Build Relevant LinkedIn Connections

How to Get More Relevant Connections

This guide is to provide suggestions on how to grow relevant LinkedIn connections. Also, strategies on how to nurture relationships on LinkedIn, with influencers, within a particular industry.

1. What Industry Do You Want to Pursue?

The first thing you need to do before you start any sort of outreach, is to establish a clear industry to pursue.

2. Data Mining

Once you have found the industry you want to have a career in, start data mining for influencers. There are different approaches to do this but, this would be my approach:

• Conferences, Webinars, Meetups, etc.

Start a spreadsheet and organize a list of speakers from these events.

• Information Aggregators

Use websites or apps to stay updated in your desired industry. Some high level examples of websites and apps I use are:

 Feedly 

Flipboard

 Reddit  

Buzzfeed

News Broadcasters (CNN, ABC, NBC, etc.)

3. Organize the Data

Once you have established a list of influencers in a spread sheet, organize them by priority level. The importance of organizing them by priority level is to establish how much time and resources you will spend on engaging with a given influencer.

4. Light Stalking

I know what you may be thinking…Stalking?!?! Yes! You want to begin discovering touch points where you can relate or complement an influencer. For example, if a influencer I want to connect with did a webinar on Local SEO, I would watch the webinar (if available) or read his/her post to better engage with the influencer.

5. Select 3 a Month

What I had discovered that to effectively create significant encounters is to focus on 3 influencer s a month. The time involved to really engage an influencer is longer than you may think.

 6. Social Engagement

Before you request a “connection” on LinkedIn, begin to engage their social profiles. This does not mean you; “like”, “retweet”, or “share” their content. You have to leave comments, tag them on RELEVENT and INTELLECTUAL posts. BE SURE TO KEEP LANGUAGE AND TONE SIMILAR TO HOW A GIVEN INFLUENCER TALKS.

7.Request that connection

After following the steps above, you should be able to create a quick and meaningful connection request message. Try to refer and complement the most recent work the Influencer had been involved with.

8. You Did It!!!

Congratulations! You got the “connect”…….now what?

9.Engage with Relevant posts on LinkedIn

Like, Share, and more importantly comment on relevant posts in your desired industry. Through my experience, I have found that comments bring the most traffic to my LinkedIn Profile. Make sure to be intelligent with your comments. This does not mean you need to use fancy words but critically think about a response that is clear and easy to understand.

I hope this guide helps you gain more relevant exposure on LinkedIn.