LinkedIn Networking Tips for Business Success

Why LinkedIn networking matters

LinkedIn supports a massive business community

LinkedIn is the premier social network for business owners and professionals, with more than 1 billion users worldwide. It’s an excellent platform for advancing your career or growing your own business. LinkedIn is effective when it comes to connecting with potential employers, investors, strategic partners, vendors, advisors, employees and customers. Chances are if there’s someone in your field that you could benefit from knowing, they’re on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a valuable source of information

Everyone’s LinkedIn profile is like a resume, offering insights about each user’s background, abilities, experience, skills, motivations and beliefs. You can gather a lot of information simply by browsing their profile, content, recommendations, endorsements, interactions with other posts and contact networks.

Before connecting with someone, use LinkedIn’s search tools (especially if you have access to LinkedIn Sales Navigator) to discover people who meet your criteria. For example, you can search by location, industry, title or company size to find prospects that match your customer personas.

LinkedIn helps showcase your expertise to a wider audience

A robust profile showing relevant experience, accomplishments, recommendations and endorsements demonstrates your expertise to potential contacts. To showcase your expertise further, include third-party content that boosts your credibility, such as industry events where you’ve spoken, television, radio or podcast interviews, case studies you’ve created, and white papers you’ve presented.

LinkedIn offers credibility and accessibility

LinkedIn is known as the professional social platform. Users are there primarily to further their business goals, not for entertainment or social interaction. Just as every company should have a website, every businessperson should have a LinkedIn profile.

Unlike most business contact databases, LinkedIn is free to use (although you’ll need to pay to use the Sales Navigator or place ads.) Additionally, LinkedIn is always available. This is particularly important if you’re doing business internationally or in other time zones.

How to set up your LinkedIn profile for success

A good first impression is critical when networking in person, and the same holds true for online networking. Before you start networking on LinkedIn, complete and optimize your profile by taking the following steps.

Add a LinkedIn profile photo

LinkedIn profiles with professional-looking headshots get more views and interactions. If you don’t have access to a professional photographer, use a smartphone to take your photo using a professional background and wearing suitable attire. 

Include a headline in your LinkedIn profile

Your LinkedIn profile is like your resume, so you want it to look as professional as possible. This includes adding an effective headline that lets others know exactly what you do and your areas of specialization. Along with your profile photo, your headline is the first thing others see when landing on your page. Make it attention-grabbing so it connects to your target audience.

Complete your LinkedIn summary

Your LinkedIn summary highlights your personal brand, what you do well and how you can benefit potential clients or employers. Although your summary can be up to 2,600 characters, keep this section brief and easy to skim. 

Use keywords to help professionals and recruiters in your industry find you. For example, if you use the keyword “content marketer” in your summary and another user on LinkedIn searches that term, you’re more likely to appear in their search results.

Add your experience to your LinkedIn profile

Although it’s tempting to regurgitate your resume in this section, LinkedIn lets you be more creative. Only include experience relevant to your business or projected career path. Add a few bulleted sentences for each experience, highlighting your achievements with action words and measurables.

For example:

Led digital marketing initiatives for a B2B SaaS company serving mid-market clients with $10M to $50M annual revenue. Managed cross-functional team of five marketing specialists while overseeing $2.3M annual marketing budget.

Add recommendations and endorsements

Recommendations and endorsements are like professional job references validating your experience and skills. Ask colleagues, bosses, clients or other individuals you’ve had good professional relationships with to write recommendations highlighting your proficiencies. Glowing recommendations add to your credibility and authority. The more endorsements you have, the more credible you look to people viewing your profile.

Do’s of LinkedIn networking

Personalize connection requests

Always include a personalized note when sending a connection request; avoid using a generic LinkedIn invitation. A quick message introducing yourself or explaining why you wish to connect will help you establish a relationship with your new connection. This way, you won’t come across like you’re on a random adding spree to bump up your numbers.

Connect with people in your industry you could see yourself working with in the future or who could provide you with valuable insights about your business or career. If you have more than 500 LinkedIn connections, it helps you appear established in your industry, but don’t add connections mindlessly. Quality is more important than quantity.

If someone is in your extended network — second- or third-level connections — you can see at least part of their profile. Use this information to assess whether you have anything in common. For example, maybe you attended the same school, worked for the same company or are members of the same LinkedIn groups. Mention any commonalities in your connection request.

Interact with your connections

Once your requests are accepted, start building relationships. As with social media marketing, it’s essential to comment on your connections’ posts, like and share their content and periodically send them messages to see how they’re doing. When a connection comments on or shares your post, writes you a recommendation or makes an introduction, send them a message thanking them. Try to respond to all messages you receive through the platform.

Consider sending contacts a link to your blog to get to know you and your company better. If a client relationship has progressed down the sales funnel, send them to a product page or your website’s About page. If you have an email newsletter, invite contacts to subscribe by sending them a link to its sign-up page.

Join LinkedIn groups to enhance networking

Join LinkedIn groups related to your industry to get noticed and make meaningful connections. If you join several active groups, thousands of people in your industry could potentially see your profile and connect with you.

You must interact with any LinkedIn groups you join for this strategy to be effective. Participate in discussions, answer questions that showcase your expertise and share relevant content. Focus on being a valuable group member instead of selling yourself.

Post engaging content

Posting content on LinkedIn is part of your digital marketing strategy. Establishing your industry position and professional knowledge is key, so posting interesting and educational content is essential. Publishing an article on LinkedIn lets you share your expertise with your connections and help more users find you on the platform.

Consider the type of content you share carefully. Posts that entertain, inspire, teach or tell a story tend to get the most user interaction. Consider using a mix of content to reach your target audience, and use hashtags in your posts to attract the type of people you want to engage with to grow your professional network.

Find opportunities to connect offline

Take relationships a step further by inviting contacts to meet you in person. For example, if you plan to attend a public event, like exhibiting at a trade show or giving a speech at an industry association, send individual invitations on LinkedIn to relevant contacts.

It works in the opposite direction too, of course: If you meet someone at a trade show and want to reinforce the relationship by connecting on LinkedIn, mention in your connection note that you met in person. 

Don’ts of LinkedIn networking

Don’t allow your profile to be incomplete or outdated

Your LinkedIn profile is your professional calling card. An incomplete or outdated profile sends the wrong message to potential connections and can significantly hurt your networking efforts. Ensure your profile photo, headline, summary and experience sections are current and professionally presented.

Don’t send generic connection requests

Although you can invite someone to connect with you on LinkedIn without including a message, this strategy will drastically reduce the number of people who accept your request. People want to know why they should connect with you; when you don’t give them a reason, they’ll usually ignore your invitation.

Sending a generic connection message is almost as bad as sending no message at all. A generic message appears lazy and doesn’t provide any compelling reason for the recipient to agree to connect with you. Even if someone accepts your request, a lack of common ground makes the connection less valuable and could be perceived as spam.

Avoid hard selling

Even if someone you connect with is a possible sales lead, it’s essential to take the relationship slowly and build trust. Don Martelli, CEO and founder of The PR Bunker, emphasized the importance of forming genuine connections on LinkedIn. “It seems like 90 percent of the people using LinkedIn these days are begging for jobs or slamming a sales pitch down your throat,” Martelli noted. “All human elements of networking have been replaced by shameless plugs, blind pitches and zero effort to build relationships. It’s time to take LinkedIn back and make it human again.”

Don’t be antagonistic to other users

Engaging your audience on social media is crucial, and this is especially important on LinkedIn. When someone comments on your post, be sure to respond with the answer to their question, a comment or a simple thank you. Otherwise, you risk insulting them and fail to capitalize on the engagement.

Avoid controversial topics or negative commentary that could damage your professional reputation. While LinkedIn is a professional social platform, boring posts and comments will get ignored. Don’t state the obvious or post generic-sounding feedback. Instead, cultivate a warm tone, sprinkle in a little humor when appropriate, and don’t be afraid to post non-business content that speaks to your values.

Don’t spam the feed

If an interesting potential contact posts compelling content, don’t just lurk. Take the opportunity to engage by commenting on and sharing their posts. However, avoid spamming with irrelevant messages or connection requests. “Simply being present isn’t enough,” cautioned Jason Mudd, managing partner and CEO at Axia Public Relations. “Failing to interact with others’ posts or responding to comments and messages makes your profile less impactful.”

When someone accepts your invitation, you have a brief window to capture their attention. If you don’t follow up promptly, you risk being forgotten and relegated to the back burner of their network. “After connecting, send a friendly follow-up message to start a conversation and establish rapport,” Mudd advised.

Checklists for LinkedIn networking

Profile optimization

• Add a professional profile photo (400 x 400 pixels)
• Write an attention-grabbing headline
• Complete your profile summary with relevant keywords
• Add relevant work experience with achievements
• Request recommendations from colleagues and clients
• Gather endorsements for key skills

Connection strategy

• Target industry peers and thought leaders
• Always personalize connection requests
• Mention commonalities or mutual connections
• Follow up promptly after connections are accepted
• Join relevant LinkedIn groups in your industry

Engagement tactics

• Post valuable content regularly
• Comment thoughtfully on others’ posts
• Share interesting articles with your insights
• Respond to all comments on your posts
• Participate actively in LinkedIn groups
• Send periodic check-in messages to connections

Advanced networking

• Invite connections to visit your website
• Promote your email newsletter to contacts
• Suggest in-person meetings at industry events
• Offer facility tours or product demonstrations
• Transition online relationships to offline opportunities