LinkedIn is the leading social media in the business market in terms of professional networking. Company founders, decision makers, influencers, talented individuals, job seekers and many other categories of business people maintain a profile on LinkedIn. In fact, in 2011 there were 640 million professionals all over the world and 135 million of them were on LinkedIn. Additionally, 92% of Fortune 500 companies use LinkedIn and 57% of companies all over the world had a LinkedIn company page in 2013 and 73% in 2018.
LinkedIn has over 600 million accounts
and 303 million active monthly users
Remember – Your first goal is to get 500 connections
Currently, LinkedIn has over 600 million distinctive accounts and 303 million active monthly users. And the big question is: How to strategically grow my network on LinkedIn? Bearing in mind the figures above, a reasonable man would have probably thought that it is the easiest thing to do. It might be easy but it is tricky. This is something that should be done correctly. It is a goal that must be attained by utilizing the right strategy. You don’t want to create a network that is irrelevant to your professional profile. You don’t want to create a network that will not have any logical interconnection.
Strategically growing your LinkedIn network
Prerequisites
- Have your profile duly completed
- Use a professional picture
The strategy
- Request to connect with people all over the world who have the same profession with you (If you are a lawyer, start adding lawyers)
- Request to connect with people all over the world who are at the same professional level with you
- Request to connect with people all over the world who are senior to you
- Accept all connection requests coming from people with the same profession with you (senior to you, same level as yours, junior to you)
- Accept all other connection requests coming from people who have a different profession but are talented in what they do
- Join all LinkedIn groups that you are interested in
- Post updates regularly and be consistent (once a week etc.)
- When in a meeting, ask all participants to connect
- When talking over the phone with a stranger (it happens a lot in the business environment) ask them to connect before you hang-up
- Add your LinkedIn hyperlink on your email signature
*Add and accept people from all over the world. This is a tactic that helps future collaborations when a business need arise.