Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

written by Houston Golden
Founder & CEO, BAMF Media
February 4th, 2021
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The goal of LinkedIn is to make connections.

But, here’s the thing.

You could be doing it wrong.

I know it might sound a little trivial but here’s what.

There are certain standards that you still have to follow and some practices could be doing you more harm than good.

In this guide, we’ll break it all down for you, and show you the most effective ways to get LinkedIn connections the right way.

How Many LinkedIn Connections Do I Need?

The short answer: as many as you need.

LinkedIn places its limit on the number of connections to 30,000.

But, you don’t necessarily want to have 30,000 connections overnight. That would trigger LinkedIn to flag you for spam.

If you’re aiming to be an influencer, then you should set your sights on a higher number than that.

Make sure that you convert your profile button to follow.

This will allow you to increase the number of LinkedIn connections that you’re getting, and help you cement your image as an influencer.

Here’s an example.

Get LinkedIn Connections, Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

You can do this easy conversion on your profile by clicking here.

For niche applications such as B2B sales in a very tight industry, a couple of thousand isn’t so bad.

How Many People Should I Be Connecting With Daily?

It’s useful to note that LinkedIn has set specific limits on how many actions you can do on the platform on any given day.

Going past these number of actions could get you flagged or worse have your account restricted for a couple of days.

Get LinkedIn Connections, Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

For more information on how to remove account restrictions, check out our extensive guide here.

Based on our in-house testing, we’re looking at anywhere in the ballpark of 250 actions in one day.

These actions include adding connections, messages, etc.

If you were going to ask us, don’t add more than 10-20 people in one day.

Going above the limit constantly may call the algorithm’s attention and get you banned on the network.

Again, don’t engage in spammy behavior.

Warming Up Your Account

Before gearing up to start adding people, I strongly advise that you warm up your account first.

This means starting by adding three to five people first, per day in the first week, then slowly taking it up a notch within the month.

Adding people has to feel organic. If you try moving in too fast on your goal of tens of thousands of connections, you’ll probably have to rely on a bot and that will get your account restricted on the platform.

But, that’s not all.

Another great benefit of warming up your account is that it allows LinkedIn to slowly recognize that your account’s usage has a high velocity and that you can be soon trusted to do more with your account.

This same advice holds true to people with new LinkedIn accounts, are just having their LinkedIn ban lifted, or want to mass message a lot of prospects – although we would strongly advise against doing that.

Don’t Skip The Personalized Message

Do you know what’s worst than spam?

Sending someone a connection that doesn’t come with a message.

This is the professional equivalent of shaking someone’s hand and giving them a business card without even speaking with them.

It’s just uncalled for.

If you’re going to do that, you’d be better off with the most generic message than you can think of.

But, you know how much we hate generic messages on BAMF.

How Do You Get LinkedIn Connections?

Individually Prospect and Add People

One of the most powerful things that you can do is to individually prospect people before you connect with them.

This way you can put in a hyper-personalized message for each person that you’re reaching out to.

Now, this is really time-consuming, but it is one of the most effective strategies because nothing beats a message that was written especially for one person.

Our tip is to do this for high-profile prospects that you’re watching out for.

The messaging could be as simple as complimenting them for the work that they’ve done recently or asking them a very specific industry-related question.

Add People On Your Email List

I’m sure that most of your email contacts are your friends already – if you used LinkedIn’s tool to add your contacts – but what about people you’ve done outreach with?

You won’t just boost the number of connections that you’ll have, but you also get to nurture leads in the process.

Adding people that you’ve done outreach with, or those that you’ve sent lead generation emails to, allows you to continue your lead generation efforts off of email.

This in turn provides you with a more casual avenue to chat with them or follow up with them down the line.

This aids in creating a multichannel or multidimensional campaign.

To read more on multidimensional campaigns, we’ve created a guide here.

These campaigns aim to take a user on a journey with multiple touchpoints on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other mediums. This greatly enhances the surface area of your marketing efforts.

Post More Content and Focus On Those Who Engage With You

If you followed our guides in the past, you’ll know how much we prioritize content.

Here’s what.

It is your BEST bet at acquiring passive leads.

However, it’s not enough to just post great content and have people accidentally stumble upon your LinkedIn profile that you’ve optimized to be a landing page.

You still need to engage with them.

Why?

People like it when you reply to them.

Getting them to comment or react is just the first part of your struggle, the moment you engage with them, you give them a sense of importance and it allows you one foot through the door.

You can take this a step further by taking the conversation to a more personal level and interacting with them directly. And, this means connecting with them and messaging them.

Use a Specialized Tool Like Phantombuster

Are you doing prospecting in bulk through LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

Then, you’ve got to try out Phantombuster’s workflow tool called “Grow Your LinkedIn Network”.

It allows you to integrate your searches with their email

First things first, create an account on the platform and download their extension. They offer a free trial without a credit card by the way, so that’s really neat.

Next, you want to look for the Grow Your LinkedIn Network workflow.

Get LinkedIn Connections, Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

Once you’re there, you want to click on “Connect to LinkedIn” which allows the app to pull your LinkedIn session cookie. Click “Save”.

Get LinkedIn Connections, Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

Now you have different input types, you can stick in the URL of your search on LinkedIn Sales Navigator or even vanilla LinkedIn search. Select the option that you want to use, and hit “Save”.

Get LinkedIn Connections, Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

Now, they’ll allow you to customize your intro message, and once you type something great out, head over to the next page.

Get LinkedIn Connections, Get LinkedIn Connections: The Right Way

You’ve got a bunch of settings that you can tweak, but we usually just leave it on default.

Once you’re done with the last page, it will take you to a window where you can now run the Phantom workflow and add people in bulk.

Easy.

However, here are some caveats.

Make sure that your search is highly specific so that you AVOID creating generalized messaging. Remember the personalized approach is still the best approach.

Here’s what.

If your search is too broad you end up with too many people who won’t respond to your requests because your message won’t resonate with them, the more people reject your connection requests, the more you’re at risk of getting banned on the network.

The more specific the search is, the more specific your “hello” message will sound.

Also, don’t abuse the tool. Run it from time to time, but make sure you take a break from using it.

Takeaways

Expanding your LinkedIn network is one of the best ways to grow your reach, but the major thing to keep in mind is to do it as organically as possible.

You don’t want to get flagged.

I’ve seen a lot of people get flagged because of spammy behavior or the overuse of LinkedIn tools.

And, that hasn’t helped them at all.

Take your time when growing your connections, and do it smartly.

Growth hacking isn’t about speed, it’s about doing things right.

About the Author

The name's Houston Golden. I'm the Founder & CEO of BAMF — a company I've grown from $0 (yes, really) to well over $5M+ in revenue over a span of 5 years.

How did I do it? Well, it's quite simple, really. I've helped hundreds of business owners and executives get major traction (because when they win, we win), I tell all on this blog.

Growth hacking is a state of mind. Follow along as I explore and expose the unknown growth strategies and tactics that will change the way you think about marketing.
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