How To Get 500 LinkedIn Connections, Fast

LinkedIn is probably my favorite social network on the Internet. Although I spend more time on Facebook (largely owing to the number of pages and groups that I run) I still think that for anyone with a professional/business focus, LinkedIn is the place to be.

Here’s why I love LinkedIn:

• It’s the network where professionals and business owners go. Facebook can be great for business opportunities (thanks to the number of groups out there for business owners, entrepreneurs, local industries etc) but ultimately Facebook is a place that people go to get a bit of an escape from work. On the other hand, the whole purpose of LinkedIn is to connect and network with other professionals.
• An effective LinkedIn strategy can open doors. I’ve had two great jobs and won a number of lucrative consulting contracts through LinkedIn, and to this day continue to get good leads.
• The overall quality of content on the platform is higher than Facebook or Twitter – I feel like LinkedIn tends to expand my mind.

Why would you even want 500+ connections?

• A wider network (provided it is targeted and quality) means you are more likely to show up in searches that other people make.
• You’ll also get more content on your feed that you can interact with and start building sales opportunities. The biggest mistake I see people making with LinkedIn is being passive – i.e. not interacting with content that others post. Instead,

Here’s how to get 500 LinkedIn connections, fast

1. Add email account connections.
2. Look up everyone who you would consider to be a “real world” contact.
3. Reach out to people who view your profile. To get the best results with this approach, you’ll ultimately need to invest in LinkedIn Premium (I’m going to be doing a separate review/piece on whether or not LinkedIn Premium is worth the money).

Conclusion

If you want to get to 500+ LinkedIn connections in a short space of time, then the recommendations above will definitely help you to do so.

Just remember that sheer numbers of connections are not valuable in itself. I’ve seen some people on LinkedIn who boast of 10,000+ connections (protip – if anyone puts the number of connections they have in their LinkedIn by-line, it’s safe to say they have no idea what they are doing) but whose content receives almost no interaction.

Why?

Because they’ve probably bought fake connections or connected with people who could never bring them any value.

On the other hand, there are people with several hundred connections who get great interaction and probably get far more value (in terms of business/career opportunities) out of the platform.

Ultimately, as with everything in life, quality always trumps quantity. However, if you can increase quantity while keeping the quality good, then that can only be beneficial!