Why Your First Post Matters More Than Your Perfect Plan with Razane Boustany of HiiL
In this episode, Emily Jean sits down with Razane Boustany - a justice sector advisor, project manager, and emerging LinkedIn voice - to talk about what it really looks like to build a meaningful online presence without a perfect plan. This is a conversation about courage, consistency, and why showing up as yourself still matters more than chasing the algorithm.
Razane shares how she started posting on LinkedIn with zero strategy, what her first post taught her about fear and visibility, and why the best opportunities often come from honest content, not polished performance.
Highlights:
Why Razane started posting on LinkedIn even though she was never a "social media person"
The fear behind hitting publish on that very first post
What authenticity actually means - beyond the buzzword
Why personal storytelling works best when it includes a real takeaway
The fine line between human content and oversharing
How she shares lessons from the justice sector in a way people can actually connect with
The surprising support she received from colleagues and her network
Why growth came from priorities, planning, and repetition - not hacks
The deleted post lesson every creator needs to hear
The DM that proved you never know who needs your message
Why "too busy" is usually a priorities question
How good systems make content sustainable alongside a full-time job and an MBA
If you’re trying to build a brand, a career, or a body of work while balancing a full life, this episode is a reminder that you do not need a perfect content strategy to start. You need a point of view, a willingness to be seen, and a system you can actually sustain.
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This episode wouldn’t happen without Rita Williams, our producer, coordinator, and virtual assistant. If you want someone sharp and reliable in your corner, connect with Rita: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rita-williams-smma/
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Follow Razane Boustany - HiiL: https://lb.linkedin.com/in/razane-boustany-629245113 https://www.hiil.org/team/razane-boustany/
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Keywords: LinkedIn content strategy, LinkedIn storytelling, authentic content, authenticity on LinkedIn, personal branding, LinkedIn growth, first LinkedIn post, content consistency, creator habits, thought leadership, women in business, female founders, startup mindset, entrepreneurial growth, career visibility, online presence, sustainable content creation, content systems, content planning, professional storytelling, personal brand for professionals, busy professionals creating content, posting with a full-time job, MBA balance, networking on LinkedIn, audience connection, creator confidence, imposter syndrome, human-first marketing, business storytelling, professional growth, career advice, community building, meaningful DMs, authentic networking, visibility online, sharing your voice, recent grad career advice, women in leadership, justice sector, people-centered justice, content without burnout, authenticity vs perfection, storytelling with lessons, building credibility online, creator journey, social media for professionals, LinkedIn tips, content accountability, Emily Jean podcast, Founders in Jeans, Razane Boustany, business podcast for women, practical career advice, founder mindset, content habits, professional influence, growth through consistency
Transcript:
Razane Boustany (00:00)
I'm going to say something that maybe people won't like, but for me, I don't really believe in what we call too
Razane Boustany (00:07)
I was like, who am I to post things? And I started like asking all these questions, like, will people even care what I have to
Razane Boustany (00:15)
you really never know who is there waiting to hear a message you have to
Emily Jean (00:20)
Do you think that it's, authenticity performs better than like a perfect, perfectly planned post.
Razane Boustany (00:28)
I
Emily Jean (00:32)
welcome to or welcome back to Founders in Jeans. I'm your host, Emily Jean. And before we get into the episode, I just want to say a huge thank you so much for listening to my podcast. It means the world to me.
I also wanted to say that if you enjoy the show, feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening to this, and also to follow us. You can follow us on Spotify, of course. You can follow us on Instagram at Founders in Jeans You can also find me on Instagram at Emily.Jeans.
or you can look me up on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect with people on there and I have a lot of good conversations from listeners. Also, you can always leave a bad review for us. I'm totally fine with that. And in fact, I think that's exciting. I would love to know what we can do to improve. So you can also leave comments below and let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy. I actually do read every single one.
We also have a newsletter that comes out once a week so you can get all the updates from us. also put in
some weekly business and marketing updates in there, as well as some personal notes from me. You can subscribe to that on my LinkedIn, also through the Instagram and in the show notes below. Anyways, that is all from me. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. I hope it's a good one and I'll chat to you soon. Bye.
Emily Jean (02:05)
Razane Boustany welcome to Founders in Jeans I am so excited to chat to you today.
For people who don't know you, why don't you give me a little bit of a background by yourself?
Razane Boustany (02:20)
Yes, hi Emily. First of all, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. So who I am, ⁓ I work as a justice sector advisor and project manager in the justice sector. And ⁓ basically I started also another journey in parallel. I started writing on LinkedIn five months ago and that's it. That's me.
Emily Jean (02:41)
Perfect, I love that. So I know that you have a very demanding full-time role in the justice sector. my gosh, in the justice sector. What made you even start posting on LinkedIn?
Razane Boustany (02:56)
Yeah, I really like this question actually, because a lot of my colleagues or friends also have asked me this. And for me, was really just, I felt the need to share a bit more about things I learned, things I knew, my life experience. And I was looking for ways to do that. And I felt like LinkedIn was the right place to do that.
⁓ something my friends always say about me, I'm really not a social media person. so if you check my other social media, you will barely see any posts, but I felt like LinkedIn was like the right place because it's really for me, I think it's a learning platform and it felt like the right place to share some learnings or some stuff to hopefully help others or inspire others.
Emily Jean (03:41)
I love that. think that for a lot of people who are not big social media people, LinkedIn is the perfect kind of starter platform, if you will. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So then I guess I'm curious for you, when you were going into LinkedIn, did you kind of have a big plan of growth and connection or was it more of just like a experiment at first?
Razane Boustany (04:09)
To be very honest, I had zero plan, really. Like I remember I just told myself, I just want to do it. I had no plans, no strategy. Also, I'm not someone doing this full time. So it was really a side thing. So I really had no strategy. And I just said, I'm just going to do it, the first post and then see where it gets me. That's it.
Emily Jean (04:12)
Okay.
Yeah,
yeah, I love that. So that very first post you shared then, what I guess was the feeling like? How did it perform? I think for people who are thinking about starting posting on content on LinkedIn, it's good for them to hear, you know, what were the first steps.
Razane Boustany (04:51)
Yeah, I think that first post will always be kind of my favorite post because I remember the exact moment I got the idea of the post and when I posted it, so I remember it was a Sunday, I got the idea of the post and then I said, whatever happens, I'm posting it on Monday. And it felt scary.
Emily Jean (04:56)
Mm.
Razane Boustany (05:10)
to be very honest, because I was like, who am I to post things? And I started like asking all these questions, like, will people even care what I have to say? But then I told myself, I mean, if I don't try, I will never know. So I said, whatever happens, even if I hesitate so much, I will just post it and see what happens. And actually that post was really about me announcing to the world that I will start posting on LinkedIn. And I felt like I needed to do that.
to kind of hold myself accountable, to push myself to do it after that first pose. So it was like kind of my small strategy to push myself to do it even after that pose. And how did it perform? To be honest, it performed really well. Like I didn't expect it at all. I mean, really well for my standards, but a lot of people like reacted to it, like from, course, my close network.
Emily Jean (05:53)
Really?
Razane Boustany (06:03)
And I received even messages in DM saying, it's great that you're starting this. And then I was like, wow, I had all these questions and fears in my head, but actually it turned out to be really okay. So yeah, it was, it was a nice experience to be honest, that first post.
Emily Jean (06:18)
Yeah, I love that. And I've seen you talk a lot about authenticity on your LinkedIn. What I think that's a bit of a buzzword for people. What do you think that actually means when creating content?
Razane Boustany (06:31)
Yeah, I mean for me I would say it's I see it as two different things. So the first one is like sharing what's real. I know it's a bit cliche to say sharing what's real but for me it's sharing things as they are like the good and the less good because I feel on on social media in general
we see a lot of successes and people did a lot of things and people achieved a lot of things which can make other people feel like, wow, I'm not doing enough. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. But actually, when you see also the behind the scenes, everything that happens to get to be a successful person, for example, or if you ⁓ got a really nice job, how what happened before you get this really nice job. So for me, it's really about showing
everything, like really the good that people like look up to, but also the very difficult part that got you somewhere. And this is what will help people feel like they're not alone and will help them like learn from your experience. So for me, that's one side, but also the other one is more internal. So for me, when I talk about authenticity, it means also my content reflects really who I am as a person.
Regardless of what the algorithm wants and what works, for example, on LinkedIn, for me, it's really always staying true to where I am. I only write about things I believe in, things I like. So for me, that's also authenticity. So it's not only what you share with the world, but also if it's true to you as well. So for me, it's these two sides, let's say.
Emily Jean (08:13)
Right. Do you think that it's, I've seen a lot of posts about this on LinkedIn about that authenticity performs better than like a perfect, perfectly planned post. Do you think that's true?
Razane Boustany (08:27)
I think so, to a certain extent, think so because I've also seen it now that I've been for, I mean, a while, like five months. So I know more than I knew before I started posting. Yeah. I think it was to a certain extent it's true and it's very simple because at the end people are reading the content of people. and I mean, people feel things and feel when things are authentic. And this is why I think, yeah, it tends to perform better. but it's not, I would say on LinkedIn, there's no.
general
rule, like if you post something authentic, it will do really well. If you don't, I've seen, for example, some posts filled with value. Really, I think that happened like a week ago. I was going through my feed and I read the post that I really liked. was like, wow, like I learned so much from that post and it really had barely a couple of likes. So I think there's no general rule, but of course I would say
There's a tendency for authentic content to perform better because people connect with it at the end.
Emily Jean (09:25)
Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's hard to come up with hard and fast rules ⁓ for any social media platform. yeah. So I think when a lot of people hear LinkedIn out, they still think it's kind of got this corporate voice. Do you think that is still true or do you think LinkedIn is finally ready for more personal slash human storytelling?
Razane Boustany (09:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, I definitely think it's more ready than before because I've seen the change in the five months I've been on the platform. I remember when I first started what, let's say used to perform well doesn't really anymore. And now it's really leaning towards more storytelling, real stories, real struggles and so on. But I always tell myself and I always say, I feel there's a really fine line between like, because at the end, as I said at the beginning,
For me, LinkedIn is a learning platform. And so as long as personal stories are linked to some learning, I think that's what the platform wants most. It's not just personal to be personal. Now, of course, there is some content that is purely personal and really resonates well, but in general, it's really something where you have some learning or some challenging ideas. So there's something behind it it's just not just like...
your diaries where you're just sharing what you ate for lunch, for example. So that's for me the fine line between the personal and the more, let's say, what we call corporate.
Emily Jean (11:00)
Right. So then bringing your justice, your justice sector work into LinkedIn, how do you kind of decide what lessons or reflections you bring into that world?
Razane Boustany (11:15)
Yep.
So for me, I, so initially, to be honest, when I started posting on LinkedIn, my idea was to post things that are not linked to my job, but I ended up ⁓ posting a couple of times about my job for a very simple reason, because I feel a lot of organizations are doing really great job, but no one knows about it. And I believe that for the organization I work for, so we work on people centered justice. And I remember the first time I shared something about my job.
In the comments, a lot of people were saying like, wow, we didn't know this even existed. And it made me think like there's really so much happening behind the scenes in some organizations or companies that a lot of people don't know about. So this is what pushed me to share about it. And to answer your question, what do I decide what to share? Usually I share more stuff that I work on that I would like the other people in my network to know about.
or more about people-centered justice in general, so people know more about this concept. So this is in general what I share about from my job.
Emily Jean (12:25)
Yeah. And you said before earlier that your colleagues were reacting to your post in the very beginning. Do they still react to your posts? And is it in a good way or is it in a surprising way? What's kind of the interpretation of that posting?
Razane Boustany (12:42)
Yeah, I am lucky to have really nice colleagues. mean, of course, not all of them react to my posts, but I mean, many of them do. And even some of them sent me DMs saying like, we've been following your content. It's really nice. Good job. Keep going. Some others don't react. But for example, when I bump into them in the office, they say something about it. in general, yeah. ⁓
my colleagues have been supportive of that and I feel like really grateful for that. Yeah, yeah, I was maybe I would say I wouldn't expect my colleagues to react, but they actually some of them do and I think that's really nice.
Emily Jean (13:21)
Right. So you've obviously had a lot of growth on LinkedIn very quickly from zero really to a big impact within just five months. What do you think has been the biggest factor behind that growth?
Razane Boustany (13:35)
I will say again something I said before, but I really believe being true to yourself is definitely one thing because people feel that through your pose. But also if I want to be completely fair, making this a priority next to my job, putting a lot of time into that because it is very time consuming. I have like
Emily Jean (13:53)
you
Razane Boustany (13:59)
crazy rhythm. My days are like literally crazy between my full-time job this and I'm doing an MBA next to that. So it's really putting in the time because this requires time. And also I would say, because I talk a lot about it in my posts, ⁓ also good systems and good planning because without good planning, it's very difficult to remain consistent on the platform.
Emily Jean (14:22)
Right,
Emily Jean (14:23)
Okay, have you ever deleted a post on LinkedIn?
Razane Boustany (14:30)
Yeah, that's actually a very good one because I was really thinking about this around a week ago.
And I was listening also to a podcast where the person was saying whether you should delete or not a post that doesn't perform well. And actually it happened with me at the start of my journey. So this is, feel always when at the start of the journey, we're really chasing the numbers and we're really stressed if no one interacts with our posts. So I remember like after
maybe half an hour, had maybe two likes and no comments. And I felt like, okay, this is not doing well. No one's reading it or people reading it are not really liking it. So I deleted it. And actually I posted this same exact post that I had deleted maybe a month later. It didn't perform extremely well, but it performed okay. And this has really taught me something. And I hope it can help people who think about deleting posts that sometimes some posts get...
get traction really after maybe an hour or two. It's not always, of course, the beginning always helps, but this really taught me that, yeah, just give it time. Like I feel like I didn't even give it time to see if it performed well ⁓ or not. And after that, yeah, I deleted maybe once. So in total, I deleted two posts, I think.
But after these two experiences, I decided to not delete anymore. Like now, if you go to my profile, you have posts that performed really well and some that didn't necessarily. And I think it's part of the journey at the end. Like even if posts don't do well, and I think like for everyone, happens even for really big creators. Sometimes they get posts that do less good than their usual posts. And I think that's perfectly okay. I...
I told myself this like a week ago because I link it also to authenticity. If I always speak about being authentic, also keeping posts that don't perform that well is part of it. So yeah, that's a bit my experience with that.
Emily Jean (16:36)
Got it, I love that. I am curious then as well, has there been like a best message or a DM that you've received from your content?
Razane Boustany (16:49)
Can I say two? I know you asked for one, but can I mention two? First of all, think it's super sweet of people to take the time to write a DM because I feel that's the next level. It's not commenting, it's not reposting, it's not liking a post, but it's really taking the time to tell you something specific. And for me, there are two that really, really stayed with me.
Emily Jean (16:55)
No, of course, of course.
Razane Boustany (17:18)
There's one I received, I think around a month ago, I was chatting with someone in the DMs. And the person told me that one of my posts really inspired her and helped her understand something during a really big change in her, was going through. And that post was really one of my very first posts. And for me, I remember when I posted this, said, yeah, I mean, I mean.
I really liked the post, but then after I posted it, I thought like, okay, it didn't perform that well. But then when this person told me this, I was like, wow, and this was a post that, like she sent me the message, I think three or four months after. And it really, really, it really made my day because I felt like you really never know who is there waiting to hear a message you have to say. Like really, that was an amazing DM I received.
And the second one, actually I received, think yesterday or two days ago, ⁓ of someone who was telling me that they liked my content, but that's not the part I want to talk about. It's really more, she said something very interesting. She said, I can see your personality through your posts. And she started listing because I don't know this person. I've never spoken to her. So she, she had been following my content and then she, told me a couple of things about my personality. And I was like, wow, like it's as if she knows me.
And she said, I feel this through your pose. And for me, that's amazing because when people can feel your personality through your pose, it means you're being true to yourself. And that's like just for me, it's just amazing. So these two were my favorite.
Emily Jean (18:59)
Is there such good feedback to receive too? What do you say to people who feel like they are too busy to post or share their ideas online?
Razane Boustany (19:12)
Yeah, I'm going to say something that maybe people won't like, but for me, I don't really believe in what we call too busy. I really believe in priorities. So for me, I always ask myself, is this a priority for me or not? If it's a priority, I will find time for it. If it's not, I won't. And it's perfectly okay if it's not a priority. But usually when people, of course, have
full-time jobs, there may be parents, I don't know, they do things on the site. I totally understand, but it just means it's not that they don't have time, but maybe they prefer to put that time into something else. So for me, I always ask myself, is this a priority or not? And then if it is a priority, we don't need to really run. mean, we can start with a small step, let's say starting to post one time a week, let's say, and then
Emily Jean (19:51)
Mm-hmm.
Razane Boustany (20:08)
with time we see how this, if this is working or not and then maybe we can increase to two times but maybe if it's a priority there's always a way to start even like very small and then build up over time.
Emily Jean (20:22)
That's what I was going to ask you is, do you have like a habit or a daily ritual that keeps you consistent with posting?
Razane Boustany (20:31)
Yeah, I think I said it before. ⁓ I think good systems and good planning. ⁓ Yeah, I know it sounds maybe kind of a cliche, but that's very true because it's very time consuming. And if you don't have like a system in place or ⁓ good planning, I think it can become very, very tiring and it's not sustainable.
So to make it sustainable, it's very important to have a system place. For example, say I'm going to post, let's say three times a week. And then when am I writing my post? Is it on the same day or is it, for example, on the weekend? Is it the night before? So just have a bit of planning in mind to keep it consistent and sustainable.
Emily Jean (21:23)
Right, right, 100%. ⁓ So I'm curious for you, what are you most excited for about where your LinkedIn journey is heading next?
Razane Boustany (21:36)
⁓ I think the charm of a LinkedIn journey is that you never know what's going to come. Like one day you can wake up and have an amazing DM for an amazing opportunity. Or you can have a DM, not necessarily for an opportunity, but just someone telling you something really nice. So for me, what I'm really looking forward to is all the amazing connections I will make with people.
Was it just as an opportunity, like to build something together or to do something or simply like just to connect with people on a, on a human level. And that's really the part I love most about posting on LinkedIn, like the conversations that happen on your post, the conversations that happen in the end, but also meeting people. Like for example, I didn't know you, we meet now on this opportunity. I think it's just amazing to be, to have this, this way of meeting different people.
that you wouldn't have met if you didn't show up on a platform like LinkedIn.
Emily Jean (22:36)
Right, 100%, I completely agree. It's an amazing platform to build a community and to actually connect with people.
Razane Boustany (22:44)
Yeah, absolutely.
Emily Jean (22:45)
⁓ I don't want to take up too too much more of your time, so I want to do a couple of rapid fires with you before we wrap up. ⁓ My first one is, ⁓ is there a LinkedIn cliche that makes you cringe?
Razane Boustany (23:02)
a cliche, not really, because I feel like people should post whatever represents them. So no, there's just one thing that annoys me, which is when I have ⁓ comments on my posts that are fully AI generated. And that really, really bothers me. And sometimes they're completely disconnected from the content of the post. Like it has nothing to do with the post. That's really, really annoys me.
Emily Jean (23:13)
Mm.
Right, right, right. I totally get that.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Razane Boustany (23:30)
And I'm not easily annoyed by the way, like I need a lot to be annoyed, but this is one thing that I really don't like.
Emily Jean (23:35)
Yeah.
You get to,
totally. A friend told me the other day that she posted a post on LinkedIn about an event that she had hosted and multiple AI generated comments of people being like, thank you so much for having me there. And she was like, I have no idea who you are.
Razane Boustany (23:58)
Yeah, this is really like the type of content I really don't mind any type of content because people post whatever Feels good to them, but this really really annoys me
Emily Jean (24:06)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Okay, next question. Do you have a content idea you're dying to post but haven't yet?
Razane Boustany (24:17)
To be honest, no, nothing I could think of at the moment.
Emily Jean (24:23)
Okay,
all right. I like that honest answer. Last question for you. Do you have a book or resource or a course or anything like that that you can recommend for budding entrepreneurs or even people who are looking to post more on LinkedIn?
Razane Boustany (24:26)
Yes.
I would say, to be honest, it's not a specific book. think follow as much as possible people who are ahead of you in the game. I I learned a lot of the things I know today by just being curious, like just following people, like just going on LinkedIn and seeing people, let's say, who have not necessarily hundreds of thousands of followers, but maybe 20K followers, 40K, 5K, 10K. So follow...
different people who are ahead of you a bit, ⁓ maybe in the middle and maybe people who are way ahead of you in the game, because I think you can learn a lot from each of those people.
Emily Jean (25:15)
Mm-hmm.
Well, I completely agree with that. I think that is really good advice. It's always good to have a mentor and always good to have people in mind who are ahead of you. ⁓ Well, thank you so much for joining me. This has been such a good episode. I'm so excited for people to hear this, even though I know there's technical difficulties. That's just how it goes. But ⁓ where can people find you and where can they connect with you?
Razane Boustany (25:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, it happens.
Yeah, so people can find me on LinkedIn. This is the platform I'm on, but also in my DMs because as I mentioned, this is a part I really love about LinkedIn, like connecting with people I don't know who have something to share or they want to discuss something. So it's on my profile, my posts or my DMs.
Emily Jean (26:10)
Okay, perfect. And that'll all be linked in the show notes. But yeah, thank you so much for joining me. It's such a, like such a good episode. I'm so glad we got to do this.
Razane Boustany (26:21)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was really nice to have this, as we say, chill conversation. And yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity and for having me here.
Emily Jean (26:32)
And that is a wrap.
