How to Find Clients on LinkedIn – 7 Expert Tips

LinkedIn is still primarily a social media network for getting your next job, but the platform can come in handy even if you’re already employed. You could use LinkedIn to find new clients. What does this entail?

Here’s how to find clients on LinkedIn:

• Upload a professional headshot
• Rewrite your headline
• Spruce up your profile
• Join groups
• Connect with people you’re interested in working with
• Get testimonials on your page
• Post targeted content

In this guide, we’ll provide details on the above steps so you can begin using LinkedIn as a tool for earning high-profile, high-profit clients for your business. 

Why You Should Be Using LinkedIn to Find Clients

How do you normally go about finding clients? Perhaps you comb through job boards, sending out email after email, but this is time-consuming. Plus, if you don’t hear back, all that time is for naught. 

It’s time to try something different such as LinkedIn. 

Before we get into how to find clients on LinkedIn, it’s important to know why this is the platform of choice for your objectives. According to Oberlo, in 2021, LinkedIn had 740 million users and counting. These users are scattered across the globe in over 200 different countries. That accounts for 55 million companies. 

A quarter of LinkedIn users are described as “senior-level influencers,” says Oberlo, aka just the types of people you’d like to target as clients. Even better is that if you’re based in the United States, you’re among the biggest advertising audience on LinkedIn. The average reach is 160 million people. 

HootSuite, in a 2021 report, says that LinkedIn has among the highest degree of trust from users on social media. Oh, and their data also found that per minute, three people are hired through LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a popular, trustworthy social media platform that gets results. That’s incentive enough for anyone to use it to find new clients. 

Tips for Finding New Clients on LinkedIn

You’re convinced that LinkedIn could be a valuable tool for your purposes. Now let’s elaborate on the steps from the intro on how to find clients on LinkedIn. 

Make Your Profile as Professional as Possible

LinkedIn is not Facebook, nor is it Twitter or Instagram. It’s a professional network. Like you wouldn’t wear casual clothes to a job interview, you don’t want your LinkedIn profile to come across as too informal either. 

Here’s what we suggest you do.

1. Upload a Professional Headshot

Profile photos humanize your account, but a photo that’s repurposed from Facebook can give off the wrong impression on LinkedIn. You want a professional headshot, not a selfie from your iPhone. 

If you don’t have any headshots handy, you can always ask a friend to take photos for you or even pay for photos. LinkedIn, on its blog, provides the following tips for ensuring your photo is as great as it can be.

• Natural lighting is best: Always take your photos in natural light rather than artificial light, especially fluorescents. Just make sure there’s not too much natural light, like a bright halo of direct sun behind you. Instead, wait for a bright yet overcast day and then take your photos. Make sure the spot you’re standing in has some shade, but not so much that your photos come out dark. 
• Check your clothing choices: Dress professionally for your photos, wearing what you do to the office. Although your clothes won’t be featured much in your profile picture, they’re still going to be seen. 
• A simple background is best: Neutral backgrounds keep the focus of the photo where it should be, on you! That doesn’t mean you have to stand against a white paper backdrop, but avoid backgrounds with a lot going on in them.
• Get in the frame: LinkedIn suggests that in your photo, you should take up most of the frame, 60 percent. If you’re cropping your photo down, you want to be seen from the tops of your shoulders to the top of your head or slightly over.
• Update your photo from time to time: You don’t want to come across as deceptive to your clients, right? Whenever you make a major change to your appearance, it’s time for a new headshot. That doesn’t mean you need to update your profile photo after every haircut, but if you grow (or shave) a beard or change your hair color, then you need a new photo.

Our best tip when taking a headshot? Smile! According to images resource Photofeeler, smiling in a photo makes you come across as more influential, likable, and competent. 

2. Rewrite Your Headline

Your headline could be part of how to find clients on LinkedIn, so you need to give it some attention. You only have 120 characters to utilize, which will be easier to do if you’re a regular Twitter user. 

In your headline, you want to convey what you currently do for work and what your skills are. You can write this in the first person, such as “I work in SaaS to help power the Internet.” 

If you have a lot of skills or certifications to list, then you might add vertical bars between each skill/cert. For instance: “Web designer | Adobe Photoshop | Adobe Illustrator | GIMP | Adobe InDesign.” This lets you stay within the character limits but still share all your most relevant experiences. 

3. Spruce up Your Profile 

It’s also good to go through your LinkedIn profile and ensure it’s current and complete. If you don’t already have it in there, make sure you’ve added your location, industry, current job, and relevant history of employment. 

Your about section is a valuable tool if you’re wondering how to find clients on LinkedIn. The information here should be up to date and targeted to your audience, which in this case is new clients in your niche or industry. 

Unlike your LinkedIn headline, the about section gives you a lot of characters to work with, 2,000. Besides just discussing your professional accomplishments, the about section is a great chance to display your personality and ambitions.  

4. Join LinkedIn Groups

Now that your profile is complete, the next step in how to find clients on LinkedIn is to join groups. You can be part of up to 100 groups on LinkedIn, but you have to keep up with your memberships, so don’t join too many groups at once.

We recommend selecting the ones that will help you achieve your career objectives. For instance, you might join a general group for your industry, and then a few groups for your niche. You also want to become part of the groups that the clients you’re targeting would join. 

It’s easy to find a group on LinkedIn. All you have to do is search for a relevant keyword and then choose a group that most interests you. You will have to request permission to join and be accepted, but once you’re in, you can begin using all the group features.

As we said, it’s important to be an active part of the groups you join. Look through the group’s discussions for questions, provide answers when you can, and share relevant information. This establishes authority among your group. 

Maybe a group member ends up becoming your next new client thanks to your posts. If not, they might know someone who needs your services and can recommend you. 

5. Request to Connect with People You’d Like to Work With

You should add everyone who’s a part of your most active LinkedIn groups as a connection, but don’t stop there. When you find a potential client of interest, request to connect with them as well. 

Attempting to connect with someone when you have no other contacts in common can be difficult, but that doesn’t mean your request will languish forever unanswered. At least not if you know what you’re doing. 

When sending your connection request, please don’t leave the input area blank. Write a message that will hopefully inspire the connection to look at your profile and accept your request.

You might say something like this: “Hi, [name]. I saw your profile and I’m impressed with your experience in [related industry area]. I’m always striving to learn more about [topic], especially from experts like you! Is it okay if we connect?”

It’s even easier if you already have a contact in common, as you can mention that relationship in your message. The client might be more likely to trust you since you know the same person or people. 

Pay attention to who’s viewing your profile. You can reach out to these people as well, mentioning that you looked at their profile after they saw yours and that you’re interested in connecting. You have a higher chance of getting an approval rate with this method as well. 

6. Write Testimonials to Get Them in Return

If you’re still wondering how to find clients on LinkedIn, here’s another strategy to try: get testimonials on your page.

Video testimonial company Boast reports that most consumers–72 percent–trust a business more after seeing positive testimonials. If you have current and past clients alike talking up your services on your profile, this could inspire new clients to give you a try.

Testimonials don’t appear on your page out of nowhere, of course. To inspire your network to leave positive testimonials, you could always ask, but what works better is writing testimonials for others. This is one of those “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” situations. 

Don’t make a big deal about leaving testimonials for others in your network though. Just do it silently and good karma will eventually fill up your page with testimonials. 

Here’s another tip about writing testimonials. Please make sure that if you’re leaving reviews on anyone else’s page you’ve worked with that person or used their services before. Your testimonials can influence someone’s decision to apply for a job, so use that responsibility wisely. 

7. Post Targeted Content on Your Profile 

We have one last tip for how to find clients on LinkedIn, which is to post valuable content regularly on your page. 

What constitutes valuable content depends on your industry and niche, but the content should inform, educate, and even entertain your audience. It doesn’t all have to be written content, but infographics, reports, whitepapers, videos, and even links to relevant webinars.

This content doesn’t have to be produced by you, of course, but the more of it that is yours, the better. If you get an article or an infographic published on LinkedIn that’s widely shared, your name gets widely shared along with it. This will increase your profile views so the clients could come to you rather than vice-versa. 

Conclusion

LinkedIn remains the largest professional network of its kind with new users joining this social media platform all the time. That makes LinkedIn the ideal place to find new clients. With the tips and tactics we recommended in this article, your client list should begin growing steadily!

If you need help sharpening your marketing for better results on LinkedIn, our team can help. Here at Mediaboom, we’re digital marketing experts who specialize in increasing brand awareness and online traffic through design and advertising services and more. We’ll help you get results!