The Ultimate Guide to Using LinkedIn for Networking
A practical, step-by-step system to connect, follow, comment, and build real professional relationships
This issue is about using LinkedIn to network.
It’s a sort of “greatest hits” issue.
I’m using ideas from some of the first issues of the newsletter.
I’ll tell you why and show you how you can use LinkedIn to supercharge your networking.
This issue is longer than normal so grab your favorite beverage and settle in…
This issue takes about 14 minutes to read
My LinkedIn Greatest Hits
Greatest Hits albums are awesome.
You get the songs you know and love from an artist in one place.
In the time before Spotify playlists, these albums were an efficient way to buy and listen to your favorites.
I’m doing the same thing with three of my newsletters.
Here’s why:
I’ve crossed 2,700 subscribers for this newsletter.
The first red arrow indicates when I wrote a three-part series on using LinkedIn for networking.
At the time, I had about 250 subscribers.
Then, I created the guide your reading in spring 2024 at 1,500 subscribers (the second red arrow).
That was almost two years ago.
Which means a lot of my subscribers today haven’t read that series.
There may be a few of you who have looked through the archives and come across these, but I’ll bet most of you will be seeing this info for the first time.
And, I think it’s some of the most practical advice I’ve even given, so I’m sharing it again in this issue.
Each part is linked to the original issue where it appeared in fall of 2022.
Part 1 - Connecting
Say "LinkedIn" and people think of a professional networking platform.
And most of them are using it wrong.
Here are some of the mistakes I see:
Lurking - Scrolling without liking or commenting
Limited Use - Logging in only when you're searching for a job
Unfocused Connecting - Connecting with anyone and everyone
Overbearing Introductions - Coming on too strong after connecting
On LinkedIn, your goal is to start online conversations with people who can connect you to opportunities.
To do this, you need to:
Show up consistently
Engage with other people's content
Have a plan for making new connections
Make it "safe" for others to start a conversation with you
The Right Way To Use LinkedIn For Networking:
Let's say you currently have a job, but you're not excited about it.
You're thinking about making a change.
You want to learn about other opportunities at different companies.
We'll assume you have a complete LinkedIn profile. It has a headline that tells people what you do, a professional profile picture, and a detailed About section.
You log onto LinkedIn every once in while, but you're unsure who you should be connecting with.
You're also not sure what you should say when you send a connection request.
What do you do?
The first thing you need to do is create your Target Company List (TCL). If you don't know what this is or how to create one, look at TIN #005 and #006.
When you know which companies you are targeting, you're going to find people who work at those companies.
Go to your LinkedIn home page:
Click My Network
Click Connections
Click Search With Filters
Click All Filters
You’ll see a search box called “Filter only People by”
Select 1st and 2nd Degree Connections.
Under Current Company, click Add a company.
Type in the name of one of the companies on your TCL.
Click Show Results.
Now what?
Start scrolling through the list.
If you see people who are 1st degree connections, that's great news.
You’re already connected with someone at one of your target companies.
Consider reconnecting with them.
If they’re someone you know in real life, send them a message similar to what I described in TIN #002:
"Hey, it's been a while since we were in touch. How are things going?"
If you don't know them beyond LinkedIn, you could send them a message like this:
"I see we're 1st degree connections on LinkedIn, but we don't know each other. I also see you're at <<name of the company.>> What do you think of it? The reason I ask is I am interested in learning more about <<company name>> and would love to get your thoughts about it. I also know you're probably very busy so no worries if you don't have time to respond."
This is a version of connection messages Austin Belcak teaches.
If you don't follow him on LinkedIn, you should.
If people in the results list are 2nd degree connections, you could do one of two things:
1. Connect
2. Follow
I’m going to talk about Connecting; in Part 2, I’ll talk about Following.
When you’re connecting with a new person on LinkedIn, you should always add a note to your connection request. You have 300 characters to introduce yourself to this new person.
If you’re not sure what to write you can start with the message I used above, but change it to say something like:
"I'm working on growing my network on LinkedIn and see you're at <<name of the company.>> I’m interested in learning more about the company. I also know you're probably very busy so no worries if you don't have time to respond."
Be patient
Not everyone is on LinkedIn all day, every day. It may take them a few days or even weeks to respond.
In the meantime, keep working through the list of people in your search results. When you run out of people to connect or re-connect with, then run the search again with a different company from your target list.
Sometimes it feels like you are doing all this work and nothing is happening. Then, all of a sudden, everyone replies at once. That’s a good problem to have.
Part 2 - Following and Commenting
Connecting Vs. Following
What's the difference?
Connecting with people on LinkedIn means you send them Connection Requests. They either Accept or Ignore your request. If they accept your request, you see their activity on LinkedIn. You can also send them direct messages.
For most people, Connecting is their default method of meeting people on LinkedIn.
Following allows you to see people's activity in your LinkedIn feed without a Connection Request.
You don't need their permission to see what they post and share. However, you can't message them without using InMail credits.
Why Follow?
Connecting with someone can be intimidating, especially if you view them as more established, accomplished, or in a position of power.
Even if you have the perfect note to add to your Connection Request, you might still feel like you’re bothering them with your request.
Following someone is as easy as going to their profile and clicking the Follow button.
When you Follow, you'll start seeing the person's activity in your LinkedIn feed.
There are a few things you need to know about Following.
If you go to a profile and see a Follow button instead of Connect, the person has set Follow as their default. That means they would rather you Follow them than Connect. People with the Follow button default are usually more active on LinkedIn than people with the Connect default. Follow them.
Following means you will see what the person posts, shares, and comments on other posts. Before you Follow them, be sure they are using LinkedIn frequently. You can do this by looking at the Activity section of their profile.
If they haven't posted anything or it's been months or years since they posted, they aren't on LinkedIn. If you want to contact them, you can try to send a Connection Request. They may have their notification settings set to email them when someone wants to connect. Go to Part 1 to learn how to Connect with them.
People who have their notification settings turned on will see that you Followed them. Nothing for you to do, but be aware, you can't Follow someone and be completely invisible. If your profile is complete and engaging, they may Follow you back. That’s a hint to get your profile updated and complete.
The pros and cons of Following are:
Pros:
Lower risk
More organic relationships
Access to people with established presence on LinkedIn
Cons
Takes longer
Requires consistent presence on LinkedIn
You may have to follow a lot of people before you establish mutually beneficial relationships
How do you use Following as a networking strategy?
Following combined with Commenting is a great way to start relationships on LinkedIn.
Justin Welsh is one of the masters of the Commenting approach on LinkedIn and Twitter.
You should definitely be following him and commenting on his posts on LinkedIn.
When someone you’re Following posts on LinkedIn, they want other people to engage with the post.
You can Like, Share, or Comment on another person's post.
Liking is OK, but not effective for networking.
Sharing is OK too, but not optimal. People who spend time on LinkedIn have learned the algorithm doesn't prioritize shared posts. No one knows why, but if you share another person's post, most of your connections and followers won't see it.
Commenting is the best option.
Leaving a comment on another person's post signals engagement to the author and to LinkedIn. The more comments a post gets, the more LinkedIn shows it to other people.
LinkedIn looks as comments like a conversation. If it sees lots of comments on a post, it assumes the original post was something that sparked a conversation among the LinkedIn community.
That's why you will see many people, myself included, responding to comments on their own posts. More comments equal more engagement.
It gives you an opportunity to engage and continue the conversation.
Imagine you went to a conference.
The conference speaker shares an idea in her presentation.
At the end, she asks if there are any questions, and you raise your hand. The speaker calls on you, you ask your question, and it creates a dialogue between you and her.
The session ends and other people approach the speaker to talk to her. You’re one of the people who approaches her. Do you think she's going to have a longer conversation with you or someone who didn't ask the question during the session?
In most cases, the speaker would recognize you and continue the dialogue. You may even talk to her at other times during the conference. Your question or comment during her presentation created a connection that can be turn into a conversation.
The same thing happens when you comment on a post.
The key is, your comment needs to be insightful and valuable to the idea the author is posting. Thinking about the conference example, you wouldn’t just raise your hand at the end and say, “I agree. Thanks.”
When Commenting on LinkedIn:
Make it valuable. Ask a question or provide your insight or do something to move the conversation forward. Never post, "Agree," or "Nice post." If you want to do that, hit Like.
Be respectful. You don't have to agree with everything, but be respectful with your own opinion. You aren't on LinkedIn to pick fights. Save that for Twitter and Reddit.
Be one of the first to comment. When a post is published, if you’re one of the first to comment with something insightful, others reading the post will see your comment and Like it or Comment on it.
What is the end game of Following and Commenting?
The goal is to begin an online conversation with someone you would like to talk to in real life.
To do that, you have to build trust and credibility with them.
This approach can help you do that.
Follow people who are interesting to you and active on LinkedIn.
Ideally, these are people at your Target Companies or are in your industry or area of interest.
I would recommend you cast a wide net for people you want to follow.
Be willing to look at people in broader groups than you would if you were focusing on Connecting.
Commenting using the rules above makes it likely the author will see your name. They might look at your profile. They may comment on your comment or your posts.
These are all signals that the author is active, engaged, and willing to talk to you further on LinkedIn.
As you receive these signals, you can be more confident sending them a Connection Request because your name will be familiar.
You aren't a stranger and they are more likely respond to your messages.
Once you Follow, Comment, and Connect with someone, you still need to build trust.
You can do this by giving them value and a reason to talk to you.
This is how you grow a mutually beneficial relationship.
Connecting and Following are two approaches to networking that can work on LinkedIn when you use them correctly. With consistency and a little bit of practice, you’ll master it quickly.
Part 3 - Using Your LinkedIn Data
When you use LinkedIn, you create data:
Your connections
Your posts
Your comments
Your profile
Your LinkedIn Data Archive stores data you can download into a spreadsheet format.
It's a good idea to request this data every once in awhile for two reasons:
It serves as a backup if your account is ever hacked or suspended
You can use this data to generate networking ideas
How to request your data:
The steps below come straight from LinkedIn's Help page:
"The easiest and fastest way to obtain a copy of your LinkedIn data is to initiate a data download from your Settings & Privacy page:
Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
Select Settings & Privacy from the dropdown.
Click the Data Privacy on the left rail.
Under the How LinkedIn uses your data section, click Get a copy of your data.
Select the data that you’re looking for and Request archive.
You can select specific categories of data or a larger download. If you select a specific type of data, we’ll email you within minutes. If you select the larger download, you’ll receive an email within 24 hours. Use the link provided in the email to download the information you requested.
The data will be available for download for 72 hours."
You'll receive an email from LinkedIn when your archive is ready.
Open the email
Click on the link
You’ll be redirected to your LinkedIn account with the option to click a button that says, "Download."
Your downloaded data will be in a zip file.
When you open the zip file, it will look like this:
Your data is separated into different CSV files by the type of data each contains.
You can open any of these files with Excel, or Google Sheets, or whatever spreadsheet program you use.
How Do You Use This Data To Network?
Some of these files are more useful than others.
Open them and look at what’s in them, but I focus on three of these files to help me network.
Connections
This file shows the name, email address (maybe), current employer, current position, date of connection for your 1st degree connections.
Use this file to quickly find your connection's email address, if they have shared it in the permissions of their LinkedIn account.
Not everyone does this so it may be hit or miss.
You can also filter on the current position column to find a list of people with a specific job title.
For example, if I’m looking for a Compensation Manager, I can use my spreadsheet filter on the Position column to find all the people with that title.
This helps me find people to share interesting info about compensation or to find potential candidates for job openings I’ve heard about.
I also create pivot tables with the data to show me the names of the current Company and the count of how many of their employees I am connected to.
I sort the names of the companies from highest to lowest in the table so the companies where I am connected to the most people end up at the top.
I go through my target company list and review the pivot table to see if there are any people I already know that work at my target companies.
I also review the pivot table to see if there are a large number of employees at any one company.
That's a company I may research to add to my TCL.
The Company data is based on what the person has listed for his or her current Company.
You may have connections who started working at one of your Target Companies and you never even knew it until now.
Comments
This is a file of all the Comments you left on other people's posts. It shows the date, the link to the original post you commented on and the text of the comment.
I use this to come up with ideas for posting on LinkedIn.
Remember in Part 2 when we talked about the Follow and Comment strategy?
In that issue, I explained commenting on other people's LinkedIn posts is like going to a conference and raising you hand at the end of the presentation.
You added your two cents to the online conversation on LinkedIn.
You might have said something that could be it's own post.
Going through the comments is where I come up with some of my best posts.
Shares
This is a file of all your posts. I'm not sure why they call it "Shares.csv." It shows the date, the link to the post, the text of the post, and any links you shared in the post.
I use this to look back at my posts and see if I can modify them and re-post them.
I usually look back 6 to 12 months for post ideas.
This is where the file is quicker than going through all my old posts under my Activity on LinkedIn itself.
Don't worry about recycling old posts.
Most of you network never saw the first post and even if they did, they already forgot it.
There are other tools out there to do the same things, but most of them will cost money.
This method is free and gives you new ideas.
Wrapping Up
That’s my ultimate guide to using LinkedIn to improve your networking game!
Give it a try.
Leave a comment and let me know how it goes.
Best Things I Found Online This Week:
Dominic Imwalle shared a story about how networking landed someone a job before they went in for the interview. This is the dream scenario for networking.
This is a BRILLIANT breakdown of how to use LinkedIn well.
Don't forget to tell me what you learned from this issue.