Guide on How to Network on LinkedIn

Networking has been a popular strategy used by business people to make their business grow for decades. Why? Networking is about building relationships with different actors granting you long-term opportunities. 

Notably, the best place for networking on the Internet is LinkedIn. It is a place where professionals share their thoughts and look for advice. Yet, the professional networking LinkedIn contemplates is not as easy as one may think. You should focus on certain principles and develop some habits. 

Read on to know how to build your LinkedIn network and what LinkedIn networking tips may help you.

Main LinkedIn Networking Principles

LinkedIn, being a business community, has specific unspoken rules. Here is an analogy for you. 

When you go to a conference, a place for networking and knowledge exchange, you should be aware of the topic and know some knowledge about it. Besides, you represent your company there, thus going in your pajamas can be the worst choice. Lastly, you go there to engage with people, listen to the trends, and share your opinions. 

A similar principle works on LinkedIn. To make a successful network and benefit from it in the future, you should focus on the following concepts:

• Image. Firstly, you should convey a particular image and work on your reputation, adding to your future goal. Consider who is your target audience and what it values in business. Reflecting the values of your buyer persona will result in the right perception. It also relates to the relevancy of your content and the digital actions you do.  
• Expertise. Importantly, to be visible on LinkedIn, you should stand out as an expert. You are likely to build an excellent reputation if you have experience, skills, and studies to share. People come to LinkedIn for professional advice. To be attractive to them, you should be the one who can produce insights or solutions that will help them.
• Engagement. Having a well-designed profile backed by skills is not enough for people to know you and cooperate with you. ccc, and groups to get the attention of people.. 

How to Build Network on LinkedIn: Crucial Steps

Most social media marketers will say that sticking to the fundamentals is the key to building a LinkedIn professional network. Your image significantly depends on the profile, your expertise results from the quality content, while the engagement is concerned with how you communicate. Let’s consider the following LinkedIn networking tips:

Suit up your profile 

Your image starts with your profile page. The page is from where the building of trust starts. Thus, you can not leave it blank or leave it unfilled. To create a good image, you need to pay particular attention to:  

• Photo and cover. The specific element of the LinkedIn page is crucial, as it sets the tone of your communication and presents you as a person. Accordingly, pick a photo that would say that you are a professional and underline some of your traits or intentions. Besides, make sure you support your main picture with a cover photo to emphasize your values or place of work.
• Experience and skills. Importantly, you should present your knowledge to prove expertise and improve trust. Notably, you can fill all the fields and sections referring to your job, position, operation, and achievements. The better you describe them, the more authority you get. 
• Your story. Lastly, not all people would go through all parts of your page. For many, reading the summary would be enough. That’s why creating a story about you, or your operation can positively affect your networking on LinkedIn.

Grow your network by communication

You should use different communication instruments of the platform to maximize your networking efforts. The greater your list of connections, the better it is for you. People are likely to engage or connect with you if you already have a developed network and quality page. So, how to build your LinkedIn network?

• Connections. The best way to network on LinkedIn is by sending connection requests. It is like a friend request on other social media. To make it work on LinkedIn, you should present value, show intentions clearly, and introduce yourself. Importantly, for it to happen, you can use a question or offer as an occasion or just be clear that you want to connect. Be friendly and ready for different outcomes.
• InMails. Also, you can send people InMails if you need to contact them but have used all connections or been ignored. The reasons may vary. Yet, if you really need to contact someone with the offer or connection request, use InMail, a function sending your message to a person’s email inbox. Yes, some prospects check their inbox more frequently than LinkedIn. It is a limited option, so use it wisely.
• Emails. Interestingly, one of the practical networking tips is to use a LinkedIn email searcher. Using a tool like this, you can extract emails from LinkedIn pages or searches. After you do it, you can write people to their corporate emails, especially, if your request or offer fails to get their attention on LinkedIn. 

Post and react 

Also, to engage with other people and make them trust you or follow for more, you should:

• Create content. Insightful content that would provide solutions, data, or data about your prospect’s issues define whether you will have a large network. LinkedIn requires you to produce valuable and trendy content to have an extensive LinkedIn professional network. Moreover, you can promote your content to various audiences with targeting features.
• Comment. Besides, another way to provide value is to start discussions. You can comment on someone’s post and offer a decision or recommendation. If it is efficient, you will interest the prospect, and they can send you an invitation or follow for more advice.
• Groups. Lastly, LinkedIn has professional groups, where people gather to discuss and share information within their niches. If you manage to find your audience there, the great chances are that the group members will connect with you. 

Collaborate

Another tactic, usually presented among other LinkedIn networking tips, is to collaborate with different people to get more coverage. Firstly, networking on LinkedIn can take place via mentions in the post. For example, if you like someone’s data, you can use it in your post and tag your target. Moreover, you can elaborate on their point and start a discussion. As a result, they can add you for collaborations or joint content creation. 

At the same time, you can be a guest at different educational events on LinkedIn. For instance, webinars mean more coverage. If you happen to get to a B2B platform and be mentioned in the event, you will be more visible, adding to your image.