How to Find Influencers on LinkedIn
Seeking out the movers and shakers in your industry on LinkedIn? Getting on the radar of both the micro- and macro-influencers can be especially challenging unless you know how to find them!
It's easy to find the people with a massive following, but you'd be surprised how passionate the followers of the micro-influencers are -- those who fly a bit under the radar. They tend to be more open to collaboration and put a lot of effort into co-promotions, too.
Whether you're looking for top voices in sales or marketing, reviewers for your new book, or subject matter experts in your field, one of the simplest ways to find them and reach out is using LinkedIn.
In this episode of Mondays with Mindi, we discuss some of my favorite creative ways to find "the right people" on LinkedIn even if they don't have tens of thousands of followers or post content that goes viral.
What Makes for a Good Influencer?
LinkedIn is very different from a number of other social channels. I would almost argue that it’s not a social channel in all the traditional ways because it can be used more strategically due to the way it’s intended to be used and how it’s built.
When we think of social media, we often think of trying to grow as BIG a following as we possibly can. If we have more people at the top of the funnel, by default we’ll have more people come out the bottom.
The account with the most followers WINS on the socials. We assume that the accounts with a ton of followers are the ones we should be engaging with.
When we see 10,000+ followers, we think “Oh wow! This person is a major influencer.”
What we don’t often consider is HOW they grew that audience of followers. Anyone can get to 10K+ with enough time and enough spamming or low-quality outreach.
What makes a good influencer is the depth of relationship that they have with their followers and if they are actually able to shift the perspectives of their audience… real influence is measured by how much of an impact they have on the people in their circle.
When I look for influencers, I often tend to look for micro influencers because they have both the time and consideration to go deep with their networks. Once an influencer gets too big, most of them literally do not have the same ability to influence past a certain level.
There are some influencers who can change perspectives at scale, but most of them still need to do some type of 1:1 engagement in order to not lose touch with their audience.
So if it’s a BIG influencer, I tend to look to see if they ever do one-on-one sessions or episodes or podcasts or livestreams with their target audience.
Those who do make an effort to still connect with their audience in this way are “touchable” and that makes for a great collaboration and someone who genuinely cares about their audience because they prioritize those engagements.
Too often influencers will add a bunch of red tape layers to getting in contact with them when they reach a certain level, and that’s NOT who we’re looking for when it comes to LinkedIn.
The same way that I approach prospecting on LinkedIn to find the “perfect-fit clients” is the same way that I approach identifying influencers who are willing to collaborate on a podcast, give input on a book, do a joint livestream, co-promote an event, come onto an online summit, or review my authors’ books.
Your time needs to be strategically spent with only the most ripe and ready influencers, not those who are unapproachable on the top most branches of the mango tree that are nearly impossible to get.
So, let’s talk about what this actually looks like on LinkedIn when you’re picking the right (or ripe) influencers from your network (or mango tree.)
Picking Your LinkedIn Influencers Strategically
There are different types of influencers on LinkedIn, and many of them like to toot their own horn! You know the ones I’m talking about who are always up-to-date on the latest LinkedIn algorithm hacks.
When polls were trending, they posted a poll or two per week to get engagement. Were the polls actually providing value or were they simply self-serving? I’ll let you decide.
One trend I’ve noticed on LinkedIn over time is that people feel that they need to build up their followers to the tens of thousands, at whatever cost.
Recently, I reconnected with someone in my network who has a very impressive network of nearly 30,000 people. At first glance, it’s easy to assume that she has a TON of influence because she posts all of the time on LinkedIn.
But look deeper at the numbers, and the majority of posts that should be received with enthusiasm are only getting a half dozen reactions and maybe a comment if she’s lucky.
What’s going on here? It’s a telltale sign that she built her network without being strategic about the types of people she attracted and let into her network.
Anyone can do this if you use an automation tool (please do NOT use these! They are prohibited by LinkedIn) or a virtual assistant to haphazardly send a bazillion connection invitations or use the “follow, then unfollow” approach to get those numbers high.
They have diluted their network to the point where they are not even close to being an actual influencer or thought leader because they are not changing perspectives -- just someone who likes to “collect” people.
I’d much rather find someone who has a network of 2,000 - 5,000 people but with a high percentage of their people actively engaging on their content. Sometimes I cannot even tell if they’re an influencer by the content they post because there are other factors to consider, like how many DMs are happening behind the scenes.
When it comes to picking an influencer to work with on a project, I look at their LinkedIn profile to see if they pay attention to their personal brand, then their network size to get an idea, and if they have their connections open, I will look to see a cross-section of their audience.
Their content activity levels are next up and how their audience responds to the content they post. Even if the engagement level is high, I go deeper to see WHAT they’re posting to ensure that it’s actually valuable and not just “engagement bait.”
You’d be surprised how many influential people post infrequently but have a LOT going on within their DMs as a result of the content they do post.
Reach Out to Your “Ripe” Influencers
Now think about it, just about every single professional on the planet who wants to “do business” is on LinkedIn right now.
LinkedIn is not just a place for job seekers or pesky salespeople to sell you something.
It’s the place where experts and influencers, like us, go to engage with other people we’d like to do business with.
I don’t know about you, but I focus a good deal on my “ripe” influencers when I’m on LinkedIn in my news feed and more importantly in my LinkedIn messages.
If you’ve been doing business for any length of time, you already have a customer avatar. If you’re new, you need to start developing a customer profile.
You’re going to look for influencers on LinkedIn who also serve that customer profile, and you’re going to connect with them to get them into a conversation around what they’re doing in their business. No sales pitches.
But, the goal is to really be able to identify who your “ripe” influencers are on LinkedIn.
That’s going to take some experimenting to figure out, but most of the people I work with in my coaching programs and who are my clients “get it” within about 60-90 days (if not sooner!)
Once you start experimenting with getting into conversations with “ripe” influencers, you’ll start being able to reverse engineer what to look for as telltale signs on LinkedIn.
For example, I have a client who is looking for influencers in the cannabis space. They’re currently undergoing a massive transition as an industry going through becoming legalized in the US. Therefore, just about every cannabis leader or medium to large-sized organization is in need of what this leadership consultant (who specializes in working with cannabis leaders in transition) can help them with.
Does he reach out to leaders of small companies? Nope. We tried them as an audience, and they just were not experiencing the problems that the medium and large organizations were facing, didn’t have the budget, and frankly did not have the interest in working with a leadership consultant.
So, we took them out of the prospecting pool and narrowed our focus to those who seem to be more influential. Using LinkedIn as a starting point, we then triangulated with other channels when we didn’t get enough information.
This has resulted in fewer conversations but a higher conversion rate for the client. See how this works?
Identifying Your Influencers the Mango Way
If you want to identify your influencers the mango way, you need to reverse engineer your ideal macro- and micro-influencers on LinkedIn.
There’s a bit of an art form to this because you need to know a bit about the information you can find on people’s profiles and then map this back to what makes an ideal partner or influencer for you. In a nutshell, do they work with your audience or serve a segment of your audience?
Let’s talk about how to get this process started, whether you’re a seasoned expert who’s worked with dozens of influencers, or you’re just getting started with a new target market and want to know how to get it done using influencers on LinkedIn.
#1 - Identify Your LinkedIn Prospect Avatar
My prospects who come from LinkedIn are different than those who come via Facebook or Instagram ads. I treat them differently, because they are more relationship-based than someone who saw me “being clever” on an ad, then decided to download my free resource.
On LinkedIn, it’s important that you understand what your customer avatar looks like. You can go about this in a couple of ways.
If you have an account-based strategy, you might be starting with the types of companies you want to work with and then look for the people inside those companies you need to reach out to.
If you are looking for certain job titles, small business owners, or people on LinkedIn who match your customer profile, you will want to search for them a bit differently.
I teach this in a LOT more depth inside my programs, but just know there’s a way to find ANYONE you’re looking for using LinkedIn. I’ve gotten pretty creative and have learned how to combine clever keywords and boolean phrases to find just about anyone.
Once you understand WHO your ideal LinkedIn prospect is, you’re going to look for influencers who have these types of people inside their audience. Not so easy to start, but once you uncover a few influencers, they lead you to the rest.
#2 - Focus on ONE Type of Influencer
Don’t try to reach out to all the different influencers possible. Start with the one who’s going to be most reachable and easy-to-find on LinkedIn with the most alignment for your business and who serves your market.
For example, if you could go after big-name influencers with tens of thousands of followers and it’s obvious someone on their marketing team is posting for them OR you could go after a micro-influencer that obviously responds personally to each and every comment even if they don’t have the high follower numbers… who would you choose?
The micro-influencers are going to be more responsive and easy to reach. Downside is that they may not have enough followers in their audience, but if their engagement and alignment is good, you’d be surprised how much influence they have.
You can always switch influencer types later. Pick an influencer with an audience that you know well. You’ll get results faster.
#3 - Run a LinkedIn Influencer Experiment
You’re then going to run a LinkedIn experiment where you target just this one type of influencer using one type of outreach message or sequence.
I’ve talked about this topic of “what to say” in prior livestreams, so feel free to go back through my channel or check out my blog if you want some pointers on messaging.
Realize there’s going to be a lot of trial-and-error at the beginning to figure out what type of message is going to get through to your ideal influencers.
The key here is NOT to pitch or selly-sell in your initial outreach. You need to just “talk shop” and start building a relationship with them before you go any further.
Some ideas for conversation starters: invite them to your podcast, ask them to provide input for a book you’re working on, talk about a mutual community you’re a part of, maybe you’ve gone to the same business event. Think about how you can start up a natural conversation that leads them down a path to get to know you and ask about what you do.
Let’s recap the getting started process:
Get clear on your ideal LinkedIn prospect
Pick just ONE type of influener to reach out to first
Run a LinkedIn experiment to see what works
If you’re looking for that extra edge to get you started on the right path with LinkedIn to start booking your perfect-fit clients, get on the waitlist for the next cohort of The LinkedIn Accelerator kicking off in July 2022, which is tailored to take you through ALL of the sections on your LinkedIn profile in just five days flat - - one week, and you’re off to the LinkedIn races to start growing your network and getting conversations. If you’re interested, here’s the link to get on the waitlist and find out a few more details.
What additional questions do you have about identifying the right influencers on LinkedIn “the mango way”? Leave them below in the comments or shoot me a private message. I’m happy to answer them!
