145: What happens when you FAFO on LinkedIn
What if “f*cking around and finding out” was exactly the mindset you needed to gain new traction in your business?
In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on my new FAFO (F*ck Around and Find Out) era—what sparked it, how it reshaped my marketing approach, and why I’m finally letting go of perfectionism. If you’re anything like me, you might’ve resisted LinkedIn for years. But once I finally leaned in, I saw real, measurable results.
I’m sharing what I recently tested, what flopped, and what surprisingly worked—breaking a few so-called “rules” along the way. You’ll hear about the posts that performed best, the mindset mantras that kept me moving forward, and how a challenge designed to “just try stuff” became one of my most energizing and profitable experiments yet. If you've been stalling, overthinking, or waiting for perfect timing, this episode is your permission slip to shake things up.
Topics We Cover in This Episode:
The anti-strategy that unlocked real results on LinkedIn
Why posting "imperfect" content can outperform polished ones
A challenge that got people excited about outreach and DMs again
Which LinkedIn “rules” I broke—and what happened when I did
The subtle mindset shift that kicked procrastination to the curb
How play and experimentation can beat pressure and paralysis
The surprising ripple effects of showing up imperfectly
What it really means to embrace your FAFO era in business
Ready to F-around and Find Out on LinkedIn? Join the challenge that sparked this whole shift—and get the workbook, mindset prompts, and access to the LinkedIn FAFO group. Head to www.kimkiel.com/fafo to jump in.
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[00:00:00] Hello. Hello my sweet friend and welcome to the Ill Communication Podcast. And just a quick note before we get into today's episode, I'm gonna be dropping the F-bomb a few times, so if there are ears that you don't wanna hear that, or you don't want anyone to overhear what you're listening to, then maybe take a second to pop some earbuds in, or cue this up for a time when you're on your own.
[00:01:17] Anyway into the episode, I don't know if it's the Gen Xer in me or the fact that I'm on the cusp of 50, but I've got a new approach to life and I'm calling it my FAFO era. I'm gonna fuck around and find out I'm taking this FAFO approach with my health and nutrition, with how I'm relating to certain family members.
[00:01:40] With trying new things or dealing with the demands of life, and it all started with me applying the F around and find out philosophy to my business specifically with LinkedIn. For years, I've had a nudge to be more active on LinkedIn. I've seen how others have grown on that platform, and I know my clients are on there.
[00:02:07] I also really don't love creating video or image centric content for Instagram, so I know I do well to find another channel for my business to generate connections and leads. Now, I've taken a few LinkedIn courses, I follow LinkedIn leaders, but I was never implementing what I learned. I was always procrastinating and never really giving it a good old college try.
[00:02:32] I just had the mentality that if I wasn't gonna do all the things they recommend, or if I wasn't gonna do it all perfectly, then why should I even bother? What a stupid way to sabotage my business. I often doubt progress over perfection and doing B minus work, but here I was not showing up on LinkedIn if I wasn't gonna be perfect.
[00:02:54] So when I got the idea to F around and find out on LinkedIn, I felt. Something shift. It released the pressure and perfection. It felt more playful and fun, and it gave me permission to experiment and see what the F happens at the beginning of April, I created the fuck around and find out LinkedIn challenge.
[00:03:20] It was a four week playbook. Based on some of the past trainings I've taken, and based on some conversations I had with Chatty GAKA chat GBT. Now, one of the biggest gaps for me on LinkedIn was that while I would randomly post or comment, I wasn't really reaching out and creating new connections, and I wasn't reaching out to start direct messages.
[00:03:44] Or conversations with those connections. So part of how I built the FAFO LinkedIn challenge was to push me beyond my comfort zone, get me out of my own little bubble, and actually building connections the first. Week of the workbook and the challenge was all about beefing up the foundations of my LinkedIn profile and making connections.
[00:04:11] It really wasn't about creating posts just yet, although I still kind of posted a little bit per my usual cadence. But, for the FAFO LinkedIn Challenge, week one really is about establishing great foundations. It's about beefing up your headline, you're about. Filling in some of those featured sections that I hadn't been filling out, and so this challenge gave me a little kick in the butt to go ahead and do some of those best practices.
[00:04:42] I. The second week spelled out a few types of posts to share, along with making connections and starting conversations. The third week focused on more strategic content for posts, along with making connections and starting conversations. And the fourth week had even more strategic selling kind of content with specific calls to action, along with, you guessed it, making connections and starting conversations.
[00:05:11] Uh, I was really loving how the FAFO challenge was building on itself week to week. It felt doable and fun. So back in early April, I threw it out to my email newsletter. I. And members of the Joy of Copy Club to join me in the fuck around and find out LinkedIn challenge. And I was surprised by how many people jumped into the challenge with me.
[00:05:37] It seems like this idea of effing around and finding out is a resonating I. Now each week with this little community that we created, I revealed the weekly to-do list and some of the content prompts and best practices that are shared inside the workbook. And every week I shared a guiding mindset mantra to help tackle some of the saboteurs and you know, the crappy beliefs that might come up and get in the way of acting and making progress.
[00:06:08] And I shared all of that with the caveat that we aren't aiming for perfection. We're truly effing around and finding out if you could only do one task that week, do that If you can do more, fabulous. I found that the FAFO challenge gave me just the right amount of guidance to. Push me to try new things to post without overthinking and to pay attention to the results.
[00:06:34] And this is where the finding out piece comes in. I started to see what kinds of posts got more engagement or comments. And to be honest, I was surprised by what I saw because a lot of my better performing posts broke a lot of the. Spoken and unspoken rules of LinkedIn. For example, I'll just share a few of the insights, from my top performing posts.
[00:07:00] My best performing post over that four week period was a very personal post. It was extremely short. There was no call to action it was a branded photo, like a, from a branding photo shoot, but it was a photo of me.
[00:07:17] The other posts that I shared that performed pretty well were typically longer. they weren't these short, sweet posts. They were a little bit longer, a lot more sort of value educational. One was a quote card that performed really well. Another one was kind of like a crappy carousel, but again, it was much longer.
[00:07:37] Very value, driven like educational content. And even in a couple of those, it included external links. Now, this is generally thought of as a no-no on LinkedIn and especially on Instagram, but because I was fucking around, I shared posts with external links in them, and some of those got very high levels of engagement.
[00:08:02] I wasn't penalized for having an external link in my post. And interestingly, the posts where I reposted other people's LinkedIn content, pointing them back to other posts on the platform pretty much bombed. I got the lowest views and engagement on those posts. That's not to say. These are the rules. You may not have the same results and I may not get those results again.
[00:08:30] But when you're effing around, you don't mind taking some of these risks. Some will pay off, some won't. And honestly, that's what marketing is. So I wanna share some of the results I saw doing the challenge. First of all, I posted more often before the challenge. I'd maybe post once per week, very rarely more than that.
[00:08:51] But through the challenge, I posted something. Whenever the inspiration hit, I didn't talk myself out of posting, which is what often happens. I averaged, you know, two to three posts per week, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. I also requested new connections and this was the biggest gap for me, on LinkedIn.
[00:09:12] I'd been on LinkedIn for like, gosh, probably a couple decades now, but my connections have hardly moved in the last few years, so this challenge inspired me to search and find ideal clients. And ideal partners to connect with them. And I also made sure I reached out in the dms to introduce myself and start real conversations.
[00:09:36] And as a result of number one and number two, I believe my content became more visible. I noticed a huge uptick in engagement in views. Very big uptick, and I'm sure it's because I was being active and connecting on the platform. All of those new connections were served, my posts and my content, and then as a result, LinkedIn shared more of my content to my audience because it was showing up as quality content.
[00:10:06] It was like a positive feedback loop. The FAFO challenge helped me get out of my own way, fucking around and finding out works for me because it calms my perfectionist brain and gets me into motion. And lastly, I saw real results, and I'm gonna share some of them with you right now. So in the month of April, I created 25 new connections with potential clients, leads or referral partners, collaborators.
[00:10:37] That's about five per week Now, admittedly that is not a lot, but it's a lot more than I was doing before, which was basically zero. Another challenge participant was connecting with around 25 people per week. She was really going in on this. I had, over 30 conversations and connections in the messenger in the, in the dms.
[00:11:00] Again, it's not a lot. They were pretty short sweet conversations, but 30 is a lot more than five to seven, which was my previous monthly average. I posted 14 to 15 times over the month, so it wasn't quite three times per week, but I still saw great results. I had a 65.6% increase in engagement, 38.2% increase in impressions.
[00:11:27] 27% increase in reach. it's a modest level of growth. One of the other challengers, she was seeing hundreds of percents of increase because she was posting more and some of the content that she was posting was really resonating. She's also the one who was reaching out with like 20.
[00:11:44] To 25 new connections. So you can see it's kind of like this snowball effect. The more you do, the better the results you get. The more feedback you get, the more momentum you have, the more likely you are to keep posting and reaching out and making connections. Some of the other wins was I had a couple of people.
[00:12:01] Make a point of introducing me to others, like they made connections for me, which was pretty exciting. And I booked a $3,000 client. Now, this was someone who has followed me for a while. We've been to local networking, events, and I can't draw a direct line from LinkedIn to her booking with me, but she did connect with me.
[00:12:23] During April during the challenge, and I'm kind of thinking that perhaps this new energy that I was posting with could have reminded her about me and compelled her to finally reach out.
[00:12:36] Now one of the other, FFO challengers, the one who was doing incredible reach outs, she had multiple people booking discovery calls with her. She posted more frequently and posted content that was not over polished. She really embraced the spirit of fucking around and finding out, and it worked well for her.
[00:12:57] As for the other FAFO challengers, some folks followed along with the challenge. Some started and drifted off and others had life or other demands get in the way. But all have said they'll continue to use the workbook later in the year when they have time to focus on it. But what I've really, really loved about the FAFO challenge.
[00:13:18] And what my biggest win was is that I had fun fucking around and finding out is playful. And I think I need more of that in my business. And that's why I'm embracing and stepping into my fuck around and find out era I'm gonna be effing around and finding out and having more fun for the rest of the year.
[00:13:41] And if you want to join me. If you wanna fuck around in your business and find out what works and what doesn't, here are a couple of options. Number one, you can join the Joy of Copy Club. I've been welcoming new members every month this year. It is growing slowly and steadily, but it is honestly a beautiful community.
[00:14:03] We're really embracing this idea of effing around and finding out being less serious, but also using data and results to inform our next move. To check out the copy club, go to kim keel.com/copy club. I'm also very happy to hop on a call with you and give you a tour around. So just reach out to me. And.
[00:14:23] You can join the FAFO LinkedIn Challenge. It worked so well for me that I'm gonna keep f-ing around. If you wanna jump in with me, you can grab the workbook and join our LinkedIn AFO challenge group@kimkeel.com slash fa fo. It's 30 bucks to join the community and access the workbook and attend some of the random office hours I host, or it's free if you're a member of the Joy of Copy Club.
[00:14:51] But it's worth every penny because it gets you in motion, it gets you out of overthinking and perfection. And if it leads to a $3,000 client or a $30,000 contract, it is worth it. If 2025 so far has been feeling a little serious for you, I wanna encourage you to fuck shit up. Embrace the spirit of fucking around and finding out of having fun of releasing pressure of play.
[00:15:21] And if you wanna embrace your F around and find out era, I want you to join me. Bye for now.
Resources
F-around and Find Out on LinkedIN! Join the challenge
Join the Joy of Copy Club and embrace the FAFO philosophy in all your marketing and copywriting
Additional Resources
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