Over the last year, I have seen a hack that people have used to increase their connections on LinkedIn by 10x to 100x their current connections. In this post, I want to share what they do and how you can do it, too.

Prerequisite for playing this hack

You need to first have your LinkedIn profile setup and complete. Also, you need at least a couple of hundred connections. Some say you should focus on getting 500+ connections because then it just says on your profile 500+. Sure, you can have that as a goal. But, better to grow this with quality over time rather than just sending invitations to everyone you can find.

An Example of the Hack

The strategy usually plays out like this. Some professional have done something of value that he/she wants to give away to people. One example I saw yesterday was this one:

Then the person wrote a post about a PowerPoint template that he made and want to give away. Some people are not doing this, they are just making a post about the product. But this person goes on and shows the pitch deck in a LinkedIn article. Both with photos and videos. It looks really, really nice. Then he tells people how they can get it:

1. Comment “yes” on this post
2. Submit your email to his webadress
3. Optionally share the article.

Here comes the cool part. This post has 27 187 likes and 53 345 comments. Think about that for a moment. How would you like to have 53 345 people that are interested in something that you made for them?

I want to break down the strategy for you. Both why this works and how.

Why does this work?

Two concepts – RECIPROCATION and SOCIAL INFLUENCE. In the book Influence by Cialdini, the author is talking about what makes people do something. He tells us six cornerstones to why people do something and two of the cornerstones is reciprocation and social influence.

The Power of a Gift

Reciprocation is the tendency in human to want to pay back others. You know, if we go out to dinner and you pay, I want to pay next time. This is something important all around the world. People want to repay each other.

A lot of online marketers have used this principle for over a decade now. Basically, they have something that is of value for the other person. In order to get the thing of value, they have to give away their email address. Thinking about the PowerPoint document, I think I could definitely give my email address to this person in exchange for this document. I have seen people do this with:

• Books about startup financing
• Excel Courses
• And much more.

We Want To Do What Others Are Doing

The second reason it works is the social influence, we see that a lot of people are commenting their email on the post. In a study about support for environmental causes, the social influence argument “everyone else is doing it” have been shown to be more compelling than moral arguments for instance. The more people that writes their email address the more convinced other people will feel that the post is something for them.

Will this always work?

No. But think about it. Even having like a couple of people responding would be amazing. There are so many great things you can potentially learn from something like this. Like, what do people think about my work?

It can be broken down into parts:

1. Create Something of Value

You need something of value. Some small project. It is very important that you do something that is a part of who you are as a professional. It wouldn’t make sense to give away anything that is valuable. You should give away something that is related to what you can do in the organization.

2. Give it Away As Barter

Write a short post. Say something like:

Hello! I just wrote the first chapter of my book: “How To Win Time and Be More Productive With Excel”. The first chapter is 20 formulas that can help you in your day to day work. Write your email below and I send it to you in an email.

The good thing with comments is that I see what my friends comment on. This is very good because when we ask for comments, it will have this viral effect. If many people comment, your post will show up in their feed.

3. Follow Up

Now when you have the email address. Then you can develop more content and products for that audience. Offer your services as a freelancer or tell them you are open for opportunities.

When you also try this out, please let me know. 🙂

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