How LinkedIn’s “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” Feature Landed Me a Great New Client
Note from Jennifer: While I was creating the lessons for my recent training course, I remembered about this trick and tried. And not surprisingly, I landed my FIFTH client this way. So I decided this was a good time to update this post with my recent experience and share this easy way to find new clients.
This year started off with a crap ton of work. But then about the third week of January, I got surprisingly slow. So I decided to do a little bit of marketing. In addition to contacting current and past clients, I decided to try a LinkedIn strategy that has worked well in the past.
Here is what happened:
- I checked the “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature on LinkedIn. It shows me a few of the people who have recently viewed my profile. When I used to have the LinkedIn Premium account, I could see more profile views, but now that they have changed the rules and only journalists for news outlets get the free upgrade, I have a more limited view. But I can still see the last four or so people who checked out my profile.
- I looked at who viewed my profile and clicked on their profiles. Two were writers and one was a content marketing manager who used to work at one of my past clients. I didn’t know her, but it was a connection that we had.
- I sent a Connect request to the manager, saying “I noticed that you viewed my profile so I wanted to follow up to see if you are looking for freelance writers. I’d love to chat to see how I could help meet your needs. Feel free to email me.”
- With an hour, I got a response from the manager saying the she was no longer at the company, but just started a job with a well-funded startup in my niche. We set up a call for the later in the week.
- During our introduction call, we hit it off great and my gut said that he was a client that was a match with my strengths and she didn’t set off any of my personal red flags. We were in the same rate range and she shared that they have a lot of ongoing content needs.
- She told me that she had started looking on LinkedIn, but got overwhelmed with all the choices and just stopped looking. But when I reached out and was a match for her needs, it was a relief. She shared she didn’t find it creepy or stalkerish since me reaching out was helping her do her job.
- I wrote a case for the company and got positive feedback.
- She assigned me four blogs and I am hoping the client turns into an anchor client.
Yes, it feels a bit stalkerish the first time you do it. And I reach out only when the client seems like an extraordinarily good fit for my skills. But this is the FIFTH time in the past few years that I have landed a gig using this strategy, so there must be something to it. And while I have gotten crickets a few times from it, I usually get a polite reply explaining why they viewed my profile, or better yet – they say that they are looking for a writer.
When I have shard this tip with writers, a few people have responded, “Well, wouldn’t they have already contacted you if they were interested.” Not necessarily. Every time I have landed a client using this trick, they tell me the same thing I heard from my new client – looking for writers is overwhelming. But by following up, you show initiative and put your name back at the top of the list. As long as you are relatively qualified, then my experience is that the client is very happy to move forward because you are already in contact.
But either way, following up shows initiative, and as long as you are professional, there really is no down side to following up on these warm leads.
Do you follow up on LinkedIn profile views? Have you ever gotten work this way?
Very interesting. I have thought about following up with “who’s viewed your profile” people but it did feel a little stalkerish. But I like your line of reasoning (and your success) so I’m going to take a page out of your book and do this, too. Great advice, Jennifer!
Yeah, it felt a bit weird at first, but honestly Tark makes a good point, these people took the time to look you up and find out more about you.
Let us know how it goes when you try it.
I should do this more often, following up on my LinkedIn profile views. I tend to get lazy with this things.
Also, I wouldn’t feel “stalkerish” about doing this, not even in the slightest.
People are viewing your profile to learn more about you.
So they must have had a reason for doing so.
It’s not like stalking people on Facebook photos to see where they spent their European holiday.
Or what they were eating for dinner last Tuesday.
Tark, Oh, so it’s bad form to comment about their lunch last week that I found on Facebook when i follow up. :>) I’ll make a note of it.
You make a VERY good point about why we should all do this and why it isn’t stalkerish.
Yeah, it’s easy to get lazy with these type of things. I have a list of things that I try to do a few times a week when I am procrastinating (so at least I can do something productive) and this is one of them (following people on Twitter is another).
Can you give detailed instructions on how to see who has viewed your profile on LinkedIn? I click on that phrase, but don’t get anything.
Thank you.
Heather
Log Into Linked IN and then click on the Profile menu. Then click on the Who’s Viewed Your Profile option. Scroll down and it will list the last 3-4 people who have viewed your profile.
Cool, thanks! I was going to ask the same question as Jennifer! :o)
Holly,
There’s also a Chrome Plugin: Linkedin Profile Views:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/profile-views-save-who-vi/hldngpjilggobfjfjhodmohobamhbdhh?hl=en
Jen, I don’t think it’s stalker-ish at all. I mean, if I were to be interviewing for a job, I’d certainly research the heck out of the company and the people I might expect to be speaking with, so…there’s that.
I think that doing that kind of work just helps a writer or any other potential hire whether for freelance or contract or full time work be well prepared and feeling confident.
Studies show that the confidence we come across with is a determining factor more than the actual content of what we say – in other words, it’s not just WHAT we say but the WAY we say it. (I’ll be blogging about this soon.)
Thanks for the great ideas as always Jennifer.
Hillary
I’ve never gotten work this way from LI, but I have scored $90K in three years from people finding me on LI. I suggest every writer create a profile. (And, no, I don’t post, only re-post every once in a while, and I also don’t write articles for LI. I don’t write for free).
This is a great idea, but I wasn’t allowed to send a connect request because I don’t know the person who viewed my profile. Is there a way around this? A content marketing manager viewed my profile and I’d love to connect with her.
Yes! Great point, I will update the post with this. You can either send the person a Connection request with the message in it or you can send them a Connection request and then do an InMail once they accept. I usually do the second and have always had the person accept the request. I worry that my message in the connection request will get lost. However, always try to send an Inmail first since sometimes the person is part of the Open Network or a member of a group you are in or some other link that allows you to message them.
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I look at this feature all the time, and have had decent success with it. In addition to discovering specific people looking for freelancers, I’ve found that you can uncover trends by the roles and industries that actually view your profile after finding you in a search result.
As writers, it’s hard to identify ALL possible industries that would benefit from our individual style/niches, so this feature helps filter through some new categories our way as well.
Your approach is one I haven’t come across as of yet, and it’s compelling. I’m not sure people even know that every time they click a name on LinkedIn that that person gets a notification. You’re turning that little notification-area dopamine rush into a prospect—nice.
LinkedIn can be a source of freelance clients in a couple different ways. Groups. Constructive contributions to relevant conversations. Even referrals from people within your network.
(My profile, for reference: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-ceisel/.)
Thanks for the practical info, Jennifer.
Congratulations, Jennifer! I landed a great freelance writing client this way too.