Networking follow ups with LinkedIn – LinkedIn Education Pt 1

LinkedIn Education Pt 1: Networking follow ups with LinkedIn

This is part One of a Three part How To Use LinkedIn to grow your business article. If you'd like to skip networking and are interested in Developing a Personal LinkedIn Content Strategy you'll learn more in part 2.

In Part 1 of our LinkedIn Eduction series you'll hear how to use LinkedIn to follow up with networking connections just after an event or meeting.

The Initial Connection:

When following up with a networking contact, you want to make sure that you create a strong connection with that person in as many ways as possible without bombarding them. Social Media, particularly LinkedIn is a great place to start this process. Most people are on LinkedIn and it’s become a great formal/informal way of connecting with business contacts to begin a relationship.

When you connect on LinkedIn, make sure that you don’t just use the basic connection message LinkedIn provides which looks like this:

Remind the contact where you met them try to mention something you bonded over. If you connected while drinking a great wine or beer or spoke about sport or your kids, mention it! You also want to casually set the expectation of asking for help or whatever the business reason is you connected.

The Follow Up

LinkedIn is a social media channel so make sure to stay active. If you want to really connect with someone you must show the person you are actually interested in them. If there was something specific you discussed catching up about, make sure to email them a day or two later to set a date. There is a lot of talk about how quickly you should message a new contact. We suggest that you use your judgement, however 1-3 days is ideal for the first contact post meeting.

This message should be personalised as well. Thank them for connecting, and even though you are asking them to catch up or for an intro, offer them something of value. That value can even be you saying, “If you’d like an intro to anyone in my network please let me know.”

People get lots of emails and messages every day. If you haven’t heard back from the contact in about a week, send another message to this person checking to see if they have missed your last message. Using a basic template like this will work:

Even if they do not answer this message, your business courtship doesn't need to end there. We suggest that every so often you engage with this person by sharing their articles, liking their posts or offering them materials that you believe they would be interested in. If you are going to do this, wait about a week or two and then slowly re-engage. LinkedIn is a great business tool, however it’s still a social platform, so make sure to keep in touch with those who you are really interested in working with. You can also find 10 Simple Tips for Networking on LinkedIn published by LinkedIn.

The next step in your LinkedIn marketing plan could be to create a Personal Content Strategy for LinkedIn or to Create and Manage a LinkedIn Group.