How I Added 100 New LinkedIn Connections in 22 Days

Step 4: One day, I send out a couple of dozen invitations. A few days later, it’s a different firm and another couple of dozen. I hope the message is attention-getting for the following reasons:

• Personalized: It uses their name.
• Specific: It mentions their job title and firm.
• Number of connections. “Birds of a feather.” They might call someone and ask about me. They might see a couple of familiar names and assume I’m “all right.”

Step 5: I’ve assumed they check me out, or at least access my profile page. It gets viewed 500 to 600 times on average over a rolling 90-day period. There are lots of other reasons why people might visit. Deciding if they want to connect is one of them. No action at this step. I’m waiting for results.

Step 6: I get those “accepted your invitation to connect” messages. Each morning, I “See who is new.” I send each a simple message.

“(Name), thanks for connecting. Have a good week.” 

Sometimes a conversation starts immediately: “Bryce, have a good weekend.” At the very least, I’m acknowledging they have accepted my invitation.

What Next?

Earlier, I’ve written about how I’ve been getting a 40% response rate. I try to send that “Let’s get to know each other better” message. I’ve built four lists, based on job titles. Some are managers in the industry, others are editors in the media. Each month I try to send each person a short message with a link to one of my published articles. I choose a specific one for each group I think they would find useful. Some people respond. Others don’t. It keeps me on their radar.

Each week, I post to LinkedIn. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, it’s a link to one of my published articles into the continuous daily feed. Tuesdays I post to those LinkedIn groups. Thursdays I visit each group and comment on other people’s posts.

My connections might (or might not) see the post I’ve put into the daily feed. They should see the monthly message I’ve sent directly to them.

There are many things I really like about LinkedIn. I think it’s chronically underutilized. I think it still has novelty value. Everything I’ve been doing is with the basic, free membership. There’s no cost to me except my time. Your firm may have compliance rules concerning social media activity. You need to follow them. This is what’s been working for me. I think adding 100 new connections in 22 days is pretty good, especially when more than 80% are people I think are the right connections!