It’s possible to the to export your linkedIn connection’s profile in full. Want to know how? Read on…
With 800m+ million active users in 2022, LinkedIn has grown massively over the past 18 years and it is only expected to keep growing.
This year the pandemic saw more people moving towards a new way of working: from home. And working remotely has inspired a a major shift towards working online in new and innovative ways.
Many businesses have seen the benefit of working remotely and some say they won’t go back to traditional ways of working. It’s safe to say that online platforms are going to become an even bigger part of the way we work long after the pandemic is over.
Zoom calls instead of face to face meetings. Management platforms for tasks. The increase in online interactions through social media and online advertising. Etc. And an increase in using LinkedIn.
Technology is always changing and the way we do business is constantly evolving, the pandemic has only accelerated this shift. Businesses that are not able to pivot and embrace new ways of working are generally those that get left behind.
And what’s the most known network for online business connections? Linkedin. As you probably know, LinkedIn is great for connecting with potential business contacts.
Whether you are marketing person looking streamline your outreach process, a recruiter using LinkedIn to discover even more potential candidates, or a sales person looking to expand their network, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool to utilise.
However, LinkedIn does have its limitations when it comes to managing these connections off the platform.
One of the problems B2B professionals on LinkedIn face, is that there is no easy way to export your connections and people beyond your connections from LinkedIn. There’s no simple way to to view all the profiles you are interested in at a single glance.
You can have multiple tabs open sure, and gather that data manually, but this becomes time inevitably consuming. There’s a way to do this free from LinkedIn, but it does not give you anything beyond your contacts.
This is where LIX comes in. Have you ever wished you had all of your LinkedIn connections in a handy spreadsheet?
With LIX, you can do just that with our deep profile feature. Deep profile allows you to export all of your LinkedIn connections at once and presents them in an easy to read way in an Excel spreadsheet or CSV.
You can download the following data quickly and easily using the handy LIX helper:
Name
Description
Location
Industry
Profile Link
Headline
Personal Website
Shared Connections
Education
Experience
And with deep profile, there’s another bonus. It’s not just your connections you can download. But search results outside of your connections that you can download too. This isn’t possible with the standard LinkedIn search as you may know.
Here’s how you can export your LinkedIn connection’s profile:
1. Log in to the LIX dashboard and ensure that the LIX browser extension is enabled.
2.Next, look for‘My Network’ in the top toolbar, click it then click‘Connections’ on the left hand side
3. Your LIX browser extension should now be activated
4. From within the LIX tool, select your options
5. Your options are now selected and you are ready to go. Now hit LIX IT!
Stale data is a problem for any company that stores customer or prospect contact information. Not only are you paying to store this unusable data, you’re also leaving money on the table in the form of uncontactable warm leads. If you’re wondering how this happens – and how you can fix the problem – read on!
Every day your business can amass thousands of data points on current and potential customers. Each contact in your CRM represents a relationship initiated and nurtured by you or your team – but did you know that every three years, more than a quarter of that data becomes stale and unusable?
Every three years, 27% of the workforce change jobs. This means CRM details are constantly changing and have little shelf-life. Every time someone changes their role, the relationship you’ve spent time and money building goes with them.
Job hoppers, get it?
Not every single one of these job moves involve changing company. Many of your contacts might have been promoted into decision-making roles; meaning there are a myriad of unearthed gems in your data. A lead with prior knowledge of your product or service is a very warm lead indeed.
ReTrace can find fresh leads among your current contacts who may have been promoted into decision-making roles, or moved into new firms.
ReTrace filters your CRM to find decision-makers and points of influence, using real-time B2B data.
Updating these records manually is a thankless and unending task. The amount of research and record-checking could take so long, that once you’d finished… you’d need to start over again!
ReTrace’s AI achieves this in a fraction of the time it would take a human, with greater accuracy too.
The hidden costs of stale data includes not only lost relationships and the extensive time that goes into establishing them, but the potential deals you’re yet to close.
Compatibility
ReTrace data is compatible with almost all CRMs, including Salesforce, Hubspot, Tealium and more. Data exports are in CSV or Excel format, making them easy to import and update to your CRM.
The LinkedIn search function is a powerful tool – and it needs to be. With over 720 million users (and counting!) the ability to quickly filter, sort and categorise search results is a must. For example, searching the term ‘CEO’ will return 9,755,417 results. A few too many to sift through for a sales campaign, probably.
LinkedIn search is fairly intuitive, but there are a few tips and tricks that even the most seasoned user may have missed. This article is here to walk you through all the features of LinkedIn search, from the basic search right down to the individual features.
If you’re just here to learn how to use the basic LinkedIn search, this section is for you. Even if you’re a power user looking to eke out every last drop of functionality from a LinkedIn search, this is where it all begins.
Regular users will be very familiar with the way it looks and works – it’s just like any other search function on any website: you type in your keyword(s) and hit enter. Job done.
This works well if you’re looking for someone already in your network, or a person with an unusual name. Anything beyond that, however, and you’ll begin to need to use filters!
Unless you fancy sifting through 162,322 John Smith’s to find the one you’re looking for?
LinkedIn Search: Categories
Proudly sat under the search bar are the following categories: People, Jobs, Content, Companies, Schools, Groups, Events. What these options do is fairly obvious, and if you’ve spent much time on LinkedIn you will have no doubt searched within a category before.
If you’re taking the time to search for someone, or something, on LinkedIn you will most likely know which category it falls into – whether it’s a person, a company, a job and so on. If however you’re just trying to get used to the search function, try them all!
(nb: Some people refer to these as ‘upper filters’ and the filtering within categories as ‘lower filters’ but that gets a bit confusing, so we’ve opted for the nomenclature ‘categories’)
This is really the first step in honing your search. If we return to our ‘John Smith’ example and select the ‘People’ category, we go from 162,322 search results to 162,000. Still plenty of work to do, then.
LinkedIn Search: People
Once you’ve input your search and selected a category, it’s time to start really sorting through the results. LinkedIn’s search filters are different dependent on the category you’ve chosen. Let’s go through the filters for each search type individually.
Looking for someone in particular? Or perhaps a group of individuals with a certain set of skills? Here’s where we can really start to dial in that people search.
Initially, LinkedIn offers you four tabs to choose from:
Connections
Current Companies
Locations
All Filters
Let’s run through the top three, before delving into the ‘All filters’ tab.
Connections
The connections tab allows you to choose from 1st, 2nd and 3rd+ from the dropdown menu. 1st degree connections are those already in your network. 2nd degree connections are people you have some link to (via a current connection): these are usually considered warmer leads for those of you looking to use LinkedIn for sales and LinkedIn networking purposes, as you have an ‘in’ with that person already. 3rd degree connections are another step away – they’re the 1st degree connections of your 2nd degree connections.
This filter is useful for searching out leads and finding friends of friends to make introductions for you, but there are other ways of using this tool. For example, if you wanted to find everyone in your connections list that went to a specific University, or those that have a certain skill, you can search that keyword and then filter by People > Connection.
If I was looking for people who are 1st degree connections with me, who have JavaScript skills, it would look something like this:
This is incredibly useful for recruiters looking for their next great candidate!
Current Companies
This option is fairly self-explanatory, it filters search results by current company / place of employment. This simple option does have a number of use cases, however. It’s a great tool for HR people looking to sort their flock from the general LinkedIn for instance. It’s also popular with headhunters looking to poach talented individuals from a particular company.
Locations
LinkedIn is a global platform, operating in 200 countries worldwide. So, whatever your desired end result for this search, knowing an individual’s location is always important. Whether you want to sell them a product or service, recruit them for a role or invite them to an event; where they are plays a part.
Let’s return back to our search for one John Smith: we whittled down 162,322 search results to 162,000 by selecting ‘People’; let’s filter again by ‘United Kingdom’ as the location and see what we’re left with:
We’re down to just 30k John Smiths now! The right John Smith is getting ever closer…
All Filters
The ‘All Filters’ tab opens up into a smorgasbord of options. This is where you can really tighten up your search. Opening up the ‘All Filters’ tab should look like this:
The first few options are more in-depth versions of the filters we’ve just looked at. The most interesting of these initial options is ‘Connections of’. Using this, we can filter results by a specific connection, allowing us to build our search around a specific connection – particularly useful for leveraging existing relationships to build new ones. Location and Current Company come with a few helpful suggestions, plus we can also search by Past Companies.
The following filters are where we really see the additional functionality of the ‘All Filters’ tab:
Narrowing by industry, profile language, schools (which is a catch-all term for schools and colleges) and even interests and services gives us plenty of scope to find the individual we’re looking for.
Let’s go back to our John Smith search and see if we can use the filters to hone-in on our target. I’m looking for a John Smith who working in accounting, speaks English, and attended the London Business School.
Using LinkedIn search filters, we have narrowed down 162,322 search results to just four. We’ve gone from enough John Smith’s to fill Twickenham twice over, to just enough John Smiths to squeeze into a small car.
Of course, you can use this search in whatever way you like. In reality, you probably won’t be searching for the one true John Smith; it’s more likely that you will search by a particular skill, or job title etc. Hopefully with your newfound knowledge of the LinkedIn people search process, you can go forth and find whoever it is you’re looking for in no time at all.
LinkedIn Search: Jobs
The next big search category for LinkedIn is Jobs. There are three main reasons that we’ve come across for LinkedIn Job Searches. The first is the most obvious – people looking for jobs! From there we also know that recruiters use this function in order to find posted jobs and offer their own candidates. Also, we know the investors use this function to see which companies are hiring (and therefore, growing) when sizing up where to place their money.
For the sake of our examples, we’ll keep it simple and perform searches as if we’re on LinkedIn looking for work. Let’s bring back JavaScript as our example skill and see how many jobs match the keyword “JavaScript”:
Unlike the People search, Jobs will automatically fill in your location. In fact, you cannot leave this field blank. According to my search, there are currently 18,998 live job postings looking for JavaScript as a skill within the UK (it’s a great time to be a developer!).
As you can see in the screenshot above, we have a different selection of filters at hand for our search.
Date Posted
An important filter if you want to find those roles that are either fresh off the rack, or perhaps those that have lingered for a while without finding the right person. For our search, we can see that ‘date posted’ can have a huge effect on the numbers:
Past 24 hours (980)
Past Week (5,154)
Past Month (14,902)
Any Time (18,998)
Selecting ‘Past 24 hours’ filters out almost 95% of the returned results. If you want to be among the first CVs in their inbox, make sure you use this filter.
Experience Level
Knowing at what level a company is recruiting is obviously crucial for them job seeker; you don’t want to sift through internships if you’re senior level. However, this is another filter that can be used by our other potential ‘Jobs’ searchers – the recruiter and the investor. Is a startup is looking for their first CFO? They must have more money flowing through the doors that they need to keep track of…
For our example search, experience level breaks down the results like this:
Internship (1,208)
Entry level (9,832)
Associate (4,229)
Mid-Senior level (2,644)
Director (142)
Executive (53)
Company
Have a place of work in mind? Filter your search by company with this tab and immediately cut your search results down to size. This is a filter that I would wager is predominately used by our other ‘Jobs’ searchers, however!
Job Type
Full time? Part time? Contract? Select the type you want here.
Remote
In the Covid-19 era, this is a filter that is probably getting a lot more action! Filter our jobs that allow you to work remotely and never go into an office again.
LinkedIn Features
This is where the filters start to get interesting. LinkedIn have some pretty snazzy built-in features for jobs hosted on their platform. These include: Easy Apply, Under 10 Applicants and In Your Network. Easy Apply makes applying… easy (you wouldn’t have guessed, I’m sure!). In short, it uses your LinkedIn profile as a CV and allows you to one-click apply for a role without ever leaving your search. Under 10 Applicants is for you early birds who want to catch those worms; put yourself front and centre for new roles. In Your Network allows you to apply for roles where you have an ‘in’, someone in your network works there and can help make the introductions. Hey, it’s not what you know but who you know, sometimes… Which is another good reason to put time into LinkedIn networking!
All Filters
When searching in Jobs, the all filters tab opens up some new options. As with People searches, the first few options are simply more in-depth versions of the filters we just covered. Let’s skip to the bottom of the window and run through the extra parameters within. It should look something like this:
These final four options are super important if you’re looking for your dream job on LinkedIn.
Industry
You’re a JavaScript developer looking for work. Maybe you don’t have a specific company in mind, but you may have industries that you do (or don’t) want to work in. Sometimes these options can be a little loose, for example in the screenshot above one of the options is ‘Internet’. If you told a recruiter “I’m a developer and I want work in INTERNET” they would probably smile uncomfortably and shuffle you out the door.
Job Function
If your skillset can be applied to different functions, select the one(s) you most want to work in here.
Title
As above – select which option best suits your search.
Salary
For many, this is one of the most important factors when looking for a role. Salaries here operate in brackets, filtering the search results to suit your requirements.
Whether you’re a job seeker, recruiter or investor you can use the LinkedIn search filters to find exactly what you’re looking for. Get out there and find that perfect job!
Content
Content posted direct to LinkedIn picks up around 9 billion weekly impressions. There are over 3 million regular (weekly) contributors. Content on LinkedIn is a huge deal and its importance is growing every single day. Thankfully with all that content to sort through, LinkedIn has provided us with a vast array of filters.
We’re going to continue with the JavaScript search term. Let’s see how many articles pop up:
Unlike our previous search categories, LinkedIn doesn’t give us a total number. It does, however, give us some filters to play around with here.
Posted By
Currently there are only two options here: posted by ‘Me’ or ‘1st Connections’. You can find your own articles more easily by accessing the ‘activity’ section of your profile and clicking on ‘articles’. The ability to filter by 1st degree connections may be useful, but don’t be surprised if this is expanded up in future LinkedIn updates.
Date Posted
Here we have three options: Past 24 hours, Past Week, Past Month. Again, we have no idea of the total number of articles posted that match our search term within those timeframes. This function is probably best used in conjunction with the other filters.
Author Industries & Companies
This is a sandwiching together of the final two options, but both serve similar functions. This is also where this group of filters becomes interesting and we start to see some possible use-cases. Using this function in conjunction with our guide to LinkedIn Influencer Marketing we can really see some value in content filtering. It’s possible to search for content-types, within certain industries and then filter by recency. This would allow a savvy marketer to find outspoken influencers within their required fields. If LinkedIn added extra functionality to the ‘Posted By’ filter this could really become a powerful tool.
Companies, Schools, Groups & Events
These categories have been grouped together because (currently) they have no additional filters. In the future, this could change. There is a case to be made that filters for all the above categories could be useful. For example, if you could search companies by size (employee count) or filter events by the number of attendees, these would be useful filters. Currently however, it’s just the basic keyword search. This means that you either need to know exactly which company, school, group or event you are looking for – or you can input a blank search and have LinkedIn show you all of them.
LinkedIn helpers are tools designed to help you eke the most out of LinkedIn. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes: some are lead and data focused (like us!), some focus on automation and outreach, others offer tools for content and engagement.
This guide walks you through the best LinkedIn helper tools on the market, so that you can make the choice that’s right for you, your business and the task at hand.
LinkedIn Helper Tools: Categories
My first piece of advice to you when looking for a LinkedIn helper tool – work backwards. Decide what features and tools you need most and let that guide your decision. Choosing a tool that looks good but doesn’t perform your key tasks well is going to lead to frustration and wasted time. It may also transpire that one tool doesn’t do everything you need, and a combination of tools is best.
To make your search a little easier, I’ve broken down the types of tool available into three overarching categories. If you know which type of tool you want, feel free to click the one that suits and jump to that section!
With so many millions of users and thousands of possible opportunities to be found on LinkedIn, reaching out to them manually would take an age. Thankfully, there are some powerful and reliable LinkedIn helper automation tools out there for you use.
Generally, people use LinkedIn automation for three things: automating connections requests, sending messages (including automatic follow ups) and viewing profiles.
Automating Connection Requests
Apart from the obvious benefit of growing your network, personalised connection requests can also be useful for LinkedIn outreach. The current version of LinkedIn moves the connection request message (the little ‘hello’ that you get with each request) directly into your main inbox.
A good automation tool for this purpose will allow you to personalise the connection messages you send with each request, thus turning your LinkedIn into an automated outreach machine! At the time of writing, it is possible to send up to 150 connection requests a day*. That’s a lot of automated outreach.
*Update: As of June 2021, this number is far lower. LinkedIn have introduced new connection limits, tied to acceptance %. If you’re looking to hit 150 connections a day, you will need to ensure at least 50% of those connections are accepted. No small order. We now recommend working in smaller, more targeted batches.
Automated Messaging
I can feel the confusion through the screen “didn’t we just talk about automated messaging?”. Yes… and no! A good automated LinkedIn messaging platform will go beyond simply connection request messages and into the realms of message flows, automated replies and often much more.
This allows you to build funnels and message flows that initiate, build and nurture relationships at the click of a button. You could start with a connection request to break the ice, send an automated follow up with a call to action and then personally reply to the responses. All within a fraction of the time needed to do the whole process manually.
Profile Viewing
When you view somebody’s profile, as long as they are not set to ‘private’, they will receive a notification to let them know you stopped by. It’s almost like a little digital tap on the shoulder. It’s not as effective as sending connection requests, but it will bring in some attention to your profile. Given that you can view up to 1,000 individual profiles a day, that’s a lot of shoulders to tap!
The latter, automatic profile viewing, is something we offer at LIX, but it’s not our main focus. If you’re looking for powerful LinkedIn automation as your number 1 priority, we advise that you check out one of the following companies.
Octopus CRM
Octopus position themselves as the ‘All-In-One LinkedIn Automation Software’ and to be quite honest, it’s hard to argue with that. Their tool allows you to:
Send automated (personalised) connection requests to 2nd and 3rd level connections on LinkedIn
Message hundreds of your 1st level connections in bulk
Automatically endorse up to 7 skills on profiles of your LinkedIn contacts
Visit hundreds of profiles automatically
That’s all the tools we’ve listed, plus the extra skill endorsement tool, which is another neat way to engage with your connections.
One of the great things about Octopus is that they are extremely cost effective. Even the top-level tier comes in at a very reasonable $24.99 per month. If you’re looking for the standard suite of LinkedIn automation tools at a price that won’t hurt your pockets, definitely check them out.
Alfred claims to be the world’s easiest and most advanced LinkedIn and Twitter automation program, offering:
Automated Messaging Campaign Manager
In-Depth Analytics & Dashboard
Advanced Linkedin CRM
Email Campaign Sequences
Team Management
LinkedIn Post Scheduling (coming soon)
As you will have ascertained, Alfred is not just for LinkedIn but Twitter too. If you’re using both platforms this could be a great tool for you and your business.
With extra functionality however comes extra cost. MeetAlfred’s top tier for those operating the system themselves is $99 a month – reasonable given the amount of functionality and the fact it covers both platforms. There is also a higher tier of $199 a month in which the people over at MeetAlfred do it all for you.
Content
LinkedIn’s native content has been a big deal in the world of b2b for some time, with plenty of room for growth left. There are over 3 million regular (weekly) contributors and content posted direct to LinkedIn picks up around 9 billion weekly impressions. That’s a lot of content.
There are two main categories of LinkedIn helper tools related to content: schedulers and boosters.
Content Schedulers
It’s not enough to simply post a piece of content to LinkedIn, or in fact anywhere on social media. If you really want to game the algorithm and get those big engagement numbers, you need to think about timing. Posting an article targeted at CEOs that goes out at 9am on a Monday will probably get less than engagement than the same article posted at 8am, or 6pm. Why? Because those are the times that your target audience is using LinkedIn.
Also, think about time zones. Perhaps you can time your post for after working hours in Europe whilst hitting lunch time in the US? Staying on top of all those different post times could be stressful and you don’t want to miss your mark. That’s where content schedulers come into play.
Engagement Boosters
Engagement boosting tools are relatively new, but a very exciting prospect. As with all social media, LinkedIn is based off an engagement algorithm. The more engagement a post gets, the more people it’s then shown to. If you get lots of engagement early on, there’s a chance your post could go viral.
Most engagement boosting tools work via shared engagement. Essentially, you pool your account with others. They can use your account (along with everyone else in the pod) to boost their content and visa versa. That means real accounts, not clickfarms.
This is a tried and tested tool that has been around for some time. As with most schedulers, it can also prepare and post content for other socials platforms. However, unlike others, the scheduling function is their sole purpose rather than afterthought (Hootsuite etc.). That means you get a great product without breaking the bank. As well as simple scheduling, Buffer offers:
Post Analytics
IG Stories Planner
Hashtag Planner
Instagram tagging
Custom Reports
The top tier for Buffer comes in at $99 for 25 social channels and up to 2,000 scheduled posts. That’s probably overkill for all but marketing agencies. Eight channels and 100 posts is just $15 and probably enough if you’re just posting to LinkedIn.
Of all the engagement boosters I have tried, Podawaa is by far the best. Their service is relatively new, beginning in early 2020 but in that time they have grown massively.
The Podawaa tool offers:
Boosted Reactions
Personalised Replies
Multiple Languages
Post Scheduling
If you’re looking just post scheduling, I would opt for Buffer as the Podawaa post scheduler is not quite as powerful and well-equipped, but if you want a blend of both content and engagement then nothing is better.
Their top tier is $24.99 a month which includes unlimited posts and 2,000 engagement credits a month (cumulative).
Leads & Data
LinkedIn is a treasure trove of b2b data. In a world where ‘data is the new oil’, LinkedIn is an oil field just waiting to be drilled. At the time of writing we are close to 1 billion LinkedIn users and, due to the pandemic, the daily average usage is at an all-time high.
People are networking, chatting, recruiting, selling and pitching on LinkedIn like never before. The business opportunities available at your fingertips are bountiful. This is where you need to find a dedicated, LinkedIn-focused data exporter and email-finder.
Thus far we have recommended other LinkedIn helper tools where the LIX helper isn’t as strong, but when it comes to lead gen and data exporting, we have to recommend ourselves!
Let’s break down how LIX can help with both sides of the LinkedIn export coin…
Data
No other tool can export more LinkedIn data than LIX. As a LinkedIn-focused data export tool we are unmatched in the field. Paired with the powerful LinkedIn search function (you can find a full guide on that, here) LIX can export search results from People, Companies and Jobs searches. Plus, full LinkedIn profiles using the Deep Profile feature.
At time of writing, LIX exports:
People Search
Full Name
Description
Organization
Past and present jobs
Industry
Location
Email
Company Search
Business Name
Headquarters
Type of Company (Public, Private, Limited, Not for Profit etc.)
Year founded / Age of company
Stock ticker
Number of employees on LinkedIn
Industry
Number of Followers
Locations of offices
Job Search
Job title
Location
Company
Job Type (Full Time/Part Time/Contract)
Time Since Posted
Easy Apply Status
Deep Profile
Name
Description
Location
Industry
Profile Link
Headline
Personal Website
Shared Connections
Education
Experience
Plus, here at LIX we are constantly developing and releasing brand new tools to help export, organise and utilise this data. If you need data exported from LinkedIn, you need LIX!
Leads
The data LIX can export is part of the lead gen journey: understanding your customer, learning about the size of their business, tapping into shared connections and education can all help with making the sale. With all that in place however, how do we turn this data into a lead? That’s where LIX’s email-finding algorithm comes into play.
Where a particular lead doesn’t have their email address listed on their LinkedIn profile, our intelligent machine-learning algorithm will find possible email addresses for the contact based on a variety of data inputs and previous industry knowledge.
That allows us to provide verified email addresses for around 80% of your export. With the ability to export up to 10,000 search results a day (and stay within LinkedIn’s fair usage limits) that means you could be exporting a cool 8,000 email addresses every single day.
Combine their email with the wealth of data you’ve already extracted, and you have yourself a very exciting, well-researched lead.
If you’re looking for a particular LinkedIn helper tool that you can’t find on this list, or you want data, lead information or anything else from LinkedIn that isn’t currently listed, you can either commission a bespoke solution.
Don’t have the budget for bespoke? Suggest a feature for the LIX roadmap.
LIX have built bespoke solutions for some of the planet’s largest companies, including investment banks and world-leading Universities.
If you’ve got a project in mind that you’d like us to discuss with you, contact us at any time. We’d love to talk it through with you.
There you have it. Every possible LinkedIn helper feature and tool you could ever need to get the most out of LinkedIn. Whether you’re looking to automate, extract leads and data or just give your content the push it needs to reach a wider audience: the solution lies above! Now, get out there and conquer the mountain that is LinkedIn in 2021.
There are a myriad of earthed gems on Chrome’s web store for sales and marketing; many of which are completely free or have a free version to get you up and running. Whether you’re looking to save time, boost your efficiency, or discover new insights, we’ve got the top 5 chrome extensions all sales teams should have their hands on.
With so much time spent on prospecting, administration and research, with just 33% of a salesperson’s day spent engaging with customers, salespeople are kept from their full potential. They spend hours fulfilling admin tasks and monotonous searching. With the millions of data points, profiles, and companies available for prospecting, you could spend years finding the right persona. That’s before attempting to extract all the relevant information.
Here are our top 5, each serving a different purpose to save you time and improve efficiency.
HubSpot Sales
HubSpot’s Sales tool lets you connect your inbox directly with your CRM. Rather than switching between the two, this integration ensures you save time and retain all valuable information about your prospects when exporting contact info. There’s also the ability to monitor and be notified when your emails are delivered, opened, and clicked on. This can all be added to your CRM log.
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo tells you how well content is performing and its potential for virality. When on a web page, click the extension to look at the stats on how many people have shared or backlinked to it. It’s also a great way of seeing keeping an eye on how your competitors are doing. You can also unearth insights into new untested strategies to ensure the content your sharing is relevant and engaging. This is ideal for teams where too much of their time is being spent on content research.
Nudge.AI
Nudge.ai is an artificial intelligence tool giving you important sales insights whenever and wherever. It allows you to check information and insights on prospects and their companies. Instead of manually searching for the information you need to write that perfect intro or pitch, you get all the data you need immediately. It monitors personal mentions, social media activity, company events, and blogs. Create the necessary personalisation your message needs to stand out in a crowded inbox without spending hours crafting it.
Offline editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides
One for the pre and post-Covid world, this does exactly what it says on the tin. If your commute is about to end its sabbatical you can guarantee mediocre to non-existent wi-fi along your route. This handy extension allows you to make all those edits whilst stuck between stations. You don’t even need any Office apps installed on your device for this to work either. Simply drag the file into Chrome and export it afterwards.
Lix allows you to export thousands of LinkedIn profiles, find 98% accurate validated email addresses and track company data in just one click. Perfect for sales prospecting, recruitment and business intelligence professionals, it removes the manual effort required to obtain the necessary info you need for your pipelines. Its automation also gives a handy boost to your marketing and networking efforts, allowing you to view thousands of profiles a day. This, in turn, grows your network and ensuring those relevant to your industry get eyes on your profile and business.
Lix’s email guessing feature gives you another avenue for your outreach, without the need to utilise another tool to pore over these profiles. Boasting 98% accuracy and with alternatives given where the first option proves unsuccessful, you have an optimal chance of reaching your chosen connection.
If you’ve ever wondered how to extract emails from LinkedIn, wonder no more…
With almost a billion users and over 33m companies, LinkedIn is by far the leading social professional platform. That makes it a prime target for lead generation, recruitment, market intelligence and research.
For those of you who connect, pitch or even send invites via email however, there is a piece of the puzzle missing. Finding the email address for a potential client, for example, can be a tedious manual.
If you want to save time and improve your email-finding accuracy, try a combination of our LIX email finder (with 98% accurate email validation) and the powerful LinkedIn search (we have a guide to the LinkedIn search, too!).
How does LIX work?
Lix uses clever AI to combine the target connection’s name, the name of their company and the company’s email format to initially guess, then verify email addresses.
Let’s work through an example to show you the process:
You’re on the hunt for fresh leads, and you want to go right to the top of the food chain – CEOs in London. You would start your hunt with the search function on LinkedIn. That search (and subsequent filters, if necessary) will produce a list of results.
How to extract emails from a search
Complete your search.
LinkedIn Search
Log in to your Lix account – make sure you have the Lix extension installed – then click the icon.
The Lix Extension Icon
This will bring up the Lix toolbar, allowing you to toggle your settings. Select the ‘Generate Emails’ tab and choose the volume of results to export.
There’s no need to worry about exporting too many results. Your account will never be restricted due to Lix’s in-built daily limits.
Click ‘Lix It’ and the results will come rolling in. You need to ensure that the window is left open to run – an easy way to do this is to move your search to its own window so you can carry on with other tasks while Lix works its magic. This isn’t always necessary; for most extractions the process is almost instant.
Finally, click ‘Download Results’ and open the file.
Lix Email Results
As you can see here, there’s a strong return on the amount of generated email addresses in the ‘Email – Top Guess’ tab. If you look in the tab adjacent (E-mail – Other Guesses) you’ll see there are alternates in case the top answer is incorrect. This way you have the best chance of obtaining the correct email.
Afterwards, you can export this data to your existing CRM systems to sync up with your active marketing campaigns. Remember, you can extract emails from LinkedIn multiple times a day.
Additionally, once you’ve validated the email address, you can also target other decision makers in the organisation.
Get started with Lix by signing up here and generate thousands of emails. The Lix toolbar is added as a Chrome extension so no need to download any software to get up and running.
Check out our new video series on all the other great benefits there are to using Lix and LinkedIn for lead generation and recruitment.
If you’ve spent any time looking at lead-gen tools and email finders (like LIX!) you will have come across the term ‘verified emails’. The terminology is now industry-standard, with most (if not all) providers touting their ability to provide ‘verified emails’ for their customers, but what does it mean?
Firstly, it’s important to note that while the terminology is an industry standard, email validation methods are not. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ways in which emails are ‘valid’.
Regex String Validation
At the most basic level, emails should undergo string validation – that means ensuring that the email address consists of real characters, in an email format (name@domain.com, for example).
This is particularly useful when the email address is pulled together using data from different sources, for example; when using LIX to find the email address for someone on LinkedIn. If someone in the list of potential leads you’re exporting has included an emoji in their LinkedIn display name, we will use string validation to remove the emoji as it’s an illegal character.
Emojis are a fairly simple error to spot and remove, however. Where many people run into problems are those characters that are outside of the Latin alphabet used in the US & UK. If your intended target is a Mandarin-speaker named Zhang Wei and their display name is in Hanzi: 张伟 some email services may reject this! Similarly, if you’re looking for the email address for one Jørgen Pedersen, you might encounter the same problem.
SMTP Authentication
Very few lead-gen tools talk about Regex string validation, but many of them boast that their emails are SMTP authenticated.
If you’ve ever set up email forwarding, or added an external mailbox to your smartphone, you’ve probably seen the acronym ‘SMTP’ before, which stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. TechTerms have a useful definition:
“STMP stands for “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.” This is the protocol used for sending e-mail over the Internet. Your e-mail client (such as Outlook, Eudora, or Mac OS X Mail) uses SMTP to send a message to the mail server, and the mail server uses SMTP to relay that message to the correct receiving mail server. Basically, SMTP is a set of commands that authenticate and direct the transfer of electronic mail.”
The overall definition is of course useful to understanding what SMTP is, but that final sentence is really what we’re interested in: the ability to authenticate and direct the transfer of electronic mail. Have you ever sent an email in a hurry, missed a letter from their email address and had it bounce back as ‘failed’? That’s an SMTP failure – the receiver’s SMTP server has rejected the incoming mail as invalid.
If the email address is SMTP authenticated it means it’s a real email address and it’ll definitely reach the intended target, right? Not always! Some servers will swallow the error without ever letting you know that the email was not authenticated.
Overall, SMTP is a good indication that an email is formatted correctly and that it will reach its target, but it is not totally fool proof.
Open Validation
Have you ever wondered how your email marketing tool (MailChimp, Klaviyo, etc.) knows how many people opened your newsletter? The answer is, they use open tracking.
In a nutshell, it’s a small line of HTML embedded into an email that tells the sender whether or not the email has been opened. This of course is a great way to tell if the email address is valid or not – chances are if an email has been opened, the address is correct! There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Sometimes a spam filter might ‘open’ an email to scan the content. That may mean that the email address is still correct, but perhaps the open validation is not.
There are a number of ways to validate email addresses but as we’ve shown, there is no ‘one’ infallible method. If you’re using a lead-gen tool and you’re not sure how they verify the email addresses they send you, don’t be afraid to ask!
Welcome to How to use LinkedIn – a complete walkthrough to help you master the professional social platform. This guide is split into four sections, one for each of the four pillars of LinkedIn mastery: profile building, networking & connections, content and company pages. Each section is accompanied by a video. Feel free to skip to the section you need help with most or read (and watch!) all the way through for the complete guide on how to use LinkedIn.
A strong profile is the very foundation of LinkedIn. Whether you’re using LinkedIn to look for a job, for networking or seeking potential clients you need to make sure that your profile is polished. A polished profile requires a quality avatar image, use of cover image space, tailored headlines, powerful descriptions and a focus on keywords.
In order to walk you through each section of the profile, we’re going to use my personal LinkedIn as an example (you can also watch this section’s *video* and follow along there).
When you sign into LinkedIn, you’re going to see something like this:
This is the LinkedIn feed. It’s where you see your connections (and sometimes the connections of your connections!) and their content: the information that they’ve posted, articles, video etc. This is where your content is going to show up when you post it. If you’re already au fait with LinkedIn, then you’ll know all about this. If you’re new to LinkedIn, take some time to get familiar to this view. The feed setup is very similar to other web-based social platforms such as Facebook, so it shouldn’t take too long to get used to.
Let’s jump right into my profile, which looks like this:
I’m going to take you each of the individual sections and explain how and why I’ve structured mine in the way that I have.
Profile Image
First and foremost, make sure that your photograph is professional. Not professional in the sense that a pro photographer took the snap (although that would be nice) but professional in the sense that you are projecting an image of yourself in a professional setting. No photos of you drinking, or smoking, or on the beach, or a party… This may seem obvious, but I see profile images like this fairly regularly and it is not a good look. You might think it makes you look cool and ‘out there’, but this is a professional networking platform, not a frat party.
My tip for presenting yourself professionally is to wear the clothes that you would normally wear to a networking event within your industry. If you’re in an industry that would wear black tie, or at least a tie and jacket, to a networking event then make sure you’re wearing something like that in your avatar. Remember, that’s what we’re using LinkedIn for. We are here to network in one way or another: finding a job, growing your network, looking for clients etc.
The avatar I use is a little more casual, because I work in startups and tech. I can have an open shirt with t shirt underneath, and that’s absolutely fine. Make a judgement call here. If you’re in doubt, opt for the smarter choice.
Cover Image
The cover image is something that a lot of people neglect, which is a real waste of valuable digital real estate! It doesn’t have to be an all-singing, all-dancing advertisement I’ve seen some that pack in way too much text) and you don’t need to sell something here, but don’t waste the space.
I’ve used something light-hearted and design focused for my cover image:
While it looks great, I can probably do a little bit better by making use of that space and saying something about the company that I work for, a launch we have coming up or perhaps some content we have to give away. If you’re looking for a job, you could always include something about your skills or your search here. If you feel like you have nothing to say in the cover image, don’t fret, include your company logo or a photo from a business event. Something is always better than nothing.
Here are some great examples of LinkedIn covers to give you some inspiration: https://bit.ly/LinkedIn-Cover-Examples
Another important point to consider is the recommended sizes for both the profile and the cover image; pixelated images simply will not do.
You can find a full guide to the sizes on Canva: https://www.canva.com/sizes/linkedin/
Canva is also a great tool for creating graphics easily. Follow the link, pick a size and start creating. clean and keep it looking good.
Summary & About
The summary section sits just below your images and includes your current job title, highest level of education, company and number of connections. This information is automatically populated from the details you enter in the relevant sections of your profile.
Here is my ‘About’ section:
You may have noticed a recurring theme with my about section and cover image – I’ve opted for style over substance! I’ve kept it lighthearted, but you can of course be much more serious than I have.
I’ve chosen three very simple, but I think fairly useful, points:
Firstly, an achievement: ‘Top 100 Growth Hackers’. I was voted as such in a study by Goodman Lantern. That’s an achievement, it sets me apart from my peers.
Secondly, expertise: ‘Automation expert’. Tthat’s a little bit more about me as a marketer, my skillset and background.
Lastly, on-brand humour: ‘Fantastic hair’. It’s funny and lighthearted, very on-brand for me, and I do have fantastic hair.
I have seen plenty of variations for the About section, from one-liners to rambling essays. Personally, I would shy away from writing too much here. A big block of text is going to put off any potential readers. Let your profile cover the details of your work history!
Featured
This is your chance to add media to give a little extra flavor to your profile.
Here’s my Featured section:
I’ve included an article written about me, talking about my skills and some of my achievements. This is really good: it shows that I have press coverage and that people are interested in what I do. If you have anything similar that celebrates your skills and achievement, be sure to include it!
The next along is my Goodman Lantern ‘Top 100 Growth Hackers’ nomination. The broken image on the link is a great example of why it’s important to regularly check your profile for changes. A broken image doesn’t fit with the rest of my profile, so I need to either replace it with something else or I need to speak to Goodman Lantern and get them to fix their metadata. Either way, I can’t leave a broken link on my profile!
There are other things you can do with this media space, in fact the possibilities are limitless. You can make a video CV where you talk about yourself, you can give a presentation on a project you’ve worked on, or something you’re interested in. This link space is an opportunity really show off who you are and what you’ve achieved.
Activity
The activity section is fairly important, although many people forget that it’s there. Let me explain why it’s worth bearing in mind…
Any engagements you make on the LinkedIn platform will show up here. Articles, shares, comments… everything! For content shares, that’s no problem – it’s great to have a second chance for people to find your content on your profile. Comments however can sometimes be an issue.
In the last few years, LinkedIn has become slightly more like Facebook in the sense that people will share personal and political things on the platform. That didn’t used to happen so much on LinkedIn, but it happens a lot now. Always remember, before you comment on something potentially controversial, those comments are going to show up on the activity card on your profile. You don’t want to have an argument with someone about their stance on Trump, for example, and then someone potentially offering you a job or a contract comes onto your platform, sees that you are saying things that they would find potentially unsavory and withdraws the offer. Trust me, it happens!
Experience
The most important portion of your LinkedIn profile. Here’s where you’re going to add your job titles, descriptions, the time that you worked there and any supporting media.
If you want to be found in the LinkedIn search, keep your job titles keyword friendly. Some people decide to call themselves ‘lead-gen startup guru ninja’ and while that may feel exciting, people aren’t searching for those terms. If you don’t use keyword-focused titles, you will appear in less searches, have less connections and less opportunities offered to you. If you’re not worried about those things and your primary concern is being cool and wacky, then go for it.
My most recent experience shows that my position is the Marketing Director for Lix and how long I’ve been here. In the description I talk a little bit about what the company does, but I don’t talk much about what I do in the company. That’s a personal choice and you can change that depending on what you’re hoping to get from LinkedIn. I’m not looking to be recruited (I’m in Lix for the long haul!) but if you are looking for a new job, use that experience section to talk about things that you’ve achieved and your responsibilities.
You don’t need to write too much: four or five sentences is more than enough. Think about the length of a tweet, rather than an essay. Blocks off text will put people off and they’re just not going to bother reading it.
Make sure that you are honest and accurate in these dates. If you’re looking for work, ensure that the dates here match up with the dates on your CV. It’s very important, because if a recruiter checks both and you’re telling fibs, then that’s not going to look good for you overall!
Education
Time to show off those grades and extracurricular activities!
You can also include formal professional qualifications if you have any, in addition to the standard school and university stuff. If you completed an extra course, or you went to a night school, completed a MOOC or anything along those lines, you can include it there. This information will be pulled through to the top of your profile remember – the summary section shows your most recent role, current role and your highest level of education, so don’t forget to input that info.
Also, if you did anything extra while you were studying – extracurricular activities, societies, events – include it here. For example, I ran an event while I was at my university, founded a sports team and wrote for the student newspaper. Include this extra points, it all adds up.
Skills and Endorsements
Personally, I don’t think LinkedIn skills are particularly important anymore, but it can be quite a nice thing to trade endorsements with people that you’ve worked with or people you know. I don’t think that employers, or people that you network with, look at this often. Don’t get too het up about your skill scores.
Recommendations
Recommendations, however, are important. You can get recommendations from people that you’ve worked with, or worked for, or have worked for you. It’s a really good way of building up a picture of who you are as a person when you are working.
It’s all well and good saying, “hey, I did this job and I was great at it“, but if you can get your boss, or a colleague, or someone that worked for you to say, “actually, this person was great and it was a real pleasure to work with them and they’re a nice person, they’re great achieving goals or they’re good at this or that”, that is going to stand out and mean a lot more to someone viewing your profile than just you saying it yourself. It’s social proof, it’s like a testimonial or a review on an Amazon product. We all want to see that someone else has enjoyed this product, this product today being me, or you on your profile.
The great thing about recommendations is they’re really easy to get because you can give one and then ask for one in return. You can follow the ‘ask for recommendation’ button and pick someone on your connections list. Write one for them and then message them to to say, “hey, I’ve written a recommendation for you, please write one for me“.
Accomplishments
Accomplishments are just that – accomplishments! It’s another chance to strut your stuff. Speak more than once language? Include it here. You can also link to media, qualifications and any articles and videos you didn’t include further up the page. This section is much like the extracurricular activities that you would put on your CV.
This is also a chance to show that you’re really engaged with your industry. If you work in a highly competitive field, it can be really good here to show off the things that help you stand out from the crow. If, for example, lots of people are going to apply for the law firm you want to work for and you’ve been writing a blog, or you’ve contributed to a legal magazine – talk about it!
Interests
Similarly to skills, I don’t think people look at interests too much but you can try to ensure that your interests align your personal brand.
Whenever you follow a person, or company, it will be shown here.
URL & Public Profile
Your public profile is what people see when they come across your profile, but they’re not a LinkedIn member – usually from a Google search or similar. It’s similar to a private profile on Instagram or Facebook. LinkedIn gives you the options to choose what is visible here, so if privacy is a concern for you then be sure to check it out.
You may also edit your personal URL, making it easier to find you and giving you a cleaner link to post when you share your profile. For example, mine is linkedin.com/in/alfie-lambert – if you’ve got a popular name, go and claim your ideal URL before someone else does!
That’s all for the profile. If you’d like to follow along with the video, you can do that here:
Connections and Networking
This section of the guide explains the best way to find people, how to use the LinkedIn search, connecting with people, 1st 2nd and 3rd degree connections and then personalized connection messages.
Once your profile is complete, polished and ready for action it’s time to delve into connections and networking and there has never been a better time to network on LinkedIn. In fact, LinkedIn saw a 55% increase in conversations between connections in 2020. That’s largely because of the pandemic – we can’t go out and network in the ways that we used to. In 2021 if you want to connect in a professional setting, LinkedIn is the very best place to do that.
Let me hit you with some more stats: at the time of writing there are 720m users on LinkedIn and counting. It will probably hit a billion in 2021, if not 2022. If there’s someone in business that you need to talk to, or you want to get in front of, they’re probably already on LinkedIn.
Incoming Connection Requests
The first thing you will see when clicking on ‘my network’ on the top menu, are the people who have invited you to connect. You’ll notice that many of these connection requests, especially those from people you don’t know, will come with personalized messages (something we will cover a little further along in this blog).
The number of incoming requests you will receive should increase over time and with regular use. If you’re engaging with content, networking and so on it will attract people to your profile. Job title makes a difference here too. I’m listed as a Marketing Director, which means everybody wants to sell me products, or staff, or event tickets… As you can see, I have 32 pending invites and almost all of them are trying to pitch me something!
Some people preach caution when accepting connection requests. Perhaps if you’re a decision maker at a company and you really don’t like being pitched to, then yes be selective. My policy is the more the merrier; the bigger my network, the more people that see my content in the feed and potentially engage with it.
Suggested Events
Just below your incoming connection requests are some suggested (currently online) events.
These events offer two benefits. The knowledge shared at the event itself, but also the opportunity to network. Attending events with people in your industry or with common interests can be a great chance to meet and connect with like-minded individuals.
This is true for all events, not just those suggested to you! Seek out events using the LinkedIn search function – search for your chosen topic, click the ‘events’ tab and get scrolling.
If you really want to maximise the event-based networking effect, host your own event! LinkedIn has a great onboarding guide to help you get started.
People you may know
Again, this is a really easy way to find people to connect with, people who might be working in the same industry as you. The LinkedIn algorithm is going to be piecing this together and they’re normally pretty good.
Connecting with other like-minded people in your field can be really useful for a variety of reasons. It’s particularly good for staying on top of industry news – if your connections are predominately people in your field, the content they share should be mostly relevant. This gives you even more opportunity to engage and build your network.
Networking
The easiest way to network with people within your industry is either following the suggested connections, but it can be a little bit impersonal. What is the icebreaker for people on this list? I like to give a little bit more than the standard “I’d like to connect”, especially if it’s a relationship that I want to nurture. A great way to offer more when connecting is to reference a shared interest, engagement or something the person has posted.
This is where LinkedIn groups can provide some great leverage. Head up into your search bar and search for relevant terms, for example I want to search for ‘marketing’, because that is the industry that I am in and want to network within. With your search term in place, head to the ‘groups’ tab.
LinkedIn will suggest the largest groups related to my search term ‘marketing’. If the suggested groups are too general, use a longer search and some filters to find the group that fits your goals.
Once you’re in a group you can leave comments, engage with people’s topics or you can connect with them, using their comments and engagements as an icebreaker.
If I’m in the Connect social media group and I stumble across this post:
Perhaps I could connect with Josh Turner and say something like, “Hey Josh, I saw your post in the social media marketing group about the trust equation framework. I think that was really interesting. I’d love to connect“. This is going to give you a much better chance of getting that connection than just the generic, “hey, I’d like to connect” or even “hey, we’re in the same industry. I’d like to connect.”
Targeted Search
Sometimes stumbling across connections in groups and at events doesn’t cut it. Perhaps you want to meet CEOs because you’re a salesperson, or maybe you want to network with investors because you’re a startup and you want to get investment. When you have a specific target in mind, you can use the powerful LinkedIn search.
As an example, for us to follow along, let’s say I want to find someone to teach me more about marketing; someone who’s perhaps at a higher level than I am, I might search for the job title CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).
LinkedIn returns 1,250,000 results, wow! Obviously, that’s a few too many to sift through, so how can I filter them out? I can head to the connections tab and choose which degree of connections to show (more on this below). I’ll opt for 2nd degree connections – the connections of my connections – so that I have some kind of link to the people it displays.
I have 138,000 possible results. Perhaps that’s a little too broad. From here I could filter by location, current company or a host of other filters in the ‘all filters’ tab. Location isn’t so important to me, as everyone is working remotely these days anyway.
Let’s filter by current company. The top suggestion is Google – perfect.
That brings my number down to 216 results. Of course, not all of them are the CMO for Google (the CMO of Google is Lorraine Twohill) but they are people who are or have been CMOs, that currently or previously worked for Google.
The top hit from the results is Len Markidan, CMO for the online course provider Podia. He seems like the kind of person I’d like to network with and have in my feed. Let’s use Len as an example for the next section.
Personalized Connection Requests
As mentioned earlier, ideally you will have some kind of icebreaker when connecting with someone you don’t know. Let’s see if I can find an icebreaker for Len.
I have a few mutual connections with Len, but not any that I know well enough to use as an intro to a conversation. I’m not in any common groups with Len, so I’m going to take a look at Len’s activity to see if there’s any common ground I can find there.
My search of Len’s activity shows two things – firstly, he hasn’t posted on LinkedIn since 2018. If I was really interested in networking, I probably wouldn’t connect with Len knowing this, I’d prefer someone more active.
For the sake of this example though, let’s take a look at the content Len posted:
This post from Len’s company, Podia, is a perfect icebreaker for my connection request. I can reference the post in my personalized message; hopefully cutting through all the generic connection requests and sales pitches.
I advise keeping the messages short and sweet, firstly because there is a character limit and secondly because the preview only shows a few words along with your request, so you need to hook them in early on. For Len, I could say something like:
“Hi Len, I read your post about creating online courses and found it really interesting, would love to connect”
Even with the cut-off, Len will see “Hi Len, I read your post…” and that might be all I need to stand out from the sea of generic requests.
Looking for more tips on connection request messages? Sumo have a great guide here.
1st 2nd and 3rd Degree Connections
You may have noticed while browsing of LinkedIn that you have 1st degree connections, 2nd degree connections and 3rd degree connections.
Your 1st degree connections are people that you are already connected with. Your 2nd degree connections are people who are connected to your connections. Your 3rd degree connections are people who are connected to your 2nd degree connections. Anyone outside of that is outside of your network, in which case you may not be able to connect with them, depending on their privacy settings. If you land on someone’s profile and they are outside your network and their profiles displays a single name (first name or surname), that usually means that they are not open to connections from people outside of their network.
By now, you’ve got a great profile and you’re starting to make some connections, that network is really going to serve you well in the future. To take it to the next level, we need to throw some content into the mix.
Content
The amount of LinkedIn native content produced increased by 60% in 2020 – for the same reasons that conversations did. With lockdowns, closed offices and home working on the rise, people are absorbing more content on LinkedIn than they ever were before. There has never been a better time to start producing content native to the LinkedIn platform.
You can use content to build a reputation as an expert in your field, looking for jobs or land clients; whatever it is that you’re on LinkedIn to do. This section will talk you through some best practices for content creation, plus how to work with the LinkedIn algorithm to get the most engagement so that you can become a content creating master.
LinkedIn Posts
The most common type of content on LinkedIn is the humble post, here’s a recent one I shared:
As you can see, I’ve added hashtags here to help get my post in front of the right audience. These are especially useful if your post begins to get engagement, because LinkedIn will show well-engaged posts to people that follow those hashtags.
There a few things I could have done to boost this post further, however. LinkedIn stats show that posts that contain images get twice as much engagement. So, if you can include an image to support your post then do so!
From the ‘start a post box’ you can choose where your post will be seen. If you have a company page, which (our next guide section!) you can share from the company page. You can decide whether your post is going to be public, connections only or specific group members. You can share straight to your Twitter, too.
Simple posts are the tip of the iceberg. From this view, there are a number of options:
You can link to a document, create a poll, share that you’re hiring, celebrate an occasion, find an expert, offer help… there is so much that you can do just within this framework.
Articles
The most common type of long form content on LinkedIn is the written article. You can access this screen from the same section as posts, just click on ‘write an article’:
First thing you will notice is the huge space for an image at the top. Some people are still posting articles without header images which to me, is crazy. Once again, it’s valuable real digital real estate – it’s also something readers expect to see. As any UX expert will tell you, delivering what someone expects is key to a smooth experience. People want an image here; the blank space is jarring.
For a great guide to header sizes, design and the tool to create your own amazing images, head to Canva: https://www.canva.com/linkedin-banners/templates/
Let’s take a look at one of my blogs as an example:
The last article I published was back in July 2020 (I need to get writing!) and it is about marketers ‘fishing in the same pond’. Here you see, I have made an attractive and relevant cover, using the same background color that I have in the cover image on my profile, to give me a little bit of brand uniformity. Make sure that you also include line breaks and spacing within the blog, with a peppering of images to break up large blocks of text.
B2B blog writing guidelines: https://altitudemarketing.com/blog/how-to-write-b2b-blog-post/
Video
In the past I have been known to publish and write articles on LinkedIn, however in 2021 I would probably opt for video, rather than written content. The reason for that is, if you delve into LinkedIn stats, you will see that users are 20 times more likely to share a video than a written post. That 20x boost in shares is will make a huge difference to your engagement!
Now, I know some people aren’t comfortable with producing videos. I would say if you are nervous, just start making practice videos! The more you make, the more comfortable you get. I used to hate being in a video and now I’ve produced a 40-minute video guide to using LinkedIn. It just takes practice.
A great thing you can do with video to increase its reach is use a transcription service, something like trint, that allows you to add subtitles to your footage. People use LinkedIn primarily at work and perhaps they can’t use speakers or headphones, so if you can include some subtitles, you’re going to get many more engagements. I don’t have official figures to give you, but I normally find I can add about 50% to my engagement just by using subtitles alone.
LinkedIn Live
There are some new forms of content production available on LinkedIn that people aren’t really maximizing at the moment – LinkedIn live being one of them! Despite the slow uptake, live streams on LinkedIn have increased bt 437% in the last year. It’s slowly becoming a big part of the platform and as with almost any social media, even professional social media platforms, they will promote their newest baby to its fullest extent.
For instance, Instagram has recently launched reels to compete with TikTok. An Instagram reel is going to get more engagement than a standard Instagram post, because Instagram wants people to use reels, so they will encourage it and promote it. They had the same boost with IGTV about a year or two ago. IGTV videos were getting much more engagement because Instagram was showing them more in the feed, because it wants more people to use IGTV. It is the same thing with LinkedIn. They want people to be using the live video and just video in general.
Algorithm & Engagement
LinkedIn’s feed runs on an engagement-based algorithm. The more people who engage with your posts, the more people who will be shown your posts… and then the more people who will engage with your posts… It’s a self-fulfilling cycle! This is another reason to have a good and lots of connections, because the more people that see your posts in the feed, the more likely is that they’re going to engage with it – especially if they’re relevant. If they work in the same industry, maybe they’re interested in the same topics and then when they engage and comment on your posts, people in their network will see in their feed that’s happened and then they will come into contact with your with your content. This is a really important point to consider if you want to post content on LinkedIn.
Also think about the time of day that people are on LinkedIn and engaging with content. If you post something at 11am, perhaps everybody’s busy working. Maybe 8am / 8.30am just before people start, when they’re on the way in, or lunchtime, or maybe just after work when people have the time to be browsing. Post content when more of your audience is engaged with the platform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKi78ASfPpo
Company Pages
Now have a great profile, loads of connections and you’ve started putting out some content on LinkedIn: the next step is a company page. LinkedIn company pages aren’t just for big businesses. If you’re a small business or even a freelancer, you could set up a LinkedIn company page to showcase your work in a more professional setting. If you’re an employee and your company has a LinkedIn company page, make sure that you’re connected to it. If they don’t, maybe you can earn some brownie points with your boss by creating one..
I’m going to show you two examples of company pages, one that is better than the other. The better page is for Teleperformance. They were the number one LinkedIn company page in 2019 as voted by LinkedIn members. The other that isn’t so good is my company page for Lix, because I need spend a bit more time on it! I’m going to jump right in with Lix and I will show you some of the things that I’m missing and then we’re going to look at Teleperformance to show you why they are so good and why they are the example that you should be following for your company page.
We only have 91 followers at the moment, but that’s something that we can work on by sharing a bit more content. In the content section we looked at the share box in the feed, and you can use it the same way here: start a post, share a photo, share a video, documents, polls and all that good stuff. Creating good content as a business, especially stuff that gets re-shared, can bring in lots of good followers.
We have a fairly good tag line “Connecting every organization with accurate, actionable Real-Time B2B data”. That’s what we do! I have a longer description in the ‘about us’ section, which is a must. We have our logo on there, which is another absolute must.
The big glaring mistake is this cover image. We are not using this space at all. Now, I do have a good excuse for that – we’re in the middle of a massive rebrand and we’re going to be producing lots of great new graphics etc. that branding is going to be added as soon as it is there, but for now, it’s just a big white space, which is not ideal.
Let’s take a look at the Teleperformance page and explore why they do it so well and how you can use these tactics for your company page.
Teleperformance are a worldwide leader in outsourced omni channel customer experience management… If that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry too much! That’s not the point of why we’re here. We’re here to see what components make up this great page.
One thing we notice right off the bat is this cover image with a member of their staff. Within this image, they’ve spoken quite a lot about the ethos of their company. Their member of staff quite visibly has quite a big tattoo on his neck: he’s quite a cool-looking, well groomed and presented. This isn’t by accident, this image is there to make you think “Hey, these are a young, cool, exciting organization” that speaks to their ethos, to their brand. If that’s not your brand then this isn’t the way for you to go, but something along those lines could really work well, something that shows in a nutshell what you are all about. Their tagline is, “each interaction matters” which I quite like. Short, sweet, to the point and again, it speaks to that brand.
Teleperformance have nearly a million followers and 108,000 employees – there are a big company with lots of followers. What’s quite interesting to note is that they have 10 times the number of followers to employees, which means that the people following them aren’t just their employees. It shows there are lots of people out there who are really interested in what Teleperformance have to say.
Their ‘about’ section has plenty of detail, which explains who they are and what they do:
It gives you an overview of the company, their website, what industry they’re in, how many employees they have, where they are, when they were founded and what their specialties are. Now, all of this information you can add to your own company page quite easily, just by hitting the edit button (the little pencil icon) when you’re signed into your own company page as an admin.
They have a link to their location, showing that they are right in the middle of Paris – a lovely place to work! You can go through and look at their ‘posts’, which you can filter images, documents, videos or ads.
The ‘jobs’ tab allows you to look at any jobs posted by Teleperformance. ‘Life’ is an interesting one and not a lot of people use this tab, but this is about the lifestyle of Teleperformance and their staff:
As Teleperformance are a large company, they’re showing off the company culture and other lures around hiring, because they’re committed to attracting the best talent. This is adding a bit more flavor to Teleperformance, who they are and what they do – this isn’t just a dry description of a company and a business. It’s important to note that this is a paid feature, acquired via LinkedIn’s Career Pages – get in touch with them for pricing.
This section demonstrates their commitment to an ethos and a way of living. You can look at the pictures and say, “hey, what a great place to work”. They’ve got bean bags and hammocks and ping pong tables… Maybe this is the kind of company that you would like to be part of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlcoJQj7lz0
Congratulations, you have completed the How to use LinkedIn complete guide – you’re an allstar, with a ton of connections, high-flying content and a polished company page. Now get out there and achieve your LinkedIn goals!
If you’re looking to browse LinkedIn profiles to look at competitors, inspiration for your own profile, or potential talent; one problem you might come across is that LinkedIn sends an automatic notification to the person whose profile you’ve viewed. There are however, ways in which you can use LinkedIn search anonymously and browse profiles privately. The fastest method (and the easiest to switch on and off!) is via the Lix extension. When installed to your browser, you can simply right-click and select ‘Anonymous Profile Viewing’. Click for a short video on how it works.
You can also change your privacy settings within LinkedIn, by doing the following:
Click the ‘Me’ tab at the top of the page and select ‘Settings and Privacy’
Click ‘Privacy’ and then ‘Profile Viewing Options’
Select ‘Anonymous LinkedIn member’.
However, there are issues to be aware of when opting for this method. For instance, you won’t be able to see who views your profile in return. You will also need to alter these settings each time you want to become visible again. It’s give and take – if they can’t see you, you can’t seem them. LinkedIn will still show the person you visited that someone viewed their profile, but it will display you as an anonymous user. If you are using LinkedIn as a networking tool, for example, this likely will not be the best method for you.
There is a third method, that also allows you to collect data from the user’s profile, without alerting them to your visit – Lix’s Profile Enrichment. Profile Enrichment is a Lix tool that works in conjunction with LinkedIn Sales Navigator, allowing you to export LinkedIn profile data. This includes previous roles, education, listed personal contact details and much more.
Lix’s in-built limiting ensures your account will stay within LinkedIn’s fair usage threshold, too. You can export data as an Excel or CSV file, or save an ongoing project within Lix projects, which you can add additional exports to for de-duplication. By automating this process, you can boost your productivity and carry on with your other tasks.
Get More Data
By using our enhanced features, you can use LinkedIn search anonymously and export all the information you need. Our email-finder feature will allow you to even get data not provided by LinkedIn:
You asked. We listened. Introducing LIX LinkedIn Company Info Accounts Export.
You can now extract company info from Sales Navigator with our Accounts Extraction feature. Enrich your strategy and improve your databases with info such as revenue, industry, and company size.
Cross-reference IDs with your Leads extractions to enrich your leads data and find the right company for your campaign.
This works similarly to how our Companies Extraction feature in Sales Navigator does and supports the Deep Profile option. You can watch our tutorial video on how to use this feature and extract LinkedIn company info to your project.
This was our most requested feature on our Roadmap. By voting for your favourite idea, you can see the features you want to see prioritised and released. We’re continually adding new ideas to our roadmap from the feedback we receive.
Do you have an idea for a new LIX feature? Go to our Product Roadmap to vote for your favourite, and we’ll add the top one to our feature pipeline. You can check out all the features we’ve launched and the exciting features we have planned for the near future. You can even clap and comment on ideas. Check it out here.
Changes This Month
LinkedIn has updated its design. We’ve been hard at work to updating LIX to ensure it works with the latest version so you don’t have to worry about your data exports.
We now remove Emojis from emails – We know that generate emails is the killer feature in LIX for many of you, now you have much more valid, useable emails from a generate emails export.
We also remove emojis from first name and last name. Many users have put an emoji in their profile to reflect their industry. LIX removes this to ensure your name fields are valid for importing data and sending messages.
