Whether you’re just starting out on LinkedIn and want to grow your network, or you’re looking to break into new markets and raise awareness with new audiences, automation tools really are a game changer in marketing. They will help you achieve your goals in a fraction of the time, including growing your LinkedIn network. Here we cover how to automate your LinkedIn connection requests.
The size of your LinkedIn network isn’t just a vanity metric. It has a direct impact on the reach of your brand, our influence and awareness. The bigger our network, the wider our reach. Let me try and explain.
Once you connect with someone on LinkedIn, you will see their content in your feed. And they will see your content in their feed. In a nutshell it means that you’ll get more eyes on your content whenever you post something.
If someone comments on your content, their network will also see your content – expanding its reach even further.
Sounds great, right? But here’s the issue.
Social Media platforms have been restricting the organic (i.e. non-paid) reach of your content over the past few years in an effort to drive more revenue from ads. It’s understandable that these platforms want to monetise their product, but it means that we need to work harder to make organic social media strategies work.
The number of organic posts in our feeds has declined, replaced instead by sponsored ads. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at your Facebook page. When I look at the first 10 posts on my feed, 5 of them are either sponsored ads or recommended posts that I have not requested to follow.
Take LinkedIn, and it’s a similar story. Almost every other post in my feed is an ad.
Of the organic posts that are in my feed (now just 50%), Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter have changed their algorithms to favour content that has the most interactions.
By interactions I mean likes, shares and comments.
So in addition to growing our networks, we now have to work harder to make sure that our posts actually show up in our network’s feed in the first place, and aren’t just replaced by ads.
How to we get more visibility of our social posts?
There’s the question.
In order to get your content seen, it needs to gain traction, which is where the size of your network helps.
The larger your network, the more likely it is that someone will interact with your content, resulting in it being pushed higher up into the feeds of your other connections (remember it will also make it into the feeds of connections of those that have interacted with it, so a double whammy).
Still with me? It’s basically all about having more connections, that like your content, to get more eyes on it.
How to increase engagement rates on LinkedIn
BUT building your connections can be time consuming. And this is where LinkedIn Automation Tools like Dux-Soup come in.
Dux-Soup is the most established (first on the market) and best loved LinkedIn automation tool on the market with over 70, 000 users. It’s really affordable and offers the ability to automate connection requests, followup messages and drip campaigns. It offers a lot more, but you’ll need to check that out for yourself.
Check out my Top Marketing Tools
How to automate LinkedIn connection requests
Buy Dux-Soup Pro or Turbo
In order to send LinkedIn connection requests from Dux-Soup, you’ll need their Pro plan which is costs from just £9.08/month when you buy an annual Pro license.
Install Dux-Soup
Dux-Soup is installed from the Chrome webstore. You’ll need to have a Google Chrome account and use your Chrome details to log into Dux-Soup. Once installed, head to the Dux-Soup icon on your chrome toolbar to check that you have the Pro or Turbo license installed. It looks like the duck’s head shown below.
When you click on the Dux-Soup extension icon, you can see what version you have installed, for example here we have Pro.
Create your LinkedIn list
In order to automate LinkedIn connection requests, you’ll need to first create a list of people you want to connect with. You can do this in either LinkedIn or Sales Navigator, and use as many filters as you want to refine your list. I’d recommend you tick 2nd and 3rd+ degree connections as you can’t connect with existing connections.
Here’s an example. You can see that as soon as a list is created you’ll get the green message box saying ‘Dux-Soup: At your service’.
Write a personal connection message
Once you have your list, go back into the chrome extension to execute the command. You’ll notice the options have changed now that you have a LinkedIn list to run automated actions against.
Now you can enter your personalised connection message. You’ll see the personalisation markers available to use below the message box, allowing you to merge LinkedIn fields into your message.
Once you’re done, hit the ‘visit and connect’ buttons.
Make yourself a coffee
If you’re one of life’s takers, sit back and make yourself a coffee, go to the gym or catch up with a friend. Id you’re one of life’s workers, then you can crack on with another task.
LinkedIn connection limits
As of February 2023, LinkedIn’s connection limits will allow you to send around 100 connection requests a week. Dux-Soup will automatically snooze once you have reached your limit.
Watch the video
If you’d rather see it in action, watch the video. As I explain in the video, I recommend staying within Dux-Soup’s pre-set automation limits. They are the experts after all.
Here I demonstrate how to automation personalised connection requests with Dux-Soup and grow your network.
In this example I invite owners of recruitment companies to connect, offering them a piece of content that is relevant to them. After all, social media is all about being kind and considerate – just be sure to remember that.
You can find out more about Dux-Soup at their website – just hit the link below. They have plenty of blogs and run free webinars on how to generate leads so it’s a great resource.
I think their Pro subscription is excellent value for money and it’s good to get you started, but if you want to run LinkedIn lead generation campaigns, their Turbo plan is where it’s at – and such a low price point for what you get.
