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Jun 5, 2026
34.000 LinkedIn Followers in 18 Months: The Strategy Psychologist Selina Hehl Swears By
Selina Hehl explains what psychology has to do with LinkedIn growth, why most people approach the platform the wrong way, and what actually makes people follow, read, and trust. It's about the psychology of LinkedIn success and what you need to understand about human psychology.
Most people think LinkedIn is a content platform. That's a bit like saying a book is made of paper and ink. Technically true. But it doesn't explain why some books change our lives and others don't. LinkedIn isn't just a content platform. It's a people platform that uses content as its medium. And that distinction matters. Because it points us to the single most important variable on LinkedIn: psychology. At the end of the day, LinkedIn is nothing more than a place where people meet people. And people follow psychological patterns.
About a year and a half ago, I started posting on LinkedIn from scratch. In that time it's grown into more than 33,000 followers, over 30 million impressions, and 300,000 interactions. Followed by countless national and international projects, from speaking engagements to long-term corporate partnerships with billion-dollar companies. And all of it purely organic. With content, consistency, deliberate behavior on the platform, and an understanding of how people actually work on LinkedIn.
If you want to understand LinkedIn, take the time to understand human psychology.
As a first step, here are 10 psychology basics that are crucial for success on LinkedIn, the ones I get asked about again and again.
1. You're conditioning people all the time, whether you want to or not.
Remember one basic human truth, one core need: people want to be seen. Probably more than they want to be informed. Behind every comment is a person who decided to give you their time. For your content. For you. The way you respond shapes that behavior. Respond, and you reinforce it (reward). Ignore it, and you weaken it (punishment). Reinforced behavior happens more often; punished behavior happens less. In psychology, we call this operant conditioning. That's why community management isn't politeness. It's psychology. Do you reply to your comments? Do you reply to your DMs?
And before anyone shouts "manipulation": no. Paul Watzlawick nailed it: you cannot not communicate. Every behavior affects others, even your silence. This isn't about manufacturing fake behavior. It's about deliberately showing real behavior. Are you happy about a comment, about a person who sees you? Then reply to them. Don't just think it.
2. The brain loves simplicity.
A lot of people write more complicated than they think. And think more complicated than they need to. They mistake complexity for intelligence. Psychologically, that's a fallacy. Because it's far harder to explain something complex so that anyone can understand it. People who've truly understood something can say it simply. On top of that: your brain wants to save energy, even if you're highly intelligent. Every decision, every judgment, every bit of processing costs cognitive resources. Daniel Kahneman draws the line between System 1 (fast, automatic, effortless) and System 2 (slow, effortful, deliberate). On LinkedIn, almost nobody is in System 2. People are sitting between two meetings, waiting for a train, or scrolling for a minute on their break. Their brain isn't looking for extra analytical work.
A lot of LinkedIn posts have three main ideas, four side topics, two caveats, and five messages. The reader has to figure out what the post is even about. The higher that cognitive load, the more likely people are to just keep scrolling. My tip: before you write, jot down one single core thesis. Not five. Not seven. One. It runs through the whole post, right down to the call-to-action question at the end. Your readers shouldn't have to spend a second wondering what the point was and why they should comment now. If they do, the cognitive cost is too high and you've lost most of them. The most successful posts on LinkedIn are rarely the ones with the most ideas. They're the ones with the clearest idea. Save complexity for your dissertation or your book. Not for a social media post of 500 words, max.
3. Reciprocity beats any growth strategy.
People carry a deeply rooted need for give-and-take. Robert Cialdini described reciprocity as one of the strongest principles of human behavior: whoever gives first triggers the urge in the other person to give something back. Usually completely unconsciously.
When someone invests time, helps, supports, or shows interest, a pull to return the favor kicks in. So: start commenting on other people's stuff. Congratulate them. Be genuinely happy for them. Step out of the me-me-me focus and look at what you can notice in others today. Give first, honestly and generously. It will come back to you.
4. Validation is a basic human need.
Every person wants to feel validated in their thoughts and experiences. We unconsciously look for information that supports what we already believe. In psychology, we call this confirmation bias. That's why posts create especially strong resonance when they put into words something people have long felt but couldn't articulate themselves. So don't just think about what you want to say. Think about what your audience secretly believes and maybe no one has said out loud yet. That's exactly what you say. Or you back it up so solidly that the reader walks away with even more validation.
5. People trust the familiar.
The more often we see something, the more familiar (and automatically more likeable!) it becomes. Robert Zajonc proved this as the mere-exposure effect: repeated exposure alone increases affection, with no conscious effort involved. For LinkedIn, this is crucial, because your posts only ever reach a tiny percentage of your following in the first place. Visibility isn't a state, it's a frequency. My rule of thumb: post at least three times a week. So you stay consistently visible and people come to perceive you more consciously and more positively. That's the only way to build real trust.
6. Negativity and positivity.
There's a reason most headlines are negative. Our brain reacts more strongly to threats than to beauty, because evolutionarily it was more important for survival to spot the danger than the flower by the path. "Bad is stronger than good" is how the research sums it up: negative things weigh more heavily, psychologically. That's why negative hooks tend to work better. I'd use them deliberately and be quite bold and provocative here. But careful: don't get stuck purely in criticizing and being hard.
You also need the second pole: warmth. Social psychology shows that we judge people on two dimensions: competence (is this person strong, capable?) and warmth (do they mean well by me?). Someone who only comes across as strong and polarizing can easily put people off. Someone who only comes across as warm seems too boring. Only the combination of the two makes you truly magnetic to people and turns you into a personality. So keep the balance.
7. Pushback is coming. Guaranteed.
My tip: meet unfounded pushback (as opposed to well-reasoned criticism), if you respond at all, with open questions and a pinch of humor. If you take the person on directly and start justifying yourself, you drop to their level and give them exactly the validation they're after. Respond with humor, with no counterattack on the substance, and you stand one level above them, intellectually. The person keeps flailing down below and realizes: they can't get to you.
The psychology behind it is simple. Justification signals: you got to me. Humor signals composure and intelligence. Here's a concrete example. Someone comments: "What you do is all just AI-stupid." Don't even start trying to justify yourself and prove the opposite. Reply briefly: "You've seen right through me. I'm actually not a human at all, I'm a robot. But please be a dear and don't tell anyone." And just like that, the wind is out of their sails and you've won.
8. Without emotion, nothing happens.
Remember the ground rule: feeling before content. Without feeling, no content gets through. The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio showed that people whose emotional brain regions are damaged can barely make decisions anymore, not even trivial ones. We are, as he puts it, not thinking machines that feel, but feeling machines that think. Highly activating emotions like awe, excitement, or even outrage are what drive reach. The decisive part of your post is above all the first three lines, your so-called hook. This is where you have to grab people emotionally, before anyone takes in a single piece of information.
A few possible ways to get there:
The antithesis: put two things side by side that don't seem to fit together, and create tension. ("I fired my biggest client. It was the best decision of the year.")
The touch: open with an honest, vulnerable moment that stirs something in the reader.c) The open loop: throw a question or a claim into the room whose resolution you simply have to keep reading for.
And there are plenty more options. The main thing is: use emotion!
9. Intelligence means understanding the context.
The psychological definition of intelligence isn't always doing the objectively or subjectively "best" thing. It's mainly this: grasping a context and flexibly adjusting to it, with your goal in mind. Personally, for example, I love video posts, it's my favorite format. Right now, though, they don't get much reach (that'll surely change again). It still wouldn't be intelligent to bet exclusively on video right now, just because I like it best.
LinkedIn changes constantly. Watch what works. And not just depending on where LinkedIn currently stands, but also on where you are in your own LinkedIn journey. Are you starting from scratch? Or do people already know you? That's also why there's no point in simply copying someone else's posts. What's intelligent in their context might be completely wrong in yours. Observe, reassess again and again, and adapt your formats. That's intelligent behavior in the context of LinkedIn.
10. Energy is contagious.
Emotions jump from person to person. In psychology, this is called emotional contagion. We unconsciously take on the mood of the person in front of us, through facial expressions, language, and tone. And yes, even if not in its original form, this applies to a degree on LinkedIn too. People sense whether you're acting out of excitement or out of desperation. They sense it in your words. Whether you stand behind LinkedIn with heaviness and pressure, or with lightness and joy.
So here's maybe my most important tip: build LinkedIn into your life so that it becomes a nice routine, not a chore you hate and want to tick off as fast as possible. Whenever I can, I block out an hour for LinkedIn in the morning, at home, at the airport, on the train, or in a café. With my favorite drink or a slice of cake. It's become my feel-good routine. And it's with exactly that energy that I step into the LinkedIn game.
Enjoy the journey, and good luck. LinkedIn can open doors you might not even imagine today. Lean into it with curiosity. And feel free to message me on LinkedIn (@Selina Hehl) if you have questions or want more tips.
