Who’s been watching you? Where to find “warm” leads on LinkedIn

If you’re not keeping tabs on who’s keeping tabs on you, you may be missing out on a value LinkedIn lead-generation opportunity

At his LinkedIn Riches blog, LinkedIn expert John Nemo says “the fastest, easiest and most effective place” to find these lead opportunities is to look is “right under your digital nose” in the form of the “Who’s viewed your profile” feature.

“If you’re not taking time each and every day to look at this list of people and inviting them to connect (if you’re not already), or sending them a note (if you’re already connected), you’re missing a massive lead-generation opportunity,” Nemo says.

Consider why someone is looking at your profile

There has to be an underlying motivation for someone to look at your profile, be it keywords in your profile or a comment you made in a LinkedIn group, says Nemo. The reasons may be varied, however the end result is the same, and it is worthwhile digging deeper.

To begin the process, Nemo advises LinkedIn users accessing the site via desktop or laptop to click on the numbers and phrase “Who’s viewed your profile”, positioned directly underneath their image on the left side of LinkedIn’s home page.

He recommends finding out why someone has been viewing your profile, and then leveraging the context in which it occurred to interact “with someone who has you ‘top of mind’”.

What should you say?

With leads at the ready, it is time to take action, and how you make contact will depend upon who has been viewing your profile.

For a new viewer, Nemo recommends sending a personalised invite explaining why you have reached out to connect, enquiring as how they came about to find your profile and confirming that you are keen to connect.

He says such an approach “will spark a 1-on-1 conversation inside your LinkedIn messages, given that you’re asking the person to explain: (A) How he or she found you, and (B) Why he or she was interested in your profile”.

For existing connections, Nemo recommends sending a message explaining that you have noticed they have recently viewed your profile, that you’re curious as to what caught their interest (such as a status update or recently shared article) and then asking how they are going.

“It also helps you understand (based on what the person tells you) what type of content or methods that you’re deploying on LinkedIn are leading to profile views with your existing connections,” he says.

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