LinkedIn Growth Strategies: How to Grow Your Network Fast
LinkedIn is often regarded as a gateway to professional growth. It is one of the most powerful professional networking platforms used to access new career opportunities. However, securing new opportunities is only possible when you have a vast network, and you can build a strong network through the right LinkedIn growth strategies.
LinkedIn is a platform where you will get new opportunities everyday, but securing an opportunity is not easy. Along with exceptional skills, having a strong LinkedIn profile and a vast network increases your chances of getting new opportunities. Which means that, along with a strong resume and portfolio, you have to also work on your LinkedIn profile to make it stand out.
Growing your LinkedIn network can first seem challenging, but it can be made easier with adapting the LinkedIn growth strategies. If you are also one of the individuals struggling to build your LinkedIn network, then this guide is for you.
In this guide, we will see the top 5 LinkedIn growth strategies that will help you grow your network faster.
LinkedIn Growth Strategies # 1: Optimize Your Profile
Optimizing your profile is one of the most important things among the LinkedIn growth strategies. Make sure to complete your profile, and no section should be left empty.
To optimize your LinkedIn profile, you should adapt the following things:
- Use a professional profile photo, one with a high resolution.
- Use a relevant background image. It’s better if you create a banner related to your work that tells what you do and use that.
- Create a competing headline. The headline is the very first thing that people notice in your profile. So it should be catchy and engaging. Use keywords in the headline to make connections with the relevant people. It should be more than just your job title.
Example
Vague Headline: Google Ads Expert
Powerful Headline: Growth Strategies|Helping Businesses to Drive Conversions|Google Ads Expert
- In the about section, tell your professional summary in a clear and concise way, but it should be engaging. It should clearly tell who you are, what you offer, and highlight your achievements. Incorporate SEO keywords smartly to boost your profile visibility.
- Mention your previous work experience in the experience section. It’s a great way to let people know about your previous roles.
- In the skills section, add your key skills to let people know about your expertise.
- Use the featured section to showcase your work to others. You can add any articles you have written, graphics you have designed, presentations you have made, projects you have worked on, etc.
- In the contact info mention your contact details clearly, if you have a personal blog or own a website, then you should add its link there. This way, people can get to know more about your work.
- Request your colleagues and clients to endorse your profile, it will help to boost your profile’s credibility and will help your profile to appear more in searches.
Leverage the use of CTA’s and keywords to optimize your profile for better visibility.
LinkedIn Growth Strategies # 2: Build a Strong Network
To build a strong network on LinkedIn, it’s important to increase the number of connections. But you have to understand one thing that building a strong network does not only means making new connections, but making useful and helpful connections.
Here’s how you can build helpful connections on LinkedIn:
- Focus on connecting with the right people who align with your career goals.
- Send connection requests to the professionals in your field.
- Connect with the profiles which are suggested by LinkedIn (people you may know), for this thing, regularly check the “My Network” tab.
- Before sending a connection, engage with the content, don’t just write generic comments instead write thoughtful comments.
- Do send a personalized message when sending a connection request that tells who you are and why you want to connect.
- Once people have accepted your connection request, then you should engage with their posts by like, re-posting, and leaving thoughtful comments.
- Connect with alumni, leaders, managers, CEOs, and HR professionals to make your network strong.
- Along with making new connections, do engage with posts shared by existing connections.
One of the key steps in accelerating your LinkedIn network growth is to post and share valuable content. It’s a great way to expand your reach and get new connections faster.
- You should post content at least 3-4 times a week.
- You should focus on creating high quality and engaging content like blog posts, professional tips, personal experiences, and content that adds value to the readers.
- Create posts on such topics that are relevant to your industry and such topics on which you have a strong grip and knowledge that shows your expertise.
- Post about upcoming events, seminars so that other people on your network can also join.
- Post about your professional achievements and projects that can become a source of inspiration for other people.
- When posting any content, make sure to add images, videos etc related to it. Visuals increase the engagement rate as they tend to attract more audiences.
- Use relevant hashtags when sharing a post to increase the post’s visibility.
- Properly format your content before posting. Use bullet points, numbered lists, and relevant emojis to make your content more presentable and appealing.
- If you come across someone else’s post that you find helpful or any industry news, insight, then you should re-post it to share across your network.
- If you come across a job post that is relevant to someone in your network, you should share it with them or mention them on that post.
- Make your posting schedule. Decide on a time when you will create and share a post regularly. To get more engagement on your post, it is advisable to post on working hours during when most people are active on LinkedIn.
Remember one thing: you have to post regularly, maintain consistency in posting the content, and do not compromise on the quality of the content you are sharing.
LinkedIn Growth Strategies # 4: Engage in LinkedIn Groups and Communities
Another great way to grow your LinkedIn network faster is to engage in LinkedIn groups and communities. The more you show engagement in such groups, the faster your network will grow.
- Join the LinkedIn groups and communities which are relevant to your field. Use LinkedIn’s search feature to find the relevant groups and communities.
- You should join such groups in which your existing connections are in.
- Share your ideas, new opportunities, or any relevant news or posts.
- Show some engagement in the groups by answering other people’s questions or by asking questions and by participating in the discussions.
- Send connection requests to the active members of the group to increase your network faster.
LinkedIn Growth Strategies # 5: Use LinkedIn Features
LinkedIn’s built-in features are a great way to accelerate your growth. These features allow you to regularly review your profile and your post performance to know how much engagement you got.
- LinkedIn Analytics provides a simple and easy way to see the analytics of your posts. It helps you know how many impressions your post has reached, how many people interacted with it, how many likes, re-posts, and comments your posts got. It also helps you analyze the performance of your post over time.
- LinkedIn Live is another great way to expand your network. You can host live sessions on the trending topics and get real time engagement.
- Use LinkedIn Newsletter to share in-depth insights and attract the audience.
- Use LinkedIn engagement tools like event announcements, polls, etc, that encourage people to interact and increase the profile interaction rate.
- Regularly monitor how many search appearances included your profile and how many people visited and viewed your profile.
These are the top 5 LinkedIn growth strategies that can help you grow your network. Along with adapting these LinkedIn growth strategies, you should also regularly monitor your network and profile in particular to get an insight of how your posts are performing. Post regularly and show active participation on your network by writing thoughtful comments on others’ posts. When you stay active by engaging on other posts or creating posts yourself, LinkedIn algorithms make you visible across other networks.
Instead of just focusing on increasing the number of connections, focus on connecting with people who will add real value to your network. Be cautious when accepting the connection request. Try only to accept connection requests from people who are relevant to your field.
Avoid the mistakes that could lead to your account getting banned. LinkedIn is very strict towards its rules, so keep in mind that whatever growth strategy you adapt should not lead to any LinkedIn rules violations. Common violations include spammy connection requests (sending too many connection requests at a time), sending the same generic message to all the connections when sending connection requests, posting many times in a single day etc.
LinkedIn growth strategies aren’t just about getting more connections; it’s about building connections with the aim of adding value to each other’s networks. You should ensure that every connection and every interaction on your network should be meaningful. The key to growing your LinkedIn network faster is to stay consistent and focus on adding valuable content.
So what are you waiting for?? Start applying these 5 LinkedIn growth strategies and see how quickly your network expands.
Want more practical guides on tech topics? Explore our Tech Guides.