Last updated: August 2026
LinkedIn for building products sales professionals. Part 5 of 8.
I post more than I comment. That is the honest truth, and I am not going to pretend I have a perfect routine when I do not. If I spend my time on the front end of LinkedIn, reading posts and leaving comments, I get pulled in. And the work that earns the fee happens on the back end: calling candidates, speaking to clients, actually selling. Every salesperson in building products faces the same tension. Commenting has real value, but your job is not to be a LinkedIn personality. Your job is to sell.
The short answer
Comment where it counts and keep it contained. Join discussions involving people and issues in your market, add something only someone doing your job would know, and set a firm time limit so the feed does not eat your morning. That is the whole method. Everything below is how to make each of those three decisions well.
Choosing a discussion worth joining
Most of the feed is not for you, so be deliberate about where you comment. The filter I use is simple: is this directly relevant to my market, and do I have something real to add? If the answer to either is no, I keep scrolling. Before you comment, it is worth a quick check on four things. Is the topic relevant to the people you sell to? Do you actually know something about it, or would you be performing? Is there relationship value in being seen in that conversation? And is a public comment the right move, or would a private message or silence serve better? A comment that fails those checks is noise, and noise does not help you.
What a useful comment adds
Most comments on LinkedIn are filler. "Great post." "Well said." "Thanks for sharing." They are the equivalent of a nod in a meeting. They are not a waste for the person who posted, because they lift engagement, but they do nothing for you. A comment that works for both of you adds something: an opinion, a relevant experience, or a real question that shows you read the post and have a view on it.
The shape that works is simple: name the specific thing you have actually seen, then what it means for a defined audience. On an architect's post about a cladding project, that might be a line linking a recent compliance change to what you are watching specifiers do about it. Two sentences that show you know the market beat a paragraph of praise. You do not need an essay. You need to sound like someone who does the work, because you do.
One thing to correct from the old version of this page. A public comment is visible inside that discussion and may get wider distribution, but it is not guaranteed to appear in front of the post author's entire network. Comment because it is a genuine, relevant contribution, not because you are banking on a distribution promise.
The ten-minute habit I recommend
I will be upfront: I do not follow this consistently, and I should. So take it as a boundary I recommend rather than a system I have perfected.
Open LinkedIn. Scroll for ten minutes. Look for posts from people in your market: architects, builders, specifiers, clients, industry associations, trade publications. Leave two or three genuine comments on things that are actually relevant. Then close the app and get back to the phones.
Ten minutes is a sensible starting boundary, not a proven threshold. And frequency should follow the material, not a quota. If there is nothing relevant worth commenting on that day, do not manufacture a comment to hit a number. The mistake is treating LinkedIn as a destination. Use it, get what you need, and leave.
Who to engage with, and my line on competitors
Be deliberate about whose posts you comment on.
Clients and prospects are the highest-value place to be visible. A thoughtful comment on a GM's post registers with them and with their network, quietly and professionally. Industry voices are next: trade publications, HIA, Master Builders, architecture and design practices. Their comment sections are full of your market, and being useful there positions you as engaged with the industry rather than just selling into it. Candidates and peers matter too, and for salespeople, engaging with reps in adjacent, non-competing categories can build referral relationships over time.
Competitors are where I have a personal line, and I want to be clear it is my judgement, not a rule for everyone. I try not to engage publicly with direct competitors, because every time you comment on their post you help their content reach more people, including your clients. I still watch what they do privately, for ideas and to spot where I think they are getting it wrong. Some people will disagree with that, and in adjacent product categories the calculation may be different. Make your own call.
Use the feed for intelligence, but verify it
Ten minutes in the feed is also ten minutes of market awareness. LinkedIn activity and messages show you what people in your market are doing: a project coming up, a competitor move, a code change, a hiring signal. Sometimes you will spot a chance to offer someone genuinely useful help, which is worth taking. Just treat what you see as a lead, not a fact. Verify a project, a competitor rumour or a hiring signal before you let it shape a sales decision.
Track it honestly
If you want to know whether commenting is working, keep the events separate. Note the discussion you joined, any profile visit or direct conversation that followed, and any business outcome, without assuming the comment caused it. Someone seeing your comment, visiting your profile, remembering your name, starting a conversation and buying are five different things. They arrive at different times, if they arrive at all, and stacking them into one causal story is how you end up believing a comment did more than it did.
Quick checklist
1. Comment only where the topic is relevant to your market and you have something real to add.
2. Make comments that add an opinion, an experience or a genuine question. Not "Great post."
3. Set a ten-minute boundary, comment on two or three things, then close the app.
4. Prioritise clients, prospects and industry voices.
5. Decide your own position on engaging with competitors.
6. Treat market signals in the feed as leads to verify, not facts.
7. Keep seeing, visiting, remembering, talking and buying as separate outcomes.
Where these facts come from
- The description of a useful comment is generic guidance on the shape of a good contribution. It is not a specific comment I have posted or a specific project.
- My admission that I post more than I comment, the ten-minute boundary, my competitor position and the market-awareness benefit are my own practice and opinions as a recruiter in this niche, not tested systems or performance claims.
- The point about comment distribution is a correction to the old page: a public comment is visible in the discussion and may get wider reach, but is not guaranteed to reach the author's whole network.
If you want to apply this across your own market, the LinkedIn guide for sales reps walks through the full series.
Cheers,
James
I'm a specialist recruiter for the building products industry. James Bowesman runs Specified Select, a boutique recruitment consultancy based in Melbourne.
If you're a sales professional in building products thinking about your next move, or a hiring manager looking to build your team, get in touch at james@specifiedselect.com
This is Part 5 of an 8-part series on LinkedIn for Building Products Sales Professionals. Part 1: Clean Up Your Network | Part 2: Your Profile Should Sell You Twice | Part 3: What to Post and What to Stop Posting | Part 4: The Phone Still Wins | Part 5: Stop Broadcasting, Start Engaging | Part 6: When to Take It Offline | Part 7: LinkedIn for Job Seekers | Part 8: After You Accept a New Sales Role