LinkedIn is not just for recruiters or candidates hunting for jobs. It’s a booming professional social network with over a billion users looking to connect with like-minded people.
On the downside, getting noticed on LinkedIn and cracking the algorithm is more challenging than ever due to the platform’s growing user base.
And that’s why we’ve developed 30+ tested and proven LinkedIn growth hacks.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- What is LinkedIn growth hacking?
- 30+ unique LinkedIn algorithm hacks for sales and marketing
- Bonus tip on LinkedIn contact scraping
Ready to generate more sales and improve your brand’s visibility on LinkedIn? Let’s dig in.
Table of Contents
What is LinkedIn growth hacking?
Growth hacking is a subset of marketing that refers to the techniques used to focus on a brand’s growth and profitability. These techniques are a combination of creative, low-cost strategies.
LinkedIn growth hacking helps you grow your network, boost brand presence, and capture high-intent leads using tailored marketing strategies.
LinkedIn growth hacks can be used to:
- Generate leads
- Boost career options
- Find the right talent
- Drive sales
- Grow network
No matter the goal, LinkedIn growth hacking lets you achieve it faster without needing heavy budgets.
But how fast can you achieve your desired results? It depends on how well you use LinkedIn automation and scraping tools in your workflow.
LinkedIn algorithm hacks: How does the LinkedIn algorithm work?
The LinkedIn algorithm uses a recommendation style logic that selects and boosts posts, people, and topics. Based on this, your feed is populated with top-ranking posts and profiles.
But there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to understanding and cracking the LinkedIn algorithm. However, its ultimate goal is to personalize each user’s experience by offering relevant content.
Below are a few LinkedIn tips to make your posts and profile more visible:
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Build up your social selling index (SSI)
LinkedIn’s SSI is a score-based system from 0 to 100. High scores indicate you’ve completed your profile, are connected with the right people, and engaged well by adding key insights to others’ posts.
Most industry leaders recommend having an SSI of at least 75 and above to make the most of LinkedIn.
You can check your SSI here, and it will look something like this:
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Increase dwell time
Dwell time is a LinkedIn metric indicating how much time a user spends reading your content or watching your video. This metric is used by the LinkedIn algorithm to verify how engaging your content is and if it should be ranked on your followers’ feeds or not.
Explore this LinkedIn content strategy in depth to understand how to increase dwell time.
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Build healthy personal connections
LinkedIn is not just about publishing good content. You should also build great like-minded connections so they actively interact with your posts and you can return the favor. Relationship building is another key LinkedIn SSI metric that the algorithm tracks.
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Personalize connection requests
When you’re reaching out to potential clients on LinkedIn, personalization is your best bet for building a meaningful connection.
The LinkedIn algorithm tracks the rate at which your connection requests are accepted or ignored to control spam and boost quality connections.
The LinkedIn hacks and profile hacks to leverage LinkedIn for your sales and marketing efforts
Let’s get into the much-awaited list of LinkedIn hacks for 2024:
1. Complete your LinkedIn profile
Your LinkedIn profile sets the foundation for posts and profile visibility. An up-to-date profile convinces potential connections that you’re trustworthy and valuable.
Ensure you fill out the following sections on your LinkedIn profile:
- Profile photo
- Current location
- Skills
- Education
- Industry
- Summary
2. Optimize your LinkedIn profile with keywords
Many users overlook LinkedIn SEO. However, it’s one of the main ranking factors for profile and post relevance.
For starters, you could pick out keywords to optimize your profile so the algorithm understands and categorizes it.
Although there’s no particular tool to suggest LinkedIn keywords, you could use keyword tools like Ubersuggest or Google Keyword Planner to research keywords around your skill or requirement.
Here are the best places to optimize your LinkedIn profile text with keywords:
- Profile headline
- Summary action
- Hashtags
- Skills
- Job description
You can also run a simple LinkedIn search to know what keywords people like you use on their profiles, like so:
As you can see, “Marketing Manager” is used in their headline, as well as current and past experience.
3. Personalize your custom URL
LinkedIn assigns each user a default profile URL with random numbers and characters, making the URL look unprofessional.
Customizing a URL based on your skills or role can help you achieve a cleaner and more professional look. And the biggest benefit is its higher-ranking capability on Google’s SEO as well as on LinkedIn search.
To personalize your profile URL:
- Go to your profile
- Click “Edit profile” and select Contact Info
- Click the edit pencil icon to update your profile URL
Here’s a sample customized LinkedIn URL:
4. Use a strong headline
Most LinkedIn gurus use this common tactic to write a winning headline: write one that explains what you do and who you do it for. You could also go the extra mile and add a recent result you helped a client achieve.
The headline text is also perfect for attracting the LinkedIn algorithm and displaying your posts to relevant audiences.
Although the LinkedIn headline can have about 220 characters, it’s best to write something within 60 characters so your headline is not cut off for display.
Here’s an interesting one:
5. Upload a professional headshot as your profile picture
A simple smiling headshot can show potential connections if you’re friendly and open to making conversation.
So make sure you’re smiling to catch visitors’ attention. Also, avoid selfies as they’re considered to be less professional.
6. Don’t ignore the profile banner
The LinkedIn profile banner or the cover image is a significant amount of real estate you can use to show off your skills, achievements, or expertise.
You could also add a strong CTA to guide profile visitors on the next steps. For example, “Head to my About section to schedule a call,” “Read my case study below,” etc.
7. Link to website or landing page
Want profile visitors to land on a specific page? You can add a link to your website or a specific landing page, such as a portfolio, Calendly, pricing page, lead magnets, etc.
In the example below, Expandi’s Founder adds a link to an eBook so the target audience visiting his profile can find something valuable at no cost. You can also play around with the link copy to make it more interesting and clickable.
Such lead magnets are great for salespeople looking to capture leads and book more sales calls.
8. Add up-to-date contact details
Update your contact details if you wish potential clients to contact you through LinkedIn. Double-check them so you’re not using an outdated email or a phone number.
To check and update contact details, visit your profile, click the small pencil icon on the top right corner, and scroll down to find “Contact Info.”
9. Impress with your experience section
Brag about your current and past experiences to impress your potential connections and target customers.
Here are a few tips to add an attractive experience section to your LinkedIn profile:
- Don’t just add what your current or past job titles were. Also, include what responsibilities were at each position.
- Add results you achieved at each role in the language your target audience understands (it’s ok to use industry lingo and not sound too robotic).
- Add case studies
- Add “Media” like thumbnail images, presentations, and sites to attract visitors.
10. Take time to write a compelling “About” section
The LinkedIn About section is the perfect place to detail your ultimate value proposition. That’s because you have more space to express yourself, and high-intent visitors looking to contact you will most likely read the About section first.
Before you go all in, note that LinkedIn displays the first 2-3 sentences with a “see more” option. So make the opening paragraph compelling enough for visitors to view more.
For example, put your biggest achievement first, like the example below, or write something catchy and humorous.
Don’t forget to brag about your achievements without going overboard. As in the example above, leave enough spacing between sentences and break down your skills/results into bullet points for easier readability.
11. Always put important things first and arrange your profile in the order of importance
Put the most important data at the top of each section.
For example, lead your About section with the best result you’ve achieved for a client so far, add your most relevant job to the Experience section, and add your most valuable skill first.
Frontloading important information based on your ICP’s interests is key to boosting conversion rates and capturing quality leads quickly.
12. LinkedIn profile hack: turn on Creator mode
Creator mode is a LinkedIn profile setting that helps you grow your reach. LinkedIn’s top shots have repeatedly confirmed how enabling the creator mode makes users’ posts more visible.
This mode is free of cost and is great for someone who’s trying to grow their LinkedIn networking through prospecting or sharing content frequently. The biggest plus is access to exclusive creator tools like post analytics, audience analytics, a Follow button, a bio link, and access to LinkedIn Live.
13. Make your profile public
A public LinkedIn profile boosts profile visibility and searchability. For instance, a public profile is also visible on the Google search engine results page for users who’ve not signed into LinkedIn.
You can control the visibility of various profile sections like so:
Click on your profile, go to Settings and Privacy, and select Public profile settings:
Scroll down and enable or disable sections that you want to display to the public:
14. Pin viral or informative featured posts
Pinning top-performing posts to your profile is one LinkedIn hack that few users know.
It’s a great way to promote knowledge and show off social proof. For example, if you had a recent post that garnered many likes and comments, you could pin it on your profile’s “Featured” section. Similarly, you could pin an article you were featured in or a podcast you hosted.
Ann’s profile above cleverly features their newsletter, which can be used to capture leads.
15. Mention your most valuable skills and pin them
Don’t shy away from flaunting your achievements. They are ultimately the deciding factors for clients wanting to work with you.
How? Write about your work successes, recent certifications, a great customer testimonial, speaking at events, etc., and share them with your LinkedIn followers.
Once your post gains traction, click the three dots next to it and select “Feature on top of profile.” So once a prospect visits your profile, their eyes are met with your achievements that followers have loved.
16. Send personalized invites to people matching your headline
One of the best LinkedIn networking hacks is connecting with people who match your headline.
Let’s say you’re an IT Security Sales Analyst new to LinkedIn. It’s best to start growing your network with like-minded IT Security Analysts who can relate to your posts.
Personalizing connection requests to people matching your headline increases the likelihood of acceptance.
To start filtering people that match these criteria, use the LinkedIn Sales Navigator and add custom filters and keywords.
Next, you can scrape these results using a LinkedIn results scraping and automation tool like Expandi, export the list, and start outreach (more on this in the bonus tip!)
17. Check who viewed your profile
Profile views indicate someone is interested in connecting or working with you, but something could be stopping them from reaching out.
The only way to find out is by regularly checking who viewed your profile and sending them a personalized invite or message asking if you could help them in any way. This is an excellent strategy, especially if your profile visitors match your target buyer persona.
To increase the chances of response, you could open the message with a hook adding how you noticed they visited your profile recently.
18. Post consistently
Consistency is the secret to growth hacking on LinkedIn. It’s an obvious tactic since the algorithm recognizes the effort you put in to provide value to your followers and, in turn, boosts your content to your network.
Posting consistently at least 3 to 5 times a week lets you stay fresh on your followers’ minds. But if your goal is to generate inbound leads, remember to post relevant content to the people you’ve addressed in your headline (read hack #4 for reference).
19. Use rich media like images and GIFs
Spice up your content and LinkedIn messages with images and GIFs. They are great at attracting attention and are super interactive in the otherwise crowded inbox and feeds.
Expandi, integrated with Hyperise, has a superb solution to automate LinkedIn outreach by adding dynamic images and GIFs for message personalization.
20. LinkedIn post hack: share knowledge through interesting carousels
Multiple studies show that carousels have 2x better reach than regular social media posts.
LinkedIn carousel posts contain a mixture of text and image slides that users can read through by swipe. These posts are visually appealing, involving interesting graphics like charts, colored font, quotes, images, etc.
Carousels are perfect for turning complex ideas into an easily digestible form. For example, you could use colored graphs and callouts to explain stuff visually. This way, connections can digest more information in less time.
21. Comment, comment, and comment
You probably have received a ton of notifications when your connections comment on others’ posts. This proves that commenting is another major ranking factor on LinkedIn.
And apart from gaining visibility, adding insights to your competitor or prospects’ posts lets you stay on top of their minds. For example, they could invite you to industry events or meetups, thus boosting your prospecting game.
22. Join and engage in LinkedIn groups
LinkedIn groups are tight knit community hubs with people sharing the same skills or interests. Group members discuss relevant topics, engage with each other, and participate in multiple events.
So it’s the perfect breeding ground for sales and marketing people looking to meet prospects and high-quality leads.
Say you’re a sales rep for a SalesTech SaaS tool. You could hunt down sales-related LinkedIn groups consisting of managers and key decision-makers of companies.
Further, using Expandi, you can scrape a LinkedIn group’s members, filter out prospects matching your ICP, and run an automated outreach campaign.
23. LinkedIn post hack: use videos
Users across social media platforms have loved videos, and LinkedIn’s users are no different. Video is a brilliant idea to exhibit confidence. Prospects are going to be more engaged and ready to trust.
If you’re camera shy or don’t want to talk in front of the camera, you could always record your screen as a video and share something valuable.
At the end of each video, make sure to ask questions so viewers can comment their views on the post and continue engagement.
24. Use hashtags to increase visibility
Although it’s not known if hashtags on LinkedIn posts can boost reach, there are many other places you can add them. For example, keyword-related hashtags on your profile under the “Talks about” section are useful if someone is searching for a skill using the hashtag.
Hashtags on posts and profiles are a great way to let people know your interests and what you mainly talk about.
25. Write and request recommendations
Writing LinkedIn recommendations is a sweet gesture and a great hack for building meaningful relationships.
Most clients and colleagues would return the favor by writing recommendations for you.
Additionally, a Recommendations section completes your LinkedIn profile and increases your Social Selling Index.
26. LinkedIn marketing hack: stand out with LinkedIn Live videos
Going live on LinkedIn lets you reach wider audiences. The LinkedIn algorithm will most likely support such engaging content, thus displaying your posts on more users’ feeds.
LinkedIn recommends using third-party broadcasting platforms like StreamYard or Sociallive to host a live event on multiple social media platforms simultaneously.
Some LinkedIn Live event examples for sales and marketing professionals:
- Product Q&A/ Ask-me-anything (AMA) sessions
- Live workshops
- Case studies deep dive
- Networking sessions
Ensure you invite your first-degree connections beforehand to the live session so you gain initial traction.
27. Experiment with various content types
We’ve spoken about using rich media and carousels as LinkedIn posts, but there are a few other LinkedIn content types worth the hype:
- Long-form LinkedIn articles if you want to establish domain expertise
- LinkedIn polls to gather insights and ignite engagement before prospecting
- Infographics to summarize key takeaways of an article, share industry trends, and company results
- Client text and video testimonials to showcase credibility
Mix and match content types to tease the LinkedIn algorithm, as it’s the only way to find what content type your audience resonates with the most.
28. LinkedIn recruiter hack: scrape LinkedIn alumni
One of the most underrated LinkedIn recruiter hacks is searching and scraping LinkedIn alumni.
LinkedIn Alumni is a simple tool you can use to filter candidates from a particular university or company.
Just head to a university or school’s LinkedIn page and click on the Alumni tab to fetch a list of filterable alumni. For example, you may have employees from NYU and wish to employ some more. You could head to NYU’s page and filter out candidates based on their graduation year and stream.
Later, using Expandi, you can scrape the filtered alumni and start your outreach process.
29. Get certified and add certifications to your LinkedIn profile
Apart from recommendations, certifications can also add credibility to your claims. They show prospects that you’re appropriately skilled to handle their concerns.
So make it a point to get certified with relevant skills and add all certifications and licenses along with the completion dates. LinkedIn also lets you add media like certificate images and links to add more credibility.
30. Host giveaways
Want to growth hack your LinkedIn networking and lead generation at the same time? Try hosting fun giveaways on LinkedIn.
Offering a valuable resource at no cost is a smart way to build brand and product visibility. Potential clients and connections pay you back with loyalty by actively engaging with your future posts and spreading the word about your brand or products.
For instance, announce you’re hosting a weekly giveaway by asking your followers to like, comment on something specific, and share your posts. The most-liked comments could get a giveaway like a free one-on-one session, premium access to your tool for a month, and so on.
31. Tell your story
Everyone adores a good story, even on LinkedIn!
So don’t shy away from getting more personal with your connections, and try sharing a short personal story. It could be something around your growth, overcoming some struggles, what changes you’d like to bring to society, etc.
Personal stories have gone “viral” on LinkedIn, which is another reason to try this content format.
Eddie Shleyner is a well-known LinkedIn influencer who shares small anecdotes and engaging personal stories like the one above. This particular post has gained over 300 likes and 50+ comments.
32. LinkedIn Premium hack: track LinkedIn analytics
LinkedIn analytics is a premium feature that shows you how well your campaigns are faring on LinkedIn. It also gives you insights into who your audience is, what type of content they prefer, and how they interact with your content.
LinkedIn offers very limited access to analytics for free members. But if you’re a LinkedIn Premium user, you can see who visited your profile, access advanced search filters, and gain greater profile visibility. Track these metrics to tailor your profile to improve visitor-to-prospect conversion.
Bonus tip: Scraping LinkedIn contacts for outreach
Expandi is a LinkedIn automation tool where you can scrape LinkedIn contacts from LinkedIn groups, alumni, search results, LinkedIn events, and posts.
It gives you a list of ready-to-outreach contacts so you can automate your outreach strategy.
Here’s an insider guide on contact scraping of search results using Expandi:
- Copy the LinkedIn search URL
- Log in to Expandi or sign up for a 7-day free trial if you are not already a user.
- Click Search on your Expandi account and click Add new search.
- Choose Basic search and create a name for the search. Paste the search URL from Step 1 and click Search.
Once the search is complete, you can extract the contacts list into a CSV file. Next, use LinkedIn automation to automate outreach and personalize messages.
Wrapping up – The best LinkedIn hacks for 2024
These were some of our tried-and-true LinkedIn hacks that worked amazingly well for our salespeople and marketers.
We hope our curated hacks, tips, and examples work in your favor and take LinkedIn lead generation to the next level!
And if you want to step up your LinkedIn growth hacking game with automation, there’s always Expandi.
