8. INCREASE YOUR 1ST LEVEL NETWORK

When you have been active for a few months enriching your profile, posting quality content, and enlarging your network, then comes the time where you can apply a very productive hack.

There are tools available - robots - that can auto visit selected LinkedIn profiles. When you use such a service, then between ten and twenty per cent of those visited will look back at your profile. If you have a professional and compelling profile, then about five per cent will invite you to connect. Again, don’t just accept any invitation. Although the Sales Navigator is a powerful tool, the search results are based on profile data that people have filled in themselves. Only you or your assistant can decide if a person may be a relevant connection or not. Don’t rely on LinkedIn’s suggestions and recommendations. They are the result of automatic algorithms and are not very reliable.

Spending time qualifying each new connection may not seem so important when you only have a few thousand connections. Still, as you approach the 30,000 limit, which is the maximum number of 1st level connections LinkedIn allows, then it does become an issue. With the hack I explain here, 30,000 connections are not an unrealistic target over two to three years depending on the size of your target audience.

Using robots on LinkedIn is a violation of their terms and conditions, so be careful. A robot such as Dux-Soup is designed to mimic human behaviour, so LinkedIn doesn’t know of the violation. Dux-Soup only works with Sales Navigator, so LinkedIn is not policing the matter as strictly as if you used the free version.

IN SHORT:

Use a robot to expand your 1st level network with quality connections.