LinkedIn is by far one of the biggest professional social media platforms out there.
With over 130 million professionals using the platform on a daily basis, what other place remains best for prospecting?
But here’s the catch: there are different people in various niches, so how can you effectively find out the right lead for you?
And once you do find them, what next?
Hmmm, if only there was an easy way to find the people you’re looking for and maybe even group them up efficiently.
Well, guess what? There is! And that’s exactly why I’m here.
In this blog, I’m gonna talk about:
- How to effectively use LinkedIn’s search filter
- How to export your search results to Excel
- Are there any limits?
- What are the advantages of exporting your search results to Excel?
Let’s get right to it!
How To Find The Right Leads for You?
So, you hopped on LinkedIn and want to find good leads.
You can start by connecting with a lot of people, but that would be a waste of time, and most of them wouldn’t even be of the same niche.
LinkedIn has an “advanced search filter” that allows you to find the people you are looking for.
Let me just show you how to use it; it’s quite simple, actually.
In your LinkedIn search bar, type in the niche you’re looking for, or you can even click on the URL bar and type in “linkedin.com/search/results/people/.”
What this basically does is it searches for people in general.
Click on “All filters.” Here’s where the true magic begins.
Once you click it, you will get a small window pop up from the side. It should look like this.
This is where you can specifically choose the kind of people you want or even the companies you are looking for.
If you click on the “People” drop-down, you will get a list of options like People, Jobs, and Companies, so this way, you can specifically choose what you’re looking for.
Now, there are a lot of filters here, so the more you enable, the narrower your search gets.
If you scroll down, you will find the “Services categories.” Over here, you can choose if you’re looking for someone in marketing or other services.
And there you have it; once you’ve applied the filters of your choice, click on show results, and you will only get the people you are looking for.
How To Effectively Export Your Search Results To Excel?
Now that you’ve found the people you’re looking for, the next step is to export the search results to an Excel sheet.
Why, you ask? Well, you will find out the benefits later in the blog, so stick to the end 😉.
There are a few ways you can export your search results to an excel sheet:
Manual Copy-Pasting
Yeah, I’m not kidding, lol. Once you find your leads, you can copy all their information and store it in the excel file.
This whole process is very time-consuming but it's free.
Technically speaking, you could hire a team to do this for you, you know, to save time, but that will be very expensive 💀.
The one upside to using this method is that you will get the latest information, such as your prospects’ emails and contact info.
LinkedIn API Program
LinkedIn’s API program (Application Programming Interface) lets you enter the page admin view. This will let you create reports and export your analytics to an XLS file.
All you have to do is sign up for a developer account through the LinkedIn Developer Portal.
Here’s the thing, though: if you’re using it for free, the amount of data you export will be limited.
Third-Party Tools
There are plenty of third-party tools out there that can help you export your search results to Excel, but which one should you go for?
For starters, PhantomBuster allows you to download their browser extension, which can help you export your search results to an Excel sheet for free.
But here’s the issue: you’re gonna be handling a huge quantity of data. I mean, LinkedIn has over a billion users and there are bound to be a lot of people in your niche.
Free tools like PhantomBuster set limitations on how much you can export. So yeah, incomplete data is a huge pain to deal with.
This is where SalesRobot comes in.
SalesRobot is a cloud-based LinkedIn automation tool. You can not only export your LinkedIn search results with this tool but also automate sending messages and connection requests to your leads.
Let me just walk you through this process.
Creating a Campaign with SalesRobot
Before we get to this, make sure you have your LinkedIn linked to SalesRobot.
Once you log in to SalesRobot, click on “Add LinkedIn Account” and enter your creds.
Now that that’s done, let’s get started with creating a campaign.
Start by clicking on the “Campaign” tab and select the “Create Campaign” option.
Select “I’m an advanced user” and name your campaign.
Once that’s done, you can copy your LinkedIn search URL or even Sales Navigator search if you’re using that and select the relevant option. You can also add lookalike prospects now.
Paste the URL and save it.
Now, you can choose to enrich emails to get the latest email addresses of your prospect, or even target premium profiles only, which can be quite helpful when sending InMails.
Here, you can create a message sequence. You can choose to do it from scratch or even use any of SalesRobot’s pre-made templates.
This is where automation comes in. You can add basic steps to your message sequence, like sending connection requests, then messages, and finally, emails.
The “Advanced Steps” allows you to add a lot more personalization to your automation. You can add steps like viewing the profile first, following it, liking posts, and then sending connection requests.
This way, you are less likely to be considered a bot and get suspended or banned.
When you type in the message you want, SalesRobot scores that message, showing the chances of getting a response.
Now, you can add steps to your sequence and modify it however you like. Once that’s done, just start your campaign.
Just a quick FYI, SalesRobot can hyper-personalize your messages, so your automated messages seem more human-like. Take a look yourself.
Exporting to CSV
Now that you’ve automated sending connection requests and messages to your desired prospects let’s export your search results to Excel.
Head over to the campaign you created, click on the three dots at the end, and select “Target Profiles.”
Now, all you need to do is click on “Export as csv,” and boom, there you go; it’s as simple as that.
Are There Any Limitations That Can Hinder You?
You won’t have any limitations while exporting your LinkedIn search results.
However, it’s a different story when it comes to LinkedIn Searches. There are two limitations that you can face.
The first limitation is that free LinkedIn accounts can search up to 1000 people, so you will see 100 pages with 10 results on each page.
The second limit is the LinkedIn Commercial Limit. This means that in a month, you can only search 300 times.
Once you cross that, you will be hit with this message.
But hey, don’t look down; there are multiple ways you can bypass these limits 😉.
Are There Any Benefits of Exporting Your LinkedIn Search Results to Excel?
Yes, obviously!
It’s generally good practice to export your search results to an Excel file and let me tell you why.
- Data Organization and Analysis
Excel is a powerful tool that lets you organize your data efficiently and make modifications to it easily. You can add filters and group up data on various aspects like companies, job titles, and location.
This is also especially useful to teams because they can create detailed reports based on this data, and they can also track and evaluate lead performances.
- Data Targeting
You can easily segment your data and create tailored approaches. You can create a specific list for various targeted email campaigns, follow-ups, or outreach strategies.
- Seamless Integrations
The data you export to Excel can be integrated into various CRM systems, something you will be working with closely.
You can also add them to automation tools, which completely negates the hassle of manually sending messages to your prospects.
The Takeaway
It’s generally good practice to export your LinkedIn search results to Excel.
There are plenty of ways it can be done.
If you want to do it for free, you can either manually copy-paste each result to the Excel sheet or use Phantombuster’s browser extension to scrape the data.
But you can only scrape a limited amount of data, and there’s also the risk of getting banned, so be very careful.
If you wish to invest in a tool, SalesRobot, Evaboot, or SalesQL are good considerations.
You can not only export your search results to Excel but also enrich that data and automate the sending of connection requests and messages to them.
SalesRobot offers a 14-day free trial, so you can test out everything for yourself. There’s no need for any credit card details or phone numbers. Just sign in, and you’re ready to go!
I hope this blog was helpful; I’ll see you in the next one!
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