How To Make A Genuine Connection On LinkedIn

When it comes to building connections, LinkedIn rewards behavior differently than other social media platforms.

Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all place emphasis on ‘likes,’ promoting a kind of social media influencer position. But LinkedIn rewards genuine conversation in their online community.

LinkedIn’s algorithm accomplishes this by boosting the content of users with high engagement rates. An engagement is a Like, Comment, Share, or other interaction.

The secret is, it only takes two engagements for your content to start showing up in somebody else's feed and vice versa, even if they are not a part of your network.

Our goal should be to establish a relationship before the connection request is ever sent. Finding ways to like, share, comment, all count as engagement.

Beware of the Ingenuine Invitation

I recently saw advice that salespeople should send out hundreds of messages and connection requests every day on LinkedIn, using the premium tool on Sales Navigator, to mass request.

There's nothing further from the truth.

Just like me, you're getting more and more spam in your mailbox on LinkedIn every day. People blindly pitching us products and services with absolutely zero regard for our time or needs as their potential client.

When it comes to building relationships, you can't do a drive-by-sales offer:

“Hey, can you connect with me? Hey, here's what I'm selling.” And then move on.

We know that doesn't work at all. It doesn't work when people do it to us. So why in the world would we believe if we turn around and do it to other people it would work on them, right?

Engaging Daily with Target Profiles

The best way to genuinely build a relationship and open doors of opportunity is to pay attention to the people you want to connect with. These individuals are sharing content. They're liking things. They're commenting on things, and they're creating original content and posting.

Pay attention. If they share an article, read it. And then once you read it, comment on it. If they've liked something, go find out why and ways to engage with sincerity.

Another creative way to take advantage of this opportunity is to actually create content that references your prospective connection. If you find something that they have shared that's interesting, mention it in a post.

Say, “I was recently reading an interesting article shared by…” name your prospect, and tag the person that you're trying to communicate with. Giving them recognition of what they're sharing.

I recently commented on a post because it mentioned a vendor and a piece of software that I really like. When I commented, I endorsed the software and the CEO of that company by tagging him. He then came back, saw that tag and liked it.

This is how you start to build a genuine connection, by engaging with their content. LinkedIn’s unique algorithm allows you to establish this relationship before ever connecting.

Once you have established a genuine relationship, the connection request comes naturally. 

Build an Audience

One of the things on LinkedIn we need to remember when we comment on content, is that it's not just sent to the individual that we're engaging with, but broadcasted to our entire network.

Always remember, to build genuine relationships is to demonstrate a genuine interest in the person you're engaging with. Also, be aware that you're speaking on a public platform and recognize your voice will influence the community and aid in establishing your digital presence.

Bonus: Spotting the Bots and why there is a dot in front of my name.

Here's one small tip to help you spot the bots and automated scripts that are flooding your LinkedIn with connection requests.

The Tip: Place a small emoji or icon in front of your first name in your profile. If you look at my profile, you see a small dot. You can put an emoji, a dot, or other character. When the bots send you a message to connect, they will scrape your first name to drop into their script. Your emoji/icon will get scooped up with your name and their message will look like this:

"Hi, ? Richard, I saw we have a lot in common..."

This immediately alerts you that this request is coming from a script/bot and you can safely ignore.