How I’m Thinking About My Online Presence in 2026

As one year gives way to the next, many of us naturally start thinking about what we want to do differently. For me, that reflection has been less about resolutions and more about how I want to show up professionally online.

The past year was challenging, beyond challenging, for many of us. For those in my professional space, diplomacy and international development, the challenges were existential. We dealt with what I have been euphemistically calling “unexpected career pivots.”

As part of that upheaval, many of us found ourselves spending more time on professional platforms like LinkedIn than we ever expected. Not because we had a carefully thought-out plan to grow our networks or build a personal brand, but out of necessity. We were looking for work. For stability. For what came next.

With that as background, I keep coming back to a simple question: how do you plan on using LinkedIn in 2026?

For me, I will be using it differently.

In fact, I will be using it much like a recent conversation I had on LinkedIn. Yes, conversations can happen there. It is not only about posting updates or applying for jobs.

An only-thanks-to-LinkedIn friend of mine, Wayan Vota, posted about job hunting and LinkedIn. I commented. We went back and forth. Somewhere in that exchange, it clicked how much my own relationship with the platform had changed, and how intentionally I wanted to use it going forward.

Like many people, I used to treat LinkedIn as light résumé maintenance. An occasional profile update. A post here and there. Inconsistent engagement. Very much “I should probably do this,” and not at all “I have a plan.”

Then came the unexpected career pivot of 2025.

Suddenly, much of the international development community was right there on LinkedIn, navigating uncertainty and searching for what came next. I ramped up my presence, writing more, sharing ideas, trying to be useful, and showing a bit more of who I was professionally.

And then I stopped.

I stepped back from job searching, from posting, from regular engagement altogether.

It was what my family and I needed at the time. We moved to Portugal. We road-tripped across Europe with our animals. Life took precedence.

When I returned to LinkedIn later in 2025, it was not with a job-search plan. It was with something looser, but more intentional. I decided to put ideas and stories out into the world, not to perform, but to engage.

I stopped writing articles and dispensing advice. I started writing the way I talk.

About moving to Portugal. Learning from my wife. Food. Intentional living. Things that genuinely interested me.

The posts were not polished or strategic in the traditional sense, but they were honest.

That is when LinkedIn started to feel different.

As I wrote to Wayan when he asked what I was getting out of it, the real value shows up off-platform. The conversations, calls, emails, and introductions that start with something written online and turn into something human.

LinkedIn is not the end-all, be-all. But it is also not a necessary evil. It is a tool. And like any tool, it works best when you use it intentionally.

That is how I am thinking about it in 2026. A little more intention. On my own terms.

Less about being visible, and more about being deliberate in how and why I show up professionally online.