How I got to 11,176 Connections on LinkedIn (7,000+ the last month)

“It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know” - someone

Isn’t that the truth? Yes people’s talents and abilities vary greatly, but life is not a pure meritocracy. If you’re not connected to the right people with the right opportunity at the right time it doesn’t matter what you know or how talented you are, those opportunities will probably go to someone else. Your network is incredibly valuable.

Many years ago I used to just connect with people I met in person and would occasionally accept invites with those I had brief contact with online and got to around a few hundred connections. When I started getting closer to that 500+ milestone I was a bit looser with my policy. Once you get to 500+ it’s great because your profile will look similar to all the big shots with huge rolodexes and people will never know how big or small your network is beyond 500. I wasn’t as aggressive growing my network after 500, but later on I started to realize that any connection is better than nothing. We could all be just one degree away from a golden opportunity right? I just started accepting anyone’s request and getting into the thousands, but I didn’t actively try to grow my network.

It wasn’t until late last year I watched a Neil Patel growth hacking conference webinar and Dan McGaw discussed a tactic to grow email lists by joining LinkedIn groups, adding as many contacts as you can and exporting all the emails. I thought that was a great way to start up a email campaign. I started joining all the groups I was interested in: ReactJS/Clojure for software development, Bitcoin/Blockchain in technology, Angel Investor networks as well as some Growth Hacking ones. I just started clicking every day and built up my network to 4,000+ until LinkedIn did a redesign and stopped allowing connecting through groups! I was so disappointed, but then I soon realized you can actually search for people by keyword and that’s just as effective! I gained over 7,000 connections this last month alone!

So here is the low down on how to to grow a high quality network fast:

1. Do the best you can to make your profile stand out and be attractive. If you’re a founder/CEO that automatically makes you attractive even if you’re bootstrapping like me wearing pj’s from a dingy apartment. People will definitely view your profile so make the best impression you can so your acceptance rate is as high as possible. I’ve gotten 3,610 profile views the last 90 days. I actually listed some of the things I’m recruiting for on my profile.

2. To grow a high quality and targeted network, use the most targeted keywords for areas you are interested in and enter them in the search bar. My keywords were: ReactJs / Clojure / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Angel Investor / Growth Hacker
   It seems to me any mention of the keyword in a user’s profile will allow LinkedIn to display them as relevant, even if they are just in a group with that keyword.

3. Click on the ‘People’ tab

4. On the right side panel on the ‘People’ tab, it shows ‘Filter people by’ to have a more refined search. Start by clicking the 2nd degree contacts and 3rd degree contacts check boxes. If the results show more than 1,000 you can filter to geographic locations like the US or SF Bay Area. Sometimes you might be limited by the number of searches you can make, but LinkedIn gives you a lot of runway. If I hit my limit I’m going to eventually sign up and trial the Premium version to get even more targeted searches.

5. Once you have 1,000 search results, just click away at the ‘Connect’ button. It will probably take less than an hour a day to send 1,000 requests, but it is tedious work and you have to be consistent. Unfortunately you have to click a button twice to send a request because they will ask you if you want to add a note along with your request. I never do.

6. As you grow your list, you’ll start to expand your general 2nd degree contacts that show up in ‘People You May Know’ in your ‘My Network’ tab. You can more easily connect with these people with only one click of the button for each person. Also the larger your network grows there is a snowball effect with 2nd & 3rd+ degree contacts.

7. To grow your network even faster you can use a hack to click the buttons on your ‘People You May Know’ list all at once. On Chrome, you can go to your Developer Tools panel and enter the following on the console:

javascript:var inputs = document.getElementsByClassName('mn-person-card__person-btn-ext button-secondary-medium');
for(var i=0; i<inputs.length;i++) {
inputs[i].click();
}

[Note: You can use this on any website where it allows you to click on the same button multiple times. All you need to do is inspect the button element on the developer's panel and put the text between the quotes after where it says ‘class’ and replace the bolded text above.]

With this you can expand your network more broadly and make hundreds of requests in seconds! This method is faster because you’re just connecting to random second degree contacts, but it’s not as targeted. However once you build a network in targeted areas, 2nd degree connections will likely be similar to those you’re looking for. Next:

1. Respond to anyone who writes you! Probably less than 1% will message you. Make sure you cultivate all your connections and it’ll probably take another 30 mins/hr to respond to everyone and more time if you schedule calls via Skype. You’ll meet a lot of interesting people and everyone is incredibly professional. It’s one of the easiest ways to network with people efficiently anyways. Also be prepared to explain your request because many might think you’re connecting with them for something specific and not know you’re trying to build a massive network. If someone asks why you can write something like the following in your own style: “Thanks for connecting [Name]! I’m just expanding my network in the [blockchain/bitcoin] space to share and learn. Let me know if you need anything and I’ll do the same. Have a good day!“

2. Once you have a list you can export all the emails and you can provide your connections with value. That’s the key! Find content you think is extremely valuable and give, give, give as much as possible just like Josh Fechter does with growth hacking tactics and you’ll build a great reputation.

3. Whenever you get to the email campaign part (btw I haven’t yet), you should send a re-introduction email to your list. Dan McGaw had a very clever opt out email template using a Mailchimp form that would look something like:

Hello I’m Jun Dam, Founder and CEO of Bitcash

I’m trying to clean up my address book and hoping you can help me. Especially if you don’t want me to email you again.

Simply put, all I need is for you to spend less than 20 seconds clicking a few checkboxes”

Mailchimp form options are:

• Update my info in 20 seconds [ User Can Select Categories/Topics of Interest]
• I’m too lazy to check boxes, keep emailing me.
• I don’t like you Jun. Please remove me.

That should really work well right?

Conclusion:

So I’m going to try to build my network to 30,000 in the next couple months. Imagine that. Every contact you have should be worth at least $1 on average and probably a lot more, but more importantly one contact can lead you to a golden opportunity! So who’s going to join me in the 30,000 club?

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Image Credit: Designed by Alvaro_cabrera - Freepik.com @steemrollin