7 proven hacks to grow your LinkedIn account without ads

Topping 756 million users in more than 200 countries and with over more than 400 million users and counting LinkedIn has emerged as the most useful social network for B2B marketers, prospects, potential hires and business partners.

The growing culture of remote working and the expanding importance of the digital landscape and social networking for building social connections and networks has got many professionals exploring how to gain more connections on LinkedIn. It has become an ultimate destination for people who wish to connect, build and grow with peers and learn about their industry.

Sure, there’s Facebook and Instagram and all other platforms but when it comes to establishing new connections and expanding your current and new professional network, LinkedIn is more reliable and professional to enhance your presence.

You might ponder on “how can one build connections in the professional sphere to achieve their personal goals?” And you might think as well that out of 756 million users, it wouldn’t be that difficult to connect with 500+ people and become a super-connector over the platform. But once you’ve exhausted your own contacts list, it can be tough to know if you’re using the most effective methods to reach out to the potential candidates.

A study by Econsultancy revealed that “LinkedIn promotes almost 64% visits from all the social media channels to corporate websites”.

And, even more, out of all B2B website visits which form 90% of all social traffic from the combined platforms from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, LinkedIn is responsible for like half of the views. Simply stated, more than 50% of all the social traffic to a B2B site is driven by LinkedIn.

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So, how can you make and witness those changes to your website?

Don’t worry….

Here we bring you 7 proven hacks for you to grow your LinkedIn without ads to ensure all those new contacts are relevant to your business goals while helping you grow your network and get visible results that support and aid your professional success.

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Hack #1: Personalise your LinkedIn connections and requests –

The first and foremost thing that you need to understand is that when you connect with someone over a platform, it mustn’t feel burdensome but rather put them at ease. When going across through LinkedIn’s list of “people you may know” don’t casually click the “connect” button and give it the impression of a “generic request”.

Rather, go to that individual’s own profile and click on the “connect” button. It will bring up a box that is displayed below and will let you add a personal note with the sent connection request, let’s say “Hey! I saw you in Seattle last week. Let’s catch up soon.”

If you wish to connect with someone you personally aren’t acquainted with, but you know they work in a similar field or role or designation, then in such case, you can simply just add and drop a small relevance by letting them know why you’re messaging them. You might add in the note, “I’ve seen a few of your posts and noticed some of your work. I really loved your perspectives and I appreciate your insights and would love to connect.”

Hack #2: Follow up –

There’s magic in a personal connection. Sounds old but when you meet and interact with people face to face like the good old-fashioned way, it could actually prove helpful in building your network.

Catching up in person is easy as it will allow you to connect and learn more about the other person better, ensuring to make the most of this. Following up in person beyond social media boundaries will not help you to bond quickly by retaining connections, but will also allow you to enhance communication.

Following up will let you decide and pinpoint your commitments and make your goals clearer upon discussing with the other person thus helping you perform better. It will ultimately provide you encouragement and appropriate reinforcement and recognition so that you can adjust your focus and alter your strategies as and when needed.

Hack #3: Break it up in chunks –

You can’t eat a frog in just a bite. You have to eat it part by part to completely consume it. Similarly, you can’t expect to develop and built a network of 500+ connections overnight. It will take you some time and it’s absolutely alright!

Break down your goal into achievable and realistic small time-bound parts. Begin gradually and split the figures and give each part a target. Let’s say, set a goal of achieving 50 connections by a weekend. And you see the numbers adding over time, try setting your goal to an achievable number of connections “n” within a stipulated period; then repeat.

Remember, the key is to be smart and realistic. And also, don’t miss out on exercising caution about “how” you can grow your connections on LinkedIn. No matter what your goal or final objective is, it’s important to maintain and follow basic etiquette. Refrain from meaninglessly spamming people you don’t know just for the sake of completing your target connections. Remember, the quantity would mean nothing, if the “quality” is not met, and ironically spamming won’t help you get either.

It’s absolutely fine so bear in your mind that all your connection requests are not going to accept your invitations. Alike accepting Facebook requests they might also have a separate LinkedIn philosophy for accepting the requests and of assessing the potential quality of connections and deciding while scrolling and screening the requests.

Here are a few questions, one usually asks oneself whilst receiving and accepting a request –

1.???Do I know this person or do we share or have any mutual connections?

2.???Is this person aware or in any related to my field of work?

3.???Am I familiar with this person’s environment or do we share anything in common?

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Even though the answer might not be a “Yes” right away and if one doesn’t find anything to join the dots that ring any bells or some other similar questions, it’s likely that they won’t accept your invitation to connect.

Hack #4: Include visual content to grab attention –

Studies show that almost 70% of companies invest in content marketing, and almost 40% of marketers have predicted that between 51% and 80% of businesses heavily rely on visual content.

Though it might seem simple and at times insignificant, it possesses a really important part and a very big one on LinkedIn specifically. Adding visual content and posting images on your blogs are known to get twice as many views and research and studies show and suggest that posts that have visual content are shared more than 20 times.

Adding visuals and images to your posts and blogs instantly increases engagements with and within people and in your existing network while boosting exposure to the potential connections on the platform. Therefore, instead of just sharing and adding links, include visuals in posts. Posts with images increase their view by 11 times and this simply means that need a different and striking image for the header, for the profile and all the other parts of your post that you wish to publish to maximise your profile’s views.

However, keep in mind that images need to be relevant and they must resonate with your audience so that you can understand who your audience is and what are they looking for

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Hack #5: Promote your LinkedIn URL

Usually, social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram have a space for bio and you should use those bio spaces as promotional space for growing your LinkedIn connection and driving machine by encouraging more and more contacts to find you to grow and connect on LinkedIn. It will be very helpful if you have a significant following on those platforms.

It’s possibly another great way to take advantage of your presence on other social media platforms. Promote your LinkedIn profile by posting the link whether in a status update, tweet, pin, video, photo, etc. It ain’t hard to remember or include any important identity information or keywords.

Even if it is not a social channel, don’t forget the outright importance and simplicity of adding the link of your LinkedIn profile to your email signature. It will allow your followers and connections to do their research about your company and learn more about your brand in a professional context

As LinkedIn is a professional network and the ultimate mantra where B2B sales and everything you do online should tell a cohesive brand story.

Hence, apart from other platforms, LinkedIn is where you want to direct business contacts as it is a place for you to with business partners, clients, and others in a business setting.

Hack #6: Use and leverage keywords in your profile –

Keywords play a key role. As you optimise your website or copy for SEO, adding keywords to your LinkedIn provides you with the opportunity to bring and attract profile visitors. And, depending on your chosen words, the quality of visitors to your site depends, so make every word count.

Do a thorough job to ensure that you don’t become invisible due to any semantic errors by using the common variations of your job title and duties.

For instance, if your designation is Sales Manager, you are likely to have numerous roles such as setting sales goals & quotas, building sales plans, analysing data, assigning sales training and designating sales territories, mentoring the members of the sales team and also playing part in the hiring and firing process.

So, break out the different functions of your position to appeal to different possible target audiences when someone searches for similar connections rather than searching by formal titles.

Hack #7: Write and publish wisely and consistently–

Consistency is the key and it’s a very common practice to post and share write-ups and blogs on your page. Those written and uploaded posts need to resonate with your audience. And, when those insights are your own, you need to put them out in front of people to make them seem unique.

Publishing articles on relevant content as native long-form posts on your LinkedIn profile is one of the best ways to establish your personal brand and share and promote your expertise in a given industry.

The best thing about such content is that whenever you publish an article, your network is notified every time, thus in turn giving and increasing your chances of engagement and brand exposure. It also points out a very important tip i.e. “Don’t publish every day” or your followers might start to tune out.

Add a simple call-to-action (CTA) so that they can get in touch or check out additional resources is usually acceptable at the end of the article. Add absolutely relevant details as nothing turns off the readers as faster as an article that turns out to be a complete clickbait or just a simple sales pitch. Therefore, ensure to only add topics that offer and provide value to the readers.

This will not only keep them hooked on your site but will also keep them coming back for more. Publishing engaging content will also help you to engage with your current connections and by doing so, you can determine for yourself who’s active and who’s not worth being in your circle.

You can take the help of “Pulse” to make your postings. Pulse is a brand that LinkedIn purchased to basically expand its mobile profile and Pulse is currently available and installed and pre-installed in around 0.13% of Android devices. It helps to gather news and stories from around the web, but it also serves as a platform for self-posting.

Also, make sure that your LinkedIn is connected to your blog as lead generation is a very important aspect of LinkedIn. And look out for the “timing” as the time and day of the post matter tremendously.

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Thus, LinkedIn is undoubtedly a great platform to connect with other professionals who could become potential business partners, clients, or even employees. Building and growing your network on LinkedIn will help drive larger revenue clients; so, although you’ll pick up fewer leads, each lead will have a much higher lifetime value than those found through other sources as we already discussed quality over quantity any day.

LinkedIn as a platform serves for disseminating professional information and catering to a B2B audience bringing in the best and most useful connections for your workplace.

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Tell us in the comments below “what hacks do you follow to grow your LinkedIn account?”