Want to learn how to get more connections on LinkedIn?
If so you are in the right place, as today I'm going to share five avenues with you, that you
can follow to increase your LinkedIn connections.
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Today we're going to talk about connections on LinkedIn, how they differ
from followers and what you can do to get more connections on your account.
Make sure you watch this video until the very end, because as a bonus, I'm going to share
message templates with you, that you can use when sending out your connection requests.
Some people believe that you should only accept connection requests
from people you've net in person.
Now I disagree with that.
Let's think about this, why are you on LinkedIn?
If you still see LinkedIn as a place where you just put up your CV and
forget about it, then by all means just connect to people you know personally.
However, if you are on LinkedIn to get more leads, grow your business, or to land that dream role of
yours, you need to be as connected as possible.
It's just that straightforward.
The more first degree connections you will have, and these end up people already in your
network, the more second degree connections you will have access to, and these are the
people your connections are connected with.
Why don't we take Walt Disney as an example.
Let's say I wanted to work in that company, or I wanted them to buy my product.
An amazing thing unique to LinkedIn, is that I can look up people who work in that company.
If I'm fairly connected, then I will be able to find the exact people I should be reaching out to.
So this could be either HR or Sales, because I can see everyone's roles and
I can identify who are the key people I should be talking to, to achieve my outcome.
So I can see all these people because I already have a good base of first degree connections.
However, if I wasn't that well connected, the search results would look a lot more
like this, where most people would appear as LinkedIn members and I could see what
their roles are, but I would have no idea of knowing their names or connection with them.
Unless of course I upgraded to LinkedIn premium, which would give me a bit more visibility.
But unless you want to pay for this, you should be as connected in your industry as possible
and take it upon yourself, making this happen.
In just a moment, I'm going to share five avenues with you, that you can
follow to get more connected on LinkedIn.
But just before we jump into that, I want to run through a few do's and don'ts when it comes to
sending connection requests to LinkedIn members.
You should have known that LinkedIn allows you to have up to 30,000 connections
in total, and anyone from that point onwards can only become your follower.
Whenever you connect with someone new, you automatically start following them.
And what this means is that the content they're sharing is now going
to appear in your news feed too.
If for some reason you were no longer enjoying the content they were
sharing, you could unfollow them.
And what this would do is that you would no longer see their content within your newsfeed,
but you would still be connected, meaning that you could still send them a direct message.
So following someone means seeing their content and being connected with someone
means being able to message them directly.
Another thing you should remember is that by default, you can only send out 5,000
connection requests in your lifetime.
However, having said that, typically, if you reach out to LinkedIn customer support team, they
will grant you another 500 to a 1,000 connection requests per month, as long as you haven't been
marked as being a spammer or breached any rules.
So you might be wondering, what does it mean to be a spammer?
Well, basically if you send out connection requests, and too many people decline them saying
that they either don't know you or your message was a spam, LinkedIn will take note of that.
So how can you avoid this?
Well, if you are connecting to people who, you know, will 100% remember you
and know who you are, it is totally ok to send them a generic connection request.
But with anyone else, you should be personalizing your invite, by clicking add a note.
Don't forget that you can only personalize a connection request, if you go to the person's
profile and click connect from there.
If you click the connect button from any other page on LinkedIn, it will automatically
send an invitation with a generic note.
To avoid being marked as a spammer, do your homework!!
Just go to their LinkedIn profile, engage with some of their content and then send them
a customized message, reflecting something interesting you read or maybe something cool
you've spotted on their LinkedIn profile.
And in just a minute, I'm going to give you a couple of examples of the messages
you can use, but just before we dive in, I just wanted to remind you that you do not
want to pitch in your connection requests.
It turns off so many people and you really should be trying to build some sort of a
rapport, before you're presenting your sale.
Also do not send too many connection requests in a short period of time.
Too many newbies do that and LinkedIn will suspend your account for a couple of hours,
not allowing you to connect to any more people.
So I rule of thumb, do not look like a bot and you will be ok.
Now that you appreciate how powerful it is to be well connected on LinkedIn, let's
dive into the five strategies you can follow to get more connections on your profile.
Number one, LinkedIn search.
LinkedIn has very strong search capabilities, that not many people are deploying to the fullest.
So let's say your target market is the CEOs.
What you should do now is go to LinkedIn search and type in CEOs in the search bar.
This brings up 8.7 million profiles that are already have a keyword, a CEO, somewhere in them.
You can refine the search even further by selecting the locations that are
relevant to you and pick the industry that you want these people to be in.
Another awesome trick that not many people know about, is that you can do multiple
keyword searches at the same time.
There are two binding keywords I need you to remember, and these are AND and OR.
Let's say I want it to find all CEOs, directors, and founders on LinkedIn.
In that case, I would structure my search like this.
LinkedIn will bring back all people who are either CEOs or directors or founders.
And this has gotten us 42 million results.
This works the other way around as well.
Let's say, I want you to find all CEOs who are also hiring.
In this case, I would structure my keywords to be ceo AND hiring, and LinkedIn would
bring back all the people who have both of these keywords somewhere in their profile.
Now, the only thing I want to remind you, is that you want to connect to
people who are active on LinkedIn.
There is honestly no point connecting with someone, who only logs in once a year.
So what you want to do, is go to their activity section and check out if they have
shared their own content lately, or they have been engaging with other people's posts.
Let's move on to the avenue number two, which is hashtags and conversations.
Another awesome way to connect with people in your industry, is by using
hashtags that are relevant to your field.
If you don't want to know how hashtags the LinkedIn work or how to find the best
hashtags for your niche, definitely check out my video on hashtags after this one.
Assuming that you are very familiar with hashtags in your field, I want you to go ahead
and search for them in the search bar and find posts that are generating a lot of conversation.
Now, I want you to pay close attention to the comments section and engage
with people who are commenting.
Reference their point of view, share your opinion and ask the question.
Whenever you do this, that person will receive a notification, that
you have left to comment for them.
And they will definitely want to get back to you or at least check out your profile.
From here, you should send out a connection request saying that you really enjoyed the
perspective they were sharing, and that you would love to stay connected with
people, sharing cool ideas in the field.
Now another thing that works really well, if you reference people who are very well
known in your industry, is by taking a look at the likes their posts have gotten.
You can identify which people seem interesting here and send them a connection request
that go something along the lines of.
Hey Carey, I noticed that you're also a fan of Gary Vee.
I would really love to stay connected and keep up with your work, because I really
enjoyed the tips you shared on X, Y, and Z.
They were really cool.
Chat soon, Vendy.
Number three, groups.
Now I'm sure many of you are part of so many different groups on Facebook.
What I want you to do is to take the time to find those people on LinkedIn and send
them a connection request, saying something like, I noticed that we are both a part
of this Facebook group for marketing.
I just really wanted to find out, how did you fell into the field?
And of course, this doesn't just relate to groups and Facebook, you should absolutely explore the
relevant groups on LinkedIn as well, and connect with people, referencing something that they maybe
shared in a group ,that you found interesting or something else that you found on your profile.
Let's move on to number four, which is create content.
Now you've heard me say this before, but if you are serious about growing on
LinkedIn, you have to create content.
This is how you get discovered by people outside your network.
Something I mentioned in my previous video, on how to get more engagement on LinkedIn,
is that if I post something and you like or comment on my post, now people in your
network will also be able to see my content.
So the more first degree connections you have, the more second degree connections
will be exposed to your content.
I promise that as you start releasing content more consistently, you will see many
new connection requests coming your way.
And this is because people will appreciate the value you're providing and they just want to
see more of it, so they want to stay connected.
So simply put, if you want high quality connections, you have
to produce high quality content.
This is exactly how you establish yourself as a thought leader in your field.
People will start perceiving you as an authority on your subject matter, and they will want
to work with you more, because they will see that, you know what you're talking about.
So make sure you watch this video to understand how the LinkedIn algorithm works and how you can
structure your content for maximum engagement.
Number five.
Connect with people who are engaging with you.
Now that you're providing value through your content, make sure you're connecting with people
who are liking and commenting on your posts.
If people are engaging with your content, it means that they are enjoying what you're
producing and you should connect with them and nurture that relationship even further.
Another thing you will notice, is that once you start producing content, more and more
people will start visiting your profile.
Unfortunately, you can only see your profile visits, if you were paying for
LinkedIn premium, but if you do have this feature, I want you to be connecting with
people who are visiting your profile.
Because again, there must have been something that made them want to look you up.
So we have covered five avenues that you can use to get more connections on LinkedIn.
Specifically for this video, I have also put together a complimentary CHEAT SHEET
for you, with templates that you can adapt when sending out connection requests.
If you want access to this, comment "CONNECTIONS" below, and I will happily share it with you.
Thank you so much for watching this video.
If you want to connect with me, send me an invitation, I will put a link to
my profile and the description below.
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If you know anyone else who would benefit from getting more connections on LinkedIn,
definitely share this video with them, and also check out these videos next of how to
take your LinkedIn game to the next level.
Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you next week.