Growing Your LinkedIn Network Effectively

Growing your reach on LinkedIn may take a little time and effort, but it’s not hard. With over 500 million users and half being active, you have a good chance of finding your audience on LinkedIn if you grow your network the right way.

1. Set the Right Goals and Objectives

First, you need to know what your goals and objectives are for using LinkedIn. Do you want to find clients, recruit employees, or something else? When you know what you want to do, it’s up to you to design the tactics to reach the goals that you set based on the platform’s rules and best practices.

2. Personalize Everything You Do

LinkedIn gives you many places that you can personalize and make your own-from your personalized URL option to your headline and summary and more. Use every single section to add something if it’s relevant to your goals.

3. Keep Your Profile Updated

An old profile or one that is not complete will turn people off. If you really want to grow your business or brand or network, you’ll need to keep the profile up to date. The more you update it, the more people notice you, so consider adding something new each day until it’s done. Each time you update (if your settings indicate), your update will be shared with your connections.

4. Post Regularly with a Focus on Engagement

The other thing is to post updates regularly: at least two to three times per week if possible. On LinkedIn right now, you don't need to post more than daily as most people only post weekly. In fact, less than one percent post weekly. The rest are usually monthly. Posting relevant information on your feed daily will get attention.

5. Engage and Follow Up Promptly

When people post, they don’t want you to wait forever to respond. Get on their thread, and engage with them if it's relevant to you. If they respond to you, tell them thank you either publicly, privately, or both. The same can be said about InMail. When you get messages from people, answer them quickly even if you are not interested.

6. Get Comfortable with Video

Currently, video is more popular online than any other type of content. For this reason, try to weigh your content formats toward more video. Don’t be intimidated; you can create a video with your PowerPoint and a voice-over quickly and easily without ever appearing in the video. You can even get a contractor to make them for you.

7. Cross-Promote Your Profile and Actively Invite the Right People

When you invite people, avoid using the automatic features that LinkedIn profiles to wholesale invite your email contacts. This is not a good way. You want to personally invite the right people to join you and connect with you on LinkedIn and then cross-promote your profile to other social platforms.

8. Use Keywords in Your Complete Profile

Keywords are still essential to use on your profile. Consider keywords for your headline, summary, and other places within the profile area. When you name something, think of the keywords that your audience will use to search for the information that you provide. Keywords are essential for effective search engine optimization.

9. Check Your Data

When you set goals for your LinkedIn profile, you’ll want to check your data before you make changes, then again after and regularly to ensure you are doing what you need to reach your goals.

The main thing is that your LinkedIn account and the platform are designed for doing business and networking with business professionals. People want to connect with those who they can work with, not people they can go on a date with. Ensure that you keep your profile professional, up to date, and active, and you will grow faster than you think.