The Guide To LinkedIn Automation: Top 3 Strategies and Tools

Even though many marketers complain how LinkedIn’s reach is not what it used to be, this platform still is the #1 business social network and a potential goldmine of opportunities if you know how to use it. In fact, regular, weekly posting on LinkedIn will double its reach, which clearly shows that LinkedIn is still the place to be for any B2B marketer.

But, many businesses that don’t have a dedicated social media team struggle to get the most out of LinkedIn marketing campaigns. After all, it’s not only about posting content — you need to find prospects, connect, and start interacting before trying to close a deal. All of this is very time-consuming, and it has to be done consistently if you want to see the best results.

That’s where LinkedIn automation comes in.

In this post, we will give you the best LinkedIn automation tools and share some actionable LinkedIn automation strategies. By the time you finish reading it, you will know exactly what to do next to save time on repetitive tasks and improve your LinkedIn lead generation efforts.

Strategy #1: Automating LinkedIn messages

If you are not writing a connection request message, you are wasting a golden opportunity to stand out from the rest and leave the first impression. However, writing the same copy/pasted message to everyone is even worse than not sending a message at all.

LinkedIn message automation can help you introduce yourself the right way while saving you some time in doing so. The best LinkedIn automation tools will find leads for you, add them, and simultaneously send them a customized connection request.

But, the initial message is just the first step — it only gets the conversation started. With the right tool and a proper setup, you can even automate the conversation itself, or at least a part of it, so you can take over later.

Automating LinkedIn messages will not only save you time but will also increase the number of pitches you make. The tool will never get bored or tired and will keep executing exactly how you programmed it. This means more sent pitches, and if done right, more booked calls and ultimately more closed deals.

Best LinkedIn automation tool for personalized messages — Expandi

Most LinkedIn automation tools allow you to use dynamic tags when creating automated messages. For example, {first_name} will fill up the person’s name, {company_name} will put their current company, etc. This is important, but it won’t make a major difference because too many people use the same templates.

Expandi allows you to use classic dynamic tags but also has one unique feature called dynamic placeholder. With it, you will be able to add information that you have in common with a person you are reaching out to.

For example, you can use Phantombuster to scrape Facebook group members and upload that information to Expandi. Then, you can create an automated connection request message where you will mention to each person that you want to connect because you saw that they are a member of a Facebook group you are also in.

Of course, this approach works better if you use a niche Facebook group, something the connection can relate to, and it should be a group tied to your brand as well.

For example, suppose you are selling advanced photography courses. In that case, you should try to find leads who are also members of the Retouching academy Facebook group or similar groups to find photography enthusiasts. They will probably be more open to improving their skills through your courses.

Always follow up

With smart message automation tools such as Expandi, you will not only send automated connection request messages with unique, connection-specific content, you’ll also be able to follow up based on their response.

If a person accepts your connection request, after a day or two, you should send them a “thanks for connecting” message where you further introduce your brand. Here, you can also pitch them something, such as a free ebook/webinar/demonstration, or ask them if they are interested in hearing more about your brand.

Three things can happen — they can accept the offer, decline it, or not respond at all. Smart LinkedIn automation tools will let you create a scenario for each of the reactions.

If they refuse the offer, you can create an automatic thank you message, where you can share a helpful article on your blog that’s related to your previous pitch without being pushy.

If they don’t reply after the first message, follow up and ask them if they saw your previous message and that you would love to hear back from them. If there’s still no reply, you can create another message to send them a YouTube link with a use case tutorial, showing how your product performs in action.

Just make sure the messages’ tone isn’t too pushy or salesy, as you don’t want to get blocked. If they still don’t reply after a few messages, that’s OK too — time to accept no as an answer.

Playing a numbers game with LinkedIn automation tools

While message automation doesn’t seem groundbreaking at first glance, it will make a genuine difference.

First, you save time by cutting the repetitive tasks of finding connections, sending custom connection requests, and following up with a series of automated messages.

But, second, and more critical, because you are automating the whole process, you will drastically increase the number of pitches. That will result in more collected leads and scheduled calls, which will all translate to more sales.

Third, because you will have all of your messages and stats that go with them in one place, you’ll be able to measure and tweak your campaign. This will mean the outreach will get more effective with time, giving you an even better ROI.

Strategy #2: Automating LinkedIn posts

While automating posts is nothing new, there’s a reason why this is a staple of any valid LinkedIn marketing strategy. Plus, unlike Facebook, organic reach on LinkedIn is still not dead, which means your posts can get noticed as long as you post regularly and focus on quality. LinkedIn automation can help with both.

Scheduling maintains post quality

Creating a schedule will ensure you post regularly but will also improve the overall quality of each of your posts. Batching will mean you create posts while you are focused on that task alone. Plus, because there’s no time pressure as you buffer posts weeks in advance, you will have a chance to revise your posts before they get released, further improving the quality.

Also, creating a schedule will allow you to notice patterns. While there are many rules and opinions on when is the best time to post on LinkedIn, it’s best to test things yourself and adjust your plan accordingly. This will take a bit more time, but it’s the only way to determine which schedule works best for your audience. Just try not to make too many changes simultaneously, as you won’t be able to tell which brought the best results, and which failed to make an impact.

Play around with your schedule and post types

And if you want to segment your posts even further, you can dedicate each day to a different post type:

• You can post something fun but still business-related on Mondays, with a hashtag like #Mondayblues to cheer people up.
• On Wednesdays, you can create #WednesdayPolls, but again, try to find something closely related to your business. If you build an app, you can ask the connections what feature they want to see next or A/B test interfaces to see which one they think is better.
• Fridays can be reserved for #FridayTips, where you will share something that can directly help your existing and future customers. This should be something closely related to your field. You want to show that you know what you are doing, not just an obvious tip. For example, you can share advice on how your customers can solve a more complex problem using your app. Give it in a nutshell in the post itself, with a link to the full article on your blog.

Another tactic you can try is experimenting with different types of posts each day and see how it impacts the reach. Posting LinkedIn native articles on Mondays, videos on Tuesdays links to articles on your site on Wednesdays, posts with images on Thursdays, and polls on Fridays. You will see how your audience reacts through time, which will further polish your future LinkedIn efforts.

Make a schedule you can stick to

Although the frequency is important, consistency matters more. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Only choose a schedule you can stick to long-term. That’s why it’s best to start with a smaller number of posts per week first.

If you’ve never done this before, a good number to start with is two posts per week. That means you will need around 8–10 posts each month. It’s a good idea to create a backlog first and then start posting. If you can, create posts for an entire month first before letting the first one go live. That will ensure you are covered upfront and that you stay on a schedule even if something comes up.

Best tool for automating LinkedIn posts — Buffer

Buffer is a well-known social media post scheduler. It’s a very simple tool that gets the job done and has a decent free plan to get you started.

With it, you will be able to plan your posts and see them visually in a convenient calendar, and you’ll be able to create and share posts on multiple platforms simultaneously, which is a big plus.

Of course, there’s also a premium plan that will unlock all of the features, but it’s best to start with the free one, especially if you are just starting with your LinkedIn strategy.

Strategy #3: Analyzing LinkedIn automation metrics and adjusting the campaign accordingly

While even free LinkedIn lets you see the number of views your profile gets, post engagement, and search appearance stats, a quality LinkedIn automation tool will give you critical metrics related to the actual LinkedIn outreach process, which will help you improve conversions. Yes, LinkedIn premium and LinkedIn Sales Navigator account help a lot, but other dedicated tracking tools like Mentionlytics and Expandi will give you advanced metrics that have the biggest impact on the success of your sales efforts.

Expandi for example will help you collect and analyze the most important LinkedIn outreach campaign information, such as:

• Acceptance rate — this number will tell you the percentage of your connection requests that were accepted. This number can determine if you are looking for the right LinkedIn profiles. If you are way below 50%, you need to calibrate who you add better.
• Number of replies after connecting — this will tell you if your connection requests messages made an impact. If people accept your connection requests but don’t respond to your message, something is not right.
• Response rate after follow-up messages — this stat will tell you if your follow-up messages leave an impact and give you a clue if your initial message wasn’t convincing enough.

Mentionlytics will give you advanced stats regarding other social media channels and the web, not just LinkedIn:

• Stay on top of mentions — the central feature of Mentionlytics is tracking mentions your brand gets all across the web, but especially on social media and the web. This information will give you an answer if your outreach campaign is working, as it should raise your brand awareness indirectly, even though that wasn’t your primary goal.
• Monitor keywords: Mentionlytics lets you set keyword alerts and get notifications whenever someone mentions a term you are interested in or sets a tag you follow.
• Track competitor mentions — you will also be able to set competitor alerts and see whenever their brand gets mentioned on social media. Then, you can target people who engage with the post in your next LinkedIn automation campaign.

This kind of information would be impossible to collect and analyze if you did the outreach manually, or you didn’t have a sophisticated tool like Mentionlytics at your disposal. LinkedIn automation will help you know precisely what you should work on, and even more importantly, you will know if the changes you make leave a positive impact.

Metrics will allow you to fine-tune the campaign, as well as test different approaches and see which works best. So not only LinkedIn automation will help you save time initially, it will significantly improve the success of your outreach campaign based on the data collected, creating a massive win-win scenario.

Bottom line

Not only that LinkedIn automation saves you an enormous amount of time, it continuously increases your conversion chances.

Yes, it takes some initial effort to set up LinkedIn profiles correctly and create smart LinkedIn campaigns, as it does require a lot of testing. But, the conversion boost that follows will show that embracing LinkedIn automation was one of the best marketing decisions you ever made. So roll up your sleeves, and implement what you’ve learned in this article — the results you will get will speak for themselves.

Originally posted on Mentionlytics: https://www.mentionlytics.com/blog/linkedin-automation-guide