the first thing that comes to my mind. Yeah, I think those professional networks, uh, if you're not part of one, you really should be apart from the fact that, you know, as we say, it's building that network. Uh, but it's the opportunity to learn from other people from all over the world. Like, I'm learning from you right now and you're in Egypt, and I'm in Brisbane. Like, you know, that's amazing. I love the fact that we can do that, which is really cool. So, Fady, if people want to get in touch with you or learn more about you, where can they find you? How can they find you? So obviously LinkedIn, just search for Fady Ramzy or my Humble website, which is also Fady Ramzy, which is fadyramzy.com these are the two best places that I'm always there. Fantastic, and we'll put those links in the show notes as well. Fady, thank you so much for your time on Less Chatter, More Matter. Thank you. It was a pleasure.