3 Ways to Build Your LinkedIn Following FAST
Trying to grow your LinkedIn following faster? If you assume that means you'll need to post tons more content or blast out connection invitations, think again. 🤔
LinkedIn is a long game. Those who succeed here are not overnight successes who had a Reel or TikTok video go viral.
If you're like most of the experts I know and work with, your superpower comes from a deep level of expertise in your niche, a consistent approach to generating results for your client, and a knack for knowing how to troubleshoot sticky situations.
Guess what? You don't have to dance on camera, learn to lip sync with trending audios, or pump out massive word counts on LinkedIn to build a strong, loyal following.
In this Mondays with Mindi episode, we're going to demystify the process of going from 0-60 with your LinkedIn following by focusing on three of my favorite growth strategies for experts who are intent on playing the long game.
PLUS, you won't be wasting hours a day on LinkedIn trying to hack the algorithm, keep up with comments in real-time, or be tempted by some LinkedIn automation tool to do unnecessary things for you!
Today, we’re talking about building a following, which is similar to but not exactly the same as increasing your connections inside your network.
Let me be clear: LinkedIn followers are NOT necessarily connections.
Connections are people you have intentionally chosen to add to your network because there is an obvious mutual benefit for the two of you to be connected professionally. In other words, you sent them a LinkedIn connection invitation, or they sent you a conneciton invitation. There was a somewhat mutual agreement between the two of you that you each wanted to be part of the other’s network.
Followers are a bit more of a one-way street. Someone who wants to follow you or your LinkedIn Page can do so without asking your permission. All they need to do is click the “Follow” button to keep up with the content you share and post to LinkedIn.
Are they valuable? Yes, but they should be treated a little differently than your connections.
When it comes to LinkedIn, should you just sit there and wait for the right connections to ask you to connect to grow your following?
Or does it help to be a bit more on the proactive side?
Here’s what could happen if you just “let your LinkedIn network” happen to you...
You end up on the receiving end of a bunch of LinkedIn connections from people you don’t care to know or are just trying to pitch you something
Your network turns into a big “following” without the strategic element to it - not a good prospecting or business collaboration tool - especially if you’re not paying attention to who’s following you!
You never quite hit that 500+ connections mark, which means the people you want to reach are a bit leery in accepting a connection from you or reaching out to connect
Or, you could have a solid LinkedIn network that lies untouched - while you leave big money on the table because you don’t know how to proactively engage with the people there or how to add the right people to it
Let’s figure out how to get your following growing consistently - we’ll talk about a few of my favorite formulas for followers, some tips about how to attract the right people, and a simple way you can ensure that your followers feel valued!
And, it doesn’t have to take a TON of time to do.
LinkedIn Followers Are Prime Connections
A common mistake I see with people on LinkedIn is not understanding the value of a LinkedIn follower, as they only think that connections count!
Now if you’ve watched any of my other livestreams about building a great LinkedIn network, you’ve heard me talk about the importance of building a LinkedIn network filled with the right connections.
LinkedIn followers may not have as strong of a tie to your network, but they do still matter, especially if you’re looking for SIMPLE ways to grow your network with the right people.
When someone follows you on LinkedIn, they are making the first move that they want to keep up with the content you’re sharing. Some of them are a bit apprehensive about sending you a connection invitation if they don’t already know you or have a mutual connection they can reference.
But the majority of your followers are signaling that they would be open to connect with you if you saw the mutual benefit in connecting.
You will also get some spammers in here who just follow everyone to try to get a follow back, but the good news for you is that you can take a look at their profile first to determine if they are a good connection.
You can grow a network size up to 30,000 on LinkedIn, but you can follow as many people as you’d like! There used to be a limit on the number of people you could follow at 5,000 people, but LinkedIn has lifted that limitation to accommodate those of us who want to build a stronger following and network.
According to LinkedIn: Connections are members who connect on LinkedIn because you both know and trust each other. If you're connected to someone, you'll both be able to see each other's shares and updates on your LinkedIn feed. You can also send messages to your connections on LinkedIn.
Following someone on LinkedIn allows you to see the person's posts and articles on your homepage without being connected to them. However, the person you’re following won't see your posts. By default, you will follow your 1st degree connections, and you can always unfollow them.
I like to think of my followers as potential LinkedIn connections who might be a great fit for my network. When they reach out to connect with me after following my content for some time, I usually do accept their connection invitation.
Following someone before connecting with them can be a really good best practice if you’d like to engage with their content before you send a connection invitation, as it demonstrates a level of professional courtesy.
If in doubt, follow someone before you send a connection invitation, especially if you’re not feeling confident that they will accept your invitation.
Should You Proactively Build Your Following?
Now that you understand the importance of your followers, it’s critical that you understand the importance of how you can build your following to attract more of the right people.
If you post to LinkedIn (whether it’s on your company’s LinkedIn Page or on your personal profile), you will be more likely to attract followers because you’re showing that you’re active on LinkedIn.
If you have not posted to LinkedIn in the past few weeks, then people will be a lot less likely to follow you because there’s no reason to follow your content if you don’t post. There is absolutely no benefit to following someone on LinkedIn or following a LinkedIn Page if there is no recent content.
Keep that in mind, as you will not be able to build a following without regular content going out on LinkedIn.
So, if you want to build a following on LinkedIn that does not require people to send you a conenction invitation or receive a connection invitation from you, then you must create a simple LinkedIn content strategy and start posting at least once every couple of weeks to encourage new followers to follow you.
Once you have a consistent-enough LinkedIn content strategy in place, you’ll be able to start attracting people to follow you on a regular basis.
Now let’s get a bit more tactical about how to increase your followers using some simple strategies that you’re probably already familiar with or could do to increase that following faster!
3 Ways to Accelerate Your LinkedIn Follower Growth
Gaining LinkedIn followers can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. Some of my clients and students decide to go “all in” with their LinkedIn content marketing strategy to get as many followers as possible as quickly as possible. Others choose to take a less intense approach, but are laser focused on the types of people they’re attracting via their content.
Again, these same principles can be applied to LinkedIn Page growth if you’re trying to boost the number of followers you have on your company’s LinkedIn Page. There will be some minor modifications, but much of what we discuss today will be applicable to boosting your followers on the Page.
Let’s jump right into the tactics!
#1 - Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Followers
Your profile must be optimized for attracting followers because everything on LinkedIn starts with your profile. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is your responsibility. It’s about committing to yourself, to your business or side hustle, to your personal brand - especially when you are trying to get a business off the ground or take your side hustle to the next level!
Take 100% responsibility for your profile - it’s yours, it should sound like you, you know yourself and capabilities better than anyone.
LinkedIn is THE place where professionals, like you and me, come to network with each other, explore doing good business with other good people, and focus on creating a better workplace and environment for ourselves and others.
All you need to know are some simple tweaks to actually figure out what to fix and where to start. Check out this article where I share my top seven tips for attracting the right people.
Once you optimize your LinkedIn profile, you will want to be sure to turn on Creator Mode which will give you the “Follow” button instead of the “Connect” button that is viewable when a non-connection comes across your profile.
This simple action will signal to people that you want them to follow you on LinkedIn, rather than send you a LinkedIn connection.
Again, don’t turn on Creator Mode until you’re actually posting content to LinkedIn, or you’ll be defeating the purpose of Creator Mode.
#2 - Don’t Rely on LinkedIn to Send You Followers
You may wonder what I’m telling you here when I say NOT to rely on LinkedIn. Aren’t we talking about getting new followers on LinkedIn? Shouldn’t we expect LinkedIn to generate traffic for us.
Yes, and no.
What I’m saying is that you want to do other activities off LinkedIn that will drive people to your LinkedIn profile as a follow-up afterwards.
For example, consider every time you speak at a virtual or in-person event, do an interview as a podcast guest, or network at an event that’s filled with great people who’d be interested in what you share on LinkedIn. If you make a good impression, people will look you up on LinkedIn and either follow you or send you a connection invitation.
One of the fastest ways to grow your following on LinkedIn is to speak or present to an audience because if you do it well, they will hop over to LinkedIn to follow your content.
My clients and students who grow the fastest are those who are not afraid to get out there by networking or speaking at events. People who get to know you professionally will naturally follow you on LinkedIn.
#3 - Create a LinkedIn Follower Engagement Checklist
One of my favorite ways to build my own LinkedIn following is to have a checklist for what I do with existing followers, commenters, likers and engagers on my content. I also use this same strategy for my clients who are thought leaders and want to maximize their following.
Here’s how it works. Every time they post to LinkedIn, they monitor the people who like, engage, comment or share their post. Many of them are LinkedIn connections, but a number of them are also 2nd or 3rd degree connections -- usually not followers -- and we then make a determination whether or not to follow them or send them a connection invitation.
This approach works like gangbusters because we’re not just posting and ghosting hoping that a post “goes viral,” but wer’e intentionally engaging and following up with everyone who looks like a good fit to let them know we appreciate them paying attention.
Does this take a little bit of time to implement? Yes!
But the benefits are that you have a system and process that takes you a max of 5-10 minutes a day to engage with people who are doing you the honor of paying attention. When you treat them well, they spread the word and continue to engage with your posts which drives your content into other people’s feeds.
It’s the domino effect in action!
If you’re looking for that extra edge to get your started on the right path, get on the waitlist for The 90-Minute LinkedIn Profile available in late October, which is tailored to take you through optimizing the seven sections of your LinkedIn profile in less than 90 minutes. If you’re interested, here’s the link to get on the waitlist and find out a few more details.
I’ll see you next week on Mondays with Mindi! Feel free to leave questions or comments below 👇- and my inbox is open if you want to message me directly! :)
