How to quickly build visibility with the influencers in your sector and why you should

Every sector has thought leaders, people whose opinion is sought after and valued. Creating visibility with these individuals and their posts on LinkedIn can raise your profile and add to your credibility.

Influencer posts can generate hundreds if not thousands of likes but far fewer comments. See these examples below from Antonio Neri CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Richard Branson of Virgin. Leaving a relevant and insightful comment on the post will bring you to the attention of the author and the post’s audience. It will get you noticed!

Fig 1: Influencer posts often attract many likes but far fewer comments

A new LinkedIn feature has made it easier to engage with influencers in your sector who are active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is rolling out the ability to search for the posts of any LinkedIn member singly or several at a time. Once you have identified which people you want to follow and engage with then you can save the search URL and check it regularly for new posts which you might be able to comment on. More details below.

Finding the influencers

The first step is to identify who the influencers are in your niche. This is not an exact science; your list may evolve over time. You may already be familiar with some of the key individuals in your niche, if not some sources could be CEOs of well-known companies in the sector, or a simple Google search e.g. top 10 influencers in AI. Colleagues and customers may also have suggestions.

Not all of the people you research will be active on LinkedIn so there will be a certain amount of research and editing required to build a list of regular posters.

Just to be clear I am not suggesting you should just follow mega influencers such as Richard Branson there will be many others in your sector with much smaller followings but with whom it is easier and more productive to get close to.

Building your list

Once you have chosen your target influencers – somewhere between 5-8 is ideal you are ready to build your list of active posters. To do this we are going to use the new “from member” option in the post search menu.

As you can see below you can choose more than one person.

Fig 2: Search for posts from a specific members and save the URL

TIP: Because LinkedIn offers you a drop-down list of members and there could be many people with the same names as your chosen list, I recommend doing a search for those people first so that the algorithm will surface those recent searches first.

 Now you can modify the result using the “date posted” to include posts from

·       The last 24 hours

·       The last week

·       The last month

Depending on how prolific your influencers are you can adjust the posting frequency you see.

Now save the search URL in a spreadsheet or as a bookmark and check it regularly for engagement opportunities.

Other applications

I have focused in this article on finding opportunities to build visibility and engagement with industry thought leaders, but the same method can be applied to any important group of people whose content you want to engage with – your top ten prospects for example.

I hope you found this short article useful. Will you try this?

NB: The "find any member post" feature is still rolling out, you may not have it yet.

More about Greg

Greg Cooper is a LinkedIn specialist and a volunteer mentor for the Prince's Trust based in Bristol, UK. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing. For over twenty years Greg ran an award-winning direct marketing agency working with leading technology companies like IBM, SAP, and Siemens. 

The Prince's Trust works with young people, providing free training to help them build confidence, develop their skills, and start a career. Greg is involved in mentoring young people who want to run their own businesses.