Do you want to get more use and learn how to drive more leads with Linkedin but struggle to build meaningful connections? Are you tired of spam invitations and dubious endorsements and want to put the full potential of LinkedIn to work for your company or personal brand? If you’ve followed all the online wisdom regarding perfecting your profile, now might be the time to jump into making real, long-lasting LinkedIn connections. Following are five surprising ways you can extend your roots on LinkedIn to build a network that grows stronger over time:
Build Your LinkedIn Network by Starting with a Grow Local Strategy
Many users neglect to connect with their local community on LinkedIn. Rather than focus only on industry influencers or well-known business leaders in your sector, connect with local business owners on LinkedIn too. From local business owners you follow on Facebook to members of your community’s Chamber of Commerce or business associations, all are connections to help build your LinkedIn network.
Use Quora to Data Dive to Find LinkedIn Connections
Quora is an excellent resource for those hoping to build their LinkedIn connections. Find questions and answers relevant to your business on Quora and then use the profile data to link up with those people on LinkedIn.
Give First
When you are trying to build relationships on LinkedIn, focus the majority of your efforts on helping others. Don’t try to introduce your company or your product/service offerings, but instead provide real value to your potential connections. Share helpful tools, resources, or apps relevant to their business and let the connection build naturally. Your good will and lack of pushiness will come back to you in spades. Consider it LinkedIn karma.
Become a Fountain of Knowledge
From offering job leads to sharing helpful newly launched products, becoming a trusted source of valuable information will grow your LinkedIn network in record time. Scour remote working job sites like remoteworkhunt.com or workingnomads.co/jobs and then share your finds with job-seeking contacts on LinkedIn. Keep an eye on sites like BetaList and share your finds with relevant connections on LinkedIn. The more “no-strings-attached” information you share, the higher your trust ratio climbs. This ties into a give first mentality, but is targeted towards offering specific information to specific individuals.
Learn to Weave
Consider using a mobile app like Weave (weave.in) to connect with others when you attend trade shows or conferences. Weave helps you discover proximity-based connections and even offers a series of virtual chat rooms for activities like networking or fundraising. Once you make connections on Weave, you can then add those contacts to your LinkedIn network.
Using these five techniques, you can grow your connections and build your trust authority at the same time. You won’t come off like another LinkedIn blowhard, but will instead be seen as a valuable networking partner. How many of these tips will you be integrating into your network building strategy?
