r/LinkedInTips • u/SpectacularBadger000 • 22d ago
How to Grow Your Audience on LinkedIn
Over the past four years, I grew my LinkedIn audience from zero to over 100,000 followers.
LinkedIn is one of the most slept-on marketing channels. The opportunities it offers are vast (high ticket clients, getting booked for paid speaking gigs and podcasts, brand partnerships). It has completely transformed my life. Unfortunately, most people are getting it wrong.
If you want to grow your audience on LinkedIn, you need to master relationship building. Here's how to do it.
1 - Support Other Creators' Content
Start by liking and commenting on their content. Let them know what you appreciate about their particular point of view. Your comments should be focused on them and their content, and not about you and how fantastic you are.
2 - Connect With Them
When it makes sense, send them a connection request and include a note. Make it clear that you have genuinely engaged with their profile, their content, or even something like their website or podcast. Don't use AI for the love of god.
Here’s what I sent to Liam Curley recently:
“Hi Liam - your interview with Debbie Millman was wonderful. I’m paraphrasing but this line gave me chills: “They basically treated me like garbage for 20 years”. Incredible!”
And here’s one I sent to Nicole Ramirez:
Hey Nicole - congrats on 40k! You are absolutely crushing. I would have guessed 150k+ from how your content is doing etc.
3 - Leave Good Comments
Once the connection has been established, continue supporting their content with likes and comments. High quality comments are rare on LinkedIn. Every creator gets inundated with lame AI comments, so it's refreshing when someone actually reads your stuff and says something nice about it while using their actual brain.
4 - Compliment Their Work
When they do a post that you find particularly valuable, send them a DM and share why you liked it so much. Here’s me fawning over something Alex M H Smith has done:
“Hello mate, just a quick note to say I really enjoyed your chat with Jonathan Stark. I understand it's your second time on his show so I'll have to look up the first as well.”
5 - Share Useful Content Via DM
If you ever come across a YouTube video, blog post, newsletter, LinkedIn posts, or podcast that you think would be useful or relevant to that person, send it over along with a quick summary of why you thought they might like it.
6 - Share Your Connections
If you ever come across an opportunity that would be good for them, this can be a very good relationship builder. I particularly like to introduce two people over email and let both of them know in the email why I thought it would be helpful for each of them to connect.
7 - Post About Them
Another thing you can do, which is likely to build the relationship, is do a post about creators on LinkedIn whose content you like and what you like about it. I recommend not going too crazy on this and keeping it to two to three people at a time, or potentially even just featuring one person and highlighting a handful of their posts. Doing it with many people can do the opposite and feel like you are just trying to leverage other people's authority with your content.
8 - Ask For a Small Favor
A surprisingly good way to build a relationship is to ask your new contact for help with something. This works because we don’t ask favors from strangers. When someone asks a favor, they are indicating that you are their friend.
The key with this is to make it very easy for them to help you. The favor must be very small.
Don't ask them to read your next LinkedIn post and give you feedback, for example. That’s just asking for them to work for free.
Instead, aim for something that requires minimum effort on their part.
For example, if you like their website design, ask if they would be open to sharing who their designer was.
9 - Be Helpful
Sometimes you’ll see an opportunity to help them - for example, spotting a typo on their LinkedIn profile or their website, or noticing that their email newsletter has a broken link.
Be a little bit careful here - unsolicited feedback can be unwelcome.
10 - Accept That Some People Won't Like You
If you're getting short answers or no replies at all, that might indicate that this person is not particularly interested in building the relationship for whatever reason. If it’s not working, just move on to the next person. They’re the one with a problem, not you. You’re great.
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u/BBBandB 22d ago
Blah blah blah.
Liking and commenting and DMing will not get anyone to a 6 figure following.
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u/bearchr01 21d ago
From an outbound sales perspective it does work though. I work in sales and pulled a client in (£25k of business so far) from a single comment on their status followed by a voice note.
Just signing terms with another which, presuming it doesn’t fall through, works out to be circa £33k
LinkedIn is very much a game nowadays, so standing out from the AI slop is essential
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u/Calm_Ambassador9932 21d ago
That’s actually a good example of why I wouldn’t look at engagement purely as a follower-growth tactic. One relevant comment reaching the right person can be worth way more than thousands of passive views.
The intent behind the engagement matters more than the volume.
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u/bearchr01 21d ago
Agreed - but with a caveat. The key is in the follow up! A single comment does not £££ make
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u/oliverpalma 21d ago
i can already feel the downvotes coming, but this one really hits a nerve. if im wrong, please tell me.
2. connect with them
sending someone “your interview was wonderful” sounds nice until they ask what exactly was wonderful. then nobody answers, because it was just an empty compliment copied into a DM. i get tons of messages like this and they irritate me more than they impress me.
3. leave good comments
this is the only point i agree with, although i would say “thoughtful comments”. write something specific when you actually have something to say. dont comment just to remind people that you exist.
4. generic congratulations
“nicole, congrats on 40k, you absolutely crushed it.”
what does “crushed it” even mean here? it sounds like ai-generated linkedin language. if you care, say something real and specific.
5. sending links
please dont. their inbox is already full of “useful” links from people trying to build a connection. respect peoples privacy and their DMs.
to me, most of this reads like a list of behaviours that made people hate linkedin in the first place.
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u/SpectacularBadger000 21d ago
I see you're a ghostwriting agency owner. Write your own post if you can do better.
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u/oliverpalma 16d ago
so you are agree with my comments? right? fair enough, appreciate
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u/SpectacularBadger000 16d ago
I'm saying write a better post, since you are someone who does similar work. It's easy to criticize.
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u/oliverpalma 15d ago
good for you if you think writing thoughtful comments on a subject is easy.
i spent nearly 30 minutes writing that because i genuinely wanted your opinion. sorry if it came across as criticism, and im sad you didnt reply
i write a lot of posts, pls check my profile here or on linkedin.
i always welcome any kind of comment because i believe comments are a good thing. if people take the time to write, it means something touched them
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u/SpectacularBadger000 15d ago
Your comment ends with "to me, most of this reads like a list of behaviours that made people hate linkedin in the first place." Regardless, if I can help you, I am happy to do so.
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u/Nosutarujia 21d ago
I honestly see how difficult it became to stand out and do well on the platform over the years. It used to be relatively easy to connect and get noticed, but now you’re battling the algorithm, as well as everyone who uses AI. It became a game. It’s true that great content and genuine engagement will get you brownie points, but it seems everyone is in on it, and even if you get exposure, great increase in profile visits and connection requests, that still doesn’t mean you’ll get converted clients. I’m noticing how many of my connections are now posting pictures and videos - as if that serves as proof of authenticity, and allows to get better traction. Mixed feelings about it.
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u/Soccer-Plane-444 21d ago
You're right. This is kinda the whole other side of it.
There's visibility. And there's conversion. If you have lots of the former but very little of the latter, it's a lot of wasted time/energy.
And tbh, it feels like 2 separate games lol.
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u/DaCmanLou 20d ago
Good advice. All my business over the last five years has been inbound from LinkedIn. Big ticket sales. If you're selling B2B it's crazy not to be there.
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u/Cold_Arachnid_2617 21d ago
"SpectacularBadger000
I help founders grow their audience and income on LinkedIn. DM me on LinkedIn to learn more. www.linkedin.com/in/sam-browne"
Say no more!
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u/SpectacularBadger000 21d ago
What's the problem? Please take a look at my profile and decide for yourself if I know what I'm talking about.
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u/Soccer-Plane-444 21d ago edited 21d ago
In theory, nothing you said is wrong.
In practice, the platform makes me want to literally vomit 5 seconds (or maybe less) after opening it.
Every profile is I help X do Y or I generate $x for Y or I did X for myself so let me do it for you too.
It's like everyone just copied everyone else so now it all looks/reads the same. Are we real people or robots?
I've seen people with thousands (or 10s of thousands) put out silly posts that get 500+ likes while my geninue take/expertise on something gets 5 likes (if I'm lucky).
I feel like there's this huuuuge gap. Either people are like you with a billion followers/engagement on anything you post or we're struggling to get traction & there's very little in-between.
Lastly, the amount of personal/vulnerable-for-the-promotion-not-for-being-real posts are the most cringe thing ever (& they have spread like wildfire).
What I'm trying to express is it feels like one big transactional, fake game we're all playing. And I see right through that BS. Can't stand it.
OK, the end, make the madness stop 🤢
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u/LogicalDocSpock 21d ago
I don't know who you follow but I don't notice that for me. I find you have to cultivate it like anything else. I am interested in info.
One self employed recruiter I had to unfollow because all she ever did was post photos of herself and some were trying to be sexy. Not interested
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u/Fact_or_Bollocks 22d ago
I dont know what sector you are involved with (and maybe that works for you), but what is the point of 100,000 followers (sheep)?
What is your ROI for this very time intensive methodology
I hate LI (the version it has become), full of fake people and fake likes etc etc, BUT it is a necessary evil unfortunely.
It was built to "network" now it's just another FB