How To Grow Your LinkedIn Connections?
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. It aims to connect the world’s professionals in order to make them more productive and successful. Both individuals and businesses use LinkedIn for many purposes.
Individuals use it for showcasing their skills, networking, and searching for jobs and on the other hand, companies use it for recruiting and sharing their company’s mission and vision and attracting talent.
We know the importance of joining LinkedIn, But it’s core benefits start when you get down to networking and growing your connections.
You may have heard or read somewhere on the internet that you should send 100s of invitations per day and hope for the best. But, Pleased Don’t!
It is not professional and will not give you the kind of exposure you want. These mass connection requests are beneficial for marketing a conference, workshop etc. and not for connecting with people whom you may want to actually touch base or speak with in the future. The quantity of your connections will not impact your career as much as quality of your connections. So don’t aim for a certain number, rather the depth of those connection.
HOW TO REALLY GROW YOUR CONNECTIONS?
1- Update Your Profile
Growing your connection starts from your profile page.
Your profile is your first impression when connecting with strangers and also a deeper impression on people you already know. Lack of a professional and up-to-date profile page results with higher rejection rate when you send connection requests out.
If your profile is missing many points, it will portrait no ambition & no desire to grow. These almost blank profiles will look a bit suspicious, because like anywhere else on the virtual worlds, there are fake identities, fraud or worse, It applies to LinkedIn as well and you certainly don’t want to look like one.
2- Know Your Purpose
Ask yourself few questions before pressing that “connect” button:
- Why do I want more connections?
- What benefits can this person potentially offer toward my goal?
- Is this this the right person for me?
- Do I have a game plan for after they accept my offer?
The answers to these questions will help you narrow down your search and increase the likelihood of getting new connections.
3- Find People That You Should Connect With
Now that you know the type of people you want to connect with, start from your 1st level connections:
- Go through your connection list and see who has work history in the industry, field, locations that you want.
- Then, dig deeper and look at that person’s connections.
- Look for someone at your 2nd level connection who is currently working in your desired industry/field.
Next strategy is to figure out a list of 5 to 10 biggest companies in your desired area. (yup, Google it!)
- Once you have your list, then look those companies up in LinkedIn.
- On that company’s profile page, go to “people” tab &
- look at “people you may know” section at the bottom, These are your best targets.
4- Draft a Note
This note will serve few purposes: showing that you are respectable & respectful, you are not a machine or fake identity & that you have chosen that person with professional intentions.
Read the person’s profile, look at their activities, number of connections, their education, their past experience. etc. so that you can craft a better connection note.
5- Keep Calm & Send Your Invite
Now go ahead and press that “Connect” button without expectations!
The right mindset is to accept that not everyone is looking to expand their connection or open to sharing their profile information with strangers.
The point is that they will look at your profile and that’s an engagement and that matters.
Good Luck,
Miriam
Originally published at https://leapfrogmission.com on May 12, 2021.
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