The main pillar of professional growth is networking. With an extensive global user of 1 billion, LinkedIn is the best networking platform out there. Building a genuine connection does not consist of numbers; It consists of creating quality connections and building rapport. There are different people with different intentions, but everyone has one common thing to accomplish: building good relations. Connections are just some numbers; you can send requests to connect with anyone, but at the heart of it is building good relationships and being genuine. It’s difficult when you never mate with other people and try to establish genuine connections with them.
Everyone wants to be remembered, though it’s practically impossible that everyone will remember you if you don’t have anything special in terms of value, position or genuineness. In this article, I will make it simple for you, and after reading this article, you will be noticed on your LinkedIn network.
You might hear that your network is your net worth. We couldn’t agree more on this, even though I can’t recall how many times I wrote this line in others’ comment sections. The more quality connections we have, the more opportunities we get and more exposure to the industry leaders.
Let’s start with the basics of how you can make genuine connections on LinkedIn.
Differentiate Yourself
You might hear that people are suggesting you follow the same path as that top creator’s path, and you will be successful. Stop it; It’s different from how networking works. You, as an individual, can’t replicate others’ path. Everyone has different weaknesses and different strengths, so always try to implement your ideas while you can get inspiration from others on how they followed, not what they followed. The same works for your LinkedIn connections, too. Everyone receives a lot of connection requests and messages daily, and mostly, they either need a connection note or they have a common note template. If you want to be addressed, try to research the profile before sending connection requests. Try to use the common ground; you both belong to the same marketing field or the same institution. Add that to your connection note, and guess what? You have already increased the acceptance rate to 80%.
The second mistake people often make is they either don’t text them back once received or give them thanks for receiving the connection request. I ask some questions like ‘How’s work’ or something related to their job? You can do the same, or you can use the connection request message to stretch the connection.
The third mistake I often see people making is they don’t stand out in the comment section; they make the same old comments or try to copy from others; if you want to stand out, you need to write something different, add value, and of course, try to compliment them or a bit of fun, I use this, and my network loves me, it’s time for your implementations.
Help to grow others
The best to grow is to help others grow; it’s applicable to building connections, too. Everyone loves to be heard; either they need help to reach out to the right people, or they are making some unminded mistakes. You can be a saviour for them; try reposting small creators’ posts. They can be visible to your network, but the bigger thing you will achieve is trust; your network will see you as a helping hand.
When you see someone seeking a job, you can give them a bigger hand by simply commenting on it. The more you will be helpful to your network, the more valuable you will be.
Be a fan
If you love others’ work, you can genuinely engage with their content and appreciate whatever they are doing, irrespective of any factors. It’s not about good work; it’s about any work; the more you engage with people with their work, the more you will be visible, and your network will count you as a valuable connection.
If you have a good knowledge about the topic, talk about it in another way, give some input or appreciate it. If you don’t have any knowledge, you can learn it a bit and then come up with something or encourage them to be there on your feed with their perspective.
Collaboration
As I have said earlier, the best way to grow is to grow with others. You can grow with others, and collaboration is the best way to make it happen. Always research the other people and ask them politely if they are open to collaborating on a particular thing; mostly, it can be a joint venture of value you both provide or something new you have in your mind and you want to execute.
The collaboration will lead to a strong bond between you and your partner. It will benefit both of you and help you build a good network with new people, Ideally, people from each other’s network.
Join Groups and networking groups
You can join the relevant group with respect to your niche and jump to a meaningful conversation within it. You can learn, share insights, and overall build a good connection.
Attend audio events
In the journey of building genuine connections, the most important thing is to get visible; the more you will be visible, the more people will try to know about you. Do that; you should have a good profile. Let’s talk about it in the next point. You will find a lot of people who might be a good choice to add to your network; try knowing them and add them to your network.
Build a good profile
I should have added this in the first place, but as we are focusing more on networking, I tried giving the ideas in a sequence. Now you know why you need a good profile to get a good network.
Let’s take an example: If You love a profile and want to add them to your network, what will you generally do? Jumping on his profile, you will try to find what they do, check their featured section and check his experience and posts; now, if you don’t get much clarity, you will probably not send the connection request, and you want them to your network, won’t you? Now you have the answer, attach a good profile image, clear offers on your banner and a good featured section and then add your past experiences. Make it super helpful to the people to understand what you are, what you do and why they should add you to their network.
Bonus Tip:
Be like a detective; whenever someone shares their ups and downs or good or bad phases or what they like or what they don’t, always take note of it and use it professionally; I keep the conversation going. I give a reference of a comment from the last day and start talking about it alongside my comments for the post.
Try to ask people for an endorsement; if you are working with someone, then it’s to ask, or they might need to be sure to do it; you need to convince them.
Write recommendations for others. If someone is asking if you are open to giving them recommendations, then don’t say no; instead, ask some relevant questions to write a better recommendation.
Conclusion
As a professional social media platform, LinkedIn has credibility. It’s more of a business database, and surprisingly, it’s free. Use it for both your professional and personal growth, and build a good network and grow with them.
LinkedIn has a lot to offer in terms of growing a professional network. Always stay true to your network, help others, and you will end up building a genuine network. Let me know how you will use this article to build a strong network on Linkedin.
Very well explained 🙌