Protop Review 2019

LinkedIn is an amazing resource for job-hunters, business owners, sales reps and basically anyone who is into “businessesy” stuff.

If you use LinkedIn the right way, it can be an absolute gold mine for:
• Getting recruiters or hiring managers interested in you
• Finding relevant candidates for jobs you need to fill
• Finding leads and potential clients for products you’re looking to sell

There are zillions of different LinkedIn software suites, training guides and applications that all claim to help you get more out of the “gold standard” social network for businesspeople and employees. So which ones are good and which ones are rubbish?

I’m here today to give a review of Protop, which a LinkedIn application that I use every day.

Video Review

What Is Protop

At its most basic level, Protop is a Google Chrome browser extension. It does one key thing, which is enabling you to automatically visit other people’s LinkedIn profiles as if you were clicking into each one yourself.

You load up a LinkedIn search, e.g. “sales managers”, then set your criteria such as location, degree of connection (1st, 2nd, 3rd), industry type and more.
And then you hit the start button, and Protop systematically works through each profile as if you were visiting it yourself.

You’re free to go do something else, like read a book, do some emails, or make dinner.

The Theory Behind Protop

Why would you want to view a whole bunch of LinkedIn profiles? The theory behind doing so (and the raison d’etre of Protop) is rather simple:
If you visit someone’s LinkedIn profile, they receive a notification that you’ve visited. This is especially the case with anyone who has LinkedIn Premium – and many people do. Humans are a highly curious bunch, so it’s only natural for someone who has just received one of these view notifications to come back and view your profile.

You could do this yourself by searching and manually viewing LinkedIn profiles that are in your target audience. But this would take time and effort. Is it worth spending 30 minutes to an hour every day just to get some views back on your LinkedIn profile?

Unless you’ve got a killer conversion system in place to turn those views into real leads and sales, it probably isn’t the best use of your time.

It’s much better to load up your desired search criteria and then let something automated like ProTop do the hard work.

How I Use ProTop

I use ProTop pretty much as described above. Depending on what my goal is, I pick who I want to target (e.g. “sales managers living in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2nd degree connections”) and then let rip.

I then check back regularly to see who has viewed my profile. If it looks like they are relevant to what I’m trying to achieve – which they should be if the targeting is right – then you can strike while the iron is hot and send a connection request with a personalized message.

There isn’t much else to it really. Within 30 minutes of running a ProTop campaign I can expect to see a spike in views of my own profile, as well as new opportunities to connect.

ProTop Free vs Paid

There are two versions of ProTop. A free one and a paid one. They work the same way, but as you can expect the paid version is a bit better.

It costs $25 USD per month, and you get to do up to 1000 views per day (as opposed to a max of 100 for the free platform).

I just recently purchased the paid version as I find I’m getting a lot more view backs, connection requests and even messages (which I can steer towards obtaining new clients etc) when using the higher volume of daily views.

Does It Actually Get Results?

I have had excellent results from using ProTop so far. In the ~1 month I have been using it I have added over 100 new connections, most of whom are in my target audience.

Conclusion

Is ProTop worth it? Hell yeah it is. If you are in any field or job where it makes sense to have a LinkedIn profile, then ProTop is a convenient way to boost up the value you get from your profile.

For casual users, the free version of ProTop is probably more than enough, especially if you get in the habit of consistently using your 100-view allocation per day.

That’s 700 views you can make each week, which should result in new connection requests and follows at the bare minimum. Of course, if you slack off and forget to use it every day, then results may vary.

Tips To Help You Get The Most Out Of ProTop

1. Ensure your LinkedIn profile is complete, and to a high standard. There is no point in using this tool if you are getting views back to your profile that is incomplete and bereft of information about you, your achievements, and what you can offer.
2. Have a call to action in your byline and first 1-2 sentences of your profile description. This is your chance to pique a viewer’s interest and get them to take a desired action, e.g. “send me a connection request”. I usually aim for connection requests at this stage, because then I can start relationship building thereafter.
3. Don’t spam. It’s not generally good commercial practice to spam the crap out of people. Now viewing their profiles so that they view back – with an aim to build meaningful contacts and relationships – there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But don’t use ProTop for nefarious purposes! Just look at it as a genuine way to “supercharge” what would otherwise be a human process.