How Did I Grow From 1 to 13,001 LinkedIn Connections?

How did I grow “My LinkedIn Network” from 1 to over 13,001 connections? Many times a task before us seems daunting and unreachable. We feel intimidated, overwhelmed, and defeated before we even give ourselves a chance. But, let me let you in on a little secret, you can never WIN a game you never PLAY in! When I decided that I was serious and that I really wanted to build my LinkedIn presence I made a challenge with myself. I sat out with a goal to reach 10K connections. My stretch goal is now 50K connections. And I will get there!

This is my LinkedIn philosophy when someone decides to accept my connection; it is my responsibility to first engage them, then to inspire or motivate them, and lastly to create some type of lasting impact in them. I pride myself in being real, authentic, relatable, and relevant with the content that I post. I seek to always shed a positive light, to be a source of inspiration, and to always give off good energy even in bad times. On your journey never comprise who you are. That is why I never have any desire to gain an influx of connections through manipulation or false perception. I truly believe in order to grow your LinkedIn brand you need to stand on two core components; being consistent and genuine.

As you build your LinkedIn brand never forget this; your NETWORK (connections) has the potential to help build your NET-WORTH (profits, time, etc.); be smart in how you use because you can lose it but just be sure to never ever abuse it. That simply means this, take what you build and as a result of your sweat equity in return; you allow the same thing that you built to now, help you GROW! While at the same time cultivating good relationships. 

Keep this in mind as you continue to build your LinkedIn Brand. This is simply how I chose to build mine.

   L.I.N.K.E.D.I.N

 L – Show LOVE! Never think that you are too good to show love to someone that’s in your network. If you want people to like and comment on your post or articles then it is not a bad idea to show love to their post and to their articles. It’s actually a pretty noble gesture. When someone endorses you for a skill; be sure that you show love back by endorsing them on a skill. If someone takes time out of their busy life to write you a recommendation; it’s only right that you show that same love back in writing them one in return. When you show love back you make yourself personable, relatable, and reachable. I even will take it a step further and show love to people within my network when they are promoted on a new job or a new opportunity. Lastly, I make a very aggressive attempt to show love to every single person that accepts my connection by sending a personable NOT a spam-like hello message. My secret is this, I show the same level of love that I desire to get back in return and never to allow my love to be predicated on how someone treats me. That is just who I am in life and on social media!

I – Be INTELLIGENT! Many times the first impression of you to someone might be in the form of a post that you penned. I once struggled terribly in proofreading my post until I began to find simple mistakes and felt like a complete idiot. If I spell a word wrong charge it to my heart and not my head because these days I at least try to correct simple mistakes. Write your post, read your post, and then post your post. Do not give someone a reason to make a false assessment of who you are as a person because you meant “son” but spelled “sun” or you meant “too” but wrote “to”. Let people see your intelligence and glean how gifted you truly are as a person when they visit your page or stumbled across your page that showed up in their feed.

N – Be NICE! As a kid my grandmother Irene use to always say, “Kyle baby manners will take you places and open doors for you that money will never be able to do.” Be nice to people even when they might not be nice to you. I greet people warmly on my page, I say thank you to anyone that pays me a compliment on a post, and I make it an effort to respond back to anyone that messages me directly. I do not take for granted any person in my network so I am just as nice to the custodian who messages me as I am to a superintendent of a school district that I desire to partner with one-day. My secret is simple and maybe you have even heard it before, “Treat people how you want to be treated.”

K – Be KNOWLEDGEABLE! Typically people get a LinkedIn profile for professional reasons. Whatever your profession or business acumen is be informed and well-educated about it. I do not think that just because you are an educator you have to speak in great detail or know all the different theories that’s associated with pedagogy. However, if you mention it in a post make the reader feel like they can trust your observation or maybe even consider your stance as practical. Many times what we post are our opinions anyway but at least allow your opinions to come from a place of experience.

 E – Be ENERGETIC! No one wants to come to a page that’s boring. Post material that captures people attention! It’s a feature in iPhones called, “iMovie” that I love using. Don’t be afraid to add a heading or put some music behind your videos. Bring your videos to life and show the energetic and enthusiastic side of you. You must understand the different emotions that drives, moves, and engages people to keep them coming back to your page for more. Good energy, showing excitement, and being animated is a good start to create continual engagement.

 D – Be a DOER! There are several types of people in the world but for the sake of this argument let’s talk about two. You have the ‘talker” and you have the ‘doer’. The talker is able to tell you everything that they plan to do. They are really good at bragging on what the finish product looks will look like before lifting a finger to do anything. A good talker will talk circles around you and they will even have you believing what they are saying is true. Most times the end result is just the talk. But, then you have the doer and the doer is the person that doesn’t do a whole lot of talking. Instead of talking out of both ends of their mouth they simply talk and lead with their actions. Doers focus on the work that has to get done and leave the talking to someone else. When people visit your page let them leave knowing that you are a doer and that you are a person that make things happen in your school, on your job, or in your community! Doers make the world go round. Open the curtain to your LinkedIn page and show the world that YOU ARE A DOER in whichever industry you specialize in.

 I – Be Innovative! Don’t be afraid of being the first. The first to share a post about a new idea, a new philosophy, or a new perspective. Innovators on social media are like the “cool kids” in the school; everybody wants to follow their latest trends. Let the content that you post to be original and ground-breaking in theory and in thought so people can return to your page or share your post to the connections on their page. And as a result of them sharing your post to their connections guess who gains more connections…. YOU!

 N – NEVER! Never give up, never give in, and never allow anyone to talk you out of your dreams of building something special! I can remember when I first started my LinkedIn account someone told me that I couldn’t grow my account to thousands of followers without paying or getting my hands onto other people list servs or exports of email addresses. Telling someone like me that I “can’t” do something is like filling an airplane tanker with gasoline and dumping it over a wildfire. You are actually directly helping in how big I will grow by your lack of belief in me. So every day that you’re given another opportunity to grow your LinkedIn brand NEVER not take advantage of it. SEND connections, ACCEPT connections, and always THANK people for their connections!