LinkedIn is a platform where you can connect with business professionals easily. Some of these connections will be your mutuals, while others will become your competitors. But, regardless of what they are, there are benefits to building LinkedIn connections.
The analogy of building LinkedIn connections is networking with like-minds at a physical event. The more you connect with people, the more likely they will remember you and introduce you to lucrative opportunities.
Building connections on LinkedIn is even easier than meeting people physically. All you have to do to widen your reach is to view more profiles and search for connections. Once you’re active on LinkedIn, the algorithm pushes your profile to people who might be interested in you or your brand.
LinkedIn connections are people in your network who you know professionally. They are different from your contacts. To change your contacts to connections, they must accept your invitation to join your network through a connection request.
How you communicate with your connections depends on how closely connected you are. You can communicate with your connections via direct messages or react to their updates on your LinkedIn homepage.
An increase in the number of your connections makes you appear more in LinkedIn search results. And your posts appear on your connections homepage whenever you publish new content. All these can help improve your presence on LinkedIn and increase your lead generation.
LinkedIn notifies your connections whenever you publish a post. This means that the number of people seeing your content depends on your connection size. The more connections you have, the higher the engagement, and vice versa.
The following are some of the benefits of building your LinkedIn connections.
1. Increase in the Number of Profile Views
Having more connections increases your chances of being one of the top-viewed profiles on LinkedIn. People check your profile whenever you add them to your connections.
Once people start accepting your connection request, your profile views increase significantly. Your profile views can increase from one to thousands within a short period, like a week.
You may wonder, what is the benefit of increased profile views?
Well, getting more profile views means more notice and visibility. And that’s the main aim of building connections. To expand your reach and be open to more opportunities. When your LinkedIn visibility improves, prospects and industry leaders will see you.
2. It Helps Generating More Endorsements
The capacity to generate more endorsements is another great benefit of building LinkedIn connections. When you have more connections, you’ve got more people in your network to endorse you. And LinkedIn endorsements are like badges of honor.
Imagine about 100 people endorse you for particular skills. It’ll look fantastic on your LinkedIn profile and make you an industry authority. But you can’t get that many endorsements if you don’t have significant connections in your network.
3. More People Will Want to Connect With You
Once your LinkedIn network grows, you’ll find that more people will want to be your friend. You’ll receive more connection requests from people outside your network.
Large LinkedIn connections make you know a lot of people and vice versa. Especially when you’ve proven to be a thought leader in your industry, people will come to you for business advice, and you can also go to them.
LinkedIn connections allow you to expose yourself to other people in different industries.
4. Improved Search Results
When you search LinkedIn, the result will usually only include people who are connected to you as first, second, or third-degree connections. The more connections you have, the higher your chance of appearing on their search results.
The LinkedIn search result is a function of the connection chain and not the degree of connections. That means a third-degree connection can appear as the top entry in search results.
5. Increases LinkedIn Post Engagement
You can’t imagine how frustrating it is to post content on social media and receive little to no engagement. No comments, likes, or reactions from your friends and contacts. Sometimes, it can be a little bit embarrassing.
With significant LinkedIn connections, your posts will receive more engagement. You’ll generate more likes, comments, and shares, which is good for your LinkedIn online presence. And before you know it, you’ll become a LinkedIn elite.
Know that LinkedIn gives timeline preference to content that generate decent engagement. This could result in even more engagement because the longer your posts stay on your timeline, the more engagement they generate.
Also, the chance of your LinkedIn profile featuring in LinkedIn Pulse increases with increased engagement. LinkedIn profiles that feature in LinkedIn Pulse generate even more engagement than usual.
Sometimes, the success of a business has more to do with who you know than what you know. A strong LinkedIn connection can be the only thing you need to get your dream job or attract lucrative opportunities. That’s why you need to work on building your LinkedIn connections.
