If you have a LinkedIn account and have been mindlessly collecting connections over the years, now you can put those to good use. You can crossover those LinkedIn connections with Facebook to help boost your marketing efforts.
Here are two easy tactics you can execute in under 10 minutes.
Download all the emails of LinkedIn connections
The ability to download all of your LinkedIn connection’s emails is not common knowledge. I believe if the majority of users knew about this feature, they would not be happy.
You can actually download every single one of your connections in a .CSV file including their name, company, title, AND THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS.
It doesn’t seem like there is any way to change this setting to keep your email address private. The only thing you could do is change it to an email address that you care about less.
How to download your LinkedIn connections
Follow the steps below or go directly to the Export Settings page here.
- In your profile go to My Network -> Connections.
- Click the gear icon to the right of Connections.
- Click Export LinkedIn Connections on the right hand column.
- Export as a .CSV and that’s it. You also have the option of exporting the formatted for a few different platforms. Those are Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo! Mail, Mac OS X Address Book, and vCard.
Serve ads to your LinkedIn connections on Facebook
If the number of your LinkedIn connections is large enough, you can upload the file into a custom audience on Facebook and serve ads to them. Here is how you upload your list.
- Go to Audiences in your Facebook ads account.
- Go to Create Audience -> Custom Audience.
- Select Customer File.
- Add from your own file.
- Upload your .CSV file or select all the email addresses from the file and copy and paste it. Name your audience and click next.
- You’re only uploading the column with emails. If you uploaded a file with multiple columns of data, make sure email is enabled and click Upload & Create.
Now you’ll be able to use that audience to show them ads on Facebook.
Grow your Facebook business page
The second way you can use your LinkedIn connections list is by suggesting that they like your page.
You can only upload 5 lists per day, for a max total of 7,000 contacts per page per day. Each list has a max of 5,000 contacts.
If you have a large email list, you can also use this strategy to get your subscribers to like your page.
Here is how to suggest your Facebook page to your email lists.
- On your business page click on the button with three dots over your cover image and select Suggest Page.
- Upload contacts.
- Add your list and select all the contacts. Then click Preview Suggestion.
- If Facebook matches up a contact, that person will now be more likely to see a suggestion to like your page. They will not get a notification or email about the suggestion, and your name is not connected to to the suggestion at all.
What NOT to do with your LinkedIn Connections
Now you have a brand new audience you can show ads to, and you have a good chance of increasing your page likes. Look at you!
What you absolutely should NOT do with this list, is upload it to your email database. They did not opt-in to receive emails from you, so don’t abuse this tool and lose people’s trust. Utilize your new audience and new fans to grow your list the proper way.
Your turn. Have you already done this? Leave a comment and share your results.