Hi there and welcome! So, you've decided to join the cool kids' club and start automating your LinkedIn outreach. Congrats!
Let me give you a couple of brief (it’s a lie) introductory pointers - free of charge - I know starting up could be a bit overwhelming.
To start your outreach efforts nice and smooth you need four things:
A solid LinkedIn account
Contacts to reach out to
Actions structure
Humanity (I’ll explain later)
You can check out our detailed articles on how to set everything up - step by step here.
The point of this little snippet, though, is to provide you with some guidance on how to do it safely - both for your account and nervous system ;)
Here’s a couple of steps you can take.
Step 1: Ensuring your account is solid and ready for outreach
First things first: by solid account I mean one with at least 300 connections, some work info, skills, and a bit of social activity (i.e. liking or reposting posts). Cold outreach is hard enough, but building credibility around your profile would help to smooth the initial stages, person-to-person wise.
Bonus points if the account is in your name and you have some documents to prove it, just in case LinkedIn gets frisky and asks for verification - that’s the general practice on LinkedIn nowadays as they are trying to keep the space free from bots.
Not to worry, though, there are definitely some nuances to vigorous LinkedIn use for outreach - be it manual or with the help of Automation tools, so make sure to keep in mind our tips, and you’ll be fine.
To know how to work around LinkedIn limitations we need to know what they are.
The most common reason for any restrictions is complaints from other users: if your outreach efforts are too - how do I put it gently - direct, small-talk free etc. They may be your leads, but they are still people. Be nice.
Some of the other reasons may include:
rapid and sudden spike in activity on the profile - that’s why warming it up is so important - but again, anyone actively starting outreach efforts - with or without an Automation tool - could be subjected to restrictions, it’s no biggie. LinkedIn has a set of limits that should indicate whether your activity is suspicious or not - and we know how to avoid that
inhuman speed of reactions and activity
multiple log-ins with the same cookies - you may want to use an extension for deleting cookies if you are using multiple accounts on the same browser
empty profile - those can be confused for a bot, not nice
inaccurate information about your workplace, location, illogical data etc
As you can see they are pretty diverse but logical and not scary at all.
And even though the restrictions are rarely permanent, and could be handled through support or submission of verifying documents, that may put you in a shadow ban state. It’s when you are not actually banned but still under some scrutiny.
The whole thing is easily avoided with a correct and engaging strategy.
Going back to the original point about the solid profile now. Got distracted.
If you don't have such an account yet, don't worry, we can help you set one up from scratch or prepare an existing one for outreach. It could also be done by you through our Automation! Check out our helpful templates for growing your network and building connections.
Step 2, and the last one: Ensuring your activity resembles human
Aka the cool management part! I know those two aren’t put in one sentence that often. Unjustifiably.
Ahem, getting back on topic.
Keeping in mind what I said earlier, GetSales works through LinkedIn so we obey the same rules as the regular users. But it’s much more convenient.
Every interaction on our platform caters to specific parameters - that you set up: time of the interactions and frequency. Let’s discuss the latter.
Frequency of the interactions - be it profile visits, DMs or something else - they are visible to three main parties: you, your contact and LinkedIn. And if the speed of actions is inhuman, that would ring some bells to either of the last two - and LinkedIn has some protective measures in hand against speed-runners. Luckily, we know what we are doing ;)
We developed a specific set of time delays for actions for you to use - to imitate human behavior. Make sure to edit those parameters, when you are starting up: skip to Settings, pick your Sender Profile, and click on the line of the entry as shown on gif:
We recommend setting up the following limits for the first two weeks:
wait time between task execution (in seconds): min 120, max 150
delay for tasks of the same nature - 3 minutes
connects - 15
direct messages - 15
profile visits - 60
post likes - 15
skill endorsements - 15
post comments - 15
connect withdrawals - 15
After a couple of weeks, it’s going to be safe to increase the limits as follows:
wait time between task execution (in seconds): min 90, max 120
delay for tasks of the same nature - 2 minutes
connects - 20
direct messages - 20
profile visits - 70
post likes - 20
skill endorsements - 20
post comments - 20
connect withdrawals - 20
After a month of using the platform, you can return to the default limits:
wait time between task execution (in seconds): min 30, max 40
delay for tasks of the same nature - 2 minutes
connects - 25
direct messages - 25
profile visits - 100
post likes - 25
skill endorsements - 25
post comments - 25
connect withdrawals - 25
Those are just some general guidelines - but the more unique the better. Play around with those settings! Make them random, just don’t forget to resemble a human being ;)
Hope that wasn’t too confusing, drop us a text if you have any questions! We love feedback and being helpful ;)
P.S. Speaking of helpful, you might want to check out our YouTube video on Social Selling Index Score, all in all important to keep in mind ;)