LinkedIn is a social media site that quite often is ignored by individuals and businesses, even though is able to open a huge array of doors when it comes to networking. If the right kind of business network is created, then it can become a very powerful way of reaching out to more clients and improving the reputation of your website or business.

Here will take a look at the way you can start building a big network on LinkedIn, and how that can have a very positive impact on your website and on your business.

Start With Existing Contacts

The best way to start growing a LinkedIn network is to go to your current connections first. See who you have in your email address book or are following you on another form of social media. If you have quite a few strong contacts there, then they should be your first priority.

In almost any situation, you should always put your current contacts first. If you are sending out a press release, make sure they are the first to get it. Think of them as though they are on some form of an exclusive mailing list, and they get all the news and updates about your website or business first. Another reason why you should start with your existing contacts is that they are more likely to say yes. They represent a very easy way to start building numbers instantly, all from simply sending out an email or social media message to all of them.

You can use LinkedIn yourself in order to access your contacts list and send an invite if you want. When you are doing this though, make sure that you go through all of your contacts one by one. This may be a little time-consuming, but it’s something you will have to do in order to get the right people in your network from the start. It’s also a good way of filtering out the old contacts so then you don’t end up inviting people who have had little to do with you or your website for a while.

Review Profiles Of Your Connections

Once you have been through your contacts list and added them to your LinkedIn, you should have a very healthy profile starting to take shape. What you need to do now is find a way to make your LinkedIn network very valuable to the people who have taken the time to connect with you. In order to do this effectively, all you need to do is a little research.

Go onto your connections’ profile pages and find out a little more about them. While you are doing this, take a look at the people they are connected with and see if they seem like people that you might want to reach out to in the future. Chances are, the connections your friends already have will be looking for something very similar to you, so all you really need to do is present yourself as something that is of really good value.

Check Invitations To Connect

When your network starts to grow in size, you will find that you will be getting a lot of requests to connect. Depending on how active you are, you may even find that you are getting requests on a daily basis. This is certainly not a bad thing, but it is something that you should be cautious with. When you accept requests, you need to know that they are from people or businesses that can really help your network.

Generally speaking, most professional users of LinkedIn tend not to accept requests from total strangers. If there is some form of connection between you and the person that has sent the request, then LinkedIn usually informs you of that. Otherwise, it is best to proceed with caution. If they are complete strangers to you, then the cost and time you spend trying to build some form of professional relationship with them could be totally wasted. They may just see your description and decide that you are worth adding, without considering that you are trying to build a network. Or they could be trying to build a network of their own and have decided to target you. The latter scenario isn’t so bad if they are willing to join your network as well, but in some cases, it is simply an attempt to troll for business. Always make sure that the people you connect with are either people you know and trust, or are people that you think can really help move your network forward.

Join Groups To Find New Connections

Once you have a full and ever-expanding network of people, you may want to start reaching out to some new people to see if they would want to join your network. If that’s the case, then you may want to start looking for like-minded people. The best way to do this is by joining some of the LinkedIn groups.

The groups on LinkedIn are basically places where people with the same interests or business approach can get together and discuss things that are important to them. There are probably groups for any niche, so you should be able to find one that is relevant to you. If you can’t, then there is no reason why you can’t create one yourself. Remember though, when you do this you should make it a protected group where you get to decide who is allowed to join. This will then stop people who are not relevant to the group from joining.

Once you have found a group or created one, then you will be able to start communicating with people in your subject area. When you are doing that, you may find that some of them are interested in joining your network, so you can add them. You might even find that they add you first. In any case, it is an effective way of essentially filtering out possible connections so then you are only speaking to people who have the same interests as you.

Ultimately, creating a LinkedIn network is something that does take a little time. If you are able to build a big list of contacts though, you will be able to create a superb network that has a lot of benefits for you and for your website or business.