Like most people on LinkedIn, when I started trying to gain 1st level connections I began inviting people in my target group anywhere and everywhere I could find them. My target group was entrepreneurs, and I found a lot people on LinkedIn who identified as an entrepreneur.
Here is a fact of activity on LinkedIn. It is not the total number of connections you have, but the ability to approach people and start a conversation online that will turn into a real conversation and lead to real business.
That is the strength of your network, if it can be turned into real business.
Here is another little known fact. If you invite people in your target group from you local area, you have a much greater chance of them accepting your connection request and turning into real business.
If you are not from a city with a large population, then you should focus on people throughout your entire state.
If you live near a large city with over one million people, you should focus on your target group within your city or the larget city within 1 hour or 100 miles of where you live.
The only exception to this rule, is if your target group is predictably very small, then you should reach out to your entire nation. For example, if your target market is paleontologists, you should not restrict your geography at all.
For most people, their target market within a limited geography will yield tens of thousands of potential prospects, and that is enough. After all, you can only have a maximum of 30,000 1st level connections on LinkedIn, so eventually you may max out your pool of connections. I have to tell you though, that 30k is a big number and it will probably take you a couple of years at least to max. out at 30k on LinkedIn.
Why is local so important? It is because there is a natural affinity or feeling of closeness that comes from connecting to someone in your local area. It allows for a much higher connection acceptance rate, (over 2x the average), and much better and faster development of the relationship that you will need to form a connection that will enable you to accomplish your business objectives.
This approach is not something that will add only a few percentage points to your rate of success.
I general, most LinkedIn users only get about a 15-20 percent success rate on invitations. If you use a local approach as explained above, your success rate will likely double. To move to a 30% – 40% success rate is quite significant.
This brings up another potential problem on LinkedIn. Any time you are sending out invitations to people you know, there is always the risk of getting an idk. If you do not know what that is, it is a response, "I don't know you". If it happens rarely that is not a problem, but if your percentage of idk is too high, (no one but LinkedIn knows what that percentage is), you can get your account suspended for a few days, or even up to one week. This is something you want to avoid at all costs, and using a local approach will help to reduce your idk percentage as well.
When you get an idk flag from LinkedIn, it is not the end of the world, but it is something you really want to avoid at all costs. If you have repeated idk warnings your account could potentially be permanently suspended. If you do get an idk warning, I would recommend suspending your invitations for at least a couple of weeks, and then when you start up again, start very slowly again with only a few per day.
Not only can you invite people from your local area, you can focus on local groups as well. This will drive your acceptance rate even higher. People who join groups are usually looking to network. and it will be much easier to develop a conversation with people in a local group. This is true regardless of whether the conversation is online, by phone, or even in person.
Mainly, I am looking for entrepreneurs to join Markethive from LinkedIn, so this is a fairly simple and straightforward process that usually will not need phone or personal contact. Of course, that does not mean once they join you cannot reach out once they join Markethive. At that point, you will have a common base that is even stronger.
David https://markethive.com/david-ogden